by Fiona Quinn
The light of the bad guy’s flashlight swung around the corner. Rooster was a statue. The tango moved hesitantly forward. His voice sounded very young as he whisper-called, “Rashid?” He stepped forward. “Rashi—”
Rooster’s knife swung over his head and slid behind the man’s clavicle into his heart. The target dropped instantly. Rooster used the tango’s collar to pull his body closer to the wall. He pulled off the man’s rifle and patted him down for an extra magazine, but there was none. This told Rooster that they hadn’t expected anyone to escape the hotel. They probably put their least trained men on perimeter and gave them the minimum in supplies. Their escape might just be possible. Rooster chanced one last glance around the corner. The coast was clear. Now was the time to move. And move fast.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Meg
The Loading Dock, Ngorongoro Crater Imperial Hotel
Someone had caught Rooster as he was scooting out under the door. Rooster was still out there. Somewhere. With no gun. Meg was too afraid to breathe. A few words had filtered through the crack. Some sounds made her think there was a struggle. No gun shots. Randy was on his belly, focused hard on the action. He had pushed a rifle back from under the door, and Meg took possession of it. It was hers. Her responsibility. She forced herself to inhale. Then exhale. After a few times priming her lungs, they took off working on their own again.
She desperately wanted to keep everyone safe. Meg looked the rifle over. It wasn’t like this was a completely foreign object, she thought as she pulled the strap over her head and arm. She’d had dart guns in her hands enough times. There were almost always rifles in the cab of her vehicles when she was out in the bush, just in case. See? She had some familiarity, she encouraged herself. She assumed that targeting with a dart gun and a gun that shot bullets would be the same. She hoped it would be the same. No. What she hoped was that this was all just going to be over, and she’d never have to decide whether they were the same or not.
There were decisions to be made, though. Rooster wanted her to decide. That’s why he’d been making her parrot back those phrases when they were up in her bathroom. My brain and my body are built for survival. I will never give up. And she wouldn’t. She would fight for her own sake and for the sake of those with her. The strangers as well as the people she cared deeply for—Randy and Rooster... Ahbou looked up at her with wide eyes, and she laid a hand on his shoulder. And Ahbou. She wouldn’t let anything stop her from helping Ahbou.
God, Rooster, what the hell’s going on out there?
She gestured for everyone to move up against the walls to try to protect them should bullets start to fly. She made sure that Ahbou was under his uncle’s wing. For such a young boy, he was stoic in the face of danger. Meg wished she was too. She adjusted the strap over her neck and moved farther into the room so they were covered from both sides. The gun was growing heavy in her hands. She trembled with exertion and fear. Tears slid down her cheek. And snot. She sniffed. Screw your damned courage to the sticking place, Meg.
Every second felt hours long.
There was a scramble at the door, and Rooster was back with them. Meg held her position. She noticed, though, that the first thing Rooster did as he stood up was scan the room until he found her. He stared into her eyes, assessing. He nodded. Whatever he was seeing he approved of. Snot or no snot. “It looks clear. We’re going to try this again.”
Just then, there was a loud bang. A group of men poured through a door to the right of the stairwell. Before Meg could get her rifle turned in the right direction, Randy aimed and fired. The men scattered and ran. As they bolted away, Rooster chased them down, but they got through the metal door and got it locked off before he could stop them.
“They know where we are. We have to move. Go. Go. Go.”
Randy slung the door open and jumped from the dock. As people came out he was catching them and setting them down. Pointing. “Run.”
A Jeep careened around the corner. They were lit up by the headlights. Shots rang out as the vehicle closed in on them, and people fell to the ground. Meg wasn’t sure if they were hit or diving for cover. Rooster took the rifle and had her in his arms pulling her off the dock. He tried to throw her back up so she could escape back inside, but she was clinging to him too tightly. She wasn’t about to separate herself from him.
The elevator doors opened and four men were stacked up, and all of them had their guns trained on the escaping group.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rooster
Ngorongoro Crater Imperial Fucking Hotel
Fish in a barrel.
Nothing to do but lower the rifles to the ground, raise his hands, and pray like hell they forgot to pat them down. The man in the back was yelling at Randy. Randy shook his head to say he didn’t understand. Randy’s language skills were from the Middle East; he hadn’t worked many African assignments. He spoke some Kiswahili but the Somalians were speaking with a heavy accent.
Brave little Ahbou translated. “He says, Mr. Randy, that you are to give him your protection vest.”
Randy removed it, and the man immediately pulled it into place, grinning. Taking a cue from his comrade, one of the tangos in the front moved toward Meg. He touched the vest, and she recoiled.
“Take off your vest, Meg, and hand it to him. Keep your back to the wall.”
Meg followed Rooster’s instructions, handing off the vest. The man putting it on immediately realized that it had been molded for breasts. His comrades jeered at him. The guy ripped it back off and threw it into the Jeep.
Rooster caught Meg’s eye then turned his back to her and stepped backward until she was compressed between him and the wall, hidden behind his bulk. He ducked his head. Under his breath, he muttered, “Randy and I had the rifles. We’re clearly the soldiers and will be subject to extra attention. You need to keep your distance from us. Don’t let them know I’m protecting you. You need to decide how safe you feel with a gun in your waistband. At this point it might help and it might make you a target. It’s a coin toss. Your call.”
“What should I do with it?”
“Put it back under my shirt. There’s an off chance they won’t do a pat down. If they find it on me, I’ve already got their attention, so it won’t change my dynamic.”
He felt her body shifting behind his. The cool air on his skin as she lifted his shirt, the push and tug as she secured the automatic back into place. “Good. Now make sure that you don’t associate with me. Don’t look at me or Randy. You can be mama bird for Ahbou. Focus on him and his uncle. The uncle may know a way out. He’ll protect himself and then Ahbou. You want to be glued to that group.” He felt a pat-pat on his back as she agreed to the plan. He inched away from her, still keeping her hidden, but making it less obvious.
One of the Somalis prodded Rooster’s chest with his muzzle. If it weren’t for all the civilians in the area, this guy would be such an easy takedown. But if Rooster grabbed at the guy, and the others started shooting, the ricochet alone would be lethal.
He spoke and Rooster understood him to say “You are hiding people out here?”
“No. Sorry. What you see is what you get.” Rooster’s words must not have had meaning to the guy, who was speaking Kiswahili as a second language just like Rooster. Ahbou’s uncle said something and the tango nodded.
Each of the men were put one at a time against the wall and searched. Rooster lost his gun and knife. As the women were moved to the wall, Rooster noticed the hostiles hadn’t patted down any of the females. That was interesting. He’d have to process that. The good thing was that so far Meg kept her belt, food, and water. That was something. Randy kept his belt, and Rooster knew he would have something hidden in it, even if it was just a razor blade. As the tangos finished up their searches, the hostages were made to lace their fingers together, place them on their heads, and walk in single file. Rooster and Randy each had their own guard shoving them along with the barrel of their guns.
&nbs
p; These guys were probably going to parade them in like heroes. They’d want immediate acknowledgement for their fine soldiering. That meant they were going to be taken to the leader. That meeting would give Rooster some much needed intel.
They took the stairs, maneuvered through the door, and were marched into the main lobby. And there, like a circus ringleader, was Momo Bourhan. Meg gasped and Rooster maneuvered her behind his back. Ahbou craned his head up to look at him and Rooster cut his eyes to the left, then nodded at him. Ahbou silently shifted back into Rooster’s shadow to stand with Meg. Smart kid. As the tangos were excitedly telling their story of capture, Rooster reconned the room. The ghost was on the floor leaning against a pillar, his face purple and swollen. He had made a sling out of his belt, trapping his arm against his chest.
Rooster’s eyes swiveled to the boxes piled throughout the room. Wires ran from one to the other. The two men who guarded the front door looked like they might have suicide vests on underneath their windbreakers. They had the unfixed focus of those who had been given potent drugs to relieve anxiety—a common practice used by handlers to overcome a human’s fear of dying.
If these were suicide bombers, they had some time. Momo wasn’t about to be caught in an explosion. He had future plans. Personal plans that moved him up the terror echelon. Rooster needed to get over to the ghost and gather intel.
Momo raised his hand to shut down the babbling tango. He said in Kiswahili and then in English. “Take a seat.”
“Hand,” Rooster said. Immediately, he felt Meg’s hand on his back. Rooster hoped she remembered what that meant. Where he went, she needed to be his shadow. Indistinguishable. It was a difficult dance to both be there to protect her and distance himself so all options were available. When Rooster took his first stride, Ahbou’s uncle came up just beside and slightly behind, helping to shield Meg and Ahbou. Making it seem like they were just all moving as a group. Good man.
Rooster maneuvered to sit next to the ghost. Randy moved to his other side where he sat squarely shoulder to shoulder with him, making a wall to hide Meg and Ahbou. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe Meg and Ahbou wouldn’t be in the head count, and they could make a getaway. He trusted Meg had the cunning to do it. She knew the plan to hide in the boulders. He just needed to find the right time, the right diversion, and the right route.
Rooster pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, hunching his shoulders and lowering his head to cover the movement of his mouth and keep his words from travelling farther than the ghost’s ear. “What’ve you got?”
“Besides a fucking fractured skull and a broken arm? It’s hard to get a good head count with them coming and going with their faces covered. At least two dozen. They were saying they have men down. That you?”
“We got eleven. Obviously not enough.”
One of the gunmen paced the room, pointing his gun to scare people into submission. They ducked their heads, trying not to make eye contact as he passed them.
There were blood smears across the floor where people had been dragged away. Rooster focused on the ghost, then over to the blood, then raised his brow. The ghost flashed four fingers and mouthed, “Tourists.”
The tango turned as he reached the far wall and paced past them again. Rooster had his eye on the doors. Chains ran through the door handles, holding them shut with an old-fashioned padlock. If people wanted out, they’d have to throw a piece of furniture through one of the windows. Rooster picked out a sturdy table and the window he would choose. That plan was so far down the alphabet that it didn’t even have a letter. He needed to get options for a more feasible Plan A and Plan B. And he needed to decide what to do with this Rex Deus operative. Rooster wasn’t convinced that the ghost wouldn’t feed them to the wolves to make his own escape.
“The boxes are explosives. They’ve run wires,” the ghost confirmed. “Momo has a detonator. That’s what he’s flicking like a Bic in his hand. He’s making people piss themselves with fear. If a few made a run for it, with all of these rooms? Most could probably get away. I’d even advocate we overpower them—you, me and your partner. Though frankly, at this point, I’m of little use. I think that detonator is the real deal. And I think the two Somalis near the door might be looking forward to their virgin reward party at the end of the day.”
“Noted.” Rooster also noted how slurred the ghost’s speech was, and how his pupils were radically different sizes. Shit. The Mossad and the CIA would think they had each other’s backs. No man left behind. Escaping with someone with brain trauma was going to be a hell of a risk multiplier.
There was a commotion in the hall as two gunmen brought another pocket of guests out of the elevator. Their fingers were laced and sitting on their heads. From the direction they were coming from, they wouldn’t be able to see the other captives in the lobby. One man panicked and ran toward the front door. The guards who stood on either side didn’t flinch. The hostages on the floor threw their hands over their heads and flung themselves to the ground, anticipating an explosion. There was a bang of rifle fire that echoed off the walls and cathedral ceiling that made Rooster’s head ring. He could hear nothing as the man spread his arms wide as if flying then fell flat onto his face. The shuffle and bumps behind his back made Rooster think that Meg had pulled Ahbou mostly into her lap and draped herself over him.
Momo nodded to the new tangos, who jabbed the muzzles of their guns into the people’s backs, herding them over to sit with the hostages on the other side of the lobby. In Somali, Momo called for a man standing by the computer to come and check the dead man.
The hostile ran forward, bringing some papers fluttering in his hand. He looked from the face to the first page, from the face to the second page, from the face to the third page, then shook his head. “This is nobody.”
Rooster thought that the woman who had crumpled to the floor, reaching toward him and sobbing, probably thought the guy was somebody.
“Be careful with your shots,” Momo continued in Somali. “Not everyone is equally expendable.” He turned to the man with the list. “You’ve identified those of interest?”
“A few more registrants to research,” he said and moved back to the computer.
“What are they doing over at the computer?” he asked the ghost.
“Near as I can tell, culling names of hotel guests.”
“They’re looking for specific people? This isn’t just a hit on tourists?”
“I don’t know. I caught a look at the first page and saw at least one of the scientists from today. I can’t tell whether I’m hoping they’re looking for me as Abraham Silverman, a member of the Key Initiative, and they’re pulling me out of here to Stage 2, or if it’s better to stay and get blown to bits, quick and easy.” He sniffed and wiped his wrist under his nose to catch a trickle of blood.
“How’d they get you?”
“I happened to be talking to the concierge about the possibility of a massage when they burst through the door. They patted me down and took my weapons.”
“They did a thorough job.”
He gave a wheezing chuckle under his breath. “Yeah, you could say that. They wanted to know why I had so many guns on my body. I said I was afraid of lions. That’s when the head banging began.”
“He’s got a three-page list. Do you think he’s looking for Israelis? The scientists? Some other demographic?”
A gunman turned his rifle on them. They focused on the ground.
After he passed by, the ghost whispered, “I’d be guessing. Could be any of the above. But yeah. I’m starting to think that my little Tanzanian safari adventure under the name Abraham Silverman was probably the worst decision of my life.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Meg
The Lobby, Ngorongoro Crater Imperial Hotel
Momo came forward, front and center. He waggled his hand in the air and the man at the computer scampered over and thrust the pages he had used earlier to identify the dead man into Momo’s wait
ing hand.
“Dr. Meghan Finley, stand up, please.”
Meg felt her breath catch in her throat. If she hid behind Randy and Rooster, they’d still find her, and then they might be even angrier with the guys. She stood, but pushed Ahbou onto the floor. “Hello, Momo.” She tried to sound professional, and to make him remember that they had spent a day together. He knew her as a person. Wouldn’t that make it harder to kill her? She was sure she had read that somewhere.
“Meg, come. Have you enjoyed your stay in the crater?” He gestured her forward with a curl of his fingers.
“I’ve actually found it a rather difficult day.” There was a warble in her voice, but she was still intelligible. Who wouldn’t have a warble in their voice under these circumstances? At least there were no guns trained on her.
“I’m afraid that’s going to continue for a while. You are the only female on your team, yes?”
“Yes, the only female.”
“Sit over there.” Momo pointed to the reception desk.
Meg, by sheer will and concentration, got her legs to move forward, then sat where indicated, cross-legged.
Momo turned to the rest of the hostages. “The rest of you women, you will stand slowly and walk to the dining room. You will be much more comfortable sitting in chairs rather than the cold floors.”
The women bustled to comply. The gunmen trained their rifles on them and kept a vigilant eye, lest someone else try to bolt. Meg was sure that wouldn’t happen after the very real, very horrible display that had just taken place. One of the terrorists at the front door followed along behind them. His clothes bulged strangely, and Meg wondered if he was wearing a tactical vest under his shirt.
