accurate. “I can supply whatever needs you have.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t trust me,” said Danny.
Uncle Dpap looked back at him with surprise when Tilia told him what he had said.
“You shouldn’t trust anyone,” explained Danny. “Just as I don’t trust you. Did you kill your last supplier?”
The question angered Uncle Dpap. “I heard that he was killed by police in Europe,” said the rebel. “But maybe you killed him.”
“Your friend was a very small operator. The business he did was minor compared to the business I do.”
“So why are you offering to sell me anything?” said Uncle Dpap. “If I am a small ant to you, I’m not worth your time.”
“You’re not an ant.” Danny softened his expression, realizing he was pushing things a bit too hard. “You are bringing freedom to your people, and watching out for them. All of these people depend on you. You are a lion, not an ant.”
Uncle Dpap knew sweet talk when he heard it, and frowned.
“My problem is my overhead, my expenses,” continued Danny. “I need to deal in volume. But here is a proposition — get some of the other rebels together and I will sell to all of you. The same price, the same fair arrangements. It will be easy for you. You will all benefit.”
“That is impossible,” said Uncle Dpap. “We do not work together.”
Danny shrugged. Then pulled open his armored vest, revealing a Beretta stuck in a holster at his belt.
Uncle Dpap’s men jumped to alert. Danny bodyguards did the same.
“Here,” said Danny, reaching for the gun slowly. “This is for you.”
He held the gun out. Uncle Dpap looked at it suspiciously.
“It’s a present,” said Danny.
Uncle Dpap grabbed it and pointed it at Danny’s forehead.
“If you want to shoot me…” Danny waited for Tilia to translate before continuing. “…you will need these.”
He reached into his pocket for the bullets.
Arm fully extended, Uncle Dpap pulled the trigger anyway. Danny didn’t flinch. Uncle Dpap took the bullets but didn’t put them in the gun.
“You are a brave man,” conceded the leader. “But not a foolish one.”
“When you need to call me, use this phone,” said Danny, pulling a small satellite phone from his breast pocket. “Use it only for that. Make one call only. Say nothing. When the call registers, I will come that night. Use it only for that purpose.”
Uncle Dpap gestured for Tilia to take the phone.
“I want to deal with everyone,” said Danny. “It is very expensive to bring weapons here. But I can supply whatever you want. I have no trouble getting anything. That gun is an American Army pistol. There are none better in the world.”
“OK,” said Uncle Dpap. “Perhaps we will have your meeting after all.”
Boston felt as if he’d been holding his breath for the past half hour.
“I thought that bastard was going to slap the bullets in the gun and fire,” he told Danny as he maneuvered the Land Cruiser through the crowd of people on the street. “I really did.”
“He only pulled the trigger to see if I would flinch.”
“Did you?”
“A little,” admitted Danny.
Had Uncle Dpap put the bullets in the gun, Danny would have ordered the Voice to fire the two small guns secreted in the yellow lights on top of the Land Cruisers. The guns — basically miniturrets — had been targeted on Uncle Dpap and his closest bodyguards the whole time.
“Careful where you’re driving,” Danny told Boston as he came a little too close to a truck on the side of the road. “You put any scratches in this and Nuri’s going to have to pay to have them fixed out of his own pocket.”
Boston stopped himself from answering that the CIA was rolling in cash. The men in the back didn’t speak English, but they might recognize the letters CIA and start thinking. The last thing Boston or Danny or anyone else on the team wanted was them thinking.
Nuri, of course, would have disagreed about the funds, since he was sure to be hounded about the expenditure. But leasing the trucks had been well worth it.
The handle of the gun Danny presented so casually to Uncle Dpap had been smeared with a bio marker that allowed the MY-PID system to track the rebel leader wherever he went. The phone contained a bug that uploaded audio whenever anyone nearby spoke. Any phone call would be recorded as well, though by now the NSA was listening in to practically all of his communications anyway.
Once past the guard post at the entrance to the village, Danny began to relax. They’d launched a small Owl UAV to supplement the blimps, which watched the area farther north. The Voice told him there was no traffic within the entire area.
“Pretty girl, huh?” said Boston. “That translator.”
“She was.”
“Like to jump her bones.”
“She’s too much for you to handle.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She has to be tough to deal with those characters. And she looked it.”
“I can charm a snake into giving milk.”
Tilia reminded Danny of his ex-wife Jemma, when they’d first met. The similarity wasn’t in their features — Tilia’s skin was lighter, her nose a little smaller, her eyes prettier. What struck him was her expression: all business. She wasn’t very old — early twenties, maybe a few years more. At that age she should be smiling more, happy. But her job weighed her down.
Jemma had been in law school, en route to becoming a professor, en route to becoming a political activist, en route to becoming an assemblywoman and state senator. She was out of politics now, out of law, out of everything — burned out before forty. The last he’d heard, she was living in Vermont, living on a farm that she’d bought with money her parents left her. A mutual friend said she was raising sheep, and selling organic wool and meat.
“I think she has a crush on you,” said Boston.
“Who?”
“Tilia. She was making eyes at you. Circumstances were different,” he continued, “you could have a hell of a time with her.”
“You’re the one that wants to sleep with her,” Danny said.
“Absolutely.” Boston turned to him. “You don’t mind, right?”
“Hell no. As long as you don’t.”
“Maybe we’ll have to,” said Boston. “To keep our cover up.”
“Dream on, Boston.”
“All I’m saying is, I’m sworn to do my duty. It’ll be a sacrifice, but I’m ready.”
19
As soon as the arms dealer was in his truck, uncle Dpap returned to his office. He told everyone but Tilia and Commander John to leave the building. Then he carefully dismantled the pistol and examined it.
“Do you think he cheats you?” asked Commander John.
“I want to make sure this is not some type of trick,” said Uncle Dpap.
“What kind of trick could it be?”
