Whiplash (15 page)

Jabal Dugu, Sudan

A
S SOON AS THE ARMS DEALER WAS IN HIS TRUCK
, U
NCLE
Dpap returned to his office. He told everyone but Tilia and Commander John to leave the building. Then he carefully dismantled the pistol and examined it.

“Do you think he cheats you?” asked Commander John.

“I want to make sure this is not some type of trick,” said Uncle Dpap.

“What kind of trick could it be?”

“A trick. Europeans are very tricky.”

“He’s not European,” said Tilia. “His accent is American.”

“I think he’s British,” said Commander John.

“He was trying to disguise where he was from,” said Tilia. “He is most likely CIA.”

“Maybe,” said Uncle Dpap, picking apart the slide group and barrel.

“Why would the CIA help us?” Commander John asked. As pretty as she was, he resented Tilia for sounding too much like a know-it-all.

Satisfied that the gun was not booby-trapped, Uncle Dpap reassembled it. He had never owned a Beretta, and knew of the weapon mostly by reputation. It was used by NATO and the Americans, a good recommendation.

Commander John reached for it. Uncle Dpap slapped his hand.

“I just want to try it,” said John. “Maybe it is defective. You shouldn’t be the one to test it.”

Uncle Dpap loaded the magazine, slapped it into the pistol butt, then handed the weapon to his brother. “Go outside. Make sure you are not near anyone.”

“You don’t have to treat me like a child,” said Commander John, though in fact he was gleeful at the prospect of trying the new weapon. “Should I call the others in?”

“Not yet.”

Uncle Dpap reached down to the lowest drawer in his desk and took out a small pencil case filled with tools. He sorted through them and retrieved a small screwdriver, then began dismantling the phone.

“You think he was CIA?” he asked Tilia.

“Very likely.”

“Why would the CIA help us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe to ambush us.”

“To what purpose?”

“I don’t know.”

“If he is CIA and not a dealer, he is trying to get us to ally together. Why would that help them?”

She thought for a few moments. There were no obvious reasons. Every American who came through the area, even the relief workers, was assumed to be working for the CIA, though Tilia knew this was rarely the case.

“We had science visitors the other day,” she noted. “And now this one. The man who was our main source of ammunition dies, and now these men show up.”

“I would think this Mr. Kirk killed him,” said Uncle Dpap. “To get more business.”

“Maybe. If he is truly dead.”

Uncle Dpap did not particularly care for Luo. Except for his inability to find a new source of weapons and bullets, he would not have been disappointed in the least at his demise.

“If he is an arms dealer, why get us together?” asked Uncle Dpap. “What would be his benefit? To save a few dollars transporting the weapons?”

“He would be afraid of a price war, or of being ambushed,” said Tilia. “That was Luo’s concern as well. If he sold to all, yes, he could make more money.”

“But Luo didn’t try to gather us together.”

“Luo knew Sudan. This man—he is still feeling his way.”

“Yes. But he was confident.”

“Or if he is CIA, he might be working with the Egyptians,”
said Tilia. “To counter the Iranians. That would not be bad for us.”

Uncle Dpap took the last screw from the back of the phone and edged it up carefully. The phone circuitry was printed on a single card. There was no bomb. It was possible that the phone line was tapped, but Mr. Kirk himself had said to use it only to contact him, and not to say anything. So what would the point of tapping it be?

Uncle Dpap didn’t know that much about cell phones, but unless he had been the man who designed this particular model, it was unlikely that he would have realized that the phone was actually bugged: what looked like a small magnet for the miniature speakerphone was already transmitting to the portable unit used by the other bugs in the town.

“You like this Mr. Kirk,” said Uncle Dpap, starting to put the phone back together.

Tilia blushed.

“You think I’m too old to notice things like that,” he continued, amused. He liked to tease the young woman, who was more like a son to him than the three he had. “His motives are not very important, except for this question—why would he want to deal with several groups together? That is our real question.”

Tilia recognized from his tone that he had come up with an answer.

“The answer could be that he is impatient,” continued Uncle Dpap. “As you say, he is afraid of competition, and being ambushed. But I think he has a very large amount of weapons and ammunition sitting somewhere that he must get rid of. To take the time to sell it piecemeal—you see he has us do all the work.”

“It may be.”

“And he is greedy. That, of course, goes without saying. Greed is impregnated in these men’s souls. It is a universal disease, but the men who sell weapons have it very strongly. It is one reason they do not live very long lives. Something to consider, Tilia.”

She straightened her back and lifted her shoulders, determined to remain stoic and not answer him.

“You will have to think of leaving your Uncle Dpap and the rest of your family sometime,” said Dpap, suddenly wistful. He looked over at her, admired her form. She had a regal face. In another time, she could have been queen.

“We have work to do,” she told him, her words and tone exactly echoing what he would have said had she suggested something silly.

Uncle Dpap chuckled and went back to the phone, screwing it together. When he was done, he handed it to her.

“There is another possibility we haven’t considered,” he said. “Perhaps it is the Iranians who are really behind this.”

“They back Colonel Zsar.”

“Yes. They give him much money. But Zsar has trouble bringing people to his side. If we joined with him, then he would have a good core force.”

“And Red Henri?”

Red Henri, in Uncle Dpap’s opinion, was a crazy man, not to be trusted to remain sane for more than a few minutes at a time. But his men were well-trained. They would be a valuable addition to any force.

Uncle Dpap had turned down several overtures from the Iranians. Their religion made him nervous.

But not as nervous as running out of ammunition did. The danger was not just from the government forces, but from the other rebel bands, who coveted his village and other resources.

“Red Henri would not join in an alliance with either of us,” said Uncle Dpap. “He is content to herd his goats in his own way. But Zsar we could deal with. Go to him and tell him about my meeting. Tell him I do not trust this Mr. Kirk, and do not recommend a meeting yet. But maybe he will give us all a good price. Tell him I am open to buying bullets for the best price. As I have always been.”

“If we tell Zsar that, he is sure to tell the Iranians.”

“Exactly.”

Base Camp Alpha
Sudan

B
OSTON INSISTED ON COLLECTING THE SUBMACHINE GUNS
from the mercenary bodyguards as soon as they got back to Base Camp Alpha. Nuri thought it was unnecessary, and maybe a little foolish, in effect telling the men that they didn’t trust them. But Boston didn’t care. He didn’t trust them, and he saw no reason to be cute about it.

The men didn’t complain. After a big lunch beneath the tent pavilion that served as their mess hall, Boston set them out in a picket watch around the perimeter, with two of his Whiplash people as supervisors. The blimps would see anyone who approached in plenty of time for them to be armed.

To a man, the mercenaries believed Danny was an arms dealer, something Nuri had been careful to hint at but not say explicitly when they were hired. They assumed that the trenches were part of whatever story Danny needed to give the authorities so he could operate here without problems. They were all illiterate, and had no idea what dinosaurs were, let alone how paleontologists worked. Their prime concern was money, and they were being paid plenty of that to keep their curiosity in check. As long as they were kept busy, they wouldn’t be a problem.

The question was how to keep them busy. Boston suggested holding training sessions. Danny nixed that idea.

“That’s all we need. Better trained soldiers of fortune.”

“They could use the discipline.”

“Come up with something else.”

Boston finally decided that he would use the soldiers to dig the trenches, making them look a little more realistic. The initial response was unenthusiastic.

Then Hera came up with an idea.

“Ten dollars to the first man who finds dinosaur bones,” she said.

Once she explained what dinosaur bones were, there was no trouble getting volunteers.

E
VEN BEFORE
D
ANNY AND HIS MEN ARRIVED BACK AT
B
ASE
Camp Alpha, Tilia was driving to Colonel Zsar’s fortress on the other side of the hills. She’d chosen two men to go with her—one, because he was the biggest man in the troop, and the other because he was the best shot. She had no illusions, however, that they would be able to protect her if things went bad. All three of them would die, with luck quickly.

Tilia carried two pistols in bandoliers across her chest, and a sawed-off elephant gun besides. If she had to fight, she would reserve one bullet for herself.

They had to pass through a small village in the shadow of the hills to reach Colonel Zsar’s stronghold. She had been there only once before, more than a year ago. The changes astounded her. The village had been a complete wreck, most of its buildings still destroyed from a raid three years before by Ethiopian forces, who at the time were angry with Colonel Zsar as well as the legitimate Sudanese government. Stones lay at the edges of the street; foundations were cluttered with weeds and windswept sand. Perhaps two dozen people lived in the surviving shanties, ramshackle structures built of cardboard and other refuse on the southern end of town.

Those were gone now. In their place was a village of prefab trailers, five dozen arranged in a tight rectangle just off the main road. On the other side of the road, where the abandoned foundations had been, sat three steel buildings, barns where cattle were kept and milk processed. Three milk trucks, with gleaming tanks, were lined up in the yard next to them. Fifty head of cattle grazed in the fields beyond.

Tilia was tempted to stop the Jeep and talk to the people. If the Iranians had brought this prosperity, there would be no question of allying with them. But it was getting late, and she
wanted to be sure to conclude her business with Colonel Zsar before nightfall.

Colonel Zsar’s fortress was embedded in a cliff, centered around a pair of caves dug out by successive generations of fighters and smugglers. Tilia’s Jeep was observed well before she came to the checkpoint leading to the stronghold’s entrance. Jeeps were not plentiful in the area, and though the colonel’s forces had little interaction with Uncle Dpap’s, it was quickly recognized. The colonel was alerted, and gave his permission for the vehicle to proceed.

Seeing that there were two men—as far as they were concerned, the woman didn’t count—the guards at the gate decided there would have to be six escorts. Two men sat on the hood of the vehicle, two clung to the rear fender, and two others trotted behind.

Tilia drove the truck up a steep, serpentine dirt road, passing three different sandbagged machine-gun emplacements before reaching a parking area in front of one of the caves. Once again she was surprised. There were a dozen white pickup trucks in the lot, all nearly brand new. Belts of bullets crisscrossed the guards’ chests, and there were extra boxes near a sandbagged gun emplacement covering the entrance to the building—if the colonel’s forces were experiencing a bullet shortage, he was doing his best to hide it.

A man in a flak vest met them at the door.

“Your weapons,” he demanded.

Tilia’s escorts looked at her. She nodded, but did not hand hers over.

“Your gun, miss,” said the man.

“My gun stays with me.”

“You are just a woman,” he said, with obvious disdain. “Why do you think you deserve such a privilege?”

“You are afraid of a woman?”

“Wait here.”

The man turned on his heel and went back inside. Tilia realized she’d made a mistake. Uncle Dpap had told her to deliver the message no matter what. If the guard insisted on her
handing over her gun, she would have to do so. It would be very bad to start the meeting with such a sign of weakness.

“Since you are a woman, we won’t worry about it,” said the man when he returned. He looked at the others. “This way.”

The interior of the cave had been divided into a bunker with masonry and concrete walls. An external generator supplied electricity, and while the lights were relatively dim, they were still ample enough to light the long corridor back to Colonel Zsar’s post. Tilia had arrived just as the colonel was waiting for dinner. Ordinarily he would have had her and the others wait—assuming he had decided to see them at all—but his men had told him about the woman soldier’s beauty and he wanted to see it for himself.

It surpassed their descriptions.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am an aide to Uncle Dpap,” she said.

“Have a seat.” He snapped his fingers at the two bodyguards standing near the door, gesturing for them to bring over a camp stool. The men rushed to comply.

“I don’t need to sit,” Tilia told him. “Uncle Dpap wanted you to know about a visitor.”

Tilia laid out what had happened, finishing before the men arrived with her stool.

Colonel Zsar had heard that Uncle Dpap had a niece working as his aide, but the stories did not adequately convey her beauty. Zsar had lost his wife two years before, but he would have lusted after Tilia in any event. He knew that she was not Muslim—none of Uncle Dpap’s people followed the true religion—but her beauty was so transcendent that he didn’t care about that. And besides, she was intelligent and well-spoken—he could not think of a better helpmate.

“So what does Uncle Dpap want to do?” he said when she finished speaking. “He wants us to meet with this man?”

“He wants to discuss him with you. A meeting might be too dangerous for now.”

“I see.”

“Uncle Dpap is considering doing business with him. Our
other friends are not always the most reliable, and sometimes their prices are not good.”

The display by his men notwithstanding, Colonel Zsar was also in need of a new source for weapons and ammunition. Arash Tarid had promised that he would make new arrangements soon, when he and the other Iranian visited the other day, but an additional source might be useful. In any event, a meeting would give him an excuse to ask Uncle Dpap about this girl.

He would have to mention it first to Tarid. There was always the possibility that this was some sort of test by the Iranians.

“Maybe we can discuss it,” said Colonel Zsar. “Let me consider the point.”

“Thank you, then,” said Tilia, starting to leave.

“Wait,” said Colonel Zsar. “You’re not going to go right away, are you?”

“I had only the message to deliver.”

“You should join me for dinner.”

Tilia thought to herself that she would rather eat dirt.

“Uncle Dpap expects me back quickly,” she said curtly. “I would not be wise to disappoint him. Excuse me, please.”