Raven Strike

Kimko turned it over in his hand.

“How do I know this came from the aircraft?”

Li Han reached for the phone. He paged back through the images, stopping on a dark rectangular blur.

“It is the item on the right,” said Li Han, handing the cell phone back. “Do you see?”

Kimko really didn’t see, but others would. Even if the Chinaman was a fraud, this whole enterprise was certainly worth talking to Moscow about. It was definitely a ticket out of Africa.

But if he was a fraud, it could backfire.

“One million euros,” said Li Han.

Kimko chuckled. “A million euros? For a broken piece of metal?”

Li Han didn’t respond.

“I don’t think this is worth a million euros,” said Kimko. “A million euros would not be appropriate.”

Kimko started to hand the phone back. Li Han wouldn’t take it.

If it were a UAV, and if Moscow didn’t know anything about it, then certainly it would be worth a million euros.

Maybe, maybe not. The best thing to do would be to let someone else make the call. In that case, if it were a fraud, then there would be no blame on him.

“I think one million euros is too much,” said Kimko. He sighed, as if making a deep concession. “But if perhaps I could have one of my people inspect it, then we could negotiate seriously. People who know about these things,” added Kimko. “I don’t. I’m not an expert.”

“No one sees it until I’m paid.”

“Well that’s impossible, then. This could all be a fraud.” Kimko started to reach for the door handle, then remembered this was his truck—he shouldn’t be the one to leave. They sat for a few moments in silence.

“Maybe an inspection could be arranged,” said Li Han finally. “If you made a down payment.”

Kimko snorted. “Impossible.”

“I will give you something else. You’ll pay for that.”

Kimko made a face. Now he knew the man was a con artist. Whether it was his truck or not, he was getting out. He reached for the door.

“Here is a CIA bug,” said Li Han, reaching into his pocket.

Once more Kimko’s lungs seized. Li Han was worse than a con man—he was a plant, an agent.

“It’s inactive,” said Li Han, opening his palm. A small insect was inside. “Take it and I’ll show you.”

Unsure what else to do, Kimko reached for the insect. He picked it up gingerly. It felt real.

Men would be shooting at them any moment, he was sure. This was all a setup.

Li Han reached into his pocket again. He took out a small radiolike device and flipped it on.

“See?” said Li Han. “No radio signal. You see my needle. The bug doesn’t work, but you can examine it and see how they do it.”

“I’m sure we have millions of these,” said Kimko.

“One thousand euros. Now.”

“We have many of these,” said Kimko. He didn’t trust Li Han’s detector, and in fact wasn’t even sure the bug was a listening device. It looked more like a plastic model, a gag toy. He started to give it back.

“A thousand euros as a down payment.” Li Han pushed his hand away gently. “The device as a token of my sincerity.”

“I will give you five hundred euros right now,” said Kimko, deciding now it was the only way to get rid of him.

Li Han folded his arms and looked down at the floor of the truck. Kimko wondered if he should go higher. No, he decided—he shouldn’t have made an offer at all.

“Five hundred will do for now,” said Li Han. “There is a three-story building near the railroad tracks that once belonged to the stationmaster. You will meet me there at dusk tomorrow if you intend to purchase the aircraft. It won’t be there,” added Li Han, “so you needn’t try any tricks. Come alone. I will take you to it, and you will transfer the money to an account. Once the transaction is complete, we can all be on our way. Come alone. Alone.”

“Understood,” said Kimko.

“They’re leaving,” said Nuri, watching the video feed on the MY-PID slate. It was coming directly from the Global Hawk; the Tigershark was still a few minutes away, and MY-PID itself still wasn’t online. “The car with Li Han seems to be going back to the house,” said Nuri. “If it does, then we should follow the second truck, see where it goes.”

“I want Mao Man,” said Melissa, leaning forward in the backseat.

“We’ll get him,” said Nuri. “Relax.”

Nuri zoomed the screen out as the vehicles continued to drive. He couldn’t watch both for very much longer.

“Li Han has to take priority,” insisted Melissa.

“He’s your problem,” said Nuri. “We’re here for the UAV. Da

“You could say the same about the truck,” answered Melissa.

“Nuri’s calling the shots on the surveillance,” said Da

As soon as Li Han was out of sight, Kimko told the driver to get on the road and go south. He pulled his ruck from the floor of the truck and reached inside, taking out a small fabric pencil case. He unfolded a metallic instrument from inside a small cocoon of bubble wrap, pushed its two halves together and turned. An LED at the end blinked red twice, then turned green. This was a bug detector, simpler in operation than Li Han’s, though more sophisticated, or so Kimko thought. It detected all ma

The light stayed green, even when he put the other end of the stick against it. He began to speak.

“I wonder if this is really a listening device,” he said in Russian. “I doubt it. He has taken my euros and I will never see him again.”

The light remained green.

Probably it was phony. But then, so was the money he had handed over.

Kimko replaced the detector carefully back in its little nest. He took his satellite phone from the ruck and tapped the numbers; it was time to talk to Moscow.

Turk eased off the throttle as the Tigershark reached the ellipse marked out on his helmet display’s sitrep map. The map gave the pilot a God’s eye view of the world, with his target area in the center screen; he switched to the more traditional American view, showing the plane in the center, then keyed his mike to talk to Da

“Tigershark to Whiplash Ground—Colonel, I’m on station. You should have an affirmative hookup.”

“Roger that, Tigershark. Ground acknowledges. Starting the handshake.”

Turk smirked at the terminology. Handshake. All the damn radios did was squawk at each other.

Having five hundred euros in his hand made Li Han feel almost insanely giddy. It was foolish and stupid—he had far larger sums than that in any number of his accounts, and several thousand in American dollars stuffed into his boots. Yet he couldn’t help the intoxication. He’d been raised in a dirt-poor village in northwestern China; when he was growing up, the family pig ate better than he did. All the years since had done nothing to erase the memories of abject poverty and worthlessness, and only magnified the importance of money. Of cash. Of bills that passed smoothly between your fingers.

He folded them carefully, then put them in his pocket. Back to the problem at hand.

“Why did the program execute once it was in the laptop?” Li Han said aloud. He spoke in his native Chinese, trying to work out his problem with an invisible colleague. “And what does it think it’s doing? Is it trying to go after me? I wonder what sort of intelligence it has. Because clearly it has intelligence.”

“What are you saying?” asked Amara in English.

“Something you wouldn’t understand,” snapped Li Han in Chinese.

The young man didn’t understand what he said, but the harsh tone came through, and his face turned to a frown. Li Han felt a twinge of guilt—Amara wasn’t a bad kid. He should be kinder to him, especially since he thought he would be useful.

“I am exploring a problem,” Li Han said in English, trying to make his voice kinder. “The aircraft’s brain is a computer. When it interfaced with my computer, it acted as if it were alive. It started to operate. Do you know what that means?”