A burst of fire took the officer down.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” yelled Boston, appearing at Danny’s side. He grabbed his vest and jerked him backward.
“I need Tarid,” said Danny.
“Screw that.”
“I need to tag him,” insisted Danny. But he started running with Boston toward the truck.
About five yards from the trucks he spotted a knot of men hunkered near the road. They were a good thirty yards away, kneeling and crouching. A battered pickup sat between them and most of the battle.
Tarid had to be among them, Danny thought. He wasn’t anywhere else.
“This way!” he yelled to Boston.
Danny’s intuition was correct. Realizing the helicopters meant they were being attacked by an elite force, Tarid had tried to escape as soon as the battle started. He’d run to the truck, but its engine compartment had been shot up by one of Red Henri’s men and it wouldn’t start.
He raised his rifle as the two men approached, then realized it was the arms dealer. His respect—and fear—of Bani Aberhadji was so great that it overcame his suspicions that the man had arranged the ambush. Still, he had little use for him, and debated whether to shoot him as he ran.
Danny saw the gun in his hand. He tucked his head down. He was going to complete his mission, even if it killed him, even if fear overwhelmed him.
“The army is sending reinforcements,” Danny shouted. “You have to retreat.”
Tarid stared at him.
“You’ve been shot,” said Danny. He reached his left hand toward Tarid’s brow, which was covered with blood. He touched it for a second.
Tarid brushed the fingers away angrily. It was someone else’s blood.
“Who the hell are you?” he said. “Who are you?”
“Kirk,” said Danny.
“Go,” said Tarid.
“Come with us. We’ll take you to safety.” Danny reached for him. “Come on.”
“No, you go,” said Tarid, pulling back and raising his weapon.
“I’m just trying to help,” said Danny, starting to back away.
“Go!” yelled Tarid.
One of Colonel Zsar’s men began yelling at Tarid, pointing toward the highway. A rocket-propelled grenade streaked overhead, its whistle piercing the air before it struck the open field a hundred yards away.
“Boss!” yelled Boston.
“All right,” said Danny, turning. “Time to go.”
28
Blemmyes Village, Sudan
LEANING UP AGAINST THE WALL OF THE BARN BUILDING, just out of the view of the video camera he’d discovered, Nuri decided he had two options. One was to put everything back the way he’d found it, and return tomorrow with a better plan. The other was to press ahead. That made the most sense, but he wasn’t sure how to defeat the camera without being detected.
He looked up at it. It was small, with a cable running from it. There was no way to tell if it was even working. The barn was very dark, but even a cheap low light camera would pick up an image. He had to assume that it did work and was being monitored.
“What if we climb up in the rafters?” he said, more to himself than Hera, who was right behind him on the other side of the wall.
“And then what?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. But this place is too well-guarded to ignore.”
Nuri pulled himself up between the posts. Set about sixteen inches apart, they would have been a tighter squeeze for a taller man, but he had little trouble.
The beams running across the ceiling were just as close, but walking across felt much more dangerous—a slip was going to hurt, even if he didn’t fall all the way through.
Hera started up behind him.
“Wait,” he said in a stage whisper. “Put the wall back if you’re coming.”
“Put the wall back?”
“In case the guard comes.”
“How the hell are we going to get back out?”
“Tighten two or three of the screws from the inside. We’ll undo them.”
“That won’t work. The panels attach from the outside.”
“Then you’ll have to stay outside. You have to put the panel back. The guard may come around. I don’t need you here. It’s all right.”
Hera slipped back through the posts and put the panel back in place. Meanwhile, Nuri worked himself about halfway down the room, crawling along the rafters. The factory was divided into a large work area to the right and a much smaller section of rooms to the left. The work area was open. There were machines in the large room, sinks, large drying machines, and a bagger.
There weren’t, however, any more video cameras. Or any other security devices, for that matter. He looked back at the camera he’d gotten by. It was aimed directly at the hallway.
Why watch there and not the larger room? It seemed to be protecting the rooms in the back—yet they were empty.
Nuri took it for granted that Colonel Zsar knew little if anything about security systems, but whoever had installed this one had. So the camera had some reason to be there, as did the window and room alarms.
“Hera, go around the back and make sure there’s nothing in any of the rooms there,” he whispered over the Voice’s radio circuit. “I’m confused.”
“That seems to be a constant state.”
Nuri worked his way over the rooms, which were covered by a Sheetrock ceiling. One had a large fan vent in the middle. Deciding it must be a restroom, he was about to move on when he noticed two different sets of wires running from the fan unit—a power wire and a smaller, stranded wire, the type typically used in an alarm unit.
“Look for a bathroom,” he told Hera. “See if there’s anything—I don’t know. Unusual.”
Hera had to bite her lip not to say something nasty in return.
“I can’t find the bathroom,” she told him after a moment. “It doesn’t have a window.”
Which explained the need for the fan, but not an alarm.
There were other things the wire might have belonged to, such as a thermostat, but Nuri was stuck on the idea of an alarm. He checked the wire, found current, then examined the fan, carefully unscrewing the upper housing. A motion detector was mounted just below the fan unit.
Why would anyone want to know if someone was taking a leak?
He decided to put his own bug into the unit. He took out a fresh stick of gum and began chewing furiously, then put a small piece on the back of the bug. As he hunted for a place to put it, the Voice told him two men were approaching the building.
“Armed, coming from the rebel camp,” added the computer.
“Hera. Someone’s coming.” Nuri flattened himself on the ceiling. “Rebel soldiers. Be careful back there.”
“Where are they?”
“On the road. Just be quiet.”
“Are they going in the building?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. They’ve never had a shift change at this time before.”
But the men were guards, and were coming for a new shift. Colonel Zsar had taken his best men with him to the meeting, replacing the guards at the barn and the village. Had Tarid not been there, the colonel might not have even bothered to post another guard, but the Iranian would have had a fit if he’d found out.
To make the dull duty more palatable—and in hopes of actually keeping them awake—Colonel Zsar divided the normal shift. The two soldiers spotted by the Voice through the blimp’s feed were coming to replace the men on watch.
The men went to the side door of the factory, talking and laughing loudly enough that Nuri could hear them quite clearly, even before they began shouting to wake the guard, who’d fallen fast asleep less than an hour after coming on duty. It took a few shouts before they rousted him; they found that hilarious rather than troubling. When he finally woke and let them in, they claimed they had just left his wife and suggested he look for evidence in nine months.