Unless whoever had the UAV turned north rather than staying on the road. There were at least two trails running off the valley in that direction before the intersection. And sure enough, the signal soon indicated that the UAV was moving farther away.

It was starting to get light. Melissa went up the connecting road and stayed on it, speeding roughly parallel to whoever was taking the UAV away. They were about a mile and a half away, but the trail and road ran away from each other, her path going due north while the other gradually tailing eastward.

Finally she stopped and examined the map on the GPS to try and guess where they were going. The trail wound through a series of settlements, intersected with several unpaved roads, and finally ended at what passed for a super highway here, a double-lane asphalt paved road that ran to Duka, a small town that sat on a flat plain at the eastern foot of the mountains. She slipped the GPS back into her pocket. Who had the UAV? Mao Man?

She hoped not. The fact that it was being taken north argued against it: the Brothers’ stronghold was well to the south, where she assumed he’d been heading when attacked. He had only come this far north to arrange for a meeting with weapons suppliers.

Most likely either a government patrol spotted the wreckage and decided to take it, or some local farmer found it and decided to take it to the authorities and claim a reward.

Either could be easily bought off. A hundred dollars here would bring a family luxury for a year.

Melissa slipped the bike out of neutral and began following the signal once more.

Li Han felt his eyes starting to close as they zigzagged through the hills. He’d been up now for nearly thirty-six hours straight, long even for him.

Shaking himself, he sat upright in the cab of the truck, then rolled down the window, sticking his head out into the wind. He could sleep in Duka. He’d used a building there to house some explosives about a year and a half before; it was sure to be still unoccupied. And though the town was controlled by two different rebel groups, neither would bear him any malice, especially if he promised fresh weapons and ammunition as he had the last time.

But he had to stay alert until he reached the small city. The army occasionally sent patrols through the area. It was unlikely that they would meet any at night, but if they did, the soldiers would assume they were rebels and immediately open fire.

One of the men in the back of the pickup began banging on the roof of the cab. The driver slowed, then spoke to him through his window.

“What?” asked Li Han in English.

“Following. A motorbike follows,” said the driver.

A motorcycle?

Li Han twisted around, trying to see. It was too dark, and the hulk of the UAV blocked most of his view.

It wouldn’t be the army. More like one of the many rebel groups that contested the area.

“Shoot them!” yelled Li Han. He turned back to the driver. “Tell them in the back to shoot them. Don’t stop! Drive faster. Faster!”

Melissa knew she was pressing it, pulling closer and closer to the truck. But it was alone, and while there were definitely men in the back, none seemed armed or particularly hostile. If she caught up, she could work out a deal.

A poke of white light from the back of the truck told her she’d miscalculated. They did have weapons, and they weren’t in the mood to bargain.

Melissa raised her submachine gun and fired back. The barrel of the MP-5 pushed up from the recoil harder than she’d anticipated, and the shots flew wild over the truck. She tucked the weapon tighter against her side. The road rose, then veered to the right; she shifted her weight, trying not to slow down around the curve. Tilting back, she saw the truck square ahead of her, fat between her handlebars and no more than thirty yards away.

She pressed her finger against the trigger. As she fired, the front of the bike began to turn to her right.

Starting to lose her balance, Melissa let go of the gun and grabbed the handlebar. But it was too late—she went over in a tumble, rolling around in the dust as a hail of bullets from the truck passed overhead.

Chapter 14

Room 4, CIA Headquarters Campus

Jonathon Reid sat at the large conference table, staring at the gray wall in front of him. He was alone in the high-tech headquarters and command center.

The top of the wall began to glow blue.

“Open com channel to Ms. Stockard,” he said softly.

The rectangular window appeared in the middle of the wall. It expanded, widening until it covered about a third of the space. The outer portion of the wall darkened from gray to black. The interior window, meanwhile, turned deep blue, then morphed into an image of Breanna Stockard in a secure conference room in Dreamland.

She was alone, and she was frowning.

“Breanna,” said Reid. “Good morning again.”

“Jonathon, what’s really going out there in Africa?”

“I told you everything the director told me.”

“Nuri says there’s a lot more to the project than we’re being told.”

“I don’t doubt he’s right.”

“And?”

Reid said nothing. The Raven program was clearly an assassination mission, and clearly it involved top secret technology that the Agency had developed outside of its normal channels. But Harker hadn’t spelled any of this out; he had merely said the UAV must be recovered. All Reid had were guesses and suppositions, not facts.

“Jonathon, you’re not saying anything.”

“I know, Breanna. I don’t have more facts than I’ve shared.”

“Listen, the only way this is going to work is if we’re completely honest with each other.”

Reid nodded.

“Well?” prompted Breanna.

“Clearly, this is a CIA project that’s highly secret, and they don’t want to tell us any of the details,” he said. “And they haven’t.”

“I got that.”

Breanna and Reid had gotten along fairly well since the program began, despite the vast differences in the institutions they reported to, their backgrounds, and their ages. Cooperation between the military and the CIA was not always ideal in any event, and on a program such as Whiplash and the related MY-PID initiative, there was bound to be even greater conflict. But so far they had largely steered clear of the usual suspicions, let alone the attempts at empire building and turf wars that typically marred joint projects. Partly this was because they had so far kept the operation—and its staffing—to an absolute minimum. But it also had to do with their personal relationships. Reid, much older than Breanna, liked and admired her in an almost fatherly way, and she clearly respected him, often treating him with professional deference.

Not now, though. Right now she was angry with him, believing he was holding back.

“I can only guess at what they’re doing,” Reid told her. “I have no facts. I know exactly what you’re thinking, but they’ve put up barriers, and I can’t just simply whisk them away with a wave of my hand.”

“We need to know exactly what’s going on,” Breanna told him.

“Beyond what we already know? Why? We have to recover the UAV. It’s already been located.”

“What we don’t know may bite us.”

“Granted.”

“God, Jonathon, you’ve got to press them for more information.”

“I have.”

“Then I will.”

“I don’t know that that will work,” said Reid. “I have a call in to the director. I am trying.”

Reid could already guess what Herm Edmund was going to say—this is on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know.