Scott Rich stood on the deck of the CIA dive ship USS Ardèche waiting for the lights of Olivia’s approaching flight to appear in the night sky. The shoreline of the Sudan, dotted with the flickering red lights of fires in the desert, was a black shape against the darkness of the sky. The sea was utterly calm. There was no moon, but the sky was bursting with stars.
He heard the roar of the jet engine before the lights appeared, as the plane began its descent over Port Sudan. He slipped back belowdeck and flicked switches, the control deck before him humming into life. In a few minutes’ time, the GPS would pick up the signal from Olivia’s earring. Abdul Obeid, CIA agent, holding a Hilton sign, would pick her up in Arrivals and bring her to the harbor and a waiting launch. Before the first light of dawn, she would be aboard the USS Ardèche and out of reach of Feramo.
Scott Rich’s face broke into a rare smile as a red light flashed up on the screen. He pressed a switch. “We’ve got her,” he said. “She’s at the airport.”
As Olivia followed the line of somnambulant passengers into the scruffy Customs hall, she found herself drifting into her usual African-airport, hibernating-tortoise mode. She saw the passport control guys in their brown Formica booths, drowning in bits of paper. It always baffled her how they kept track of anything without computers, but somehow they did. The one time she’d tried to enter Khartoum without the correct visa she had found herself spending twelve hours in custody in the airport. And the next time she had arrived, they somehow remembered and shoved her in the cage again. As she reached the front of the queue and handed over her papers, the man behind the desk stared at them, apparently blankly, and said, “One moment please.”
Bugger, she thought, trying to maintain a pleasantly bland expression. There was no more stupid thing you could do than lose your temper with an official in Africa. A few minutes later the man reappeared, accompanied by a stout official in khaki military uniform, the belt squeezed far too tightly around his gut.
“Come with me please, Ms. Joules,” said the stout man, flashing white teeth. “Welcome to Sudan. Our honored friends are expecting you.”
Good old MI6, she thought, as the portly officer ushered her into a private office.
A man dressed in a white djellaba and turban appeared at the door and introduced himself as Abdul Obeid. She gave him a quiet nod of complicity. It was all going to plan. This was the CIA local agent. He would take her to the Hilton, providing her on the way with a gun (which she had resolved to lose as soon as possible), and give her an up-to-date briefing incorporating any changes of plan. She would call Feramo, take a night to rest at the Hilton and prepare her kit and meet him in the morning. Abdul Obeid escorted her to a car park at the side of the office, where a smart four-wheel drive was waiting, a driver at the open door.
“You heard that Manchester won the Cup?” she said, settling into the backseat as the vehicle roared out of the car park. Abdul was supposed to reply, “Do not speak to me of that because I am a supporter of Arsenal,” but he said nothing.
She felt a slight twinge of unease. “Is it far to the hotel?” she said. It was still dark. They were passing corrugated-iron shanties. There were figures sleeping by the roadside, goats and stray dogs picking at garbage. The Hilton was close to the sea and the port, but they were heading towards the hills.
“Is this the best way to the Hilton?” she ventured.
“No,” said Abdul Obeid abruptly, turning to fix her with a terrifying stare. “And now you must be silent.”
Eighty miles east, in the Red Sea midway between Port Sudan and Mecca, the full might of the American, British and French Intelligence services and special forces was gathered on the aircraft carrier USS Condor, focused on the whereabouts of Zaccharias Attaf and Agent Olivia Joules.
In the control room of the dive ship USS Ardèche, Scott Rich was staring, expressionless, at the small red light on his screen. He pressed a button and leaned forward to the microphone.
“Ardèche to Condor, we have a problem. Agent Obeid has failed to make contact at the airport. Agent Joules is traveling at sixty miles per hour in a southwesterly direction towards the Red Sea hills. We need ground forces to intercept. Repeat: ground forces to intercept.”
Olivia calculated that they were about forty miles south of Port Sudan and somewhat inland, following the line of the hills which ran parallel to the sea. They had long ago left the road behind, and she was conscious of rough terrain, land rising sharply to their left and desert scents. She had made several attempts to extract weaponry from her bag until Abdul Obeid had caught her at it and flung the bag into the back. She had weighed up the possible benefits of trying to kill or stun the driver and decided there was little to be gained. Better let them lead her to Feramo, if that was where they were going. Scott Rich would be on her trail.
The vehicle screeched to a halt. Abdul opened the door and pulled her out roughly. The driver took her bag out of the back and threw it to the ground, followed by the carpet, which seemed to have become even more unwieldy and landed with a heavy thud.
“Abdul, why are you doing this?” she said.
“I am not Abdul.”
“Then where is Abdul?”
“In the carpet,” he said, climbing back into the car with the driver and slamming the door. “Mr. Feramo will meet you here at his convenience.”
“Wait,” said Olivia, staring horrified at the carpet. “Wait. You’re not going to leave me here with a body?”
In response, the vehicle started to reverse, executed a dramatic hand-brake turn and roared off back the way it had come. If she had had a gun, she could have shot out the tires. As it was, she gave in, sank down on her bag and watched the taillights of the four-wheel drive until they disappeared, and the roar of the engine faded into nothing. There was the cry of a hyena, then only the vast ringing silence of the desert. She found herself thinking of Widgett talking about the terrorists’ war on the West, and how it was rooted in deserts and history and real and imagined slights which couldn’t be eradicated by armies or bluster; and she felt helpless. She glanced at her watch. The local time was 3:30 A.M. Dawn would come within the hour, followed by twelve hours of unforgiving blistering African sun. She had better get busy.
As the first rays of the sun crept over the red rocks behind her, Olivia regarded her handiwork wearily. Abdul was buried under a thin covering of sand. Initially she had placed a cross of sticks at the head because that was what seemed normal on a grave; then she realized that this was a pretty major faux pas in these parts and changed it to a crescent made out of stones. She wasn’t sure if that was right either, but at least it was something.
She had carried her belongings a good distance away, trying to escape from the smell and the aura of death. Her sarong was stretched between two boulders to make some shade. The plastic sheet was spread out on the rocky earth below, and on it was a chair made out of her bag and bundled sweatshirt. The embers of a small fire were burning beside it. Olivia was tending to her water-collection point: a plastic carrier bag stretched above a hole she’d dug in the sand, pebbles weighting it in the center. She lifted it, carefully shaking down the last drops of water, and took out the survival tin from underneath. There was half an inch of cold water in the bottom. She drank it slowly, with pride. With the supplies she had in her bag she could survive here for days. Suddenly she heard hoofbeats in the distance. She scrambled to her feet and hurried to the shelter, rummaged in the bag and found her spyglass at the bottom. Looking through it, she saw two horsemen, maybe three, in colored clothing. Rashaida, not Beja.
I hope it’s Feramo, she thought to herself in denial, turning him back into a romantic hero, because that was the best shot at mental comfort she’d got. I hope he’s coming to get me. I hope it’s him.
She ran a brush through her hair and checked her equipment. Fearing separation from her kit, she had stashed as much weaponry as possibly on her person—behind the booster pads in her bra, in the lining of her hat and the pockets in her shirt and chinos. The absolute essentials were in the bra—the dagger and tranquilizer syringe acting as underwiring. The flower in the center hid another tiny circular saw and in the booster pad she had concealed the digital micro-camera, the blusher-ball gas diffuser, a waterproof lighter and the lip salve, which was actually a flash.
She ate one muesli bar, slipped another two into her chinos and checked the contents of her bum bag: Maglite torch, Swiss Army knife, compass. Hurriedly, she dismantled the water-collecting device, repacked her survival tin and shoved that in the bum bag too, with the carrier bag.
As the sound of hooves grew louder, she focused hard on her training—keep your spirits up by looking on the bright side; keep your mind alert and the adrenaline pumping by preparing for the worst—when she heard a single gunshot. She didn’t have time to look, or think, as she flung herself flat on the ground.