“I never heard of it,” said Nuri.
“I’m sure we can find it.”
Nuri found himself arguing against it, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. He told Melissa that they should be relocated somewhere nearby, which would make it possible for them to eventually return. Yet he knew that wasn’t logical at all.
“You just suggested they go to a camp themselves,” said Danny.
“Most of them are hellholes,” answered Nuri. But he knew Danny was right, and he let the matter drop.
As far as Danny was concerned, his mission was to retrieve every bit of the UAV, and so he wasn’t surprised that Reid and Breanna told him that the control unit had to be recovered. But the fact that Breanna was suggesting an attack into the Sudan Brotherhood camp put the matter into an entirely different category.
Before he dealt with that, he needed to finish the search and pick up the Russian.
Given the fact that Nuri could speak Russian, it made sense that he come on the mission, which would be launched from the backup Osprey. Melissa wanted to go as well. Danny told her flatly he didn’t want her help.
“I know what the flight computer looks like,” she argued. “You need somebody along who can identify it.”
“It’s a frickin’ computer,” snapped Nuri. “How hard is that to figure out?”
“The Osprey’s going to be pretty packed with the combat team,” said Danny diplomatically. “We have to make a couple of drops and then move in. It’s a coordination thing. Why don’t you watch after the women and help Boston make a plan to research the first building we hit and the area near it. This is just a pickup job. We’ve all practiced this a million times.”
She finally agreed. Aboard the aircraft, Nuri asked Danny why he was being so nice to her.
“I’m not being nice to her.”
“She’s been lying to us the whole time,” said Nuri, standing over him as the aircraft spun toward the hills.
“When has she lied?”
“She hasn’t told us the whole story,” said Nuri. “She’s trying to save her ass and take the credit for getting all the pieces back.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Don’t let these Agency types bulldoze you. They’re sweeter than crap to your face, then you find out they’ve been knifing you in the back.”
“Sometimes you act like you got a stick up your ass,” Danny told him. “Other times it’s a two by four.”
The pilot announced they were five minutes from the first insertion.
Exhausted, Kimko lay on the ground, halfway between sleep and consciousness. His mind threw thoughts out in odd patterns, numbers mixing with ideas, old memories filtering into what he saw around himself in the jungle.
Most of all he wanted vodka.
Kimko thought about letting go and falling asleep. But it would be the same as accepting failure, and that he could not do. So after a long time on the ground he took a deep, slow breath and struggled to his feet.
There were noises around him — wind rushing by. He turned quickly, sure he was being followed by some animal, but nothing appeared.
No, he was alone, very alone, lost in the middle of Africa and sure to die here, thirsty and tired, a spy, unknown and unloved.
His mind wandered even as he tried to focus on the jungle before him. He saw his ex-wife and spit at her.
He looked down at the ground, looking for the path.
When he looked up, a man in a black battle dress was standing before him.
Kimko turned. There were two more. He was surrounded.
Not by soldiers, by aliens.
A short, youthful man with wide shoulders appeared behind them. He spoke Russian. He was a human.
“Where is the control unit for the UAV?” asked the man. “The flight computer. What did you do with it?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Kimko.
The man raised his pistol and held it in his face.
“Tell me,” said the man.
Kimko jerked away, but one of the aliens grabbed him by the shoulder. The grip was intense. It drained all of his strength away.
“Where is the control unit?” demanded the short man, pointing the gun directly at his forehead.
“I have no idea—”
The gun went off. The bullet flew by his head.
“You are coming with us,” said the man.
Was he dead? Had Girma the idiot shot him after all?
Kimko started to struggle. This
“You’re not taking me alive!” he yelled.
But as the words escaped his mouth, he smelled something sweet in his nose. Something was poking his back, poking him in a million places.
Milos Kimko collapsed to the ground, already starting to snore.
“Sounds like he’s got a breathing problem,” Danny said.
“He’s OK,” said Sugar, checking him over. “That Demerol will keep him out for a while.”
“Nolan, you and Shorty see if you can backtrack the trail he came up through. See if he threw anything away,” said Danny. MY-PID had already looked at the video feeds, but Danny wanted it checked anyway. “Work your way back to the city. We’ll hook up with you.”
The two men set out. The rest of the team fanned out nearby, checking to see if Kimko had hidden or dropped anything nearby.
“Searching’s a waste of time,” said Nuri. “He never got it. I’m beginning to think they never had a control unit in the first place.”
“They needed something to fly the plane,” said Danny.
“Maybe Melissa took it and she’s been lying all this time.”
“What do you have against her?”
“I told you, Danny, she’s a bad seed.”
Danny shook his head.
“I want to take him to Ethiopia and question him,” said Nuri.
“That’s fine.”
“We’ll know what he knows in a few hours. But best bet now is probably the Brother who killed Li Han. That’s who we need to find.”
Chapter 3
