“Nothing in here,” said Flash. “You want to evac?”
“Right. Let’s get out of here. Take the prisoner with us. Both of them — get the guy Sugar knocked out.”
“On it.”
They left through the hole at the side. Boston and Sugar joined them as they crossed over the railroad tracks, running into a small clearing where the Osprey could land and pick them up. Danny could smell the exhaust in the wash from the Osprey’s rotors as the aircraft swooped toward them, its engine nacelles angled upward in helicopter mode.
His head was pounding. He paused as the aircraft settled down, counting his men to make sure they were all there. Flash had cut their prisoner’s leg restraints away, but he held his man by the arms as they moved double- time toward the rear of the Osprey. The prisoner was small and skinny, a young teenager.
Sugar had the other POW on her back. This one was tall — close to six feet — but just as skinny as the other.
Both were probably useless, Danny realized. Whoever had booby-trapped the truck probably figured they were disposable.
“We’re all here, Cap,” said Boston, taking up the rear.
“All right, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“What happened?” asked Boston as they ran up the MV-22’s ramp.
“They booby-trapped the door of the truck and we missed it,” said Danny. “We were lucky. And sloppy.”
Chapter 15
Li Han crouched at the edge of the culvert, watching as the Osprey rose. Its wings began to tip forward; it seemed to stutter to the right, and for a moment he thought it would crash. But the stutter was an optical illusion — the aircraft pivoted, turning away smoothly as it accelerated into the distance.
He had a clear shot for a Stinger missile.
But even if he’d had an antiaircraft weapon ready, it would have been foolish to attack. The aircraft was undoubtedly equipped with a detector and countermeasures, and even if he did succeed in taking it down, he’d be telling them he was still nearby. Better to remain a mystery.
Afraid he might be given away by the locals, Li Han had slipped out of the warehouse with Amara and most of the others, taking over a house about a quarter of a mile away and working on the UAV there. But even that had seemed too close, too small a precaution — as soon as he’d heard the explosion, Li Han had taken Amara with him and run from the building, using a door in the basement.
Now he felt just a bit like a coward.
But caution was always in order, especially when dealing with the Americans.
“What now?” asked Amara behind him.
“We’ll go back inside the house,” said Li Han, thinking. “They won’t attack again tonight.”
They would be watching. He’d have to lay low for a while.
What if he sold the UAV back to the Americans? They’d certainly be motivated buyers.
Amara might be able to broker the deal. He was a little puny physically, but he was smart. And the sight of Swal being shot hadn’t unnerved him; he’d disposed of the body quietly. He seemed to realize that Li Han had done it for him, to reinforce his authority with the others.
“Are we going?” asked Amara. “How long can we stay in this city?”
“Your English is getting better all the time,” said Li Han.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
Li Han smiled to him, then turned and led the way back to the house.
Chapter 16
Reid flicked off the viewer as the Osprey took off. He didn’t like monitoring the missions; there was too much temptation to micromanage. When he was in the field, he would never have allowed it.
But times were different now. The best he could do was not interfere.
He was about to call Breanna when the computer announced that she was holding on the line.
“You’re psychic,” he told her, picking up the phone. “I was just about to contact you.”
“Do we have it?”
“Regrettably, no. The tracking transmitter was removed from the body of the UAV. It was booby-trapped, but we had no injuries.”
“Well that’s something, at least.”
“We’re reasonably sure that the UAV itself remains in Duka. But at the moment I think even that’s a guess. Nuri is planning to go in tomorrow and check around. I don’t know that there’s much alternative.”
“The replacement satellite should be on station in a few hours,” said Breanna. “In the meantime, I’ve found a Global Hawk to augment the Tigershark so Turk can get some rest. We’ll have surveillance, but no connection to MY-PID.”
“That shouldn’t be an immediate problem.”
“We may need more force there,” added Breanna. “And I’m going to get more of their equipment over there. This is more serious than we thought at first.”
“The military side is your prerogative,” said Reid. “But I can’t emphasize enough that we have to be very quiet about it. If the Iranians or the Chinese or anyone else sees we’re making a big fuss, they may get nosy. Even if we recover Raven at that point, we may have jeopardized the weapon.”
“I understand, and Danny does, too. Did you talk to Ray Rubeo?”
“I did.” Reid stopped pacing. “I’m going to talk to Edmund again. Based on that conversation… Based on that conversation, I may have to talk to the President. A number of things trouble me.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“I think under the circumstances it would be best if I handled that myself,” said Reid. “I still don’t have the whole picture. Whether Edmund will give it to me or not remains to be seen.”
Chapter 17
Milos Kimko stood in the shadow of the small hut, watching the aircraft fade into the distance. He was nearly three miles from where it had landed, but even without his binoculars he could tell it was an Osprey: only the American aircraft could move so quickly from a hover.
And what were the Americans doing in this forsaken corner of Africa? Taking sides with one of the two rebel groups who shared control of the town? Simply meeting with them?
Possibly. But what to make, then, of the explosion that had woken him?
The Russian rubbed his eyes. He was tired, physically worn by his job to assess the rebel movements in eastern Sudan. The SVR — Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or Foreign Intelligence Service — had sent him to Khartoum a few weeks before, and he’d been traveling in the brush ever since.
He had a cover, and a side job, as an arms dealer. It was an excellent entree to the locals, given the prices he was able to offer. The SVR subsidized the price; in fact, Kimko suspected his supervisors were keeping a portion
