Assassin's Strike Page 17

  Rahmani: “I understand. But we are increasingly set upon by the Arabs. This will help keep them at bay.”

  Petrov: “I should remind you, any such capability must be kept out of the hands of others—I think we both know who I am referring to.”

  Rahmani: “Hezbollah or the Houthis? Certainly not. They have their uses, but technology escapes them. Iran alone will have access. And only our enemies will risk being targeted.”

  Petrov: “Which ones?”

  Rahmani: “The usual suspects.”

  Petrov: “And just to be clear … you will never initiate first use?”

  Rahmani: “A weapon such as this can only be defensive. The Saudis are a paper tiger. They spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the best military technology, yet their soldiers and airmen do not have the will to use it. The rest of the Arabs across the Gulf, the Emeriti and Qataris, are worse yet. If we ever choose to attack, there are far better methods.”

  Petrov: “I have been told your own technicians are making great strides with this class of weapons. Soon you may no longer need our help.”

  Rahmani: “We did not sit still after pausing our nuclear program to appease the West. Our Revolutionary Guard employs teams of scientists who have developed many such weapons. The Syrians could never have gotten the upper hand in their war without our contribution of chemical agents. This will give us a new level of lethality.”

  Petrov: “You understand, in the terrible eventuality you should ever employ this agent, it cannot be brought back to Russia. We are still being blamed for the misfortune that befell Skripal in Salisbury.”

  Rahmani: “That ugly business with the polonium?”

  Petrov: “Nothing has ever been proved. All the same, I can tell you the variant you will receive has never been tested in Russia. There is not even a record of its creation.”

  Rahmani: “Rest assured. This agent would only be employed as a last resort. An insurance policy, if you will.”

  Petrov: “Then we are in accord as ever, with a common goal of peace in your corner of the world.”

  Slaton listened to the entire recording twice. Ludmilla’s translations were consistent. At the end of the second run, he backed away from the laptop.

  She asked, “What do you think? Is it damning enough?”

  He was silent for a time, lost in thought. “Oh, it’s damning,” he finally said. “The CIA will be all over this.”

  A silence came between them, until Ludmilla said, “There is something about the conversation that bothers me—I sensed it during the meeting as well.”

  Slaton felt it too, although he couldn’t place a finger on the disconnect. He pulled both hands across his cheeks as if to wipe away the fatigue. He’d been going nonstop for nearly twenty-four hours.

  “I think we should both sleep on it,” he said. “We may not get much rest tomorrow.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  As expected, the three calls from Sultan’s burner phones instigated a haphazard response, yet one that progressed more quickly than he’d imagined.

  It all began in El-Obeid where an emergency services dispatcher yawned as he listened to a distraught woman claiming to have discovered two bodies in a remote building somewhere in the hills north of Burush. This was less than a revelation. Reports of bodies being discovered in the badlands of Darfur was rather like getting word of waves on the sea, but the dispatcher kept to his task all the same. The woman talked nonstop for less than a minute, at which point the dispatcher tried to ask the usual questions. Unfortunately, before he could finish his first query, the connection was broken. He sighed, then wrote down everything he could remember, along with the number she’d called from, on a standard report form—a digital record of calls to emergency services had long been in the works, but funding had never been found.

  Being a methodical man, the dispatcher took his time with the report, all while sipping his afternoon tea. Ten minutes later, he deemed it satisfactory and carried it across the room. He was placing his two-page missive in the INCOMING basket when, by chance, a second dispatcher dropped in a report at the same moment. The two papers collided, and the dispatcher’s coworker, one of the few women who worked in the call center, straightened them out and said, “Bodies in the middle of nowhere. You?”

  The man blinked. “The desert, north of the Al-Fashir highway?”

  The woman’s brow furrowed. After a thoughtful pause, she retrieved both statements from the basket. They exchanged reports and began reading. The details were essentially the same, the but the reports had clearly come from two different sources: the phone numbers were not the same, and one caller had been female, the other male.

  They walked together to a wall map of Sudan that dominated one side of the room. The area in question was virtually unpopulated, and had in recent months been stable—at least by local standards. All the same, rebels had been known to call in false emergencies, hoping to draw first responders into kill zones. Aside from creating a general sense of chaos, they often were able to appropriate either weapons or medical supplies.

  The two dispatchers were staring uncertainly at one another, wondering what to do, when a third coworker approached with a report of his own. They all exchanged a three-way look.

  “North of Burush?” the woman asked.

  With a look of surprise, the third man nodded.

  More papers were exchanged, and after two minutes it was the woman who said, “Let’s see what the chief thinks…”

  * * *

  The chief agreed. The three tightly spaced calls were worthy of an investigation. At his behest, the dispatchers worked together to stick an accurate pin on the wall map. When they did, it became apparent that they were dealing with a known location—an army survey two years earlier, meant to chart possible enemy redoubts, had noted the abandoned compound. That was the good news.

  Less encouraging was what they could do about it. The infrastructure for emergency response in Sudan resided largely in Khartoum. As distance from the capital increased, resources degraded inversely. To no one’s surprise, there wasn’t an ambulance within fifty miles of the buildings in question. And even if there had been, no road came within ten miles of the place.

  The regional police were not much better off. When the request for assistance came in, the officer in charge of the North Kurdufan constabulary confessed his limitations, gave his regrets, then did what he always did: he punted to the Ministry of Defense.

  The end result of it all was that, three hours after the first call had come in, a single Tamal light tactical vehicle was dispatched from regimental headquarters. The team consisted of a driver, a gunner, and a combat medic. They set out shortly before sunset with a full fuel tank and no small amount of caution.

  It took slightly over an hour to reach the assigned coordinates, yet the driver had no trouble finding the place. Indeed, he had been to this valley twice before in recent months during routine defensive sweeps, and he’d annotated the three buildings on his personal topographical map.

  Under a partial moon and clear skies, they saw the place from a distance. The driver stopped a judicious hundred yards away. Nothing in their orders gave reason to expect resistance, yet in these hills caution was the rule. The gunner had brought a dated set of night vision goggles. The NVGs weren’t anything he’d been issued—the Sudanese army’s budget provided for little beyond guns and ammunition, and much of that surplus—but rather a cheap Russian item he’d purchased on the black market. The device had maddening limitations, including very short battery life and little magnification. All the same, it had warned his squad of an ambush three months earlier, attesting to the value of his investment.

  The gunner studied the buildings.

  “Well? Do you see anything?” the driver asked.

  “Nothing moving. I see one body on the ground near the door. And maybe a pair of feet next to it.”

  “Are you sure they are dead?” the medic asked.

  The gunner was silent for
a time, then lowered his optics. “I think so. There are also animals on the ground.”

  “Animals?” the driver repeated.

  “Two cows.”

  The medic, who was technically in charge, said, “Let me see.”

  Over the next five minutes each of the three men took in the scene. “I don’t like it,” said the gunner.

  “Neither do I,” agreed the medic, “but we’ve come this far.” He looked at the other two as if waiting for a volunteer. He didn’t get one. It was time to lead by example. “All right,” he said, “cover me.”

  The gunner took up his station behind the bed-mounted Khawad 12.7mm heavy machine gun. The driver grabbed an antiquated H&K G3 rifle from the rack behind the passenger seat and took up a shooting position behind a fender.

  In the dim light the medic walked toward the compound like a kid approaching a haunted house. He stopped ten paces short of the front door and studied things for a full minute. His flashlight beam danced over the building and surrounding grounds. Finally, he settled the tiny cone of light on the nearer body and edged closer.

  From the Tamal, the others watched him get within a few steps of the bodies. Then their commander turned away suddenly and came back to the truck on a jog.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “But … why?” asked the gunner.

  “There were two men, both dead. And animals all around. A vulture, two rats … even a full-grown jackal. Something is wrong here. Death is everywhere.”

  The driver didn’t argue. He put the Tamal in gear and drove south for a mile. At that point they stopped and the medic got on the radio. He told the command post what he’d not told his companions. The body he’d seen up close displayed a number of unusual symptoms. The eyes of the victim, who on all appearances was a baqqara, had been wide open and the pupils fully constricted. There was evidence of vomit and loss of bowels in the final moments of life. He’d seen many bodies in the course of his duties, but never one showing that combination of indicators. By virtue of his training, he thought he knew what it meant.

  And if he was right … they were going to need help.

  * * *

  High command was skeptical at first, the officer on duty reluctant to commit scarce resources to a job that seemed best suited to an undertaker. The medic, however, had a reputation as a steady sort, and he’d clearly been shaken by what he’d seen at the compound.

  A larger and better equipped unit arrived three hours later. The lieutenant in charge—the company’s captain was not an “out-front” leader—took a few dozen pictures with a mobile phone. These were forwarded to headquarters and given to the staff doctor, who’d been called in on his night off. The doctor had considerable training in combat medicine, courtesy of a visiting Chinese detachment three years earlier. The Russians, the Americans, the Chinese—somebody was always trying to ingratiate themselves with the government, and military trainers were cheaper to send than surface-to-air missiles.

  What the doctor saw in the photos shook him to the core. Both victims displayed pinpoint pupils, along with evidence of uncontrolled salivation, defecation, and urination. The limbs had ended in awkward positions, stiffened from uncontrolled muscle spasms. He saw the same symptoms in the cows.

  The doctor went to the command post, dialed the number of the battalion commander, who was just climbing into bed. After explaining his suspicions, the doctor said, “Sir, we very much need help.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Sultan knew he had to take the utmost care in entering Saudi Arabia. The Saudis spent a great deal on technology, and the chance of getting through an airport or border checkpoint without being photographed was effectively nil. Other passages, however, were far more opaque.

  Conveniently, his intended destination in the kingdom, the Red Sea port of Jeddah, was separated from Sudan by the most straightforward of obstacles—one hundred miles of typically placid sea. He spent that afternoon and evening on the road, bypassing Khartoum, following the Nile for a time, before a right turn took him to his launching point, a diminutive Sudanese fishing village.

  If the place had a name it was not listed on any map. Somewhere north of Port Sudan, but south of Egypt, Sultan would have been helpless to find it without the miracle of GPS.

  The timing of his arrival was not left to chance. If the village was sleepy by day, it was positively catatonic nearing midnight. He saw not a single illuminated light. Even at idle speed the Toyota rocked over potholes on the only road into town. The sweet scent of the desert was overpowered by a salt-laden breeze. In the dim light he saw the outlines of a dozen sandstone huts, and beyond that a makeshift stone jetty cast a shadow into the crescent-shaped bay. On the lee side of the jetty, beached above the tide line, were a half dozen dhows. The village fleet waiting for another day’s light.

  All, that is, except for one.

  Sultan parked the Toyota next to the only other vehicle in sight, a dilapidated sedan of indeterminant make. He got out, took the key with him, and walked straight to the shoreline. He had no luggage, and aside from the key in his pocket he carried nothing other than one forged passport and a modest wad of cash. With any luck, he would need neither.

  His ride was waiting just offshore—twenty feet of wood and canvas, backed by an impossibly small outboard motor. His passage across the narrow sea, along with his reception on the other side, had all been prearranged—not unlike a vacation package booked through a travel agent. His tribal network once again proving its value.

  At the water’s edge he removed his shoes. Sultan paused momentarily, the waves lapping over his feet onto the scalloped beach. The warm sea felt soothing on his aching ankle. Even cleansing in a way. He supposed it was understandable, given his earlier work that day. The boat lay no more than fifty feet offshore, its skipper standing in knee-deep water. Holding a painter at the bow, he looked like a trailhand waiting for a rider with a saddled horse. The man was young and strong, his sinewy frame steady in the gentle surf. Even under starlight his skin appeared dark and sun-hewn.

  With his shoes in hand, Sultan waded through the shallows. As he neared the boat, he said in Arabic, “Peace be upon you.”

  “And to you the blessings and mercy of God,” the young man replied.

  “Thank you for being prepared. Will we reach the Saudi coast before daybreak?”

  The young man checked his timepiece—not looking down at a watch or a phone, but rather up at the partial moon and stars. “The winds tonight are good. It can be done, God willing.”

  Sultan reached the boat and put a hand to the rail. He started to lift himself up, and the skipper offered a helping hand. Sultan ignored it, and after three tries managed to flop over the side on his own. He landed ingloriously on top of a fishing net.

  The young man pushed the bow seaward and vaulted effortlessly over the rail.

  “You know where I am to be dropped?” Sultan asked.

  “Thirty-five kilometers north of Jeddah, the place we call Crescent Bay.”

  Sultan nodded. The name of the bay meant nothing to him, but the young man clearly knew what he was doing. He watched him crank the little outboard to life and twist the handle into gear. Once they were under way, clear of the jetty, the skipper lifted a small sail. It snapped taut under the steady southern breeze. The boat leaned away from the wind and began cutting into open sea.

  Sultan didn’t try to banter with the young man, instead letting him do his job. He squirmed for a comfortable spot next to the fishing net. It was a miserable place to sleep, but he had to try. He pushed away visions of the previous days, the maid and the baqqara, and imagined where he might be sleeping in a week or a year. Someplace far better, certainly, than the deck of a fish-fouled canoe.

  In no time, the gentle rocking of the boat closed his eyes.

  FORTY

  Slaton stirred on the stroke of sunrise, shards of eastern light clawing at the edges of the sheet-draped window. There was nothing like being a fugitive to t
urn one into an early riser. He looked around and saw Kravchuk, Salma, and Naji sleeping soundly on an assortment of mattresses on the floor of the bedroom. Not wanting to wake them, he stepped into the hall with the silence of an assassin.

  Achmed was already awake, and Slaton found him hunched over a worn breakfast table. The table was covered by a regional map, mugs anchoring three corners. The one nearest Achmed was full, judging by a curl of rising steam. When he saw Slaton, he pointed to a half-full coffee pot on the kitchen counter. Slaton thanked him and used the pot to fill the mug resting on Jerusalem.

  The map was laminated, confirming that this wasn’t Achmed’s first rodeo. There were smudges and impressions, most centered on Damascus, and, more disconcertingly, what looked like a bullet hole somewhere north of Aleppo.

  Achmed was marking a line with a grease pencil as he referenced a pad full of notes.

  “Looks like you’ve been busy,” Slaton said.

  “I think you are right—we do not have much time. The police in Syria are slow, but they are not stupid. They will seek for Salma’s relatives, and when they arrive at my door you can’t be here.”

  “Won’t it be difficult to travel?”

  “Difficult, yes … but I made a few calls this morning. I think there is one route that will keep us clear of the authorities.”

  “All right,” Slaton said, pulling a battered chair into place. “Convince me.”

  * * *

  The coffee was strong and did its job. Slaton followed along the map as Achmed briefed his plan.

  “There is a souk on the southwestern edge of Darayya,” he said. “Many of the merchants come from villages and farms to the south. The desert in that direction is open, the watch thin. It is what you might call the city’s back door. There are few paved roads, and many of the merchants bring their wares to market using hand carts or donkeys.”