“Well then, we’re bloody well lucky because if we’d met any earlier we would have been hit right along with these blokes.”
The men who had been ambushed were, in fact, Kumar’s people. He introduced the man who had been cradling the wounded SPLA fighter as his brother, Samir Taha. They shook hands in turn and then Taha ordered his men to secure the perimeter, searching the bodies for intelligence while they guarded the party from further attack.
“We thank you for coming when you did,” Taha said.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner,” McCarter replied. He gestured toward James. “This here is Calvin. He’s a medic. Any of you hurt?”
“None that are still alive,” Taha replied as his eyes flicked to the dead body at his feet.
McCarter frowned. “How do you think the LRA knew you were here?”
“I do not know.”
“How about a guess?” Encizo pressed.
Taha looked at him with a haunted expression. “I do not guess, sir.”
“Okay, never mind that,” McCarter said with irritation. “We just bloody well need to worry about getting out of here. What about our man? Your brother seems to think that maybe this Bukatem bloke might have taken him. Do you believe that?”
“Our people in Khartoum have confirmed it. But we do not know the location of Bukatem’s base of operations or even if your man is still alive. We only know they are operating deep inside of our country. We do not know where. And General Kiir will not provide additional men to help in our search.”
McCarter smiled. “Well, let’s just see if we can’t help you with that.”
IT WAS DARK and musty and smelled of death.
Jodi Leighton had been in places like this, mostly during his early training at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as a U.S. Marine recruit, again during his urban terrain training facility prior to his assignment to Khartoum and then later at Langley during his tenure as a CIA operative trainee. But that had only been training; this was real life and he doubted he’d be going home alive at the end of the day.
Leighton had known the risks. Hell, he’d known the risk he was taking just agreeing to this assignment. It’s not as if he’d ever intended this to happen; neither had he expected to fall in love with British agent Kendra Hansom. A long-legged brunette and simply beautiful, she’d stolen his heart the first time he’d met her in that skanky little bar near Khartoum’s city buildings. Leighton wasn’t sure what had become of his British Secret Intelligence Service companion but he tried to keep his thoughts confined to their little trysts and secret meetings.
Of course, it hadn’t been easy to keep the affair a secret. He’d told his case superior, who chose to look the other way and declared plausible deniability if word got out. Leighton wondered if Kendra had spoken to any of her own SIS superiors about it. She’d always seemed like the straitlaced kind who followed orders, for the service of Her Majesty, and all that other patriotic rot for which some Britons were known. But there was also something entirely seductive about Kendra, something forbidden—in legal jargon he might have called his affair with her fruit of the poisonous tree. Such relationships were strictly forbidden, something Leighton’s supervisor had reminded him about when advising he’d completely deny knowledge if the affair came to light with his superiors.
Not that any of this mattered.
Leighton had accepted he was going to die and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about it. The mess he’d made getting involved with Kendra didn’t even come close to the one he’d made allowing Lester Bukatem to capture him. They had already tortured him, in a manner of speaking, although Bukatem hadn’t personally participated in the torture, nor had they asked him any questions. Not yet, anyway. Leighton suspected before long that they would and that’s when the real suffering would begin. It was times like these Leighton wondered why they didn’t issue an agent some kind of suicide remedy, like the old cyanide capsules, and he knew his ordeal had started to take its toll because he chuckled out loud at the cliché of this thinking.
It was nice to hope that someone might actually come after him, but Leighton knew there wouldn’t be any rescue this time. Bukatem had a base of operations in the middle of nowhere, which in this country was basically the equivalent of being in the middle of nowhere that was in the middle of nowhere…and so forth. Sudan had turned out to be a very poor country with little to offer.
Still, Leighton had always done his job the best he knew how. He’d made connections in Khartoum with agents from other secret foreign services—British and Israeli and Russian were just a few—along with establishing ties to the local chieftains. While the government of North Sudan maintained that it was in control, the SPLA still acted as a major influence in the region and protected its citizens as best it could from the guerrilla unit led by Bukatem.
Leighton had first learned the SPLA called the Lord’s Resistance Army by the name Lakwena his first couple of days in country. It was one little-known piece of valuable information his predecessor had left him. That was just before he got piss-drunk and tossed out of the sixth-story window of a club in downtown Frankfurt while in transit to the States, where he was to be debriefed before retiring. Somebody had decided to “retire” him early and some insiders even speculated he’d met his demise by doing something in Khartoum that displeased the unknown third party.
Leighton’s heart and breathing quickened a moment when he thought he heard the approach of his captors, but after a minute he relaxed some when they didn’t show. Cripes, man, don’t get worked into a tizzy, he thought. They’ll get to you soon enough.
Leighton heard the whisking aside of a tent flap, sensed the entry of at least one person and possibly more. He tried to get a feel for how many were actually inside the tent—they had removed the blindfold at one point and punished him with bright lights pointing at him from every angle—but he couldn’t count the footfalls. His ears had started ringing from the long-term silence he’d experienced, washed out only by the steady drone of what could only be a distant generator.
Leighton felt the knot of the blindfold that had been digging into his head loosened and then someone ripped it away and lights replaced the darkness once again. Leighton squinted, attempted to discern the blurry silhouettes of two human figures in front of him, but the change from deep darkness to harsh light made it impossible, a matter that became worse as the strain caused his eyes to tear.
Then came the blow to his jaw, a blow hard enough to split his lip on incisors and rock his head in an awkward direction. A second blow followed, this time from the other side, and somewhere over the thud of leather against bare skin. His. Nausea rolled straight to his gut, and Leighton thought he felt a tooth loosen up. Probably his jaw had cracked under the impact of that last blow.
“Enough!” barked a voice with an Afrikaans accent. “I believe our guest is awake now.”
Leighton couldn’t see more than the darkened shape of the speaker but he didn’t really need to, to know he was dealing with Lester Bukatem. The LRA guerrilla leader had been well-educated, according to intelligence reports, and his cultured accent bore that out. Leighton could think of no other member of this LRA unit, and he was certain it was the LRA that had captured him, with a leader that well-spoken. Not to mention that the man had bothered to speak English at all; that meant he knew Leighton was an American. Only Bukatem would have that kind of information. The CIA guy had to wonder where Bukatem would have come into such information. Had his British counterpart betrayed him? Leighton didn’t want to think so but he also realized he had to consider the possibility. Maybe he’d fucked up after all.
“Mr. Leighton, it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance,” Bukatem said. “You and your predecessor have proved somewhat meddlesome in the affairs of my people, if not worthy adversaries. For this reason I shall permit you to die quickly.”