Commander John spoke in the tribal language, and Hera had no idea what he was saying. But when he started toward the back, she knew she had to intercept him. So she walked around the side and yelled at him, introducing herself in English and then slightly rusty Arabic as Professor Hera Scokas.
Commander John considered himself a connoisseur of women. Unlike his brother, he had three wives and more mistresses than even he could keep track of. Hera looked to him like a woman worth giving up all the others for.
Hera recognized the way his pupils dilated.
Commander John told her in slangy Arabic that he was happy to make her acquaintance and she should see more of him. Sensing she didn’t understand his words, he took her hand in both of his and kissed it.
Hera gently pushed him back and began speaking loudly about the work she was doing. Commander John nodded politely, even though her accent made her words hard to decipher.
He truly had not seen such a beautiful woman in all his life. Ordinarily he didn’t care for white women; most were too pale and frail in his eyes. But this one had sparkle. She would make an excellent wife.
Commander John pressed in closer. Hera edged back slightly, keeping her voice loud and willing Nuri to appear.
Nuri was almost directly above her, just a few feet from the edge of the roof. But as he pushed his foot over to get down, two soldiers came into the alley, leaning against the building to share a cigarette.
He considered crawling to the other side of the roof but stopped when the Voice, translating what it could hear of the soldiers’ conversation, told him that they were complaining about rumors they’d heard that Uncle Dpap was trying to forge an alliance with Red Henri and another rebel leader, Colonel Zsar. The alliance would never work, one of the men said, because everyone knew Red Henri was crazy and Zsar was in league with foreigners.
Nuri took the reference to the foreigners to mean the Iranians.
The man kept talking, complaining about their lack of action and their dwindling supply of ammunition. Many of the ammo boxes the soldiers carried on their neck ropes were empty, and there were no reserves at the main storeroom.
This was fresh intelligence, and Nuri was happy to sop it up. But the conversation soon changed to concerns shared by fighting men the world over: they wondered when the next chance would be for sex.
Nuri assumed there would be plenty of opportunities in a village, but he was wrong — most of the women were married, and the daughters were watched carefully by men with guns. As limited as their bullets might be, there were always enough to protect the family honor.
Finally the men were called out to the road by a friend. Nuri slipped to the back of the building, made sure no one was nearby, then dropped down and went around to the window.
Which had slid back closed and locked while he’d been on the roof.
Hera had dealt with commander John types before, most often by putting her knee where it would do a world of good. But there were too many soldiers nearby for that approach, so she smiled and moved to the side as he continued to serenade her with words about how lovely she was.
His hand on her shoulder was too much, however. She pushed it off, smiled sarcastically at him, and started walking toward the front of the store.
Two of his men were standing in the aisle near the doorway. Hera lifted her head, raising her frame to its entire five feet two inches.
“Get out of my way,” she said.
Her words were in English, but her tone was universal. The men glanced over her head at their boss, who smiled and signaled that they should close ranks and not let her out. But the men weren’t quick enough — Hera pushed through like a halfback zipping into the gap between the nose guard and tackle.
One of the men swung around, reaching for her shoulder.
She began to duck and spin — the prelude to a rather nasty Krav Maga move that would have cost the young man his kneecap. Fortunately for the rebel, Nuri appeared in the front doorway, a big smile on his face.
“See anything you like?” he asked loudly.
“Time to go,” said Hera.
Nuri was ready to agree when he saw Commander John. He’d never met the rebel officer, but the man’s large frame made him easy to recognize. He stepped forward and held out his hand.
“Very pleased to meet you,” Nuri said, the Arabic rolling fast and thick off his tongue. “Very pleased. Very, very pleased. I am Dr. Abaajmed. We are digging dinosaurs. Ancient history in your backyard.”
Commander John shook his hand limply. He had no idea what dinosaurs were. To him, a doctor was someone who gave you pills or a shot when you were sick, and he wasn’t feeling ill right now.
“We came into town for some supplies,” continued Nuri. “We will be here for several weeks, maybe months. We will make you famous.”
“Nice.”
“That’s a nice old church across the way,” said Nuri. “Is the minister around?”
“What minister?” asked Commander John.
“That’s not a church?”
“It is an office.”
“I see. Who works there?”
The questions were starting to annoy Commander John. He shrugged.
“Does Uncle Dpap work there?” asked Nuri.
“Yes,” said Commander John, suspicious that a foreigner, even one who could speak Arabic like an Egyptian, would know of Uncle Dpap.
“We have been told that Commander Dpap is a very important person here,” said Nuri. “We would be honored to pay our respects.”
Commander John glanced over at Hera, and decided that he could use the doctor to get a chance to spend time with the woman, who surely would fall under his charms if he had a little more time.
“Uncle Dpap is my brother,” he said. “I will take you to meet him.”
“Nothing would please me more,” said Nuri.
15
“Ten minutes until your meeting with the admiral, Ms. Stockard.”
“Thank you, Ms. Bennett.”
Breanna Stockard tapped the interphone button and went back to reviewing the Excel file on her computer. The rows of numbers — some bold, some highlighted, some in different colors — purported to show the cost effectiveness of a new shipboard cannon the Navy was angling for. But the numbers couldn’t demonstrate the real need for the weapon or, even more important, whether it would truly function as designed — and how long it would take to become operational. Those were the real questions when it came to new technology. The answers were almost always guesses — sometimes very good ones, but still guesses. Breanna’s office wasn’t developing the gun itself — a private contractor had been working on it for several years — but she had to give a report that would either help the admiral’s quest to win more funding or help kill the project. Her staff was divided, as were many of the people in the Navy.
As important as the issue was, Breanna couldn’t seem to focus on it, even with the admiral on his way over. She kept thinking about Danny and Whiplash in Africa.
Danny checked in twice a day, either by secure satellite phone or text message. She could have gone over to Room 4 at Langley, plug into the MY-PID network, and find out what was going on, but she resisted. It wasn’t her job to watch over every little decision Danny made, or to ride on the team’s shoulder as it went in battle. That was the whole point of MY-PID — it was a tool to help the people in the field, not to shepherd them.
She didn’t want to tell them how to do their job. But she was worried about them, even though she knew she shouldn’t be. She found it difficult to remove her emotions from the op, separate herself from the people.