“Got it.”
Ryan slid the radio into his coat pocket and moved quickly back to the stern of the boat. Ripping the tarp off the small rubber dinghy, he hooked up the power cord to the portable crane and started the generator before undoing the tie-downs that secured the smaller craft to the catamaran. Looking up and across the water, he could see that the incongruous French doors tucked into the rear of the renovated warehouse were still open to the cool night air. They’d never get a better chance, he decided.
Naomi was racing through a tangled web of dark alleyways, her pounding footsteps echoing loud in the narrow space between the buildings. She fumbled for the keys as she reached the Nissan, tossed her pack into the back of the vehicle, and slid onto the cold leather of the driver’s seat. The temperature had dropped rapidly after sunset, and she found herself shivering as she started the engine and pulled the jeep out of the secluded alley.
The dinghy bounced over the gentle waves, Ryan wincing at the loud rumble of the 40 hp outboard motor churning up the water behind him. He shut down the motor after a few hundred meters and let the momentum of the boat carry him into shore. Jumping out, he pulled the dinghy up behind him, almost slipping on the wet rocks beneath his feet as he moved up the beach toward the open doors.
Naomi turned off the headlights as she turned the corner and braked to a gentle halt on the street opposite Gray’s building. The road was still clear as she unfolded the map and nervously fingered the radio lying by her side. Hurry up, Ryan.
Kealey passed through the double doors, the Walther up as he moved into the warehouse. Light from the fluorescent bulbs positioned far above erupted over the white-painted brick walls, reaching down to touch and illuminate a shining floor of lacquered oak.
Stephen Gray, seated behind an immense desk in the center of the room, was reclining comfortably in his chair, sipping at a cut-crystal glass of Chivas. He was startled by a shadow moving over the mirrorlike surface of his desk, and looked up as the dark figure entered the room.
He immediately knew that he would not survive the encounter. His buildings had been raided by the authorities many times before, but this was not how the police came, through the back entrance with silenced pistols and shadowed faces. He began to tremble as his right hand inched toward the second drawer of his desk.
He tried to recall if the revolver it held was loaded.
Ryan moved quickly to control the situation. “Stephen Gray,” he said in a low, calm voice. Reason, he thought. Reason with the man. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind. Stay still and keep your hands on the desk.”
“Fuck you.” Gray’s face was twisted in anger and defiance. He started to get to his feet.
Kealey saw that reason wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He moved fast around the desk before Gray could stand and put his foot hard into the man’s chest.
The chair flipped backward and Gray fell violently to the floor, the air crushed out of his lungs. Gasping for breath, he got to his hands and knees before Kealey’s foot slammed up into his stomach.
Gray felt his ribs crack on the second blow, and tried to curl himself into a protective ball as his vision blurred. Despite the nauseating pain, he could feel the barrel of the pistol being pressed into the base of his skull.
“I want to pull this trigger,” Ryan snarled. “You have one chance to save yourself.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wrinkled picture, dropping it unceremoniously in front of the businessman’s face. “How do you know this man?”
The silver Mercedes came fast around the corner, screeching to a halt right in front of the Nissan 4x4. The air caught in her lungs as Naomi reached for the radio and furiously punched the Selcall button. She tried to focus on the map, but the heavy driver was already out of the car, holding a bulging sack of takeout in one hand and tapping on her window with the other. The suspicion was plain in his face before she even began to lower the window.
“I swear it’s the truth!”
“I don’t believe you.” Ryan’s finger tightened on the trigger as he pressed the cold metal harder against the man’s head. “That’s the only name he’s ever used with you?”
“I knew his father personally. You can look for yourself. Jesus, look…Look, just let me up. I’m not going anywhere.” Any distraction would do, Gray thought to himself. The gun is loaded, I know it is. If I can just get to it, I might have a chance.
Ryan grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him up roughly. Immediately, Gray moved for the desk. “It’s right here, I have a file on him—”
The fist tightened around the back of Gray’s shirt, pulling him back and away. “Sit down,” Ryan said. He moved to the desk and started opening drawers. Turning to face the other man, he held the Smith & Wesson revolver up toward the light. “Is this what you were looking for?”
Opening the cylinder, he spilled the bullets out of the gun, the rounds rattling and rolling away across the polished floor. Casually tossing the revolver onto the desk, he moved forward in a smooth motion and slammed the butt of his own pistol into Gray’s face. The impact reverberated along the length of his arm. As Ryan pulled back to deliver a second blow, the radio tucked into his pocket bumped the corner of the desk, inadvertently pressing the transmit button.
“No, I have absolutely no idea,” Naomi was saying. “I think I made a wrong turn coming out of the Malay Quarter…I’m just trying to get back to the Commodore. Can you point it out to me? I mean, if you don’t mind.”
The doubt had faded slightly from the man’s blunt features. Leaning forward and through the window, he began to trace a line along the map, snapping out directions in heavily accented English. His finger was tracing through the map and along her leg…She held the map tightly in both hands, her arms straining so that she almost ripped the thin paper in half. Her mind was moving at the speed of light. Keep him occupied, Naomi.
She placed her hand on the man’s forearm and gave him her best smile. “I can’t thank you enough. You’re a lifesaver.” She hit the tone perfectly, and watched the grin spread over his face as his eyes scoured her body for the first time…
There was a burst of static from the radio.
The driver saw something change in her face and he pulled back quickly, the lascivious smile fading fast, replaced by a sneer as he dug for the weapon in his jacket.
Naomi’s hand moved down in a blur to the space between the seats, pulling up on Ryan’s Beretta. She got there first. Her mind was blank as she pointed the gun at his chest and fired twice, the shots ringing in her ears as she watched him fall back, shock carved into his face.
She stumbled out of the jeep, the radio forgotten behind her. She was reaching down, searching for the man’s keys, only to realize that they were in the still-running Mercedes. Naomi didn’t notice the lack of blood on the driver’s chest as she pulled the keys out of the car and ran to the front door of the warehouse.
The shots were audible from inside the building. Stephen Gray looked up and smiled in Ryan’s direction, a bloody, awful smile. Something feral slithered into his eyes as he spoke. “You may know his name, but it won’t change anything.”
Ryan stepped back, still aiming the Walther at Gray’s chest. “What are you talking about?”
“The shipment has already landed in Washington. It’s too late to stop him. Do you understand what I’m saying? He’s going after all of them. He already has what he needs.”
Ryan was about to respond when the door burst open. He swung his pistol and then stopped when she moved into view. Naomi ran into the building…All she could see was Ryan.
Gray reacted immediately. With astonishing speed he turned the corner and hit Naomi head-on, the pistol flying out of her hand and across the floor. She was stunned by the blow, struggling to stand when Gray reached past her, his fingertips brushing against the Beretta. Then it was in his hand, and he was turning up and around…
Kealey shot him twice in the chest.
Stumbling backward, Gray hit the wall and slumped down against it. He glared up at Ryan, a thin trickle of blood running out of his mouth and down onto the clean white cotton of his shirt. He summoned the last of his strength and lifted the pistol in Naomi’s direction.
Ryan had no choice. Taking two steps forward, he leveled the Walther and fired a third bullet into Stephen Gray’s forehead.
He breathed a soft curse. This was going all wrong…His first priority was to get out of the building. Moving forward, Ryan lifted the Beretta out of the dead man’s hand and slid it into his coat pocket. Naomi was crouched against the wall, staring up at him with horror in her face. Leaning down, he grabbed her arm and yanked her roughly to her feet.
“Where’s the driver?”
“I shot him,” she said in a low monotone. Ryan’s eyes were moving fast around the room. There was a wall full of file cabinets and papers strewn across the man’s desk. He thought about sending Naomi out to the boat while he looked through the papers. He thought about the probable response times for police units heading out of the commercial district, and about what they would find when they arrived. He knew instinctively that Gray wouldn’t keep records of any illicit dealings in these file cabinets.
His deliberations had taken three seconds. It was too much of a risk. Besides, he already had what he came for. He grabbed Naomi’s hand and pulled her hard toward the open doors leading out to the bay. A scuffling sound behind him, movement on unsteady feet. A moment of shock as he considered…No, it couldn’t be. He didn’t turn to look.
They were running hard, out through the back as a long burst of automatic fire followed them, ripping through the French doors and sending jagged splinters of glass and wood spinning out onto the beach. Ryan felt like he was barely moving as his feet pounded over the sinking sand, Naomi like dead weight behind him, her hand tightly gripping his. Another long burst of fire, and then a shouted curse in Afrikaans as the bolt locked back on an empty magazine. Ryan pushing the dinghy out over the rocks, pulling her roughly in and the engine roaring to life. The boat was going hard over the waves, slapping against the rubber floor as they jumped each swell. Two minutes later they were out of range of the driver’s submachine gun, and Ryan cut back on the motor as they eased up to the rear of the catamaran.
Ryan finally forced himself to turn and look at Naomi. He was almost certain that she had been hit. He felt an overwhelming wave of relief when she didn’t appear to be wounded, but it was difficult to tell; he could see only her back as she crouched facing away from him, her upper body leaning over the side as she was violently sick into the black waters of Table Bay.
CHAPTER 19
TAJIKISTAN • CAPE TOWN • PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA
The journey had been long and arduous, but they were now closing in on their final destination.
The most difficult part for al-Adel had been in securing more auxiliary tanks for the helicopter. It had taken shouted curses and threats of retribution in fractured Farsi over the encrypted radio, but the promise had been made and kept. The fuel tanks were waiting in a covered truck bed just off an abandoned highway north of Repetek. From there, they were free to continue on the third leg of the flight. The sky began to darken once again as the Mi-26 headed northeast, skirting the jagged western edge of Tajikistan that led toward the lush and fertile floor of the Ferghana Valley.
Saif al-Adel noticed that the American had not spoken for the entire duration of the flight. He wondered whether this was a sign that the man regretted his earlier demands, but soon dismissed the notion when he examined the other passenger’s face and saw nothing but quiet confidence. Clearly, the American had unshakable faith in his own abilities.
It was some time before they banked east over the valley floor 3,500 meters below. The descent took the heavy aircraft shuddering down through dark gray cumulus clouds, a light rain washing over the armored plating as the weight of the helicopter settled onto the struts of the landing gear. The monstrous blades continued to slice the air overhead as the passengers climbed down from the elevated cabin. Al-Adel gave a hand signal to one of the two pilots through the cockpit glass, and both men moved away from the craft as power to the engines was increased and the helicopter lifted once more into the air. Then it vanished into the black clouds and they were alone.
March pulled the hood of his anorak up to shield against the freezing rain that had already seeped its way down his neck and under his thin pullover. A vehicle was waiting for them, a Russian-made UAZ-3151. Al-Adel had his rucksack on the muddy ground, his hands buried deep in the bowels of the pack until he found what he was looking for. His eyes were bright when he lifted the Garmin handheld GPS receiver for March to see.
“The Americans would dearly love to get their hands on this. I imagine they would pay a great deal of money for the information it contains. Tell me, what would that money mean to you, my friend?”
Jason March fixed his steady gaze on the other man before speaking. “If you think I came this far to betray you for money, then you are the fool, Saif.”
“We shall see.” A smile spread over the Egyptian’s face as he held out his hand. “Give me your pistol.”
March hesitated, and the smile turned into an impatient sneer. “Give me your pistol or I’ll shoot you where you stand. Even if you survive the bullet, you won’t last long—the temperature is already below freezing, and the wolves are always hungry in the winter.”
Reluctantly, March handed over his Beretta. “And your pack.” March gave him that as well, and watched as the other man perused the contents. Satisfied, Saif al-Adel stood and gave him a questioning look. “Food and water? Where are these plans you speak of?”
March smiled and tapped his own head gently with two fingers. An incredulous look spread over the commander’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a cold gaze. “Then I hope you have a good memory, my friend. A very good memory indeed, because your life depends on what you have to say today.” He threw the rucksack back toward the American, but held on to the Beretta. “Get in the jeep.”
“And where are we going?”
Al-Adel turned east toward the jagged spires of the Tian Shan mountains. “Up there,” he said.
Ryan had called the embassy in Pretoria from the catamaran with a request for transport. There would be hell to pay when Harper found out, but it was the only option open to him. He had briefly considered making the trip without Agency assistance, but knew that the consequences would be far worse if they were intercepted by the police without official cover. In that situation, he wouldn’t have put it past Langley to completely disavow any knowledge of their presence in South Africa.
In fact, he wouldn’t have expected anything less.
Despite the fact that they had nowhere else to go, Ryan realized they couldn’t stay out on the water. The first police officers on the scene would take in the vehicles left on the street and the shattered doors leading out to the beach, and then rightly conclude that an escape had been made by boat. Police cutters would be dispatched with orders to board every small craft in the vicinity, and the larger docks around the bay would be sealed off. Even now, approaching the private dock of the Victoria and Albert Hotel, he could hear the sirens screaming on the other side of the bay.
Looking down at his watch, he estimated that they had at least seven hours to kill, even if the embassy car carried diplomatic plates and traveled south unimpeded as fast as possible. After docking and securing the catamaran, he found blankets in a storage compartment beneath a seat at the stern. These he stuffed haphazardly into his backpack along with more bottled water, sacrificing space for speed. Finally, he turned his attention to Naomi.
She was sitting on a hard wooden bench just aft of the cabin, hugging her knees against her chest and watching him intently. As he walked toward her, though, she pulled away from his outstretched hand.
“Naomi,” he said, impatience in his voice. “There’s no time for this. If you don’t follow me right now, we’re
both going to spend a lot of time in a South African jail. You know I wouldn’t hurt you. Gray had a gun—he would have killed us both without thinking twice.”
After a moment she held out her hand without speaking. Ryan pulled her up off the bench and they stepped onto the dock, walking hand in hand past the bright lights of the V&A hotel and into the empty streets beyond.
The steep roads leading out of the valley gave them the most trouble as the jeep, lacking 4WD capabilities, continued to slide toward the precarious edge of the path. Several times March felt his heart in his throat as the jeep drifted in the deep mud toward the brink and a plummeting drop of several hundred meters to the valley floor. He was terrified of mountains and precipitous slopes, a fear that dated back to his childhood. He felt the cold sheen of sweat on his body and hoped that they didn’t have far to go. Fortunately, they soon moved away from the lip of the valley. The route smoothed out when they reached the cut-granite roads leading into the mountains.
Although the heater was going full blast, the air was bitterly cold in the higher regions, pushed along by a howling wind that whipped over the stone outcroppings and drove the frigid gusts through unseen apertures in the vehicle’s frame. As the elevation continued to climb, the rain turned to sleet, and then to a driving snow that made progress even more difficult.
“Do you see that?” March followed al-Adel’s finger to a small stone structure perched on a rock outcropping at least 100 meters above the road. The building blended into the surrounding mountains so well that he would never have seen it on his own. “It is one of our observation points—only one of several. This is the only passable mountain road for 10 kilometers in any direction. That is why this place was chosen. If the Americans come, we will have ample time to evacuate the camp.”
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