“I never heard him called Mao Man,” said Nuri. “But I know who he is. He’s a technical expert, and a weapons dealer. A real humanitarian. You’ve heard of A.Q. Khan, right?”

Khan was the Pakistani scientist who had helped Iran—and possibly others—develop their own nuclear weapons program.

“This guy is similar, except he’s Chinese,” said Nuri. “He had some sort of falling out with the government and military. Probably over money. Anyway, he’s been in a number of places in the last few years, selling his services. He’s pretty smart. And absolutely no morals.” Nuri turned to Jordan. “He has a team here?”

“Not a team. He’s working with the Sudan Brotherhood.”

“Lovely.” Nuri turned back to Danny. “Muslim fanatic group. Gets some money and help from al Qaeda.”

“I don’t know about the link—” started Jordan.

“I do,” said Nuri flatly.

“Well you know more than me,” said Jordan. “All I know is we’re targeting this guy. It’s a noncontact situation.”

Nuri frowned. “How long?”

“We’ve been here almost five weeks,” said Jordan. “Most of that time was getting the aircraft ready, though. We only just started tracking him.”

Jordan began briefing them on Raven, an armed UAV they had used to track Mao Man. Its function was similar to Reaper—the armed Predator drones—but it was newer, more capable.

“How?” asked Danny.

Jordan shrugged. “Faster. A little smaller. More robust.”

Nuri snorted.

“This was its first mission,” said Jordan. “Really more of a shakedown cruise. They picked a quiet area for a maiden flight. Afghanistan was too hot.”

“Yeah,” sneered Nuri.

“Have to try it somewhere,” said Jordan. “It wasn’t my choice. There was some sort of mechanical problem about a third of the way through the mission. There were temperature spikes in the right engine. My guess is that there was impurity in the fuel and something blew in the chamber. The power profiles were off, and we got a lot of ambient sound, kind of like you’d get in a car if there was a hole in the muffler. It may have been loud—that’s what may have tipped off Mao Man and the guerrillas he’s working with. Or maybe they heard the Predator, or saw something somehow. Anyway, they came out of the mine and fired a couple of MPADs—shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles. It was a Stinger Block 2.”

“An American missile?” asked Danny.

“Oh yeah.”

“How’d they get that?”

“Don’t know. They get a lot of stuff out here.”

“Sold by a friendly government,” said Nuri. “Allegedly friendly.”

Danny shook his head. “So they shot it down.”

“No, that’s the damn shame of it. Raven was flying with a Predator on overwatch. The two aircraft collided.”

“You know where it went down?” asked Danny.

“Roughly. That’s where Melissa went. We have transponders, but the accident knocked one of them out, and separated the other two. So it’s in one of two spots. At first there was no signal because of a sandstorm.”

“A sandstorm?” asked Danny.

“Happens all the time here,” said Nuri.

“The particles screw up the low-power transmissions,” explained Jordan. “It’s a trade-off—if you have a transmission that’s too strong, anyone can find you. At any rate, we can see them now. It’s over the border about fifty miles.”

Nuri whistled. “That’s not the best place for a woman.”

“It’s not that bad,” said Jordan. “She’s been out there before.”

“How is one person going to bring back an aircraft?” asked Danny.

“She said she just wants to locate it.” Jordan shrugged. “When they told us you were coming, she said she’d get there and you could follow.”

“Is she nuts?” asked Danny.

“Well yeah, actually, she is,” said Jordan.

“We’re getting about a tenth of the story here,” Nuri told Danny when they went outside. “No-contact mission. You know what that means?”

“No,” said Danny.

“That means they don’t have to ask permission to kill this guy,” said Nuri.

“Okay.”

“They’re out here testing a new UAV on a high-value target? CIA officer goes out by herself to locate it? Granted it’s not as bad as it was a year ago, but it’s still not Disney World. There’s a lot more to the story, Danny. A hell of a lot more.”

Nuri folded his arms. He didn’t know exactly what else was going on here, but it smelled bad. Predators had never been used against the rebels here, not even the Sudan Brotherhood, because they’d never taken action against the U.S. In fact, except for their religious beliefs, one could have argued that they were much friendlier toward America philosophically than their government was.

As for Li Han, targeting him made a hell of a lot of sense. But bugging out didn’t. The bureaucratic bs needed to authorize a strike was so immense that an operation like this would continue for years.

Unless they hadn’t gone through with the bureaucratic bs.

Which meant the operation wasn’t just black; it was unauthorized; aka illegal.

Nuri felt his lower lip starting to shudder. The cool air was getting to him.

“How long before we can hook into the Voice?” asked Nuri, using one of his pet names for the MY-PID system.

“Tigershark won’t be on station for a few hours,” said Danny, checking his watch. “I’ll find out—I have to tell Bree we’re here. Hang around, all right?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Danny took out his encrypted satellite phone—it used standard military satellites, not the data-heavy Whiplash network—and called in as they walked toward the airstrip, as much to keep warm as to avoid being overheard. Nuri put his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth as he listened to Danny’s side of the conversation.

“Hey Bree, this is Danny. We’re here. What’s the ETA on Tigershark? . . . Uh-huh.”

Nuri felt a twinge of jealousy at how close the colonel and Breanna Stockard were. There was a level of trust there that he’d never had with any of his supervisors, and certainly not with Jonathon Reid. It wasn’t that he thought Reid or any of the men he’d worked for were less than dedicated, or would leave him purposely in the lurch. It was more a question of how far beyond their duty they would go. He’d already seen Stockard risk her career and her life for Danny.

For them. For the entire team. But it was personal for Danny in a way it would never be for Nuri.

“Nuri thinks there’s a lot more going on here than we’re being told, Bree,” said Danny. “Uh-huh.”

Nuri watched Danny listen to something she said, but in the darkness he couldn’t see his face well enough to interpret his reaction.

“She wants to talk to you,” said Danny, handing him the sat phone.

“Ms. Stockard, hello.”

“Nuri, what do you think is going on?” asked Breanna.

“I can’t say exactly.”

He explained that the Agency didn’t seem to be following its usual protocols when targeting a high-value terrorist like Li Han. On the other hand, he had to admit that because he had no direct information about either Raven or the particular mission, he simply didn’t know how suspicious to be.

The more questions Breanna asked, the less confident Nuri felt. And yet, things still seemed a little off, a little unusual in ways that made him believe the CIA wasn’t telling them everything.

Well, duh, he thought, handing the phone back to Danny. When did the Agency ever tell anyone everything?

“She’s going to talk to Reid,” Danny told Nuri after he signed off. “I don’t think Reid would lie to her.”

“Probably not,” said Nuri.

“You think Reid would lie?”

Nuri shrugged.

There were all sorts of reasons Danny didn’t particularly like the fact that Whiplash was a joint project between the military and the CIA, but they all came down to Nuri’s two words: probably not.

You never knew exactly what the CIA was up to. The Air Force and the rest of the military might have its problems and its politics, but these paled compared to Central Intelligence.