Raven Strike

“I never heard him called Mao Man,” said Nuri. “But I know who he is. He’s a technical expert, and a weapons dealer. A real humanitarian. You’ve heard of A.Q. Khan, right?”

Khan was the Pakistani scientist who had helped Iran—and possibly others—develop their own nuclear weapons program.

“This guy is similar, except he’s Chinese,” said Nuri. “He had some sort of falling out with the government and military. Probably over money. Anyway, he’s been in a number of places in the last few years, selling his services. He’s pretty smart. And absolutely no morals.” Nuri turned to Jordan. “He has a team here?”

“Not a team. He’s working with the Sudan Brotherhood.”

“Lovely.” Nuri turned back to Da

“I don’t know about the link—” started Jordan.

“I do,” said Nuri flatly.

“Well you know more than me,” said Jordan. “All I know is we’re targeting this guy. It’s a noncontact situation.”

Nuri frowned. “How long?”

“We’ve been here almost five weeks,” said Jordan. “Most of that time was getting the aircraft ready, though. We only just started tracking him.”

Jordan began briefing them on Raven, an armed UAV they had used to track Mao Man. Its function was similar to Reaper—the armed Predator drones—but it was newer, more capable.

“How?” asked Da

Jordan shrugged. “Faster. A little smaller. More robust.”

Nuri snorted.

“This was its first mission,” said Jordan. “Really more of a shakedown cruise. They picked a quiet area for a maiden flight. Afghanistan was too hot.”

“Yeah,” sneered Nuri.

“Have to try it somewhere,” said Jordan. “It wasn’t my choice. There was some sort of mechanical problem about a third of the way through the mission. There were temperature spikes in the right engine. My guess is that there was impurity in the fuel and something blew in the chamber. The power profiles were off, and we got a lot of ambient sound, kind of like you’d get in a car if there was a hole in the muffler. It may have been loud—that’s what may have tipped off Mao Man and the guerrillas he’s working with. Or maybe they heard the Predator, or saw something somehow. Anyway, they came out of the mine and fired a couple of MPADs—shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles. It was a Stinger Block 2.”

“An American missile?” asked Da

“Oh yeah.”

“How’d they get that?”

“Don’t know. They get a lot of stuff out here.”

“Sold by a friendly government,” said Nuri. “Allegedly friendly.”

Da

“No, that’s the damn shame of it. Raven was flying with a Predator on overwatch. The two aircraft collided.”

“You know where it went down?” asked Da

“Roughly. That’s where Melissa went. We have transponders, but the accident knocked one of them out, and separated the other two. So it’s in one of two spots. At first there was no signal because of a sandstorm.”

“A sandstorm?” asked Da

“Happens all the time here,” said Nuri.

“The particles screw up the low-power transmissions,” explained Jordan. “It’s a trade-off—if you have a transmission that’s too strong, anyone can find you. At any rate, we can see them now. It’s over the border about fifty miles.”

Nuri whistled. “That’s not the best place for a woman.”

“It’s not that bad,” said Jordan. “She’s been out there before.”

“How is one person going to bring back an aircraft?” asked Da

“She said she just wants to locate it.” Jordan shrugged. “When they told us you were coming, she said she’d get there and you could follow.”

“Is she nuts?” asked Da

“Well yeah, actually, she is,” said Jordan.

“We’re getting about a tenth of the story here,” Nuri told Da

“No,” said Da

“That means they don’t have to ask permission to kill this guy,” said Nuri.

“Okay.”

“They’re out here testing a new UAV on a high-value target? CIA officer goes out by herself to locate it? Granted it’s not as bad as it was a year ago, but it’s still not Disney World. There’s a lot more to the story, Da

Nuri folded his arms. He didn’t know exactly what else was going on here, but it smelled bad. Predators had never been used against the rebels here, not even the Sudan Brotherhood, because they’d never taken action against the U.S. In fact, except for their religious beliefs, one could have argued that they were much friendlier toward America philosophically than their government was.

As for Li Han, targeting him made a hell of a lot of sense. But bugging out didn’t. The bureaucratic bs needed to authorize a strike was so immense that an operation like this would continue for years.

Unless they hadn’t gone through with the bureaucratic bs.

Which meant the operation wasn’t just black; it was unauthorized; aka illegal.

Nuri felt his lower lip starting to shudder. The cool air was getting to him.

“How long before we can hook into the Voice?” asked Nuri, using one of his pet names for the MY-PID system.

“Tigershark won’t be on station for a few hours,” said Da

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Da

“Hey Bree, this is Da

Nuri felt a twinge of jealousy at how close the colonel and Brea

For them. For the entire team. But it was personal for Da

“Nuri thinks there’s a lot more going on here than we’re being told, Bree,” said Da

Nuri watched Da

“She wants to talk to you,” said Da

“Ms. Stockard, hello.”

“Nuri, what do you think is going on?” asked Brea

“I can’t say exactly.”

He explained that the Agency didn’t seem to be following its usual protocols when targeting a high-value terrorist like Li Han. On the other hand, he had to admit that because he had no direct information about either Raven or the particular mission, he simply didn’t know how suspicious to be.

The more questions Brea

Well, duh, he thought, handing the phone back to Da

“She’s going to talk to Reid,” Da

“Probably not,” said Nuri.

“You think Reid would lie?”

Nuri shrugged.

There were all sorts of reasons Da

You never knew exactly what the CIA was up to. The Air Force and the rest of the military might have its problems and its politics, but these paled compared to Central Intelligence.