Africa Road, southbound out of Khartoum International Airport
Khartoum, Sudan
March 24, 6:25 a.m.
McCoy tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs, dissipating the nervous energy as he drove the team to Awadiya Khalil’s private residence. They had a killing to stop and so far, nobody was feeling particularly good about their probability of success.
“Still not answering her phone?” Castillo said, turning to look at Junior and Ani in the back.
“She must have turned it off,” Junior said. “Every call goes straight to voicemail and her mailbox is full.”
“Keep trying,” Castillo said.
“I am, and I’m sending her text messages, too.”
“I hear you tapping away on that laptop, Ani. Have you got visuals?” Castillo asked.
McCoy glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her gaze was laser focused on her computer screen. She answered without looking up.
“The drone is in orbit with good viz, but I’ve got nothing suspicious at all in a several block radius around Awadiya’s house. I don’t know, guys. A hit at her private residence doesn’t feel right to me, even though the data points Junior’s guys pulled off that computer suggest it.”
“Agreed,” McCoy said, returning his attention back to the road. “We need to think about motivation here. Why is SIF going after Awadiya Khalil in the first place?”
Junior grunted. “Because she represents a very real threat to all the fundamentalist values that the Islamic Front and other proponents of Islamic rule of law embrace. If she wins the presidency, she’ll usher in a new era of change and turn the established hierarchy on its head. A democratic, secular Sudan is a world where the Sudanese Islamic Front has no future.”
“Exactly,” Ani said. “So, is this just an assassination or a public statement they’re trying to make?”
“Both,” McCoy said.
“Agreed, so by killing her, what message is the Islamic Front trying to send?” she asked.
“It’s a message to her supporters, a message to the reformers, hell, a message to every Sudanese—this is what happens to you when you try to upset the Islamic order,” Junior said.
McCoy nodded. Oppressive regimes in the Middle East all had one thing in common: a fundamentalist, hard-line interpretation of Islam where Sharia law formed the foundation of governance.
“I’m not convinced SIF is acting unilaterally on this,” Castillo said.
“What do you mean?” McCoy said with a sideways glance.
“I think Irshad Khalil is behind this hit,” Castillo said.
“Hold on. You’re saying you think he’s helping the Islamic Front to assassinate his own sister?” Junior said.
“No,” Castillo said. “Take it one step further. Not just helping them, I’m suggesting assassinating her was his idea.”
“Murder his own sister? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Honor killings are a dark and long-rooted practice that still exists in the Islamic world,” Ani said, her voice taking on a dark and hard edge, “especially in societies governed by Sharia law. A daughter, sister, or wife who engages in disgraceful behavior or commits an act that is perceived to bring public shame to the family will be punished—and in extreme cases murdered for it. Last year, five thousand women around the world were murdered by a family member in the name of honor. Is it so difficult to imagine a man like Irshad Khalil, an ambitious man in a position of governmental power, becoming jealous of his sister who could become the President of Sudan?”
“He doesn’t strike me as a fundamentalist,” Junior said, stepping into the devil’s advocate role. “When you interviewed Awadiya, I was under the impression that her brother was supportive of her campaign.”
“What if that’s just the mask he wears in public? What if privately he’s not only diminished by her success, but offended by it?” McCoy said, jumping in.
He’d spent enough time dealing with village elders and tribal hard-liners to understand how important honor was in devout Muslim families. What Ani suggested resonated with him. It just felt right.
“Bingo,” Castillo said, cocking and firing a pistol finger at McCoy from the passenger seat.
McCoy eased off the accelerator.
“We’re heading in the wrong direction,” he said. “They’re not going to kill Awadiya at her private residence. There’s no bang for the buck. To drive fear and control the narrative, he’ll want the murder to happen at a time and place the world will notice.”
“Ani,” Castillo said, “you still have the contact at her campaign HQ? Can you call her and see what big-crowd events Awadiya has coming up?”
“Wait,” Ani said, clicking her laptop keys again. “Okay, according to her campaign website, she’s giving a speech this morning at the march for democracy event in downtown Khartoum. They’re having a mass morning prayer—the Salat al-Fajr—to show they are not abandoning their faith by pursuing a secular government. That prayer will be wrapping up about now, with a short speech by a cleric supporting her campaign. She takes the stage right after.”
“What time?” Castillo asked.
“In twenty-two minutes.”
“Get an address into the GPS,” McCoy said, a wave of adrenaline washing over him at the news.
“Entering one now,” Junior said.
“How do you think they’re going to do it?” Ani asked with heightened tension in her voice. “Suicide bomber? Rooftop sniper? Lone gunman in the crowd . . . it makes a difference how we prosecute the threat.”
“It makes a huge friggin’ difference,” Castillo said.
A computerized female voice speaking with a British accent from Junior’s GPS told McCoy to make a U-turn and then reported it would take fifteen minutes to reach the destination.
“We’re not going to make it in time,” Ani said.
“We’re going to make it,” McCoy said, his voice drowned out by the roar of the SUV’s V8 engine as he pressed the accelerator to the floor. “So we still have the drone in orbit?”
“I kept it on station until the jet gets airborne, so yeah, we still got it,” Junior replied. “I’ll extend the tasking right now.” The spook opened the laptop he had sitting on his thighs in the middle row captain’s chair behind McCoy.
“Ani, get the drone refocused on downtown and the march. Scan the rooftops for possible snipers, but my money is on a suicide bomber rushing the stage. These guys are going to want to go big—shock and awe—to intimidate and scare all her supporters.”
“I’m on it,” Ani said, her fingers tapping with renewed purpose on the keyboard.
McCoy felt Castillo’s eyes on him. When the old man didn’t say anything after thirty seconds, he couldn’t take it anymore. “What?” he said with an annoyed sideways glance. “I can tell you’ve got something to say, Charley, so just spit it out.”
“I want you to promise me that this time, you’re not going to go all Captain America on me and charge off into the crowd to take these guys on single-handedly, leaving me in the dust like you did in Cairo,” Castillo said.
His expression deadpan, McCoy replied, “Look, I’m not gonna walk across the finish line just because your old-man legs can’t keep up.”
“I’m serious, Killer,” Castillo said, using the one and only nickname that McCoy despised. “Don’t do it.”
“I’m just messing with you, Charley. We absolutely need to keep this tight and coordinated. This march is going to be teeming with God only knows how many civilians. Their safety needs to be our number one priority.”
“Good,” Castillo said, but there was plenty packed in that single-word answer that McCoy picked up on, not the least of which was Castillo’s own recognition that at fifty-seven years old he’d lost a step. Also, he noticed that the old man never passed on an opportunity to reinforce the fact that he was the ringmaster of this pop-up circus of theirs. They weren’t partners, and the same held true for Junior and Ani—in Charley’s mind they all worked for him.
It’s all good, McCoy thought, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. I never wanted this gig in the first place. When this is over, Charley gets to go back to his ranch a hero and I finally get to go back to being a Marine.