On Target (16 page)

Ten minutes later the two NSS men escorted an extremely anxious looking but obedient Ellen Walsh into a small office off the main concourse of the terminal. Following them into the room were the Russian pilot and Court Gentry. Court had wanted to just board the aircraft with the crew and get the hell out of here, but Gennady had insisted on coming along for the woman’s interview with the NSS, and there was no way Gentry was going to let him do that by himself. Gennady was mad at the Sudanese for interrupting his seduction of the attractive woman, but he apparently thought that if he could help her in the questioning, to stand up to these third-world goons, then he’d have her swooning into his bed on his next flight into Khartoum.

But Court could tell the Russian was furious with him. They gave each other
eat shit
stares while they stood on either side of Walsh. Gennady obviously put together that the American had turned Ellen in to security. The Russian probably thought, Court guessed, that this was nothing more than a cock block borne out of the American’s jealousy at the Canadian woman’s interest in the Russian.

What a completely fucked-up day, thought Court as he stood there, exchanging threatening looks with Gennady. This better not get any worse.

The older NSS man, the one with the goofy glasses, spent a couple of minutes looking through Walsh’s belongings. Court thought it was just for show, but when he pulled out the black notebook Gentry had seen her thumbing through earlier on the tarmac, he began to worry. He hoped there wasn’t anything in there that would invite more trouble for the woman. The man leafed through the pages and stopped on a hand-drawn sketch and description of the Ilyushin aircraft. He looked up at the girl. “Why are you asking questions about this cargo flight? What is your interest in this aircraft?”

“I like airplanes. Is that a crime in your country?”

The man stared at her a long time. In a nation where few women are even allowed to work outside the home, a back-talking white lady was a double anomaly, and he was clearly not sure how to handle her.

Ellen found herself no longer afraid. She’d accomplished much in the past hour, and though she did not have picture proof that the Russians were violating sanctions, the actions of the NSS right now gave her all the proof she needed to be certain she was on the right track.

She’d done well to get this far, and she knew it. Under cover as a UN employee she’d thoroughly charmed the pilot into taking her on board, had made it to within twenty-five yards of the rear ramp of the aircraft when the jeep of soldiers came and picked them up. The Russian insisted on going along with her; he wanted to pretend to be her knight in shining armor, although it was obvious he just wanted to use this as a way to get into her pants.

When they arrived back at the terminal, she saw the two NSS officers who’d interrogated her days before standing with the suspicious dark-complected Russian crewmember named Viktor. Clearly he’d reported her to these guys to keep her away from the flight.

Bastard. She knew what he was trying to hide, and he was not going to get away with it.

Gennady broke in. “Look, she ships goods for the United Nations. The United Nations has Il-76s in their fleet. She has to know how big they are and how far they travel and how much they can carry. She has done nothing wrong by asking for a tour of my aircraft.” He reached across the table and took the sheet of paper from the open notebook, held it up to illustrate his point.

The secret policeman regarded the Russian pilot’s comments for a moment, then said, “Perhaps you are correct.” He looked back to Walsh. “Who did you say you worked for in Khartoum?”

Ellen sighed, rolled her eyes. Rubbed her left upper arm with her right hand. “I’ve told you a dozen times, and just like my ID says, I work for UNAMID in the Transportation and Logistics Division. I came here to interview camp workers about their needs and—”

“What is the name of your director?” the secret policeman asked. He picked up a booklet that he’d brought into the interview room with him.

“Charles Stevens.” Walsh smiled briefly. “A fellow Canadian.”

The man looked into the book for several seconds, nodded sourly, and then put it down.

Court had just begun to relax again when he glanced over at Gennady on the other side of the woman under interrogation. The pilot had noticed something on the page with the drawing and info about the Il-76, and he peered at it intently. Confusion grew on his face now, and to Court that could only mean trouble.

Gennady spoke softly. “Ellen. The aircraft represented here is an MF variant.”

She shrugged her shoulders. Too quickly and nonchalantly for Court’s taste. It seemed an artificial reaction.

“It is?”

“Yes. The UN does not fly the Il-76MF.” The Russian was looking up at her now, but her eyes remained to the front, towards the NSS officers.

“They don’t?”

“No . . .
they
don’t.”

Shit, thought Court. Gennady was suspicious now. Hell,
Court
was suspicious now himself. Why would a UN do-gooder have a hand-drawn diagram of the Russian plane? He really hoped she could talk her way out of this predicament because there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help her.

“Who
are
you, and who do you work for?” Gennady asked, louder now, reaching out and turning the woman around by the shoulders to face him.

The Russian pilot spun her around. He’d figured her out, and she knew she could not play dumb with him like she could with the NSS.

It was time for a counterpunch.

When she was a kid her father had a saying, and she had turned it into her mantra. “Go big or go home.” All her life she’d pushed herself to the limits of her abilities, did not accept second best or half measures. And now, clearly she’d found evidence of illegal weapons transfers between Russia and Sudan,
exactly
what she knew had been going on, and exactly what she wanted to prevent by moving to Holland and joining the International Criminal Court.

This was not a time to be demure, to be compliant, to run and hide. She would use the weight of her position, the power of her organization, the strength of the international community to get herself away from here, away from these thugs, and back to her office, so she could reveal what she’d discovered. Back in Khartoum, she had stared down Sudanese government officials a half dozen rungs higher up the ladder than these two little black-suited buffoons, and she was not going to let these men intimidate her. And the Russian pilot was an arrogant bastard who needed to see that women were not placed in front of him just to bow to his will.

Go big or go home?

Ellen wasn’t going home until this dark secret, the secret that many had suspected, had been revealed to the world.

She was about to go big.

Say something lady,
Court said to himself. She just stood there, staring at the tall Russian. Court needed to get this over with, to get this woman tossed into the little cell here at the airport until he and his waste-of-time flight could get wheels up and out of here.

Say something! Anything,
Court silently implored the woman, but when she
did
break the silence, he immediately regretted her opening her mouth.

“Very well, gentlemen. My name is Ellen Walsh. I am not an employee of UNAMID. I am, in fact, an inspector with the International Criminal Court, here in the Sudan to investigate sanctions violations concerning weapons sales from abroad.”

Oh, shit, woman, you just got yourself killed,
Court thought, near disbelief at what he was hearing. How could she be so stupid?

The NSS men’s eyes grew impossibly wide, and Gennady looked away from Walsh and towards Gentry, an expression on his face like he’d just been poleaxed.

Walsh continued. “We’ve known about this flight for a long time. I was sent here to see it for myself. I can assure you my entire agency, both in Khartoum and in the Netherlands, is well aware that I am here. If I am not immediately allowed to communicate with my staff, there will be—”

Gennady shouted at her, “You lie! We were not supposed to come to Al Fashir. We were only diverted at the last moment. No one sent you here to spy on us!”

The secret policemen recovered from their surprise and stormed around the table, heading straight for Ellen Walsh.

“ICC!” Gennady began shouting outside the room to the rest of the flight crew, who were standing out in the terminal. Court couldn’t stop him from doing so. The two NSS men immediately confronted her, spun her around, and put her arms behind her back. These guys did not possess more than two speeds—off and on—and she had just flipped their switch. No doubt they were concerned about their own careers, their own lives even, allowing this woman to wander the airport while the Rosoboronexport flight was parked on the tarmac.

“You fucking Canadian whore!” shouted Gennady, turning back to the woman.

The big Russian slapped her face with his powerful hand. Court started to move forward with the objective of breaking Gennady’s jaw and pushing the NSS officers back, but he stayed himself. He was in two forms of cover at the same time, and neither of these alter egos would have any incentive to stop the secret police from detaining this woman. He could not show the Sudanese that he was anything more than a Russian cargo aircraft crewman, and he could not show the Russians that he was anything more than some dispassionate agent they were bringing into the country.

So he just stood there, watching, as the NSS men handcuffed her, and she kicked out at Gennady as he stood in front of her shouting in Russian. Soon four armed GOS soldiers stormed in, alerted no doubt by the shouting and wrestling in the interrogation room. Gentry’s Russian cohort scooted back out the door, and a couple of the other Russians peered in, with gawking stares of fascination and even amusement.

The older secret policeman grabbed her by her chin and turned her face towards his. “There is a place we take unwanted guests. I promise you that within minutes of arriving at the Ghost House, you will regret your espionage against the Republic of Sudan.”

“Espionage? I am not a spy! I have every right as a member of the international community to—”

“Don’t say another word, lady!” Court shouted aloud, no attempt now to hide his American accent and stay in cover. This fool was making her own situation direr by the second. “Just shut up and do what you’re told. You don’t know anything. Get out of here and do what you have to do, but don’t let on that you know any—”

“You speak English?” She looked at Gentry, confusion replacing her fury.

Court tried to reason with the woman in short bursts so the others would not understand. He switched to French. He hoped like hell that, as a Canadian, she understood it and hoped, also like hell, that the Sudanese did not. “You are not ICC! Do not say you are ICC, or they will kill you! Tell them you were lying. Tell them you are nobody. UN, that’s all.” One of the NSS men looked up at him in surprise but was too busy trying to pull the strong woman over to a chair to stop what he was doing.