‘Of course.’
The N’Gueli Bridge crossed the Logone River, which formed the border between Chad and Cameroon, so the bridge was an international crossing. It connected N’Djamena with the Cameroonian town of Kousséri. In fact, it was two bridges, a high viaduct for vehicles and an older bridge, lower and narrower, now used only for pedestrians.
Tamara shaded her eyes and looked south. ‘You can almost see the bridge from here – it’s about a mile away as the crow flies.’
‘It’s a frontier post, but not strictly policed,’ Dexter went on. ‘Most vehicles don’t get stopped. As for the pedestrians, they all seem to be friends and relatives of the border guards. Only white people are detained. They’re charged a fictional entry tax, or exit tax. The amount depends on how affluent they look, and the guards accept only cash. I assume I don’t have to draw you a picture.’
‘No.’ Tamara was not surprised. Chad was notoriously corrupt. But this was not a CIA problem. ‘Why are we interested?’
‘An informant of mine tells me the jihadis are taking over the pedestrian bridge. They have quietly insinuated armed men. They don’t bother the local people, but they’ve taken over the shakedown. They increased the prices and they share the proceeds with the real border guards, who don’t care.’
‘And do we? This sounds like an issue for the local police.’
‘You bet we care, assuming my informant is right. The bribes aren’t the point. ISGS wants control of a frontier post.’
Tamara remained unconvinced. Why would ISGS seek such a thing? She saw no advantage to the jihadis. ‘How reliable is your informant?’
‘Good. All the same, we need to check out the story. I want you to go there and take a look.’
‘All right. I’ll need protection.’
‘I doubt it. But take a couple of soldiers if it makes you feel better.’
‘I’ll talk to Colonel Marcus.’
She returned to her apartment, got dressed, then emerged into the heat of the morning. The military had their own building in the embassy compound. Tamara entered and found Susan Marcus’s office. An assistant told her to go right in, the colonel would be there in a minute.
Tamara looked around the room. One wall was covered with maps that, joined edge to edge, formed a large-scale chart of all of North Africa. A sticker in the middle of Niger was marked ‘al-Bustan’. On the opposite wall was a large screen. There were no family photographs. Marcus had a computer workstation and a phone. A cheap plastic desk tidy contained pencils and paper and Post-its. Tamara thought Colonel Marcus must be obsessively neat, or determined not to reveal anything personal about herself, or both.
Colonel Marcus was part of what the military called a Tier 2 Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, or, for short, Special Forces.
She came in a moment later. She had short hair and a brisk manner, like every other military officer Tamara had ever met. She wore a khaki uniform and a peaked cap, all of which made her look masculine, although Tamara could see that underneath she was pretty. Tamara understood both the look and the office: Susan needed to be treated equally in a man’s world, and any hint of femininity could be used against her.
She took off her cap, they sat down, and Tamara said: ‘I’ve just been with Dexter.’
‘He must be pleased about your work with Abdul.’
Tamara shook her head. ‘He doesn’t like me.’
‘So I’ve heard. You need to learn the art of making men believe that every success is their doing.’
Tamara chuckled, then said: ‘You’re not kidding, though, are you?’
‘Hell, no. How do you think I made colonel? By always letting my boss take the credit. What did Dexter have to say to you today?’
Tamara explained about the N’Gueli Bridge.
When she had finished, Susan frowned, opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then picked up a pencil from a side table and tapped it on her empty desk.
Tamara said: ‘What?’
‘I don’t know. How good is Dexter’s informant?’
‘Good, he says, but not so good that we don’t need to check out this report.’ Tamara felt a little unnerved by Susan’s anxiety. ‘What’s bothering you? You’re one of the smartest people around here. If you’re unhappy I want to know why.’
‘Okay. Dexter says the jihadis are taking bribes from tourists, which is peanuts, and giving half back to the regular guards, so the monetary gain is half of peanuts. The real object of the exercise is therefore to gain control of a strategic frontier post.’
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Tamara. ‘Is it really worth the effort for them?’
‘Consider a few points. One: as soon as the local police realize what’s going on, they will clear the jihadis off the bridge, which they can probably manage without breaking a sweat.’
Tamara had not considered this point, but now she nodded agreement. ‘ISGS have control only as long as they’re tolerated – which isn’t really control at all.’
‘Two,’ Susan went on. ‘The bridge is important only if a battle of some kind is imminent, for example an attempted coup, like the Battle of N’Djamena back in 2008; but that’s improbable now, because opposition to the General is currently weak.’
‘The Union of Forces for Democracy and Development is certainly in no position to start a revolution.’
‘Exactly. And three: in the unlikely event that the jihadis are allowed to stay there, and the even more unlikely possibility that the UFDD is about to mount a coup against the General, they have the wrong bridge. The vehicle bridge is the crucial one. It permits tanks and armoured cars and trucks full of troops to drive from a foreign country right into the capital city. The pedestrian bridge is nothing.’
The analysis was very clear. Susan had a brain like a steel trap. Tamara wondered why she herself had not figured all this out. She said feebly: ‘Maybe this is a prestige thing.’
‘Like touching your toes. It does you no good, but you do it just to prove you can.’
‘In a way, everything the jihadis do is for prestige.’
‘Hmm.’ Susan was not convinced. ‘Anyway, you need a precautionary bodyguard.’
‘Dexter doesn’t think so, but he said I should take a couple of soldiers if it makes me feel better.’
‘Dexter’s full of shit. They’re jihadis. You need protection.’
*
They set off from the embassy compound the next day just as the sun edged up over the brick fields to the east of the city. Susan insisted that they all wear body armour, lightweight bulletproof vests. Tamara had a baggy blue denim trucker jacket over hers; later she would feel hot.
They went in two cars. The CIA had a three-year-old tan Peugeot station wagon with a dented fender, used for discreet operations because there were so many cars like it in the city. Tamara drove it and Susan sat beside her. The soldiers’ transport was driven by Pete Ackerman, the cheeky twenty-year-old who had once asked Tamara for a date. That car was not so anonymous, a green sport-utility vehicle with darkened window glass, a car some people might look at twice. However, they took off their caps and put their rifles on the floor, so that anyone glimpsing them casually through the windscreen might not realize they were troops.
The streets were quiet as Tamara led the way along the north bank of the Chari River, then took a bridge to the southern suburb of Walia. The main road here led directly to the border crossing.