“I appreciate that. I’m just worried about you getting in trouble. Like the other night.”
“That worked out fine, didn’t it? That’s the way it goes sometimes. You gotta take risks. That’s the game.”
Nuri got up to refill his coffee cup from the pot on the camp stove at the side. The coffee was bitter and burnt.
“Someone should go in with you to help cover your back,” said Danny.
Nuri didn’t think that was necessary, but it wasn’t worth arguing about. “I’ll take Hera,” he said. He didn’t know her well at all, but she was fellow CIA, could speak Arabic, and most important, was good-looking. “We’ll go looking for supplies. It should only take us a few hours.”
“Fine,” said Danny.
“Don’t forget we’re supposed to be setting up a dig here,” said Nuri. “That has to be laid out as soon as possible.”
“I didn’t forget.” Danny didn’t like the edge in Nuri’s voice, but he let it pass.
Nuri decided it was wiser to take the bus into the village, since it would be more in keeping with the cover story of scientists bumbling their way through unfamiliar territory. This was just fine with Abul, who was chafing at the way Danny and the others were treating him. Even though Nuri had vouched for him, Danny insisted on keeping Abul away from the high-tech gear. With the monitoring station set up in the house, it meant he couldn’t go inside to eat.
Hera dressed in a pair of very baggy pants and a pair of man-style shirts, along with hiking boots and a black cap whose peak hid much of her face. Her intent was to appear drab and boring, but Nuri thought she looked like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
The only problem with her outfit was her unusual accessory — a SCAR rifle. Nuri had his hideaway strapped to his calf, hidden by his long pants. It was the only weapon he planned on bringing.
Hera had other plans.
“You can’t bring the rifle,” he told her as she slung the SCAR over her shoulder.
“Why not?”
“Because they may inspect the bus. How many paleontologists go around with military rifles?”
“At least one,” said Hera. “Me.”
“You can bring an AK.”
“That’s an old piece of garbage.”
“It works.”
“Excuse me,” said Abul, “but if you want my opinion—”
“We don’t,” snapped Hera.
“I do,” said Nuri.
“It’s more dangerous to be armed,” said the bus driver. “The movement has been pretty benign toward westerners.”
“Benign?” said Hera. “Like Red Henri?”
“I’ve carried the rifle with me on the bike the whole week,” said Nuri.
“I would wager that it has attracted much attention. When people see it, they immediately are on their guard.”
“We can’t go without protection,” said Hera. “That’d be nuts.”
“You can hide the guns inside the seats,” suggested Flash, who was nearby, listening to the conversation. “Cut holes in them.”
“You cannot cut into my seats,” protested Abul.
Nuri thought this was just a bargaining position, but the bus driver/owner turned out to be almost fanatically dedicated to preserving the interior of his bus; the most he would allow were slits in the underside big enough to hide ammunition. Looking over the interior, Nuri realized he could hide two SCAR rifles in the space beneath the dashboard, as long as the guts of the blower were removed. This meant doing without the air-conditioning, which hadn’t worked all that well to begin with.
“This is a driving inferno,” complained Hera as they drove south. “A slow one, too.”
Nuri shrugged. He was beginning to regret choosing her to come along.
“The breeze is very pleasant,” said Abul. “Imagine if we were in the desert instead of the hills.”
“There’s plenty of desert around.”
“No, no, no. This isn’t desert. This is the very nice part of the Sudan.”
“It’s lovely.”
“There is much water the further south we go. Swamps.”
“Just like New Jersey.”
She meant it as an insult, but since Abul had never been to New Jersey — and in fact didn’t know where it was — he took it as a compliment.
The rebel soldiers who guarded the village approach during the day flagged down the bus with the professional boredom of conductors taking tickets on a morning commuter train. One came aboard, glanced at Nuri and Hera, then told Abul that the tax was ten dollars American to pass.
“Ten dollars?” said Nuri in Arabic. “Why so much?”
The soldier glanced at him, reassessing his appearance. He was dressed like a European. More than likely he was one, but if he wasn’t, he should be taxed like one for trying to ape them.
And the woman was also foreign.
“Ten,” the soldier told Abul.
“Ten dollars is five times what most vehicles pay,” insisted Nuri.
At fifteen years old, the soldier had been with the rebels for nearly eight years. This made him a veteran and, by seniority, an NCO. He did not like to be questioned.
Abul, starting to get nervous, asked diplomatically if the tax had recently been raised.
“That is always what it is,” said the soldier.
“It was less a week ago,” said Nuri. “You think we are rich, so you can charge what you want.”
“You are to pay or turn around,” the soldier told Abul.
“Tell him if we pay ten dollars, we expect that to cover our return trip,” Nuri told Abul in English.
Doubtful that the deal would be accepted, Abul nonetheless made the offer. The soldier surprised him, saying that was acceptable.
“I doubt they’ll keep the deal,” said Abul.
“They’ll keep it,” said Nuri.
He pulled the bill from his pocket, held it up, then tore it in half.
“You will get the other half when we come back,” he said, passing the bill to Abul.
Abul took it and held it out toward the soldier the way a man might hold a steak out to a tiger. The soldier’s eyes flashed with anger, but then he smiled.
“You are very clever,” he told Nuri. “Very clever.”
“You’re pretty clever yourself, Captain.”
“Only a sergeant,” said the young man. He smiled at him — a broad smile that revealed he was missing two teeth — then left the bus.
“Why did you dicker with them?” Hera asked Nuri as Abul pushed the bus forward. “You were only pissing him off.”
“No, I was telling them not to screw with me.”
“They had the guns, we didn’t. If you made him too mad, they’d shoot us.”
“You don’t understand the psychology,” Nuri told her. “Ten dollars is a huge amount of money. When I came through on my motorcycle, they charged me the equivalent of a quarter, and in the local currency. If we gave in right away, then they would think we had a lot of money. And if we have a lot of money, then we should give them more. They feel if they are the stronger ones, they deserve it.”
“All you did was piss them off,” said Hera. “If you wanted to show them you were strong, you wouldn’t have paid anything.”
“That wouldn’t have been fair — and might have gotten us all killed.”
Hera rolled her eyes.
Roughly five thousand people lived in the village, their numbers swelling it in size to a small city. Most were crammed into ramshackle buildings made from scraps and gathered into distinct hamlets on either side of the highway, which ran through the center of town. About seventy percent were families of guerrillas, and most were related to each other. The faction was a small player in Sudan’s revolt, unable to project power much beyond the immediate area, though they had launched occasional forays against the army farther north. The villagers survived on subsistence farming, though their yields had faltered over the past few years, as the nutrients in the soil were not replaced. The situation was similar to that in western Sudan, where steady soil erosion encouraged desertification, which then made it impossible for the people to survive.