Mike Maden - River of Gods

“The whole damn meeting’s classified,” Bolt complained. The old Vietnam antiwar protestor turned environmentalist had long argued against all closed-door government meetings, particularly of the intelligence committees. He’d first come to Capitol Hill as a staffer for Frank Church during his famous CIA hearings. He’d heard firsthand what kind of havoc was wrought by too much governmental secrecy.

“REEs?” Smith asked, incredulous. In the old cowboy’s mouth, the “EEs” was drawn out like a long pull of saltwater taffy. “What the hell are R… E… Es?” Smith turned in his chair and glowered at Fiero. “I suppose you know?”

Fiero smiled. The CIA analyst had just confirmed what she needed to know. Or, more accurately, what she already knew. Her secret source had informed her about the massive new REE deposit two days before.

Third objective accomplished.

“Rare earth elements, I believe,” Fiero said. “But I’m no expert.” She smiled at the analyst, her signal to him to fill in the details.

Fiero pretended to pay attention while the analyst droned on about REEs. She was already plotting her next move. Greyhill had no political incentive to invade Mali. She would have to give him one.

In the air

Southeastern Zimbabwe

5 May

Thanks to a phone call from Judy earlier, the Aviocar was fueled and prepped at the Maputo airport and waiting outside of its hangar when Pearce and Judy braked in a screeching halt in front of it. Fifteen minutes later, they were cleared by the tower and in the air. After leveling off at cruising altitude, Judy patched Pearce through to Margaret Myers at her home in Colorado.

“Troy? It’s Margaret. Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” he said, wincing. He rubbed his aching head. He and Myers hadn’t spoken since the day she’d resigned the presidency the year before. She had resumed her duties as CEO of her software company, and he assumed she was too busy to reach out to him. Pearce had been busy, too, but that wasn’t the reason he never tried to contact her.

Judy listened in on the conversation through her headphones.

“I’m sorry to have chased you down, but I didn’t know who else to turn to. I tried to pull some strings for Mike on my end, but I couldn’t make it work. I knew I could count on you.”

“What’s his status?” Pearce asked.

“He’s reported as wounded and in serious but stable condition. He needs immediate evacuation.”

“Who made the report?”

“Female, unknown. But I’m working on it.”

“Then how do you know this is the real deal?”

“Only two people in the world have my private cell number. Mike is one of them.” She didn’t need to remind Pearce that he was the other person with that number, even if he never used it.

“Could be a trap,” Pearce said. “Targeting you. Maybe they tortured him for the info. Maybe he’s already dead.”

“Maybe. You willing to let it go?”

“No.”

“Me neither. But I’m not the one putting my butt on the line. It’s not as if they would’ve expected me to personally fly in there. And they wouldn’t know who I’d send in to do the job—maybe the Marines. They made no demands, gave no conditions. Just said ‘Hurry.’ Doesn’t sound like much of a trap to me.”

“We’re not talking about brain surgeons. If some joker is looking to create an international incident, they’ve got the perfect megaphone with someone like you involved.”

“Even if it is a setup, I’m still willing to stick my neck out on this thing,” Myers said. “Obviously, so are you.”

“It’s Mikey we’re talking about. God knows how many times he pulled my bacon out of the fire.”

“I’m glad you’re the one on the ground out there, Troy. And I heard about your man Johnny.”

Troy hesitated, pushing away the memories. Didn’t want to talk about it. “You have a plan, I take it?”

“Pulling some things together for you now. Everything should be in place by the time you land in Niamey.”

“Mikey’s in Niger?” Pearce asked.

“Mali. But Niamey’s your jump-off point. It’s the best I can do on short notice.”

“What’s Early doing in Mali?”

“Not sure. The GPS coordinates on the cell phone that made the call came from the Kidal region. That’s Tuareg country.”

“The 2012 Mali civil war was about them, wasn’t it?” Pearce asked.

“It’s complicated, but yes. What time is it now on your end?”

Pearce lifted his bruised wrist to check his watch. His fists still ached from the fight in the bar. He wiped the dried blood off of the watch face. He just couldn’t leave it behind. It was the only thing he had left of Annie. Something she’d touched. Never should have bet it.

“Zero-three-zero-five, local.”

Judy tapped in Niamey, Niger, into the GPS navigator. “About fifteen, maybe sixteen hours flight time. Three refueling stops, too. Better add another three hours, minimum.”

Pearce frowned. Not good. That was a long time for a wounded man to wait for an exfil. But there was nothing to be done at this point. He hoped Early really was in stable condition.

“I’ll call you as things firm up on my end,” Myers said. “Good luck to both of you.”

In the air

Northwestern Zambia

Six hours and twelve hundred miles later, Judy tapped the fuel gauge. “Know any good gas stations around here?”

Pearce shook his aching head. Sober, but hungover now. “No, but I have a Shell card if you find one.” He glanced out the window. The morning sun behind them bathed the savannah below in a sweet, golden light. “Postcard Africa,” Judy called it. A small town hugged the Zambezi River in the bottom of their windscreen.

“That’s Mwinilunga. Nice little place.”

“You know it?”

“I grew up in this part of the world, remember?”

“They got a Starbucks?”

“No, but I have a friend who lives about five miles north of here. He has an airstrip we can use. And by ‘airstrip’ I mean a stretch of flat ground and not too many trees nearby.”

“McDonald’s has pretty good coffee. Or Hardee’s. And they’ve got biscuits. Either of those will do.”

“Whit will have coffee, for sure. Probably a batch of antelope stew, too.”

“Sounds like a winner. I don’t suppose he has any fuel?”

“Whit runs the Aviation Mission Fellowship station. He should have plenty.”

“You know everybody around these parts,” Pearce said.

“The missionary community is pretty tight-knit, and missionary aviators even tighter.”

“You ever think about going back to that life?”

Judy ignored the question. “I checked your manifest. You’ve got a delivery to Fort Scorpio due in about an hour. What do you want to do about it?”

The Aviocar still contained the special-delivery packages for the “Recces,” the South African special forces. Johnny was supposed to run that training, too.

“Gonna have to disappoint them.”

“Buckle up. We’re heading down.”

Minutes later, Judy flared the nose and wings as she landed the boxy airplane. The Aviocar’s fixed tricycle landing gear absorbed the grassy field with hardly a bump. She taxied over to the hangar. Three ancient Cessna 172 Skyhawks were parked neatly in a row on the far side of the building. They were all painted in the mission’s famous Florida-orange paint scheme. Their old logo—a cross, a Bible, and a dove—had since been painted over and replaced with a simple AMF in black letters. It wasn’t just a marketing gimmick. Too many Islamic extremists had taken potshots at “infidel” planes in the last year to ignore the problem.