completing it. This was not technically a lie — they could not yet strike the massive blow they intended. But they could do great damage. And would, if necessary.
“You lied to me?” said Banhnnjunni.
“Of course not. We can strike if necessary. Just not in the exact way, in the best way, we planned. I will rush everything — we will be ready for the Americans, once we kill their bastard.”
“We will not kill our president,” said the general.
“We must.”
“I have to think about this,” said General Banhnnjunni. “I have to talk to others. To the black robes. In the meantime, you will do nothing.”
“We can’t let this sin stain our nation.”
“Take the long view, Bani,” said the general. “Compromise at the moment may be the right way.”
“My long view ends in Paradise,” countered Aberhadji. “Where does yours end?”
37
Objectively speaking, the goal of the operation against the Sudan prison camp had been a success: Tarid was free, and heading toward Khartoum. Not only was he being tracked via satellite, thanks to the biomarker Danny Freah had planted, but the CIA was scouring intercepts and digging through databases and other sources to get as much information about him as possible.
But the operation had cost considerably more lives than Danny had hoped. The Sudanese and the rebel dead weighed on him more than most people would have thought. But the real blow was McGowan.
In war, sacrifice was inevitable, and even the best leader has to make decisions that led to deaths. But Danny felt that he should have planned the attack differently, found some way to protect McGowan. He brooded about the attack, reviewing it over and over in his mind.
There were many small changes he might have made, and yet they might not have led to a different result. The ferocity of the Sudanese defenders had been surprising. In general, they were not considered either effective or fierce. They had proven to be both. With a more aggressive leader, they might have cost the Whiplash team even more casualties.
On the whole, the Americans had performed well. The small group was starting to bond; Danny found that he was coming to like Nuri as well as respect him.
There was one glaring exception: Hera. She was the sand in the Vaseline. Or as Boston put it, “The only word to describe her rhymes with
Danny had worked with difficult personalities before. Special operations attracted them, and it wasn’t always easy to weed them out. But peer selection and an extended training and test period helped. One fierce op generally rounded them into shape — or showed that they were never going to fit.
“I can bust on her ass,” said Boston, reviewing the situation after they got back to Base Camp Alpha. “Pound a little respect into her pointy head.”
“I’ll handle it,” said Danny.
“You going to bag her?” Boston asked.
“I can’t while the mission is continuing. We’re short as it is. And she speaks Farsi better than Nuri. If this guy’s Iranian, that’s a big plus.”
“Your earphone thing doesn’t translate for you?”
“It does. But it’s not the same. Anyway, I can’t bag her now.”
“You can do anything you want, Chief.
Boston had been struggling to find a title other than colonel that fit. Boss, chief, skipper — nothing felt good on the tongue. He was just so used to calling Danny “Captain,” nothing else felt right.
Nuri, meanwhile, was trying to figure out a next step.
“The good news is, Tarid’s in Khartoum,” he told Danny when they settled down to take stock together.
“What’s the bad?” said Danny.
“Besides the coffee?”
“From now on we operate only in places with Dunkin’ Donuts,” said Danny. “What’s the bad news?”
“The tag didn’t take properly. The signal is deteriorating. The rain must have diluted the marker before you got it on him.”
He’d also lost some marking Tilia. Nuri wasn’t sure whether that had been an accident or not, and didn’t mention it.
“Can we track him?” asked Danny.
“For a while.” Nuri got up and poured himself some more coffee. “Starbucks would be acceptable, if we could get it into the budget.”
“Yeah, but you can’t beat the doughnuts at Dunky.”
“True.” Nuri took a sip. As bad as the coffee might be, he was addicted. “The signal will be gone inside a week. I want to tag him again. I’ll go over to Khartoum. We’re going to have pull the plug here. Our cover is toast, we have to get rid of the mercs, and I have to believe the army’s going to be out for blood after this. So we’re best off recycling.”
“How?”
“Well, I think we have enough sensors at the milk barn down there to hold us for a bit. So we concentrate on our Mr. Tarid. Follow him. Find out where he’s going. We play civilian for a while. We can base ourselves in Khartoum. There are plenty of westerners there. We go to the backup covers. Restock.”
“Agreed,” said Danny. “But one priority you didn’t mention — we have to get McGowan’s body home.”
“Yeah, I know. That sucks.”
Nuri had never lost a fellow officer on a mission before. He really didn’t feel as if he’d lost one now, either — he still divided the team up mentally, separating himself from Danny and the Whiplash people. He felt bad about McGowan, but didn’t ache the way Danny did.
“We can’t take everybody into the capital anyway,” said Nuri. “You oughta stay away anyway.”
“Why me?”
“Because he’s seen you. You and Hera. And Boston.”
“And Flash.”
“Right.”
“I’m going with you,” said Danny. “We’ll take Sugar. Boston and the others can take care of getting everything out of here.”
“All right.” Nuri pulled over the chair and sat down. “We’re going to need more people eventually.”
“True. You think we would have done better last night with more people?”
“I think we did OK last night,” said Nuri.
“It was a hell of a bloodbath.”
“That’s Sudan these days. Sucks. I’m sorry we lost McGowan,” Nuri added.
“So am I.”
“But we did all right. We’re not — we don’t have all the firepower you guys used to have at Dreamland,” Nuri said, thinking Danny was comparing the two operations. “So we’re never going to have overwhelming odds.”
“We had some troubles in ops there, too,” said Danny, thinking back. “It just gets harder.”
He meant accepting the losses, but didn’t explain.
“The next batch of people we get should be heavier on the Agency side,” said Nuri, getting back to his point. “Your spec ops guys are OK shooters, but they’re not really spies. We’re going to need more spies, I think. Be useful following Tarid.”
“Sure.”
“I mean, we can train anybody. Not anybody — you know what I mean. I started on the paramilitary side myself, then moved over. It’s not that hard.”
“Yeah?” asked Danny. He got up and got himself coffee.
