by Bobby Adair
Austin got to his feet. “Wait. What? You think he has something coming next?”
Mitch turned and looked at Austin with eyes as hard as Austin had yet seen. “Najid Almasi spread Ebola around the world to benefit Arabs. Arab and Muslim nations have taken the brunt of the pandemic. You’ve seen what I’ve seen. Hell, look around. Besides the terrorists who attacked us, and that one car on the highway, we haven’t seen a single living person since we landed. Nearly all of them are dead. It’s exactly what we saw in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. What did that guy at the gas station say?”
“Abasi?” Austin confirmed.
“Yeah, him. He said one or two in a hundred survived.” Mitch waved a hand at the darkness. “Over a million people used to live in Muscat. Maybe only ten thousand live here now, and things could get worse. Starvation, water shortages, other diseases, and war. It’ll all come to places like this. People with twisted ideals will see this as an opportunity to seize land and power. More will die.”
Austin didn’t want to believe, but he did. He wanted to think people—most people—were better than that. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He knew better. The world had plenty of machine gun-toting hatemongers fomenting war.
Why did hate have to be so easy?
“Things aren’t as bad in America,” said Mitch. “Two-thirds are dead or something like that. You and I know it. And if we know it, Almasi probably knows it too. If so, you can bet your ass he’s planning something more. His Ebola plan succeeded, but it cost him more than it cost us. He lost. I don’t believe Najid Almasi is a man who will accept defeat.”
Austin thought of the Napoleonic man he’d seen in Kapchorwa. “No, he won’t.”
Nodding his head with his eyes fixed on nothing, Mitch seemed to accept the infallible truth of his hunch. “I’m going to find you a place to stay in Muscat. They’ve got some pretty good hotels around here if we can find one still open. I’ll check you in and leave you my satellite phone so you can call Olivia. I’m going to continue with the mission.”
“What? On your own?”
“I’m going to kill Najid Almasi.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes.”
“No, you’re not.”
Mitch laughed. “It’s nice of you to try and talk me out of something you think is stupid but I—”
“I’m not talking you out if it,” Austin told him. “I’m going with you.”
Chapter 53
Dependable, secure communication was turning into a casualty of the epidemic. Power was intermittent. In some areas that Hadi had crossed the networks had failed and weren’t coming back. Satellite phones were used only as a last resort, as they had a limited number of those so they couldn’t be thrown away after a few uses. So, when Najid received a call on the cellphone he was using that day, from the only number programmed in, he was pleasantly surprised.
It was after midnight as he stood under a thick canopy of date palms on Fastballer Bellingham’s island watching a boat motor away from the end of the dock. He’d just received news that was both good and bad. The intelligence he’d received that the Americans were landing in Muscat to refuel one of their tilt-wing troop carriers had proven correct. That was the disturbing part. The fact that the aircraft was destroyed and all of its occupants killed was mostly good. Nearly twenty of the men Najid sent on the raid had been killed. Najid had instructed his men to capture at least one prisoner so he could be questioned before being killed. That part of the plan had not worked out, but such things didn’t always. They were often a matter of luck as much as skill.
As it stood, Najid had again thwarted the Americans. That didn’t mean victory. All it meant was that to be safe, he needed to move again. The Americans, having failed at taking his head with their Seals or Delta Force or whatever armed men were coming, might decide that their illegal right to rain missiles on Dubai’s sovereign territory trumped Dubai’s right to have it not happen.
Najid answered the phone. “Speak.”
“The delivery proceeds.”
“On schedule?” Najid hoped.
“Yes.”
“The location?”
“In the place you suggested.”
“Verification?”
“I have obtained the services of the physicist you recommended. He is with us.”
“Forcibly?”
“Willfully. He is sympathetic to our cause. The compensation helped a great deal.”
Najid smiled. The compensation always helped a great deal. “The men?”
“All are dedicated. All are obedient. Only travel and the obstacles one might expect in the chaos slow us down.”
“The Iranians?”
“The border was not a problem. We’ve not yet been approached by any military unit or official of any sort.”
Najid smiled again. If the Iranians had suffered as badly as the Arab nations that was a good thing. “You should know our friends in the West attempted to pay me a visit.”
Hadi’s voice turned to concern. “How bad?”
“Bad for them. We lost most of our men here, and I will need to relocate.”
“That is the safe thing to do. Do you know where?”
“I’m working on it. The number of available sanctuaries has greatly expanded. Of those that meet my needs, that will be difficult. I may have to make compromises on some of my requirements.”
“We’ve been lucky with Ebola for awhile,” said Hadi, “but we’ve been sequestered on islands. Now that we are out among the sick, the risk will grow. I beg you, do not become complacent with respect to this matter as you make your selection.”
Najid resisted the urge to rebuke Hadi for proffering unrequested advice. “I am aware of the risks. I will have a man at each of the rendezvous points we discussed. That is how you’ll find your way back to me.”
Chapter 54
“As much as I’d like to turn you down,” said Mitch, “I won’t.”
That emboldened Austin. It wasn’t quite a vote of confidence, but he decided to accept it as such.
“Your sister will likely kill me if I survive.”
“Figure of speech.”
Mitch shrugged. “You need to know, if you really intend to sign on for this, the mission is paramount. You understand?”
“Don’t beat around the bush with euphemisms. Are you telling me we’ll succeed or die trying?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
Austin nodded. “I never had you figured for a Kamikaze type.”
“I’ve been Kamikaze on this one since the day I first saw you on the ground behind the hospital in Kapchorwa. I knew then what the virus was capable of doing. I knew then what an evil man Najid Almasi was. I pledged to myself then that I’d trade my life to prevent—” Mitch’s face turned angry then blank.
Austin said nothing, choosing instead to let Mitch get back on track without any awkward words from him.
“I didn’t prevent the pandemic,” said Mitch. “I tried. This is not self-pity talking. It’s realism. I tried. The agency tried. The military tried. Before, I suspected Najid Almasi’s degree of evil. Now I know. He needs to be put down. No one is safe while he’s alive. If one man dies—if I die—killing him and saving the lives of thousands or millions more, it’s worth it. To me it is.”
“It’s worth it to me, too.” Austin drew a deep breath to steel his nerves against the claim he’d just made. “I’ve seen enough of Najid’s shit. I don’t know that I’ll be as noble as you about it, but he needs to be killed.” Austin took another deep breath to let his choice sink in. “What’s the plan?”
“We need to find a car to steal,” said Mitch. “We need to do it soon. It’s been maybe an hour since the firefight. Almasi’s men, and let’s just assume going forward that they were his, are no longer looking for us or they’re so far off our trail that we’ve escaped. Either way, they’re on their way to communicate news of the ambush to Almasi.”
“Agreed.”
Austin nodded confidently.
“Once Almasi gets the news that a squad of Marines was sent to kill him, our clock starts ticking. Right now, we know where he is but he’ll move. That’s the smart thing to do. He may be on the run already. He may think he’s won a round and he’ll wait until tomorrow or the next day. He may still be too injured to move. We don’t know any of those things. All we know for certain is that he will move eventually, and we need to get to him before he does. If he gets away, we may not be lucky enough to find him again.”
“Agreed.”
Mitch smiled. “You’d make a good yes man.”
“A good CIA assassin too.” Austin added, “I hope.”
Mitch pointed northeast. “Dubai is about a hundred miles from here. In a car, we might make it there in a couple of hours. I don’t know what we’ll do when we get there. We had a plan before we lost the Marines. You and I will have to figure something out on the way.”
“We will.”
“First, we need a car.”
“I spotted what looked like an office complex.” Austin cocked his head down a dirt road between two rows of rusty equipment. “Company cars. Maybe some keys are inside.”
“As good a plan as any.” Mitch looked around at the shadowy yard. “Which way?”
Austin jogged. Mitch followed.
Austin looked into each shadow they passed. He scanned the moonlit areas ahead for movement and saw nothing but dust and rocks.
When they came to the edge of a parking lot, Mitch grabbed Austin’s shoulder, stopped him, and went ahead.
Keeping low, they snuck between rows of similar SUVs, all with company logos stenciled on the doors.
“No lights.” Austin pointed at the building.
“Power’s out.” Mitch motioned toward some taller buildings in the distance. Some of them were lit.
“They have their own generators?”
“I guess.”
Austin looked back at the dark, single-story office building. “No power in this part of town, I guess.”
Mitch waved Austin to follow, and they scampered between the cars until they came to a place by the building’s wall.
Austin stood up on his tiptoes and peeked through a window.
Mitch looked back across the parking lot and the parts of the yard he could see. “Anything inside?”
“Just some offices.”
“Check another window.”
Austin turned away from the building and knelt beside Mitch. “Do you see another building that might be the motor pool?”
“Nope.”
“Then let’s break in and search. If the power is out, we’ll be safe, right?”
Mitch shook his head. “Not necessarily.”
“But we’ll have to break in at some point if we want the keys. Might as well do it now. It’ll be easier to find the keys from the inside.”
“All right.” Mitch stood up straight and looked at the window. He pulled a knife from a sheath and worked it into a seam at the edge of the glass. He twisted and pried. The metal frame popped loudly.
Austin looked around in the dark.
Mitch slid the window open and squatted down against the wall and made a stirrup with his hands. “Go.”
Austin climbed inside, got his feet beneath him, and took a second to listen. He heard nothing. He sniffed the warm air. Nothing but stale dust.
“Good?” Mitch asked.
“Yeah.”
Mitch climbed into the window unassisted, making it look easy. Once inside, he went through the same steps Austin had. Stop. Listen. Smell. He waved Austin to follow and they exited into the hall.
They searched through five offices before they came to one just off the lobby. It was messy, not because it had been ransacked. It was poorly organized. The people who had sat behind the two small desks and worked behind its counter had no sense of tidiness. What they did have was a cabinet under the desk containing a stack of wide, flat drawers. The second one from the top was open, revealing rows of tagged car keys.
Mitch smiled and gave Austin a nod. “Good call.” He stepped over to examine the keys.
Austin took a look through a window reinforced with crisscrossed wire. He saw across the building’s lobby and out through the front windows. Cars sitting. Dust blowing in the moonlight. Nothing lay out there that hadn’t been there before.
Jingling keys in his hand, Mitch said, “C’mon. Let’s go out the way we came in.”
Austin followed.
Once in the parking lot, it took only a few minutes walking up and down the aisles and pressing buttons on fobs to find an SUV that responded. They got in.
Mitch started up the engine. Rap started playing through the stereo in a language Austin didn’t understand. Mitch reached to turn it down.
Austin put his hand on the knob first. He turned it down, but not off. “Weird. But I kinda like it.”
“We’ve got nearly a full tank.” He looked at Austin and smiled. “Barring any crazy shit on the road, we won’t have to scrounge for gas.”
“You know how to get where we’re going?” Austin asked.
“Check the glove box. Maybe there’s a map.”
Austin looked inside, fumbled through some papers but found nothing that looked like a map. “Nope.”
“We’ll have to depend on my limited Arabic vocabulary and hope most of the road signs have English translations.”
“Works for me.”
Mitch pulled out of the parking spot.
As the SUV moved into the aisle between the rows of cars, Austin noticed shadows moving on the side of the building—big shadows in a light that grew quickly and terrifyingly bright.
“Shit.” Mitch floored it.
The SUV fishtailed down the aisle.
Two vehicles with bright headlights pulled into the aisle ahead of them, casting a blinding light.
Mitch mashed the brake, shoved the SUV into reverse, and spun the wheels, moving back.
Austin looked over his shoulder to see vehicles block that end of the aisle as well. They were trapped.
Mitch stopped the car halfway between the cars in front and behind. He put the SUV in park. He pulled the handle to unlatch his door.
Austin grabbed his door handle.
“Click it open but don’t swing it until I give the word.”
Austin’s heart was pounding.
“When you’re out, run as fast as you can for the darkest shadows. Keep down between the cars. Don’t look back. Don’t wait.”
“Where will we meet up?”
“Ah.” Mitch quickly looked around.
Men were out of their cars and walking into the headlights in front of them and behind.
“McDonald’s.”
Austin nodded.
An amplified voice spoke in accented English.
“GET OUT OF THE CAR.”
Austin looked at Mitch. He seemed frozen.
“Should we go?” Austin was ready. He was anxious. He looked ahead again. The men in the headlights were in uniform.
“SLOWLY. GET OUT OF THE CAR.”
The men from behind were advancing.
Mitch looked at Austin. “These aren’t the guys from the airport.”
Austin leaned into his door.
Mitch grabbed him. “Don’t. We’re already too late.”
“What?” Austin knew his voice sounded panicked. He’d been a prisoner of hostile brutes for months. He’d been starved, beaten, and threatened. He pulled his arm away from Mitch’s grip.
With a hand on his M-16, Austin swung the door open and stepped one leg out.
Mitch grabbed him again. “Don’t. They’ll shoot you.”
Too late.
When Austin looked away from Mitch’s eyes to make his run, he knew he’d missed his chance. Soldiers with rifles at their shoulders were in front and back, not more than a dozen paces away. Austin let go of his weapon and his shoulders sagged.
Caught again.
Chapter 55
> The room wasn’t bad, considering what it was—a Middle Eastern interrogation room. Smooth brick walls. A sealed concrete floor. Austin sat in a chair secured to the floor with his hands cuffed to it. The room was small and clean with good light. A formidable door and a closed-circuit camera in the corner at the ceiling.
Austin and Mitch had both been cuffed at the scene of their crime and then driven away in separate vehicles. The men who’d captured them were all some type of military or policemen. All wore gloves, helmets, and protection against any virus that Austin might be carrying in his blood or his breath. No one asked Austin any questions. They gave orders. He followed their instructions. They’d eventually put him in the interrogation room and cuffed him to the chair.
How long he’d been sitting there alone, he didn’t know. An hour. Possibly several.
It was plenty of time to develop a list of worries over outcomes. It was enough time for him to decide what he could—or should—tell his captors. And though he had time to make the decision, he couldn’t. What he should tell his captors had everything to do with who they were and what their reasons were for detaining him.
On the surface, the reasons were clear. Austin and Mitch had broken into the construction company’s building and had probably tripped a silent alarm. Either the building had a functioning generator or the power was on the whole time and lights had just been turned off. When the police—militarized though they were—arrived, they’d caught Mitch and Austin in the act of stealing a vehicle. Of course, they’d arrested him.
But surely stealing a car from someone who was likely dead couldn’t be that big of a deal. Could it?
The possibility that Austin didn’t want to spend any time thinking about, but one that kept sneaking its way into his thoughts was that the policemen who’d detained him were allied with the terrorists who’d attacked the refueling Osprey. If that was the case, Austin had no doubt he was going to die. He’d be tortured for hours, maybe days or months. Then they’d saw off his head with a knife not big enough for the purpose.
