“My car,” said the driver.
Danny raised the rifle, pointing it at his chest.
“You’re next,” he said in Farsi, parroting the words the Voice gave him.
The two men ran for the car.
Nuri was just reaching a thin plastic card into the latch slot of Tarid’s door when the gunshot sounded a block behind the hotel. He froze, unsure if the sound was loud enough to wake Tarid.
It was. He heard him stir and backed away from the room quietly.
Tarid bolted up in bed, rolling on the floor. His first thought was that he was back in Sudan and under attack. Then he realized the sound had come from outside.
He ran to the door, pushed the latch closed and made sure the knob was locked.
It wasn’t going to hold anyone. He told himself to relax — the shot had been fired outside the hotel, surely not at him.
But if not at him, who could have been targeted? Shootings were very rare in the city, and this hadn’t been a celebratory outburst.
He thought of the hotel owner — and his daughter. He started putting on his pants and shoes, to make sure they were all right.
Nuri waited down the hall, hoping Tarid would come out. Two other guests came out and began asking what was going on.
“A gunshot,” said Nuri.
“Where, where?”
The elevator door opened and the hotel owner came out. He looked up and saw Nuri. He was surprised to find him on the third floor.
“There’s been a shooting,” said Nuri quickly.
“It’s under control,” said the man, who’d come to get Tarid in hopes that Tarid could help him figure out what was going on. “Go back to bed.”
“What’s going on?”
“Go, it’s under control.”
Nuri decided to retreat. By the time Tarid opened the door, he was back upstairs.
“Nuri, what’s going on?” Danny asked over the Voice’s communications channel.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Flash almost got mugged. Where the hell are you?”
“In the hotel. Trying to tag Tarid.”
“You got him?”
“No, there’s too many people. We’ll have to try in the morning,” said Nuri reluctantly. “I’ll meet you at the hotel in an hour.”
45
“At least forty men there, chief.” Sugar handed back the long distance night vision binoculars. “Two platoons, spread out in the positions. Then whatever they have behind them at the barracks.”
Boston refocused the glasses. Not only were there plenty of soldiers, but the Ethiopian army had brought up two armored cars to cover the road and surrounding area. A troop truck blocked the road near the gate. Nearby, a group of forty or fifty Sudanese were squatting on the ground near the border fence, denied permission to go over the line.
“The border is often closed at night,” said Abul. “Maybe in the morning.”
“There’ll be more troops there in the morning,” said Boston, raising the glasses to view the barracks area beyond the checkpoint.
There were two dozen troop trucks parked near the dormitory-style buildings used as quarters for the border guards. The trucks had arrived late that afternoon, sent as soon as word reached army headquarters that there had been a massive raid on rebel units nearby. Such raids always increased the number of refugees trying to cross the border. As it had periodically in the past, the government decided not just to shut the border, but to be serious about it. The soldiers had been authorized to shoot to kill rather than allow the refugees to cross.
Boston wasn’t worried about getting shot, but he had yet to hear from Washington about the arrangements for diplomatic passage. He couldn’t see anyone near the checkpoint who looked as if they might be from the embassy, sent to help them across. Being interred in an Ethiopian prison camp — or kept among the refugees — was hardly how he wanted to spend the next few days. Or years.
“There is another passage one hundred kilometers south,” said Abul. “We can be there shortly after daybreak.”
“That one will have troops, too,” said Boston.
“Why don’t we just go south until we find a spot, and cut through the fence,” said Sugar. “Pick a spot, then drive across.”
“It’s not just the fence,” said Boston. “Satellite photo shows the ditch extends the entire way.”
The ditch was an antitank obstacle, designed to prevent exactly what Sugar was suggesting. It would probably only slow a determined tank attack an hour or two at most, but the steep sides made it impossible for the bus to scale.
Boston considered splitting up — he could go across with the body of their dead comrade, then wait for the others to pick him up after crossing legitimately. But that would be inviting even more complications, completely unnecessary if Washington could just make the arrangements.
“Let me talk to Mrs. Stockard,” he said, handing the glasses back to Sugar. “Maybe they’ve made the arrangements. Otherwise our best bet right now is just to sit and wait.”
“You hear that?” asked Sugar, turning quickly.
“What?”
“I’m hearing a motorcycle over the hill.”
She’d heard it several times earlier as well. They’d checked once, Boston dropping off as the bus went ahead, but hadn’t seen anything.
He didn’t hear anything now. He shook his head.
“Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” she said.
“Hopefully,” said Boston.
46
Halfway across the world in room 4 on the CIA’s Langley campus, Breanna Stockard was sitting at her desk, keeping tabs on Danny and the others in Iran. She’d left a message for Ms. Bennett, telling her how to reach her, then brought her work here.
Being tied into the MY-PID system made her feel a little better. But not much.
As originally conceived, MY-PID took over many of the support functions spies and special operations units needed, and in theory there was no need for her to watch them from afar. But theory and reality were still struggling to fit together.
Breanna found it almost impossible not to check on their progress every so often, monitoring their
