Текст книги "Whiplash"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

20

Base Camp Alpha

Sudan

BOSTON INSISTED ON COLLECTING THE SUBMACHINE GUNS from the mercenary bodyguards as soon as they got back to Base Camp Alpha. Nuri thought it was unnecessary, and maybe a little foolish, in effect telling the men that they didn’t trust them. But Boston didn’t care. He didn’t trust them, and he saw no reason to be cute about it.

The men didn’t complain. After a big lunch beneath the tent pavilion that served as their mess hall, Boston set them out in a picket watch around the perimeter, with two of his Whiplash people as supervisors. The blimps would see anyone who approached in plenty of time for them to be armed.

To a man, the mercenaries believed Danny was an arms dealer, something Nuri had been careful to hint at but not say explicitly when they were hired. They assumed that the trenches were part of whatever story Danny needed to give the authorities so he could operate here without problems. They were all illiterate, and had no idea what dinosaurs were, let alone how paleontologists worked. Their prime concern was money, and they were being paid plenty of that to keep their curiosity in check. As long as they were kept busy, they wouldn’t be a problem.

The question was how to keep them busy. Boston suggested holding training sessions. Danny nixed that idea.

“That’s all we need. Better trained soldiers of fortune.”

“They could use the discipline.”

“Come up with something else.”

Boston finally decided that he would use the soldiers to dig the trenches, making them look a little more realistic. The initial response was unenthusiastic.

Then Hera came up with an idea.

“Ten dollars to the first man who finds dinosaur bones,” she said.

Once she explained what dinosaur bones were, there was no trouble getting volunteers.

EVEN BEFORE DANNY AND HIS MEN ARRIVED BACK AT BASE Camp Alpha, Tilia was driving to Colonel Zsar’s fortress on the other side of the hills. She’d chosen two men to go with her—one, because he was the biggest man in the troop, and the other because he was the best shot. She had no illusions, however, that they would be able to protect her if things went bad. All three of them would die, with luck quickly.

Tilia carried two pistols in bandoliers across her chest, and a sawed-off elephant gun besides. If she had to fight, she would reserve one bullet for herself.

They had to pass through a small village in the shadow of the hills to reach Colonel Zsar’s stronghold. She had been there only once before, more than a year ago. The changes astounded her. The village had been a complete wreck, most of its buildings still destroyed from a raid three years before by Ethiopian forces, who at the time were angry with Colonel Zsar as well as the legitimate Sudanese government. Stones lay at the edges of the street; foundations were cluttered with weeds and windswept sand. Perhaps two dozen people lived in the surviving shanties, ramshackle structures built of cardboard and other refuse on the southern end of town.

Those were gone now. In their place was a village of prefab trailers, five dozen arranged in a tight rectangle just off the main road. On the other side of the road, where the abandoned foundations had been, sat three steel buildings, barns where cattle were kept and milk processed. Three milk trucks, with gleaming tanks, were lined up in the yard next to them. Fifty head of cattle grazed in the fields beyond.

Tilia was tempted to stop the Jeep and talk to the people. If the Iranians had brought this prosperity, there would be no question of allying with them. But it was getting late, and she wanted to be sure to conclude her business with Colonel Zsar before nightfall.

Colonel Zsar’s fortress was embedded in a cliff, centered around a pair of caves dug out by successive generations of fighters and smugglers. Tilia’s Jeep was observed well before she came to the checkpoint leading to the stronghold’s entrance. Jeeps were not plentiful in the area, and though the colonel’s forces had little interaction with Uncle Dpap’s, it was quickly recognized. The colonel was alerted, and gave his permission for the vehicle to proceed.

Seeing that there were two men—as far as they were concerned, the woman didn’t count—the guards at the gate decided there would have to be six escorts. Two men sat on the hood of the vehicle, two clung to the rear fender, and two others trotted behind.

Tilia drove the truck up a steep, serpentine dirt road, passing three different sandbagged machine-gun emplacements before reaching a parking area in front of one of the caves. Once again she was surprised. There were a dozen white pickup trucks in the lot, all nearly brand new. Belts of bullets crisscrossed the guards’ chests, and there were extra boxes near a sandbagged gun emplacement covering the entrance to the building—if the colonel’s forces were experiencing a bullet shortage, he was doing his best to hide it.

A man in a flak vest met them at the door.

“Your weapons,” he demanded.

Tilia’s escorts looked at her. She nodded, but did not hand hers over.

“Your gun, miss,” said the man.

“My gun stays with me.”

“You are just a woman,” he said, with obvious disdain. “Why do you think you deserve such a privilege?”

“You are afraid of a woman?”

“Wait here.”

The man turned on his heel and went back inside. Tilia realized she’d made a mistake. Uncle Dpap had told her to deliver the message no matter what. If the guard insisted on her handing over her gun, she would have to do so. It would be very bad to start the meeting with such a sign of weakness.

“Since you are a woman, we won’t worry about it,” said the man when he returned. He looked at the others. “This way.”

The interior of the cave had been divided into a bunker with masonry and concrete walls. An external generator supplied electricity, and while the lights were relatively dim, they were still ample enough to light the long corridor back to Colonel Zsar’s post. Tilia had arrived just as the colonel was waiting for dinner. Ordinarily he would have had her and the others wait—assuming he had decided to see them at all—but his men had told him about the woman soldier’s beauty and he wanted to see it for himself.

It surpassed their descriptions.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am an aide to Uncle Dpap,” she said.

“Have a seat.” He snapped his fingers at the two bodyguards standing near the door, gesturing for them to bring over a camp stool. The men rushed to comply.

“I don’t need to sit,” Tilia told him. “Uncle Dpap wanted you to know about a visitor.”

Tilia laid out what had happened, finishing before the men arrived with her stool.

Colonel Zsar had heard that Uncle Dpap had a niece working as his aide, but the stories did not adequately convey her beauty. Zsar had lost his wife two years before, but he would have lusted after Tilia in any event. He knew that she was not Muslim—none of Uncle Dpap’s people followed the true religion—but her beauty was so transcendent that he didn’t care about that. And besides, she was intelligent and well-spoken—he could not think of a better helpmate.

“So what does Uncle Dpap want to do?” he said when she finished speaking. “He wants us to meet with this man?”

“He wants to discuss him with you. A meeting might be too dangerous for now.”

“I see.”

“Uncle Dpap is considering doing business with him. Our other friends are not always the most reliable, and sometimes their prices are not good.”

The display by his men notwithstanding, Colonel Zsar was also in need of a new source for weapons and ammunition. Arash Tarid had promised that he would make new arrangements soon, when he and the other Iranian visited the other day, but an additional source might be useful. In any event, a meeting would give him an excuse to ask Uncle Dpap about this girl.

He would have to mention it first to Tarid. There was always the possibility that this was some sort of test by the Iranians.

“Maybe we can discuss it,” said Colonel Zsar. “Let me consider the point.”

“Thank you, then,” said Tilia, starting to leave.

“Wait,” said Colonel Zsar. “You’re not going to go right away, are you?”

“I had only the message to deliver.”

“You should join me for dinner.”

Tilia thought to herself that she would rather eat dirt.

“Uncle Dpap expects me back quickly,” she said curtly. “I would not be wise to disappoint him. Excuse me, please.”

21

Khatami-Isfaha airfield

Central Iran

BANI ABERHADJI WAS IN A BAD MOOD. THE COUNCIL HAD decided to hold a special meeting, interrupting his inspection tour and forcing him home. He would not have minded so much had he not been convinced that the meeting would amount to a waste of time. But he could not afford to miss it politically. The council seemed to be softening in its stand against the government, and he needed to understand what was going on, especially if he couldn’t influence it.

He was walking from the aircraft to his car when his BlackBerry signaled that he had an e-mail. Suspecting it was just a message from the ministry asking when he would return to work, he waited until he was in the backseat to check it. The message turned out to be from Arash Tarid, his agent in Sudan. There was no text; it was simply a coded request that he call.

Though his driver was also a member of the Revolutionary Guards, Aberhadji did not know him personally, and did not want to take the risk, however small, that the man might be a spy for the government. He waited until they were on the highway, then asked him to pull over.

“I will be right back,” he told the man, opening the door to the Toyota Avalon.

It was nighttime, and a few feet beyond the car everything turned pitch-black. Aberhadji walked a few yards into the field, then stopped and took out his satellite phone. The signals it sent and received were scrambled, encrypted in what he was told was an unbreakable code.

“You called me,” he said when Tarid answered.

“A competitor to Luo has appeared. He wants to meet with some of our friends, including the colonel.”

“A competitor?”

“Perhaps now we see why Luo was killed. The Jasmine people have not been very responsive. This man alleges that he has many weapons, and that his prices are very good. I wondered if you would wish to check him out?”

The night was cool. Aberhadji fought off a shiver as he considered the matter. “Who is he?” he asked.

“He gives his name as Mr. Kirk. He gave one of the rebel leaders—not Colonel Zsar but another man, Uncle Dpap—an American pistol he claimed had been stolen from the Army.”

“I will check into him. If I give the approval, you will meet him yourself. Then report to me.”

“I don’t know about meeting him. If—”

“Go yourself,” insisted Aberhadji. “If I approve. It will take me only a few hours to check on him.”

“As you wish.”

“You will report to me in person. I will be in Tehran in a few days. After that, I have to travel again.”

He killed the transmission without waiting for an answer.

22

Base Camp Alpha

Sudan

Two days later

FOR THE WHIPLASH TEAM, LISTENING IN ON WHAT WAS HAPPENING at Uncle Dpap’s headquarters, the hours following Danny’s visit passed slowly. Tilia’s description of her meeting with Colonel Zsar made it clear that he had not made any decision. The colonel had sent a message to his Iranian contact, but because it was sent from a town thirty miles away, the NSA net had failed to pick it up

The evening after Danny’s star turn as an arms dealer, Nuri went to bed thinking he would have to come up with a new idea. But when he woke, a new set of NSA intercepts from Sudan had been translated and forwarded to the team.

The headline on one made him forget how bad the coffee was:

COMMUNICATION INTERCEPTED

WITH IRANIAN CONNECTION

The conversation had taken place in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. It lasted for barely a minute and was on the surface innocuous. The only reason it had been examined at all was the fact that it had been conducted in Farsi; an NSA computer had pulled it out and queued it for translation and inspection.

[call goes through; Speaker 1 answers]

Speaker 1: Hello?

Speaker 2: Kirk checks out. Proceed.

Speaker 1: Meet with him?

Speaker 2: Then report back.

[end of conversation]

Nuri ran and got Danny.

“They’re talking about me?” Danny asked.

“Has to be. It’s in Farsi. which means—”

“It’s between two Iranians,” said Danny.

“Exactly. The Republican Guard has funneled some money to Colonel Zsar. Caller one must be a contact for Zsar, or somewhere in the chain.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. There’s no ID here. The call wasn’t specifically targeted. That sat phone will be now, though. Sometimes they’re pretty clever about hiding identities. We may figure out who it is. We may not. He’ll be at the meeting, though.”

“You think this is Colonel Zsar?”

“The backgrounder says he doesn’t speak Farsi.” Nuri took a swig of his coffee. It was always bad, but this morning it was particularly bad. He decided that might be good luck. “Uncle Dpap will call soon. Set up the meeting as soon as you can.”

“Right.”

“While you’re there, I’ll try and get a better look at Colonel Zsar’s operations,” said Nuri. “I’ll put some bugs in, and find out what the Iranians have spent their money on.”

“Can you get into the fortress?”

“We’ll have to be invited in. I’d like to post a blimp nearby, cover the approaches.”

“OK.”

Nuri sat in front of the laptop and began looking at satellite photos of Colonel Zsar’s village. “Why do you think they have a guard on a barn?” he asked.

“Keep people from stealing the cows.”

“They don’t have guards on the other buildings they have in the village.”

“Got me,” said Danny.

“Hmmm,” said Nuri. “Guess I’ll take a look at that, too.”

23

Near Murim Wap, Sudan

BY THE TIME UNCLE DPAP USED THE PHONE DANNY HAD given him, Nuri and Danny knew everything—that they wouldn’t deal with Red Henri, and that Colonel Zsar had suggested they use the arms dealer to try and get a better price from their other dealers and contacts. They were also confident that they weren’t planning an ambush, though that was one thing they couldn’t take for granted.

Nuri made the call back, using an electronic voice box to disguise his voice. He told Uncle Dpap that the meeting would happen at midnight, agreeing to the place Uncle Dpap had selected, an abandoned farm building outside a hamlet that lay between Uncle Dpap and Colonel Zsar’s camps.

The rebels didn’t like the fact that the meeting was being held at night. And they liked it even less when, at five minutes past the appointed time, Nuri called their sat phones, dialing them all into a three-way phone conference.

“The meeting will be held at Murim Wap,” said Nuri. He was sitting back at the base camp, watching the rebels on the laptop thanks to the Owl and the sensors he’d planted that afternoon. Danny and the trucks were already at Murim Wap. “The vehicles will be waiting. You have a half hour to get there.”

“How do we know this isn’t a trap?” said Uncle Dpap.

“Send your scouts, just as you did here,” said Nuri.

“You don’t dictate to us where the meeting is,” protested Colonel Zsar.

But Nuri had already hung up.

The two rebel leaders brought their vehicles together to confer. Both Nuri and Danny heard the entire conversation that followed, thanks to the bugged cell phone, which Tilia had in her pocket.

“He doesn’t trust you,” said a voice they hadn’t heard before. “Of course he’s not going to meet you here. They only agreed to this place so they could watch you come.”

“Is it a trap?” asked Uncle Dpap.

“Too elaborate,” said the man. “It would have been easier to kill you here.”

“I agree,” said Tilia.

“You are sure this man is not working for the government in Sudan?” asked Uncle Dpap.

“That much I am positive of,” said the man. “My spies would know.”

The debate continued for a short while, but it was clear that, having gone to the trouble of arranging to meet themselves, the two rebel leaders were loath to miss the meeting with the arms dealer.

“The person who’s with Colonel Zsar must be the Iranian,” said Nuri. “He’s the one you have to mark when you meet. Make sure you touch him on the skin.”

“I’ll shake his hands like a politician.”

“Break the vial, daub your finger, touch him. That’s all you have to do.”

“Is the Owl online?” Danny asked.

“Are you asking me, or are you asking the Voice?”

“You.”

“You can ask the computer. It’ll tell you.”

“I’m asking you,” snapped Danny.

“Good snarl,” said Nuri, thinking that Danny was just playacting. In fact, he was really annoyed. “It’s online. Have fun.”

“I intend to.”

Though they’d scouted Murim Wap and planted video and listening devices earlier in the day, they hadn’t stayed there, fearing someone would tip off the rebels. Danny waited until the advance scouts Uncle Dpap had sent signaled that the place was clear, then they drove over, Boston driving as if he were racing in the Baja.

“Gotta stay in character,” Boston explained. “Outlaw like you isn’t going to have a wussy driver.”

Murim Wap had once been an important stop on a trade route from the interior into Ethiopia and the sea. But the village’s attractiveness faded when trucks and buses replaced carts and feet. A few families had remained in the area, one to run a gas and diesel station, the others to farm and catch on as best they could. Two years before, a cell tower had been built just off the highway, behind the gas station. A UN project had helped increase yields at the nearby farms, and there was a small store that sold goods to the dozen or so families that lived within walking distance. As a general rule, the village street was deserted after nightfall, with the gas station closing down a half hour after sunset.

Except tonight. The lights were still on in the station as Danny’s vehicles approached.

“Think he’s gonna be a problem?” Boston asked.

“I don’t know.” Danny considered stopping and getting gas, but that might only add to whatever suspicions the man might have. “Let’s just play it,” he told Boston.

They planned the meeting for a fallow field off the highway just outside of town. The area was clear of any walls or other cover. Even though they had been under constant surveillance since the early afternoon, Danny still had Boston circle around it slowly while he looked around the landscape with a set of thermal night glasses.

“We’re clear,” he said finally. “Let’s stop and launch the Catbirds.”

The Catbirds were UAVs a little bigger than the Owl. Their bodies were packed with plastic explosive, and they could be dive-bombed into targets by command. Danny launched six, enough to take out a well-positioned company of soldiers.

“Take it back by the road. Keep it running,” he told Boston. He turned on the truck’s dome light and switched the Voice into the radio circuit. “We leave the two trucks running, by the road, just the way we drew it out. Flash, you’re with me. McGowan, you’re backing up Boston.”

“Right, boss,” answered McGowan.

Danny got out of the truck and walked across the field to a spot about twenty feet off the road. He was wearing two sets of body armor—a very light vest under his shirt, similar to what Nuri had been wearing in Italy when he was shot, and the thicker, ceramic-insert model that the rebels expected. The combination meant that anything smaller than a howitzer shell would only give him a bruise, but it was heavy and awkward, and he spent quite a lot of time shifting it to get it to feel more comfortable.

Finally he gave up. He reached into his pants pocket and took out the vial with the biomarker, squirting it on his gloved left hand. The marker was mixed in a petroleum jelly base; in order for it to work, it had to touch skin.

Ready, he stood and waited. MY-PID was tracking the rebels, and the Voice declared that their caravan was two minutes away.

“Kill the headlights in the trucks,” said Danny. “Be ready.”

Behind him, Flash shifted his hands nervously on his submachine gun. In this situation, he would have preferred his SCAR-H/MK-17 or an old M-249. The latter’s size alone intimidated people.

“Truck coming,” said Danny.

“All right,” said McGowan. “Showtime.”

NURI WATCHED THE CARAVAN MOVING IN. EVERYTHING WAS in place, he thought. Danny was on his own.

“Hera, you’re up,” Nuri said, rising. “All right, Clar, let’s get going. We only have a few hours to get everything done.”

“Uh-huh,” said Sugar, who’d been sitting in a chair across the room for the past half hour.

“What’s wrong?” Nuri asked as she got up slowly.

“Aw, nothin’.”

But her pain was obvious. She took a few short steps, breathing heavily as she went.

“Hold on, hold on. What’s wrong?” Nuri asked again.

“I just—my stomach is beat up. Something I ate I guess. It’s just gas—I’ll get better.”

“Hell no. You’re staying here.”

“Who’s got your back?”

Hera Scokas, sitting at the console, said nothing. She and Nuri had avoided each other since the other day.

“I’ll go by myself,” he said.

“Oh, you can’t do that.”

“I’ll go,” said Hera, rising. “Sugar can stay on the watch.”

“I can make it,” said Sugar. She started to protest, then realized she had to get to the latrine. She pushed herself forward, running to the bathroom pit thirty yards from the building. She barely made it in time before her intestines exploded—figuratively, though it felt as if it were literal.

Nuri, meanwhile, cursed his crappy luck. Hera was the last person he wanted with him. Her personality had already worn thin. She always had a “better” way of doing things.

He could go to the village alone. But inflating and launching the blimp was a two-person job, and there were a large number of sensors to be planted as well.

Sugar returned from the latrine. “I can make it,” she told him.

“Why don’t you stay here,” he told her. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

“It was just something I ate. I’ll be fine.”

“No.”

“You’re going yourself?” said Hera.

Nuri looked at them both. He did need a backup. Would Sugar be OK by herself, though?

“You have a fever?” he asked Sugar.

She shook her head.

They had defenses, the blimps, the sensors. And she could always hide.

Not that anyone was likely to bother them tonight.

“You feel all right?” Nuri asked Sugar.

“I’m great. I’m ready.”

“No, you stay here on watch. All right, Hera. You come.”

“Right.”

She jumped up and grabbed her gear.

Nuri went down and waited for her on the motorcycle. She came down and started to get on the Whiplash bike.

“We’re not taking that one,” he said. “Get on with me.”

“Why aren’t we taking it?”

“Because we’re going to have to hide it near the village, and I don’t want to take the chance of losing it if someone stumbles across it. I don’t want the technology compromised.”

“What good is it if we don’t use it?”

“When you run the outfit, you can make the call. Right now, I say we’re using this one.” Nuri started it up. “Hop on.”

Hera cinched her rucksack tighter as she walked over to the bike. It had no sissy bar, but the seat was relatively small, and she’d have no choice but to snuggle close to Nuri and hold him tight around the chest. She tried holding her breath but it didn’t help.

“Try not to fall off,” said Nuri, popping it into gear.

DANNY FELT HIS HEART STARTING TO POUND AS THE FIRST set of headlights swung into view. He suddenly felt unsure of himself.

In the old days, he’d sometimes felt apprehensive just before a mission began—butterflies, some people called it, something akin to the performance anxiety actors sometimes felt before going on stage. But the feeling always disappeared when things got going.

It didn’t tonight. Danny’s heart continued to pound as the trucks drove up to the road. He kept his mouth shut, afraid that a stutter, a break, or something similar would give away his nervousness.

Weapons dealers weren’t nervous. Whatever else they were, they didn’t suffer from performance anxiety. They were calm and cool and completely in control.

So was he.

Except he wasn’t.

The vehicles carrying Uncle Dpap and Colonel Zsar drove into the space in front of Danny’s trucks. The other vehicles fanned out behind them, the two groups intermixed.

Colonel Zsar, anxious to show that he was the real leader here, got out of his vehicle first. He practically leapt forward, walking so quickly that his bodyguards had to run to catch up.

“Who are you?” he asked Danny in Arabic.

“My name is not important,” said Danny. He had practiced the line in Arabic and could say it in his sleep, but it didn’t sound smooth. He cleared his throat, trying to hide his sudden attack of nerves. “Call me Kirk. You’re Colonel Zsar, I believe.”

Tarid, who’d been riding with Zsar, got out of the truck slowly. He took his time joining the others, studying the arms dealer as he walked. Kirk was flashy—too flashy, Tarid thought, the sort of reckless man who makes a fortune in six months and loses his life in the seventh. His guards were well-equipped, but that wasn’t much of a trick. More impressive was the fact that he had a white man as his lieutenant—they didn’t come cheap here.

Uncle Dpap and Tilia got out of the Jeep together. Their soldiers, meanwhile, had fanned out from the trucks, forming a semicircle behind the rebels.

“What happened to Red Henri?” asked Danny. Once more, even though he’d practiced the phrase incessantly, it sounded stiff and misaccented in his ears.

“He is not of interest to us,” said Uncle Dpap. “An alliance with him would not benefit anyone. Deal with him if you wish. I would suggest you be careful if you do.”

“We’ll use English,” Danny told them. “There’s no need for any of these to understand. There are too many spies.”

Uncle Dpap glanced at Colonel Zsar, who shrugged. His English was a little better than Dpap’s, but he wouldn’t be able to carry out a complicated conversation, let alone negotiate.

“Is that no good?” asked Danny, in English.

“Your Arabic is fine,” said Colonel Zsar in Arabic.

“I thought you both spoke English,” said Danny. “Or is that your translator?” He pointed to Tarid.

“That is my lieutenant,” the colonel said quickly. It was a fiction they’d worked out earlier.

“An Iranian for a lieutenant,” said Danny in English. “Interesting.”

Tarid swung his head toward Danny as he heard the word Iranian.

“We will speak in Arabic,” said Uncle Dpap. “You speak as you wish. Use English. Why are you meeting us?”

“My aim is to sell many weapons,” Danny said. “I’m not particular to whom. Or who pays. Everyone has AK-47s for sale. I can get better guns. If you can pay. MP-5s like my men have. M-16s.”

“What about Galils?” asked Tarid. The Galil was an Israeli assault rifle.

“I doubt I could sell those at a price that would make you interested,” said Danny. “Assuming I could get them without losing my life.”

“Are the Zionists your suppliers?”

“Don’t worry about where I get my weapons,” said Danny. “They come from many sources.”

Danny threw out an offer—a hundred AK-47s at one hundred dollars apiece. It was an extremely good deal, about a fifth of the price the Jasmine network had sold them for.

“Why so cheap?” asked Uncle Dpap.

“To get your business,” said Danny. “To get you to trust me. I can see you don’t. Not if you think I work with the Zionists.”

He took a step closer, working out how he would get the biomarker onto Tarid. He’d shake hands to seal the deal—or to show that there were no hard feelings if a deal wasn’t made. He’d clasp Tarid’s left hand as he shook with his right.

Done.

Then he’d be able to relax.

Uncle Dpap wasn’t interested in guns. He wanted ammunition.

Danny explained that he dealt in lots of ten thousand rounds, fifteen cents American for each round.

The price was nowhere near as good as what he had offered on the guns.

Colonel Zsar dismissed it. “You sell us the guns for nothing, and then try to make it back on the ammunition. You sell carpets, too?”

The others laughed.

“I may be able to do a little better,” said Danny.

“Vehicle approaching on highway at a high rate of speed,” warned the Voice. “Two vehicles—three, four. Six.”

It was an ambush. A pit opened in Danny’s stomach and the blood rushed from his head.

“Think it over,” he said as calmly as he could. “I’ll contact you about it tomorrow.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” said Tarid.

“I’m not in a hurry,” said Danny.

“We’re not done yet,” said Colonel Zsar.

“I think we are.”

“No.” Zsar raised his hand, and all of his soldiers shouldered their weapons. “We will settle a deal tonight, or never.”