“Sometimes you act like you got a stick up your ass,” Danny told him. “Other times it’s a two by four.”
The pilot announced they were five minutes from the first insertion.
Exhausted, Kimko lay on the ground, halfway between sleep and consciousness. His mind threw thoughts out in odd patterns, numbers mixing with ideas, old memories filtering into what he saw around himself in the jungle.
Most of all he wanted vodka.
Kimko thought about letting go and falling asleep. But it would be the same as accepting failure, and that he could not do. So after a long time on the ground he took a deep, slow breath and struggled to his feet.
There were noises around him — wind rushing by. He turned quickly, sure he was being followed by some animal, but nothing appeared.
No, he was alone, very alone, lost in the middle of Africa and sure to die here, thirsty and tired, a spy, unknown and unloved.
His mind wandered even as he tried to focus on the jungle before him. He saw his ex-wife and spit at her.
He looked down at the ground, looking for the path.
When he looked up, a man in a black battle dress was standing before him.
Kimko turned. There were two more. He was surrounded.
Not by soldiers, by aliens.
A short, youthful man with wide shoulders appeared behind them. He spoke Russian. He was a human.
“Where is the control unit for the UAV?” asked the man. “The flight computer. What did you do with it?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Kimko.
The man raised his pistol and held it in his face.
“Tell me,” said the man.
Kimko jerked away, but one of the aliens grabbed him by the shoulder. The grip was intense. It drained all of his strength away.
“Where is the control unit?” demanded the short man, pointing the gun directly at his forehead.
“I have no idea—”
The gun went off. The bullet flew by his head.
Am I dead?
I’m dead.
No, no, it’s an old trick. Intimidation. I’ve done this myself. I’ve done this.
It’s a trick.
“You are coming with us,” said the man.
Was he dead? Had Girma the idiot shot him after all?
Kimko started to struggle. This was real, though it didn’t make any sense — he pushed and threw his fists.
“You’re not taking me alive!” he yelled.
But as the words escaped his mouth, he smelled something sweet in his nose. Something was poking his back, poking him in a million places.
Sleep, said a voice inside his brain. Sleep.
Milos Kimko collapsed to the ground, already starting to snore.
“Sounds like he’s got a breathing problem,” Danny said.
“He’s OK,” said Sugar, checking him over. “That Demerol will keep him out for a while.”
“Nolan, you and Shorty see if you can backtrack the trail he came up through. See if he threw anything away,” said Danny. MY-PID had already looked at the video feeds, but Danny wanted it checked anyway. “Work your way back to the city. We’ll hook up with you.”
The two men set out. The rest of the team fanned out nearby, checking to see if Kimko had hidden or dropped anything nearby.
“Searching’s a waste of time,” said Nuri. “He never got it. I’m beginning to think they never had a control unit in the first place.”
“They needed something to fly the plane,” said Danny.
“Maybe Melissa took it and she’s been lying all this time.”
“What do you have against her?”
“I told you, Danny, she’s a bad seed.”
Danny shook his head.
“I want to take him to Ethiopia and question him,” said Nuri.
“That’s fine.”
“We’ll know what he knows in a few hours. But best bet now is probably the Brother who killed Li Han. That’s who we need to find.”
Chapter 3
Amara took his shoes off and placed them in the plastic tub. He put his backpack into a second tub, then pushed them together toward the X-ray machine. He felt as if everyone in the airport was looking at him, though he knew that couldn’t be the case. He’d already gotten through two different security checks; this was the last before the gate.
With the tubs moving on the conveyor belt, Amara stepped over to the metal detector frame. A portly woman in a military-style uniform held out a blue-gloved hand to stop him from proceeding.
Heart racing, he saw the light on the nearby X-ray machine blinking red.
Don’t panic! Don’t run!
He looked back the officer. She was motioning him forward.
He stepped through, half expecting the alarm to sound, though he had no metal in his pockets, no explosives, no knives, no weapons. His clothes had been carefully laundered before he was driven to the airport.
Clear. He was clear. On his way to America.
He started to look for his shoes. But the woman with the blue gloves took hold of his arm.
“Sir, step this way,” said the woman in English.
Startled, Amara wasn’t sure what to say.
“Please,” she said, pointing to the side. “Step over there.”
Two other officers, both men, came over behind her. Amara stepped to the side, as she had asked. His throat started to constrict. He wasn’t afraid — he’d never been a coward — but it seemed unfair to be stopped so early in his mission.
“Please open your bag,” said an officer on the other side of the conveyor belt. He spoke English in an accent so thick and foreign that Amara had to puzzle out what he said, and only understood because he was pointing.
He tried to apologize for his hesitation. He’d been told repeatedly to be nice to the guards; it would make them much more cooperative. “I didn’t, uh—”
“Open the bag, sir.”
Amara reached to the zipper and pushed it down. He had only a shirt and a book here, as instructed.
“You have a laptop?” said the man.
God, the laptop. He’d forgotten to take it out of the compartment so they could look at it specially.
What a fool! The simplest thing! And now trapped!
“I do, oh I do, I forgot—” he said.
“Could you turn it on, please?” said the officer.
Amara pulled the laptop out and fumbled with it as he reached for the power button. In the meantime, another officer came up behind the first and whispered something in his ear, pointing behind them. They turned around to watch someone else in line.
The computer took forever to boot up. The screen blinked — the hard drive failed the self-test. He had to press F1 to proceed. He did so quickly; the computer proceeded with its start-up.
The security officer who’d had him take out the laptop called over to the woman with the gloves. Then he turned and went with the other man to check on the person he’d pointed out. Momentarily confused, Amara focused on the laptop, waiting patiently for its desktop to appear.
“What else do you have in the bag?” asked the woman officer.
“My shirt, my uh — some paper,” he said.
“In this compartment.” She reached in and pulled out the power cord and mouse.
“To make it work without the battery,” he said.
“Yes, yes, of course. Very good. You must remove laptops separately from now on.”
“I’m sorry. I–I forgot.”
“Go. You may go.”
Amara hastily put everything back in the bag, then went to find his shoes.