Backdrop

by C. G. Cooper

  “Right,” Caine had gasped.

  “Don’t talk. Just nod or shake your head. This is the last chance you’re going to get to back out of this. We can still hide you somewhere else.”

  Caine shook his head. “Stay.”

  Andy said, “The good news is that if I get you killed, Ashburn will have my balls for lunch. So there’s that.”

  Caine rolled his eyes. “Go, already.”

  Two hours. More like an hour and forty minutes. That’s all they had to last.

  Of course, all the unknowns in the case did little to assuage Andy’s fears.

  A body crumpled to the ground behind them.

  Cooper had collapsed.

  An hour and a half left. If he’d learned anything in the Marine Corps, it was that, from the perspective of the men on the ground, the cavalry always seemed to take its sweet time swooping in on station.

  Then again, it could always get worse.

  He thought of Cal Stokes, and what his good friend would say at a time like this. Cal would probably throw Andy that wry grin and say something like, “Didn’t you know that Uncle Sam is always right? If he’d wanted you to have a way out of this mess, he’d have issued it to you when you raised your right hand.”

  He could use Cal right about now.

  Cooper had regained consciousness, cursing himself and his old age and the lack of water and the liberal media. He was going to be fine.

  “Okay, I’m going down. Watch over Caine.”

  Cooper made like he was going to protest, but Andy turned, walked over to the hidden passage and peeked inside. When he was sure the way was clear, he climbed down into the tunnel. Here goes nothing.

  About ten feet down he found a pair of bodies. He searched them quickly, pocketing a walkie-talkie, then continue moving down to the bottom. The ceiling was low for the most part, with a crack running through the center in places—they were following a natural fissure that had been widened. He moved through the tunnel more quietly than quickly. He knew someone had to be waiting for him at the other end, or already making their way toward him. Bending over made the graze on his side burn, and he gritted his teeth to ward off the pain.

  His footsteps seemed to roar in his ears. His heartbeat bonged around inside his head. It was the dark. It had a way of intensifying minute feelings. The brain turned on itself, creating noise and light where there wasn’t any.

  He reached a low spot in the ceiling and was forced to crawl on hands and knees. Before moving on, he gave himself a few seconds to listen. No noise other than the thundering of his heartbeats. Was there something or wasn’t there? He thought he heard something. He held his breath and the noise stopped.

  He crawled through, reached the far end, stopped to listen again. Nothing.

  He got up and kept moving.

  They blamed me for what happened. They’re going to do it again. The pilots, O’Brien and Gibson and Ben King. And Caine. They’re my fault. That’s what they’ll say.

  He tried to focus.

  He reached a second low section, his mind hyper focused on every little sound he made. He marched onward.

  At the end of the tunnel he thought he saw something. A light? A shadow? Movement. Of course, his eyes had been feeding him junk in the darkness, but this felt different.

  The tunnel had caught the night breeze and was blowing toward him, carrying a scent toward him. The smell of unwashed bodies. Cordite. Blood.

  He lay down on his stomach with his rifle in front of him, watching for movement. Holding his breath to listen.

  Nothing...

  No, not nothing... something...

  In the complete and utter darkness...

  He slowly reached out and found a pebble. A tiny one, no bigger than his pinky nail. Tossed it down the tunnel underhanded with his left hand.

  Overhead, something moved.

  The crack had widened. In this section, the tunnel was certainly big enough for someone to hide in. To wait for him to scuttle past and shoot him in the back of the head. Execution-style.

  That was what he was dealing with. These weren’t high political players. These were street thugs. Criminals. A violent gang. Mafia wannabes.

  Fine then. He’d play that game. All rules out the window.

  Andy raised his rifle, moving his barrel an inch at a time, keeping his elbows propped on the floor beneath him.

  A ricochet in here could be fatal. He wanted to be sure.

  “My dear boy, I can see exactly where you are.” The voice echoed down the tunnel.

  Andy bit his tongue to keep his teeth from grinding. That bastard.

  Thompson’s voice echoed through the tunnel, still too difficult to zero in on: “This isn’t about you and me any longer. This is no longer about whose vision of the world is right or wrong. This is about survival. What will each of us do in order to survive? Will you shoot me? Will I shoot you? Will we cooperate, and ensure both of our survival? Or will we pretend to cooperate—and one of us betray the other?”

  Andy didn’t have time for this. Thompson was behind it all, and for that reason, Andy had only one option: kill the fat sonofabitch.

  With clarity of purpose, no matter how ugly it was, came clarity of mind.

  Something occurred to him: an off-chance...

  He grasped the walkie-talkie in his pocket that he’d taken off a dead body farther back in the tunnel. He made sure he could make out which button was which with his thumb. He checked the volume: off. Then he covered the talk light with his forefinger while he pushed the talk button with his thumb. There was a brief burst of static from the other end.

  This is how blind people see, he thought. He fired.

  Thompson grunted. Another shot echoed through the tunnel, ricocheting off rock.

  A scrabbling sound.

  Then a dull thump. And a gasp.

  “My dear boy,” Thompson groaned. A burbling sound came from his throat. “Please—”

  Andy gritted his teeth and fired again.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  He reached the end of the tunnel sticky with blood. Thompson had fallen almost in front of his face, and blood had splattered. His stomach was roiling. There was only so much it could take, and crawling over Thompson’s blubber in the dark had hit him particularly hard. A few breaths of the fresh air blowing into the end of the tunnel helped.

  The moon had set or at least passed out of sight; the rocks outside the cave mouth were profoundly dark. Overhead, the few clouds were tinged a faint green that didn’t reflect back down to the ground below. The night sky was black, a few bright stars speckling the sky. The lights from Al-Ula in the new town didn’t seem to be that bright from where he was--but they still blocked out some of the starlight.

  Were there men outside the tunnel waiting for him? It was impossible to be sure. But the logical answer was yes.

  He waited, listened. If he were guarding the end of the tunnel from outside, he’d be right outside the opening. Out of arm’s reach, but close enough to have a split second to judge whether it was friend or foe coming out of the end of the tunnel before they did.

  He shifted back and forth, trying to get as broad a view as possible. Was he looking at the front fender of a car to the left, or was that just another boulder?

  He couldn’t quite count himself as sleep-deprived, but he was coming up on twenty-four hours. He had to factor that in with his judgment calls. Didn’t need to make any mistakes.

  Right or left? Or standing behind the car, if there was a car, leaning on the hood with the rifle extended and aimed?

  The smart answer, the Coles answer would be to retreat back into the castle. Double back. Climb back up. Play for more time. Wait for the CIA to arrive.

  Leave Ashburn behind enemy lines.

  He couldn’t quite do it.

  Outside of the cave, the road that had been built into a broad crack in the plateau had steep walls--nothing he could climb in a split second. A few boulders lay near the sides, but nothing b
ig enough to hide behind.

  He’d already established that he couldn’t play a waiting game.

  Making sure he wasn’t about to brain himself on a rock, he launched himself out of the cave mouth, aiming to the left as he ran forward hard enough to hit the wall opposite the tunnel with his shoulder.

  Something was wrong. The other end of the tunnel had opened up to a plain, across which was the base of a small mountain. Not an SUV to be found anywhere. He thought he’d at least see one. Al-Salakhi’s hiding place was somewhere up in those rocks. No way in hell the obese Thompson walked more than the length of this plain to get to the castle.

  And yet, the place was deserted.

  He scrambled up the mountain, following a well-worn path along the steady incline. It was the only way. It had to be.

  He reached an opening in the side of the mountain, obscured by rocks and vegetation. Rifle at the ready, he went through it—carefully.

  A bunch of tents, and the scattered debris left by their hastily-departed occupants.

  He looked around. Night was descending quickly.

  There it was. A tarp covering the ground. He walked to it carefully and yanked it aside. The prince’s body lay in a heap.

  Andy breathed a sigh of frustration.

  The prince stirred.

  Andy jumped down into the hole and helped the man into an upright position.

  “I can’t leave you here, friend. That wouldn’t be nice.”

  He helped Mansour out of his gag and his bonds.

  “Can you walk?”

  “I think so,” the prince said, his voice raspy.

  “We’re gonna have to do some walking. Let’s find you some water.”

  “Where is...?”

  “I was gonna ask you that myself. Apparently everyone’s bugged out. My guess is they’re on their way back to the castle. What I want to know is, why not take the tunnel back?” He looked at the prince’s battered, weary face. “Listen, I know it was you who dropped the scissors into the track that locked the boulder in place. I want to thank you for that.”

  “I wasn’t sure I could do it,” the prince rasped. “It was, as you would say, a ‘Hail Mary’ play.

  “Let’s get you some water. They have to have something here. From the looks of things, it doesn’t seem like they’ve bugged out entirely.

  He helped the prince out of the hole. The man stumbled, collapsed once, then rose again. “I will not be a burden to you any longer.”

  “Too late for that, pal,” said Andy. “Just kidding. You’re not the biggest burden, anyway. That honor belongs to the occupant of one of these tents here.”

  “Al-Salakhi,” said the prince, managing a sneer through shreds of voice.

  “Right. Him. Let’s get you water and then get you back to the castle. We’ll go back through the tunnel.”

  “What if they’re in there waiting for us?”

  “Then we’re done. But to be honest with you, I didn’t think we’d make it this far. Someone’s looking out for us, I guess.”

  “I’ve led a good life,” said the prince, “but it is not going to end this way.”

  “That’s the spirit. If nothing else, Your Highness, I’m going to make sure I take that sonofabitch Al-Salakhi with us. You with me?”

  The prince couldn’t manage any more words. The squeeze he gave Andy’s shoulder said it for him.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Serena Ashburn watched the four men climbing the ramp toward the castle surrounded by men in dark outfits, wearing cloths over their faces. She could make out a few words here and there, and forced herself not to react to the names they called her. Play dumb. It wasn’t hard, after years of practice working with people like Thompson.

  The sound of rifle fire echoed across the old town.

  She pressed her lips together.

  They group of men were gathered behind the two SUVs, which provided at least a little bit of cover. It was the first time she’d seen the leader, Al-Salakhi himself.

  Her arms had been fastened in front of her with a zip tie. They had been secured enough to keep her from turning her wrists and slipping out of them, but still loose enough to not cut off circulation. How thoughtful.

  She raised the tie to her mouth and bit down on the loose end, tightening the tie further, until it was painful. Inside her head, she could just hear her mother nagging her not to use her teeth as tools. But she had always known that her mother was useless in an emergency, so instead she focused on Jack’s advice, which was almost always better anyway: When in doubt, use what the Good Lord gave you. It was dating advice, but it applied here.

  One of the guards looked at her. She switched to gnawing on her wrist as if it itched. He pushed her hands downward, away from her mouth.

  “Sorry,” she said in English.

  Al-Salakhi glanced over at her, then back toward the ramp, then toward the road leading through the old town.

  She brought her hands up in front of her, tightened her abs, then slammed her wrists across her stomach. The zip tie snapped.

  A couple of the men were already turning toward her. In the movies, all she’d have to do was reach out, grab one of their guns, and kill them all in a burst of gunfire.

  Instead she ran behind the line of empty SUVs and ducked behind one of them, panting. Her heart was racing like crazy. Behind her the guys were running and shouting. But not shooting. Yet.

  Al-Salakhi was shouting orders in Arabic.

  She ran toward the old town. The edge of it wasn’t far from the parking lot. She was being chased by men who were bigger and faster than she was. She felt a tug on her hair, and then a shock of pain throughout her scalp as the hair was torn away. She screamed and tripped. The man fell on top of her. There was the well-placed knee to the jewels, and she was able to get up.

  She wasn’t stronger than they were, and she wasn’t quite as fast, but she was lighter. And she hoped just fast enough that she could keep the guys chasing her occupied.

  She spotted a great climbing spot, a tumbled-down piece of wall that led at an angle up to the roof of a nearby house. It was too dark to tell explicitly, but the roof looked pretty solid.

  She ran up the broken wall, jumped to the roof, and ran along the edge, turning a corner so that the man following her had the temptation of trying to run directly across that ancient roof.

  No dice. The guy followed her along the edge of the roof.

  Only two of them were following her. She jumped off the roof and landed in the shadows of the old building, ducking through a half-collapsed window that she could fit through and they couldn’t.

  At least, she hoped. Things wouldn’t go in her favor forever.

  She jerked a piece of her skirt off a stone and heard it tear.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Andy and Mansour emerged from the tunnel into the castle.

  After securing the wounded Caine and the others in a new room, he checked the castle courtyard. He moved quickly, not bothering to crouch in the darkness. It took him less than half a minute.

  Nothing, no one left behind. He finished his circuit and began descending the path. Now he moved slowly.

  The path worked its curving, uneven way down the side of the outcropping. He stayed close to the walls, keeping in mind a possible sentry above him as much as any that might be watching from below. The lights from town seemed to brighten as he wound his way down the trail. He could hear voices. The sound of someone talking over a radio: an announcer speaking in Arabic, in an official-sounding voice. Then in the distance, the sound of gunfire. It echoed wildly... there was no way to tell what direction it was coming from. It wasn’t close enough to be coming from the castle.

  The voices coming from below made exclamations of surprise and dismay. A voice crackled over a walkie-talkie, cursing in Arabic.

  Car doors slammed. Engines started. Rubber tires peeled out of the parking lot as vehicles roared away.

  Stand up and try to see what was going on? Or
stay low and keep from getting his head blown off?

  He stayed down and kept working his way forward and downward.

  The officious announcer kept making his announcements, unperturbed, over the speaker.

  He was getting close. The lights shining against the outcropping now came from eye level, not from below, as they had before. He moved around a tight corner and stopped. The path opened up onto a straight area. At the end of it was a low, dark shape—the form of another person crouched against the wall.

  The orange lights were coming from above the figure. It was still in darkness, but the reflected light from the wall showed the soft outline of a shemagh covering its head. And... it was wearing what looked like baggy pants. The figured turned, and he could just make out the features of the face.

  Ashburn.

  He watched her for a second. She didn’t move. In a couple of minutes, he was crouched behind her.

  “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “Long story. How many do you think are out there now?”

  “I don’t know... four or five? I took a peek a minute ago, but I didn’t want them to see me. Where’s the prince?”

  “Back in the castle. What was the shooting all about?”

  “You left him alone in there?”

  “Cooper’s with him.”

  “Who’s with Jack?”

  “Jack can take care of himself. What was with all the shooting?”

  “How is he?”

  “Who? Jack?”

  “The prince, you idiot.”

  “You’ll want to brace yourself. They beat him pretty bad.”

  Her face fell. “Is there any more crap that can be dumped on us?”

  “I’m sorry, Serena, I really am, but we’re in a bit of a bind right now.”

  “They thought they saw someone on the roof, I think. That’s all.”

  “That’s big. It could have been Cooper up there.”

  “I didn’t think of that.” She rubbed her face with her arm.