The Threat (33 page)

“What do they want him to do?”

“The fuck should I know? I'm not the president. He should do
something
. Fire some missiles. Invade somebody. Shit, like they're saying on the radio, even Edwards would be better than this guy.”

Dan had thought the FBI
was
doing something; rooting out the organization in California that had planned the radioactive dispersal and sheltered the terrorists, trying to find out who'd financed and armed them. But he didn't argue. The people he worked with at Mobility Command were still eager to do a good job. But even they were outspoken about their growing hatred for Robert De Bari and everything he represented.

*   *   *

From Asmara the tour headed up into the hinterlands. Ringalls had suggested they visit Kerkerbit, where the battle had taken place, but Holt vetoed that when Dan pointed out it was still in an unsecured area. The compromise was Camp Keaney, the base in the highlands Task Force Cougar operated from.

Dan had flown there to look things over, and have a talk with General Wood. He was relieved to find the man didn't recognize his voice as the staffer he'd spoken to at the Sit Room. Wood wasn't happy about playing host, but after some cutting remarks he'd nodded acknowledgment of Dan's point that even a president who'd decided not to support his offensive was still his commander in chief.

150900: MARINE ONE LANDING CAMP KEANEY

150900–0915: BRIEFING BY COMMANDING GENERAL TASK FORCE COUGAR

Marine One
landed two minutes ahead of schedule, escorted by three Army Black Hawks, for what Dan had scheduled as a two-hour visit. The weather was clear but cold, due to the altitude, and the wind boiled up the dust into a sandpaper fog. The landscape was sand and rock, with eroded mountains barring the western horizon.

Dan jumped off the chopper after De Bari, clutching the satchel and worrying about the distance to the UHF uplink. Since this was a combat zone, he'd borrowed a pistol belt from the marines at the embassy and clipped the Beretta to it.

He didn't enjoy being back in battle dress. Just the smell of the cloth reminded him of Iraq. He jerked his mind out of that groove, which spiraled down first into fear, then panic so extreme he'd hyperventilate himself nearly into a blackout. The president was dressed as if he were at his ranch, in jeans and snakeskin boots and a camo flak jacket that looked out of place over a plaid shirt that probably came out of the L.L. Bean catalog. At least he wasn't wearing his white Stetson.

Dan trailed him into a meet and greet in the command tent with Wood, his staff, and some locals. The general said little, just offered everybody bottled water and went into a map brief on the situation on the border and the composition of the Sudanese and militia forces opposite. The staff officers, though, were glowering and muttering in the back. Standing with them, Dan could hear everything they said.

150915–0930: MEETING WITH TRIBAL ELDERS AND LOCAL MILITARY REPRESENTATIVES

The tribal elders bowed repeatedly when they were introduced, holding cans of Coca-Cola. Their unwashed stench filled the tent. The smell didn't seem to bother De Bari, though. He was sympathetic and amiable, asking what they needed, how they got their news, how the U.S. could help. Wood stood silently by at parade rest, participating only when De Bari asked him a direct question. A State guy Dan didn't know translated, conspicuously taking notes every time one of the graybeards mentioned something his tribe wanted.

150930–1000: TOUR OF CAMP KEANEY, INTERACTION WITH ENLISTED

Wood handed De Bari goggles and led him out into the wind again. The rest of the party shuffled after, those who didn't get protective eyewear shading their eyes against the blowing grit. The press secretary had announced that since the task force was conducting operations, the president would forgo the usual chat with the troops and just do an informal walkaround.

The clatter and whine of the gunships Dan had set up to orbit came—now loud, now distant—from the tan sky. The press staff worked the camera crews, pointing out shots of De Bari joking with the Eritrean liaison, lending a hand sandbagging a position, inspecting a Hummer's transmission.

Head down, staying ten steps behind the gaggle, Dan meditated on the divergence of aim between the press staff and the media itself, noisy, fractious, and determined to get a story out of one of De Bari's increasingly rare visits to a military post. When a cornered Ranger submitted to a handshake, the reps dragged the crews over to film it. When on the other hand a working party turned its collective back on the president, the reps waved the media off like cops waving traffic past an accident. POTUS moved on, and the crews fell in again behind him, the plastic wrappings on their videocams flapping in the cold wind.

A large tent, with a line of dusty, tired troops standing outside, took shape from the fog. M-4s were slung muzzle down over their shoulders. Their boots were caked with dirt. De Bari lifted the flap, grabbed a mess tray, and joined them.

Not a bad move from the PR point of view, Dan thought. Unfortunately, the president decided to join on not at the tail of the queue, but at the front. And since his protective detail went with him, the net effect was to push the hungry, tired troops in line back on their heels.

The beefing got loud fast. Dan looked for a noncom, but didn't see one. He didn't see Wood either. Finally he raised his voice. The objections dropped in volume, but didn't stop.

One of Wood's staff officers, with the railroad tracks of an army captain: “What's the trouble, Colonel?”

“Commander. These troops are talking in ranks.”

“They aren't in ranks. They're in the mess line.” The captain told them, “Keep it down. I don't like this prick any more than you do, but military courtesy, okay?”

Dan blinked. Validating the troops' feelings wasn't the way to handle this situation. But they weren't his men. His responsibility was security-banded to his wrist. Moreover, they were now the focus of three camera teams.

But when he turned back, the flap was falling closed. The captain had
left
.

“Son of a bitch just pushes in front,” one trooper said tentatively, and the beefing caught fire again.

“Left us hangin' in Ker-ker. Now the fucker wants his picture taken with us?”

“Conscientious objector, my ass.”

They kept getting louder. Worse, they began crowding into the tent.

Dan pushed in too, using the satchel to bulldoze soldiers out of the way, and saw as the flap lifted De Bari being backed against the serving line. The protective detail closed up. But within seconds, in the close, food-smelling, near-dark confines of the tent, the result was a struggling knot of muscular bodies behind which the president was just visible trying to say something amid rising shouts and the clatter of mess trays on rifles from outside. Gritty dust milled, beaten off uniforms, scuffed up from the dirt floor. A stack of cups collapsed with a deafening clatter.

Dan wedged into the scrum, yelling at the troops to back off. Elbowing men out of the way, he came face-to-face with McKoy. The head of the protective detail grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. Now, facing out, not in, he felt himself propelled from behind, the satchel gripped like a shield in front of his chest, like the front hoplite in a Spartan phalanx. The rest of the detail had their feet braced and were shoving, turtled around De Bari. When Dan glanced back, the president's cheeks were flushed. He'd never seen the guy mad before. Or was it fear?

When he looked around again he was face-to-face with an angry-looking soldier with a dark complexion, black mustache, and stubble on his cheeks. He was shouting in Dan's face, but with a foot or two still between them, when someone behind him shoved the trooper forward.

Dan grabbed with one arm, missed, but McKoy was ready. Big palms wide in front of him, when the soldier crashed into him the agent pushed back so hard the thump of his hands against the man's chest echoed through the tent. Staggering back, the soldier made a sudden involuntary movement. One hand went, perhaps by chance, to his combat vest.

Dan saw his fingers close around a grenade.

Without even appearing to move McKoy had his pistol out and leveled at the trooper's head. With a simultaneous dip and thrust all the Secret Service men—they were all men on this forward-base visit—had theirs out too. Everyone froze, staring at the weapons. Somebody muttered, “Oooh …
shit
.”

A light blazed on at the tent entrance. The glare of a videocam flood limned shocked eyes, gaping mouths, capturing them all in a suddenly frozen tableau.

“Clear the tent. Clear this fucking tent!”

General Wood, as pissed off as Dan had ever seen a human being. The troops recoiled. Cursing noncoms grabbed at uniforms, web gear, hauled them out bodily. Within seconds the tent was empty, except for the panting Secret Service men, Wood, Dan, and the president.

Dan lowered the satchel to the scuffed dirt, breathing hard. He couldn't believe what he'd just seen. He'd never seen American troops act like this.

He remembered the hate-filled eyes, the hard, tanned faces. The legionaries of the Border. Would the first emperor come from among them?

19

KHARTOUM, SUDAN; GOMA REFUGEE CAMP, EASTERN ZAIRE

He'd expected a feeding frenzy when the video hit, but to his surprise only a couple of outlets mentioned the incident. He watched it in
Air Force One
's pressroom twenty thousand feet above the North African desert. It came across as a confused scuffle in a dark tent, not as the mass and open disrespect he'd experienced. Somehow Ringalls, Holt, and the rest of the president's men had put the well-known De Bari spin on the story.

He didn't believe the troops would actually have used their weapons. The one who'd grabbed the grenade had done so by reflex. But what they'd been
saying
was another matter. He couldn't believe American troops would express open contempt of the commander in chief like that. He had to go back a lot of years for anything like it. To when officers were getting fragged in Vietnam.

*   *   *

Khartoum was a chaotic, run-down sprawl that smelled of paranoia where
khawaja
—foreigners—were concerned. Dan advanced the visit with a sinister-looking colonel who described himself as an “aide.” Lenson suspected he was more likely head of the secret police. The streets reeked of diesel exhaust, shit, and an ancient dry dung-stink that seemed to come from the very bricks.

He helped Gunning set up the comm relays, then carried the PES for De Bari's first meeting with “President” Omar Hassan Ahmed el-Bashir. Dan, the Sudanese colonel, McKoy, and the rest of the protective detail drank cardamom tea in a corridor while the Sudanese bodyguards scowled at them. That afternoon he went along with the first lady and the president for a boat trip on the Nile—which was short, as the river was low and the black mud stank horribly. McKoy had vetoed the visit to the Souk Arabi, fearing anyone could run out of the market crowd, fire a shot at close range, and disappear back into the thousands of beggars, refugees, day laborers, tribesmen, and women in black chadors and leather masks who thronged the juice stalls and spice shops.

The state dinner that evening was at a palace on the river that had once been “Chinese” Gordon's headquarters. Dan thought he'd seen the grand staircase before in some film. He vaguely remembered Gordon being speared to death on it by a howling mob of the Mahdi's fanatics. Islamic uprisings, jihad, massacre, were old stories here. He stood by in an anteroom. The power went out during the performance, which was children doing traditional dances. Guards brought in torches, and the show went on. The effect was exotic and frightening; strange whining music, guttering torchlight, the fixed expressions of the dictator's staffers-slash-henchmen.

The De Baris retired early, but the State people stayed at the palace for a night session. Dan overheard enough to get the feeling this wasn't the fact-finding jaunt the press people had made it out to be.

The second day a huge, grizzle-bearded black man arrived, surrounded by bodyguards. Now three gangs of guards, all heavily armed, including the Secret Service's SWAT people, glowered and elbowed each other outside the carved doors of the conference room. He wondered what would happen if one of the Sudanese decided the Mahdi had been right about Christians after all.

The highlight was the photo op, when the session finally broke. No, the Moment. Garang and el-Bashir were both bald, fat, ugly thugs whose suits did not fit at all. A beaming De Bari shepherded them into a reception room with the pontifical bonhomie of a don brokering a gangland truce. He announced they'd just signed a cease-fire. The Sudan People's Liberation Army would end twelve years of civil war, and Garang would join a coalition government as el-Bashir's vice president.

The two shook hands like tranquilized grizzlies as the press teemed and shouted questions, which they ignored. Dan noticed el-Bashir looking at him. His heavy-lidded eyes examined his uniform, then dropped to the satchel. As soon as the handshake was over Garang left, his security crowded so close he could not even be seen.

It was probably a historic occasion, but he was busy trying to rejuggle the seating arrangements on
Air Force One
for the next leg, to Zaire. He'd have been more impressed if he hadn't also seen the oil company executives with the State people the night before, and heard them discussing exploration blocks, probable reserves, and a pipeline to the Red Sea. He recognized these men now. They were De Bari's golfing buddies, his intimates and presumably his donors. Not only that, one of the companies was the China National Petroleum Corporation. A reporter told him the deal was that the Nuer and Dinkas wouldn't attack the oil fields, in exchange for a third of the revenue.