Chapter 21

 

Traveling off-road, it took Dmitry and Elaine twice as long to drive back to the Abéché area as it had to drive from Abéché to the police checkpoint. Elaine kept a close eye on the SUV’s GPS and followed along using the map—it was quite detailed and showed the location of all the villages, which they avoided.

The terrain was grassy in places but was mostly rock and thorny scrub, lightly scattered with baobab trees, with their swollen grey trunks and finger-like leaves visible from a distance—Stan had pointed them out to her. They passed a herd of giraffes, far on the left, and also passed some ostriches and flamingos in a marshy area that was difficult to navigate.

But no Janjaweed, thank goodness.

As they neared the spot near Abéché where Cattoretti was, or at least had been yesterday, Dmitry slowed the SUV to a crawl. The terrain had flattened out to a soggy, grassy plain, and they followed along a muddy path that looked like it might have been created by animals or people. It was still overcast but the rain had diminished to a fine, almost invisible mist.

Elaine peered through the windshield, using the binoculars, and periodically glanced down at the map. “The building should be directly in front of us,” she said, sweeping them back and forth, “but I don’t see a thing yet.”

They crept forward another five hundred meters and Elaine suddenly said, “Stop!”

Making sure there were no wild animals around, she opened the door and stood on the frame, which gave her a better view, and checked the horizon. She still could not see the building. She climbed up onto the hood of the SUV, not caring about denting it—the vehicle was already such a banged-up mess it hardly mattered now.

She raised the binoculars and carefully focused them, slowly moving them across the horizon.

“Still nothing,” she said, climbing back in the car.

Elaine had to be extremely careful—if Cattoretti was still here, it was a chance to take him by surprise. She was fairly certain that he thought he’d pulled one over on her, that she was unaware that he was here. If she played her cards right she might be able to piece together what he was doing here just by observing him, if she could get close enough to him to do it without being detected. Of course, there was the possibility that he had already moved to another location by now. After all, it had been almost twenty-four hours since she and Stan had been at the junkyard and had talked to him on the phone. Then again, he’d been here for a few days, so maybe he was still around.

Dmitry crept the SUV along for another three hundred meters, with Elaine trying to keep an eye out with the binoculars, which was not easy due to the bouncing around of the vehicle.

Dmitry suddenly halted the car.

“I think I see something,” he said, pointing straight ahead. “Left of trees there. See?”

Elaine trained the binoculars on the spot where he was pointing. She saw a beige building, nothing but a light rectangle in the field of view, and it looked like it was made of concrete. “I see it.” She couldn’t make out anything else, no sign of a vehicle, but they were probably still too far away.

She changed from her sandals into her boots, then grabbed one of the camouflaged ponchos from the back seat. “You stay here while I go check it out.”

Dmitry glanced at her with trepidation as she disconnected the sat-phone from the charger and antenna, and then slipped it into her pocket. Since there was only one sat-phone now, there would be no way for them to communicate with each other while she was gone.

Elaine gathered up a flashlight and a few other items she thought she might need, and stepped down from the SUV into the grass. She put the Kalashnikov strap over her head and then donned the poncho—it was made for a man, and there was plenty of room underneath to cover the rifle. Then she clipped the binoculars’ strap around her neck and let them hang outside the poncho.

Elaine told Dmitry to get the Sig Sauer out the glove compartment.

“Keep a close lookout all around,” she said, nodding towards the horizon, “in front and behind. If you see anybody who looks like a threat, start flashing the car lights on and off—I’ll look back through the binoculars every now and then and check. If you get into serious trouble, just lay on the horn.”

Dmitry nodded, looking as if he prayed that nothing would happen that would make any of that necessary.

“And keep the doors locked at all times,” she said, quietly shutting her door. They synchronized their watches. “If I’m not back here in exactly two hours, come and find me. Keep the lights off—use the IR goggles. In another hour it will be dark.”

“Horosho.”

 

* * *

Elaine pulled up the poncho’s hood to hide her face and stayed low in the long, wet grass, watching the house in the distance while keeping an eye on the ground immediately in front of her. Even though she had on her boots, she wasn’t taking any chances. All she needed was to step on one of those black mambas.

She picked up a long stick and used it to swish the grass around a few feet in front of her, as she treaded carefully forward. In addition to the mambas, Stan had told her there were also cobras, puff adders, various species of vipers with venom so powerful that amputation of the affected limb was routine, with death not uncommon.

Every now and then she thought she heard something slither through the grass ahead of her, but she did not actually see any snakes.

The mosquitoes were vicious. She had to stop and slather on more repellent on her hands, arms, neck, and face.

After intermittently scurrying through the brush for twenty minutes, ducking every now and then, watching for anybody who might be around, she was close enough to make out the building they’d spotted without using the binoculars. It was definitely made of white concrete blocks, and she thought she was looking at the rear side. Oddly, there were no doors or windows on the side she could see—just a wall. A bright yellow awning jutted out from one corner, perhaps made of canvas, somehow attached to the wall, supported by two crooked sticks.

There was also a lot of junk scattered around the property. Through the binoculars she could make out a dented black barrel, lying on its side, and what looked like a piece of fence, probably a section of a broken down one that was still standing.

The fence was made of chain link. Through the binoculars it looked shiny, brand new.

Elaine swept the horizon in a full circle, pausing on the SUV behind her for a few seconds, then lowered the binoculars and continued on.

 

* * *

Elaine soon reached the building. Staying down, she carefully made her way through the rubble behind it, trying not to make any noise. There were empty tin cans, broken bottles, a decaying foam mattress, and various other items of junk and garbage scattered around. She could hear the incessant beating of drums from one of the nearby villages, but nothing coming from the building in front of her.

As she approached the bit of chain link fence, a strange, déjà vu-like feeling came over her, like she had been here before. It made no sense to her.

She crouched in front of the fence, peering up at the coil of razor-wire across it, then to the left and right. It ran for about thirty feet in a line parallel to the back of the building. But the fence just stopped on both ends—there were no broken down parts, no other bare posts or chain link or razor wire or anything else visible.

The fence just stopped on both ends. Just a lone section of fencing that appeared useless in function. Yet it was as if the section fence had been built that way intentionally, for some unexplainable reason. Had somebody started installing it and then changed their minds, or run out of money? And why was the razor wire on top?

What she found even more peculiar was that near one end of the fence, there was a circular hole cut out of the chain link, roughly three feet in diameter and about waist high. It was the kind of hole you would cut to crawl through,...but why would anybody need to cut through a partial fence like this? And why cut the hole so high off the ground—it would be difficult to crawl through it. It made no sense at all.

Staying down, she crept around the left-hand end of the fence, and headed towards the yellow awning. At least she understood its purpose—it was a fireplace for cooking, with loose bricks piled up to make a crude stove.

And then the hole in the chain link fence was also explained. Someone had used the round section that had been cut out of it to create a grill over the fireplace. The circular piece of chain link was crudely held together with smaller pieces of wire, and it was black and greasy-looking in the center.

Elaine quickly moved up against the back wall of the building. Something else caught her eye, a rectangular object leaning partially against the wall. It looked like some kind of electrical control panel, or part of one, with holes where switches and buttons used to be.

She cautiously crept along, staying close to the wall. She accidentally stepped on a tin can half-buried in the sandy dirt. It gave a loud, hollow crunch.

Elaine froze for a second, her finger on the rifle trigger, listening, looking around...but there was no other sound, just the far off, relentless beating of the village drums. And the sounds of chirping crickets—it was almost dark now.

She pressed her ear to the building’s wall, thinking she might hear some noises from inside, but only heard the sound of her own pulse. As she stepped closer to the metal panel and shined her flashlight on it, she could make out labels below the holes where the switches used to be. The words were in English. She was afraid to touch it for fear of making noise when she moved it—it was jammed into the dirt and leaning against the wall.

She leaned over it and used the flashlight to read the labels over the holes.

 

MILITARY JET TAKEOFF

MILITARY JET LANDING

HELICOPTER ROTOR

MACHINE GUN FIRE

SINGLE SHOT FIRE (RIFLE)

SINGLE SHOT FIRE (PISTOL)

 

What the hell? she thought, and she looked back out at the weird, isolated section of chain link fence. What was this, some kind of U.S. military facility?

Then reality smacked her with such force she almost collapsed.

This was the black site where she and Nick had been held!

Reeling, Elaine had to press her shoulder against the brick to keep from collapsing as the truth rushed through her mind in vivid detail.

This was not a real black site.

It was fake. A cleverly constructed deception.

The chain link fence had been set up so that she and Nick would see it when they climbed up to the vent in the cells’ ceilings and looked outside. She remembered that view vividly now, looking out and seeing the fence with the razor wire on top, and beyond, in the distance the jagged outline of the mountain range, which she now knew to be the Marrah Mountains. And above the peaks, the rising crescent moon, which she had noticed was tilted at an unusual angle, completely on its side, a U shape, like the picture on the cover of the Arabian Knights books she’d read as a child. That’s how she’d figured out she was somewhere near the equator.

She looked back at the control panel. All those sound effects had been created to make her and Nick believe the black site was located near an air force base, the sounds of the jets landing and taking off sometimes indicating the arrival and departure of Raj, for his interrogation sessions.

Bile rose in Elaine’s throat as she became fully aware of the level of deception Raj had used. She willed herself not to throw up.

There was no black site, never had been!

Raj had created this place especially for her and Nick...

No, that made no sense...

Would Raj really go to so much trouble just to get his hands on the ransom money that Cattoretti had hidden?

And Giorgio Cattoretti...what did he have to do with this?

The man was here now, or had been the last few days...

“Oh, no,” she mumbled, feeling sick. All of this could only mean one thing.

The sat-phone in Elaine’s pocket started ringing, the sharp warble cutting through the misty air.

She panicked—she had forgotten to mute the ringer. It was still set at full volume!

Fumbling to try to reach it under her poncho, when she pulled it from her pocket and it fell into the mud. As she snatched it up, it only rang louder.

“Damn it!” she gasped, and finally pressed the switch to mute it. Glancing around frantically, with the phone still vibrating in her hand, and expecting Giorgio Cattoretti to come running around a corner any second, she finally caught a glimpse of the display.

Luna was calling.

She clicked the button to take the call, out of breath.

“It’s me,” Elaine whispered.

“Thank god I got hold of you,” Luna said, in an agitated tone. “I’ve got some more news, and it’s another game changer, even bigger than the last.”

Elaine was unable to imagine any news that could be more of a game changer than what she’d just discovered and realized herself. “What is it?”

“Giorgio Cattoretti and Raj are working together,” Luna said breathlessly. “I just figured it all out. They set up a fake black site in Chad so Cattoretti could ‘rescue’ you from it to manipulate you into finding the location of the mine for them. Those two bastards are in cahoots, Elaine, have been all along!”