“I do not think you are a coward,” he said.
“Well, uh, thanks.”
“You should not be friends with cowards. When a man is a friend with a coward, he becomes a coward. It is the same as eating his heart—you become a coward. Do you want that?”
“No,” said Nuri.
“When your scientists come back, you will come see me. We will have much to discuss. The spirits wish to be asked permission. Some are against you. One suggested you be eaten.”
“I’m probably not that tasty.”
Nuri started to laugh. But Red Henri didn’t even smile as he turned away.
DANNY, BOSTON, AND ABUL CAME DOWN FROM THEIR HIDING place about a half hour later, after the rebel troop had cleared out. They found Nuri sitting in front of one of the campfire stoves, sipping from a small bottle of scotch.
He hated the stuff generally, but it had a certain medicinal quality and was the only alcohol he’d been able to find during his brief stop in Ethiopia before coming to Sudan.
“There you are,” said Nuri. “You missed the party.”
“We weren’t sure what was going on,” said Danny. “We saw all the trucks and everything. We figured it would be better if we just disappeared for a while.”
“Probably. The spirits might have thought you were brave, and eaten you.”
Danny gave him a puzzled look. Nuri didn’t explain.
“Jasmine hasn’t been around for a while,” said Nuri. “Henri didn’t know Luo was killed. They’re starting to run low on ammo.”
“Is that good or bad?” asked Danny.
“Good. It means he’ll show up eventually.”
“So why did you bring Red Henri here?”
Nuri looked up from the stove. This was the problem when you worked with someone, he thought—they were always second-guessing you.
“He wanted to see the place,” Nuri said. “And he had two hundred reasons why I figured it was a good idea to let him.”
“What did he want?”
“Dinner.”
Danny didn’t realize Nuri meant that literally, and Nuri didn’t say. He just went back to sipping his scotch.
12
Base Camp Alpha
Sudan
NURI WOKE THE NEXT MORNING WITH A KILLER HEADACHE and an aching midsection. He didn’t mind, figuring the alternative would have been much worse.
Around noon he and Boston went with Abul in the bus to a village about sixty miles south to see what food they might be able to buy, and to add video bugs to the Voice’s network. Danny prepared the camp for the arrival of the rest of his men and the bulk of their supplies.
The original plan called for them to come in via truck convoy from Ethiopia, but that would take several days, and the misadventures with Red Henri convinced Danny that the cover story was less important than reinforcements. He called Breanna on the sat phone around noon, which was six in the morning D.C. time. She was already in the office. Within a half hour Reid called back, telling Danny the drop would be made at midnight.
The hills and trees made the camp difficult to parachute into if the wind kicked up, and not wanting to lose anyone to a broken leg right off the bat, Danny went out and scouted for an easier landing zone. He found a field about three miles to the north that even Ray Rubeo could have jumped into without a problem. The distance from the camp was an asset; if anyone happened to see the drop, it wouldn’t necessarily show them where Base Camp Alpha was.
Danny set up automated beacons there and called in to confirm the drop.
“I’m wondering if you could add a couple of dirt bikes to the supply list,” he asked Reid.
“Are you practicing for the motocross?”
“Red Henri decided he liked ours,” said Danny.
“And you gave it to him?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”
“A few crates of ice cream would be nice.”
“Amusing, Colonel.”
MUCH TO DANNY’S SURPRISE, REID MANAGED TO PACK some ice cream into the supplies, arranging for a quart of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry to travel in a special thermal box packed with dry ice when the team and supplies jumped from a specially outfitted 787 that night.
From the outside, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner looked exactly like the several hundred of its brethren in service. Its markings indicated that it was operated by Royal Dubai International Airlines. The name sounded familiar, especially given the near monopolization of air traffic over the past few years by airlines from the oil-rich emirates, but the company was entirely fictional, owned and operated by the CIA.
The interior of the plane had been heavily modified, although the bulk of the cabin was outfitted for passengers. A special bulkhead cut off the main cabin about halfway back. Behind the door was a pressurized cargo compartment where specially sized pallets of equipment could be stored. These were loaded through a special hatchway at the underside of the fuselage. The hatchway could be opened in flight, allowing an automated system to disgorge the pallets at the pilot’s command. Targeted by a GPS system, the pallets were then “flown” to the landing zone either by an onboard steering system or by the copilot, who communicated with them via satellite.
The same hatchway was used by CIA paramilitary officers to make high altitude jumps. Fully deployed, the hatchway sheltered the jumpers from the nasty slipstream encircling the Dreamliner’s body and wings. The ramp and the aircraft had been designed to minimize any radar echoes that might give away the plane’s purpose. If the situation warranted, special parachutes could be used that minimized their signature as well.
The system was not without its limitations. The more gear and people involved in the drop, the harder it was to coordinate and get everyone down in the same place. The crates had to go out first. The jumpers then had only a few seconds to work their way down the ramp and jump. Traveling at 35,000 feet at about 400 knots, with the wind howling around you—it was a lot harder in real life than it sounded during the briefing.
While all four of the new Whiplash team members making the jump were parachute-qualified, only one had used the plane before. That made Hera Scokas the team jumpmaster.
Her role as scold came naturally.
“Yo, get moving,” she barked as the last of the three crates began sliding down the ramp. “Come on, Shugee.”
“My name ain’t ‘Shugee,’ honey,” snapped Clar “Sugar” Keeb, who was going out first. Like Hera, Sugar was a CIA paramilitary officer. A black woman raised in Detroit, she’d served in the Army for eight years before joining the Agency. At five-ten and 200 pounds, she had more than a half foot advantage over Scokas, and would have decked her had she been nearby.
She didn’t mind being called Sugar. Everybody used it. Clar’s nickname had been applied by an aunt because of how sweet she liked to make her Rice Krispies when she was two, and she’d lived with it ever since. Shugee, though, was out of bounds.
Sugar put her gloved hand against her oxygen mask, making sure it was tight. Then she unhooked her safety belt and stepped off the ramp, pushing her body forward to fall in a frog position.
The sky ate her up. Night jumps at 35,000 feet were not Sugar’s idea of fun. The wind seemed to sense that, and crushed the top of her helmet against her head. She slid hard to the left, off-balance. A large arrow appeared in the middle of her visor, pointing to roughly two o’clock.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she mumbled, tilting her body back to get on course.
Ten meters above her, John “Flash” Gordon felt the baloney sandwich he’d eaten just before the flight pushing back up through his esophagus. In the six years he’d been in the Army Special Forces, he’d never had a baloney sandwich. He’d also never eaten before a jump, not since an unfortunate experience during an early qualifying jump, where his stomach had revolted at 7,000 feet.