by James Phelan
Back in the driver’s seat, he waited. Tapped his fingers on the dash. A sedan pulled up—local Lagos cops, crooked, today under the employ of MI6 thanks to Javens. Here to make sure Fox’s back was safe. They gave him a wave and drove down the street, then the four of them piled out, armed with automatic rifles. They moved casually, all in sunglasses, surreal. They could be young punks in any major city. They leaned against their car like it was another run-of-the-mill day. They’d screen who came in and out of the street. For Fox, it was go time.
He had one last check of the target building. Tall brick fence, metal gate, security cameras all over the place. He put the Land Rover in drive, did a loop out front, then stopped and selected reverse. He turned in his seat and looked over his shoulder as he planted the accelerator to the floor, backing the car through the wrought-iron gates. It smashed through them like they were made of plywood. Fox stopped the car there so that it was still ready to drive out in a hurry while blocking the driveway.
Four guys piled out of the house. All out the front door, all dressed in nondescript military fatigues. The two up front had AK-47s, the next two were drawing pistols.
They had no cover as they moved out of the door, still in the process of assessing the threat, as Fox let out a full fifty-round mag from the silenced P90. None of them stood a chance nor got a single shot off. He fired steadily, one knee in the plush green grass of the front lawn, partially shielded by a concrete fountain. He stayed in that position as he loaded a new mag into the P90. The silencer was smoking. The bodies were still bouncing down the stairs. The entryway looked like a grenade had gone off from the amount of blood and gore that spattered the cream-coloured facade. This submachine gun was that good.
Fox waited a few seconds, then scanned the windows and front door through the sights of the P90. No movement, no sound other than the thrum of the Land Rover’s idling V8 behind him.
He stood and walked slowly, his weapon trained towards the possible target areas as he moved forward. He kicked each of the fallen guys as he went up the stairs to the front door. He pulled lightly on the double-stage trigger, a single shot of the P90 sounding like the soft tap of a finger against a tin can as a bullet left the long sound suppressor. The guy’s head exploded, the last twitch of life kicked out in his foot. Fox kept moving forward the whole time.
He was through the doorway now. Inside. Big glossy tiles that clicked under his footfall. He cringed, took it slow, lighter on his feet. Leather-soled boots did not a silent entry make—there was a good reason why special-ops crew the world over wore rubber.
He paused. Only his torso moved, scanning with the sway of the P90. There were noises coming from the kitchen. Pots and pans being cleaned up? Fox took a couple of steps forward and saw a reflection in a glass cabinet—a housemaid at work. Earphones pumped music that obviously drowned out the noise from his smash ‘n’ grab entry.
He scanned this ground floor—every room he could see into from this vantage point. Empty. He skulked past the kitchen. Down the hall. Looked into the lounge room. Saw a young boy, playing Halo 3 on a PS3. The surround-sound system blazed a cacophony of carnage. Sitting back in a leather couch, a bowl of crisps in his lap and empty cans of soft drink all around him—he was plugged in good.
Fox moved back to the entry foyer and looked up the stairs dead ahead—trained the P90’s sights up there, waiting for movement. Nothing. Music was coming from up there, though, hardcore heavy metal, the kind of stuff troops would listen to before going into combat to get their psyche pumped.
Fox kept moving around the ground floor, making sure it was clear. Movement. Down the corridor, through the glass of the back door. An armed guard running in the backyard. As he ran past a side window Fox let rip with a few rounds. The guy splattered against the brick wall.
The sound of the windowpane shattering roused the maid out of the kitchen and she looked at Fox. She was fixed in his stare like a deer in headlights, her gloved hands raised. Soap suds fell to the floor.
“How many men with guns?”
“Five.”
Fox nodded. “Musa Onouarah?”
She pointed upstairs.
“Alone?”
She shrugged. Didn’t know.
“Take the boy,” Fox said. “Go into the street. Walk to the police with your hands in the air.”
She nodded, and left in a heartbeat.
Fox moved up the stairs, the P90 raised to sight ahead of him, the stock nestled into his shoulder. Still no movement. The music was getting louder, though. He scanned outside through a window that faced the front yard, watched the maid drag the kid out into the street, her hands over his eyes so he wouldn’t see what had happened to the guards.
Down the hall. The music was getting real loud. His boots were silent on the carpeted floor as he moved from room to room.
Six doors led off this hallway—all open. Fox stuck to the centre, walked steadily with head and aim scans side to side, pausing at each doorway to look and listen. Kid’s bedroom. Toys everywhere. Bathroom. Couple more bedrooms. Main with en suite. Empty. The whole second storey: empty.
Where was this guy? And where was that fucking awful music coming from? Fox stood in the centre of the master bedroom, at what would be the foot of Musa’s bed. It was a monster thing, must have been a couple of queen-sized put together. He looked about the place—en suite, behind the door the sound of running water, barely audible over the music.
Fox was tense. The door was almost shut. He listened—the water was still running. He inched closer, peered in, the dangerous end of the P90 leading the way. The door creaked.
He checked his back. Clear.
His attention was back at the bathroom door. He took a breath, flicked it open with the toe of his boot, and he was inside with gun drawn. Scanning fast.
Nothing.
The toilet was running.
Fuck.
He went back into the bedroom. The dressing table held a pile of papers overflowing from a stuffed briefcase which got his attention. On the top, the same long-lens photo of Rollins, Gammaldi and himself taken from the airfield outside Port Harcourt. Then some typed pages, correspondence from oil companies, Russian, Chinese. Seeking security contracts for their personnel. Short term, long term, this guy was getting set up for life with the sums of money mentioned here.
Fox looked around the room. He scanned the ceiling, looking for speakers. Dumbfounded when there was no visible source of the music at all.
There were two massive sliding doors to—what, a wardrobe? Fox gently slid one open. Bingo. The music was real loud now.
The wardrobe had a door recessed in the back. Another room beyond that. A safe room, maybe?
He tried the gold-plated handle—it turned, slowly. Clicked open. The music from within was almost deafening. There was something else too. Screaming? Crying?
Fox moved inside.
Musa Onouarah. Naked. On a bed, ripping into a young woman, still in her teens.
Two other girls were there, naked, holding on to each other inside a cage.
Sex slaves.
Fox slipped the P90’s strap over his shoulder, pulled out his Five-seveN, and walked over fast. He used the pistol like a club, and whipped it against the side of Onouarah’s sweaty head.
58
HIGH OVER THE ATLANTIC
“You really need that?” Gammaldi asked. He watched as his girlfriend field-stripped her sniper’s rifle. Never before had he thought of guns as sexy, but seeing her hands move fast and efficiently over the gun metal …
“I hope not,” Emma Gibbs said. “But you know your friend Lachlan, he has a knack for sticking his big boof-head into harm’s way.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Gammaldi replied. He went back to the in-flight phone in the GSR’s private A318, and tried Fox’s cell number again. The aircraft looked like the civilian version on the outside, but inside was pure luxury. Configured with big leather recli
ner seating for thirty, it had a full kitchen, bar, lounge, dining area and conference room. There was an apartment up front, too, and if it weren’t for Gibbs’s boss being on the flight, Gammaldi would have taken her there for some sexy times.
“You want this?” Sefreid asked. He held up an FN Five-seveN pistol to Gammaldi.
Gammaldi shook his head. That certainly wasn’t what he was after.
“I’ll let you two do the shooting,” he said.
“Wallace said to bring Fox back in one piece,” Sefreid told him. “We’ve already lost one reporter too many. I’ll drag his ass back to the States if I have to.”
“Thanks for coming, guys,” Gammaldi said.
“You managed to get through to his cell yet?”
“Nah, I’ll keep trying, though,” Gammaldi replied. His look turned hopeful but it was hollow and he knew it. “Knowing Fox, he’ll be lying on a beach somewhere.”
“That’s not what I saw in him the last time I clocked him,” Sefreid said. The big ex-special-forces guy looked concerned over their friend. “I just hope he doesn’t come unhinged. I’ve seen guys do that before. In Iraq. ’Stan. Seen them do things they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Gammaldi said. The two security operators didn’t argue the point. Gammaldi watched the world pass by out the window, wondered how the time ahead would come to pass. Hoped his friend would stay in control. Hoped the death of Rollins would not take his friend with it. Time would soon tell.
59
LAGOS, NIGERIA
“I’m going to ask you questions,” Fox said. His voice resonated in the tiled en suite. “Your answers must be the truth. You fuck around, you get this.”
Fox waved the canister of pepper spray in Onouarah’s face. Tapped it against the guy’s head. It made a hollow-sounding tonk-tonk-tonk.
“You waste my time? You lie to me? You get this.” Fox held his Five-seveN up close. “Nod if you understand.”
The man’s eyes were disbelieving but he nodded. He was still naked, on his knees; cable ties around his wrists held his arms behind his back.
Fox took his time before pulling out the hand-towel he’d gagged in the man’s mouth. He picked up the canister of pepper spray. FOX LABS brand spray, he noted with raised eyebrows.
“The side of this canister says over five million Scoville heat units,” Fox said. “I’m gonna guess that’s pretty hot shit. You understand? I only want the truth.”
Fox’s expression said that he expected another nod in affirmation. Onouarah did it, though still not as convincingly as Fox would have liked.
First up was a question that Fox knew the answer to from the courier documents.
“The attack on the Port Harcourt oil building,” Fox said matter-of-factly. “Who did that?”
The guy’s face looked disbelieving, as if asking, You are doing this to me for that? That’s all?
“It was me.”
“It was you.” Fox nodded, was friendly on hearing the correct answer. “Okay. It was you.”
He took out the photos of Rollins, Gammaldi and himself. “Who took these photos?”
No answer. The man’s eyes were searching Fox’s face, probably looking for a reason. Fox held the photos in clear view, and flicked through them. “This photo? This one? Who took them?”
There was no answer, but Onouarah’s eyes looked back at the photos and there was recognition there. Fox picked up the canister of pepper spray. Held it close to the photo so he’d know what was coming to him real soon.
“I don’t know—they were sent to me,” Onouarah said. His voice was higher pitched than Fox had expected. “That’s where my job started—I just sent them on.”
“You just sent them on,” Fox said. His tone said, You just sent it on and got others to do your dirty work.
“Yes. Yes.”
Fox nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Who’d you send them to?”
“Some of my guys, security contractors I know, MOPOL…”
“You sent them to the cops?”
“Yeah…”
Fox had a mental flash of Javens on the night they had fled the delta, when he’d reached in and taken the printed or Xeroxed photos of Fox, Gammaldi and Rollins from the MOPOL sedan.
“Why would you send it to the cops?”
“The cops—some MOPOL cops, they are my guys too.”
Fox nodded. He took the hand-towel, wiped some of the sweat from the guy’s forehead to stop it from dripping down into his eyes. The fat fuck was shaking on his knees, probably hadn’t had to hold his frame upright for this long in a while.
“Okay,” Fox said. He put the towel down and picked up the pepper spray again. “Who sent the photos to you? Whose job was that? Who are you working for?”
Fox knew it was Mendes. But he didn’t want to put that name out there. He wanted to hear it from the mouth of this greasy son of a bitch. He held a photo of Rollins closer to the guy’s face and asked again, staccato. There was no mistaking his intention to get the answer.
“Who—sent—you—this—photo?”
Onouarah spat at Fox and then made as if to scream for help, but Fox had the hand-towel stuffed back down the guy’s throat real fast. He followed up with the pepper spray, a good spurt right in the eyes. Now the guy was reeling. Gagging on the towel.
Fox leaned over and ran the bath, pushing the guy’s face under the faucet. Then he pulled him around, and took the towel out.
“Who sent them to you?”
“Men—Mende—” Onouarah said, fighting for breath. “It was his job.”
“Who?” Fox repeated. He put an ear closer to the guy. “Say again.”
“Mendes! Steve Mendes.”
“Steve Mendes. Okay. Why did he want us killed?”
Onouarah shook his head.
“Sorry?”
“No—I don’t know.”
Fox wiped his own face down with a wet towel, and blinked out some of the pepper spray that bit at his eyes in the confined space of the en suite.
“Where is Mendes?” Fox asked, close in the guy’s face. “Hmm? I know you have some way to contact him. Hmm? Where do you meet?”
Onouarah wouldn’t look Fox in the eye. He just settled into a stubborn stare at the tiled floor.
Fox knocked him on the forehead with his knuckles. Knocked on his head repeatedly like rapping on a door.
“Where—are—Mendes—and—Achebe?”
Onouarah looked up at Fox and spat again. That would be his last act of defiance.
Fox considered the fat fuck in front of him. He had to remind himself that he’d not only had Rollins killed; that this guy had killed God only knew how many. He had those young girls in the other room. Fox wasn’t there to cast judgement on the guy, that would be between him and God. But he would gladly hasten that meeting.
Fox had an idea. He scanned the bathroom—there, a plastic bag lined the trash basket. He emptied it and went back over to Onouarah. Put the plug in the bath, ran the faucet at full. The look on Onouarah’s face, in his swollen red eyes, was one of not knowing. Maybe he was still dazed from the first blow to the head. Fox didn’t give a shit. The bath was filling and it was crunch-time.
“You did this job for Steve Mendes and Brutus Achebe. Last chance. Where are they?”
The crime boss returned a glazed-over look.
Fox put the plastic bag over Onouarah’s head. Dunk time. It felt like drowning but it was safer—Fox knew he could do this repeatedly without the guy actually inhaling water. He pushed Onouarah’s head into the bath, held it under water as his body thrashed about. Pulled him out after about ten seconds, yanked the bag off. The guy was heaving for breath. His expression had changed, he was panicked.
“Where are they?”
“Who?”
Fox sat on the toilet seat, in close to Onouarah. His hands were bare, although the pepper spray and Five-seveN pistol w
ere within easy reach. He sat there and gave Onouarah the look of a man who knew he had the upper hand. The look a cat gave a mouse that it caught and went on to play with, knowing that, in the end, there was only one outcome for the mouse.
“Where are Achebe and Mendes?”
“Fuck. You.”
Bag time. Back in the water. The tap was still running hard, the bath was nearly full. Water started splashing outside the bath now, spilling over the sides. Fox was using both hands to hold him down, until he felt Onouarah start to lessen his struggle. Then he pulled him out and took off the bag, letting him crash to the floor and fight for breath. Fox calmly turned off the tap and sat on the toilet seat, wiping his hands dry on a towel.
It took about a minute for Fox to get the pepper spray into view of Onouarah. His swollen eyes focused wide on the canister. He was panting for breath, trembling.
“What—do—you—want?”
“Achebe. Mendes.” Fox still had the canister up close. “How do you contact them? Where do you meet them? Where are they?”
“Okay, I—I know how—how to—contact them.” He was heaving for air. Fox let him breathe for a minute. “I am meeting him tonight, Mendes. Just before dusk.”
Fox listened to the guy and made him repeat the details three times. The location. The cars. The security. Same details each time.
“You’re sure now?”
“Yes.” Onouarah’s breathing was almost back to normal now.
“You’re absolutely sure? This place, this pager number?”
“Yes. Please. Yes.”
Fox nodded. Okay. He believed him.
He put the bag back on, and shoved the man’s head into the water before he could object. Held him down hard. His head was not under there for as long as before but it was almost too long. Fox pulled him back up. He was really heaving now, trembling, his face sucking in air, retching up bile. His eyes were frightened to shit.
“You want to change anything? Hmm?”
Onouarah shook his head.
Fox dragged him to his knees again.
