East of the Jordan (A Logan Connor Thriller Book 2)

by Micheal Maxwell

  Eric caught up to him. They tried to look as if they weren’t traveling together. Eric lagged behind a little.

  He said, “I think I lost one of my tickets.”

  “Nope. This is the last plane.”

  Eric said, “But we’re in the wrong country.”

  Logan chuckled, “Welcome to spy life. Is it as glamorous as you thought?”

  Eric beamed. “More.”

  They walked to a taxi stand in front of the airport. A cab driver leaned against the hood of his cab, smoking a cigarette. His dark skin was dried and cracked by the sun and looked like worn leather. He studied Logan and Eric.

  He said, “Amriki?” That was easy enough to translate.

  Logan shook his head. “Australian.”

  Eric said, “Israeli.”

  The cab driver replied, “Halkee u?”

  Logan and Eric looked at each other. They didn’t know what he was asking. Logan said, “Kismaayo?”

  The cab driver smiled and nodded, then he hopped in the driver’s side of the car. Kismaayo was a city in southern Somalia. It would get them that much closer to Ethiopia.

  In Kismaayo, they paid the cab driver in dollars. By then, the sun was already going down. They could have found another cab and pressed on, but it was best not to try to cross borders under cover of darkness. The border guards in Kenya likely would have taken note of two white guys crossing the border from Somalia in the middle of the night. It raised too many questions. Why were an Aussie and an Israeli traveling together? Why were they in Somalia of all places? Why were they in such a hurry to get out of Somalia that they’d travel at night? It was more questions than Logan wanted to answer.

  Sometimes, being a white guy really hindered his spycraft. His shoddy grasp of language hurt him too. Eric would make a better spy than he ever would. He spoke several languages and could learn them pretty quickly. Also, an Israeli was about the only blonde person who wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows in the Middle East and North Africa.

  They walked through the dusty street in Kismaayo. There was no war in Somalia at the moment, but the reminders were everywhere. Entire sand-colored buildings were exposed by bomb pressure waves. The facades of some buildings were peeled away. Rubble was piled at the base of the buildings in loose mountains. Then, other structures looked like new construction of stucco and plaster. Were they untouched by the random nature of a bomb, or were built after the bombing?

  They walked past bombed-out buildings as cars bumped and bounced along the dusty streets. There were a few stop signs but no stoplights. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to the stop signs anyway.

  They walked up to a building that looked like a Marriott anywhere in the world. Metal detectors were on the doors, but other than that, there was no sign of any strife that ripped Somalia in half recently. The sign on the building was written in Arabic, Somali, and English. In English, it said “Hagar Hotel.”

  That would work. The pair walked in.

  Eric decided to do the talking. Logan could handle himself in Arabic, but it was years since he used it.

  There was only one other person in the lobby of the hotel. A man sat on a couch with his feet up on a coffee table. He was watching BBC and texting on his phone. He looked up when they walked in, then went right back to watching BBC. He was a balding man with a slight paunch and an indentation where a wedding ring used to be.

  Eric walked up to a man sitting behind the counter. He was drinking tea from a metal coffee cup and watching something on his phone.

  In Arabic, Eric said, “Hello, we’re looking to get two rooms.”

  He held his finger to his lips to shush Eric. He turned his attention back to his phone. Eric leaned over the counter to see what he was watching. It was BBC News Somali. Eric couldn’t hear what the reporter was saying, but it was a replay of footage from the stylite tower. He saw Abu Kishaa standing on the pillar, speaking. Fire shot out of his hands. He kept talking for a few more seconds and then began to levitate.

  The man shook his head and muttered something in Somali.

  He turned to Eric and showed Eric the phone. In Arabic, he said, “Have you seen this guy?”

  Eric said, “Yes.”

  The man replied, “He insults the name of God. The God the beneficent and the merciful.”

  Eric asked, “What if he really is a prophet?”

  The man groaned and shook his head. “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.”

  “Could Muhammad do that?” Eric asked.

  The man turned his phone off and tossed it on the desk. He seemed genuinely disgusted by it. “Camera tricks. A trick of the light. You can do many things with editing now. Rooms? Yes? You want rooms.”

  That’s weird, Logan thought. The other guy is watching the BBC too, but it’s showing a soccer game, not Abu Kishaa. Odd.

  Eric nodded, he paid the man, and was handed two keys.

  Eric tried to grab the keys, but the man held them for a second. He leaned close and said in a serious tone, “You should pray for God’s forgiveness that you even questioned him for this false messiah.”

  Eric took the keys and walked towards the hallway. Logan followed him.

  Logan asked, “What was that about?”

  Eric replied, “He’s not a fan of Abu Kishaa.”

  Logan snorted. “Smart man.”

  Eric shot back, “You saw what he can do.”

  Logan replied, “I don’t know what I saw. I know I was higher than a California redwood.”

  “I was sober when he was on the tower.”

  That’s true. I was stoned out of my mind, and a lot of stuff looks different on camera, but Sydney said she saw him shoot fire too. How to explain that?

  They got to their room and started the standard sweep. Sydney seemed to have taught Eric well.

  He went into the bathroom and turned the shower on to create some white noise. Then, he started running his hands over every surface in the room. He felt under the tables, around the light fixtures, under the windowsills, and everywhere else. Logan unplugged the clock and the phone. There was no TV in the room.

  They moved to the adjoining room and did the same sweep.

  Logan asked, “Did you notice the guy in the lobby?”

  Eric said, “Yeah, what about him?”

  Logan replied, “Did you notice anything weird about him?” He wasn’t testing Eric. Something was odd about that guy, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Damn, he needed to shake the dust off.

  Eric replied, “Other than the fact he was watching TV in English?”

  “He was?”

  Eric said, “Yeah. They must have satellite here.”

  Logan froze while crouched under a desk, sweeping the lamp for bugs. There is only one hotel in the area, and there happens to be a guy watching BBC in English there? Nope. He wasn’t allowed to believe in coincidences.

  He rolled out from under the desk. “We’ve got to move.”

  “Huh?” Eric asked.

  Logan replied, “This smells like a trap.”

  Eric frowned. “Because he was watching TV in English?”

  Logan replied, “Yep. Sometimes, that’s the only clue you get. If the hunter slips up, the deer has to bolt.”

  Logan went to the door and pushed it open a crack. He leaned his head around to check to make sure they were clear. He signaled for Eric to follow him.

  They shuffled as quietly as they could through the hallway, then pushed into the stairwell at the end of the hall. Logan scampered down the stairs, barely holding onto the railing. Eric followed him down.

  As they neared the ground floor, the door opened. Logan froze. The man who was watching TV earlier stepped through. Logan spun on his toes and sprinted back up the stairs. Eric did the same.

  The man saw them and started running after them. Okay, so they were definitely being hunted.

  Logan and Eric took the stairs two at a time. The man stalked after them, devouring the stairs just as quickly.<
br />
  They reached the landing for the second floor. Logan went in, grabbed Eric by the back of his shirt, and pulled him in too. He closed the door behind them. It didn’t lock. Damn.

  They were at the end of a long hallway. The stairs were out of the question; whoever that guy may be, he was on the stairs. The doors to the rooms were probably locked, so there was no getting in that way. They were pinned. Logan slipped up again.

  He pressed his back to the door. Eric followed suit.

  The man from downstairs tried to push the door, but the two of them held the door closed.

  Logan shouted through the door, “Who are you?”

  The man shouted back, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  Through the door, the man yelled, “Are you CIA? MI-6? Mossad?”

  Logan responded, “You first, buddy.”

  Logan wanted to keep him talking. He spoke with an accent that Logan couldn’t quite place; it wasn’t Middle Eastern, that he could tell. It sounded to Logan like it might be African.

  The man called back, “I’m just here to investigate destabilizing forces in the Middle East and North Africa.”

  “Destabilizing” was a pretty sizable word for a second language speaker. He must have been speaking English as a first language.

  African accent and English as a first language? There were only a few countries in Africa that spoke English as a first language. Eric was thinking the same thing because he whispered, “West Africa.”

  Okay. West Africa. Time to give up a little information to get a little information back.

  “Name’s Niles Landon. Australian Secret Intelligence. My associate is Binyamin Rabin, Israeli Military Intelligence. We’re investigating a cult growing in the region. Your turn.”

  It was all a lie, but it was somewhat close to the truth. Good covers always were. This man would give him a story that was close to the truth to make it convincing.

  “Adam Jawara, Gambia National Army.”

  That was almost certainly not true, but it did place him in West Africa. That part would be genuine. It would be easier for a fellow West African to fake a Gambian accent convincingly.

  “Why are you following us?” Logan asked.

  The man replied, “I know where you have come from. You are followers of the prophet in the desert.”

  They must have been monitoring all flights from Jordan. If Eric was in the telecast from the stylite tower, agencies would have been used facial recognition technology to find him. This operation just got a lot more complicated.

  Logan replied, “We’re going to back away from the door. Come through slowly with your hands where I can see them.”

  “Okay.”

  Logan and Eric pushed away from the door and spun on their toes to face it. They assumed ready fighting stances.

  The man came through with his palms held out in front of him. He wore a dark blue business suit with no tie and two buttons on his shirt undone.

  “You carrying?” Logan asked.

  Adam nodded. “Of course.”

  Eric said, “Mind handing it over?”

  “Not going to happen.” Adam studied them. “You’re just children. The prophet of the dunes sends white children to do his bidding?”

  Eric shot back, “I’m not a child.”

  Adam chuckled. “Precisely what a child would say.” He paused and then added, “I’m going to put my hands down.”

  He lowered his hands. Eric and Logan didn’t relax.

  Logan asked, “Why are you tracking the prophet?”

  Adam replied, “Someone killed a drug lord in Benin, a man who called himself Menelaus. All of West Africa has been in turmoil ever since. When you have been in my business as long as I have, you know one thing: drugs abhor a vacuum.”

  Logan followed. “And you’re investigating any leads that might be about to grab the scraps of his empire.”

  “My investigation has led me to the prophet of sand.”

  It was solid investigative work. Adam managed to grab a few threads and was trying to weave them together. It’s what Logan would have done.

  Adam narrowed his eyes, “Are you really working for the prophet?”

  Eric replied emphatically, “We work diligently to bring his kingdom to earth.”

  Adam studied Logan’s eyes. The amount of information he seemed to be collecting unnerved Logan. Logan decided to redirect.

  “Do you know who killed this drug lord? Menelaus, was it?” Logan asked.

  Adam, from somewhere in West Africa, nodded. “Yes, we know exactly who did it. Logan Connor.”

  Crap.

  The West African agent dropped his hands to his coat. With his left hand, he flung open his suit coat. With his right, he snatched a pistol out of a shoulder holster. He moved quickly as a cobra. Logan leaped forward. Just as the gun cleared the holster, Logan’s shoulder hit Adam in the chest.

  Logan wrapped his arms around Adam, and they both crashed to the hallway floor. The gun barked. Logan’s ears rang with a high-pitched squeal. That’s something movies never get right. When a weapon is fired inside, everybody goes temporarily deaf. Logan didn’t feel any searing pain as if he’d been shot. Adam must have missed, or the gun just accidentally fired.

  Logan rolled over, grabbing Adam’s pistol hand with both of his hands. He lay on his back on top of the African spy, holding onto his gun hand. The gun barked again, and Logan winced at the sharp crack of the round. The bullet punched a hole in the ceiling, causing drywall to cascade down like snowfall.

  The stairwell door flew open. The concierge from the front desk burst into the hallway. He carried a pistol grip AK-47 with a short barrel. He pointed the gun at Logan and Adam wrestling on the floor.

  He shouted in Arabic. “Everybody, freeze. Hands up.”

  Logan put his hands over his head and rolled off of Adam. Adam lifted his hands with his gun in one hand. The concierge pointed his AK at the firearm.

  “Drop it.”

  The West African agent let the gun drop to the floor.

  The concierge directed them with the muzzle of his rifle. “Get up. On your feet. Let’s go.”

  Logan and Adam got to their feet. Eric stood behind them with his hands over his head.

  The concierge snarled at them. “You come into my hotel, and you shoot holes in my ceiling.” He switched to broken English. “‘It is just Somalia.’ ‘They are just savages. We go there, and we shoot up the place.’ This is what you Westerners say.”

  Adam took a step forward. He pleaded with the concierge in Somali. “Dhageyso, uma maleynayo…”

  Logan sprinted forward. He stepped on Adam’s discarded gun and kicked it back across the floor. He leaped forward, kicking Adam in the back with both of his feet, driving the man ahead. Eric knelt and picked up the sliding gun. Adam’s arms flailed out to the side. He collided with the concierge, and both of them went toppling to the floor.

  Logan didn’t slow his momentum. He hopped over both of them and into the stairwell. He didn’t even look back to see if Eric was behind him. If the kid was smart, he was back there.

  Logan leaped down the entire half-flight of stairs to the landing. He landed with a thud and scampered down the next set of stairs. He reached the bottom floor. Logan pushed the door open and sprinted into the lobby.

  He took the chance to look over his shoulder. Eric was sprinting behind him with a pistol in one hand.

  As he ran across the lobby, he listened for the stairwell door to close. It didn’t.

  Logan took another look over his shoulder. The concierge was running after him with his AK-47 in one hand, and Adam was behind him. The concierge aimed his gun and sprayed a burst of 7.62mm bullets. Logan ducked around a corner as the bullets ripped a seam open in the wall.

  I thought he was opposed to shooting holes in the walls.

  He shouldered the front door open and sprinted out into the night. He was instantly struck by how dark it was. It was dark out there in a way the western world
never was. There were no streetlights anywhere to be seen. White lightbulb light streamed out of a few windows and others were painted blue with television light. Generators hummed behind a few houses. Other than that, the only light was stars. The only sound was his footsteps.

  A spray of gunfire ripped open the silence. Bullets pattered around Logan’s feet. He kept running.

  Behind him, he heard the concierge yelling into his phone. He didn’t make out what he was saying except for “wallahi.”

  He’d only been running for a few minutes when his breathing started to get ragged. His legs were beginning to throb, and his lungs began to burn. My god, I’m out of shape.

  Eric caught up with him. He didn’t seem to be winded at all. “What’s the plan?”

  Between gasping, ragged breaths, Logan said, “We need a vehicle. We’ve got to get the hell out of Somalia.”

  “I thought you said, you know, the stuff about crossing borders and all that,” Eric responded.

  Logan shot back, “That was before we were getting chased by guys with machine guns.”

  Eric replied, “Good point.”

  Logan turned a corner and pressed his back to a wall. Eric followed him.

  Logan asked, “Do you remember which direction is the river?”

  Eric closed his eyes and tried to visualize a map of Somalia. “Okay, ummm, the coast is to the east. So, the river should be northwest.”

  Logan looked up at the sky. The moon was only a sliver, but it shone bright and pearly. He didn’t know moon stuff very well. He knew it generally rose somewhere around the east and set somewhere around the west. That changed from day to day, but it was generally true.

  The moon was to his right, and it wasn’t midnight yet, so he must be facing north. Going forward and to the left would take them northwest to the river. He hoped.

  He grabbed Eric’s arm. “This way.”

  They ran in that direction, weaving from street to street. It wasn’t so fast that it could be called a sprint, but the pace was kicking Logan’s ass. If he lived through this, he needed to hit a treadmill more often.

  They didn’t hear the concierge or Adam from somewhere in West Africa again. Could they have managed to slip them that easily? Why didn’t the concierge chase him? Adam was working a job, but the concierge just wanted him out of their hotel. Right? Who did the concierge call?