Never, page 37
Chapter 21
Tamara thought they might have lost Abdul.
It was now eight days since he had called and said the bus was about to cross the border into Libya. He might have been arrested by the Libyans, though that part of the world was so lawless it seemed improbable. More likely he had been kidnapped or murdered by tribesmen who had nothing to do with any government. Perhaps a ransom demand was on its way.
And perhaps Abdul had disappeared, never to be seen again.
Tab called a meeting to discuss what to do. Such meetings were hosted by the Americans and the French alternately, and this one was held in the French embassy. As the discussion would be in the French language, Dexter did not attend.
It was chaired by Tab’s boss, Marcel Lavenu, a big man whose bald head rose above his shoulders like a dome on a church. “I saw the Chinese ambassador last night,” he said, speaking conversationally as the group took their seats. “He’s mad as hell about the rebellion in North Korea. But the Chinese don’t mind arming rebels in North Africa. Imagine the reaction if the nuclear base at Sangnam-ni had been taken over by men with Bugles!”
Tamara did not understand the reference, and Tab explained: “The Bugle is the nickname for the bullpup rifle made by the French company FAMAS.”
Tab was spreading a large map on the conference table. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled, and his brown arms had a light covering of hair. Leaning over the map with a pencil in his hand and his forelock tumbling over his eyes, he looked irresistibly attractive, and Tamara wanted to take him to bed there and then.
He was oblivious to the effect he had. One time she had laughingly accused him of deliberately dressing to make women’s pulses race, and he had given a vague smile that showed he did not really understand what she was talking about. Which made him even more alluring.
“This is Faya,” he began, pointing with his pencil to a place on the map. “A thousand kilometers from here by road. It’s where Abdul called from, eight days ago, when he gave us a mass of priceless data. Since then he has presumably been out of telephone range.”
Monsieur Lavenu was a smart man, if a little pompous. He said: “What about the radio signal from the consignment? Can’t we pick that up?”
“Not from here,” said Tab. “Its range is only about a hundred and fifty kilometers.”
“Of course. Carry on.”
“The military aren’t proposing to take any action yet against the terrorists Abdul has identified, for fear of alerting others, possibly more important, farther along the road. But we’ll pounce before too long.”
Lavenu spoke again. “And how was the morale of Monsieur Abdul, eight days ago?”
“He spoke to our American colleague.” Tab indicated Tamara.
Lavenu looked at her expectantly.
“He was in good spirits,” she said. “Frustrated by the breakdowns and delays, naturally, but learning an enormous amount about ISGS. He knows he’s in terrible danger, but he’s brave and tough.”
“There is no doubt about his courage.”
Tab picked up the story. “We assume the bus went northwest from Faya to Zouarké, then due north, with the mountains on its right and the Niger border on its left. There are no paved roads there. Somewhere to the north of Wour the bus will have crossed the border, we assume. Abdul is probably in Libya now, though we have no way to be sure.”
Lavenu said: “This is not quite satisfactory. Of course we must accept that we may lose sight of an undercover operative, but are we doing all we can to find him?”
Tab said politely: “I don’t know what else we could do, sir.”
“Presumably the radio signal from the consignment could be picked up by a helicopter overhead, following the most likely route of the bus?”
“Possibly,” said Tab. “It’s a huge area to cover, but it would be worth a try. We could assume that the bus took the shortest route to a paved highway, which is more or less due north. The problem is that the chopper would be seen and heard by the people on the bus, and the smugglers would realize that they are under surveillance, and then they would take some kind of evasive action.”
“How about a drone?”
Tab nodded. “A drone is quieter than a helicopter and can fly much higher. Far better for clandestine surveillance.”
“Then I will request the French air force to send one of our drones to try to pick up the radio signal from the consignment.”
Tamara said: “That would be great!” She would feel much relieved by a sighting of Abdul’s bus.
The meeting wound up soon after that, and Tab walked Tamara out to her car. The French embassy was a long, low modern building that gleamed white in the strong sunlight. Tab said: “You remember that my father is arriving today?” He was smiling, but he seemed nervous—which was unusual for him.
“Of course,” Tamara said. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Slight change of plan.”
She sensed that this was what he was nervous about.
He said: “My mother will be with him.”
“Oh, my God, she’s coming to inspect me, isn’t she?”
“No, of course not.” He looked at Tamara’s skeptical expression and said: “Well, yes.”
“I knew it.”
“Is that so bad? I’ve told them about you, and naturally she’s curious.”
“Has she visited you here before?”
“No.”
What had Tab said, to bring his mother to Chad for the first time ever? He must have let his parents know that Tamara was likely to become a long-term part of his life—and theirs. She should have been pleased, not anxious.
Tab said: “It’s ironic. Here in this lawless country you face danger every day without flinching, but you’re scared of my mother.”
“It’s true.” She laughed at herself. All the same she was anxious. She brought to mind the photograph in Tab’s apartment. His mother was blond and well-dressed, but that was all she could remember. She said: “You’ve never told me their names. I can’t very well call them Papa and Maman.”
“Not yet, anyway. He’s Malik. She’s Marie-Anatole, but she’s always called Anne, which works in many languages.”
Tamara noticed that phrase not yet but did not comment. She said: “When do they arrive?”
“The flight gets in around midday. We could have dinner this evening.”
Tamara shook her head. People were often cranky after flying. She preferred they should have a night’s rest before she met them. “You should spend the first evening alone with them,” she said. Not wanting to suggest that they might be ill-tempered, she said: “You’ll need to catch up on all the family news.”
“Maybe . . .”
“Why don’t you and I meet them for lunch tomorrow?”
“You’re right, that’s a better idea. But we don’t want to be seen, do we, the four of us in public? I’m not ready to confront my superiors with the news that I’m in love with a Yankee spy.”
“I didn’t think of that. And I can’t invite them to my little studio apartment. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll have to take one of the private dining rooms at the Lamy. Or we could have lunch in their suite. Papa always takes a single room, when he’s on his own, but Maman will have booked the Presidential Suite.”
So, no problem, Tamara thought, somewhat bemused. She still had not gotten used to Tab’s family’s wealth.
Tab said: “On our first date you wore a striped dress, navy blue and white, with a little blue jacket and blue leather shoes.”
“Wow, you really noticed.”
“You looked wonderful.”
“It made me seem demure, but you saw through the disguise pretty quickly.”
“It would be a great outfit to wear on Tuesday.”
She was taken aback. He had never before told her what to wear. It was not like him to be controlling. She guessed it was only trepidation, but all the same she was irked that he should worry about the impression she was going to make on his mother. “Have faith, Tabdar,” she said. She used his full name only when she was teasing him. “I probably won’t embarrass you at all. These days I hardly ever get drunk and grab the waiter’s ass.”
“I’m sorry,” he said with a laugh. “Papa is laid-back, but Maman can be critical.”
“I sympathize. Wait till you meet my mother, the schoolteacher. If you annoy her she’ll make you stand in the corner.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
She pecked his cheek and got into the waiting car.
She thought about Tab’s not yet. He was assuming the time would come when she called his parents Papa and Maman, which meant she and Tab would be married. She already knew she wanted to spend her life with him, but the wedding was not high on her to-do list. She had married twice already, both times with unsatisfactory results. She was not in a hurry to do it again.
In five minutes she was back in the leafy grounds of the US embassy. At her desk she wrote a note about the meeting for Dexter, then she went to the canteen and got a Cobb salad and a diet soda for lunch.
Susan Marcus joined her, putting her tray on the table and taking off her uniform cap, shaking her short hair to restore its natural bounce. She sat down, but she did not begin to eat her steak. “Abdul’s intelligence is priceless,” she said. “I hope he gets a medal.”
“If he does we may never know. CIA honors are usually secret. They’re called jockstrap medals.”
Susan grinned. “Because they’re not visible, and they’re not necessary for women.”
“Got it in one.”
Susan became serious again. “Listen, there’s something I want to ask you about.”
Tamara swallowed a mouthful and put down her fork. “Go ahead.”
“You know that training the National Army of Chad is a big part of our mission here.”
“Of course.”
“You probably don’t know that we’ve been teaching some of their best people how to use drones.”
“I did not know that.”
“Of course this is under tight control, and the local boys aren’t allowed to operate drones without American supervision.”
“Good.”
“Sometimes the aircraft are destroyed in exercises. One that had a warhead blew up when it struck its target, which is what’s supposed to happen. Another was downed—shooting them down is part of the training. Naturally we keep a meticulous tally of how many we have.”
“Of course.”
“But one has gone missing.”
Tamara was surprised. “How could that happen?”
“A lot of drones crash; this is new technology. The official story is ‘guidance system malfunction.’ ”
“And you can’t find it? How big is it?”
“Drones that carry weapons over long distances are not small. This one has the wingspan of a corporate jet and needs a runway to take off. But it’s a big desert.”
“You think it might have been stolen?”
“The drone is normally flown by a three-man team: pilot, sensor operator, and mission intelligence coordinator. However, one man could do it in a pinch. But he could do nothing without the control station.”
“How big is that?”
“It’s a van. In the back, the drone pilot sits in a virtual cockpit with screens showing the view from the drone, maps, and aircraft instrumentation. There’s a conventional throttle and joystick. A satellite dish on the roof communicates with the aircraft.”
“So the thief has to steal the van too.”
“He might be able to buy one on the black market.”
“You want me to put out some feelers?”
“Yes, please.”
“The drones might have been put up for sale. Alternatively, the General may have the drones under cover at some remote airstrip. Maybe someone is trying to buy a control station on the black market. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I eat my salad now?”
“Go for it.”
* * *
Tamara had a date with Karim for coffee on Tuesday morning.
She dressed carefully, because she had to go straight from Karim’s coffee shop to lunch with Tab’s parents. She did not put on the outfit prescribed by Tab: it would have made her feel like his puppet. However, she was not going to be mulish and dress in ripped jeans. She remembered his saying that she had the kind of simple chic that French people admired, and in truth that was her favorite style. She put on the outfit she had been wearing when he said that, a mid-gray shift dress with a red belt.
She hesitated over jewelry. Marie-Anatole Sadoul owned and ran the Travers company, which produced high-class bling, among other things. Nothing in Tamara’s jewel box was expensive enough to compete with whatever Tab’s maman might have on. Tamara decided to be contrarian and wear something she had made herself. She picked out a pendant of an ancient Tuareg arrowhead. In places the Sahara was littered with such relics, so it was not precious, but it was interesting and different. It was carved of stone and carefully shaped, with serrated edges. Tamara had simply drilled a hole in its wide base and threaded it with a narrow piece of rawhide that she slung around her neck. The stone was dark gray and toned nicely with her dress.
Karim’s eyes widened appreciatively when he saw how smart she looked, though he did not comment. Tamara sat opposite him at what was evidently the proprietor’s table and accepted a cup of bitter coffee. They talked about the battle at the refugee camp eleven days earlier. Karim said: “We’re pleased that President Green did not believe the Sudanese lies about us invading their territory.”
“The president had an eyewitness report.”
Karim raised his eyebrows. “From you?”
“I got a personal phone call from her thanking me.”
“Well done! Have you met her?”
“I worked on her congressional election campaign, years ago.”
“Very impressive.” His congratulations were tinged with something else, and she realized she needed to be careful. Karim was a big shot because he knew the General, and he would not like to feel that Tamara might be an even bigger shot because she knew the American president. She decided to play it down a bit. “She does this all the time, calls ordinary people, a driver, a cop, a reporter on a local paper, and thanks them for doing a good job.”
“She gets good publicity from it!”
“Exactly.” Tamara felt she had reduced herself back to normal size, and she was ready to ask her difficult question. “By the way, one of our drones is missing—did you know?”
Karim hated to admit ignorance. He would always pretend he already knew. The only time he would claim unawareness was when he wanted to hide the fact that he really did know something. So she reckoned that if he now said: “Yes, I heard about that,” he probably knew nothing; whereas if he said: “I had no idea,” it meant he knew all about it.
He hesitated for a significant fraction of a second, then he said: “Really? A drone missing? I had no idea.”
So you knew, she thought. Well, well. Pushing for confirmation, she said: “We thought maybe the General had it.”
“Certainly not!” Karim tried to look indignant. “Why, what would we do with it?”
“I don’t know. He might think it’s just nice to have one, like . . .” She pointed to the large complicated diving watch on Karim’s left wrist. “Like your watch.” If Karim was being honest he would laugh now and say: “Yes, of course, a drone is nice to have in your pocket, even if you never use it.”
But he did not. Solemnly he said: “The General would never wish to have such a powerful weapon without the approval of our American allies.”
This sanctimonious bullshit verified Tamara’s instinct. She had the information she needed, so she changed the subject. “Are the armies observing the demilitarized zone along the border with Sudan?” she asked.
“So far, yes.”
As they chatted about Sudan, Tamara pondered Karim’s question: what would the General do with an American drone? He might just keep it as a superfluous trophy, never to be used, just as Karim, living in the landlocked desert country of Chad, was never going to need a watch that was water resistant to a depth of one hundred meters. But the General was a sly schemer, as he had proved with his ambush, and he might well have a more sinister purpose.
Tamara had all the intelligence she had been hoping to get from Karim today. She took her leave and returned to her car. She would report this conversation later. First she had to be assessed by Tab’s parents.
She told herself not to be oversensitive. This was not an exam, it was a social lunch. All the same she felt apprehensive.
At the Lamy she went first to the restroom to freshen up. She combed her hair and retouched her makeup. The arrowhead pendant looked good in the mirror.
She had a message on her phone giving her the room number. As she got into the elevator, Tab stepped in right behind her. She kissed him on both cheeks, then wiped her lipstick off his face. He was dressed formally, in a suit and a spotted tie, with a white handkerchief peeking out of his breast pocket. “Let me guess,” she said, speaking French. “Your mother likes her men to dress up.”
He smiled. “The men like it too. And you look perfect.”
They reached the room door, which was open, and went in.
Tamara had never been in a presidential suite. They passed through a small lobby into a spacious sitting room. A door to one side gave a glimpse of a dining room, where a waiter was putting napkins on a table. On the opposite side of the room was a double door that presumably led to the bedroom.
Tab’s parents were sitting on a pink-upholstered couch. His father stood up and his mother remained sitting. Both wore glasses that had not appeared in the photo Tamara had seen. Malik’s looks were craggy and dark, but he was well-dressed in a navy blue cotton blazer with off-white trousers and a striped tie, a Frenchman doing the English style but with more flair. Anne was pale and slim, a beautiful older woman in a cream-colored linen dress with a mandarin collar and flared sleeves. They looked like what they were, an affluent couple with good taste.
