There was a second, tactically advantageous reason for the admission of relief shipments, however.
Also struck by drought, the Nuba Mountains in the north had presented a distinct problem for the government. Infiltrating their high notches and passes, SPLA bands had become entrenched in pocket strongholds near remote villages inhabited by Nubians, an indigenous people that had by and large refrained from participation in the civil war, sharing neither the southern tribes’ desire for independence nor the Arabic population’s devotion to Islam. In allowing food and other supplies to reach the plains, the government had gambled that the rebels in the Nuba range, who were low on provisions, would be lured from their hideaways in attempts to replenish their stockpiles. And while the Nubians presented no armed threat in themselves, their refusal to accept shari’a, and their racial kinship with the SPLA, made them an undesirable and potentially destabilizing presence. Khartoum’s hope had been that they, too, would be coaxed from their villages into the relocation camps and government-held towns.
With attack helicopters and army raiding parties lending it impetus, the initiative had produced estimable results.
Then, as Allah would have it, another set of complications arose.
Over the past three years, a series of intertribal councils initiated by Dinka and Nuer elders had led the squabbling rebel factions toward reconciliation. Simultaneously, America and its UN allies had exerted increasing diplomatic pressure on Khartoum — directly as well as through Arab-African intermediaries — to allow relief drops into the Nubas and arbitrate a peace agreement with the southerners, backing their demands with the ever-present threat of trade sanctions. Sharing a long border with Sudan to the north, its commercial shipping and agricultural health dependent on the Nile waters flowing through both nations, Egypt in particular had no great wish to see the southern Sudan split off into a non-Arab, potentially antagonistic sovereign state — but neither could it risk losing American economic and military support. Thus, it had encouraged a compromise settlement to the extended civil war.
Weary from decades of struggle and natural disaster, facing a resolidified insurgent movement that was liable to keep the fighting at an impasse, torn by rifts between religious conservatives and secular reformers in its own parliament, Khartoum had capitulated to mounting demands and entered into a peace dialogue with the rebels, the stated agenda of which was to grant the southern provinces an as-yet-unspecified level of self-determination.
Displeased with the government’s acquiescence, Arif al-Ashar and a small group of his fellow conservatives had at that juncture committed to secretly hunting for a more palatable alternative. Arif al-Ashar himself had contacted a one-stop provider of black market arms, technology, and mission personnel with whom he’d had a long-standing affiliation — and the upshot was the message that had just appeared, then dissolved, on his computer display.
Now the question for al-Ashar remained: Which shining path to take?
Without official government approval, funds for his venture would have to be secured through clandestine means, and there were limitations to what could be funneled from existing budgetary appropriations before the drain became noticeable. The wealthier members of al-Ashar’s parliamentary cabal were certain to pledge additional monies, but the product’s high price tag was still restrictive, and hard choices needed to be made.
He clucked his tongue against his front teeth, watching the file attachment devour itself on his screen. A single disease trigger capable of leveling the Dinka and Nuer without causing a pandemic that would affect all the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa had to be keyed to a gene or gene string unique to those tribes, did it not? Yet even assuming an exchange of such genetic markers had occurred through racial ancestry and generations of living in close proximity to one another, intermarriage between tribal members was traditionally discouraged, and the number of individuals who shared a unique hereditary trait — and were likely to be susceptible — would be fewer than al-Ashar wished. A minimum of two triggers, obtained at a cost of a hundred million dollars, would therefore be necessary to ensure satisfactory results.
But what if only one of the tribes — say, the Dinka — were targeted? Arif al-Ashar’s brow creased in thought. That could prove to the best advantage. The infection would still be sweeping in scale, decimating their population, while claiming significant casualties among Nuer of mingled bloodlines. In the short term, this would mitigate the impact of a brokered treaty granting the south full or partial independence, leaving the survivors too ravaged by their losses to pose a foreseeable threat to the north. At the same time, Khartoum would have presented a moderate face to the world by having shown a willingness to reach a negotiated solution to the civil conflict. And as long as the triggers were available, dealing separately with the Nuer remained an option.
The third path al-Ashar saw before him seemed less appealing initially, but he would not dismiss it out of hand. Were the outbreak to occur among the Nubians, the Sudanese north would be purged of ethnic and cultural impurity to a highly acceptable degree. Foreign aid to the stricken mountain dwellers might be allowed to demonstrate the government’s new charitability and to blunt criticisms of its supposed indifference to human rights. As talks with the south commenced, international mediators would be tacitly made to understand that a hard-line prosouthern stance could once again lead to a cutoff of access to relief providers. The humanitarian issue that the Westerners had been using as a political lever against Khartoum would become a mallet poised to swing down from above them.
His brow creased in thought under the white wrappings of his emma, al-Ashar reached for the cup of spiced tea called shai-saada that had been steeping beside his computer. Eyes closed, he inhaled the steam curling up from it before taking his first sip, savoring the feel of its moist warmth on his cheeks, the aroma of cloves and mint, the pleasurable tingle it left in his sinuses.
Safety was in caution, regret in haste, he mused. Time remained for him to confer with his brothers in the ministry and arrive at a decision.
For the moment, al-Ashar would relish his sense of wide-open possibility, of roads that glowed with their own bright silvery light stretching out to even brighter crossings yet unglimpsed.
Wherever it led him, the journey was going to be memorable.
NINE
He had checked into the hotel five days ago and would need to stay perhaps another two before the diamonds-for-weapons deal was concluded. In this part of the world, haggling was a recreational activity, and ordinarily simple arrangements took on needless and infinite complications. But there was a wealth of precious stones to be derived, and he always fulfilled an assignment to which he’d committed.
And he could not claim that he hadn’t known what to expect.
Antoine Obeng was a thug, a rebel warlord who had secured an official government post through guileful manipulation after the fractures of civil war were weakly repaired. Now he was chief of police in the nation’s capital, a title that validated his ego and legitimized the power he relished above all else. But he continued his behind-the-scenes leadership of the outlaw militias that roamed the city at will and held the inestimably productive mines in the countryside by force of arms.