Genocide of One: A Thriller (42 page)

“Who’s driving the SUV?”

“A young man we’ve employed temporarily. A Ugandan tourist guide.”

“Sounds promising,” Yeager said, but to him Pierce’s plan seemed like an empty dream.
“The problem is the LRA’s formation. There must be more than a division deployed—fifteen
to twenty thousand troops. How are we supposed to break out of here?”

“That’s why we’ll force our way through the enemy’s center.” Pierce swiftly called
up a different document on the screen. “Take a look at this. Our ally in Japan hacked
into this and came up with a PKO unit’s battle plan.”

“PKO?” This was unexpected. Yeager read through the UN peacekeeping force’s secret
document, which outlined a surprise attack against the main force of the LRA at 6:00
a.m. today. “You’ve got to be kidding. Would UN forces do something like that?”

“Anything goes in the Congo. Ten days ago the LRA ambushed them, and the PKO forces
lost nine men. This is payback.”

“Most of the PKO is made up of Pakistani soldiers, correct?”

“That’s right.”

This was an infamous PKO force that had sexually abused local women refugees. They
were definitely a group that could undertake a retaliatory attack. Yeager, careful
to not let the light filter out, shone his flashlight on his map. The attack was to
take place on the center of the L-shaped formation, the junction of the main road
and the branch road. If the Pakistani forces severed the formation at this point,
a route to the south would open up. They might have a chance after all.

Yeager studied the battle plan. The Pakistanis weren’t planning a frontal showdown
but a hit-and-run attack. A warning to the LRA not to fool with them. The entire attack
was planned to take only fifteen minutes.

“This is our only chance.” Yeager had to agree. “Speed is the key here. We need to
get close right now.”

Meyers, who’d overheard them, went to wake up Garrett and Mick.

As Yeager briefed them, they raised a number of objections to this high-risk plan.
But the more they examined it, the more they understood that this was their only chance.
Trying to do an end run around the enemy’s formation would take time, and they ran
the risk that the force from the north would catch up with them. And they only had
two meals’ worth of rations left. They didn’t have even a day to spare before they
would need to reach their supplies.

Finally they all agreed that their only choice was to break through the enemy’s dragnet.
They put on their night vision equipment, taking care not to drain the batteries,
and hurriedly prepared to depart. They’d used up a lot of rations, so their equipment
had lightened to twenty kilograms.

Yeager looked at the sleeping Akili. “Shouldn’t we let him eat something?”

“Better to let him sleep,” Pierce said. He picked up Akili and placed him in the sling
he’d fashioned in front of him.

“Once the fighting starts,” Yeager said, “I want you to cover his eyes and ears.”

They were eight kilometers from their objective. In the darkness of the predawn jungle
they used their flashlights for a while, setting the output level at dim, then switched
to night vision equipment for the last half of the journey.

By 0500 a faint light had crept over the jungle. They halted, and Garrett and Mick
went off to reconnoiter. In less than a half hour they were back to report.

“The main road is swarming with LRA troops.”

“Can we get past them?” Pierce asked.

“No way. There’re sentries everywhere.”

Garrett pointed to the map. “This is our precise location. If we want to cross at
the junction, we’d better go a little more to the southeast.”

“How close should we get?” Meyers asked.

Yeager considered all the risks. “Let’s halt at four hundred meters away.”

“Right at the edge.”

“We’ll be in rifle range. Watch out for stray bullets.”

The four soldiers lined up in single-file battle formation, with Pierce and Akili
bringing up the rear, and headed toward their staging area. The scenery around them
remained the same, and they couldn’t see more than twenty meters ahead.

“Wait here,” Yeager said. “Mick and I will go ahead. We’ll check out the situation,
and we’ll radio you about the timing.”

“But our radios only have a range of two hundred meters,” Garrett reminded him. “We
have to get closer.”

Reluctantly they moved closer to the enemy line. They designated a spot with a stand
of large trees as their staging area, and the others stayed there while Yeager and
Mick moved closer to the enemy line.

The main road was off to their left, parallel to the direction they were moving in.
The branch road cut across it straight ahead. Both roads were carved out of the jungle
and had a wall of trees soaring on either side. Their field of vision in the jungle
was close to zero, so Yeager and Mick had to walk to a spot some twenty meters from
the branch road. They figured they were a hundred meters from the junction of the
two roads.

Yeager hid behind a huge tree and gingerly leaned out to check out what lay ahead.
A line of LRA vehicles was halted on the muddy one-lane road. There were troop transport
trucks, and the troops had gotten out of them and were standing around smoking and
preparing meals. Unlike the militia they’d encountered up until now, these troops
were dressed in matching uniforms and even wore berets.

Mick lowered his backpack and took out his claymore antipersonnel mines, some C-4
explosive, and a detonator. He pointed to the four corners around them, indicating
that he’d set up booby traps.

Yeager nodded and climbed up the tree to view the scene from a better vantage point.
He clambered five meters up, above the bush layer, and clearly saw the junction of
the main and branch roads. He scanned with his binoculars and saw Russian-made tanks,
armored personnel carriers, and countless weapons in the hands of the soldiers—mortars,
rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns, and AK-47 assault rifles—“poor man’s
weapons” that had made their way into the country for various purposes from China,
the former Communist countries, and from the West. In this part of the country these
killing tools outnumbered people’s other possessions.

Ten minutes until the PKO’s zero hour. Yeager switched from a rifle to his silencer-equipped
pistol and shifted to a position where he could cover Mick. No way I’m going to die
here, he thought.

Yeager was sure of one thing. Everything in his life up until now was for one single
purpose.

To help him survive this.

It was 10:30 p.m. when Rubens got the emergency summons from the White House. “Be
prepared to brief the president directly on Operation Nemesis,” Eldridge instructed
him, and Rubens hurriedly left the command post.

After his meeting with Heisman, Rubens had tried hard through many channels to make
a direct appeal to the president. And now it seemed they’d finally listened to his
request. But it was premature to celebrate. In the Congo the strongest, and worst,
armed force had successfully encircled Nous. The successful conclusion of Operation
Nemesis was imminent and the elimination of the superhuman a certainty.

Though it was late at night, the Defense Department was crowded. On the first floor
Rubens passed Defense Secretary Lattimer, surrounded by his entourage, hurrying to
the Pentagon’s operations center, the National Military Command Center. This was the
unit that would be the first to receive a nuclear strike order from the president.

Since Vice President Chamberlain’s assassination, the US military’s alert status had
been raised to DEFCON 3. All military communications were encrypted with a secret
call sign to defend against interception by an enemy country. If the unit tasked with
cyberwarfare were put on the same alert status, then DEFCON 1, which meant full-scale
war, would most likely be implemented.

Rubens got in his Audi and headed for the center of the city. As he drove he speculated
on why he’d been summoned this late at night. The National Security Council had been
convened at the White House for several days in a row, and the members were considering
all the possible diplomatic and military options against China. The fact that he’d
been summoned in between these meetings must mean that the White House was starting
to have at least some concern for Operation Nemesis. There must be someone else in
the administration who had the idea that Rubens had—namely, that the assassination
of the vice president was not the work of the Chinese but of this new intelligence
born in the Congo. If that were true, then Rubens had gained an ally. But who could
it be? A powerful figure who could persuade the president to put a halt to Operation
Nemesis? Rubens could only hope.

Rubens arrived at the White House and underwent a thorough ID check and body scan
before he was given permission to enter the West Wing. He was led to a small lobby
beyond a door guarded by two marines. This was a room that could hold about ten people,
and the interior furnishings made it look less like a public space than an elegant
private room, a cramped little parlor off in the corner of some wealthy person’s mansion.

A receptionist sat behind a desk at the entrance. When Rubens said his name, the sole
occupant of the room rose from the sofa next to the wall.

“You must be Rubens.”

The man wore a suit and had silver hair and a mustache, and when Rubens saw him he
was taken by surprise. It was the director of the CIA, Robert Holland.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Rubens said, and shook the intelligence agency chief’s
hand. Holland motioned him to a red leather chair.

“We don’t have much time, so let’s get right to it,” Holland said, shooting a glance
at the receptionist. He spoke so quietly Rubens had to lean forward to hear him. “How
is the operation coming?”

“We’ve entered the final stage of the emergency response phase,” Rubens replied, and
glanced at the wall clock. It was 11:00 p.m.—5:00 a.m. in the Congo. This briefing
with the president would be his last chance. “The largest military force in the region
has completely encircled Nous. They’ll begin wiping them out in two hours.”

“Do you think our target will survive?”

“No.”

Holland nodded and shot him a reproachful glance. “I hear that you went to see Dr.
Heisman.”

“Yes,” Rubens freely admitted. He knew full well the CIA’s network had him under surveillance.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Fine.”

Holland’s swift reply told him that the director was not an enemy.

“If you insist that Dr. Heisman remain silent, that’s fine with me,” Holland said.
“I need your opinion. You think that the tragedy involving Chamberlain was not the
work of the Chinese but originated in the Congo?”

“I do.”

“Then is there still room to change Operation Nemesis?”

“There is. We have to protect Nous right away. And not kill him.”

Holland looked like he’d anticipated this response. “But we don’t know their exact
location, do we?”

“If we send our assets stationed in Djibouti to the Congo, rescue could be possible.
Nigel Pierce is using a satellite phone, so if the army’s Intelligence Support Activity
can acquire the signal they can pinpoint the location. And we can have two Delta Force
platoons rescue them.”

“But that’s different from sending in unmanned aerial vehicles. It will take a few
days just to coordinate permission to travel through their airspace. And we can’t
have a US military presence right in the middle of the Great War in Africa.”

“Then we should immediately lift the terrorist designation from the operatives and
let the military forces there know this: That killing them won’t earn them one cent.
That much we should be able to do immediately.”

But Holland only scowled.

Rubens lowered his voice even more. “Director, isn’t there something about this mission
you’ve kept from me, even though I’m the one who planned it? Why were we told to eliminate
Warren Garrett?”

“Because he’s a traitor,” the CIA director said bitterly. “He was collecting proof
of special renditions and was filing a case with the International Criminal Court
against the president.”

Rubens was shocked. Shocked at the other objective hidden in Operation Nemesis. And
at Warren Garrett’s reckless plans—and his courage.

Holland was about to continue when the inner door opened. Acres, the president’s chief
of staff, appeared. “The president will see you now. Please step into the Oval Office.”

As he and Holland stood up, Rubens whispered to Holland, “If we don’t hurry, we’ll
be forced into a situation we can’t handle.”

“I understand,” Holland said quickly. “We’ve underestimated the threat from the Congo.
But it’s very difficult to change the plans.”

Rubens felt depressed. Was it really necessary to continue Operation Nemesis to the
point where Warren Garrett was killed? While they were taking care of that, the world
would be forced into an even more dangerous position.

They followed Acres down a narrow corridor, at the end of which was a chair. A sturdy-looking
man was seated in it with a handcuff around his left wrist. This handcuff was connected
to another on a briefcase at the man’s feet. This briefcase was the nuclear football.
Officers from the three major armed services were always on standby near the president
so he could order a nuclear strike at any time.

Acres knocked on the door, and as Rubens waited next to him he thought of the long
path that brought him here. He’d first taken an interest in the psychopathology of
those in power while working in the Santa Fe research lab, and now, after many twists
and turns, he was finally about to meet the greatest research subject of all. The
kind of king of destruction found throughout history, the mad king who, in the present
case, held a missile launch button in one hand while shooting depleted uranium bullets
with the other.