Minute Zero (19 page)

U.S. Embassy, Harare, Zimbabwe
Saturday, 11:56 p.m. Central Africa Time

A
mbassador Tallyberger had provided Judd a modest office in the secure section of the embassy. Just outside his door was a small reception area with several couches and a television where staff gathered to watch CNN. Tonight the screen was showing angry men protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The sound was off, but Judd recognized the reporter who was talking fast and wearing a khaki flak jacket and a nervous expression. At the bottom of the screen scrolled
BREAKING NEWS: $50K CASH FOUND IN CONGRESSMAN’S FROZEN TURKEY
.

“Anything, Bull?” asked Judd.

“Nah. No news.” Bull twisted his neck to make eye contact with Judd. His cheek was a circular purple bruise around the bandage covering his stitches.

“Anything at all on Zimbabwe?”

“Not yet,” said Bull, turning back to the TV.

“I’m going to make a call and then we can go back to the hotel for some shut-eye.”

“Whatever you say, chief.”

“We’ll probably catch Isabella back there. Where’d she go again?”

“She didn’t say.”

Judd shrugged it off and stepped into the office. The walls were bare, a simple gray government-issue phone on the desk. A computer, unplugged, lay on its side on the floor.

Judd stared up at the ceiling, noting a small brown water stain in the corner. Did it look like a cloud? Or a map of Russia?
Man, am I jet-lagged,
he thought, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs.

Foreign policy wasn’t supposed to be like this. He knew it wasn’t about cocktail parties and state dinners. Yet, sitting in that drab, windowless room in a far corner of a remote U.S. embassy, it couldn’t have felt less romantic. Or less adventurous.

Worse, Judd fought the creeping sense that he had lost any idea of what was really happening. Or even what the hell he was doing in Zimbabwe. He had flown eight thousand miles to rush here supposedly to fix things, but instead he was losing control. Or, more like it, he was realizing he had never had any control in the first place. What was he thinking, coming to Zimbabwe at the last minute? What could he realistically do? What was Landon Parker’s real agenda?

Judd’s mentor, BJ van Hollen, had offered advice just before he died: “They talk about the fog of war, but there’s a fog of diplomacy, too. The real world isn’t like the academic world. You won’t be solving a math problem. And policy making isn’t like in the movies. You aren’t going to be the hero who saves the day by throwing caution to the wind and rescuing the girl.”

“I know, BJ” was Judd’s dismissive reply. But BJ wasn’t finished.

“Policy is messy and uncertain. It’s not like you’re a drill sergeant or an orchestra conductor, either.”

“So what’s the analogy, Prof?”

BJ rubbed his chin in mock deliberation. “It’s like . . . whitewater rafting. Pick your direction and try your darnedest to avoid big rocks.”

“Rafting? When have you ever gone whitewater rafting?”

“You aren’t ever in control. The best you can do is to keep going forward. And just hold on.”

Just hold on.
That stuck in Judd’s mind.

“That’s usually the best you can expect,” van Hollen continued, increasingly satisfied with himself. “When you get to the end, if you are lucky enough to reach your goal—if you get there and you are still alive—sure, you can pretend your skills and wise decisions got you there. But deep down you will know you were just along for the ride.” BJ lowered his eyes and his voice for the dramatic finish. “And fucking lucky.”

Judd smiled to himself as he remembered that day. “Fucking lucky” were the very last words BJ had said to Judd.

Judd wished for BJ’s counsel now. How long had it been since he’d passed? A year already? Time was moving too fast. Judd shook his head again.
Focus.

Time for a mental inventory. His first day in Zimbabwe had come to a close, but what had he accomplished? If anything, Zimbabwe had fallen further down the U.S. foreign policy agenda with the closing of UMBRELLA ROSE.
How exactly had the uranium threat risen from zero to urgent and back to zero in less than forty-eight hours?

If the uranium scare was what had brought him to Zimbabwe, then what about the election? The voting was complete and there’d been no major outbreak of violence. The election commissioner was due to release the official results tomorrow, likely at noon. Twelve hours away.

Judd could see, even after being in the country for only a day, that President Tinodenda and his cronies were well entrenched. He could also see that Gugu Mutonga was genuinely popular and the country hungered for change. Yet there didn’t seem to be anyone who believed Mutonga could actually win. Apart from a few idealists like Mariana Leibowitz, there wasn’t any international support.
Hell,
Judd thought,
I can barely get anyone in Washington even to pay attention
.
How am I supposed to engineer a fair election? Or regime change? Is that my goal? Is that what the Secretary wants? What, really, does the White House want?
Does Washington even know what it wants?

He could already see Tallyberger and Rogerson were set to accept whatever the Zimbabweans announced tomorrow. As far as he could tell, Tinotenda had everything in place to win reelection. His people were in the villages, General Chimurenga had blanketed the country with his security forces, and the vote-counting was taking place in a black box. In Chimurenga’s black box. The general wouldn’t have taken the risk of a truly independent count, would he?

Judd sighed.
Maybe Rogerson is right. Maybe we should prevent chaos where we can. But the United States can’t be the world’s policeman.

What about his own selfish motives? Landon Parker’s instructions had not been to try to rescue Zimbabwe, exactly, but to save S/CRU. Judd was supposed to prevent a crisis from ever blowing up in order to keep Zimbabwe off the Secretary of State’s desk . . . as a way to protect his own job. Was that what he had become? Another bureaucrat more concerned about his own small patch of turf than the bigger picture? He parked the thought in a corner of his brain. For another day.

Focus.
Keep Zimbabwe from exploding. But even if he succeeded, would that work? How would Judd ever prove he had caused the absence of a problem? If an emergency was avoided, who would get the credit? Rogerson? Tallyberger? Parker? A familiar doubt crept back into his thoughts:
Am I being set up to fail again?

Then another thought returned to his brain:
Suck it up.
That’s what Jessica had said
.
That’s what she would say now if she were here
.
Don’t focus on what you don’t know or can’t control. Determine your goals and who you can trust. Use your team of superheroes.
My Justice League
. If no one is paying attention and you’ve got no tools, use what you have. You have no other choice.

Judd checked his watch. He remembered he had lectured the Egypt team back at State about how their window of opportunity began once polls closed and ended when results were announced. For Zimbabwe, he realized, the window was right now.
Suck it up.

Judd picked up the phone and dialed a 202 cell phone. After one ring, it clicked.

“Mariana Leibowitz.”

“Mariana, it’s Judd.”

“Where are you calling from? The number is scrambled.”

“I’m in the U.S. embassy in Harare.”

“Well, la-dee-dah for you, Judd. Where is the embassy statement about the elections? I haven’t seen anything official yet.”

“The ambassador—”

“Tallyberger? That idiot wouldn’t know a fair election if it bit him in the ass. Did you see his press interview today?”

“No.”

“He said the United States was strongly encouraged. That voting was calm and orderly!”

Before Judd could reply, Mariana shouted into the phone,
“Calm and fucking orderly, Judd!”

“I know the embassy—”

“It’s not like Tinotenda is sending out the army to force people to vote at gunpoint. It’s more subtle than that. You know Tinotenda’s going to try to steal this election right out from under your nose. You know that, right? How does the embassy not understand that?”

“I get it, Mariana.”

“What’s the point in even having an embassy if they don’t know what the fuck is going on? You’re supposed to be with the good guys on this one, remember, Judd?”

“I
am
with the good guys.
I
called
you
, remember?”

“Christ almighty!”

“I called you because we need something to shake things up. Something to rattle Tino’s cage.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know yet. What do you know that might be helpful?”

“How about I know Gugu Mutonga won this fucking election? Even if the U.S. embassy doesn’t see it right before their eyes.”

“How do you know she won already?”

“I know because I have the data.”

“You do?” Judd asked.
Data.
The wheels started to turn.

“Of course I do. You didn’t think I was going to throw my candidate to the wolves and just hope the American government would save her, did you? You didn’t think I’d take a real-life superhero like Gugu Mutonga and then trust her future, her life, to someone like Arnold fucking Tallyberger, did you?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“Of course not. I’m a professional.”

“Is the election data the guardian angel you mentioned before?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Well, Mariana, that’s exactly what we need. Send it to me.”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not iron-clad yet. We need all the numbers to come in to prove she won. It has to be incontrovertible. Soon.”

“So when it’s ready, you’ll send it me?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Depends on what you plan to do with it. I’ve got one wild card and I’m not wasting it if you aren’t going to play it.”

“I’ll play it.”

Judd waited for a reply, but nothing came.

“You still there, Mariana?”

“You’ll play it?”

“Yes.”

“How do I know you will?”

“What are your options? You going to give the data to the South Africans? The British? The Chinese? You really don’t have any choice but me.”

“Hardball from Dr. Judd Ryker. That’s what I like to see!”

“Don’t patronize me, Mariana.”

“Judd, I need your assurance you’ll fight to the end with me on this.”

“I will.”

“How do I know?”

“How about I throw a golden nugget your way? As a down payment on your election data.”

“I’m listening.”

“Remember I asked you about Max O’Malley?”

“Yes, the President’s bundler. I remember.”

“Well, it looks like he might be in business with some very senior Zimbabwean government officials.”

“O’Malley? Really? That slippery prick. How do you know?”

“I can’t say.”

“What kind of business?”

“I can’t say. Actually, I don’t know yet.”

“Wow, Judd. That is quite a nugget. And potentially radioactive. You better be careful with that.”

“I am only telling
you
.”

“Are you certain it’s true?”

“Yes.”

“Then you better be damn careful, Judd.”

“I really can’t say any more. I’ve already shared too much. But now you owe me the election data.”

“The thing I don’t get—”

A loud KA-BOOM! went off in the distance. A second later, Bull Durham flung open the door. “You hear that? Definitely an explosion. Three to five miles away.” Judd nodded, his eyes wide-open.

“Mariana, I’ve got to get off. Send me the data as soon as you can,” he said, and hung up before she could respond.

U.S. Embassy, Harare, Zimbabwe
Sunday, 10.20 a.m. Central Africa Time

I
t had already been a long and anxious morning.

Judd and the rest of the team stayed all night at the embassy to watch the television reports about a blast “with likely but unconfirmed casualties” in Harare. They learned that a massive bomb had gone off at the home occupied by General Solomon Zagwe, former President of Ethiopia and perpetrator of the Red Fear, a campaign of wanton violence against innocent civilians that had killed at least five hundred thousand people. Zagwe was presumed dead, but the government of Zimbabwe had yet to make any official statement. U.S. ambassador Arnold Tallyberger had tried to reach the foreign minister on his cell phone, but there was no answer.

The BBC, the SABC, Al Jazeera, and CNN all aired the same stock footage of Zagwe leading a battalion of tanks through a mud village, along with still photos of the Harare villa on fire. The Al Jazeera report also showed a short clip of their local stringer claiming he had tried to get close to the location of the explosion but the police had sealed off the entire neighborhood of Gun Hill. The reporter recounted that the policeman had insisted he was under strict orders to keep all civilians out until the fire was under control.

No real information.

Sitting next to Judd at the embassy, staring blankly at the TV, was Isabella Espinosa. She had arrived back at the embassy not long after midnight and looked terrible. Plums under her eyes, tousled hair, same clothes as yesterday. “Couldn’t sleep” was all she would say. Now she glared at the television reports, watching her case, three years of her life, go up in flames.

Colonel David “Bull” Durham lay on a couch in the corner, nursing a tall mug of weak embassy coffee. He had slept there, too, and was drifting in and out of sleep.

As unsettling as it was, the mysterious bombing wasn’t the source of Judd’s anxiety that morning. He was worried about the election. The electoral commission was due to announce the official tallies at noon, just ninety minutes away. But there had been no confirmation it was happening. No sign whatsoever. The government wasn’t talking about the explosion, and it wasn’t talking, period. Tallyberger, who pretended not to be annoyed that these visitors were crowding up his embassy, agreed the Zimbabweans were being unusually tight-lipped. But he cautioned Judd not to jump to any conclusions.

“This is their election, not ours, Dr. Ryker. They will do it on their schedule, not ours.”

Judd didn’t respond.

“I’ve got a political officer camped out at the Information Ministry’s hall,” Tallyberger said. “That’s the main podium where they make all their big announcements. He’ll let us know when the commissioner arrives to release the election results. So far he says it’s all reporters and foreign embassy staff talking to each other. Let’s be patient.”

Just then Brock Branson entered the room looking fresh and well rested. His beard was newly trimmed. “G’morning, comrades!” he said too loudly, and slapped Judd on the back. “What’s news?”

“Zagwe’s house blew up. No election results,” Judd replied, unsmiling.

“Yeah, I heard. I tried to call Simba Chimurenga to find out what the fuck’s happening, but he’s not answering his phone.”

Isabella glanced up at Brock. Judd thought she was going to cry.

“How you doin’, sister?”

She nodded and steeled herself.

“Hang in there. I’ll try to find out what I can about your target. Maybe he went out for smokes or something. Maybe Zagwe’s not dead.”

She shook her head and returned her gaze to the television. Brock pulled on Judd’s sleeve and motioned with his head toward the door. “A word, Dr. Ryker.” Durham sat up to eye the two men depart down the hallway.

Inside the station chief’s office, Judd took a seat and Brock closed the door.

“I’m worried about her, too,” said Judd.

“Espinosa?” asked Brock, jerking his thumb toward the hallway. “Nah. She’ll be fine. She’s tough.”

“She looks awful. Like she’s in shock.”

“It happens when your target is unexpectedly eliminated. It’s happened to me plenty. She’ll get over it and get her game on again in no time. Just like us, amigo.”

“I’m not so sure,” Judd said.

“I didn’t ask you in here to talk about Isabella. I need to talk to you about your
other
friend.”

“Who?”

“Your friend in South Africa who’s deeply involved in this election and is about to get into a heap of trouble. If you’re really their friend, you need to tell them to cease and fucking desist. And I mean A-fucking-SAP.”

“Mariana?” asked Judd. “What’s she done?”

“Who the fuck is that?”

“Mariana Leibowitz. The K Street lobbyist helping Gugu Mutonga. I know she’s deep into this election but I didn’t think she was doing anything illegal. I’d be surprised.”

“Not her.”

“Then who are you talking about?”

Brock stroked his beard and lowered his chin. “Are you feeling ‘Lucky’?”

“Lucky? I don’t understand,” Judd said.

“Magombe. Lucky Magombe. That’s who I’m talking about.”

“I don’t know any Lucky Magombe.”

“Don’t lie to me, Ryker. I can’t help you if you’re bullshitting me.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know him.”

“Stockbroker. Out of Joburg.”

“Nope.”

“Fled Zimbabwe twelve years ago.”

Judd shook his head.

“Seems to know
you
.”

Judd shook his head more vigorously, running his hands through his hair.

Brock tilted his head to one side slightly and scanned Judd’s face. After a few seconds he smiled. “Okay. If you say so, comrade.”

“What’s he done?”

“You State Department boys really don’t know what the fuck’s going on, do you?”

“Not a thing. Why doesn’t the CIA enlighten us?”

“That’s what we’re here for. Lucky Magombe is the Gugu Mutonga campaign.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s behind the whole operation. He’s the one bankrolling her. The T-shirts, the posters, the radio spots, the cars, the computers—everything that goes into her campaign. He’s the one who put Gugu Mutonga on the stage. He’s been funneling cash from South Africa into accounts controlled by her party. He’s also probably the one paying your friend Leibowitz.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that? Maybe we should be helping him.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

“I’m not supposed to share this with you, but I’m going to, since I know this land mine could blow up your whole goddamn project here.”

“Land mine?” Judd asked, leaning in.

“I can’t show you the report, of course, but”—Brock lowered his voice—“we’ve got SIGINT indicating Lucky Magombe is plotting to assassinate senior officials in the Zimbabwean government.”

“He is?” Judd’s eyes widened.

“Yep.”

“When?”

“Today. Noon.”

“Who?”

“Sorry, can’t say.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know yet. Maybe he’s pissed off his candidate isn’t going to win? Who knows? But we do know that if we have the SIGINT, then so, too, do the others. And even if they don’t know about it yet, we are obligated under duty-to-warn protocol to share this information with the Zimbabwean authorities.”

“You can’t do that.”

“We aren’t doing anything yet. But this can’t be buried forever.”

“So what do you want
me
to do about it?”

“I want you to tell Lucky Magombe to cease and desist. Shut this clusterfuck down before it goes any further.”

“I don’t know him. I already told you that.”

“The SIGINT has him mentioning your name.”

“It does?”

“Are you Judd Ryker?”

“Yes, but I don’t understand.”

“Well, you’re in the record, amigo. If a foreign official is assassinated and there’s a connection to a State Department envoy . . . well, you know it’s not gonna be pretty.”

“What should I do?”

“Tell your non-friend to cut the shit out. Personally, I don’t care who he kills. But he should at least stop talking about it on the fucking telephone.”

“I could pass a message through Mariana,” Judd offered.

“Now you’re thinking, amigo.”

“What exactly should I say?”

“Good. Now, listen carefully . . .”