Then there was Caleb Bahame — a man who had brought the technological innovation of the jeep to the old tradition of drawing and quartering. A man who wasn’t going to be happy about three white people wandering around in his backyard asking questions…
The sudden blast of a car horn caused Smith to jerk upright in his seat. He squinted into the powerful sun, confused for a moment as to where he was. Ahead, tall concrete buildings broke up the outline of green hills, creating a vaguely Soviet skyline that overpowered the red roofs and whitewashed walls of colonial-era structures.
Kampala was a tidy and surprisingly attractive city at odds with its history of political turmoil, military dictatorships, and now Caleb Bahame. It was a deeply unfair but common story in this part of the world: just when the populace was about to get out from under — just when hope began to dispel fear and desperation — someone rose with a ragtag force and some murky motivation for destroying it all.
“Take your next left,” Howell said, reaching up between the seats and tapping their driver on the shoulder.
The Ugandan seemed confused and pointed through the cracked windshield at the approaching city. “No problem. Hotel.”
“Not the bloody hotel,” Howell said more forcefully. “Do it. Turn there.”
“No! Problem! Bad place.”
Smith twisted around in his seat but was grateful when Sarie spoke first. “What’s going on, Peter? I thought you’d never been to Uganda.”
Her naïve openness was not only engaging but useful. Smith really couldn’t ask questions — particularly in light of the fact that he had Howell on a mission for an organization the Brit didn’t even know existed.
“I said here!” Howell said, pulling himself between the seats and grabbing the wheel. The taxi careened onto a dirt side road violently enough to slam Smith into the poorly latched door. He grabbed for the dash and barely managed to keep from falling out.
“What the hell, Peter?” he said, starting the process of trying to get the door closed again.
“I thought we’d take in the sights.”
Howell passed three one-hundred-dollar bills to the driver, who didn’t seem to know whether to be more afraid of the man in the backseat or what lay ahead. The cash broke the tie.
Smith managed to get the door latched again and twisted around to the degree the pack on his lap would allow. The fact that Howell hadn’t told him about his history in Uganda didn’t particularly bother him — their entire relationship was built on secrets. What did bother him, though, was that the normally squared-away SAS man had turned erratic and moody.
He’d never had reason to question Howell’s judgment before and he wasn’t anxious to start, but there was something wrong here. How much rope should he give his old friend before he yanked back?
As they approached a ramshackle township, the driver began talking irritably in his native language, obviously trying to convince himself of something. They’d closed to within about two hundred yards of the first building, a leaning shack built from corrugated tin and wire, when the African slammed on the brakes. “We go no more!”
Howell stepped calmly from the car and yanked the driver’s door open, pulling the frightened man out into the road.
“Back in a jif,” he said, sliding behind the wheel and launching the car forward again.
“Peter,” Sarie said as they wound through the dense shacks, eliciting perplexed stares from the pedestrians hurrying out of the way. “I’m from this part of the world and I’m telling you we shouldn’t be here. We aren’t welcome.”
He didn’t respond, and Smith felt her hand light on his shoulder, a clear signal that she wanted him to intervene. But for one of the first times in his life, he wasn’t sure what to do. He’d be dead five times over if it weren’t for Peter Howell.
The farther they penetrated, the more the township changed in character. Women and children evident at the outer edges were gone now, replaced by increasingly well-armed men. A pickup with a mounted machine gun crossed in front of them and the shirtless man standing in the bed swung the gun in their direction but didn’t have time to decide whether or not to pull the trigger before he disappeared around a corner.
“Okay, that’s far enough, Peter,” Smith said, grabbing the shifter and pulling it into neutral. “Either you tell us what we’re doing, or we turn around and get the hell out of here.”
The Brit just thumbed into the backseat, where Sarie was on her knees watching the crowd close in behind them. Unlike the machine gunner, they’d had time to think about the strangers in their midst and were well on their way to a decision that wasn’t going to go well for anyone.
25
There she was.
Brandon examined the woman waiting for the elevator and, when he was satisfied that she wasn’t on speaking terms with any of the people around her, moved in.
As his discomfort with the Uganda operation had grown, he’d begun quietly researching people he could go to if he decided he was in over his head. His work with Drake allowed him access to the CIA’s database well beyond his pay grade and he’d managed to come up with a short list of tough operatives with extensive experience and reputations for unshakable integrity.
Despite looking like she was still in her midthirties, the woman in front of him was a minor legend at the agency. He’d initially disregarded her because she was posted in Afghanistan but then heard she was back stateside sitting out the backlash over the death of a Taliban leader she’d tracked into the Hindu Kush. Maybe his luck was finally changing.
The elevator door opened and he shuffled in, staying close enough to her that he could smell the shampoo in her short blond hair. The athletic body, full lips, and tanned skin were undoubtedly significant assets in her work but a clear liability to him. The surreptitious glances of the men in the elevator weren’t going to make what he’d come to do any easier.
Gazenga fought for a position beside her in the crowded space, watching in his peripheral vision as she fixed her dark eyes on the floor numbers counting down.
The elevator stopped with a jerk and he used it as an excuse to bump into her, slipping a note into the pocket of her jacket as he did so.
She turned slightly, black eyes wandering along the side of his face and giving him a sudden overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. At the last moment, he pushed through the people in front of him and out the closing doors. The hallway was nearly empty and he concentrated on controlling his breathing as a duct overhead blew cool air across his sweaty skin.
He hadn’t lost his nerve. He’d done it. But for some reason the sense of relief he’d anticipated didn’t materialize. If anything, the sensation of being trapped continued to tighten around his chest.
With that note, he’d irretrievably stepped off the diving board. All he could do now was hope the pool had water in it.
26
Peter Howell smiled casually at a group of comically overarmed men staring dumbfounded at them as they cruised by. Ahead, an elaborate archway led through the stone wall they’d been paralleling for the last few minutes. By the time they stopped in front of it, there were at least three mounted machine guns and no fewer than thirty small arms trained on the aging taxi. A man in fatigues came cautiously toward them, looking over the sights of an Israeli-made Tavor assault rifle and screaming unintelligible instructions.
They were forced from the vehicle, and Smith grabbed Sarie’s arm to keep her from being dragged away, trying to position himself so that she was shielded between him and the car.