Page 102 of Never
‘We may need to do something about that.’
‘I think we will, especially as one of the embassy civilians is the head of the CIA station here.’
‘Dexter went?’
‘Yes.’
Susan got up and went to her map wall. She pointed to a group of red dots between Abéché and the Sudan border. ‘These are the refugee camps,’ she said.
‘They’re scattered across a big piece of territory,’ Tamara said. ‘What is it, a hundred square miles?’
‘About that.’ Susan returned to her desk and tapped her keyboard. ‘Let’s look at the latest satellite photographs,’ she said.
Tamara turned her attention to the large screen on the wall.
Susan muttered: ‘This could be the one day of the year when there’s cloud cover over the eastern Sahara…but no, thank God.’ She touched more keys, and the satellite showed a town with a long, straight airstrip on its northern edge. ‘Abéché,’ she said. She changed the picture, and a tan wasteland appeared. ‘All these photos were taken in the last twenty-four hours.’
Tamara had experience of looking at satellite images. It could be frustrating. ‘A whole army could hide in that much desert,’ she said.
Susan kept changing the picture, showing different sections of desert landscape. ‘If they’re stationary, yes. Everything gets covered with dust and sand in no time. But when they’re moving they’re easier to see.’
Tamara half hoped there would be no sign of the Sudanese army. Then Tab would return in safety to Abéché this afternoon and fly back to N’Djamena tomorrow morning.
Susan grunted.
Tamara saw what looked like a column of ants on the sand. It reminded her of a TV programme she had watched about swarming. She narrowed her eyes. ‘What are we looking at?’
Susan said: ‘Christ Jesus, there they are.’
Tamara remembered thinking that Tuesday evening might be her last with Tab. No, she thought, please, no.
Susan was copying co-ordinates off the screen. ‘An army of two or three thousand men, plus vehicles, all in desert camouflage,’ she said. ‘On an unpaved road, it looks like, so they’ll be slow.’
‘Ours or theirs?’
‘No way to be sure – but they’re east of the camps, towards the border, so they’re probably Sudanese.’
‘You found them!’
‘You tipped us off.’
‘Where’s the Chadian army?’
‘There’s a quick way to find that out.’ Susan picked up the phone. ‘Get me General Touré, please.’
‘I have to tell the CIA,’ Tamara said. ‘Let me write down those co-ordinates.’ She grabbed a pencil and tore a sheet from Susan’s notepad.
Susan began to speak French, presumably talking to General Touré, using the familiar ‘tu’ rather than the formal ‘vous’. She rattled off the co-ordinates of the Sudanese army’s location, and paused for him to write them down. Then she said. ‘Now, César,’ using his first name, ‘where is your army?’
Susan repeated the numbers aloud as she wrote them down, and Tamara noted them too.
Susan said: ‘And where did you take the press party?’
When Tamara had the three sets of co-ordinates she grabbed a Post-it pad from Susan’s desk tray and went to the map wall. She put stickers at the positions of the two armies and the press party. Then she stared at the map. ‘The press party is between the two armies,’ she said. ‘Fuck.’
Tab was in mortal danger. This was no longer her morbid imagination; it was plain fact.
Susan thanked the Chadian general and hung up. She said to Tamara: ‘You did incredibly well to get this warning to us.’
