“Hello, Amira. It’s been a few years, although I didn’t know your name back then,” the South Sudanese man said. He was slightly shorter than Samuel, stockier and built like a body builder. His head was shaved, and he still wore a full beard similar to the day she’d first met him. “I’m just glad everyone in American shakes hands with their right hand; otherwise, it’d be kind of hard for me, thanks to you.”
The man held up his hand, displaying for all what Amira already knew: the fourth and fifth fingers on his left hand were missing above the first joints past the knuckles.
I always knew leaving him alive was a bad decision. And now, it looks like I’m going to pay for it. God help me.
Chapter 6
Paloich, Southern Sudan
One Month Before the Events of OATH OF HONOR
0237 Local Time
Sudan had always been a country in turmoil. After nearly four decades of fighting, the rebellious southern region would hold its crucial referendum next month. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. There was little doubt to anyone paying even the most remote of attention that the people would vote for independence.
John Garang, the deceased leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, would finally achieve his goal, albeit from the grave. After all the fighting he’d caused, it had been a helicopter crash that had wiped him from the face of the earth, but his ultimate goal was at-hand.
Most in the international community knew better than to think that the South would declare its independence and stop fighting, not with everything at stake along the border. Treasured oil was buried in the territory over which they fought. No peace agreement could prevent further atrocities and bloodshed. It was naïve to believe otherwise.
Independence would be declared, but unimaginable human suffering had become a staple for the Sudanese people in those contested regions.
In addition to the war with the South, the government of Sudan had faced an uprising that started in 2003, when members of the Sudan Liberation Movement, supported by the Darfur Liberation Front, attacked the al-Fashir airfield in western Sudan. They’d destroyed four Hind attack gunships and killed most of the soldiers living on the base.
Khartoum’s response had been swift and severe in the form of a ruthless genocide. They’d recruited the Janjaweed militias to exact revenge upon anyone unlucky enough to be associated with the rebels in any way.
Unfortunately, the meddlesome international media had leaked images of the horrors to the United Nations and other intrusive organizations. The UN indictments were jokes to Sudan’s president and his advisors, reminders of the ineffective bureaucracy and hypocrisy institutionalized in luxurious office buildings in New York City. But then things had quieted down after the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the South and the 2006 agreement with the Sudan Liberation Movement in Darfur.
But in the contested southern region, tensions continued for years, with attacks on the precious oil pipeline that ran from the Melut Basin – one of the richest sources of crude oil in Africa – more than fourteen hundred kilometers to Port Sudan. And at the very end of the pipeline lay the Paloich Pumping Station.
Operated by Petrodar Operating Company, a consortium of oil exploration and production companies, the pumping station was the sole source of activity in the impoverished Sudanese village of Paloich. The facility was a sprawling complex more than six hundred meters long by more than three hundred meters wide. An endless array of buildings, production facilities, billeting, and enormous circular tanks were connected by metal tubes that moved the precious lifeblood of Africa along its evolutionary course. While multiple generators had been built inside the complex, the Paloich power plant lay adjacent to the facility and provided the power required to run the facility day and night. An impressive and ambitious operation, the problem was that the pumping station was self-sufficient, and the locals never received any of the financial benefits of having the pumping station located near their homes.
The native Sudanese locals lived in meager huts, eating peanuts with perch fished out of the contaminated White Nile fourteen miles to the west. Electricity was non-existent, as was school for most of the children. Since Petrodar had its own workers – mostly Chinese, Malaysians, Qataris, and Sudanese northerners – there were little job opportunities for the locals, and the consortium hired Paloich residents only for menial jobs. The bottom line was that Petrodar cared about the oil but not about the people. The only help came from an American aid group, which flew in food and medical supplies, as well as mosquito nets. It was this USAID-sponsored organization that provided the perfect cover for Amira Cerone, an operative for the CIA in their clandestine special access program known as LEGION.
USAID had flown Amira and several members of the US Embassy staff – including one doctor and one nurse – from Khartoum via a C-17 to the Paloich Airport. They’d set up several tents, off-loaded the food and medical supplies, and spread the word to the local population that they’d remain for three days to treat the villagers.
For Amira, it was a break from the constant commotion and monotony of Khartoum, endlessly waiting for something to happen that might require the skills the CIA had spent millions on during her training. Not even the station chief knew her real identity or purpose. Only select senior executives at the highest level of the agency had access to LEGION and knew of its existence, which was why when the chat window on her ruggedized laptop popped open in the middle of the night, triggering a chime, she bolted upright from her cot.
She looked around the tent to ensure she was still alone and turned on a small portable lantern that filled
