Then he heard it. The sound of a vehicle coming in fast from the main highway. Perhaps a vehicle on its way to the installation, perhaps someone who had seen the explosion from the paved road.
The vehicle skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust. He wanted to shout a warning about IEDs, but he couldn’t find the air to do it, and besides, the presence of IEDs was self-explanatory.
Ager saw boots approaching, military-issue, as someone else went around the other side of the vehicle. A soldier dropped to one knee and checked the pulse of Ager’s man with the broken leg. Then he stood and called out.
“Status?”
“Driver is dead, another dead in the rear. One alive in the rear, but he’s covered in shrapnel and bleeding out.”
“And these two here.”
The soldier with the boots bent down in front of Ager.
“Help,” Ager said quietly.
“Afraid not. Not today.”
Ager didn’t understand. These weren’t terrorists; they weren’t any kind of local. The guy in front of him was in battle dress uniform, possibly Canadian. He could have passed for Danish. Ager frowned and turned his head to try to look at the soldier properly. The soldier dropped to a knee and turned so their eyes could meet.
Ager felt like vomiting.
“You,” he said.
“Me,” said the American, the cause of all his problems.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for you.”
He hated this man, and he was sure the feeling was mutual, but he was a fellow soldier. There was a code. “You have to help us.”
“Do I?”
“Please.”
“I do generally respond to polite inquiries, but not today.”
“You have to help us.”
“Like you helped Luna Fisker?”
Ager winced. The initial shock was wearing off, and the pain was taking its place. “I had orders.”
“To throw a helpless woman off a cliff?”
“An enemy of the state.”
“An enemy? She was just a girl who was defiled by animals and murdered by you. If she was an enemy, then there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.”
“Shakespeare,” said Ager.
“A tragedy,” said the American.
“So you’re going to shoot me now.”
“No.”
Now Ager was confused. His blood loss made it hard to think as it was, but this American spoke in riddles. Help him, not help him?
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re dying anyway. It would be a waste of a round. Who threw Luna Fisker off the cliff?”
“What does it matter?”
“In the scheme of things? Not much. You’re all going to die out here. The question is, in what order?”
Ager clenched his teeth. He wanted to spit but couldn’t. There was blood oozing from his mouth now, and he was afraid he would choke on it.
“I did it.”
“Really? I don’t believe you. The team leader issues the orders; he doesn’t follow them.”
“The others were covering the campsite, making sure no one saw anything. There was two of us. Uma and me. Uma was wiping down the car, so I just took care of it.”
“Was she awake?”
“The bitch scratched me. I probably still have her DNA in me.”
The American said nothing.
“So, now you know. Fire away.”
The American didn’t move.
“I said fire away.” Ager coughed hard, and blood splattered across the dirt.
The American stood. Ager couldn’t lift his head to see above the American’s knees. The boots stepped over to Ager’s man with the broken leg. He was whimpering from pain.
Ager saw the man’s head jolt as a single round was fired into it. The whimpering stopped.
“One down,” said the American.
Ager heard another shot from inside the vehicle.
“Two down,” called another man with an Eastern European accent.
The boots turned and stepped back to Ager. The American dropped to one knee again.
Ager snarled. “Go ahead,” he said.
The American shook his head. “That’s a bad gut wound you’ve got there. And your leg’s broken. I can see your tibia.”
Ager said nothing.
“That must hurt like hell.”
Ager said nothing. There was nothing to say. It did hurt like hell, like he was burning from the inside out as his veins dried up and the blood oozed out onto the desert floor. “You should kill me.”
“Waste of a round, I told you.”
“Someone will come.”
“I don’t think so.”
“There’s an installation out here. People come and go.”
“There’s nothing out here. No one’s coming. Your installation doesn’t exist. I made it up. The US Army abandoned this track years ago. Wild dogs will find you before any people do.”
Ager looked at the American. He couldn’t begin to fathom how this man had become entwined with him, why their paths had ever crossed. But as he lay on the desert earth, he saw the American watching him, waiting for him to die. To die a painful death, however long it took.
It didn’t take as long as Ager thought. He spluttered a final cough that was barely audible, and then his eyes closed. He didn’t have the energy to stop them. He heard the American stand.
“Is he dead?” asked the other voice.
“Yes,” said the American.
Ager didn’t move. He couldn’t. There was nothing left but faint hope. And there was hope. They thought he was gone, but he was tough. He was holding on. Someone might come. He just had to ignore the pain and hold on.
“This is for Luna,” said the American.
George Ager had no time to register the crack of the shot that made his pain go away.
* * *
John Flynn drank thick black coffee despite the heat. Gorski worked on a Pepsi. They sat in the souk and watched the hubbub of humanity around them. Many things had changed since they had last been in Baghdad. Some for the better, many not. The allied occupation had brought a sense of stability as well as cash, and the markets had been alive if not thriving. Now the Americans were long gone—in any major boots-on-the-ground sense—and their money and economy had gone with them. Between ISIS insurgents and a fall in oil prices, things had not gotten rosy in the garden of Babylon.
It didn’t appear different. There was activity and movement and color. Merchants in stalls hawked their goods with loud calls, and people traded. But behind the obvious lay the truth. There were fewer goods. The vegetables weren’t as fresh, the meats not as plentiful. People who had learned to live with little learned to live with even less. This had been a hardscrabble place to exist for several millennia, and these people knew how to keep on keeping on.
“The heat hasn’t changed,” said Gorski.
“No, sir, it has not.”
“So what now?”
“I seemed to recall last time we were here, we lost something,” said Flynn.
“I vaguely remember that.”
“I think I’d like to ask around. See if anyone knows where it is.”
“You think they will?”
“No, not really. But folks in this part of the world have long memories, and I’ve got nothing better to do right now.”
“We could come back when it’s cooler,” said Gorski.
“If you leave this place again, do you really think you’ll ever come back?”
“I didn’t think I’d be here now.”
“Me either. Funny how that works.”
Gorski sipped his Pepsi. “Can we at least get a hotel with air conditioning this time?”
“You getting soft in your old age?”
“Smart, I think.”
“AC it is, then.”
They sat and continued watching the bustling
market. They ate bread and honey and drank more coffee and Pepsi. The sun began to fall, but the temperature didn’t. They paid their host, settled their packs on their backs, and marched away.
* * *
John Flynn will return in Lost Luggage.
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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my editors Lisa Kaitz and Kate Schomaker.
Thanks to Helle for the tips about coffee and beer and all things Danish, and for the long lunches at the Danish Club. That’s what I call research!
To all my betas and readers, thanks for joining me on John Flynn’s adventures. They’re nothing without you.
All errors and omissions belong to the author.
About the Author
A.J. Stewart is the USA Today bestselling author of the John Flynn thriller series and the Miami Jones Florida mystery series.
He currently resides in Los Angeles with his two favorite people, his wife and son.
AJ is working on a screenplay that he never plans to produce, but it gives him something to talk about at parties in LA.
You can find AJ online at
www.ajstewartbooks.com
Jacaranda Drive Publishing
Los Angeles, California
www.jacarandadrive.com
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover artwork by Streetlight Graphics
Copyright © 2020 Jacaranda Drive Inc
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Readers’ Crew
If You Enjoyed This Book
Also by AJ Stewart
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Rotten State: A John Flynn Thriller Page 34
