One of the men leaned over the cab and yelled at the driver through his window.
“They fired at us,” said the driver. “One of our men is hurt.”
“How many were there?” asked Li Han.
“Two, maybe three. But they’re gone now. Amara says that we kill both. In the dark, hard to tell.”
Li Han considered going back to check the bodies. It might be useful to know which band they were with. The fact that they had motorcycles was unusual — perhaps they were future customers.
“The Brother needs a doctor,” said the driver. “He was hit in the chest.”
“Tell them to put a compress on,” said Li Han.
The driver didn’t understand. Li Han decided not to explain; they’d figure it out on their own eventually.
“Turn around,” he told the driver. “Let’s go find out who they were.”
“Turn around?”
“Yes, a U-turn.”
“There may be more.”
“I doubt it,” said Li Han. “Let’s go see.”
Chapter 16
“Colonel Freah?”
Danny looked over at the door to the building as Damian Jordan came outside. The sun was not quite at the horizon; gray twilight filtered over the base, making it look like a pixilated photograph pulled from a newspaper.
“What’s up?”
“Melissa is on the radio. She’s located the UAV. I figured you wanted to talk to her.”
“Exactly,” said Danny.
“Uh, she says she’s been hurt.”
“Bad?”
“Dunno. She’s crabbier than usual, so probably fairly bad.”
Jordan led Danny inside to the table where he’d set up an older satellite radio, a bulky unit with a corded handset. The console, about the size of a small briefcase, was at least ten years old. While it was powerful and had encryption gear, it was hardly state of the art. Nuri had pointed out that the operation surely had access to much better equipment; this was some sort of wrongheaded attempt to keep an extremely low profile.
“Here you go,” said Jordan, giving Danny the handset.
“Ms. Ilse, this is Colonel Freah. Where are you?”
“Who are you?”
“Danny Freah. I’m the person who’s going to get you and your UAV back here. Now where the hell are you?”
She grunted, as if in pain.
“Are you OK?” Danny asked.
“I dislocated my shoulder. I’m all right. Some of the natives grabbed the UAV. They’re taking it in the direction of Duka. I have to get it. If you’re going to help—”
“My team is going to be here in about twenty minutes,” Danny told her. “You’re roughly seventy miles away — we can get there inside an hour.”
“All right,” she said weakly.
“Are you OK?” he asked again.
“I’m fine.” She snapped off the radio.
Danny handed back the handset.
“She goes her own way,” said Jordan. He smiled, as if that was a good thing.
Chapter 17
The problem with flying the Tigershark, especially at very high speeds over long distances, was that it was boring.
Exceedingly, even excruciatingly, boring.
The plane flew itself, even during the refueling hookups. In fact, the Tigershark II had been designed to operate completely without a pilot, and very possibly could have handled this mission entirely on its own.
Not that Turk would have admitted it. He wouldn’t even say it out loud, especially not in the plane: he’d come to think of the Tigershark almost as a person. The flight computer was almost sentient, in the words of its developer, Dr. Ray Rubeo.
Almost sentient. An important word, “almost.”
Turk checked his instruments — everything in the green, perfect as always — then his location and that of the area where the UAV had gone down. The robot aircraft had a set of transponders that were sending signals to a satellite.
“Tigershark, this is Whiplash Ground. You hearing us?”
“Colonel Freah.” Turk reached his right hand up to his helmet, enabling the video feed on the Whiplash communications system. Danny Freah’s face appeared in a small box on the virtual screen projected by the Whiplash combat helmet. “Got good coms up here, Colonel.”
“One of the operators has been tracking our item in country. She’s hurt. We’re going to be en route in a few minutes to her location. We’re wondering if you can take a pass and check on her.”
“Uh, roger that if you give me a location,” said Turk. “I’m just about ten minutes from the target area,” he added, pointing at part of the virtual instrument panel where the course way markers were displayed. “Eight and a half, to be exact.”
“I have GPS coordinates,” said Danny. “Stand by.”
Turk waited while Danny uploaded the GPS tracking channel used by the CIA officer in western Sudan. He then increased the detail on the sitrep panel.
“Colonel, do you know that one of the transponders is moving?” said Turk. “It looks like it’s approaching her location.”
“Are you sure about that, Tiger?”
Turk double-tapped on the GPS locator and told the Tigershark to fly to that spot. Then he went back to the radio.
“Yeah, roger that. Affirmative,” he added. “Be advised I’m unarmed at this time.”
“We copy.”
“Operative got a name?”
“Melissa Ilse.”
“It’s a girl?”
“I already told you it’s a she, Tigershark. And that would be a woman, not a girl. Copy?”
“Roger that. I’ll do what I can.”
Chapter 18
Melissa heard the truck rattling toward her. She glanced around for cover, but nothing was handy. She decided her only option was to move up the nearby embankment, to get out of easy view.
If they found her, she’d have to make her stand.
Her right arm and shoulder screamed with every step and jostle. She tried to keep it from moving too much by gripping the bottom of her jacket with her hand. The pain was so intense that she couldn’t fold her fingers into a good grip, and had to simply hook her thumb around the cloth.
It was almost ironic. As part of her training for the mission, she’d been put into a rush course as a nurse so she could learn enough to use that as a cover. She had then treated two colleagues for dislocated shoulders during a particularly difficult survival refresher course she’d taken right afterward. Putting their arms back in place didn’t seem like such a big deal.
Being on the other side of the pain gave her an entirely different perspective.
The sound of the truck grew louder. She dropped to one knee, then eased down to spread herself flat against the side of the hill. She was no more than twenty yards from the roadway, if that.
Her headset buzzed with an incoming call on her sat line, but she didn’t answer it — the truck’s headlights swept across the road ahead.
Maybe she could shoot them now. But she’d have to fire with her left hand.
She wasn’t even that good with her right.
God, what a mistake she’d made getting close to the truck. What the hell was she thinking?
The truck jerked to a stop near the bike.
Melissa tried to will away the pain, extending her breathing, pushing the air all the way into her lungs before slowly exhaling.
The men got out of the truck.
Her headset buzzed again. She still didn’t dare answer it.