Reid got up and followed her to their room.

Chapter 7

Approaching Duka, eastern Sudan

Danny Freah hated to lie, even in the line of duty. It was the one aspect of Whiplash and working with the CIA that he didn’t particularly like.

In his role as a covert officer, Nuri often pretended to be someone else. He was a smooth liar, a born bullshit artist and a good actor: as soon as he put on the watch and jacket he’d bought in Asmara, he became a slime-bag arms dealer. The performance was utterly believable.

By contrast, Danny felt awkward in the uniform, and not just because it was a little tight around the chest. Fortunately, his job was simple—follow Nuri and keep his mouth shut.

Duka had grown around a small oasis on a trading route that led ultimately to the sea. It had never been a particularly large city, though during the short period when the railroad was active it quadrupled in size. Most of the people who arrived during that tiny boomlet had left, leaving behind a motley collection of buildings that ranged from traditional African circular huts to ramshackle masonry warehouses. The place was far from prosperous, but what wealth was here was expressed in odd pieces of modern technology. Power generators hummed behind a number of grass-roofed huts, and Danny saw a few satellite dishes as well.

The huts were the most interesting to him. These were in the oldest part of town, clustered along the western edges. Most sat in the center of small yards and garden patches. A few of the yards had goats and even oxen. There were also chickens, which wandered near the road as the Mercedes approached.

Danny hit the brakes several times before Nuri told him it was senseless—the birds would only get out of the way at the last moment, no matter how fast or slow he was going.

“You’re sure about that,” said Danny.

“They always do.”

“Why do they let the birds roam around? Aren’t they afraid of wild animals?”

“Lions?”

“Well—”

“I doubt there have been lions or even hyenas around here for centuries,” said Nuri. “Lions would be worth a fortune. The hyenas they’d kill for meat.”

Though Danny’s ancestors had come from Africa, he wasn’t sure where. He felt no connection to either the land or the people.

“This place was pretty poor, right after the railroad stopped,” continued Nuri. “A bunch of aid organizations got together and tried to help. Most of the money was siphoned off by the central government.”

“That why there are so many rebel groups down here?”

“Not really. People expect corruption. The resentments with the government have more to do with tribal rivalries and jealousies, and outside agitators,” added Nuri. “The outside people come in, find a malcontent or some crazoid, give him a little money and weapons. Things escalate from there.”

“Are the Iranians here?”

“Not so much. Hezbollah tried getting some traction a little farther north, but it didn’t work out. The Brotherhood, which is made up of Sudanese, isn’t even that strong. You can be from the next town or a related tribe and still be considered an outsider.”

“Like us.”

“Oh, we’re definitely outsiders. But we have money,” said Nuri. “And we’re not going to stay. So we’re in a special category. They like us. Until they don’t.”

Danny swerved around a goat that had wandered near the highway. The Mercedes fishtailed and the rear wheels went off the road. He fought the car straight, half on and half off the pavement, then gently brought it back.

“About a half mile more,” said Nuri calmly. “There should be a road heading to the east.”

Worried that even going near the abandoned warehouse buildings would seem suspicious, Nuri had Danny drive through the city to a rise about three-quarters of a mile north of the warehouse area. He got out there, making a show of stretching his legs and then pretending to go off to the side to relieve himself in case anyone was watching.

Reaching into his pocket, Nuri took out a small case about the size of a quarter. He opened it, then gingerly removed what looked like an oversized mosquito from the interior. It was literally and metaphorically a bug—a tiny video camera was embedded in the eyes; the legs were used as antennas. The rest of the body was a battery, with about a twelve-hour life span.

He walked into the weeds and positioned the mosquito. Its circuitry had woken up as soon as he took it from the box.

“MY-PID, are we connected?” Nuri asked, tapping his ear set. The control unit he was using looked exactly like a higher-end civilian cell phone system such as a Jawbone Icon; rather than using Bluetooth to connect to a cell phone, it had a proprietary burst radio connection to talk to the control unit in his pocket. The control unit in turn connected to the MY-PID system via a link with the Tigershark, orbiting overhead.

“Connection established,” replied the Voice.

“Do you have a visual on the target warehouse?”

“Affirmative. Visual on target.”

“Gotcha.”

“Rephrase.”

Inside the car, Danny used a pair of binoculars to examine the building where the UAV transponder was located. It was a simple metal structure, roughly two stories high and about 200 by 200 square feet. There were a dozen other buildings, most very similar, scattered around the area, all butting close to the railroad tracks and now disused sidings. There were clusters of houses near them, run-down shacks and battered brick buildings. Most were not occupied, according to MY-PID, which based the claim on the infrared readings from Tigershark’s sensors.

There were two openings in the target building: a large garagelike door facing the road, and a standard-sized door nearby. There were no windows.

MY-PID said there were two people inside the building. They appeared to be sleeping.

“No guards outside,” said Danny as Nuri got back in the car. “Just the two inside.”

“Not that we can see,” answered Nuri. He pulled out the MY-PID control unit, which was dummied up to look like an iPod Nano. He could have the computer tell him what it saw, but preferred to see it himself, even if it was on a ridiculously small screen. “There are kids playing on the other side of the railroad track. They probably get a few dinars for spotting strangers. Or anybody else.”

“Those kids are only seven or eight years old,” said Danny.

“Another year and they’ll all have guns,” said Nuri, sliding into the car. “Center of town is back the way we came.”

Danny toyed with the idea of simply driving up to the building and having a look. The Osprey and two of his men were a few minutes away, hunkered down in the desert. If things looked easy, he could call it in quickly and they could haul the UAV away.

But things rarely went as easily as they looked. Most of Whiplash’s advanced gear was still back in the States and wouldn’t be available for at least another twenty-four to forty-eight hours. While he wasn’t about to wait that long, it was better to wait for dark and come in with the whole team.

“Take a left ahead. There,” said Nuri, pointing. “The roads are all dirt from here on. I’ll warn when the next turn is coming up.”

They worked their way around a patch of houses to an open area that served as Duka’s business section. Small buildings were arranged haphazardly around the large dirt lot. There was a garage with several cars out in front; next to it were a pair of buildings with tin roofs that held small storefronts. A larger building, this one of brick, stood opposite the shops. About the size of a small ranch house in the States, the structure was shared by a medical clinic, a post office, and a store that sold farming gear.