Chapter 3 #3
“I apologize for the inconvenience, but there’s only a single bathroom across the hall.
” The bishop grinned. “Once the electricity comes back on tomorrow morning, give it about half an hour to warm up the water, and you can actually have a hot shower. One of my guilty pleasures in this place. If you need anything, my room is down the hall, but I’ll warn you, I’m going to bed and will be asleep within minutes.
School starts at seven, with breakfast in the open-air pavilion we walked through.
The cooks know there will be five more adults for breakfast.”
“Bishop James, we don’t want to stress your limited food supplies.” Kayla laid a hand on the priest’s arm. “We have food.”
“Don’t worry, they’re used to extra people. We often house NGOs.” He patted her hand and grinned. “Besides, the United States sent me a care package when they notified me you were coming. Monsignor Francis Gillpatrick took care of both of us.”
“We’ll be sure to thank him on our return. Will you be driving us back to our helicopter tomorrow morning?” Kayla asked and set one of her bags on the concrete floor. “I picked out a mountaintop for our observation.”
“You can’t see anything from above the canopy, even with thermal.
The ISIS camp is completely hidden by layers of jungle.
” The middle-aged priest leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “That area is in the upper part of the White Nile, lots of little islands, and often swampy. For a few miles, on either side of the river, it’s so wet it’s thick jungle. ”
The women exchanged glances before Kayla spoke up, “Then how can we observe them?”
The bishop snickered. “I have a plan.” He stood up straight and ran his gaze down each woman.
“My brethren, Monsignor Francis was right. I’m sure you can pass as college students.
” Katlin had warned them during the initial briefing that Bishop James and her uncle, the Navy captain, Monsignor Francis, knew each other.
“One of you will have to be the chaperone in charge,” he explained. “I have a bunch of NGO T-shirts you can wear. They’re new, don’t worry. I’m going to drive you straight into their camp, bold as sunshine at the equator.”
All the women’s eyes went huge and round.
“They are not going to shoot me, a priest. Their camp used to be a school run by the Catholic Church. We’re going in to reclaim it.
” His smile was devious, perhaps it was more one-sided than the other, caused by his facial injury.
“And you are going in as college students working for an NGO to clean up the place and prepare it for the return of children. While I’m going to be all surprised to find it filled with men, I’ll negotiate with whoever is in charge.
Meanwhile, you’re going to do what college-aged girls do… Take lots of selfies. Flirt a little.”
“You know they’re not going to turn the camp over to you,” Piper pointed out.
“Of course not.” Bishop James shrugged. “But they’ll make a sizable donation to the church just to keep me and my Christian ideology away from their fundamentalist Islamic teachings.
You know that’s one of the things they’re doing there.
Brainwashing them to hate Christianity and modern Western ways.
” The grin was back. “Now, it’s important you are extremely distracting to everyone in camp.
I hope you have those short shorts that many college girls wear.
I’ve seen how some of the young women working for the NGOs that have come through here, they roll up their T-shirts, constantly complaining about the heat. ”
Ashlin was impressed by the bishop’s plan. “What makes you think that we can pull this off?”
“You just need to look as sexy as possible. I’m told, to have those skills…” He raised one dark eyebrow. “Let’s just say, I’ve worked with Monsignor Francis’s brother before. How do you think they found out about this camp in the first place?”
The Ladies of Black Swan were well aware of the connections between their boss, Katlin Callahan Wolf, and her uncles on her mother’s side; Monsignor Francis Gillpatrick, a Navy captain; and CIA Deputy Director Tom Gillpatrick.
“Do you really intend to get this camp back and make it into a school?” Mia asked.
The bishop nodded. “Sure. Someday. ISIS will eventually abandon the area and move away. I, or my successor if I’m called to serve elsewhere, will call in an NGO, or five, and have them clean up the place before I arrange for teachers and children to return. This is not my first rodeo.”
He tried to stifle a yawn and failed. “Ladies, I’m sorry, but I need to get to bed.
Happy children will be here in just a few hours, singing and dancing.
I suggest you take it easy tomorrow—I mean today—and acclimate.
I have commitments tomorrow that I can’t ignore. We’ll head out the morning after.”
As Ashlin tried to get comfortable on the lumpy bed, she thought about their flight from Djibouti.
She had the stick as they flew over Ethiopia, close to Clint’s home.
She’d been to the Riggs’s compound, Eden, several times and couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing.
Although it was the middle of the night, was he sleeping in his own comfortable bed?
On a mission, fighting to stay awake? Or worse, in a firefight?
She sent up a quick prayer for his safety as well as that of her team.
Maybe since she was inside a church, her prayer had a direct line to heaven.