“Where exactly?” Voronin demanded.

  Kondakov’s fingers flew across his tablet, bringing up a series of still photos and sending them to the larger screen. “These pictures were taken by one of our operatives outside the Israeli embassy in Vienna more than two years ago,” he explained.

  Voronin leaned forward. The photos showed what was definitely the same man captured in the cell phone recording from Al-Ibediyya. He’d been caught on camera as he climbed out of a parked car and strode confidently toward the embassy entrance. The Russian scowled. Now he remembered this episode. In hindsight, it had signaled the eventual catastrophic failure of an earlier major Raven Syndicate operation aimed at the United States—an operation he’d codenamed MIDNIGHT. At the time, he and Kondakov had assumed the man in the photos was only a relatively low-level officer in the Mossad or perhaps in the Sayaret Matkal, a special forces unit controlled by Israel’s military intelligence service. Later analysis of the limited evidence suggested that might not be the case . . . but none of Kondakov’s people had succeeded in identifying the man. He’d shown up in Austria, begun unraveling MIDNIGHT, and then disappeared completely off the Syndicate’s radar.

  Until now.

  Voronin glared at the screen for a moment longer before shifting his angry gaze back to Kondakov. “So now these two spies—both of whom have already done great damage to us—suddenly show up working side by side in Sudan and poking around our mining operations there? Why? What game are they playing?”

  “It could be that, now that the enemy organization these agents serve has failed in its direct attack against you in Russia, it might be planning to strike softer, less heavily guarded Raven Syndicate targets,” Kondakov suggested carefully. “Going after our Al-Ibediyya mining operation would fall into that category. Wrecking it would certainly deprive us of significant revenues.”

  “Not to mention notching another black mark against me in Zhdanov’s eyes,” Voronin muttered.

  Kondakov nodded. A substantial fraction of the profits the Syndicate earned from its overseas enterprises made its way—however indirectly—into secret accounts controlled by the Russian president. Zhdanov would not be pleased to see his private income slashed because Voronin had failed to defend his operations from enemy attack. It would only add to Zhdanov’s growing doubts about the younger man.

  Unable to hide his frustration any longer, Voronin slammed a fist down on his desk, jolting the other man’s tablet computer. “Who the hell are these people?” he snarled. Aware of his sudden lapse of control, he tried to regain his composure, lowering his voice before continuing. “And who are they working for?”

  “Unfortunately, we still don’t have any definitive information,” Kondakov admitted. He waved a hand at the currently frozen video on the screen. “Both used perfect, unaccented English when communicating with their Sudanese interpreter.”

  “Which means nothing.” Voronin shook his head. “I speak perfect English. So do you, for that matter.”

  Kondakov knew Voronin was right. A fifth of the world’s population spoke English as a first or second language. The proportion was even higher among educated Europeans and Israelis. Certainly there was nothing special about the speech patterns they’d observed the two enemy agents using—at least nothing that could be used to narrow down their probable origins. “There is one way to resolve the issue,” he pointed out.

  “Which is?”

  “Direct interrogation using . . . enhanced measures,” Kondakov said. “I guarantee that will answer many of the questions which have troubled us.”

  Voronin smiled his understanding. The former GRU colonel had a justifiable confidence in his ability to elicit information using a mixture of physical pain and psychological pressure. “Then do you anticipate being able to lay your hands on these enemy spies?”

  “Our people in Al-Ibediyya have them under surveillance now,” Kondakov confirmed. “Their reconnaissance of our mining facilities is not yet complete. Better yet, there’s no sign of anyone else providing security for them. And with your authorization, I can have my hunter-killer team on the ground there in less than twenty-four hours. We’ll snap these agents up before they can run. Once we have them in our hands, squeezing the information we need out of them should prove easy enough.”

  “Do it,” Voronin ordered. His pale eyes were expressionless, as frozen as a polar icecap. “But be sure they both suffer great pain before you finish them off. Make an example of them, Vasily.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  port sudan international airport,

  near the red sea, sudan

  the next day

  A sleek executive jet banked sharply over the sparkling, blue-green waters of the Red Sea and crossed the arid brown Sudanese coast, staying in a tight turn to line up on its final approach to Runway 34. Now heading almost due north, the Bombardier Global 7500 rolled back out of its bank and leveled off. Hydraulics whined and thumped as its underwing landing gear and nosewheel swung down and locked in position. Flaps whirred open, providing more lift as the aircraft shed airspeed and altitude. Off its port wing, the jagged, tumbled mass of the Red Sea Hills rose above a narrow coastal plain.

  The jet touched down with a slight jolt and a puff of gray-black smoke from its tires. Braking smoothly as its big turbofan engines wound down, the Bombardier rolled down Port Sudan’s long asphalt runway—rumbling past earthen revetments holding several Chinese-built Hongdu K-8 and Guizhou JL-9 two-seat jet trainers and light attack aircraft. The Sudanese Air Force flight school, although barely operational since the outbreak of factional fighting, was headquartered here.

  Slowing further, the executive jet rolled by the main terminal building and tower. Several other passenger and cargo aircraft sat out on the apron. Since Khartoum International Airport was closed because of intermittent shelling by rival factions, Port Sudan was now the primary entry point for commercial air traffic and international relief supplies.

  Past the terminal, the aircraft turned off the far end of the runway and onto a wide taxiway connected to a separate hard pad and hangar complex away from the airport’s public areas. The Bombardier pulled up and parked beside an Mi-8 utility helicopter in Sudanese Air Force camouflage. Heat waves shimmered across the tarmac. The temperature was well over 100° Fahrenheit.

  The jet’s forward cabin door opened as soon as the engine whine faded into silence. Led by Vasily Kondakov, five men with weapons and gear bags slung over their shoulders trotted down the airstairs and headed directly to the waiting helicopter. Its engines were already spooling up. The six Russians climbed aboard, and the moment they were inside, the Mi-8 lifted off. It swung through an arc and then clattered off to the west—gaining altitude to clear the rugged peaks of the nearby hills. Al-Ibediyya was roughly ninety minutes flying time away.

  Back at the airport, a tall, blond-haired man wearing a white polo shirt with the logo of the UN World Food Programme, the agency coordinating most food aid to the impoverished people of Sudan, lowered his binoculars with a satisfied smile. “And there they go.”

  “Are you sure, Einar?” his shorter, narrow-faced companion asked.

  The big man nodded. The tail number of the Bombardier executive jet confirmed that it was the aircraft owned by Voronin through one of the Raven Syndicate’s shell companies.

  With a terse nod of his own, Rytis Daukša finished entering a short text on his compact, palm-sized satellite phone and hit the send button. It beeped softly, relaying his message through a commercial communications satellite high overhead. “Then we’re set,” he commented, sliding the phone back into his pocket. Their task here was done. Other events were now in motion.

  on the outskirts of al-ibediyya, sudan

  a short time later

  With Laura Van Horn behind him, Nick Flynn stepped out of the dim, relatively cool interior of the mudbrick house they’d been renting and into the intense heat of high summer. He donned his sunglasses and scanned the immediate area, checking again for the slightest hint of anything that seemed out of place. Their weather-beaten, white, older-model Toyota Land Cruiser was parked a few yards away in the wholly inadequate shade that a withered scrub acacia tree provided. Little swirls of dust danced across the dirt courtyard. Nothing else was moving.

  Reassured, they headed to the Land Cruiser.

  Flynn climbed behind the wheel, while Van Horn slid in on the passenger side. They wedged canvas-sided satchels under the center console between them. Both satchels had their flaps open, allowing quick access to the contents inside. With that done, Flynn refolded the sunshade that had narrowly kept the Toyota’s interior from turning into an oven set on high. As it was, they were already starting to sweat.

  He slid the sunshade behind his seat and glanced her way. “Okay, it’s showtime. You ready?”

  With her face a mask of concentration, Van Horn nodded. “You know me, Nick. I’m always ready.”

  “We are talking about the same thing, right?” Flynn said with a grin.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, mister,” she said with a tight, answering smile. “Fun later. Work now.”

  “Roger that,” he agreed.

  After they finished putting on their safety belts, Flynn started up the Land Cruiser and put it in gear. He drove slowly through the gap in the courtyard’s low mud wall. Deliberately, since being sneaky was not the point of this exercise, he signaled for a left turn and pulled out onto a hard-packed dirt road running north. It stretched ahead between other walled mudbrick houses and occasional clumps of scrub trees and brush. There was no traffic. With the sun high overhead, most people in this small city in northern Sudan were holed up indoors, waiting to emerge later in the evening when things cooled off.

  Flynn glanced up at his rear-view mirror a hundred yards farther on. An equally battered dark blue SUV, a Nissan Patrol, had just turned onto the street behind them. Van Horn had her own eyes fixed on her passenger side mirror. “You see it?” she murmured.

  He nodded. “Yep.” He forced himself to avoid gripping the steering wheel tighter. His heart rate bumped up a notch. “Ivan One and Ivan Two. And they’re right on time.” Gently, he pressed down on the gas pedal, and the Toyota picked up speed. He checked his mirror again, watching the vehicle behind them. For a moment, they pulled away from the Nissan. But then its driver reacted and steadily narrowed the gap, closing the distance until he was only a couple of car lengths behind them.

  “Like we figured, these guys aren’t backing off,” Flynn commented, feeling his pulse ratchet higher. Planned or not, this next move was going to be tricky. “The hook is in. Hold tight.” Beside him, Van Horn nodded. She braced herself against the dashboard with her left hand. Her right gripped the handle above her door.

  Flynn risked another quick look at his mirror. The Nissan was on their tail, hanging back no more than ten or fifteen yards. He breathed in and then out again in a disciplined rhythm, working to control his heart rate. One. Two. Three. Through the windshield, he saw a house ahead with a lone palm tree rising over its flat roof. He nodded tightly. He’d picked that out as a landmark on an earlier recon drive up this road.

  Abruptly, he floored it. The Land Cruiser leaped ahead, racing up the street in a haze of tire-whipped dust. Mudbrick buildings and walls flashed by on either side, starting to blur as he kept accelerating.

  Not far ahead, he spotted an opening between the buildings on their right. There it was! Gritting his teeth, Flynn cranked the wheel hard over, careening into a tight, high-speed turn that swung them onto a much narrower dirt road. It ran east toward the edge of town. A cloud of reddish dust billowed behind the Toyota.

  Fifty yards down the little street, he jammed on the brakes. All four tires spun wildly as the Toyota skidded to a stop. Sand and pebbles spattered in all directions.

  Slammed forward against his shoulder belt by the sudden deceleration, Flynn reacted fast. Fractions of a second counted now. When the Land Cruiser stopped moving, he slammed the gearshift into “park” and hit the release on his safety harness. It clicked open. Then he leaned over to the center console and yanked a PP-2000 submachine gun out of his open satchel. In the passenger seat next to him, Van Horn was doing the same thing. Without hesitating, they popped their doors open and stepped down onto the road, turning back to face the way they’d come with their weapons up and ready.

  The red-tinged cloud of dust and sand kicked up by their tires still hung lazily in the air, obscuring the narrow entrance to this street. Flynn tucked the stock of the submachine gun against his shoulder, waiting. Any second now, he thought coolly, hearing the roar of an engine rapidly growing louder.

  And then the blue Nissan burst out of the enveloping haze. Its brakes shrieked as it came to a sudden, fishtailing halt to avoid crashing into the back of their Land Cruiser.

  Flynn and Van Horn opened fire before the Patrol’s driver could try reversing out of danger. Their submachine guns stuttered, punching 9mm rounds into the other vehicle. More than a dozen shots from each weapon smashed through its dark-tinted windshield. Starred and cracked across its entire surface, the safety glass pane slowly collapsed inward. Their guns fell silent.

  Breathing hard, Flynn took his finger off the trigger. With Van Horn covering him, he advanced on the bullet-riddled SUV. Reaching it, he yanked the driver’s door open and stepped aside, quickly readying his submachine gun again.

  “We’re clear,” Van Horn reported quietly.

  Flynn peered in. Blood spattered the interior of the Nissan. The two men inside sagged back against its torn and tattered seats, only held upright by their seat belts. Their upturned, slack-jawed faces stared unblinking at the shattered windshield. Both Russians were clearly dead, shredded by multiple hits at point-blank range.

  He swallowed hard against the sight of so much carnage and backed away. Just as he and Laura had planned, neither Raven Syndicate agent had a chance to pull a weapon. There was no room for fighting fair in this brutal secret war.

  Van Horn was pale too, but she had a determined look. “Better them than us, compadre,” she observed.

  Flynn nodded. Those Russians had made their choice when they signed on with Voronin. He dropped out the half-spent magazine from his PP-2000, tucked it away, and reloaded. She did the same. This fight was just getting started.

  In the sudden deathly stillness, they climbed back into their Land Cruiser. So far, no one had even dared to look out of the neighboring houses to see what all the gunfire meant. That was no great surprise, Flynn knew. Sudan had been embroiled in vicious civil strife for decades. Hundreds of thousands of people had been killed. Millions were refugees, either somewhere inside the country or forced to flee beyond its borders. Civilians had learned the hard way to keep their heads down and avoid entanglement with armed fighters—whether they were members of the rival Sudanese factions or foreigners.

  Safely back inside their vehicle, Flynn and Van Horn donned tactical radio headsets. The time for subtlety and disguise was over. “Trawler Lead, this is Bait Two,” she murmured into her mike. “Tango stalkers are down. Repeat, stalkers are down.”

  “Copy that, Bait,” Flynn heard Cooke reply. “We’re in position. Standing by. ETA now roughly forty-five minutes. Lead out.”

  “And there’s our next cue,” Flynn said. He put the Toyota in gear and pulled away from the ambush site. It took only a couple of minutes to reach the edge of Al-Ibediyya. There, they came to another dirt road rutted by the passage of heavy trucks. They turned onto it and drove northeast—headed out into the Nubian Desert, a barren, waterless wilderness that stretched for more than a hundred miles, all the way out to the rugged, equally bleak heights of the Red Sea Hills.

  over the nubian desert

  a short time later

  Vasily Kondakov leaned over from his bench seat to peer forward into the cockpit of the Mi-8 helicopter. Past the helmeted heads of its three-man Sudanese Air Force crew, he could see the desert unrolling before them as they flew west—clattering low over its harsh, empty expanse. With the sun almost directly overhead, there were no shadows to add depth to the ground they were flying above. In places, dried up wadis snaked through a landscape of reddish sand dunes. In others, slabs of jet-black volcanic rock extruded through the lifeless surface, like spear points thrust out of a dying man’s back.

  Kondakov’s mouth thinned in irritation. Settled human life in northern Sudan was confined to a narrow band—one only a few kilometers wide—centered on the Nile River as it twisted and writhed its way north to Egypt and the distant Mediterranean Sea. And since only a single paved road connected this region to the narrow coastal plains along the Red Sea, helicopters and light aircraft were the most efficient and fastest modes of transportation. Knowing this, however, did not make him any more comfortable at being forced to entrust his safety to the Mi-8’s helicopter’s “local” flight crew.

  Like many Russians, he harbored an unreasonable racial prejudice against most Africans—regarding them as unreliable at best, and near-illiterate savages at worst. Learning that there was no airfield near Al-Ibediyya suitable for the large Bombardier executive jet had come as a severe blow, because it left his Raven Syndicate hunter-killer team dependent on their Sudanese allies for this final leg of the journey. Given the circumstances, they would be lucky to arrive without further trouble at the gold processing plant.

  Kondakov’s dour musings were interrupted by the voice of the Mi-8’s copilot addressing him through his headset. Like the others, he was tied into the helicopter’s intercom system. “There is a radio transmission for you, Mr. Kondakov,” the Sudanese Air Force officer said in heavily accented English, the only language they had in common. “It is from your company’s processing plant. I am patching this call through to you now.”