Compromised

by Tom Saric

  Then he saw Sami coming towards him, weaving through the crowd. Islam must have followed his eyes and spotted Sami too, since he folded up his newspaper, straightened in his seat, and cocked his head to the side as though he was cracking his neck.

  “Doctor.” Sami waved.

  Islam pushed his chair back and rose. Across the street, the van door slid open. One of the men emerged, holding a machine gun. A crescendo of screams and shouts spread through the crowd. A clear line of sight developed between the van and Paul as people scattered in either direction away from the gunman like a flock of birds. Islam moved in Sami’s direction.

  Paul grasped the two steaming mugs of tea, sprung out of his chair, and splashed them in Islam’s face, sending him back a step.

  Without hesitation, Paul ran up the street after Sami, who was already in a full sprint, twenty yards ahead. The crowd dispersed in front of him. Paul sped up and entered the sea of people. He pushed himself harder, darting between bodies. He kept his attention focused ahead on Sami, who weaved effortlessly through the crowd.

  He passed two more buildings before he finally caught up with Sami. They took cover at the corner of a Pharmacy. Paul peered around the corner towards the van. The street was nearly deserted.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Paul said.

  “You needed my help.”

  Two of the masked gunmen ran in their direction, taking aim. Paul spun back around the corner and laid face down as they fired a series of rounds at him. The shots hit the corner of the building, chipping off chunks of concrete debris. Sami pulled Paul up, and they started up the street.

  A black pickup truck with two gunmen crouching in the box sped past them towards Hadad’s men, kicking up a cloud of dust as it fishtailed around the corner. Paul recognized the moneychanger he had seen moments earlier. He kept running, trying to keep pace with Sami, and he heard an exchange of fire around the corner.

  Sami pulled keys from his pocket and tossed them to Paul. “You drive.” He pointed at the SUV parked up ahead.

  “Me?” Paul fumbled with the key, trying to keep stride. “What are you going to do?”

  Sami reached for his belt, pulled out a handgun and pulled back the chamber. “I’ll protect us.”

  They jumped in the SUV. Paul shifted into gear and floored the gas pedal, spinning the wheels. They tore up the street.

  “What the fuck is going on, Sami?”

  “I wonder the same thing.” Sami was completely turned around in the passenger seat, looking through the rear window.

  “I just got tortured by these guys.” he held up his bandaged hand. “Because they wanted you.”

  “Why did you not tell me you were the one who gave me with the manifest?” Sami looked both ways as they raced through an intersection.

  “Because.” Paul braked hard and swerved, avoiding a parked car. “No one’s supposed to know! But they found out. How the fuck did they find out? I need some --” He saw the white van approaching in the rear view mirror. “Shit, they’re behind us.”

  Sami looked back. “Go faster.” He climbed into the back seat.

  They were several blocks away from Café Americka and the streets were again congested with pedestrians. Paul steered the car through the crowds and braked hard to avoid rear-ending the parked cars that seemed to emerge from nowhere.

  BANG! The rear window spider-webbed around the hole of a gunshot. Paul looked in his side mirror. One of the Hadad’s gunmen hung out of the van’s passenger side window, taking aim.

  “Swerve,” Sami turned, “don’t let them get the tires.”

  Paul spun the wheel hard at the next intersection, causing the truck to fishtail. The bumper scraped against the side of a building.

  The momentum of the turn sent Sami smashing against the door. He righted himself, took aim through the rear window, and fired. Paul startled as he heard the rear window shatter. He glanced at his side mirror. The top half of the gunman’s body was slumped, hanging out of the window.

  “Nice shot.”

  Paul looked ahead. The road ended in a sea of red umbrella-topped merchant stands. The outdoor market. Paul slammed the brakes with enough force that he felt as though he were putting his foot through the floor of the SUV.

  Dust from the road and smoke from the brakes rose around the van. Paul cranked the steering wheel to the right, sending the SUV skidding sideways, but more slowly, until it stopped mere feet from the nearest vegetable stand.

  Paul looked out the open passenger window. Hadad’s white van drove through the crowd of people thirty feet away. It accelerated; he could hear the engine straining, about to ram the side of the SUV. Paul shifted the SUV into gear and pressed on the accelerator.

  Paul would swear that the gearshift locked on him as the SUV didn’t move. At that point, he was only vaguely aware of Sami yelling go, go, go because his attention was focused on the imminent collision. The sound of metal scraping against metal was the first thing he noticed. Then, a split second later, the entire passenger side of the SUV bent inwards around the front of Hadad’s van, the interior plastic finish cracked, sending splinters flying across the vehicle. The force sent Paul’s head through the driver’s side window. He thought he heard screams outside from the crowd.

  He turned around and saw Sami pull himself out from between the seats, raise his gun, and fire several shots through the window towards the van. Blood ran from Sami’s nose, and Paul could tell from his vacant expression that he had probably hit his head as well.

  Paul found the door handle, swung the driver’s side door open, and hobbled out of the SUV. Sami came out of the rear driver’s side door and fired a few more aimless rounds at the van. Sami held the gun high and pointed it towards the van as he walked carefully around the SUV towards the mangled mass of busted metal on the other side. Paul followed closely behind, limping with each step. Steam and smoke rose up from the van’s hood. The engine sizzled. Sami swung the driver’s side door open. The driver’s head lay sideways on the steering wheel, streaks of blood running down his face. Sami leaned in and glanced inside.

  “Where are the others?” he held the gun to the man’s head.

  The man lips moved slowly, and he barely managed to form a word: “Gone.”

  Paul stepped in front of Sami, and pulled the man by the hair, knocking his head back into the headrest. “Hadad,” Paul said. “He was with you.”

  “He suspected,” he took a deep breath, “that you told him.” He motioned towards Sami.

  “Where is he now?” Paul commanded.

  The man closed his eyes and pursed his lips. Paul slammed the man’s head into the steering wheel. His face was inches from the man’s bloody face, “tell me where he is.”

  The corners of the man’s mouth curled upwards into a wry smile. “The port.”

  Paul let go of the driver’s head and turned to Sami.

  “A distraction?” Paul said. “Why is he going through all this trouble?”

  “Because,” Sami put a finger in front of Paul’s face. “Your manifest was wrong.”

  “What are you talking about? There are weapons on that ship, aren’t there?”

  “There are weapons,” Sami paused. “But not the kind that were on the manifest you gave me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “One of the containers has nuclear explosives, small ones, one a man can carry himself.”

  “That’s impossible; something like that would have been on the manifest.”

  “Unless someone didn’t want anyone to know about it.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  Sami nodded. “All thirteen.”

  “Are they at the port?”

  Sami nodded. “I have several men guarding it, but we may not have enough. We knew that Asabiyyah would try to take them and we heard they hired Kadar Hadad. So when you called, I came with half of my men, and we planned to take them out here, rather than fight them at the port.”

  “You sho
uldn’t have risked the weapons by splitting up your men.”

  “I had to. You saved Ali.”

  “Hadad is probably at the port by now. You have to stop him. You have to go to the port.”

  Sami nodded. “We’re short on men, you’re coming, too.”

  11

  The needle passed eighty as Paul pressed down on the gas. The brush on the sides of the highway was nothing more than a blur. The car jarred over each pothole and crack in the crumbling road. Sami sat in the passenger seat with a knapsack on his lap.

  They borrowed the puke-green 1985 Mercedes-Benz from a man Sami called uncle. The designation did not provide any real information on the man’s relationship to Sami, as ‘uncle’ could refer to anyone from one’s mother’s brother to the grocery store clerk, provided they were older than you. They abandoned the crumpled SUV at the market and ran to the uncle’s home two blocks away. He wasn’t home, but his car was parked outside, so Sami showed Paul how to hotwire the Mercedes. First try to shove a screwdriver into the ignition; if that does not work, open the steering column and connect the red wires. Method one didn’t work, but when they connected the red wires, the car groaned awake.

  Paul downshifted as the port came into view. Sunlight sparkled off the turquoise sea. A chain link fence ran along the perimeter. Paul saw no sign of Hadad. There were no gunshots, no smoke, and no carnage. Just business as usual at the port.

  “Turn left up there.” Sami pointed at the upcoming intersection. “The ship is at the last dock. Drive slowly.”

  The Benz climbed the steep incline towards the far dock. They drove a few minutes up the road, which traversed a ridge lined with palm trees and was wide enough for only one car. The ridge overlooked the dock several hundred feet below. This area had razor wire running along the top of the fence. Through a clearing in the palm trees, the Stebelsky became visible.

  “Stop here,” Sami instructed.

  Paul parked the vehicle and stepped out. Sami stood at the edge of the ridge and looked at the dock through a pair of binoculars. Paul stepped right to the edge, spilling a few pieces of gravel over, and looked down. The dock was at least three hundred feet below. An army-green canopy truck idled at the entrance, while several men loaded boxes into it.

  “Is that your truck?”

  Sami shook his head and said, “Hadad.”

  “I thought you had men guarding it.”

  Sami handed the binoculars to Paul.

  Paul scanned the docks. Because of the commotion, he couldn’t tell how many of Hadad’s men were loading the canopy truck, maybe four, but he recognized one of them as Islam. He did not see Hadad.

  He kept the binoculars trained on the tarmac. Six bodies, men in fatigues, lay motionless. He put the binoculars down.

  Sami looked at the scene without blinking. They were his men after all, Paul thought. The man had almost lost his nephew and now had lost at least six men, friends of his.

  “I’m sorry about your men,” Paul said, and meant it, although he didn’t think it came out sincerely.

  The sadness seemed to leave Sami’s face, replaced by a stern and resolute expression. He unzipped his knapsack, removed a handgun and held it out to Paul, handle first.

  “Do you know how to use it?”

  “It’s been a while,” Paul said.

  Sami raised an eyebrow at that.

  “I was in the infantry for five years before I became a medic. Let’s just say I’m rusty.”

  Sami said: “We have to get down there before they take off.”

  Over the ridge was a drop-off of about ten feet or so, at the bottom of which a steep hill led down to the dock. The entire surface of the hill was bare, composed of soft white rock and gravel. It was as if the entire dockyard had been dynamited out of the rock. “We have to find a way to get to them.”

  Sami pointed down, over the ridge.

  Paul scoffed, “They’ll shoot us halfway down. There’s no cover.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Sami grabbed Paul’s hand and slapped the gun into his palm. “You point it and then pull the trigger.” Sami smiled. “You don’t have to shoot anyone, just shoot at them. I will do the rest.”

  Paul hesitated and stared at the gun in his hand. “Why are you doing this?” Paul asked. Sami tilted his head to the side. “Trying to stop them. You don’t need to. I mean, they’re leaving most of the cargo; you can still sell it, make money. No sense risking your life.”

  “I do not need money. I used to think if I had enough, I would be able to live with my family in peace. But you cannot buy peace and security. Not in this place.”

  Sami pulled the gun from his belt holster, turned, and without the slightest hesitation, jumped over the ridge.

  It crossed his mind to turn around and hop in the car, drive home, and sleep. Pretend that it was all a bad dream. Sami’s words—you can’t buy security—propelled him over the edge.

  He landed ten feet below on the steep slope. His feet dug into the gravel. He tried to shift his weight onto his back, but the momentum from the fall carried him forward and he tumbled into a somersault. He focused on not letting the gun slip out of his hand. As he came out of a somersault, he dug his heels ankle deep into the fine pebbles and leaned back, dragging his hands through the gravel. He slowed to a stop. The burning from the abrasions started to set in.

  Ahead, Sami was halfway down to the base of the slope, traversing the decline by skillfully slaloming side to side.

  Paul scrambled to his feet and followed in the same way, trying desperately to keep up. He hit a rhythm, bounding side-to-side, using gravity to go faster. Then, his right foot caught a large rock and again sent him tumbling head over feet, but with more torque. His face smacked and then sunk into the gravel before his whole frame flipped him back upright. He stretched his arms out wide, begging for traction to slow his fall but the momentum made him fall faster.

  Uncontrollably fast.

  But he did stop. Halfway down the slope, he crashed into a boulder that jutted out from the hill. His chest absorbed the full impact of the collision.

  The gunmen saw his fall and took cover around the truck. Paul crouched behind the boulder and realized he’d lost the gun.

  Crack-crack-crack!

  Paul kept his back to the boulder as gunshots ricocheted around him. To his left, forty feet away, Sami fired.

  A bright light washed over the hill and Paul caught the sun’s reflection off the metal surface of his handgun. Ten feet over, in the open, his gun was embedded in the gravel. He slowly raised his head to look at the men down below. Three gunmen exchanged fire with Sami, and seemed to have temporarily forgotten about him. Paul leaned back against the boulder and took several deep breaths and then lunged out towards the gun.

  Crack-crack-crack!

  Gunfire sent dust flying all around him and he grabbed the gun’s handle, turned back, and dove behind the boulder again. He glanced at Sami who made a motion, first pointing at Paul, then at the gunmen down below.

  Paul poked out from behind the boulder and fired two shots in the direction of the truck. He had no idea where they landed, as he recoiled when the gunmen returned fire almost instantly. He saw Sami fire several shots and then heard two groans down below. Paul looked out and saw two gunmen face down.

  Paul fired two more rounds at the truck. This time there was no return fire. It fell quiet. A gust of wind sent dust into Paul’s eyes.

  He heard the truck engine gear up. Paul looked around the boulder. The truck rolled out of the fenced area and onto the road. He fired at the truck again but it started up the road and out of sight.

  Then, Bang! Bang!

  Those shots sounded different, louder, closer. He realized they came from above. Paul turned around. Sami collapsed onto the boulder he had been using for cover. His back arched over the rock. Atop the ridge one of the gunmen held an outstretched gun pointed at Sami.

  Paul ran towards the gunman, training the gun. He held the trigger as he r
an towards him, firing ten rounds before the man was able to turn. Two of them hit the mark, and he collapsed.

  Paul ran to Sami. He picked him up from the rock and cradled him in his arms. All he needed was the one second it took to look into Sami’s eyes to know he was dead. But Paul still checked for a pulse and did a set of twenty chest compressions. With each pump, he prayed that Sami’s eyes would open again.

  Paul fell onto his backside and stared at Sami’s body. The world seemed to slowly fade into darkness around him, so that only he was left, sitting on that hill. He placed the heel of his hands on his temples and pressed.

  12

  Stuttgart, Germany

  Major General Robert Kaczmareck kept talking on his cell phone even though the limousine had stopped at the destination in downtown Stuttgart five minutes earlier. Rows of cars honked as they passed by the illegally stopped limo, effectively narrowing the congested street from four lanes to three. The driver grew impatient, rolled down the window divider and gave a polite nod, to which the general responded by pressing the button that rolled the divider back up.

  “So it’s been taken, good.” He put the phone to his chest, leaned forward, knocked on the divider and motioned for the driver to open his door for him. He put the phone to his ear. “Now listen, do not call me on this number again.”

  He turned the phone off, stepped out of the open door, and walked right past the driver, without so much as a nod of acknowledgment. He adjusted the lapels on his olive green military suit, which was specially tailored to make his round frame appear more of a “V.” He adjusted the four rows of ribbons above his breast pocket and checked the alignment of his medals.

  General Kaczmareck entered the main doors of the half-moon-shaped skyscraper that housed the United States Africa Command Centre, or AFRICOM, as someone had mercifully shortened it. The interior was just as grand as the outside. Daylight shone through the tall glass façade, reflecting off the gray-blue granite floors and walls. He stopped at the security desk, checked in, emptied his pockets, and walked through the metal detectors to the elevators.