The Ares Decision (4 page)

T
HE TOWN OF PAARL,
South Africa, and the granite domes that framed it, were just visible in the afternoon light. Grapevines radiated in every direction, the neat rows eventually disappearing into rolling hills.

Sarie van Keuren swung her Land Cruiser onto an empty rural road and squinted into the sun. She should have stopped for the night in Springbok but hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. Twenty-one hours, thirteen cups of coffee, and an embarrassingly large bag of farm-stall sausages later, home was less than a kilometer away.

She slowed and veered onto a gravel track, skidding to a stop in front of the century-old wall she’d spent two years restoring. At the press of a button, the flower-covered gate began to swing open and she eased through, stopping in front of a meticulously whitewashed Cape Dutch farmhouse.

None of her friends understood why she lived alone in what they referred to as the “hinterlands,” and sometimes she wasn’t sure either. Every six months or so she got to thinking about moving into Cape Town and leaving behind the forty-five-minute commute to the university where she worked, but when it came to actually calling an estate agent, she could never bring herself to do it.

Two of the many reasons for her reluctance came barreling around the house as she turned off the ignition. They jumped up on the car door, adding to the deep gouges their claws had made over the years and fighting to get their faces through the open window. Sarie pulled away, but she was a fraction too slow to avoid getting a wet tongue in her ear. “Halla! Ingwe! Down!”

They ignored her, barking joyously as she stuck a foot against the door and shoved it open against the weight of the two Rhodesian ridgebacks. A rack of specimen jars with ants still clinging to the stalks inside were resting on the passenger seat, and she held them over her head as she fought her way to the front door.

She set the jars next to the mail her caretaker had piled on an old sideboard and knelt, rubbing the dogs’ heads and trying to keep out of slobbering range.

“Did Mandisa feed you today?” she said in Afrikaans. “No? Okay, let’s get you two troublemakers something to eat.”

Maybe her friends were only half right, she mused as she lugged a heavy bag of dog food from the pantry. It could be that living in the country wasn’t the problem. Maybe the problem was the alone part. It was so easy for her to bury herself in work, to shut everything else out. But where would that leave her in the end?

D
EMBE KAIKARA PEERED
over the lip of the irrigation ditch at the gate across the road. Through the bars, he saw the woman begin unloading her truck, teetering back and forth beneath armloads of cameras, camping gear, and scientific equipment.

When he was told she was a college professor, he’d pictured a sagging old woman with gray hair and thick glasses—the stern, disapproving face of the Belgian nun who had come to his village so many years ago to teach reading and the white man’s religion.

Sarie van Keuren was none of those things. Even from this distance, he could see the well-defined muscles in her arms and the athletic grace of her movement. Her hair, like the Land Cruiser, was covered with a layer of dust, but when it was cleaned it would once again be the sun-bleached blond he found so exotic.

She would fight. He could almost feel her beneath him, trying to use the strength that she was so confident in until she finally understood that she was nothing and succumbed to his power. Maybe when she was no longer of use, she would be presented to him as a reward for his loyalty.

Kaikara retreated back into the ditch and pulled a phone from his pocket, dialing a number from memory.

“Yes.”

“She is here.”

“And the road?”

“There is no traffic and no other houses for more than a kilometer. It will be easy.”

“Nothing is easy!”

The sudden anger in the voice caused a jolt of adrenaline to course through him. “She is just a woman. I’ve never failed you before. And I never will.”

“Wait until night when she’s asleep.”

The voice was calm again, and Kaikara let out a silent, grateful breath. “I understand.”

“The code to her gate is four-three-nine-six. Do you understand?”

He pulled out a pistol and used the barrel to draw the numbers into the dirt just like the Belgian woman had taught him. “Yes, I have it.”

J
ON SMITH LEANED OVER
the wheel of his 1968 Triumph, bringing his face close enough to the windshield that a bank of well-hidden cameras could ID him. A moment later a gate designed to look much less formidable than it really was swung inward, allowing him to idle onto the lush grounds of what the sign said was the Anacostia Seagoing Yacht Club.

He weaved through the utilitarian buildings, finally turning to parallel a lengthy dock full of what appeared to be well-maintained boats. In truth, they were unused boats—brought in and out at intervals designed to make things look credible to the other marinas in the area.

It was hard for him to get used to the fact that Covert-One had grown to the point that it rated an honest-to-God headquarters. When the president had first authorized it, they’d been nothing but a loose collection of independent operators with complementary areas of expertise and a convenient lack of personal entanglements. Funding had been—and still was—completely black, consisting of tax dollars quietly diverted from much more mundane government projects and agencies.

Covert-One was partially a victim of its own success and partially a victim of the failures of the traditional intel agencies. The creation of Homeland Security, which was supposed to streamline communication between critical branches of government, had instead created a battleship of a bureaucracy paralyzed with turf wars, politics, and ass covering.

C1’s unique ability to move quickly and decisively, unfettered by the normal approval process and administrative battles, made it a formidable, if entirely illegal, weapon in the president’s arsenal.

“Jon,” Fred Klein said, standing and extending a hand over his simple desk. “I’m sorry to take you away from those kids.”

“No problem. They’re all out of the woods, and a friend of mine at the CDC agreed to keep an eye on things for me. So what’s up?”

Klein looked strangely uncertain as he sat, pulling a pipe from his drawer and lighting it. An overhead fan started automatically, drawing the smoke upward.

“I’m honestly not sure we should be getting involved in this at all, Jon. As you know, I spend a lot of time finding ways
not
to use Covert-One.”

Smith nodded. The secrecy surrounding the organization was both ridiculously oppressive and entirely necessary. Every time Klein unleashed his people, he risked exposure—something that would be a disaster for both the administration and the country as a whole.

“I take it the president wouldn’t agree to keep us out of it?”

“He has his teeth into this thing and we’ve been friends long enough for me to know when I’m not going to be able to change his mind. My hope is that this will turn into a very quick and very quiet wild-goose chase.” He paused for a moment. “Have you ever heard the name Caleb Bahame?”

“Guerrilla leader with delusions of godhood,” Smith responded. “He’s got a force of mostly child soldiers that he’s using to create a lot of chaos in northern Uganda.”

“I’m impressed. What you don’t know is that we recently sent a special ops team after him.”

“Good,” Smith said. “That guy’s a nasty piece of work. Did they get him?”

Klein took a deep drag on his pipe and let the smoke roll slowly from his mouth. “The team was wiped out over the course of a few minutes. Their leader, a SEAL named Rivera, managed to escape and spent two days crawling through jungle to get to an extraction point.”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

“Neither has anyone else. The president is exposed politically on this. People are getting tired of watching our boys die in fighting that never seems to get us anywhere. And as hopeless as the Middle East is, sub-Saharan Africa is seen as being ten times worse.”

“If it’s so unpopular, what were we doing there?”

“Bahame’s become more effective lately. His forces are overrunning villages almost daily—completely wiping them out. There’s a panic starting that could destabilize not only Uganda but Kenya and the DRC. We’re talking about a humanitarian nightmare that’s hard to imagine, and the president felt we had a moral obligation to step in.”

“I can’t say I disagree with him,” Smith said. “But how does Covert-One fit in? This seems more like a UN or AU issue.”

Klein tapped a few keys on his laptop and then turned it so Smith could see the five separate videos starting to play.

He watched intently until they all went dark and then slid his chair back, feeling the need for a little distance between himself and the screen. He’d spent half his life getting into situations that he didn’t have much chance of getting out of, but in all those years, he’d never seen anything like what those soldiers had come up against.

“Jesus,” he muttered finally.

“Thoughts?”

“I’m still processing.”

Klein nodded knowingly. “I’ve probably watched it twenty times and I can tell you it doesn’t get any easier. My initial thought was mass hypnosis. By all reports, Bahame makes Charles Manson look like an amateur. I figured some kind of ritual sacrifice to get everyone riled up; then he paints them with blood and turns them loose. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Why not?”

“I put our research people on it and they came across some chatter in Iran about Bahame. Something about a new weapon.”

“Is it solid?” Smith asked.

“No. High-level, but brief and ambiguous. We dug deeper and found another comment from a less reliable Iranian source—it mentioned Bahame and the possibility of some kind of compensation or negotiation.”

“Does the CIA or NSA have anything?”

“No indication that they’re aware of the connection. Or, if they are, it’s not something they’re pursuing.”

Smith looked past Klein at an antique globe positioned to display the continent of Africa. The strange reality of the intelligence business wasn’t that there was too little data; it was that there was too much. Limited manpower forced you to prioritize, and it was easy to see how a few quick mentions of an African guerrilla leader could get shoved to the bottom of the pile. Something crazy was always happening in Africa.

“Have any experts looked at that video?” Smith asked.

“Just you.”

“I’m a microbiologist, Fred, not a psychologist. What I don’t know about mass hysteria is a lot.”

“But based on what little you
do
know, do you think it could be a credible explanation?”

Smith shrugged. “Occam’s razor—the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It doesn’t take a very hard look at history to realize just what human beings are capable of. It’s why you and I have jobs.”

“Okay, but I want you to do a little digging,” Klein said. “Hopefully, you’ll just confirm the psychological hypothesis and that will be the end of it.”

“Can I get a copy of the video?”

“I’ll have Maggie get you one before you leave for the airport.”

“Airport?”

“The surviving SEAL is in the hospital at Camp Lejeune. I assumed you’d want to talk to him.”

“My CO’s expecting me back at Fort Detrick, Fred. People are aware that I left South Dakota, and you know how the army is about people showing up for work.”

Klein’s expression turned a little bored, and he leaned far enough right to see through the open door to his office. “Maggie!”

Maggie Templeton, his longtime assistant and the only other person who understood the entire scope of Covert-One, appeared a moment later carrying a large manila envelope.

“Here you go, Jon. An indefinite leave of absence signed by General Stapleton, plane tickets, and information on the contact who will be picking you up from the terminal in Wilmington. Also, hotel reservations, and a flash drive with the raw video footage you wanted. Oh, I almost forgot…” She hurried out the door and reappeared a moment later holding an army uniform that still had the dry cleaner’s plastic on it.

“Maggie, you are truly a force of nature.”

She smiled. “Chop-chop. Your plane awaits.”

S
ARIE VAN KEUREN COULD
see her father—the broad shoulders supporting his overalls, the tattered cowboy hat he’d bought on a trip to America, the pale blue eyes that seemed to see and understand everything.

He was standing in front of their barn holding a sharp-edged farm tool that she couldn’t identify. Curious, she started running toward him but couldn’t get traction. It was as if gravity had suddenly lost its power to hold her to the ground and her feet just skidded uselessly over the fertile soil.

He approached and she reached for him, but he stopped a few meters away, leaving her to stare down at her tiny hands, confused by the smooth skin unblemished by years working in the African wilderness.

He hefted the enormous blade, raising it high above his head. The sun glinted off it for a moment, and then it came down, arcing toward her neck as she raised her arms and screamed.

Sarie jerked upright in bed, unable to breathe until she recognized the room floating around her in the glow of her alarm clock. She lifted a shaking hand and wiped the sweat from her forehead, trying to will her heart to slow.

She hadn’t had the dream in years, and it had never ended like that before. He always just turned and faded away while she called out and struggled to reach him—not something it took a genius to analyze. What the hell had this been all about?

Certain that she wouldn’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon, Sarie grabbed a pair of sweatpants and padded to the kitchen for a quick tour of the refrigerator. A few gulps of orange juice that had gone off a bit helped calm her down but failed to pull her fully back to the present.

She closed her eyes, trying to blank her mind like she’d been taught, but it didn’t work. Sometimes the past refused to rest.

She remembered her father trying desperately to unlock the gun cabinet and the cruel laughter of the men who had broken into their home. She remembered being slammed to the floor so hard that she couldn’t even scream as the clothes were ripped from her young body.

Her father tried to get to her, but a thick club cracked into the back of his head, sending him careening to the floor. They’d beaten him for what seemed like hours, and when he finally went still she’d turned numb. Her mother reached out for her as they were repeatedly raped, but as it had in the dream, gravity conspired against her.

Eventually, the men had gone, stealing everything they could carry and leaving them for dead. Sarie hadn’t regained consciousness until the heat of the sun found her through the windows. She’d looked over at her parents and saw them staring back at her, the morning light reflecting off their dead eyes.

She’d wanted to die, too. To be with them in the heaven they taught her about every Sunday. But her twelve-year-old heart just wouldn’t stop beating.

She’d finally dragged herself out of the house, naked and bleeding, unable to stand because of a shattered pelvis and dislocated knee. When the farmhands coming to work spotted her, they’d sprinted through the fields, men shouting furiously and women shrieking in despair.

Their farm in Namibia had been sold shortly thereafter, and she’d been shipped to her aunt in Cape Town for a proper upbringing and education. But now even that kind, wonderful woman was gone.

As a sense of loneliness that she wasn’t usually susceptible to started to take hold, Sarie became aware of the silence. Where were the dogs? They never failed to make a noisy fuss when she got up at night.

“Halla? Ingwe?” she called, walking to the back door and pushing it open. “I’ve got some
boerewors
left over. Come in and get a treat.”

Something moved in the darkness and she sank to her knees, arms outstretched. Sometimes a good face licking was the only answer to your problems.

The force of the impact sent her sprawling back into the house, but it wasn’t from the dogs. The outline of a man appeared in the doorway and she rolled to the side, using her momentum to carry herself toward the living room.

He dove but came up short and landed hard on the ancient wood floor, cursing as she scrambled to her feet.

The sofa was only a few meters away, and she went for it, pitching forward when the man managed to swat one of her feet. She didn’t bother to try to maintain her balance, hitting the floor and sliding forward with a hand outstretched.

The holster screwed to the bottom of the frame held one of many guns stashed throughout the house. She wouldn’t make the same mistake her father had.

Her fingers grazed the cold metal, but before she could unsnap the strap securing it, a powerful hand clamped around her ankle.

Sarie rolled immediately onto her back and kicked hard for the man’s groin. Miraculously, her bare foot connected and he released her, again cursing loudly in a tribal dialect she couldn’t place.

Her heart was hammering in her chest as she went for a tiny side table that contained an even tinier .22 pistol. Not her first choice, but still stout enough to make an impression if the bullet happened to hit you in the face.

Again, she was a fraction too slow, and this time the hand clamped around the back of her leg. A moment later, she was being lifted into the air. The ceiling fan was still running, and she clipped it with her shoulder as she sailed over the sofa, landing across an old armchair that flipped backward with the sound of cracking wood.

The man, just a ghost in the darkness of the room, was almost on her but slipped on the old floorboards, polished by more than a century of foot traffic.

Cut off from the rest of the house, Sarie sprinted toward the island that dominated her kitchen, grabbing a knife from the block on it. She spun just as he came up behind her, thrusting the knife out and feeling it penetrate flesh just before his thick forearm came across her throat and slammed the back of her head into the tile countertop. She slid to the ground, fighting to stay conscious as he stumbled backward, staring down at the knife protruding from his side. She watched as he pulled it out and gritted her teeth at the pain flaring in her head. A paring knife. In her panic, she’d grabbed the smallest thing in the block.

He rushed her, and she tried to stand but didn’t have the strength even to bring a hand up to deflect the bloody knife coming at her.

He shouted, spittle hitting her in the face as he shook her and pressed the blade to her neck.

“Why don’t you just shut up and do it,” she said, her voice sounding strangely distant.

He backed away, his rage clearly growing to the point that he was having a hard time putting together coherent thoughts. He dropped the knife and picked up a floor lamp, holding it above his head just like her father had in the dream. But instead of crushing her skull with it, he hesitated and let it fall to the ground.

A moment later she was being dragged through her front door by the hair, her hands clawing weakly at the man’s forearm.

The sight of her dead dogs lying in the driveway robbed her of what little strength she had left, and she didn’t resist when she was dragged onto the asphalt and rolled onto her stomach. Consciousness came and went with her only vaguely aware of the sound of tape being pulled from a roll and the sensation of it being wound around her wrists.

Maybe she wasn’t supposed to have survived all those years ago. Maybe fate had finally come back for her.