Tura Dpap, the village and rebel leader, was an elder in the tribe whose people made up the bulk of the population. He was well-liked, generally called “Uncle” by his followers — many of whom were, at different removes, his actual nieces and nephews. Unusual for the rebel movements, he was an older man, well into his fifties. He had also never married, equally unusual.
The village centered around a church building that had been founded and then abandoned by missionaries nearly a hundred years before. Uncle Dpap had taken over the building and repaired it, painting it bright yellow, a color that had come to be associated with his movement. There was no steeple, but the roof and the cross-shaped facade made its history clear.
The two buildings next to it were used by Dpap and his closest advisors as homes, sheltering not only them and their families, but bodyguards and younger soldiers with no families and nowhere else to stay. Directly across the street were three small stores and a restaurant. The buildings dated from roughly the same time as the church, and had suffered through several cycles of disregard and repair, but were the sturdiest structures around.
Rebel soldiers, most of them in their early teens, milled around the center of town. Every one of them had a rifle; many wore ropes around their neck with ammo magazines taped to them.
Though she’d seen boy soldiers and worse conditions in Somalia, Hera was appalled by how young the kids were. Some would have been in only third or fourth grade in the States.
“We’re taking our pistols with us,” she said, slipping her hand under the seat in front of her.
“We don’t need them,” insisted Nuri. But he didn’t stop her from taking one.
The video bugs Nuri was planting were bigger than the ones he normally used. About the size of a quarter in diameter and three quarters thick, the size was a function of the batteries they contained, which would allow them to transmit for as long as six days. They would transmit to a small booster unit a half mile away; the booster would send the signals to the Voice’s satellite system.
As he stepped from the bus, Nuri put a piece of gum in his mouth. The gum was the adhesive that held the bug in place. The size of the bugs made them relatively easy to spot, and thus harder to place than the ones he normally worked with. He walked over to the stores, then stopped, as if he couldn’t decide which one to go into first. He was actually looking over the facade to see if there was a place to hide the bugs.
He couldn’t find a good spot offhand, and with the soldiers watching, decided to move inside the middle building. Hera followed.
A year before, she had been assigned to visit a resistance movement in northern Tibet, living in the mountains for several months as she gauged the seriousness and strength of the movements that were opposed to the central Chinese government. She had not been impressed. The so-called rebels lacked focus and organization. The group here, with the ability to run its own stores, seemed light-years ahead.
Which wasn’t saying much.
There were only men in the store. All fixed their eyes on her as she came in, following her as she walked behind Nuri and glanced at the mostly empty shelves. A radio tuned to the government music station played a mix of European techno and African music, the beats changing violently from song to song. The floor vibrated lightly to the music.
Nuri went to the shopkeeper, who worked behind a counter with a small cash box as his register.
“Nuri Abaajmed,” he said enthusiastically in Arabic, reaching out his hand. “I am a professor of paleontology at the University of Wisconsin, America.”
The word “America” got everyone’s attention. The man’s smile showed he had about half his teeth. Nuri told him about the scientific expedition “up the road.” The shopkeeper told him he could speak English, which he promptly demonstrated.
“Honor to me a visitor here,” he said, spreading his arms in a gesture of friendship.
“We need a few supplies,” said Nuri in English. The man clearly didn’t understand, and he switched back to Arabic. “We could use some blankets, water, and perhaps fruit. Do you have fruit?”
“Usually, we have much fruit, but just now we are out of it. The customers liked it very much,” said the shopkeeper.
Fruit was in fact a rarity. The store had had a few dates some months back, but it had taken weeks to sell them, mostly because he priced them so high the soldiers couldn’t afford them.
“But here — beans we have.” The man took Nuri around to an aisle and showed him several cans, which had apparently come to Africa as part of a church donation in the distant past. The dust on them could have filled a good-sized litter box. Nuri took one, then a second.
Glancing around the shop, he thought the best place to slip a bug in would be near the window, but two soldiers were using the low ledge as a seat.
Then he had a better idea — the roof.
“Do you have a restroom?” he asked, handing the African his cans.
The shopkeeper showed him through the crowded back storeroom to a cordoned-off corner, where a round hole had been cut in the floorboards for a latrine pit.
“I’d need some paper,” said Nuri, glancing around.
The man pointed to some folded yellow sheets, then gave him another toothless smile.
“I’ll be done as soon as I can,” said Nuri when the man made no sign of moving away. “If you could look after my friend. She’s new to the country.”
The grin widened at the suggestion. “Yes, yes,” said the man, and he disappeared into the front.
Nuri had hoped for a back door, but saw none. There was a window, though, next to the hole in the floor. He pushed at the sash but it wouldn’t budge.
The stench from the hole was overwhelming. He held his breath and tried pushing up again. The window still wouldn’t move.
He was about to give up and go back inside when he realized the bottom frame was held in place by a painted bolt through the side. The bolt was on a spring that held it closed, but was easily pulled from the hole. He pushed the window upward, but could get it only about halfway open.
Squeezing his shoulders, he pushed his upper body through the space and glanced up and down the narrow alley. When he saw no one watching, he pulled himself all the way out, then stepped up on the sill and climbed onto the roof by gripping the overhang.
It pitched on a very gentle slope up toward the front of the building, saltbox style. The radio was playing loud enough for him to hear, but Nuri knew he couldn’t count on it to mask too much noise. He kept his head down and slipped out two bugs, mounting them to cover the church building. Then he began moving backward, holding his breath.
He was only a few feet from the edge of the roof when the music below abruptly stopped.
Nuri froze. Someone had come into the building and was talking very loudly — yelling about something, though the words were difficult to decipher.
The man who had come into the store was Uncle Dpap’s brother, Commander John, the leader’s volatile aide-de-camp. He had seen the bus out front and wanted to know who was in town. He wasn’t yelling out of anger or alarm — Commander John always spoke in a very loud voice. He was a large man, so large in fact that he couldn’t fit comfortably between the aisles of the store.