day.
“I’ll go by myself,” he said.
“Oh, you can’t do that.”
“I’ll go,” said Hera, rising. “Sugar can stay on the watch.”
“I can make it,” said Sugar. She started to protest, then realized she had to get to the latrine. She pushed herself forward, running to the bathroom pit thirty yards from the building. She barely made it in time before her intestines exploded — figuratively, though it felt as if it were literal.
Nuri, meanwhile, cursed his crappy luck. Hera was the last person he wanted with him. Her personality had already worn thin. She always had a “better” way of doing things.
He could go to the village alone. But inflating and launching the blimp was a two-person job, and there were a large number of sensors to be planted as well.
Sugar returned from the latrine. “I can make it,” she told him.
“Why don’t you stay here,” he told her. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”
“It was just something I ate. I’ll be fine.”
“No.”
“You’re going yourself?” said Hera.
Nuri looked at them both. He did need a backup. Would Sugar be OK by herself, though?
“You have a fever?” he asked Sugar.
She shook her head.
They had defenses, the blimps, the sensors. And she could always hide.
Not that anyone was likely to bother them tonight.
“You feel all right?” Nuri asked Sugar.
“I’m great. I’m ready.”
“No, you stay here on watch. All right, Hera. You come.”
“Right.”
She jumped up and grabbed her gear.
Nuri went down and waited for her on the motorcycle. She came down and started to get on the Whiplash bike.
“We’re not taking that one,” he said. “Get on with me.”
“Why aren’t we taking it?”
“Because we’re going to have to hide it near the village, and I don’t want to take the chance of losing it if someone stumbles across it. I don’t want the technology compromised.”
“What good is it if we don’t use it?”
“When you run the outfit, you can make the call. Right now, I say we’re using this one.” Nuri started it up. “Hop on.”
Hera cinched her rucksack tighter as she walked over to the bike. It had no sissy bar, but the seat was relatively small, and she’d have no choice but to snuggle close to Nuri and hold him tight around the chest. She tried holding her breath but it didn’t help.
“Try not to fall off,” said Nuri, popping it into gear.
Danny felt his heart starting to pound as the first set of headlights swung into view. He suddenly felt unsure of himself.
In the old days, he’d sometimes felt apprehensive just before a mission began — butterflies, some people called it, something akin to the performance anxiety actors sometimes felt before going on stage. But the feeling always disappeared when things got going.
It didn’t tonight. Danny’s heart continued to pound as the trucks drove up to the road. He kept his mouth shut, afraid that a stutter, a break, or something similar would give away his nervousness.
Weapons dealers weren’t nervous. Whatever else they were, they didn’t suffer from performance anxiety. They were calm and cool and completely in control.
So was he.
Except he wasn’t.
The vehicles carrying Uncle Dpap and Colonel Zsar drove into the space in front of Danny’s trucks. The other vehicles fanned out behind them, the two groups intermixed.
Colonel Zsar, anxious to show that he was the real leader here, got out of his vehicle first. He practically leapt forward, walking so quickly that his bodyguards had to run to catch up.
“Who are you?” he asked Danny in Arabic.
“My name is not important,” said Danny. He had practiced the line in Arabic and could say it in his sleep, but it didn’t sound smooth. He cleared his throat, trying to hide his sudden attack of nerves. “Call me Kirk. You’re Colonel Zsar, I believe.”
Tarid, who’d been riding with Zsar, got out of the truck slowly. He took his time joining the others, studying the arms dealer as he walked. Kirk was flashy — too flashy, Tarid thought, the sort of reckless man who makes a fortune in six months and loses his life in the seventh. His guards were well-equipped, but that wasn’t much of a trick. More impressive was the fact that he had a white man as his lieutenant — they didn’t come cheap here.
Uncle Dpap and Tilia got out of the Jeep together. Their soldiers, meanwhile, had fanned out from the trucks, forming a semicircle behind the rebels.
“What happened to Red Henri?” asked Danny. Once more, even though he’d practiced the phrase incessantly, it sounded stiff and misaccented in his ears.
“He is not of interest to us,” said Uncle Dpap. “An alliance with him would not benefit anyone. Deal with him if you wish. I would suggest you be careful if you do.”
“We’ll use English,” Danny told them. “There’s no need for any of these to understand. There are too many spies.”
Uncle Dpap glanced at Colonel Zsar, who shrugged. His English was a little better than Dpap’s, but he wouldn’t be able to carry out a complicated conversation, let alone negotiate.
“Is that no good?” asked Danny, in English.
“Your Arabic is fine,” said Colonel Zsar in Arabic.
“I thought you both spoke English,” said Danny. “Or is that your translator?” He pointed to Tarid.
“That is my lieutenant,” the colonel said quickly. It was a fiction they’d worked out earlier.
“An Iranian for a lieutenant,” said Danny in English. “Interesting.”
Tarid swung his head toward Danny as he heard the word Iranian.
“We will speak in Arabic,” said Uncle Dpap. “You speak as you wish. Use English. Why are you meeting us?”
“My aim is to sell many weapons,” Danny said. “I’m not particular to whom. Or who pays. Everyone has AK- 47s for sale. I can get better guns. If you can pay. MP-5s like my men have. M-16s.”
“What about Galils?” asked Tarid. The Galil was an Israeli assault rifle.
“I doubt I could sell those at a price that would make you interested,” said Danny. “Assuming I could get them without losing my life.”
“Are the Zionists your suppliers?”
“Don’t worry about where I get my weapons,” said Danny. “They come from many sources.”
Danny threw out an offer — a hundred AK-47s at one hundred dollars apiece. It was an extremely good deal, about a fifth of the price the Jasmine network had sold them for.
“Why so cheap?” asked Uncle Dpap.
“To get your business,” said Danny. “To get you to trust me. I can see you don’t. Not if you think I work with the Zionists.”
He took a step closer, working out how he would get the biomarker onto Tarid. He’d shake hands to seal the deal — or to show that there were no hard feelings if a deal wasn’t made. He’d clasp Tarid’s left hand as he shook with his right.
Done.
Then he’d be able to relax.
Uncle Dpap wasn’t interested in guns. He wanted ammunition.
