Andrew Britton - The Exile

Swanson regarded him steadily for a full thirty seconds, then turned to Abby. “You’re with him on this?”

She frowned. “I suppose,” she said, then cast a prickly look at Kealey. “Although it would have been nice if I’d had a chance to consider it beforehand.”

Kealey kept his eyes on Swanson, saying nothing. Finally the CIA man produced a relenting sigh. “Any idea what I’m supposed to do with the Cherokee?”

Kealey shrugged. “Leave it in the airport parking lot,” he said.

Swanson didn’t bother replying that he could have figured that out all by himself.

KHARTOUM

“Are we able to talk openly?” Kealey asked. “I mean, without prying eyes and ears.”

He was in the station chief’s office at the embassy on Ali Abdel Latif Street, less than an hour after his thankfully uneventful flight from Port Sudan had alighted on the tarmac at Khartoum International.

“I think we can feel at ease,” Holland replied from across his desk. Placing a hush-hush request to Sergeant Sadowski, he had seen to it that his office at the embassy was swept by a suitcase-sized broad spectrum countersurveillance device consisting of radio, audio, infrared, and acoustic correlation scanners. Simply put, the advanced microcomputer-controlled detection suite could detect everything from passive and active microphone bugs in phones and light fixtures to the low-freq oscillations created by the tiny motors in concealed spy cameras. “As much as is possible anywhere these days.”

Kealey nodded. With him in the room besides the CIA station chief were Abby Liu and agents Phillips and Swanson. Mackenzie had switched up with Phillips and was across the river, monitoring the activities at Ishmael Mirghani’s house.

“What about Walter Reynolds?” Phillips asked.

“What about him?” Holland said. “I’m having a closed-door personnel meeting that’s none of his business.”

Phillips gave Abby and Kealey inclusive nods. “With a couple of staffers he’s never seen before.”

Holland shrugged. “I’m through tiptoeing around him. We’ve got the head of the DIA’s personal reclamation project, Cullen White, teamed up with Hassan al-Saduq, Somali pirates, and Ishmael Mirghani, the founder of a Sudanese militant group that may be more anti-American than the current regime.” He glanced at Abby. “Thanks to our esteemed colleagues at Interpol, we’ve got evidence that Saduq first cut a major illegal arms and equipment deal with Omar al-Bashir’s government-in cahoots with Egypt, no less-and then arranged for the shipment to be hijacked so he could resell the merchandise to a third party allied with Mirghani’s Darfur People’s Army…or possibly in command and control of it. Finally, we have an almost ironclad case that Stralen, directly or through White, provided the cash that Mirghani and company used to pay for the shipment, which is literally enough to equip a small army, using smurfed Department of Defense funds.” Holland paused. “I’ll shut up in a second, Jake. But to finish answering your question…Reynolds may not realize it, but what he knows or doesn’t know isn’t important anymore. He’s provided secret assistance to White, and that puts him waist-deep in shit. If he wants to keep from sinking in to his nose and mouth, he can’t do anything to obstruct our work that won’t further compromise him and God knows who else in Washington. His best recourse is to keep out of our way and think about ducking for cover.”

“Then let’s forget him and concentrate on Mirghani,” Kealey said. He nodded toward Abby. “He might not be the whole reason we’ve been jumping back and forth across the African continent, but he’s a big part of it. We need to get our hands on him.”

“And time might be running out after this morning,” Phillips said. “The sequence of events speaks for itself. After meeting with White at his home, he busses into the city, makes what appears to be a large bank withdrawal, then walks over to the gold market with his bodyguards and leaves there with two large, heavy-looking security briefcases-driving off in a minivan. To me that can only indicate one thing…”

“He’s getting ready to leave the country,” Swanson said. “Gold is universal currency, and right now it’s trading at a high, going for almost eight hundred dollars per troy ounce. From Jake’s description, those briefcases would have held quite a few cast bars.”

“It certainly doesn’t sound as if he’s just going on holiday,” Abby said. “What’s the latest on him?”

“Swanson says he’s cleaning house,” Holland said. “No question, Kealey, we have to move. But one thing we cannot afford is a repeat of Limbe.”

Kealey shot him a glance. “Meaning?”

“I’ve got less than six months left to my hitch in North Africa,” Holland said. “I have a wife and son in Florida that I miss terribly, and I’ve been told that my next assignment will be in the States. When I leave here, I’m not looking back, Kealey. I won’t fuck up, and I won’t be sent to any more foreign boondocks as punishment for anyone else fucking up.”

Kealey shrugged. “If you’re going to send Mirghani a formal invitation to join us for coffee, we’d better sign it fast and messenger it over to him, because I doubt the local mail service will deliver it before he books.”

The station chief bristled, straightened in his chair. “I would appreciate it if you could rein in the sarcasm.”

“And I’ve had my fill of hearing about Limbe,” Kealey said. “I was asked to make the calls there, and I did, and all things considered, we were successful pulling off what we intended. If you’re setting the operational guidelines now, fine, tell me what they are. But for Christ’s sake let’s get on with it before everything becomes moot.”

Silence. After a moment Holland’s posture relaxed. “I’m not going to tie your hands, Kealey. We’re taking Mirghani into custody, and I don’t expect he’ll volunteer with a smile. But Omar al-Bashir won’t be sorry to be rid of him. He can have somebody else do the dirty work and not lose face or alienate the Muslim fringes. It’s likely he won’t interfere with us either pre or post factum.”

“So, I repeat, what are the ground rules?” Kealey said.

“Just that you recognize we’re in a hostile environment,” Holland said. “We’re better off doing this peacefully… If there’s a chance, then take it, so we can at least say we tried.”

“That’s it?”

Holland nodded. “Yes, Kealey,” he said. “Besides wishing you Godspeed.”

It was almost dusk when George Swanson drove the pair of newcomers across the river to Bahri, Kealey beside him in the passenger seat of a Jeep Cherokee 4x4, Abby in the rear. Requisitioned from the embassy’s fleet, the vehicle was identical to the one in which he’d ridden to Port Sudan…and that was now being babysat at the U.S. consular office there.

Phillips was behind them in his Saab, followed by Mackenzie in a freshly req-slipped Subaru. The thinking had been that if White-slash-Landis had identified the Honda as a surveillance vehicle that morning, there was a fair chance he’d passed along the information to Mirghani. It was just good sense, then, that Mackenzie use a different car as a precaution against easy identification…although subtlety would not be a vital component of the team’s approach.

“We’re all through here in Khartoum after tonight,” Swanson mused aloud to his passengers, turning left off the Blue Nile Bridge. “Phillips, Mac, myself…Our covers are going to be blown.”

“You sound almost sorry about the prospect of moving on,” Abby said. She turned from the window to look at him. “I’d think you’d welcome the change.”