"It's incredible," said Ellen, her hands on her hips.
"You see the gate?" asked Court, pointing towards an entrance in the fencing, protected on either side by white armored personnel carriers.
"Yeah." She looked up at him. "You're not coming with me, are you?"
Court mounted the Janjaweed horse.
"Nope."
"Because of what I said about having you prosecuted? Look, you are safer in there than you are out here. You won't be taken into custody here in Dirra, I promise you. We follow the law. You haven't even been indicted yet."
"I'm not going in there because I have a job to do out here. And I'm going to do it."
"So you just ride off into the sunset?"
"It's half-past midnight."
Walsh shook her head, batted buzzing insects away from her eyes. "I bet you think you are a cowboy. But you're not. You're an outlaw. You are-"
"I need three days, Ellen. Three days from now you can do whatever it is you have to do. Make your report, send teams out looking for me."
"Why don't you tell me your mission? What happens in three days? Who you are working for? If our goals do intersect, I promise I will try to help you."
"No offense, Miss Walsh, but I don't need any help your organization can provide."
She looked to the rifle on his chest and waved an exhausted hand at it. "Again, that's all the help you need?"
"I'm not here to kill people. The last twenty-four hours I have been off mission. Like I said, you would one hundred percent approve of what I'm doing. I just need three days to do it. Your wait will be rewarded."
Walsh did not reply. Court could imagine her giving him three days, just out of curiosity. He could also imagine her running to the front gate of the SI camp and yelling at the UNAMID soldiers to get themselves into their jeeps to chase the white horseman through the night. Ellen Walsh, like all women, was a complete mystery to Court Gentry.
"Three days. Please." He pulled the reins on the horse hard, spun the big animal around, and then galloped off into the dark.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Court sat in his tiny hotel room in Al Fashir. Outside the open window above his tattered and soiled mattress on the floor, the morning bustle of the city rattled and whistled and bleated and shouted, as men and animals and vehicles passed by.
He was filthy and wanted a shower, but there was no shower here. Just a hole cut into a closet floor down the hall for a toilet. He'd spent the evening scratching bloody flea bites and had not gotten much sleep but, he asked himself, what did he expect for nothing?
It had taken a day and a half and most of the rest of his Sudanese pounds to get a car and a driver to transport him back to the capital of North Darfur. Court bought a satellite phone with the rest of his cash, using his watch and the two AKs to make up the difference. The man who'd driven him from Dirra had a cousin who owned a filthy boardinghouse in Al Fashir for Darfuris there to work construction on whatever project the NGOs were paying them to build, and the driver and the cousin had spoken and offered Court a room free of charge. The two men even took Court shopping for some local items and paid for them out of their own pockets. Many Sudanese, Court had noticed in his day on the road and in the town, possessed an intense kindness and willingness to give of themselves and their meager property for a complete stranger.
Court had little to offer in return but his gratitude, a few Arabic words of thanks, and an understanding of the body language of the culture. He held his hand to his heart and nodded deeply so many times in the past day he almost felt as if he could pass for a Darfuri, if not for the pigmentation of his skin.
Court had worked in dozens of different places in his career, either as a CIA singleton operator, as a CIA Paramilitary Operations officer, or as a private sector assassin, and many of those places, for want of a better term, sucked. But from time to time he found himself somewhere remote, both geographically and culturally, and completely taken in by the scenery or the people or the way of life in ways that stayed with him after he'd done his job and left the place behind.
He felt this way about Darfur. He wasn't supposed to be here. There was much to hate. It was hot as hell and thick with bugs and controlled by a despot and murdering bands of marauders, but Court felt something about this place, the people, the stubbornness and discipline needed to face a miserable day armed with nothing but one's own devices. He could not help but respect the people for scratching out what existences they had, and he appreciated their kindness to him.
He would love to repay the kindness by removing the man from power who was systematically killing them.
He reached across the mattress, picked up his phone, and called a number in Saint Petersburg.
Gregor Ivanovic Sidorenko had not slept. His man had disappeared into the depths of Darfur, the opposite side of the country from where he needed to be, and he had not heard from him in almost seventy-two hours. Furthermore, the international news channels were broadcasting reports from Darfur, reports of an attack on an aid convoy not ninety minutes' driving time from where Gentry was last seen. Details were sketchy, but things did not look good.
Sid sat at his breakfast table in the cold, bit into a hard-boiled egg, and stared at his phone. He'd hardly taken his beady eyes from it in three days.
But for once it rang, and it startled him.
The Russian mobster tipped a mimosa in a fluted crystal glass while lurching forward to grab the receiver, fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice, Cuvee du Centenaire Grand Marnier, and Krug Grande Cuvee Champagne drenching his thick, gold-lined fleece robe. He ignored the expensive mess and answered the phone.
"Slushayu vas." I am listening.
"It's Gray. You receiving me okay?"
"Mr. Gray, where are you?"
"I'm back in Al Fashir. I'm safe at the moment, but I can't stay here for long."
"What happened?"
"Nothing to worry about. I got sidetracked."
"Side…? Mr. Gray, that is not acceptable! You have jeopardized everything! The FSB is very upset."
"It couldn't be helped."
"My people spoke to the pilot. You left the airport to save a woman. A woman!"
"Your pilot shouldn't have left me behind."
"A woman!"
"It's more complicated-"
"This is a very serious damage to our timetable."
"It's no problem."
"How can you say that it is no problem? We do not have another flight to Khartoum scheduled until after Abboud's trip to the Red Sea! How are you going-"
"Can you get a plane back here to Al Fashir?"
"Yes, I have arranged a flight. It will depart today from Belarus. But we can only get you out of the country with that flight. It will not be landing again in the Sudan."
"It doesn't have to land."
"I don't understand."
"Get a pen and paper. I'm going to need the aircraft to bring in some gear I'll require if I'm going to continue on with the operation. Get the FSB to help you put it together. Just relax. This little hiccup along the way will be forgotten."
"If they don't land, how will you-"
"They will need a flight path out of the country that takes them over the Red Sea. They can arrange that. Now, write all this down."
There was a scramble on the other end of the line. "Wait… okay. I am ready."
Court dictated a list to the Russian mob boss, who scribbled like a frantic secretary. When he was finished, Sidorenko blew out a long breath. "You can do this?"
"Sure."
"The pilot… he can do it?"
"You will talk to him when we are in the air. Encourage him to follow my instructions to the letter."