“Where the oil pipeline from the fields down south follows the bend of the river to the Suakim oil terminal outside Port Sudan,” Mackenzie said. “It runs for almost a thousand miles and delivers three or four hundred thousand barrels of crude a day.”
“And the rest of the attack force?” Abby asked.
“It goes north.”
“To the Suakim terminal-and the nearby refineries,” Abby said.
Tariq’s head went up and down.
“All right,” Kealey said. He looked at Tariq. “I assume you have men keeping watch on Nusairi?”
“Yes, of course,” Tariq said. “He remains for now in Sikka Hadiid…and I do not believe he will try to leave until after nightfall.”
Kealey grunted, massaging his chin some more. “I think you’d better lead us to your camp so we can talk about making sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.
“Brynn, hello. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to return your call earlier,” said Israeli prime minister Avram Kessler over his secure line. He was staring out the window of his study at Bet Agion, his official residence in Rehavia, Jerusalem, watching night settle over the ancient city. “I’m afraid it’s been one of those days…”
“It’s like old times at Northwestern, isn’t it?” Brynn Fitzgerald said from her White House office. “Some things never change, Avi. You and I were always trying to make arrangements and going back and forth with our voice messages until it was too late. And then, of course, Lee would try to join in and further complicate things.”
Kessler had heard her tone suddenly grow subdued. Kessler, whose parents were American Jews, had done his undergraduate studies at Northwestern University along with Fitzgerald and their mutual friend Lee Patterson, the U.S. ambassador who had been killed riding alongside Fitzgerald when her motorcade was attacked in Pakistan the year before.
“I suppose the only difference is our game of phone tag’s just gone international,” he said. “What’s going on, Brynn? Your message sounded urgent, and I had a strange premonition it meant your esteemed commander in chief had decided on taking overt military action against Omar al-Bashir.”
Silence.
Kessler’s face drew taut. “Brynn…I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Let’s say your psychic receptors were well tuned but the signals hit interference somewhere over the Atlantic,” she said. “Avi, we need your help.”
“If you mean insofar as providing a staging area for an attack, I’ll need to bring the Defense Ministry into this conversation-”
“I don’t, but he’ll need to be brought in, anyway,” Fitzgerald said. “And probably several other members of your cabinet. Internal Affairs, Internal Security…but these talks will have to be brief.”
Kessler’s thoughts suddenly did a double take. It was something she’d said a moment ago. He had had a long day meeting with heads of the Knesset, and he was feeling laggy. “What kind of ‘interference’?”
“I was thinking back to February oh-nine, when your planes hit that arms convoy in Sudan.”
“Reportedly,” Kessler said.
“Right, I stand corrected. When a squadron of F-sixteens reportedly hit seventeen trucks full of illegal Libyan arms in the Hala’ib Triangle. This occurred as they were reportedly being driven toward the Egyptian border by smugglers from Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, who intended to slip them through tunnels in Gaza to Hamas.”
“I do recall the stories in the press,” Kessler said.
“They followed reports that you’d knocked out a small convoy the month before with Hermes four-fifty drones out of Palmachim Air Base, though a little chirping birdie told me you’d moved them to Navatim. My recollection of the February story is that you’d made several passes and used the drones to assess the success of each one-”
“Brynn?”
“Yes?”
“Did that birdie happen to be wearing a yarmulke?”
A sober laugh. “Avi, you’re moments from receiving a classified intelligence packet via e-mail. It will tell you about a strike force equipped with two convoys of tanks and support helicopters that is preparing to invade or possibly destroy the northern oil pipeline and refineries. We do not have real-time intel about their current position, but we know they are close to their staging ground and that the siege is imminent.”
Kessler gripped the phone more tightly in his hand. “Who’s behind this?”
“An alliance of rebels led by Simon Nusairi,” Fitzgerald said. “I suspect your Mossad has exhaustive dossiers on him, but we’ll share all our own information.”
“It doesn’t sound like he has your backing.”
“He absolutely does not,” Fitzgerald said. “This attack must be stopped. But given the immediacy of the situation, the United States does not have sufficient resources in place, or time to move those resources to do so. And we are asking a favor of your nation that, if granted, will be something I promise you will not regret.”
Kessler inhaled. “You want us to launch a mission on behalf of Omar al-Bashir?”
“It isn’t that simple. We are cooperating with Bashir to defuse a situation with dangerous global ramifications. Should you opt to assist us, he will lift the no-fly zone over certain sections of his country to allow your aircraft total operational latitude.” She paused for a good ten seconds. “I will be up front with you, Avi. There may be diplomatic compromises forthcoming between my government and the Sudanese concerning Bashir’s status. But you have my assurance we will in no way remain passive if his regime commits further acts of blatant ethnic violence inside its borders…or attempts any aggression beyond them.”
Kessler thought he’d taken another breath, but wasn’t sure, and consciously told himself to do it. Then he tapped his computer out of its idle mode, opened his e-mail program, and noted the new message in the queue.
“I see your packet’s arrived,” he said.
“Read it and get back to me,” Fitzgerald said. “Don’t worry about another round of phone tag, either… I’ll be standing by for your call.”
It was shortly before sunset when they took the bridge over the Gash to Sikka Hadiid, having left the east side of town and gone around and past the souq in a motley procession of vehicles. Kealey, Mackenzie, and Abby kept their Cherokee behind Tariq, who was in a battered Outback with several of his fighters. The rest of their group-its head count had grown to two dozen men as they filtered into the mountain camp throughout the day-rode in a dusty Jeep Wrangler, a Volkswagen hatchback, a Hyundai wagon, and an aging Ford sedan.
On the west bank of the river the Hyundai split off from the line and pulled under the trees outside a cultivated patch of farmland. Behind the wheel of the Cherokee, Mackenzie glanced briefly in the rearview mirror.
“Wish we had more men to cover that area,” he said.
Kealey looked at him. Back in the mountains, Mackenzie had walked from camp with him and made good on his promise to expand on his familiarity with Kassala and the Sikka Hadiid. For forty years, he’d explained, fugitives from persecution during the endless civil wars in Eritrea and Ethiopia had crossed the border plateau into Sudan, many entering through treacherous passes in the Taka range. On his assumption of power, Omar al-Bashir had attempted to crack down on the flow of refugees, since many had ancestral ties to antigovernment factions within Kassala’s Beja and Rashaida clans.
“Bashir’s problem was that he had his hands full with the secessionists in the south and couldn’t commit enough forces to keep a tight fist on this area,” Mackenzie had said. “What you should know is that Mirghani hasn’t just gotten more tolerance than other opponents because he’s from the north and not an avowed separatist. It’s racial… He’s Arabic, and the divisions in this country are really between Arabic and black Muslims.”
“Like the refugees that came through the mountains,” Kealey had said.
Mackenzie had nodded. “It wasn’t so far back historically that the Arabs were making slave raids on the south. And there hasn’t been much progress in the way of attitude among the people who rule this country,” he said. “What you need to know is that the majority of refugees are black, and some are aligned with the opposition in Darfur. Over the past decade we-the Agency-did some things to assist their entering the country. That included helping them dig a tunnel between the west side of the river and some of those huts in Sikka Hadiid. They’d take temporary shelter there and get out of the city. For them it was a lifesaver while their own countrymen were burning down their villages. For us it was building another segment of the population that was hostile to Bashir…completely win-win.”