Raven Strike (28 page)

Chapter 12

Southeast Washington, D.C.

A
mara sat in the kitchen while Ken worked over the laptop, studying the program for hours, punching keys and mumbling to himself. He put his face right next to the screen as he worked, his nose nearly touching it. Amara wondered if he would be sucked inside if he hit the wrong key.

“I see,” said Ken finally.

He rose and picked up the laptop. Unplugging it but keeping it on and open, he walked back toward the stairs. Amara followed him down into the darkness.

Ken flipped a light switch at the bottom of the stairs. The basement flooded with light so strong Amara’s eyes stung. He shaded them as he trailed Ken over toward an ancient, round oil burner. There was a door just beyond it, secured with a padlock and a chain. Ken undid the locks, then pulled open the door and stepped into a primitive wine cellar. Shelves lined the left wall; two large wooden barrels sat on pedestals just beyond them. Dust and spiderwebs were everywhere.

A sheet of heavy, clear plastic hung from the ceiling just past the second barrel. Ken pulled at the sheet, revealing a seam. Amara followed him through, passing into a twenty-by-thirty-foot work space lined with gleaming new toolboxes, a large workbench, and commercial steel shelving. There were a number of high- and low-tech tools—a pair of computers, an oscilloscope, a metal drill press. In the middle of the floor sat a small UAV, engines fore and aft on the fuselage, wings detached from its body and standing upright against the bare cinder-block wall.

Ken knelt down and opened the laptop, staring at the screen before pushing it to one side. He rose and went to the workbench.

“I need solder,” he said, rummaging through a set of trays.

These were the first words Ken had spoken to him in hours, and they filled Amara with an almost giddy enthusiasm.

“So the program will help you,” said Amara.

“Can I trust you to buy solder? Do you know what it is?”

“Of course,” said Amara.

“It’s too late to get it now,” said Ken, his voice scolding, as if it were Amara’s idea in the first place. “Get us something to eat. Buy a pizza and bring it here. There’s a store on the corner.”

“Pizza?”

“You know what pizza is, don’t you?”

“I know what pizza is.”

“Go. Lock the front door behind you. Ring the bell twice, wait, then once and twice more. If you don’t follow that pattern, I won’t let you in.”

D
espite his jet lag and the way he had been treated, Amara felt a burst of energy after he locked the front door and trotted down the steps. He walked with a brisk, almost jogging pace for about half the block, pushed along by a sense of mission—not the pizza, but of doing something useful.

Amara did not, in his heart, hate America or Americans. On the contrary, he liked much about the country where he had studied. And he had found that most Americans he came in contact with were helpful and even on occasion kind.

The fact that he’d been sent on a mission that would hurt Americans did not, somehow, connect with that feeling. It existed in an entirely different realm. He didn’t have to rationalize that Americans were fighting against what the Brotherhood stood for; he simply saw his mission separate from his experiences with and feelings for real Americans. He was like a professional sports player who could play ferociously against another team, and yet at the end of it think nothing of shaking and even hugging his opponents.

The heat in the pizza parlor was overwhelming. It was moist and pungent, an oregano-scented sauna.

“Hey,” said the man behind the counter. He was a white man with a child’s face and a belly two sizes too large for the rest of his body. “Help ya?”

“Pizza. To go.”

“Cheese?”

It had been quite a while since Amara had eaten pizza. But the safest answer was yes.

“Yes,” he told the man.

“Large or small?”

“Large,” said Amara, guessing.

“What da ya want wid that?” said the man, punching a cash register. “Soda?”

“Uh, yes.”

The man pointed to a trio of coolers at the side. There were a variety of sodas and other drinks; the last was filled with beers.

He took a water for Ken—he couldn’t imagine he would drink anything else—then, giving in to temptation, pulled open the beer cooler and took a Coors.

“Gotta drink the beer here,” said the man behind the counter.

Amara didn’t understand.

“I can only sell it to serve,” said the man. “OK? So if you want it . . .”

He shrugged, as if his meaning was obvious.

“OK,” said Amara. “I’ll drink here.”

Just as well—Ken might take the ban on alcohol far more seriously than he did.

“Thirteen fifty,” said the man, ringing up the bill. “Pizza’ll be done twelve minutes.”

Amara fished into his pocket and pulled out two twenties. He handed one to the man, took his change, then sat down with his beer.

It tasted like water with algae in it. But he drank it anyway. He didn’t realize he was gulping until he was more than halfway through.

Two teenage girls came in, texting on their cell phones as they walked to the counter. Amara remembered that he hadn’t called to say he had arrived.

He got up, leaving the drink, and went outside.

His finger paused over the quick-dial combination.

Two rings, then he went directly to voice mail.

“I am here. It is very hopeful,” he said in Arabic.

After he hung up, he turned quickly to make sure he hadn’t been overheard. Using Arabic had been a mistake—he should have made the call in English.

It was nothing to worry about now. Amara went back inside to wait for his pizza and finish his beer.

Chapter 13

Ethiopia

N
uri watched the sky, waiting as the shadow descended. By the time he could make out the parachute, the SEAL harnessed into it was only a few feet from the ground. The sailor walked into his landing, then began gathering his chute. He had it squared away by the time Nuri arrived.

“Hey, Navy,” said Nuri.

“You’re Jupiter?” answered the SEAL.

“Yeah.” Nuri thought the code word was funny, and gave a little self-deprecating laugh.

The man retrieved a small ballistics case from his kit. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. The command post is that large building up there on the left,” said Nuri. “Someone’ll find you food and arrange for a pickup.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Nuri started away.

“Tell me, if you don’t mind—what exactly is it that I just brought you? They rushed me special here from Italy and flew me on my jetliner. I never seen such a fuss.”

“Bottle of vodka,” said Nuri.

T
he Russian was just finishing his dinner when Nuri entered the tent. A small card table had been placed in the middle. The guards had removed his hand restraints, but were watching him carefully from the side.

“You can wait outside,” Nuri told them. He put down the case and pulled out the empty chair.

“How was dinner?” he asked Kimko in English.

“All right.”

“You prefer English or Russian?”

“Your Russian is horrible.”

“Ready to talk?”

“I have said everything necessary to say.”

“I think you have a lot to say.”

Kimko smiled and shook his head. “Nuri, you are young yet. You do not know how this game is played.”

“No?”

Kimko laughed. “You waste your time. You are Mr. Nice Guy. Before, when you threaten me with the gun—that was more effective. Then you feed me. Mistake. You should make me wait. Hunger pains do much.”

Nuri reached down and opened the case. He removed the two glasses from the cushioned interior and set them down. Then he took the bottle of vodka and opened it.

Kimko said nothing.

“I know all about you, Milos. You have no secrets.”

Nuri put a finger’s worth of the liquid into the one closest to him. MY-PID was recording the session through a video bug planted in the far corner of the walls near the ceiling; it analyzed the Russian’s facial features and what physiological data it could deduce about how he was reacting to Nuri’s interrogation tactics. It gave Nuri a running update on the data as it watched.

But he didn’t need MY-PID to tell him that Kimko really wanted the vodka.

Nuri picked up the glass and swirled it: it was all very dramatic and over the top, but he had a captive audience, and hamming it up only helped.

“I know you work for SVG,” he told Kimko. “I know who your supervisors are. I know every stop in your career. I know how you got shafted. Because your boss wanted to sleep with your wife. It was an injustice. They screwed you. You should be a supervisor by now. Or a rich man. A very rich man.”

Nuri took a small sip from the glass. He
hated
vodka.

“I can help you,” he continued. “With my help, you can get out of Africa. I can help get you promoted. I can make you rich. And most of all, I can help you get revenge.”

Kimko’s pupils dilated ever so slightly; Nuri didn’t need MY-PID’s nudge to tell him he had just scored big. He paused, hoping Kimko would talk, but he didn’t.

“You can talk to me, and I can help you a lot,” said Nuri. “You don’t like being assigned to Africa. That’s clear. I can give you information that will get you out. And no one will know where it came from. Except you and me.”

“You are more clever than I thought.”

“No. I just have all the cards. But I can share.” Nuri gestured at the bottle. “Why not use them to get yourself out of this shit hole.”

“It is a shit hole,” agreed Kimko.

“Talk to me about the UAV. Who else knows about it? Who wants it?”

“You claim to know everything and you don’t know that?”

As an intelligence agent, Kimko presumably knew the basic interrogation technique called for starting with questions one knew the answer to, so the subject’s truthfulness could be tested. He was parrying, trying on his side of the table to determine what Nuri really knew.

Nuri changed direction.

“Tell me about Li Han. Why would SVG want to deal with him? The man is a criminal. Despicable. A sociopath.”

“We all have our faults,” said Kimko dryly.

“What’s yours?” Nuri took another sip from the glass.

“I have many, many faults,” said Kimko, casting his eyes downward.

“I can help you get out of here,” said Nuri. “You don’t want to be here. It’s a rat hole.”

“You’re here.”

“Oh, I get to leave.” Nuri laughed. “They just sent me back for you. Who are you selling to? Sudan First? They’re psychotic.”

Kimko shook his head.

Nuri tried a different tack. “Who do you think was your competition to buy the UAV?” he asked. “Was it the Iranian?”

The suggestion of the third party—who of course didn’t exist—took Kimko by surprise, and it took him a moment to recover his stony face.

“You were my competition, I would suppose,” he told Nuri, leaning back. The shift in posture told MY-PID—and Nuri—that he was unsure of himself.

“You didn’t know about the Iranian?” Nuri asked. “So you don’t know why he was here?”

Kimko waved his hand.

“You’re not telling me an Iranian smoked you, are you?” asked Nuri. “You didn’t know he was with Girma? Are you kidding? Was your boss right—are you washed up?”

Kimko’s eyes flashed with anger. For a moment Nuri thought he would grab and fling the vodka bottle. He’d already decided that he would let him do that, let the bottle break—the smell would only make Kimko more desperate once he calmed down.

But Kimko didn’t. He hunched his shoulders together, physically pulling himself back under control.

“You’re a salesman,” said Nuri. “Why would you want to buy the UAV?”

“Who says that I am buying this thing?”

“Come on. You were prepared to deal. But how did you know what you were buying?”

“I was not going to deal. No buying.”

“Li Han isn’t a buyer. He’s a seller. And a worker bee for whatever slimeball will stick a few million dollars into his account. Right? I’m surprised you would deal with him,” added Nuri. “Considering that he helped the Chechens.”

Kimko raised his head.

“You didn’t know? You guys don’t know that?” said Nuri. This part was easy—he wasn’t lying.

“You’re a liar. You don’t know nothing. You’re a child.”

“In 2012—the bomb in the Moscow Star Theater. Used an explosive initiated from a cell phone. That’s common. There was wire in the bomb with lettering. You traced it to Hong Kong. Our friend was there a few weeks before the bomb was built. There’s other evidence,” added Nuri, who had gotten all the background from MY-PID and its search of the files and data on Li Han. “Maybe I’ll give it to you, if it will help. Of course, if your boss knew that you were dealing with someone who helped the Chechens—that probably wouldn’t be a good thing. I guess it would depend on how the information came out. Who shaped it. We call that a slant in America.”

“I had no deal,” said Kimko harshly. “I despise the man.”

“Feelings and business are two different things,” said Nuri. He rose, leaving the bottle and glasses on the table. “I’ll be right back.”

K
imko stared at the vodka.

He was beyond starved for a drink.

But if he reached for that bottle—where would it take him?

He knew nothing of value. His contacts among the Africans were probably well known by this Nuri. As for the UAV, he had already told him everything he knew.

Yet the American wanted more. Logically, that must mean they had not recovered it.

He couldn’t help them on that score either.

So really, as far as his duty was concerned, there was nothing preventing him from taking the bottle. There was nothing he could say that Moscow could object to.

But that was the rub—Moscow wouldn’t believe he’d said nothing now. And clearly this Nuri had some sort of evidence to ruin him. True or concocted, it wouldn’t matter.

He lowered his head to his hands.

One drink. One drink.

The smell of the vodka Nuri had poured in the glass permeated the tent. There was no way to resist.

He pulled the glass over. Before he knew that he had lifted it, he’d drained it. His lips burned, his throat.

He put the glass back on the table, defeated.

“Y
ou can have more,” Nuri told Kimko, standing behind the chair. He felt bad for the Russian; he looked as if he had collapsed.

“I can’t help you,” said Kimko, his voice subdued. “I had few arrangements. The Brothers have established supply lines with the Middle East, al Qaeda. We can’t compete. They’re friendly, of course, but they don’t buy. They get everything they need from bin Laden’s successors. I knew nothing about the Iranians. I assume it’s their Revolutionary Guard, but I know nothing.”

“Tell me who you saw in Duka.”

“First—I was supposed to call someone yesterday. I lost my phone. I need to call him. If I don’t, Moscow will know I’m missing.”

“Who?”

“He’s insignificant.”

Nuri reached down and picked up the bottle. He filled the glass.

“Come on,” said Nuri. “We have to help each other here.”

“He’s an expert in UAVs. He needed to inspect the aircraft. They were sending him to find me. I need to talk to him. Or they’ll think I defected.”

“We don’t want that,” said Nuri.

T
he entire conversation lasted no more than sixty seconds.

“There was fighting in the city,” Kimko said as soon as the other line was opened. “I’ve had to take shelter in Malan. The UAV must have been destroyed. I’m sorry that I didn’t meet you.”

“I heard of your troubles and made other arrangements,” said the voice on the other end, before hanging up.

A few seconds later MY-PID supplied the location of the other phone. It was in southeastern Sudan—the site of the Brothers of Sudan main camp, to be exact.