Minute Zero (18 page)

Harare, Zimbabwe
Saturday, 9:05 p.m. Central Africa Time

B
aba, you still awake?” asked Harriet.

President Tinotenda, in pale blue pajamas buttoned up to the top of his neck, was sitting up in a four-poster bed. “Yes, my
kiti
. Please come in.”

“I know it is late for you, Baba,” she said sheepishly.

He glanced through thick reading glasses at the antique English clock on his French Louis XVI replica side table. “It is only a few minutes after nine. I will stay up for the First Lady of the Republic.” He patted the sheets, beckoning her to join him. She approached him, sitting on the far corner of the bed with her legs tucked tightly together.

“I will go back to my room soon and allow you to rest. I must change.” She suddenly felt foolish sitting on his bed while still wearing a formal dress. “I must change. I know you’ve had the most exhausting day, Baba.”

“No, my dear. I found today invigorating. They are my people.”

“You were very inspiring today. I am sure you rallied the people to vote for you again.”

“They are like children. They need their father to scold them. To remind them who they are and who has brought them their freedom. They can become distracted by fancy lies. Like children.”

“I am sure they will show their appreciation.”

“We shall see, Harriet. That uppity little girl Gugu seems to be very popular among the traitors and sellouts. There are so many. Our youth are very susceptible to the tricks of the West.”

“Gugu Mutonga,” she hissed. “She is a
bete
. A cockroach.”

“She is a lawyer, Harriet.”

“Tsaaah! I am certain you will crush her once the people have spoken. Once the voting results are announced, everyone will know she is nothing more than a
bete
.”

“We shall see. Is that what you wanted to talk with me about? The election?”

“Yaah, Baba.” Harriet moved closer to her husband on the bed.

“What is on your mind, my love?”

“Do you have any early results?”

“I was just briefed by the commissioner before I came to bed. The boys are still counting. The final results won’t be known until morning, but he assured me we will have a wide victory. The Revolution will be triumphant. I am confident.”

“I am confident, too, Baba.”

“So why do you ask?”

“I hear things which make me worry.”

“You silly women and your gossip!” He laughed and shook his head.

“Tsaaah. They are just rumors. Lies spread by bandits to make trouble.”

“I see.”

“But I hear them, Baba.”

“You are worried, my
kiti
?”

“I am sorry, Baba.” She looked down in shame.

“Tell me.” Tino gently patted her back for reassurance. She looked up at him with wide eyes.

“What would happen if you lose, Baba?”

“I just told you that won’t happen.”

“But if you did lose, what would happen to
me
?” she pouted.

“I won’t allow that to happen. You mustn’t worry yourself about things that will never come to pass.”

She peered at him for a moment and then dropped her eyes. “I know, Baba. But I can’t help it. I am ashamed. I am worried about my future. I know you are strong. But after you win reelection, I am still worried about what will happen to me.”

He rubbed her back harder. “I told you, my
kiti
. I have made arrangements for you. If it ever becomes necessary, there is a special account overseas. Simba Chimurenga has taken care of everything. You will be taken care of.”

“Simba? He has my emergency bank account? Do you trust him?”

“He’s the only one I can trust.”

“What about me? Don’t you trust your wife?”

“Of course, my dear. But I need Simba to protect my most important treasures,” he said. Winston Tinotenda, suddenly more awake than he had been all day, pushed his hand lower on her back and squeezed.

She abruptly stood up and turned her back to him.

“I am hungry, my
kiti
.”

She looked over her shoulder at her husband, his pajamas, his drooping face, his oversized eyes leering at her through thick Coke-bottle glasses. She weighed her options, considered the multiple ways this evening could evolve, the consequences of each, the costs and risks of her next move.

After a moment she turned her head away from him. Then she unzipped her dress and allowed it to fall to the floor.

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Saturday, 4:40 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

N
ow that UMBRELLA ROSE is down, I’m going to need you working on something else, starting Monday.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sunday into the telephone. “Zimbabwe is still hot, of course. Even if the uranium issue is not.”

“Nah,” dismissed his supervisor at Africa Issue, who was unaware his best analyst was a covert detailee to the ultrasecret Purple Cell. “There’s no intel opportunity in Zimbabwe. Let’s not waste any more time.”

“Sir?”

“You can keep covering the election, but it’s a dead end without the uranium angle.”

“The politics are still quite interesting. I wouldn’t mind staying on and seeing if something breaks.”

“You’re not hearing me, Sunday. There’s no demand for that. No one upstairs gives two shits about that place.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe if the old man Tinotenda dies and it’s taken over by a jihadist. Maybe you’ll get lucky and al-Qaeda will try to move into Victoria Falls. Then I’ll let you work on Zim.”

“Zimbabwe voted today. Election results due tomorrow.”

“Is anything gonna change? The geezer and his cronies will win again, right?”

“Not clear, sir.”

“Same old, same old.”

“There’s a nontrivial chance something could break.”

“There’s a nontrivial chance we’ll all be dead tomorrow.”

“I assess the probability of a fatal attack on CIA headquarters is lower than a political change in Zimbabwe, sir.”

“Well, don’t waste too much time on that,” he laughed, which irked Sunday even more. “Unless UMBRELLA ROSE is turned back on by Monday morning, I’m pulling you to work Somali pirates.”

“Isn’t Glen on that already, sir?”

“I need to throw bodies at Somalia. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is worried about Iranian supplies to radicals running through the Gulf of Aden. Could be a connection with Somali jihadists and their criminal pirate rings. We’ll be shifting bodies over for blanket coverage.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Unless Zimbabwe blows up today, you might as well start reading in. The intel volume has been turned up. Not like the usual dribbles you’re used to in Africa Issue. You’ll be drinking from the fire hose. Would do you good to get a head start.”

“Yes, sir, Somalia.”

Sunday’s computer screen chirped with a special message:

Your bird.

“I’ll get right on Somalia, sir.”

“I knew you’d get it, Sunday. You’re a pirate hunter now. Think like one.”

He resisted the urge to growl and instead mumbled, “Yes, sir.” Sunday threw down the phone and quickly clicked on his new message.

First pics from Vapor Four over Kanyemba.

He double-clicked on the images to give him full-screen views. They were a sequence of aerial photos of a green-covered hill. In the center he could see a small brown square, which he presumed to be the mine shaft entrance. Otherwise, the pictures showed nothing but an overgrown tree-topped ridge. Even the old track that must have connected the mine to the main road was invisible, having been reclaimed by Mother Nature.
This is nothing,
thought Sunday.

Chirp.
Another message.

Bird, money shots.

Click
.

Vapor Four, Geothermal.

Double-click
.

The same pictures as the first message appeared, but instead of normal photographs these were multicolored X-rays of the earth. Sunday needed a few moments to reorient himself to these new images. He opened both versions of the photographs side by side to compare. The ridge and the mine shaft entrance provided reference points. On the geothermal version he could see, under the ground, that the mine shaft ran down and then horizontally along the ridge, an underground tunnel with caves or excavated side rooms. He zoomed in further to try to identify the contents. He was searching for any sign of recent activity, any hint of what had been going on inside the Kanyemba mine.

Then he saw the unmistakable outlines. He could see, clearly, what he hoped he would never find.
La ilaha illallah. There is no God but Allah.

Harare, Zimbabwe
Saturday, 11:51 p.m. Central Africa Time

A
t Josiah Tongogara Primary School in the posh low-density Gun Hill neighborhood, the deputy headmaster was padlocking the gate after a long and grueling day. It had been a ringing success. The ballot boxes were stacked neatly in his office and all of the voting cards were counted, the results posted on the schoolyard chalkboard. The papers were all signed and sent to the central election commission office for safekeeping. Election day had been tense, but with the help of the police it passed without incident. He was sure the local party chief would notice his loyal work that day and recommend his promotion to full headmaster when the old
ambuya
who ran the school finally retired. Exhausted but satisfied, he turned to walk down Samora Machel Avenue to catch a taxi home. He was debating whether to tell his wife about the extra cash he’d earned that day or to spend it instead on one of his girlfriends. He was so deep in thought, he didn’t notice the battered black Nissan sedan pass him and turn into Gun Hill.

Isabella Espinosa inched the old car down the nearly empty street. She was still two blocks away from her destination but turned off the car’s engine and waited in silence. Although Brock Branson had found her a nondescript car for tonight, he was worried that she might be followed, so he’d provided explicit instructions.

Isabella drove south, all the way down Chiremba Road to the balancing rocks at Epworth, executed several U-turns, looped back toward the city center, and then veered northwest toward Gun Hill.

She was pretty sure she wasn’t being followed. Brock had given her surveillance detection route 101 and assured her the Zimbabwean intelligence services were none too subtle. But she wasn’t taking any chances. Now that she was close to her target, she didn’t want to blow it again.

After a few minutes of silence and no perceptible movement, she started up the Nissan and drove past General Solomon Zagwe’s villa. The security lights were on at the front gate but she couldn’t see any guards. All the lights inside the main house appeared to be off. Once she passed safely out of sight, she shut off the car’s lights and U-turned again. Isabella rolled the car underneath a tree that gave her a sight line across Zagwe’s main gate. Still no movement.

Brock had discouraged Isabella from venturing out into the city alone, especially to stake out a cold-blooded mass murderer who knew he was being hunted. But she had a strong hunch that if Zagwe was going to make a move, it would be tonight. If the general was going to flee the country for a new safe haven—Venezuela? North Korea? Saudi Arabia? Did it matter?—she’d need to stop him before he got over the border or out of Zimbabwean airspace.

Branson, valiantly risking his own career, had offered to go with her, but Isabella refused. The surveillance debacle earlier that day with Colonel Durham had only reinforced her initial instinct to do it on her own. This was something she had to do by herself.

If Isabella Espinosa had learned anything from growing up in East Los Angeles and fighting every step of the way through UC Irvine and then UCLA Law, it was to be wary of offers of assistance. They always came with unforeseen entanglements. She knew she always had to be self-reliant. It had taken all her strength to swallow her pride and ask Judd Ryker to join him on this trip.

Now here she was, again needing help. Brock was concerned about Isabella’s safety. Perhaps too concerned? So far the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government didn’t seem to care much about her mission for justice in a decades-old crime on the Horn of Africa. She’d realized long ago no one cared about dead Ethiopians. Why was Brock Branson being so helpful? What was in it for him? Or did the way he looked at her suggest another, perhaps less principled motive?

Even if it wasn’t in her nature to rely on others, she’d decided that if the CIA chief of station was willing to go out on a limb to help her accomplish her mission, she would smile and accept. The perpetrator of the Red Fear, the man who’d killed all those innocent people, was more important than her ego. Isabella even gently flirted with Branson while telling him no, she’d go alone tonight.

“All right, sister. I get it. You wanna play Lone Ranger.”

“Thank you,” she had said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“But if you get any clear signs of flight, you have to call me first. Got that, Special Agent Espinosa? If that scumbag tries to make a break for it, let me do my job.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Don’t you worry about that. I know a guy or two. If he runs to the airport or to the border at Beitbridge, we’ll stop him.”

“And then what?”

“And then that’s your department. You’ll get your fucking DOJ game on, right, sister?”

“Extradition could take years.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Brock had said.

“You ever hear of a CIA rendition for a war crimes case?”

“The CIA doesn’t do renditions, Special Agent Espinosa.”

“Of course not.”

Sitting alone in the car in the dark, the question returned: What
would
she do if Zagwe fled? Chase him? Try to apprehend him? Then what? She pushed the thought out of her mind and raised her binoculars to scan the front gate of the villa. Still nothing.

Isabella checked her watch. Nearly midnight. Would Zagwe wait for the election results before making his move? Or was he so confident in Tino’s victory he hadn’t even made contingency plans? Was her entire trip for nothing? Was she chasing a ghost?

Suddenly the security lights went dark. Isabella lifted the binoculars. She saw something. Movement at the gate. Or maybe just a shadow? Yes, a shadow raced left, then right. She spun the dial to try to refocus the binoculars. Was that a man running? Was it a dog? The trees blowing? Was her mind just playing tricks? She squinted in the dark, her heart galloping, but still unsure. Her breathing quickened. Then . . . nothing.

Deep exhale. Just as she was preparing to slump back in her seat, Isabella’s tunnel of vision through the binoculars suddenly flashed bright white. A millisecond later, her ears rung with a KAAA-BOOM! Isabella ducked her head as the car was splattered by falling debris. The windshield cracked into a spiderweb.

Isabella raised her head above the dashboard to see flames rising over the villa walls. No one inside could possibly have survived that blast, she thought. Had Zagwe been killed? Had she just witnessed the perpetrator fleeing? Who was it? Who would have wanted Zagwe dead? Her mind was racing. Then, like a second explosion in her mind, she realized: I’m an American government official sitting in an unmarked CIA car fifty yards from a political assassination.
Get the hell out of here.