Nuri began mentally checking off what he’d have to do. They’d need a cover, first of all. And gear. He could get most of it in Alexandria.
“You’ve done very well, Nuri,” said Reid as he parked. “Luo’s death was not your fault.”
“Thanks.”
“One more thing before you go,” said Reid. “Accounting needs to talk to you about some expenses.”
8
Danny Freah pulled his yellow baseball cap lower as the boat approached the pier. He stepped up toward the bow, holding his bag tightly against his leg as someone jostled against his side. The small ferry had set out hours earlier from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When it left the dock there, the sun was about at eye level over the water; now it was long gone, sunk into the gray mass of Africa.
The passengers crowding Danny were mostly poor Sudanese returning from work. There were a few pilgrims mixed in, devout Muslims who had performed the hajj, or holy trek, to Mecca. The rest were operators, thieves, and pretenders.
Danny fell firmly into the last camp. His passport and papers declared that he was a doctor of paleontology, a claim backed up with several official letters from the Sudanese and Egyptian governments. Each seal had been bought for five thousand dollars cash, a price high enough for him to consider turning them over to a legitimate paleontologist when his job here was done.
Except few legitimate paleontologists would dare travel to the Sudan.
“How’s the dock look?” Danny muttered.
“Rephrase question,” answered the Voice.
He pushed the earphone in his right ear a little deeper. Though designed specifically for his ears, the plugs didn’t feel very comfortable.
“Are there armed men on the dock?” he asked.
“Affirmative. Six guards within customs area. Additional men beyond the gate. One armored car.”
“Why do they need the armored car?”
“Rephrase question.”
Danny didn’t bother. He had been using the MY-PID “appliance” for several days, but it still felt uncomfortable. Nor had it been particularly useful. He knew where he was going and what to do. The Voice’s contribution to his mission so far had been to tell him how warm it was and how unlikely it was to rain.
He squeezed his eyes together, fighting off fatigue. He’d flown from Cairo via Rome with barely an hour stopover, and from there to Saudi Arabia. Immediately on landing he’d rented a car and driven halfway across the country to the ferry. All told, he’d spent roughly eighteen hours traveling. He’d napped for a little less than four hours during the first flight. Those were the most he’d had in a row since starting his new assignment.
Searchlights flashed on above the pier as the ferry closed in. Through the glare, Danny saw men armed with automatic rifles waiting for the ship to dock. Behind them was the armored car the Voice had mentioned.
Danny gripped his bag as the ferry bumped against the dock. A deckhand sprung across, tying the ship to the wharf. Another removed the spar from the rail and stepped back. People began jumping across. Danny waited until it was clear that the boat wasn’t getting any closer, then leapt as well, crossing over to the worn wooden planks.
The rickety dock was bisected by a metal fence that enclosed the customs and passport control areas. To get into Sudan, a visitor or resident had to queue in the single line that started at the center of the fence and spread willy-nilly in front of it. Occasionally, a customs officer or one of the soldiers guarding them attempted to form the wedge-shaped mass into order, but it was hardly worth the effort; as soon as one person moved forward, the order collapsed, and the crowd once more jockeyed for position.
Like nearly everyone who’d gotten off the ferry, Danny was black. But his fresh, Western-style clothes and confident manner stood out from the others as sharply as if his skin had been green. One of the customs officers waved at him, calling him around the press of the line. He had Danny walk to a chained gate at the far end of the pier. One of the soldiers accompanied him, glancing backward every few seconds to make sure none of the other passengers followed.
They didn’t. While a few were jealous that a foreigner would be allowed to cut in line, they also knew the reason. The foreigner represented money, to both the customs agent who would expect a “fee” for the convenience, and to the country, which collected for an instant visa whether he had one already or not.
The natives watching, on the other hand, were merely a nuisance.
“Papers,” said the customs officer.
Danny reached into his pocket for his passport. He’d been well-schooled on the procedure; inside the passport was a crisp hundred dollar bill.
The bill disappeared into the agent’s palm so quickly Danny thought it had been vacuumed up his sleeve.
“What is your purpose here?” asked the man in English.
“I am on a dig,” said Danny. “We’re looking for dinosaurs.”
“Hmph.” The customs agent could not have been less interested. “That bag is all you have?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Open it, please.”
He gestured toward a table nearby. Danny had been told that once he gave the official the bribe, he would be waved through. Now he started to feel apprehensive. He had no money for a second bribe.
The customs agent stood over him as he unzipped the small black case. He was not looking for additional money, but rather, doing his job. In his mind, the hundred dollar bill was a tip from a beneficent westerner, accepted custom rather than corruption. It would not influence him one way or another. If he found any contraband — literature against the regime, a gun, drugs of any sort, including prescription medicine — he would arrest the American.
The bag contained a change of clothes, extra socks, and two pairs of sunglasses. Nothing illegal.
“You are listening to an iPod?” asked the official, pointing to the headphone.
“It’s off.” Danny showed him the control unit. He worried for a second that the officer would take it, but he merely frowned at the device.
“Go,” the man said, dismissing him with a wave.
Danny made his way off the pier, ducking his eyes from the glare of the lights. The rotten fish smell of the seaside gave way to the scent of rotting meat. Crates of goats were stacked along the path that ran from the pier into the start of the city. The animals bleated and moaned, hoping they might convince someone to let them roam the port. Peddlers huddled near the end of the fence, selling various wares. Anything that wasn’t on display, said a crude sign in Arabic, could be obtained.
A stocky black man in a long Arab robe approached Danny from the cluster of people milling near the entrance. Danny saw him from the corner of his eye and tensed.
“Welcome to the hell-hole capital of the world,” said Ben “Boston” Rockland as he took Danny’s elbow. “Our ride’s this way.”
“How you doing, Boston?”
“Good. I was beginning to think you’d never get here.”
“Me, too.”
“Don’t use too much English around here. The natives are pretty restless as it is.”
Boston had been in Port Sudan for several hours, more than enough time to form an impression of the place. He had seen two muggings in that time, one by a police officer. There surely would have been more, but most of the people in the city were too poor to bother robbing.
“The thing is, this is the good part of the Sudan,” he told Danny, leading him toward the bus they had leased.
