KHARTOUM
“Before we begin,” the consultant said as he sank into the comfortable armchair across from his host, “I’d like to thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I know things are pretty hectic around here, sir, and you must have a lot on your plate. I just want you to know that I appreciate your time. Not to mention your hospitality.” He smiled agreeably and lifted his cup of coffee, which had just been provided by his host’s secretary, Joyce, in the adjoining room, in a casual toast of sorts.
Walter Reynolds, who had spent most of the morning reading the Washington Post online and washing his gut with coffee, almost winced at the gratitude. Now more than ever he felt like a complete fraud in his neat two-piece suit, strangling tie, and polished wing tips. But shaking it off, he raised his cup to return the toast. It was an unusual gesture, he thought. In all his life he couldn’t remember carrying out the ritual with anything other than alcohol, which was notoriously hard to procure in Sudan, God-fearing and genocidal republic that it was, much to his lasting annoyance.
Reynolds sighed as they both sipped at the hot liquid, his gaze never shifting from the man seated across from him.
The consultant, he had to admit, was not what he had been expecting. Reynolds wasn’t sure why, exactly, but a few things stood out, including his age. For a man with such remarkable connections, he was young…no more than thirty-six or seven, and that was a conservative estimate. His dark hair, which could have been black or a very dark shade of brown, was lightly oiled and cut short to reveal a receding hairline, which, strangely enough, didn’t seem to detract from his youthful appearance. His face was on the narrow side, but open and friendly, particularly around the eyes and mouth, and he wore steel-rimmed spectacles that pinched the bridge of his long nose, contributing to the overall air of subdued intelligence.
And that was what had thrown him, Reynolds realized. The consultant didn’t seem to fit the mold. He wasn’t loud, domineering, and demanding, like most people would be in his position, but quiet and unassuming. He did not have the fleshy, arrogant face of the stereotypical kingmaker, but that of an earnest scholar. He could have been a congressman on the rise, or a surgical resident in one of the country’s better hospitals. In his youth he might have been the captain of the chess club or debate team at an Ivy League school, of which he was no doubt a graduate.
Reynolds idly wondered which one he had gone to. Had it been Harvard, the first choice for America’s moneyed youth? Princeton, maybe? Yale? Perhaps he was wrong, Reynolds thought. Perhaps this youngster had come up the hard way. Perhaps he had gone to Brown.
Setting down his cup, the senior diplomat returned his attention to the document on his desk. It was a letter of introduction, delivered by diplomatic pouch several minutes earlier. The timing was extraordinary, and by no means a coincidence-it had arrived less than a minute before his guest had appeared in the anteroom. Reynolds lifted the top half of the single page and slowly scanned the twelve lines of concise text, even though he had already read the letter several times. A moment later he reached the signatures at the bottom. It was here that his eyes lingered. There were four signatures in all, and they represented some of the most powerful people in the U.S. government, among them the woman who’d called him the previous day.
Reynolds couldn’t help but shake his head in admiration. It was a remarkable document in a number of ways, primarily for the powers it bestowed upon the young man sitting across from him. At first glance, they appeared to be nearly unlimited, though Reynolds reminded himself that the wording in the letter was hardly specific and could be interpreted any number of ways. In his thirty years with the Foreign Service, he had seen some incredibly vague terminology appear in official government documents, and this one was no exception. But still, to see all those signatures, and on one piece of paper…
He looked up and offered a smile, then flicked the fine linen paper with the tip of his finger. “Your credentials are very impressive, Mr. Landis. Beyond reproach, actually.”
The young man couldn’t help but smile at the name. There was no harm in doing so. To the senior diplomat, it would look like he was merely returning the gesture. It had not been easy at first, and he had nearly slipped up a number of times, but he was now accustomed to hearing it.
James Landis. He had held that identity for exactly thirty days, and it was getting easier with each passing week. The chief of mission believed that he had arrived in-country that very day, mainly because that was what he was meant to believe. In reality, Landis had landed in the Republic of Sudan a month before, entering the country through Khartoum International Airport as Harold Traylor…yet another disposable name he’d jettisoned, along with his forged passport, after its purpose had been served.
Just getting into Sudan had been almost as dangerous as the things he’d been doing since. While he would have preferred to enter via a remote border crossing, preferably in the western territories edging up against Chad, most had been closed due to the escalating clashes over the oil fields and pumping stations in West Darfur. The few checkpoints that remained open were so volatile that for any Westerner to attempt a crossing-even a man of his unique and considerable talents-would have amounted to suicide. As a result, he’d been forced to take a direct flight into Khartoum, where alert officials and CCTV cameras were in far greater abundance. There had been some degree of risk in doing so, but he’d made it through customs unscathed, and forty minutes later he’d destroyed any evidence that Harold Traylor ever existed. That passport, along with a New York driver’s license, a well-worn membership card to a video store in Albany, and several credit cards in the same name, had been burned in a back garden at the home of his sole contact in the capital.
Another stop along the road, another shed skin left behind.
Since those first precarious days, his network had expanded with astonishing speed, thanks largely to his contact’s connections in Khartoum and the surrounding areas. The planning itself had involved weeks spent clustered around a table in the Harry S. Truman Building in Washington, D.C., home to the U.S. Department of State. In a soundproofed room on the ground floor, he and a rotating staff of ten had studied everything from the strength of the republic’s dissident groups to the command structure of the Sudanese army. The lengthy strategy sessions had been hard to endure, even though he’d known just how important that information would eventually be to his own welfare. Now Landis was well into the operational part of his plan, but up until this point, he had only been setting the stage. Moving the pieces into place. The next stage was crucial. Fittingly, it would also be far more dangerous. The risks had been mulled over at length-not only by him, but by the men and women who had tasked him with his current assignment, the most challenging and important of his career. After much debate, they had been deemed acceptable.
One of those risks was the man seated across from him now. The problem, Landis knew, stemmed from an incident twenty-five years in the past. Walter Reynolds, then a junior economics officer stationed at the U.S. embassy in Asuncion, Paraguay, had misplaced a stack of sealed bids submitted by various American contractors. The contractors, five in all, were competing for the right to build a four-lane vehicular bridge over the Parana River, a project valued in excess of ten million dollars. One week after the bids went missing, a Japanese company swept in out of nowhere and won the contract, out-bidding the closest U.S. competitor by a mere twenty thousand dollars.
It was never proven that the missing paperwork had fallen into the wrong hands, but that didn’t matter. The damage was already done, and someone had to take the blame. The incident had done much to derail Reynolds’s career in the Foreign Service. It had also marked him as a man who could not be trusted with important information. The trick in this case, Landis knew, would lie in telling him exactly what he needed to know and not a word more. Eventually, Reynolds would be allowed to see the entire picture, but certainly not now, and maybe not until it was all said and done.
The chief of mission was droning on, saying something about the necessity of maintaining clear lines of communication between the various diplomatic outposts. It wasn’t what Landis wanted to hear.
Leaning forward in his seat, he cut the older man off with a genial smile and a wave of his hand.
“Sir, I understand exactly what you mean, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to get into it now.” It was partially true; he had several meetings lined up in the city, and they would take up the better part of the afternoon. For the most part, though, he just didn’t want to be in the embassy any longer than necessary. “There is one thing I need to hear from you, and then I can brief you a little more thoroughly. If you’re satisfied with that arrangement, we can proceed.”
The man looked suspicious. Landis couldn’t blame him; had the roles been reversed, he would have felt the same way.
“I suppose that depends,” Reynolds said slowly, “on what you need to hear.”
Landis pointed toward the document on the desk, which was facing away from him. “Sir, do you believe that this is a legitimate document? More specifically, are you comfortable with the terms stated in the letter, and are you willing to abide by them?”
The senior diplomat leaned back in his chair and smiled tightly. “Well, that all depends, doesn’t it? I’m sure you’re comfortable with the terms, Mr. Landis. This document seems to give you a good deal of authority. Essentially, it makes you my superior.”
“That it does,” Landis replied neutrally. He would have preferred to demur, but Reynolds was right, and it would be better if he understood the hierarchy right from the start. That way, they could avoid the argument later. “But again, are you willing to abide by the terms? Because if you are not, I need to know now so I can leave this building and make some calls.”
The older man’s smile faded away. “That sounds like a threat.”
Landis knew Reynolds was thinking about the four names at the bottom of the introductory letter and what those people could do to his career.
“Not at all, sir,” he replied calmly. “Far from it. I’m merely pointing out that by seeing this document, you already know a great deal, and that could endanger my work here. If you are not willing to cooperate, I’m going to have to leave the country and make alternate arrangements. Surely you can see the logic in that.”
Reynolds mused over this for a moment. Then he nodded once, conceding the point. “If I agree to your terms,” he said slowly, “will you tell me what this is about?”
“No, sir,” Landis said. He strived to sound genuinely regretful, as though it wasn’t his decision to make. “I can’t and I won’t. In time you’ll know everything. I promise you. But for now, I just need to know that we’re on the same page. And in case you were wondering, calling those people”-he pointed to the signatures at the bottom of the letter-“will get you nowhere. As the document states, I have full control on the ground for the duration of this operation. They will tell you exactly the same thing, only they’ll probably be less polite about it.”
The senior diplomat lifted his cup and took a long sip, thinking about it. The word operation said much in itself, he thought. It seemed to imply a prolonged, potentially dangerous task, and he realized that he had misjudged the man sitting across from him. Despite his rather ineffectual appearance, the consultant was clearly not the kind of man who worked from a desk. Regardless of what he was trying to accomplish in Sudan, Reynolds had no doubt that James Landis would be in it up to his neck…and assuming that was the case, it could mean only one thing for Reynolds and his staff of seventy.
He set down his cup and looked at the younger man. “We’re not going home, are we?”
“No, Mr. Reynolds, I’m afraid you’re not. The embassy will not be evacuated, and diplomatic ties will not be severed. But there are going to be some changes around here, and I assure you, they will be for the best. Now, can I count on your cooperation?”
Reynolds was still hesitant, but he was also boxed in, and-he had to admit it-more than a little curious. “Yes, you can.”
“Good.” Landis smiled. “Now, here is what I need from you.”
Ten minutes later the consultant emerged from an elevator on the ground floor of the embassy. He crossed the scuffed floor of the crowded lobby, ignoring the cursory glance of a marine corporal standing post. As he headed for the main entrance, he did his best to skirt the restless crowd, his ears filled with the low, angry buzz of 80 people standing in line to get or apply for their visas. Unlike the people waiting in line, he was in a good mood, and it was getting better with each step he took toward the door. The meeting with the chief of mission had taken less than fifteen minutes, and it had accomplished a great deal. He had secured Reynolds’s assistance-not only for the transfer of incoming funds, but also for the housing of personnel, should the need arise. The embassy was now a sanctuary of last resort-not only for him, but also for his assets, most of whom were Sudanese nationals-and the letter of introduction, which had made him uneasy to begin with, even though he’d understood the need for it, was now a pile of gray ash in the steel garbage can sitting next to Reynolds’s desk.
Despite his warnings as to where it would lead, Landis had no doubt that the chief of mission had been on the phone to Washington the minute he’d left the room. What he’d said to the older man had been true. Regardless of who Reynolds called, he would be told nothing more than what he already knew. In fact, depending on who he called first, he would probably be told in no uncertain terms to back off and keep his mouth shut, which was fine with Landis. More than anything, the meetings back at the State Department had focused on the consequences of failure-on what would happen if it all went wrong.
It had been decided that the biggest threat to the entire operation was the possibility of a leak. As always, the damage it could do would depend entirely on where it was sprung. A leak on the local level, for instance-a botched recruitment, perhaps, or a note slipped from one of his assets to someone in Bashir’s regime-would end up with Landis dead and his network rolled up; a leak in Washington might well lead to one of the biggest scandals since the Iran-Contra affair.
The national opposition to Bashir was as generally widespread as it was internally divided and fractious. There was the Justice and Equality Movement, or the JEM. And the United Resistance Front, led by Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, the JEM’s deputy chief before his split with its founder Khalil Ibrahim-a man now seen by many former followers as no less an opportunist and demagogue than Bashir. Then, of course, you had the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and its Abdel Wahid al-Nur and Minnawi factions…and others.
The man who called himself Landis thought it almost unimaginable that anyone in the United States government would be bold enough to try pulling these groups together, or even to decide a coalition was within the realm of possibility. But history had seen stranger bedfellows joined-if not quite united-for a common purpose.
Given the possible fallout-especially on the political side of things-Landis had never expected it to get this far. Somewhere along the line, he had expected someone to lose their nerve, and to some extent, he still expected it. Yet he did not intend to waste valuable time planning for that eventuality. If the powers that be decided to call a halt to the whole thing, he would not draw back easily for them. If it failed, the operation might still end up as a minor footnote in history. If it succeeded, it would be considered one of the most audacious ever conceived and seen to fruition.
Landis did not consider himself to be a vain man, but the prospect of being right there, on the knife edge of history, filled him with a kind of exhilaration he’d never known, and he wanted nothing more than to see it through to the end, regardless of how it played out.
He slowed as he approached the main entrance, then shifted course, heading for a discreet door set in the far wall of the lobby. Like all U.S. embassies and consulates, the building in Khartoum was secured by a detachment of U.S. Marines, all of whom had passed through a specialized training program at the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group, or MCESG, located in Quantico, Virginia. Post One, the security hub for the entire embassy, was located just inside the main entrance, where it served to deter an attack from the street. Inside the small, overheated room, Landis was met by the detachment commander. Reynolds had already called down for him, and the confused but compliant marine sergeant had the appropriate materials packed and waiting. Less than a minute later Landis was walking out the front door into the afternoon sunlight, an olive green rucksack slung over his right shoulder.
The car, a dusty black Ford Escort, was waiting on Ali Abdel Latif Street, engine idling. The vehicles lined up behind it were honking incessantly, turbaned men leaning out of their windows to scream insults in Arabic at the driver, who had parked with the rear end of the Escort jutting into the road, just as Landis had instructed.
He could see that the diversion had worked perfectly. As the confused scene played out, all eyes were fixed on the car in the road and not on the lean, dark-haired American descending the steps of the embassy. Hitting the street, Landis turned right and started weaving his way through the pushy pedestrian traffic, walking quickly toward the intersection at Nillien University where in two minutes’ time he would be picked up by the man in the Escort.
Satisfied with what he had seen in the street, he had missed the one person who had not been distracted, a fellow American who’d been climbing the steps as he’d been descending. He did not see the man stop at the top of the steps, turn, and stare after him. The man was still staring after Landis as he turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Then, shaking his head, he walked forward and entered the building, a welcome blast of cool air hitting his face the second he opened the door.
Seth Holland was officially listed on the embassy’s organization chart as a budget and resource manager with the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management. In keeping with this exalted title, his office on the fourth floor was large and comfortably furnished, with French windows that opened up to the inner courtyard. It was the kind of office that, in the budget manager’s absence, might be occupied by the CIA’s chief of station in Khartoum. Fittingly, this was the position that Holland, a twenty-year Agency veteran, actually held.
Unlike the man in charge of the embassy, Holland’s workload had increased sharply since the attack on Camp Hadith. But as he stepped into the elevator and jabbed the appropriate button, he wasn’t thinking about reports of increased rebel activity in the Nuba Mountains, or the sharp, unexplained increase in anti-Bashir demonstrations, which had recently begun popping up all over the city. Instead, Seth Holland was thinking about the dark-haired man with the rucksack he had seen on the steps, and two thoughts in particular.
Who was that man, and where have I seen him before?