The Exile by Andrew Britton

Author:Andrew Britton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2011-05-03T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

NORTH DARFUR

The Beechcraft A36 Bonanza wasn’t much of a plane, even by North Africa’s lax aeronautical standards. Certainly, it would never have passed an FAA inspection. The exterior was painted eggshell white with a brown stripe running the length of the fuselage, a dated color scheme betraying the aircraft’s twenty-nine years of service. Fresh paint on the port wing hinted at recent damage to the wing’s leading edge, a defect that would have grounded any pilot with an ounce of concern for the lives of his passengers. But for all its faults, the single-prop plane was ideal for the ninety-minute flight from Khartoum to Nyala Airport. They were now less than twenty minutes out, having departed the Sudanese capital just after eight that evening, and both passengers were eager to get on the ground, though only one showed any sign of his inner turmoil. Ismael Mirghani was sweating profusely, despite the frigid air inside the cabin, and his hands were in constant motion, searching for some way to fill the time.

The second passenger was oblivious to Mirghani’s fidgeting. His interest was fixed on the reading material he’d picked up at Khartoum International. Al-Rayaam was by far the largest and oldest newspaper in Sudan. It could trace its roots back to the 1940s, but as he read through the headlines, Cullen White was disappointed to see that its reputation for honest, straightforward reporting was completely undeserved. As far as he could tell, Al-Rayaam was nothing but another mouthpiece for the Sudanese president. The paper neglected to mention the demonstrations that had taken place the day before in Zalingei, Tulus, and Al-Fashir. Even the massive protest in Khartoum—a demonstration that had cost White more than three hundred thousand dollars in bribes and “donations” to organize—had been largely ignored.

That in particular bothered him more than he cared to admit.

The article he was looking for was buried in the back of the political section, a bad sign right from the start. Anything that showed Bashir in a positive light would have appeared on the front page, but the fact that they’d printed the story at all meant they had skewed the facts to their liking. When White finally managed to find the passage, he read through it quickly:

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