Except tonight. The lights were still on in the station as Danny’s vehicles approached.
“Think he’s gonna be a problem?” Boston asked.
“I don’t know.” Danny considered stopping and getting gas, but that might only add to whatever suspicions the man might have. “Let’s just play it,” he told Boston.
They planned the meeting for a fallow field off the highway just outside of town. The area was clear of any walls or other cover. Even though they had been under constant surveillance since the early afternoon, Danny still had Boston circle around it slowly while he looked around the landscape with a set of thermal night glasses.
“We’re clear,” he said finally. “Let’s stop and launch the Catbirds.”
The Catbirds were UAVs a little bigger than the Owl. Their bodies were packed with plastic explosive, and they could be dive-bombed into targets by command. Danny launched six, enough to take out a well-positioned company of soldiers.
“Take it back by the road. Keep it running,” he told Boston. He turned on the truck’s dome light and switched the Voice into the radio circuit. “We leave the two trucks running, by the road, just the way we drew it out. Flash, you’re with me. McGowan, you’re backing up Boston.”
“Right, boss,” answered McGowan.
Danny got out of the truck and walked across the field to a spot about twenty feet off the road. He was wearing two sets of body armor—a very light vest under his shirt, similar to what Nuri had been wearing in Italy when he was shot, and the thicker, ceramic-insert model that the rebels expected. The combination meant that anything smaller than a howitzer shell would only give him a bruise, but it was heavy and awkward, and he spent quite a lot of time shifting it to get it to feel more comfortable.
Finally he gave up. He reached into his pants pocket and took out the vial with the biomarker, squirting it on his gloved left hand. The marker was mixed in a petroleum jelly base; in order for it to work, it had to touch skin.
Ready, he stood and waited. MY-PID was tracking the rebels, and the Voice declared that their caravan was two minutes away.
“Kill the headlights in the trucks,” said Danny. “Be ready.”
Behind him, Flash shifted his hands nervously on his submachine gun. In this situation, he would have preferred his SCAR-H/MK-17 or an old M-249. The latter’s size alone intimidated people.
“Truck coming,” said Danny.
“All right,” said McGowan. “Showtime.”
NURI WATCHED THE CARAVAN MOVING IN. EVERYTHING WAS in place, he thought. Danny was on his own.
“Hera, you’re up,” Nuri said, rising. “All right, Clar, let’s get going. We only have a few hours to get everything done.”
“Uh-huh,” said Sugar, who’d been sitting in a chair across the room for the past half hour.
“What’s wrong?” Nuri asked as she got up slowly.
“Aw, nothin’.”
But her pain was obvious. She took a few short steps, breathing heavily as she went.
“Hold on, hold on. What’s wrong?” Nuri asked again.
“I just—my stomach is beat up. Something I ate I guess. It’s just gas—I’ll get better.”
“Hell no. You’re staying here.”
“Who’s got your back?”
Hera Scokas, sitting at the console, said nothing. She and Nuri had avoided each other since the other day.
“I’ll go by myself,” he said.
“Oh, you can’t do that.”
“I’ll go,” said Hera, rising. “Sugar can stay on the watch.”
“I can make it,” said Sugar. She started to protest, then realized she had to get to the latrine. She pushed herself forward, running to the bathroom pit thirty yards from the building. She barely made it in time before her intestines exploded—figuratively, though it felt as if it were literal.
Nuri, meanwhile, cursed his crappy luck. Hera was the last person he wanted with him. Her personality had already worn thin. She always had a “better” way of doing things.
He could go to the village alone. But inflating and launching the blimp was a two-person job, and there were a large number of sensors to be planted as well.
Sugar returned from the latrine. “I can make it,” she told him.
“Why don’t you stay here,” he told her. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”
“It was just something I ate. I’ll be fine.”
“No.”
“You’re going yourself?” said Hera.
Nuri looked at them both. He did need a backup. Would Sugar be OK by herself, though?
“You have a fever?” he asked Sugar.
She shook her head.
They had defenses, the blimps, the sensors. And she could always hide.
Not that anyone was likely to bother them tonight.
“You feel all right?” Nuri asked Sugar.
“I’m great. I’m ready.”
“No, you stay here on watch. All right, Hera. You come.”
“Right.”
She jumped up and grabbed her gear.
Nuri went down and waited for her on the motorcycle. She came down and started to get on the Whiplash bike.
“We’re not taking that one,” he said. “Get on with me.”
“Why aren’t we taking it?”
“Because we’re going to have to hide it near the village, and I don’t want to take the chance of losing it if someone stumbles across it. I don’t want the technology compromised.”
“What good is it if we don’t use it?”
“When you run the outfit, you can make the call. Right now, I say we’re using this one.” Nuri started it up. “Hop on.”
Hera cinched her rucksack tighter as she walked over to the bike. It had no sissy bar, but the seat was relatively small, and she’d have no choice but to snuggle close to Nuri and hold him tight around the chest. She tried holding her breath but it didn’t help.
“Try not to fall off,” said Nuri, popping it into gear.
DANNY FELT HIS HEART STARTING TO POUND AS THE FIRST set of headlights swung into view. He suddenly felt unsure of himself.
In the old days, he’d sometimes felt apprehensive just before a mission began—butterflies, some people called it, something akin to the performance anxiety actors sometimes felt before going on stage. But the feeling always disappeared when things got going.
It didn’t tonight. Danny’s heart continued to pound as the trucks drove up to the road. He kept his mouth shut, afraid that a stutter, a break, or something similar would give away his nervousness.
Weapons dealers weren’t nervous. Whatever else they were, they didn’t suffer from performance anxiety. They were calm and cool and completely in control.
So was he.
Except he wasn’t.
The vehicles carrying Uncle Dpap and Colonel Zsar drove into the space in front of Danny’s trucks. The other vehicles fanned out behind them, the two groups intermixed.
Colonel Zsar, anxious to show that he was the real leader here, got out of his vehicle first. He practically leapt forward, walking so quickly that his bodyguards had to run to catch up.
“Who are you?” he asked Danny in Arabic.
“My name is not important,” said Danny. He had practiced the line in Arabic and could say it in his sleep, but it didn’t sound smooth. He cleared his throat, trying to hide his sudden attack of nerves. “Call me Kirk. You’re Colonel Zsar, I believe.”
Tarid, who’d been riding with Zsar, got out of the truck slowly. He took his time joining the others, studying the arms dealer as he walked. Kirk was flashy—too flashy, Tarid thought, the sort of reckless man who makes a fortune in six months and loses his life in the seventh. His guards were well-equipped, but that wasn’t much of a trick. More impressive was the fact that he had a white man as his lieutenant—they didn’t come cheap here.
Uncle Dpap and Tilia got out of the Jeep together. Their soldiers, meanwhile, had fanned out from the trucks, forming a semicircle behind the rebels.
“What happened to Red Henri?” asked Danny. Once more, even though he’d practiced the phrase incessantly, it sounded stiff and misaccented in his ears.