Communications then. Probably.
And therein lay the problem. How to communicate without…communicating?
For starters, he wasn't going to do it with Aymal by his side.
With Aymal tucked away behind the toilets, Cole had scrounged some meat-wrapping paper from the marketplace, and found a stubby pencil next to the cash box of a man selling kvass. The cash he left alone, but the pencil went with him—all the way back to Aymal, who waited with sulky impatience. "Here," Cole said, and thrust the writing materials at him. "Write down what you know about that terrorist attack." High-tech CIA communications procedure, to be sure. But no one could eavesdrop on it.
"Na baba!" Aymal stared in disbelief. He was practically already his own disguise, with stubble filling in the skin around his neatly shaped beard and his eyes hollow with lack of sleep and an overdose of fearing for his life. "What reason would you have to help me reach the States if you already know what I know?"
Cole hit him with a steady gaze. "Aymal, old buddy, if I was that kind of guy, I'd have already pinned you to the inside of a building similar to this aromatically attractive structure and tickled you until you turned colors and blabbed it all."
Aymal returned him a skeptical look, not such the defector insurgent wuss when it came to the bottom line.
"Get real," Cole said. "We're in trouble here. We need a pickup, and I don't think it's safe to arrange one. And you know, I don't really think you cleaned my little war wound very well and it hurts. A lot. It's starting to shorten my patience."
Aymal's expression had taken on a stubborn cast.
"Either you trust me with your life, or you don't. If you don't, then hidey-hey, we're done with each other. You can find your own ride out." As if. Not without that intel. "If you do, then fork it over. Because I'm not sure we'll both get out of this alive, and I don't want either of us to die for nothing. I especially don't want me to die for nothing."
Aymal took the paper. He took it and he tore it in half, complacently returning a piece to Cole. "Fine," he said. "Then you write here that you trust me, and that if something happens to you it won't be because I caused it to happen. Because if I'm the one who gets out of this alive, I don't want your compatriots to think I had something to do with your demise."
Huh. Fair enough. Cole took the pencil and scribbled a few words, and then carefully placed his thumbprint next to his signature. Invisible to the naked eye or not, it'd be found if this note made its way to the Agency. He folded the paper so as to keep the print intact, and handed it over to Aymal along with the pencil. "Look," he said. "I've got to go see about getting us a ride. I don't want to be anywhere near here when I do it, and I don't want to be anywhere near you. So grab yourself a seat and write out your homework assignment, and I'll be back before tomorrow morning."
The paper crinkled in Aymal's suddenly tightened grip. "All that time? I have no…I am prey even for the most ignorant of thieves and muggers!"
Not to mention the jerks who were no doubt still looking for them. But Cole looked at the Browning's grip protruding from his pocket and then looked at Aymal, putting his doubt right out there. "You'd shoot yourself in the foot, guy."
"You offend me! The only reason I don't have my own gun is that your people wouldn't let me bring it."
Wise people. Cole pulled the Browning free and said, "It's Condition One." At Aymal's blank look, he added, "Locked and cocked." And when that produced no enlightenment, finally, "It's a single action. There's a round in the chamber and the hammer is cocked. The safety is on. If you take the safety off and pull the trigger, bullets are gonna fly."
"Of course." Aymal took the gun with gingerly respect and examined it.
Cole used one deliberate finger to move the muzzle so it pointed at the ground and not at him, and sent Aymal a most meaningful look.
Aymal ignored him. "Safety off," he announced, and confidently thumbed the mechanism behind the trigger.
The magazine hit the ground.
"Na baba!" Cole muttered between clenched teeth. He took the pistol back, retrieved the magazine and shoved it home. Then he held the gun out so Aymal could see and flicked the thumb safety. "Off. On. Off. On. You got it?"
"Of course," Aymal repeated, sounding heartily unconvincing, and held his hand out for the weapon.
"Oh, no," Cole told him, and put the Mark III on the ground beside the convenient pile of rocks Aymal had claimed for his seat. This whole country had more rocks than it knew what to do with, including the rocks that were almost certainly rolling around in Cole's head. "You write your little weapons memoirs first, then you can touch the gun. Don't pick it up unless you have to—I mean, really have to—and before you do, you'd better know where you intend to point it. Don't wave it, gesture with it or threaten with it. If you need it, you pick it up, take that safety off, and shoot without hesitation. You got me?"
"Again, you insult me."
"Yeah," Cole agreed, turning away to leave their little hidey hole. "That's me. Always looking for a new insult. It keeps me going." Good God. What was he even thinking?
Don't overthink it. Just do it. That's your specialty.
Cole wished for his disguising nose appliance, the one that had come off on the bus and which had once turned his mostly straight nose into something more profound. The mustache had held on better than he'd thought it would, too. But neither had been meant to last longer than it took to scoop up Aymal and get him to the airport for ex-filtration. Cole sighed, not bothering to hide it. He still had black hair; he still had altered skin tones and dark contacts. Those things should last another several days at the least.
He also still had a deep furrow under his skin that should have been nothing but which had, he was pretty certain, contrived to become infected. He should have known his squeamish defector hadn't done a thorough job of cleaning and wasting alcohol on it, but he hadn't been able to see it.
He turned back suddenly, startling Aymal with his hand creeping for the gun. "Don't! Touch! It!" Cole told him, and they stood frozen a moment, staring at each other. Finally Cole turned away for good, hiding the roll of his eyes. Aymal would do what he'd do.
And Cole would hurry.
Chapter 11
Selena didn't wait for evening. She almost didn't wait for Dobry. She downed a large salad with plenty of cheese and meat and then she headed for the door, having announced her intent long before. Dobry scrambled to keep up, throwing his padded vest into place. The eyebrows were still lurking on their own.
They took a cab to within several blocks of Agabaji's and walked in, giving themselves time to be seen. Then they picked a table and settled in.
Or rather, Selena settled in. Dobry volunteered to walk the neighborhood, heading for the Plush to see if he could pick up any scoops there. Selena was more than glad to encourage such initiative, and put her back to the wall to drink bottled fizzy water until the light faded and the usual crowd began to ease its way into action.
Tonight, she thought. Tonight we keep looking until we find something.
Cole made his way around the edge of the city, hunting a good, functioning cell signal and thinking that for his next job, a satellite cell would be just the thing. He could have had one this time if they'd all been willing to wait an hour longer to wade through the ops tech snafu they'd encountered while simultaneously briefing him and hustling him to the private plane that had flown him in as cargo.
But no. They all hadn't. So he'd had this one turned off to save the battery until he found a signal worth trying—and, in this case, a signal far enough away from Aymal so he wouldn't lead anyone straight to the man he was protecting.
For he had to assume it was possible—he'd been assuming it was possible. Otherwise he'd have taken a more direct approach to the local CIA station, a small printing house affiliated with the very paper for which he'd created his reporter persona. The bad guys were probably waiting to hear from him as eagerly as the good guys, however those bad guys were tapping in
to local CIA communications.
Bad guys he'd once trusted with his life.
But before he could call at all, he'd had to wait until he knew they weren't being tailed—and until he could safely stash Aymal for up to half a day. Now, sitting on a large rock formation with the city at his back and the sun setting before him, he had the almost undeniable urge to call Selena—just as she had called him all those months ago. Just to say Hi, I'm in trouble and I need you to know that I love you.
Except the local station would be watching for calls from this phone, and so were the bad guys. They'd learn his location. And if the worst came of it, then Cole damn well didn't want Selena to live with the guilt that she had been the cause.
She was like that, his Selena. Cool and calm, a fierce lawyer warrior, all full of emotion on the inside and never sure what to do with it. Never quite seeing that it was her heart that allowed her to make such an impact on him. On others, when it came to that. Would that fool Dobry have even thought to hassle her if her intensity didn't come through? Cole snorted softly to himself. I don't think so.
So he wouldn't call her. He wouldn't hear her voice, or the way it got husky when she was emotional. He wouldn't swap family what-ifs with her, tossing around baby names as if their efforts had already paid off. No, he'd sit on the rock and compose a text message to the station chief's Bat Phone. He thought briefly about pleading for rescue from Aymal, but decided on the more circumspect. Have package, need transportation, 20:00, here.
Heaven forbid if they couldn't trace his signal.
But Cole didn't expect that to be the problem. He was more concerned about leaving Aymal for all this time, even though he'd warned the man it would be a while. For he had no intention of retrieving Aymal to wait for the pickup; he had no intention of being out in the open when someone came this way to look for him. Nope, this was a test, pure and simple. Before he exposed the defector again—before he exposed himself—he'd see who came along for the ride this time around.
The station chief wouldn't be happy with him, of course.
Oh, well.
Cole took a deep breath. Finally, he was doing something other than running and hiding. Finally time to move out…even to strike back, if he got a good look at anyone this evening. He stood on top of his rock formation—the square, chunky rocks everywhere to be found in this part of Berzhaan—and stretched, a defiant see-if-I-care move that let the cold night air rush into the warmth of his enveloping abaya.
The red- and salmon-washed horizon tilted.
Whoa. Rather than fight his suddenly precarious balance, Cole jumped from the rocky pedestal to control his landing. Whoa. His side burned, cranking up the dizzies, and he bent over his knees to let it pass. After an endless moment, he straightened and gingerly slipped his hand beneath his abaya to hold it over the absurd flesh wound that suddenly didn't seem so absurd at all. Just behind the bone of his hip, where he'd never been able to see it, only feel it. Hoo, boy, could he feel it now.
Great.
Cole knew better than to take any infection for granted, even an absurd little flesh-wound infection. Not when it flared up while he was on the run in an undeveloped area—not when it flared up on a part that couldn't be cut off if things went really bad. You couldn't have been a splinter in my finger?
Aymal's time-sensitive information wasn't the only reason he needed to hurry.
AGABAJI'S HAD TURNED RAUCOUS and rough, the playground of bad boys who figured they'd earned themselves some fun. The whores there were clearly used to it, although they were modest by American standards. Decently covered, they rarely did more than peer out from behind the ornate and torn old screen that "hid" the way to the back rooms. Selena tipped back her second bottle of lukewarm fizzy water and stopped herself from making a face out of sheer willpower. God, I hate this stuff. But ask for plain bottled water and you might well end up with tap water in a reused bottle. Right now the last thing she needed was intestinal difficulties. Her stomach was touchy enough under emotional stress.
"Hey, S'lena!" One of the regulars hailed her from across the room. He'd started early tonight, and it hadn't been with fizzy water. "C'mon over here and be sosh'ble!"
She waved back at him, hardly more than the wiggle of her fingers. "Busy!"
"You don't look—" But that was as far as the greasy little man got before his friends hauled him back to their own table, jeering him and sending Selena sideways glances just to see if she'd taken offense.
Hmm. She should have come back to Berzhaan sooner. It seemed the respect factor had gone up a notch or two since she'd taken on the Kemenis and won. Go, Taz.
Another man moved away from the bar and invited himself to sit at her table, his movements steady. "You're buying?" He could have been Berzhaani, given his coloring—or, with that accent, just over the line into Russia.
"Information, yes," Selena told him, shifting to Russian. "Drinks, no. Everyone here is drunk enough without my help."
He grinned. No, he wasn't nearly as far gone as the rest of them. His gaze was sharp when it met hers and he easily replied in Russian. "The Kemenis aren't the only ones who want Americans out of this place."
"No!" Selena affected shock. "You're just trying to hurt my feelings."
"If there are Kemenis left over and nursing a grudge, they might connect with like-minded people."
"There's one dead Kemeni who might have done that," Selena allowed. She'd know for sure if Betzer hadn't rushed in to save the day, dammit. She'd have to tell the station chief that the man had interfered, however good his intentions—if he made a habit of tangling with the area ops, he'd need encouragement to stop.
"I might be able to get you more information about such men."
"And this has what to do with the man I'm looking for?"
Her erstwhile informant shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Sometimes these things are all tied together."
"Sometimes they are," she agreed. "I'm looking for something a little more immediate, however."
Another grin, showing a tooth going bad amongst what could otherwise have been a Colgate smile. "Americans. Instant gratification."
"We are a sadly spoiled people." Selena nodded at this thoughtful truth and then abruptly thumped the glass bottle on the table, splashing fizzy water and not caring. "You got something for me? Or you just want to play?"
He did a good job of covering his quick startle at the sudden movement and noise. "Play games, I think. Go back to where it all started, American lady. If you can find him, then maybe I'll trust you with what else I know."
She considered pointing out to him that if she found Cole, she'd be gone; he'd have to hunt up someone new to sell his information to. But she didn't want to put him off entirely. She might need to come back to him.
Cole, who'd left blood on the seat of his getaway vehicle.
Cole, who held Aymal's life in his hands—and by extension, the lives of a whole school of children.
She opted for the noncommittal. "If I come back looking for you, I'll need a name."
"No," he said, and gave her that jarringly almost perfect smile. "You won't. I'll find you."
Oh, be like that then. She shrugged, an implication that the loss was his, and returned her attention to the fizzy water. Yuck, she still hated it. The Russian nodded—an exchange of dismissals, everyone saving face—and pushed away from the table.
It was an opportune time for her phone to ring. Not so long ago a cell phone ring tone would have caught the attention of everyone in the place, but times they were a-changin'. Of late, Berzhaan had seen a high-tech trickle to its freelance "security specialists" and terrorists alike. Sometimes she liked to image the actual content of the calls she saw come in to these rough men. Mujaahid, get back home this instant! Mujaahid Junior has a Young Terrorists Class in forty-five minutes. And bring home some eggs!
Or not.
She flipped her phone open and didn't even have the chance to offer a greeting before the station chief's
brusque tones. "Ms. BLUEMAN," he said. "JOXLEITNER has made contact. We'll have him and his companion in friendly hands before the evening is over."
Selena almost couldn't take it in. She'd been so focused on doing something, on finding him…the Taz in her whirled right on ahead, unable to stop. Focused. Find Cole. Find him now.
Then her inner Taz hit the end of her psychic leash and yanked to a disorienting stop. "You have him?" she repeated, knowing she sounded vacant and unable to stop herself.
"We will. He'll be going straight to continued transportation. You have that option as well."
Hell, yes.
"Just tell me where and when." It was all she could do to keep from running out of the bar right then and there—but she still had to connect with Dobry.
Although Dobry might well want to hang around and ingratiate himself to the station chief, make sure the man knew that he and Selena were on the right track and had accomplished much already.
"Return to your hotel," the man said. "Once we've established possession, we'll let you know." From the tone of his voice, he was about to end the call.
"Wait!" Selena took a deep breath. "If he had the means to reach you, why not before now?"
For the first time she heard irritation in the man's voice. "That's something we'll be asking JOXLEITNER when we have the opportunity." And he did hang up.
Selena flipped the phone closed and stared at it, so irrationally filled with euphoria that she dared not move at all. He's coming home. It didn't matter that she hadn't been the one to find him, or even that she'd been hauled out to look with no apparent need. He'd gone underground for his own reasons, and she'd know them eventually.
He's coming home. A deep breath, and another.
Abruptly, common sense intruded. She needed to call Dobry, let him know she was heading out and make sure he had the chance to come along. She reached for the phone again, and this time she didn't care that her hand wasn't quite steady. Trembles of joy…totally allowed. But before she'd even hit the fast-dial number she'd assigned to Dobry's phone, he came striding through the entrance. He still moved in character, and he still greeted her in his gravelly Goff voice. But his demeanor had changed—had become frustrated and more purposeful at the same time.
Comeback Page 10
