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personal for Danny in a way it would never be for Nuri.
    “Nuri thinks there’s a lot more going on here than we’re being told, Bree,” said Danny. “Uh-huh.”
    Nuri watched Danny listen to something she said, but in the darkness he couldn’t see his face well enough to interpret his reaction.
    “She wants to talk to you,” said Danny, handing him the sat phone.
    “Ms. Stockard, hello.”
    “Nuri, what do you think is going on?” asked Breanna.
    “I can’t say exactly.”
    He explained that the Agency didn’t seem to be following its usual protocols when targeting a high-value terrorist like Li Han. On the other hand, he had to admit that because he had no direct information about either Raven or the particular mission, he simply didn’t know how suspicious to be.
    The more questions Breanna asked, the less confident Nuri felt. And yet, things still seemed a little off, a little unusual in ways that made him believe the CIA wasn’t telling them everything.
    Well, duh, he thought, handing the phone back to Danny. When did the Agency ever tell anyone everything?
    “S he’s going to talk to Reid,” Danny told Nuri after he signed off. “I don’t think Reid would lie to her.”
    “Probably not,” said Nuri.
    “You think Reid would lie?”
    Nuri shrugged.
    There were all sorts of reasons Danny didn’t particularly like the fact that Whiplash was a joint project between the military and the CIA, but they all came down to Nuri’s two words: probably not.
    You never knew exactly what the CIA was up to. The Air Force and the rest of the military might have its problems and its politics, but these paled compared to Central Intelligence.
    “Tigershark will be here in another three hours,” said Danny. Once the aircraft was overhead, they would have real-time surveillance as well as a connection with their computer system, MY-PID. The rest of the team was scheduled to arrive roughly two hours later. Assuming that Melissa Ilse had located the wreckage by then, they would fly in, retrieve it, and come home.
    Danny noticed Nuri staring into the distance.
    “What are you thinking?” he asked.
    “Just how lovely it is to be back in this stink hole,” said the CIA officer.

Chapter 11
    Southeastern Sudan
    M elissa Ilse cut the motorcycle’s engine, coasting in the dark as the indicator beeper became a steady hum. She was a mile from the UAV.
    Hand-built by Ducati to CIA specifications, the lightweight motorcycle had a pair of oversized mufflers that kept engine noise to a low rumble. But sound traveled far in the desert foothills, and she couldn’t afford to take a chance of alerting anyone that she was near. She needed to locate the UAV and recover its brain, or her career was shot.
    Harker had told her that in so many words.
    Melissa glided off the dirt trail she’d been riding for the past half hour or so, letting the bike’s momentum carry her to a trio of rocks a few yards up the hillside. She put on her brakes as she reached them. Hopping off the bike, she set it down gently against the largest of the rocks. She pulled the MP-5 submachine gun from its holster on the side of the bike and trotted down to the trail, turning back to make sure the bike couldn’t be seen.
    Her night vision goggles were heavy against her face. She pulled them off and rubbed her cheekbones and eyes. She was surprised there was enough light to see fairly well, and it was such a relief not to have the apparatus pressing against her face that she decided she would do without it for a while. She stuffed it into her rucksack, then examined her GPS.
    The handheld device wasn’t coordinated with the UAV’s homing signals, but it wasn’t hard to get her bearings. The aircraft had gone down on the other side of the ridge. She could either climb directly over it or circle around parallel to the trail she’d been riding.
    Direct was always better.
    Melissa paused every few steps to look around and make sure she wasn’t being