Andrew Britton - The Exile

The fighter extended his hand to Kealey and gave Abby a polite nod in keeping with traditional Islamic custom toward women. Then he returned his gaze to Mackenzie.

“Your trip has been without difficulty?” he said, speaking English now.

“Happily so.” Mackenzie gave a nod. “We are grateful for the invention of the GPS.”

Tariq grinned. But Kealey had noticed that not all the men were quite as demonstrative in their welcomes-quite a few of them eyeing the Westerners with narrow mistrust.

“Our camp is around the mountain in a…how do you say…kerf?” Tariq touched the fingers of his hands together to form a kind of wedge.

“A notch,” Mackenzie said.

Tariq nodded. “It is a short distance from here.”

“How many of your men have come?” Kealey asked.

“Half again the number you see with me now,” Tariq said. “We hope more will arrive before the day ends. The rest go north but will not take arms with Commander Nusairi.”

Kealey considered that. Mirghani had not wanted to arouse Nusairi’s suspicions by holding back his guerrillas from the attack and so had sent them along as if to join his forces. But they would experience convenient delays that would keep them from sharing the same fate as the raiders-if things went as planned.

“Do you know where Nusairi is right now?” Kealey asked after a moment.

“He arrived in the city with some men yesterday and stayed overnight in Sikka Hadiid,” Tariq said. “That is where he met the other. There are still many buyut- ”

“The other?” Kealey interrupted.

“A Westerner like yourself,” replied Tariq.

“About the same age and height? Brown hair?” Kealey asked.

“Yes.” Tariq touched his own eyes. “He wears naddaaraat. ”

“Glasses?”

“Yes,” said Tariq.

Kealey turned to Mackenzie. “Cullen White,” he said.

“So the son-of-a-bitch bastard flew out of Khartoum after he shook me,” Mackenzie said, nodding. “The Sikka Hadiid is Kassala’s old railway quarter… I’d guess it’s three, four kilometers west of these mountains and across the Gash. I’ve been there before. Tell you about it later.” He briefly raised his eyes to Kealey’s to indicate it was something he wanted to discuss in private. “The British railway station was built right around the turn of the last century. It was abandoned a long time ago, but most of the structures are intact. When you walk around the area, you see some big colonial buildings where the Brit administrators lived, and then rows and rows of round huts built for the workers and their families… They’re spread out pretty good. Some are modernized inside, kind of like bungalow hostels, but a whole lot of them have hardly changed in a hundred years-there’s no electricity or running water. The locals have short-term rentals for travelers. Student backpackers, different types.” He gave Kealey another confidential glance. “They’re what Tariq called buyut. ”

The rebel was nodding.

Kealey stood rubbing his chin in thought.

“What about the tanks and helicopters?” Abby said, breaking her attentive silence. “Have you seen them?”

“See, no,” Tariq said. “But I know they came ashore at Zula in Eritrea and were brought across the border by truck. And I know they are to strike in two places. Some go toward the Nile between Khartoum and Ed Damer…perhaps two hundred fifty kilometers to the west of us.”

“Where the oil pipeline from the fields down south follows the bend of the river to the Suakim oil terminal outside Port Sudan,” Mackenzie said. “It runs for almost a thousand miles and delivers three or four hundred thousand barrels of crude a day.”

“And the rest of the attack force?” Abby asked.

“It goes north.”

“To the Suakim terminal-and the nearby refineries,” Abby said.

Tariq’s head went up and down.

“All right,” Kealey said. He looked at Tariq. “I assume you have men keeping watch on Nusairi?”

“Yes, of course,” Tariq said. “He remains for now in Sikka Hadiid…and I do not believe he will try to leave until after nightfall.”

Kealey grunted, massaging his chin some more. “I think you’d better lead us to your camp so we can talk about making sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.

“Brynn, hello. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to return your call earlier,” said Israeli prime minister Avram Kessler over his secure line. He was staring out the window of his study at Bet Agion, his official residence in Rehavia, Jerusalem, watching night settle over the ancient city. “I’m afraid it’s been one of those days…”

“It’s like old times at Northwestern, isn’t it?” Brynn Fitzgerald said from her White House office. “Some things never change, Avi. You and I were always trying to make arrangements and going back and forth with our voice messages until it was too late. And then, of course, Lee would try to join in and further complicate things.”

Kessler had heard her tone suddenly grow subdued. Kessler, whose parents were American Jews, had done his undergraduate studies at Northwestern University along with Fitzgerald and their mutual friend Lee Patterson, the U.S. ambassador who had been killed riding alongside Fitzgerald when her motorcade was attacked in Pakistan the year before.

“I suppose the only difference is our game of phone tag’s just gone international,” he said. “What’s going on, Brynn? Your message sounded urgent, and I had a strange premonition it meant your esteemed commander in chief had decided on taking overt military action against Omar al-Bashir.”

Silence.

Kessler’s face drew taut. “Brynn…I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Let’s say your psychic receptors were well tuned but the signals hit interference somewhere over the Atlantic,” she said. “Avi, we need your help.”

“If you mean insofar as providing a staging area for an attack, I’ll need to bring the Defense Ministry into this conversation-”

“I don’t, but he’ll need to be brought in, anyway,” Fitzgerald said. “And probably several other members of your cabinet. Internal Affairs, Internal Security…but these talks will have to be brief.”

Kessler’s thoughts suddenly did a double take. It was something she’d said a moment ago. He had had a long day meeting with heads of the Knesset, and he was feeling laggy. “What kind of ‘interference’?”

“I was thinking back to February oh-nine, when your planes hit that arms convoy in Sudan.”

“Reportedly,” Kessler said.

“Right, I stand corrected. When a squadron of F-sixteens reportedly hit seventeen trucks full of illegal Libyan arms in the Hala’ib Triangle. This occurred as they were reportedly being driven toward the Egyptian border by smugglers from Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, who intended to slip them through tunnels in Gaza to Hamas.”

“I do recall the stories in the press,” Kessler said.

“They followed reports that you’d knocked out a small convoy the month before with Hermes four-fifty drones out of Palmachim Air Base, though a little chirping birdie told me you’d moved them to Navatim. My recollection of the February story is that you’d made several passes and used the drones to assess the success of each one-”

“Brynn?”

“Yes?”

“Did that birdie happen to be wearing a yarmulke?”

A sober laugh. “Avi, you’re moments from receiving a classified intelligence packet via e-mail. It will tell you about a strike force equipped with two convoys of tanks and support helicopters that is preparing to invade or possibly destroy the northern oil pipeline and refineries. We do not have real-time intel about their current position, but we know they are close to their staging ground and that the siege is imminent.”