“Farenji?”
“Foreigners. White people.”
“I’m not exactly white,” said Skull. “With my Apache blood, I could pass for North African after all this sun I’ve been getting.”
Zinabu chuckled. “Compared to me, you are pretty pale. So, what are you going to do the first time we get stopped and you have to explain why you are in that uniform.”
“We’ll figure it out as we go. We’re at that point in the operation where we just have to improvise.”
“I’m not so sure about this.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Skull, putting pressure on his wound. “Just drive.”
Mumbling under his breath, Zinabu put the truck in gear and drove down the steeply graded road toward the mountain in the distance.
Chapter 23
Reaper and her team felt the plane begin its descent into Kenya’s Nairobi International Airport. They had debated arriving on separate flights, but there was just too much that could go wrong and they decided to come in together.
Hound Dog was the only member of the team she didn’t trust. Hawkeye, Shortfuse, Flyboy, and Bunny were with her, as well as their interpreter and guide C3PO. Crash was their medic, Livewire their commo tech, and Tarzan their survival expert. Reaper would have loved to have kept a few of the other candidates, like Hulk, but Spooky had pointed out how conspicuous the big man was and how much he ate. They needed to get in quiet and stay nimble.
She resisted looking back to check on them. They were split up into several small groups with corresponding cover stories. Reaper, Hound Dog, and Shortfuse were masquerading as journalists, whereas Hawkeye, Bunny, Livewire and Tarzan were posing as a double couple of tourists. Crash, Flyboy, and C3PO had papers identifying them as aid workers for a respectable NGO.
Reaper accepted that none of their stories would withstand careful scrutiny. There was always a possibility they could bribe their way out of trouble, or at last resort they might fight their way out.
It wasn’t as if any of them were strangers to violence.
The plane came to a stop and people were filing toward the exits. Reaper stood and gathered her gear, with both Shortfuse and Hound Dog following her lead, making their way off the plane and collecting their bags. They stood in long, hot customs lines and everyone looked absently at the muted television in the corner showing the elaborate state funeral for the Queen of England, who had died several days before. Richard, Prince of Wales, had already assumed the role of Regent, though the official coronation wouldn’t be for a few more days.
“Next,” said the customs agent in front of Reaper.
She stepped forward and handed the man her passport.
“Why have you come to Kenya?” asked the customs agent scrutinizing her closely.
“We’re journalists,” said Reaper, showing expertly forged press credentials.
He looked down at her passport and seemed to be checking it against a piece of paper he had beside him. The man stopped and looked back up at her and the two men standing closely behind her. “These two with you?”
“They are,” said Reaper. “Camera man and technician.”
“Passports,” he said, holding out his hand. Shortfuse and Hound Dog handed them over. The man checked their names against the list and then waved to a pair of security guards off to the side. They approached the customs agent and he handed them the three passports before turning back to Reaper. “Take your bags and follow these men.”
“I don’t understand,” said Reaper. “Is something wrong?”
“Just follow the men,” he said with hard eyes.
Reaper picked up her bags. “Okay, let’s follow the nice men.”
They were led into a large open room with benches along the walls and a one-way mirror opposite the single door. The guards departed, leaving them alone in the room.
Shortfuse turned the door handle. “Locked.”
“You –” said Hound Dog.
Reaper elbowed him in the side before he could say anything incriminating. She gave him a hard look and then cut her eyes at the one-way mirror. “Just relax. Sometimes people are nervous about journalists. I’m sure we’ll be on our way soon.”
Within ten minutes, Crash, Flyboy, and C3PO were led in by the same guards who had deposited them earlier and then left. Shortly afterward, Hawkeye, Bunny, Livewire, and Tarzan arrived.
“What does this mean, dude?” Tarzan asked her, shaking his flowing locks.
“How the hell should I know?” said Reaper angrily. “And do I look like a dude? Who are you, anyway?”
Tarzan got the message and backed away from her.
“Maybe it’s a racist thing,” said Flyboy loudly. “Looks like they pulled in all the white people.”
“Hello?” said C3PO, unmistakably African in ancestry. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I’m not white.”
“Neither am I,” said Hawkeye.
“Yes, you are,” said Bunny with a grin of her bleached teeth.
Hawkeye shook his head. “I’m Latino, mamacita. There’s a difference.”
“You’re so white, dude,” said Bunny, imitating Tarzan.
Hawkeye stood angrily. “I am not!”
The door opened and a large, muscular black Kenyan entered the room. He was not wearing any type of uniform and he was followed by four equally large men behind him.
“Looks like you are all here,” the man said in accented English. “My name is Timbe. You will follow my instructions and do as I say.”
“What is this about?” asked Flyboy. “We’re aid workers. Why did you pull us aside?”
The man laughed. “Aid workers. That’s good.” He looked around the room. “Pick up your bags and follow my men.”
“We’re not going anywhere with you,” said Reaper. “Not until we know what’s going on.”
The man looked down at a folded piece of paper. “You must be Repeth, right?”
Reaper didn’t answer.
“Either follow me, or I’ll tip off the airport police to who and what you really are.”
Hawkeye looked at Reaper, obviously wondering if this was the time to fight.
She shook her head minimally, and then turned to Timbe. “Okay then. Lead the way.”
They walked out of the room and down several hallways until they reached the baggage handling area. Men loading luggage onto conveyer belts gave them curious looks, and then turned away quickly at the sight of their escorts.
They approached a large military-style cargo truck and Timbe dropped the tailgate. “Up in here,” he said.
The team looked to Reaper for direction, and she tossed her bag onto the bed before hopping up. The rest of the team followed, and when all were inside the bed was closed and the tarp pulled down over the end. Within seconds the truck was moving.
“Is this part of the plan?” whispered Shortfuse from beside her.
“The plan has changed, apparently, but they didn’t threaten us or bring enough guys to watch us closely, so I think we’re all right.”
Shortfuse nodded and lay back against the seat and closed his eyes.
They travelled for nearly an hour before stopping. Flyboy kept his eye to a slit in the tarp. “We just went through some sort of checkpoint. Guards in civilian clothes, with guns.”
“Think Enrique Mendoles sold us out?” said Hawkeye. “Maybe he’s double-crossing us.”
“I don’t think so,” said Reaper. “Wouldn’t make any sense. He knows what Spooky would do to him. No, if the dealers on this end changed plans, it’s for their own reasons.”
“That would be a comfort to our rotting corpses,” said Hound Dog.
“Just relax, everyone. We don’t even know what type of situation we’re in yet, but I know we’ve made it out of the airport without even going through customs, which was one of our chief concerns. So everyone just chill.”
The truck stopped and after a few seconds the tarp was tossed back and the tailgate dropped. “We’re here,
” said Timbe. “Leave your bags and follow me.”
“No. We bring the bags.”
Timbe laughed. “If you want to lug them around, be my guest.”
Reaper grabbed hers and walked beside Timbe. “What’s going on here?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, not looking at her. “Until then, shut your mouth around me, mule.”
Perversely, the contempt Timbe was showing comforted Reaper. It meant he probably didn’t realize how much more than mere drug carriers they were.
They were led into a large open building where a man in a white linen suit leaned against a table. Another in a white lab coat prepared surgical instruments on an adjacent table.
“Greetings,” the man in the linen suit said jovially. “Welcome to my estate. My name is Busara. I believe you have already met my associate, Timbe.”
“Mister Busara,” said Reaper, shaking her head. “This is not how it was supposed to go down. We were going to get through customs and check into the hotel. Then I would contact you to arrange a meeting.”
Busara shrugged. “Change of plans. In business, you don’t want to give people opportunities to give in to temptation.”
“This is not what my boss worked out with Enrique Mendoles.”
“Then take it up with your boss when you get home,” said Busara. “If you get home. You can tell Mendoles that this is not South America. This is Africa and we do things as we choose to do them. If he doesn’t like that, then he can find another way to sell his product here.”
“You do know who my boss is, right?”
Busara merely stared at her.
Hawkeye leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Maybe we should just make this as smooth as possible. I don’t really like the idea of carrying the shit any longer anyway.”
Reaper nodded, not taking her eyes of Busara. “So how does this work?”
Busara smiled and turned to the man in the lab coat. “Doctor Kilnia here will take care of you.”
The doctor looked up from his scalpels. “Everything is ready,” he said. “First subject, please.”
Everyone remained where they were.
“Come on,” said the doctor. “It’s really not healthy for you each to be carrying two kilos of cocaine inside your bodies. I don’t care if you are Edens. Those bags burst, you’re going to have serious complications.”
“Not to mention the loss of revenue,” said Busara with a stern look.
Reaper stepped forward and took off her shirt, leaving her only in her sports bra from the waist up.
“Lie flat on the table,” the doctor said. “Face down, please.”
She did as she was told.
The doctor looked closely at the small of her back and sides and shook his head. “It really is remarkable,” he said. “There isn’t even the trace of a scar. No way would anyone suspect anything. You Edens are perfect mules. And even better, people believe you would never do anything criminal.”
Busara grunted. “Doctor, let’s unload them instead of admiring them.”
The doctor picked up a scalpel and leaned over Reaper.
“Wait a minute,” said Crash. “Aren’t you going to give her a local?”
“Why?” asked Busara.
“To. Numb. The. Pain,” said Crash slowly.
“She can take it,” said Busara. “Medicine costs money here in Africa, and I’m trying to run a business. Got to keep costs down.”
“The coke is worth millions! You can afford it.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Reaper. “Just give me something to bite.”
The doctor smiled. “You see? She’s tough.” He handed Reaper a roll of leather, which she put between her teeth. Then he leaned over and she hissed as a line of fire stretched across her skin. There came a pause and the doctor did it again.
“How many cuts are you making, doc?” she asked around the cowhide.
“You heal almost as fast as I can make them,” he answered. “It’s incredible.”
“Well, play Doctor Mengele some other time,” she said. “For now, get that junk out of me. Hold the wound open if you have to.”
“Dammit, let me assist. I’m a medic,” Crash said, grabbing a spreader from the layout of medical instruments. “You cut, I’ll hold her open, then you grab the stuff. The faster the better, right?”
The doctor followed Crash’s suggestions, and they forced the wound open long enough for him to slip his fingers inside. Reaper forced herself to remain still, almost blacking out when he pulled the bloody bags out.
“Splendid,” said Busara.
Crash clamped her skin back together, holding it there until it healed enough for her to move. “Food?” he said.
“Some bread and juice on the table there,” the doctor said, pointing with a bloody scalpel. “Now, who’s next?”
Within an hour, twenty freshly washed one-kilo bags of cocaine lay on the table. A chemist systematically tested the contents of each, using a pair of test tubes to check the color. When he finished with the last, he looked up at Busara and nodded.
“Very good,” said Busara.
“Do we get our gear now?” asked Flyboy.
“Your gear?” Timba asked.
“Yes,” said Bunny. “All the stuff that we packed to get smuggled over here. Guns, commo equipment, NVGs, that sort of thing.”
Busara laughed. “If we could smuggle in that stuff, do you think we would have to resort to such measures to get cocaine in here? I don’t know what Mendoles told you, but that was never part of the deal.”
“Then what was the deal?” asked Hawkeye.
Timbe pointed at a large wooden crate in the corner of the room. “That’s for you.”
Several of the team members walked over and looked into the crate. Hawkeye lifted out a rust-pitted ancient AK-47 and pulled back the bolt. He looked at them in amazement. “You’re kidding, right?” he said. “This is shit.”
“They all work,” said Timbe. “Maybe not as fancy as you’re used to, but like the boss said, this is Africa.”
Reaper walked over and peered into the crate. She saw a dozen AK-47s like the one Hawkeye had lifted out, some old Makarov pistols, crates of ammo and commercial-grade, not military, explosives.
“We’re likely to blow ourselves up with this stuff,” said Shortfuse. “Seriously.”
Reaper looked around the inside of the warehouse, noting a pile of goods under a fresh, clean tarp, and then turned back to Busara. “No deal. This isn’t going to work.”
The man looked shocked. “What do you mean, ‘no deal’? I’m not sure you fully appreciate your position.”
“Oh, I appreciate it. We’re getting screwed.”
“No,” said Busara. “You only wish you were getting screwed. In about ten minutes you and your merry band will be gone from my sight. Whether you take this gear or leave it doesn’t matter to me, but our business will then be concluded.”
“You’re supposed to get us to the Kenyan border,” said Reaper. “That was part of the deal.”
“Don’t know anything about that.” The African grinned, certain he held all the cards.
Reaper turned back to Hawkeye and Shortfuse. “I think this is all we’re going to get. Can we make them work?”
The men looked at each other and then down into the crate skeptically.
“There’s a few more weapons than we need,” said Hawkeye. “I can break them all down and put the best pieces together. Accuracy will suffer, but at least they’ll be reliable.”
Crash grumbled, “But this is lethal ammo. We’ve trained with Sams. How are we supposed to use these and not kill people?”
“That’s not the worst of it,” said Livewire. “We have no secure comms. Hell, we have no comms at all.”
“Maybe we can buy something in the city,” said Bunny.
“Not without our cash,” answered Flyboy. “That was supposed to be in our gear as well.”
“We’ll just have to make do with what we have,�
� said Reaper.
“I can go through and pull out what looks most stable,” said Shortfuse.
She leaned near the demo man’s ear and said, “Can you set a timer to blow this crap in place?”
He shook his head imperceptibly. “No timers,” he hissed. “There’s wire, caps and det boxes.”
“Will rifle rounds set it off?”
“Yeah. It’s such crap, a sneeze might do it.”
Reaper clapped him on the back.
“I need an answer,” said Busara.
“We’ll take it,” said Reaper. “Just give us a few minutes to pack everything up.”
“Splendid,” said Busara. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you and I look forward to doing it again in the future. I’ll leave you in the trusty hands of my associate,” he indicated Timbe. “I bid you farewell.” Busara then walked out of the building.
Timbe turned to them. “Hurry up. You got five minutes and not a second more.”
“Let’s move, people,” said Reaper loudly. “Grab the weapons and ammo. Don’t worry about who gets what, just throw it in our luggage for now. We’ll sort it out later. Make sure everything is out of sight. I don’t want to look like a bunch of vagabond mercenaries if we get stopped by the police.”
They worked quickly until Timbe yelled out. “Time’s up. Follow me or plan on never leaving here.”
The team grabbed their now much heavier luggage and dragged it toward the front gate. They passed through the security fence and heard it close behind them with a loud clang.
Timbe called, “Don’t loiter out here. In ten minutes I’m calling the police if you’re still in sight, and they’re in our pocket. Have a nice life, mules.” He then turned and walked away.
“Let’s go,” Reaper said, grabbing her bags and hustling along the fence line until they rounded a nearby warehouse. “That alley.”
In the narrow back street, she led them behind a dumpster that looked as if it hadn’t been emptied in weeks. “Everything on the ground, now. Field strip what we have, make sure it will work if you can. In ten minutes, we’re going back in.”
Eden's Exodus (Plague Wars Series Book 3) Page 17
