CIA Pursuit, Part Two
More than a month had passed since I crossed into Somalia, and I had spent it hunting. I opened the ledger and took stock. Three hundred seventy-seven male slaves. Nineteen female. Close to four hundred head, and the underground storehouse was packed to the walls. It was time to start moving the goods to Gaia.
That was when No. 1 came up and made his report.
"Chairman. Director Maximus has arrived with the ship."
"About time. Prepare to load."
"Yes, sir."
I was waiting at the house when Maximus returned behind the wheel of two trucks. The slaves who had flown ahead to Cairo had passed through the gate and gone back to the territory construction site. There they took two Space-Expanded Trucks from Marco, made for the port of Cairo, loaded them onto a ferry chartered out of Istanbul, and came home to Mogadishu together.
I had thought about cutting a gate inside Mogadishu, or somewhere in Somalia itself, but the security of the place made it a bad bet. Bandits, intruders, thieves—you would be watching for them around the clock, and that is no condition under which to hide a gate and run it long-term. Nor was the far side of the gate any kinder. On Gaia, the Somali reaches were uncharted ground, never developed. Undeveloped alone I could have lived with. The problem was the dragon that lived there. The last sighting was seven hundred years ago, so perhaps it had left the region, or died. Even setting its savagery aside, opening a transit gate near the lair of a beast they call the master of magic was a fine way to provoke it. I had no interest in borrowing trouble. Annoying as it was, I took the long way around.
Maximus and the slaves climbed down from the trucks that had arrived.
"I have returned, Chairman."
"Good work, Maximus. Get some rest. There's time yet before we load."
The ferry was to lie at Mogadishu for a day and put out early the next morning. Once night had fallen and the dark settled in, the work began. The trucks backed into the rear yard. The slaves put their shoulders to a cover of timber and iron plate, turf laid over the top, and hauled it open. A great hole gaped. Where the light did not reach, there was nothing but black.
I lit incense bought from the magic tower and dropped it in, then five or six more after it, and waited while the smoke—a heavy, sleep-bringing scent—filled the storehouse below.
"That should about do it. Hit the lights."
Power ran to the LED lamps spaced thinly across the ceiling, and a thin glow pooled in the storehouse.
⟨ Levitation ⟩
My body rose, drifted over the mouth of the hole, and sank slowly down. Below, the wide chamber was strewn with men and women, collapsed on the floor and sleeping like the dead. I looked them over. They anesthetize fish, I had heard, to keep them fresh in transit. Same principle. If you are hauling them a long way, putting them to sleep is still the best method.
"Looks ready. Send them up and load."
Before long a portable conveyor had been rigged between the storehouse and the trucks, and the merchandise—dead asleep—rode the belt up one body at a time. The newly taken Somalia No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 were put to work as well, and we started packing the hauled-up slaves into the beds of the Space-Expanded Trucks. The fivefold space could be framed with posts and beams and loaded in two tiers. We laid them in a zigzag, head by feet and feet by head. Two hundred to a truck, and there was still room. Into what remained we stacked sacks of wheat bought in the Somali market.
I had used strength enhancement and telekinesis, and a modern portable conveyor on top of that, and the loading still took more than three hours. It was done only when the slaves were soaked through with sweat. Dawn was already behind us; the sky would break before long. The trucks, full of slaves and cargo, pulled away from the mansion.
The moment those trucks rolled out with their headlights on, the people gathered at the embassy in distant Nairobi got busy too. A temporary operations center had been stood up in the embassy's main conference room. PC monitors and control panels had claimed every surface. A drone pilot gripped the stick jutting from an open hard case and worked it while he watched the feed. On the big screen at the front of the room, aerial footage from the drone played without a break.
Mitchell, chief of the North Africa station and officer in overall command, was already on Smith.
"They've moved. Stay on the police. If those bastards get nailed at customs, I want us ready to act immediately."
"Yes, boss."
"And the Navy?"
Jackson took the question in a voice full of confidence.
"One Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is holding near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden. When the target comes up on the gulf, they'll take her on the high seas. Two Delta squads will do the boarding, and a Seahawk is being spun up to carry them to the ship."
"Good. Now we wait, and we see whether the bastards clear Somali customs and get out clean."
Early that morning the trucks reached the quay where the ship lay and rolled aboard the ferry without trouble. Once I was on deck I offered my hand to the captain as he came over.
"Second time."
"It is. Mogadishu, this time. Didn't think I'd be coming here."
"I dragged you a long way."
"What can you do? A customer calls, you come. Nothing for it."
"Get them there safely. Here's the next installment."
I passed him an envelope fat with cash. The base freight, Suez Canal toll included, was already paid. But no one handles work that smells this illegal, this quiet, for the rate on the invoice. The extra—several times what had gone through official channels—traveled like this, cash, hand to hand.
"Same as last time. While we're underway, my people will stay posted around the vehicle stowage. Keep your crew in line."
Having done the deal once already, the captain asked no questions.
"That's the term of the deal, so of course. Understood."
I put Slave No. 1 and No. 2 aboard, and Somalia No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 with them. A week through the Suez to Cairo. The slaves making the passage would mind the goods while we were at sea. No reason for me to sit through a dull voyage with them. I would fly ahead to Cairo with Maximus and Istanbul No. 1, and wait.
I watched the ferry raise her gangway and ease out toward open water, then turned away. Back at the mansion I put the house in rough order, got into the rental, and headed for the airport. The plan was simple: a ticket to Cairo, then kill the wait in the first-class lounge over a drink.
I took a sofa by a window overlooking the runway. A moment later a lounge attendant came over and offered me a drink.
"Welcome. Shall I bring you something?"
"Coffee. Hot."
"Of course. I'll have it brought."
Call it an international airport and you would be lying. The building was old and threadbare, and the air conditioning hardly breathed. The first-class lounge, at least, was better served. I sat in the cool draft, watched aircraft come and go on the runway, and brought the hot coffee to my mouth.
I was alone, waiting on boarding, when the sense of someone approaching touched me. A moment later I felt it plainly—someone coming to my side. My eyes went that way on their own. A man in a suit, and two airport security officers behind him. The man in the suit was Black. He looked at me and spoke.
"Mr. Jose Maldiano?"
To board a plane I had put on an Italian's face.
"Yes. That's me."
"Airport Security. Would you come with us for a moment?"
"Me? Why?"
"There's a problem with your cargo. I'm afraid you'll have to come along."
Polite, and thick with pressure at the same time. The two officers standing there with automatic rifles made the feeling worse. A problem with the cargo? A lie, almost certainly. I was curious what reason they thought they had, grabbing me in an airport out of nowhere. If it went bad, I would tear the place apart and run. That would end it. Whoever they chased after that would be a man named Jose. I could put on another face and board again, or simply cross a border alone.
"All right."
I left the lounge as asked, security on either side of me.
An airport security interrogation room. They had hauled me here straight from the lounge. On the way I had sharpened my hearing and taken in what I could of the surroundings. Faint, but I could make out Maximus and Istanbul No. 1 somewhere close. Held separately, no doubt.
"By the way. I have people with me..."
"They'll be brought to interrogation rooms as well. Don't concern yourself."
I had already ordered the slaves not to resist if something went wrong, so that much was fine. And so I sat alone in the empty room for the better part of an hour. When I lifted my head toward the ceiling opposite, a CCTV camera looked back. They were watching me through it, no question. I wanted someone—anyone—to walk in, so I could learn how this was being played.
A little longer, and the door opened. A young white man came in and sat across from me. He greeted me like an acquaintance.
"Good to meet you, Mr. Maldiano."
"You seem to know me. Who are you?"
He took out a business card and laid it in front of me. The rest of it did not matter. The letters CIA struck clean into my eyes. I arranged my face into perfect incomprehension.
"I'm with the North Africa station. Smith will do."
"Why is American intelligence holding me? What am I supposed to have done?"
"Your cargo. Obviously."
"Cargo? There's nothing in there but clothes, underwear, and—"
"Not that. I mean what's inside the trucks you loaded at the port of Mogadishu."
I had not expected the CIA. At a time like this, you deny.
"Trucks? Those are nothing but sacks of wheat."
Smith watched me make the excuse, drew a photograph from an envelope, and set it down in front of me. An aerial shot. From above, it caught people riding a conveyor up out of the mansion's rear yard. So they had been watching from overhead. It did not matter. The face I wore now was a Polymorph face, and the identification was fake. Coming in, the ring on my finger and the necklace had passed the baggage check and the metal detector without a murmur. Whatever happened here, getting my own body out would not be the problem. I answered him at my ease.
"What is this?"
"It won't go well for you if you keep denying it. A U.S. Navy warship is already standing by to take the ship that loaded your cargo. There is no way out."
"I wouldn't know. None of this is my affair."
"Let's see if you can hold that expression once the ferry's cargo is in the open."
The image coming off the camera ran across the monitor. Jackson studied the Italian man's face on the screen and smiled, just slightly.
"He's lying."
"How can you tell?"
"It's subtle, but the corner of the eye is jumping. The muscle around the mouth has locked up too. The pupils. The way the fine hairs stiffen. Those are reactions a man can't help. We've got him."
"We have. But the important part starts now. Who, exactly, is doing this—and for what."
"We watch, for the moment. It'll be good experience for Mr. Smith."
He said it the way a man offers a chance to his own subordinate, and Mitchell's temper pricked. He had no wish to look small, so he only nodded. Then he put the needle in.
"Fine. That Smith bastard. He'd better not screw this up."