Kealey nodded thoughtfully and said nothing.
A long moment passed. Sipping his drink, Harper rode out the silence. The escalating situation in Sudan-particularly in Darfur-had been all over the news for the past several weeks, and he supposed he’d understated just how serious it was. To put it bluntly, the country was on the verge of a full-blown revolution.
“So what was Mirghani doing at the embassy?”
“We don’t know. All we know for sure is that he met with Reynolds on three separate occasions, and each time he left with the MSG’s security footage. According to Holland, Reynolds ordered the detachment commander to turn over the disks, just like he did with White. We have no idea what they’ve been talking about, but we’re ninety percent sure Mirghani is working with White. Or for him, maybe.”
“I assume you’ve tried following him.”
Harper nodded. “We’ve tried, sure. But the man knows what to look for. He’s different from most of the rebels in that respect. Whoever trained him did a damn good job… We haven’t been able to track him. He shakes the surveillance every time.” A shrug. “I suppose it doesn’t help that we’re using locals and not trained officers. The problem is that Mirghani would spot our men in a matter of minutes, and we can’t risk losing him altogether.”
“Fair enough. But how is Mirghani tied in with White?”
“We don’t know that, either,” Harper admitted. “What we do know is that Mirghani can be directly linked to Simon Nusairi. They’re cousins. First cousins, related by blood. I guess family makes the world go round.”
“And here I thought it was money.”
Harper shrugged. “In this case the two are inseparable.”
Kealey showed the faintest grin. Watching him, Harper almost could have imagined this was another time and place. Say, five years ago at the Dubliner Pub in D.C. Kealey had liked the amber draught ale and hot corned beef sandwiches. He’d usually gone for Guinness and the shepherd’s pie.
Harper reached for his whiskey and drank in silence.
“Okay,” Kealey said after a while. His thin smile was gone. “So what do we have here? One month ago five million dollars disappears from a secret DOD slush fund. Soon thereafter it lands with Nusairi, a Sudanese national living in France. Nusairi is wholly opposed to Bashir’s regime, just like his cousin, who is almost certainly working with Cullen White, a disgraced former CIA officer. It seems pretty clear that the money was meant for White to disperse all along.”
Harper nodded. “That would be my guess as well,” he said.
“But what’s he using it for?”
“That’s another question we can’t answer right now,” Harper said. “But the recent upheaval can’t be a coincidence. The demonstrations, the increased rebel activity in the south…I just don’t buy the timing. Nor do I believe a word of that meeting I had to sit through in April. Stralen is up to something, and he’s managed to pull the president into it. Fitzgerald and Thayer are involved, too, and they’re doing their best to shut the Agency out. I want to know what’s happening, Ryan. So does the director, and that’s why I’m here. We want you to talk to Nusairi. We need you to figure out what’s going on in Sudan.”
“Now there’s a surprise.” Kealey pushed the photograph of Mirghani back across the table. “And what exactly do you want from me? Am I supposed to talk to Nusairi, or would you like me to the find the man who killed Lily Durant? Because last time I checked, we don’t have any idea who did it, and Bashir certainly isn’t about to hand him over, assuming he even knows who’s responsible.”
“We’re hoping Nusairi might be able to shed some light on that.”
Kealey shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a stretch, John. I can’t believe you don’t realize it. There’s nothing to indicate that Nusairi is linked to the men who raided the camp. If your theory is right, and Nusairi is opposed to Bashir’s regime, we’re looking at the exact opposite scenario. If he knew who did it, he would have already made it public.”
Harper straightened in his seat. “Maybe you’re right, Ryan,” he said. “But I haven’t told you it’s going to be easy. Nusairi is our starting point, and we have no choice but to see where he takes us. Right now he’s all we have.”
“He’s all you have,” Kealey corrected. His eyes locked with Harper’s. “I’m sorry. But I want no part of this.”
He started to slide out of the booth, and Harper knew it was time to bring out his hole card. Okay, Allison, here we go into the proverbial breach. For the sake of everyone involved, I hope it’s worth bulldozing through all those lines of ethicality you talked about.
“How do you put relative value on good people’s lives, Ryan?” he said. “I’m just wondering.”
Kealey paused, staring at him. “What are you talking about?”
Harper put his hands out in front of him, palms up in the air, as if they were two sides of a scale. “Here’s Lily Durant,” he said, motioning with his right hand. “And here’s Naomi Kharmai.” He moved his left hand. “I’m just trying to understand the way you measure one against the other…and then decide the president’s niece had less intrinsic worth. Or was what you did for Naomi more about purging your own conscience?”
Kealey had frozen across the table, his eyes still boring into Harper. They were suddenly hard as stone. “You miserable son of a bitch.”
Harper remained very erect. He turned his hands over, set them down flat on the tabletop. “We’ve been working with the Feebs to find Javier Machado and other members of his network. It would help us get to the bottom of some lingering questions about Brynn Fitzgerald’s abduction. And Naomi’s death. But they’re gone, poof, like ghosts after the midnight bells have rung. No one knows what happened to them…which you might agree is probably for the best overall.”
“Is this a threat, John? Because you don’t scare me.”
“In all the years we’ve known each other, I’ve never for a second believed anything scares you, Ryan.” He didn’t blink. “Except maybe failing at what it is you do best.”
“What kind of ambiguous horseshit is that?”
Harper shrugged. “I was actually trying to be tactful-serves me right for overrating my people skills,” he said. “But to answer your first question…I consider you a friend, and there’s no threat, implicit or explicit, in anything I’ve said. But I am making an appeal.”
“To what? Some kind of guilt complex you’ve decided I’m carrying in my brain?”
Yes, Harper thought.
“No,” he said. “Your sense of justice.”
Kealey’s lips peeled back in a humorless grin. It was almost a rictus. “Now there’s a platform for your high and righteous sermon. Justice. For Lily Durant, I assume. But how does she figure into this? I mean really figure in. Because as far as I can tell, it’s got nothing to do with finding the people who killed her and everything to do with settling some kind of interagency feud.”
“You’re dead wrong,” Harper said with an adamant shake of his head. “In fact, we-that is, the director and I-agree that finding the man who pulled the trigger in West Darfur might be the only thing that can bring this all to a halt. Everything Stralen has done so far has been because of what happened to Durant.”
“Except it doesn’t seem Stralen has done anything without the president’s approval.”
“Come on, Ryan. You’re acting like you haven’t heard a word out of my mouth. If Lily Durant hadn’t been the president’s niece, or if they hadn’t been as close as they were, maybe Stralen wouldn’t have been able to talk him into it…whatever the hell ‘it’ may be. But she was his niece, and they were close, and he’s been making political decisions based on misplaced emotion.”
Kealey shook his head. “I’ve got news for you, John. Lily Durant can’t be brought back to life. No matter what the hell we do.”
We. Harper filled his lungs with air, exhaled slowly through his mouth. There you had it-the word he’d wanted to hear. Allison had more than earned her chit.
“No,” he said. “She can’t. But if you can find the man who killed her, we can take the emotional element out of it. Perhaps then he’ll be more likely to listen to reason.”