Raven Strike (19 page)

Chapter 9

Southern Sudan

A
mara’s escorts eyed the laptop nervously. The case was more than large enough to hold a charge of plastic explosive powerful enough to take out a good portion of the small cluster of buildings that served as the nerve center of the camp.

He’d shown them that it worked; beyond that, Amara could offer no other assurance. He held it under his arm and walked with them to the small hut where Assad lived and worked.

Assad had served an apprenticeship in Iraq and was one of the older members of the Brotherhood, respected for his experience, though not completely trusted by all because he had been born in Egypt. He and Amara had not been particularly close before this assignment, and in fact Amara suspected that Assad was not the one who chose him.

Assad’s cousin Sayr served as his aide and bodyguard. He was standing outside the house, and put up his hand as Amara approached.

“You’re back,” said Sayr. “You’ve taken your time.”

“I drove night and day,” answered Amara. “And ran two blockades.”

Sayr pointed to the laptop. “That is not allowed in the hut.”

“This is why I came,” said Amara, holding it out.

“It’s not allowed inside. I’ll take it.”

Amara hesitated, but turned it over. There was no alternative.

“Be careful,” he said. “It has a program on it that’s important. Do not even turn it on.”

Sayr frowned at him. Amara wondered if he even knew what a program was—unlike his cousin, Sayr was not particularly bright.

One of his escorts knocked, then opened the door to the small building. Assad sat in the middle of the floor on a rug. There were pillows nearby, but no other furniture.

“I have returned, Brother,” Amara said, stepping inside. “I have eliminated the Asian as directed and returned with the computer and the guidance system.”

Assad nodded. He stared blankly at the rug, seemingly in prayer, though it was not the time to pray. Finally he looked up and gestured for Amara to sit.

“The Asian is dead?” Assad asked.

“As you directed.”

“He was an evil man,” said Assad. “But a useful one.”

The door opened. Sayr entered and walked over to his cousin, stooping down and whispering in his ear. As he straightened, he shot Amara a look of disdain.

“Very good,” said Assad, his gaze remaining on Amara. “Fetch us some tea.”

Sayr gave Amara another frown, then left.

“How strong is your belief?” asked Assad. “If it were necessary to sacrifice yourself, could you do it?”

A shudder ran through Amara’s body. A true believer was supposed to be prepared to sacrifice himself for jihad, accepting death willingly for the glory of the Almighty. But it was a complicated proposition. It was one thing to be willing to die in battle, and quite another to accept what Assad seemed to be asking: deliberately sacrificing himself.

The Brothers did not as a general rule use suicide bombers to advance their agenda. They were considered unreliable. But there were always exceptions.

Amara hoped he wasn’t to be one.

“Could you become a martyr?” repeated Assad.

“Of course,” said Amara, knowing this was the only answer he could give, even if it did not come from his heart.

“You hesitate.”

“I . . . only question my worthiness.”

Assad smiled but said nothing. Sayr returned with a small teapot and two cups. He carefully wiped Assad’s and set it down before him. He was much less careful with Amara’s; liquid dripped from the cup.

“He doesn’t like me,” said Amara when Sayr had left. “But I have done nothing to him.”

“You’ve taken his place on an important mission to America,” said Assad.

“I have?”

“We have been asked by friends to help a project they have undertaken. One of our Brothers is in the Satan capital. He needs some technical assistance, and equipment. We think you can help him.”

“What sort of help do you mean?” asked Amara, unsure if the question was meant literally or was a more subtle way of asking if he would be willing to become a martyr.

He certainly hoped it was the former.

“Drink your tea,” said Assad, nodding, “and I will instruct you.”

Chapter 10

Duka

T
hey were still about two miles from the city when MY-PID told Danny that the trucks blasting the area occupied by Meurtre Musique had met up with the men on foot.

“Where are they headed?” Danny asked the system.

“Insufficient data.”

“They’re kind of aimless,” said Nuri, watching on his control display. “They’re just intent shooting up whatever they can. There’s a group of men in Meurtre Musique’s area. Looks like they’re planning a counterattack.”

“We’ll go north and come back around from that end.”

“Don’t get too close to the house where Li Han is,” said Nuri. “We don’t want to spook him.”

“We’re the last thing he’s going to worry about,” said Danny.

He pressed the accelerator to the floor, speeding down the road. There was gunfire in the distance.

I shouldn’t have let her go, he thought. He’d put the whole mission in jeopardy.

Why had he given in? The argument that he couldn’t stop her didn’t hold water.

It was because she was pretty, he realized, and he liked her.

What a fool he was.

D
espite the fact that Danny had told her not to leave the building, Melissa asked Bloom if there wasn’t a safer place in the vicinity. The clinic, she reasoned, was the largest building in the area, and a ready target for anyone who didn’t like Meurtre Musique.

“There are the huts,” said Bloom. She was shaking. “The walls are mud.”

“It still might be better than staying here,” Melissa told her. She pulled the desk back from the door.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to scout the front.”

“What if they’re nearby? Don’t go.”

“Are you OK?”

“Of course not.”

Melissa looked into the older woman’s eyes. She saw fear there for the first time. She hadn’t completely believed the story about Bloom leaving MI6; she thought there was a good chance that she was in fact still an agent under deep cover. But the look in the nurse’s eyes told her it was true.

Or close: maybe she hadn’t quit. Maybe they had eased her out because she wasn’t strong enough.

“They’re not nearby,” Melissa told her.

Bloom nodded reluctantly.

Melissa scrambled across the hall to a room with a window looking toward the road. There was no one outside.

“Marie, come on!” she yelled. “Let’s get out of here.”

“T
hey’re moving out of the building,” said Nuri. “Shit. Why the hell can’t that bitch just do as she’s told?”

Danny felt a swell of anger—not at Melissa, but at Nuri, for calling her a bitch. “She’s just trying to do her job,” he said tightly.

“Bullshit. Her job was getting Li Han. She’s not even doing that. She’s screwing everything up. Typical Agency prima frickin’ donna.”

Boston reached across from the passenger seat and tapped Danny on the knee. Danny glanced over. Boston had his game face on, a look that said he shouldn’t waste his brain on trivia.

Right as usual, thought Danny.

“Give me directions to Agency officer Ilse,” Danny told MY-PID. “Avoid contact. Avoid the warehouse area.”

“Proceed forward one hundred yards.” MY-PID began a terse set of directions that took them over the old railroad tracks, skirting the warehouse area they’d raided. Then the system had Danny turn right and go up a hill; they passed a run of circular huts, each smaller than the next.

A red ball erupted in the city center.

“Mortars!” said Nuri.

“Colonel, these huts are filled with soldiers,” said Flash. “I just saw two guys in a doorway with guns.”

“Yeah, all right,” said Danny.

A second later something tinged on the fender.

“They’re shooting at us,” Flash said calmly.

M
elissa heard the explosions in the distance as she helped the woman and child into the front room.

“Come on,” she said in English, scooping up the little girl. The mother grabbed her arm and together they ran out of the clinic, hurrying across the road into the empty field.

“Stay here,” said Melissa after they had gone about twenty yards. She handed the little girl over to her mother. “Here. OK?” She gestured with her hands. “Here.”

“Stay. Yes,” said the woman.

Melissa raced back across the street. She heard automatic rifle fire not far away.

One of the pregnant women appeared in the doorway, holding her belly. Melissa worried that she was about to give birth.

“Here. Quickly,” said Melissa, grabbing her arm. “Marie? Marie!”

“We’re coming,” said Bloom inside.

Melissa started walking the pregnant woman across the street. The woman was gasping for air, clutching her stomach.

“It’s OK,” said Melissa. “Relax. Relax.” A stupid thing to say, she realized, even under much better circumstances.

She steered her toward the other woman and her child. The tall grass made it harder for the pregnant woman to move; it seemed to take forever to get there.

“We have to go farther back from the road,” said Melissa. “Back in that direction—on the other side of those bushes.” She turned and saw Bloom and the other woman just reaching the field. “Come on,” she said, reaching down and scooping up the little girl. “Let’s go.”

A high-pitched whistle pierced the air. A dull thump followed, and the ground shook with an explosion. The girl screamed in her arms.

“Come on!” yelled Melissa. “Come on. They’re shelling us.”

D
anny jerked the wheel hard, trying to stay with the road as it swerved between a pair of native huts. Shells fell fifty or sixty yards to his left, and there was sporadic gunfire from some of the houses nearby.

“We’re about a half mile away,” said Boston calmly. He pointed to Danny’s left. “They’re on the other side of that field.”

“That’s where they’re shelling,” said Nuri behind him.

Danny gave his phone to Boston. “Get Melissa on the line and stay with her,” he told him.

The Osprey was barely five miles away. He could call it in if he needed to.

And what then? He’d have to hit Li Han right away, then go for the Russian.

He didn’t have all his gear yet, and their presence would be obvious. But better to blow their cover and accomplish the mission than keep their cover and fail.

The road bucked with a pair of fresh explosions. The mortar shells were coming closer.

“There’s your turn,” said Boston, pointing ahead.

Danny started to slow.

“Duck!” yelled Boston.

The roof of the Mercedes seemed to explode. Someone was firing at them from the hut near the intersection.

“Shit on this,” said Boston, leaning out the window and returning fire.

Danny swerved hard, fishtailing onto the new road in a hail of gunfire. The car lurched to the right as he pushed hard against the wheel, trying to keep moving in a straight line.

“Our tires are shot out,” he yelled. “Hang on!”

M
elissa struggled to keep the pregnant woman moving. The mortar shells were landing harmlessly in a wide, rocky ravine no closer than a hundred yards away. But she knew that at any moment the men firing them would adjust their aim.

Bloom and the woman she was helping caught up.

“There’s another farm there—see the building?” said Bloom, nodding ahead. The building was up a gentle slope about two hundred yards away.

“OK,” said Melissa. It was a destination, at least. She glanced to her right, making sure the woman with the child was coming.

A few seconds later she saw something moving through the field on the left. She thought at first it was an animal, a horse or even a zebra. Then she realized it was men—three of them, rushing down in the direction of the clinic.

Bloom started to yell and wave her hand.

“No, no,” hissed Melissa. “We can’t trust them.”

“They’re with Gerard,” said Bloom. “They’ll help.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“You don’t know!”

Melissa grabbed her as she started to wave. But whoever they were, or whatever side they were on, the men didn’t stop, or even seem to notice; they kept running in the direction of the building. The mortars had ceased firing, but there was another ominous sound in the distance—the trucks were returning.

Suddenly, the woman Melissa was helping screamed in agony and stopped moving. She bent her head and shoulders down, caught in the midst of a convulsive contraction.

Melissa dropped to her knee and looked at her face. The woman gasped for air, closed her eyes, then moaned with a fresh contraction.

Less than thirty seconds had passed between them.

“Marie! Marie!” yelled Melissa. “She’s having the baby now! Right here! Help!”

Chapter 11

Washington, D.C.

D
.C. traffic was surprisingly light, and Zen managed to make it to the Intelligence Committee meeting a few minutes early. He quickly wished he hadn’t: Senator Uriah Ernst hailed him in the hallway outside the room and immediately began haranguing him.

“What exactly is the administration up to, Zen?” said Ernst. “What the hell is your President doing?”

“Probably nothing good,” laughed Zen.

“Don’t try and snow me. I know you’re on her side these days.”

“I don’t really know what we’re talking about,” said Zen.

“I’ll bet. You’ve never heard of Raven?”

Zen shook his head.

“It’s an assassination program—or so I understand.”

“New one on me.”

“I’m getting to the bottom of this,” said Ernst. He shook his head and went into the hearing room.

Ned Barrington, the committee chairman, met Zen just inside the door. “Got a moment?”

Zen nodded and wheeled himself over to the corner.

“Ernst says the CIA is running an assassination program outside of the oversight procedure,” said Barrington. “He thinks the President set it up to circumvent us and the law.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Zen. “This isn’t one of the 6-9 programs?”

“No. Not at all. Supposedly, anyway. I don’t even know if it exists,” admitted Barrington. “I wouldn’t believe anything based on Ernst’s rantings.”

The 6-9 programs were targeted “actions”—the word assassination was carefully avoided—directed at terrorists who were deemed a threat to the U.S. Similar to other programs conducted by earlier administrations, 6-9 was tightly controlled, with targets approved according to a strict set of standards. As it happened, Zen had argued that the standards were too restrictive; they required two different sets of legal review, and many inside the CIA, which administered the program, felt they were too time-consuming.

“Your wife’s not involved in any of this, is she?” Barrington asked.

“I haven’t a clue,” said Zen truthfully.

“I hope not, for her sake.”

A few minutes later Zen found himself trying to clamp his mouth shut as the meeting began with a blistering diatribe from Ernst. He claimed that the President had circumvented the constitution by authorizing assassinations of “who knows who.”

“She’s leading us into World War Three. That’s where we’re going,” declared Ernst.

“With all due respect, Senator,” said Zen finally, “how exactly do you see this leading to World War Three?”

“The government cannot have a policy of exterminating its enemies. Especially when they are heads of state.”

“This program is directed at heads of state?” said Zen.

“That’s what I’ve heard. Raven is a sign of an Agency and an administration run amok.”

Barrington tapped his gavel. Zen suspected that Ernst was simply ramping up the charges so the committee would vote to investigate. For all Ernst knew, there might not even be a Raven program—or a rumor. He’d used the tactic before.

Unfortunately, he was a senior member of the Senate, an important fund-raiser for the other side, and a frequent talk show guest. He couldn’t simply be ignored.

“The senator from Tennessee has a point,” said one of Ernst’s fellow party members, Ted Green. “We should get Edmund up here and find out what the hell is going on.”

“And the National Security director,” said Ernst.

“Why not ask the President herself?” said Zen sarcastically.

“If she’d take my phone calls, I would.”

“All right, all right,” said Barrington. “We’ll have Edmund come in.”