“ Rihlah muwaffaqah, ” Yusuf said in colloquial Arabic, wishing the pair well as they were waved onto the platform. “The ferry’s booking agent in Aswan is a Mr. Ferran. Your crossing to Sudan will be in his very capable hands. Should you encounter any problems, however, mention my name.”
A short while later the sleek, air-conditioned Abela express had pulled from the station, leaving on schedule for the country’s southernmost border town…an overnight journey of somewhat under 900 kilometers. Yusuf had reserved a two-berth sleeper compartment, and both Kealey and Abby, leaving their cots folded, managed to doze off intermittently in their seats en route to Aswan.
It was half past eleven the next morning when they reached the village center-and just thirty minutes before their boat was supposed to set sail. There was a row of cabs waiting outside the station, and they hurriedly took one to the ferry line’s ticket office, which was tucked away amid a ramshackle outdoor mall consisting of a fruit and vegetable stand, the local tourist center, and a spice market that sold powdered laundry detergent in unmarked baskets alongside its ground, dried edibles.
The office itself was a small, unadorned, somewhat shabby store-front with a counter at the rear. Wearing a traditional Muslim robe and embroidered taqiyah on his head, the man on the stool behind it provided a stark, immediate contrast to his surroundings. He was perfectly shaven and manicured, with gleaming diamond rings on several fingers of each hand. Entering the door, Kealey could at once smell his expensive oriental cologne-its blend of musk and agar-wood, dabbed on judiciously so as not to overwhelm, accenting an overall air of fastidiousness that approached, but did not quite reach, the threshold of excess or ostentation.
“Mr. Ferran?” Kealey said.
The man rose from his stool, nodded. His expression, such as it was, seemed indicative of a mild strain of boredom.
Kealey took Abby’s documents from her hand, moved to the counter, produced his own identification from the carryall on his shoulder, and set them all down in front of Ferran. “We need to get aboard the next ferry to Wadi Halfa,” he said.
Ferran glanced at the wall clock on his side of the counter, shook his head. “The boat is departing in fifteen minutes,” he said. “If you left here this minute, it would be too late.”
“We’ve come all the way from Cairo,” Kealey said, looking at him. “It’s very important that we get across.”
“Impossible.” Ferran’s tone was disinterested. “I can look at your documents and issue tickets, but they will be inspected a second time at the dock. That alone might take an hour…or more if there is a backup.” He paused. “We have a barge leaving tomorrow afternoon. It is meant for vehicles and items of freight. I can find room aboard on occasion, but the cost of passage would be high, and there is no seating for passengers.”
Abby had come up to stand beside Kealey. “Yusuf assured us we could count on you, Mr. Ferran,” she said.
Ferran turned to her. “Yusuf.”
“That’s right,” she said. “I expect you know who he is?”
Ferran’s eyes had narrowed. “Yes,” he said. “Full well.”
“Then don’t play games with us,” Kealey said. “We need to be on that boat when it leaves today. Tell me what it’s going to take.”
Ferran had returned his attention to Kealey. “One thousand dollars,” he said.
Kealey nodded, started opening the flap of his carryall.
“For each of you,” Ferran said.
Kealey snapped a glance at Ferran’s face, kept it there a moment before reaching into the carryall for one of the envelopes he’d gotten from the courier pouch. He counted out two thousand dollars in hundreds, doing it slowly enough for Ferran to watch. Then he held the money over the counter. “Here,” he said. “Let’s get it done.”
Ferran took the money from him, slid open a drawer beneath the countertop, deposited it inside, and pushed the drawer shut. Then he reached into a pocket of his robe for a cell phone and fingered a speed-dial key.
“Gamal,” he said, “inform the passengers aboard the ferry there is to be a slight delay…for minor repairs, yes? In the meantime, I have two additional fares who will be seeing you at the dock shortly…”
In the garden behind Ishmael Mirghani’s home in Khartoum’s upscale Bahri section-his chair near the very spot where he had once watched a late-afternoon breeze scatter cinders of his Harold Traylor identity beyond recovery-Cullen White sat opposite Mirghani in the shade of a guava tree laden with ripe yellow fruit, his satellite phone in hand, the hand lowered to his lap. His face sober, his jaw set, he glanced down at the phone, then up at Mirghani.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” he said. For either of them, he thought, but most of all for him. “You know that.”
Mirghani nodded. He looked, if not quite as nervous as he had during the flight to Darfur less than a week ago, then close to it.
“I would place the call myself if it were possible,” he said, his frank gaze taking White a bit by surprise. Damned if he didn’t seem to mean it; the man deserved credit for his accountability. “Unfortunately, I do not believe it would be the wisest of proposals.”
White could have almost managed a grin. “No, it wouldn’t,” he said. “I appreciate the thought, Ishmael. I’m serious. Like I told you, though, his anger is something I can accept. I don’t know whether you can understand, but it’s his disappointment that will be most difficult. He entrusted me with an operation of enormous magnitude and the upshot…”
He let the sentence trail off. What exactly would the upshot be? He didn’t, couldn’t know, and supposed that uncertainty, translated as possibility, might yet be his saving grace. Yes, if he had it to do over again, he would have accompanied Hassan al-Saduq to Cameroon for his meet with the bloody pirate. Would have accompanied him aboard the yacht, overseen the entire money transfer. And whoever had boarded the boat and captured him would have had much more to handle than Saduq’s cheap, amateurish excuse for a security team. Yes, he thought, a great deal more.
But that was behind him, an error that could not be undone-but whose damage still might be limited. One of the most vital lessons he had learned in his day was that survival often hinged on untethering the past before its weight dragged you down into the muck of failure. The thing was just to stay on track.
He lifted the phone to his ear, thumbed in a number in America. He didn’t have long to wait; none to his surprise, it took only two rings before his party answered. Some version of the news, however, sketchy, would have reached him by now.
“Yes?” he asked over the phone’s encrypted channel.
“Condor, this is-”
“I know who it is. I also know the reason for your call. I’ve been expecting it.”
White could almost picture his baleful glare. “Sir, I don’t want to rehash whatever you already might have heard. It’s clear we have a problem…”
“We have a problem, all right. A fucking monster of a problem. Who were those people in Limbe? Can you tell me that?”
“No, sir. The question’s been with me every waking minute since it happened. They’re saying in the media it was an EU antipiracy team that was conducting a probe into our man’s activities-”
“And you believe it?”
White inhaled, exhaled. He was thinking he could lie here, make it easier. Except he couldn’t, not to the man at the other end of the line. “No. Or only partially. It makes for a good blind.”
“The cover story should be true in its own right. Like that search for the Titanic, the glory hound that dove on her wants to go waltzing through her grand ballroom and show movies on television. But first he’s got to find a submarine the Russians sunk in the Cold War. Office of Naval Intelligence pays his way, but he never tells the frog scientists aboard his research ship his real mission.”
“Yes, sir. Exactly.”
“So you believe somebody here at home was working with the EU task force?”
“I’m inclined to think so, yes. The timing doesn’t seem a coincidence-”
“And your shit antennae probably tell you there’s more than we’re sniffing on the surface.”
“Yessir,” White said. “A standoff on the street near the marina, the seizure of the yacht, and most of all our man being kept under tight wraps…does have a feel about it.”
