Ellie cleared security and entered the Frontal Lobe. The monitors twinkled, every piece of data analysed for patterns and aberrations, for risks and threats.
She sat down across the table from Scott and Tenby and exhaled deeply.
‘That kind of day?’ Tenby asked.
‘That kind of life,’ she replied. ‘Please tell me you have something that will make my life better.’ She looked at the gadgets Scott had assembled on the table.
‘I have a range,’ he replied.
‘Start with the best, Scottie,’ Tenby suggested.
Scott used tweezers to hold up a small wire with a knob on the end. ‘We could insert this into something that won’t get confiscated from him. I’m thinking one of those religious pendants.’ He opened a box on his table and took out a small silver cylinder. Inside it was a prayer scroll. ‘Here’s one I made earlier.’
‘For me?’ she asked.
‘For Solomon; another job. Do you know if the kid wears one of these? Or we could put it into the cyanide capsule he’ll be given.’
‘The capsule’s too risky. What about his inhaler? Could we put a second tracker in an inhaler?’
‘A second one? Ellie, I’m not even sure you can have the first one. I’ll have to steal this for you as it is. It’s state-of-the-art, for high value assets only.’
‘He is high value. He’s only a kid.’ She picked up the pendant and draped it over her wrist.
‘Half our assets in the Middle East are kids,’ Tenby said. ‘Militants aren’t the only ones that recruit them. He’s not high value until he gets access to something we need. Scottie, can she take this?’
Scott nodded. ‘I can spare you one because you’re a good guy and the inventory fellas owe me a few favours. Solomon doesn’t need to know.’
‘Thank you, Scottie,’ Ellie said. ‘I’ll return it to you, I promise.’
‘No, you won’t. These are never returned. They usually get buried with the body of the asset. Solomon told me you’ve got a thing with the brother, Ellie. If this goes wrong, I hope you’ve got a good story for him.’
‘It won’t go wrong.’ She thought about the promise she had made to Sathyan.
‘In our line of work, it always goes wrong,’ Scott replied. ‘We’re not running a bakery here. A good day is when the body count is more of them than us.’
•
They took their usual table at the back of the cafe. Ellie cleared her throat, as though something was stuck. She coughed and felt the airway open. She looked Sathyan straight in the face and lied. ‘I’m so sorry. We can’t do it. I tried every connection I’ve got. USAID’s mandate is humanitarian not political.’
Sathyan’s face crumpled. ‘This is humanitarian. You would be bringing two refugees out of the war zone. I’ve read the definition of asylum; they meet the standard. They are in genuine fear for their lives if they stay.’
‘That case has to be made once they apply to a foreign government for asylum.’
‘They will never live to do that. If you can get them to Colombo, the Canadians can help us.’
‘The Canadians always promise more than they can deliver. There’s another way.’ She took a deep breath. ‘We can watch him.’
‘What?’ Sathyan wiped his face and folded his arms across his body to stop shaking.
‘Give him this.’ She slid the envelope across the table.
‘I don’t want money, Ellie—’
‘It’s not money. It’s a tracker. One of the tech guys at the Embassy, Scottie, gave it to me for Gajan. Tell him to wear it on his wrist and we will know exactly where he is.’
‘What good will that do?’
‘USAID will follow him. As soon as he nears the coast, we’ll get a Red Cross boat to pick him up. We’ll be watching the whole time.’
‘Why not pick him up now?’
She coughed lightly and lied again, ‘I told you. I’m not allowed to.’
She couldn’t tell if he believed her, if he wondered how a USAID employee had access to trackers like the one he was now turning over in his hands.
‘Why doesn’t the Red Cross just pick everyone up?’ he asked.
‘They’re not allowed to either. The Sri Lankan government doesn’t acknowledge that there’s a crisis happening in the north. Therefore, according to them, there’s no need for the Red Cross to enter domestic waters to make food drops or pick up refugees. I’m surprised any UN ships still manage to get through for food drops, but then again, their remit is slightly different.’
‘The government just pretends there isn’t a problem and you all go along with it?’
‘Pretty much. The Red Cross has to maintain a neutral distance to ensure they can enter conflict zones. It’s the only way they can do anything at all.’
He pushed his chair back, jolting the table. ‘What about your government? Do you maintain “a neutral distance”?’
‘Please keep your voice down.’
‘Well?’
‘We’re doing what we can.’ She held his gaze the way she had been trained to do. The way she had done to countless others. ‘Please, Sathyan. Give him the tracker and trust me. As soon as he’s near a drop zone, I’ll send word to the Red Cross and they’ll get him out.’
•
Ellie sat next to Scott as he manned the drone. She watched on the large screen as the camera tracked and then hovered over the camp. The camera zoomed in once, twice, then a third time.
‘I’ve been watching this for days now,’ Scott yawned.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve got a lot on.’
‘It’s okay, it’s important to you.’
‘How many drones cover the region?’ she asked.
‘More than you’d think. Twelve dedicated to India, plus five for border patrol and the neighbours.’
‘Pakistan.’
‘The ugliest one of many.’
‘It’s a rough neighbourhood.’
‘Very rough. Karachi is harder to comb than the mountains of Afghanistan. Rumour has it Bin Laden is hiding out there.’ He swivelled the camera around and pulled back a little. ‘This is addictive. Like some weird reality show where you get a God’s-eye view on things.’
‘Thank you, Scottie. I mean it,’ she repeated.
He nodded. ‘Your boy is there. They picked him up five days ago and marched day and night, to here. I think this is a central training hub. I’ve identified five caches of munitions already.’
She watched the dots move across the screen. Tigers, guns and children. ‘Put me through to Redmond.’
Scott dialled the codes, acknowledged Redmond and handed the phone to her.
‘Let’s take the camp,’ she said to her boss.
‘It’s too early and you know it,’ Redmond replied. ‘The kid gives us eyes and ears on the ground. I want to know who’s in charge and who they’re talking to. I want their suppliers. There’s an arms trade route that runs from Asia all the way to the Middle East, Africa and then back again. If those assholes are selling to the Tigers, they’re selling to the jihadis too.’
She felt sweat trickle down her body despite the air conditioning in the Frontal Lobe. ‘He’s a kid, not an undercover operative. He isn’t trained to extract information.’ Sathyan’s brother couldn’t spy for them. This was getting out of control. She should have known it would.
‘Make contact with him and recruit him. Give him a wire.’
‘They’ll find it.’ She said it with certainty. ‘There’s no privacy in a terrorist training camp. This isn’t a restaurant front for the mafia. They’ll work out he’s spying on them in five seconds and, if he’s lucky, they’ll execute him immediately.’
‘I want the network, Ellie. Talk to Scott about what he can give you. Maybe a response call device so the kid can alert you when he sees something useful. Then you find a way to make contact and get the intel.’
‘You’re talking about years of cultivation here. Years of setting up a cover. Redmond, the deal was that I put a tracker on him, he leads us to the camp and …’ her voice trailed away, as she realised the truth. ‘You knew all along where the camp was?’
Redmond showed no remorse. ‘We had a general vicinity of two thousand square miles but no pinpoint location and I don’t get a lot of playtime with the drone to scan the entire Vanni region. So, he saved us a lot of time and money.’
‘But you always wanted more,’ she replied.
‘Yes, we always want more. The war on terror is a long game, you know that. We can wipe them out in Afghanistan, but each time we cut the head off this monster, it grows back more powerful and more amoral than before. Every asset in every region counts.’
‘Some more than others,’ she snapped. ‘We will move mountains to keep some safe. This kid’s got nothing.’
‘This kid doesn’t need anything. The Tigers are training him to be a suicide bomber. They won’t suspect a fifteen-year-old boy whose biggest crime until now was some culturally unacceptable masturbation in a paddy field.’
‘He’s too young, too green to learn.’
‘We have ten-year-olds in Baghdad noticing the movement of unmarked crates and calling it in. Everyone can learn, especially if they want to live. His chances aren’t good with the Tigers. Promise him we’ll get him and his family out.’
‘I’ve already promised that to his brother.’ The floor was starting to feel closer to her than it should.
‘And you’re not lying. The timeframe is just different. The quicker you get in there and make contact, the more likely he is to stay alive.’
Redmond was right about that part. She hated him for being right. Ellie knew this negotiation was over before it began. Redmond would get what he wanted.
‘Take a team with you,’ he continued. ‘Whoever you want, as long as they’re already in-country.’
‘BS are here,’ she replied. Barry Sharkey and Shane Bradfield had first worked with her in Pakistan. Collectively, and accurately, they were known as BS. She had requested them for the exhumations in Sri Lanka because they respected the chain of command that came from Redmond and above, adhered to it, as did she, but also understood that everywhere they went, choices were made. Rights and values were traded just as easily as lives. If they could, BS were prepared to do more than the mission scope, without ever compromising the mission itself.
‘Fine. I don’t know why Sharkey and Bradfield agreed to your Muslim mass grave project in the first place. They’re overqualified.’
‘What can I say? I’m persuasive. And even ex-Black Ops need a break. I’ll take them and Arjuna Diwela. He can pose as my translator again—my Tamil isn’t good enough for the north. He has clearance for this.’
‘That’s a lot of highly trained manpower for one kid.’
‘One kid being taken to one camp full of a lot of militants.’
‘Terrorists, Ellie.’
‘Right.’
The line went dead. She held the phone, listening to the silence. Scott took it from her and returned it to its cradle.