I wasn’t going to lie. If it wasn’t for Dead Six having my box, they could burn the entire city down and I wouldn’t give a damn. “They took something that belongs to me. I need to find them.”
“Not that I know where they are, but if I were to find such a thing, that information would be incredibly valuable to many people. I’m sure General Al Sabah, for instance, would be willing to pay a fortune.”
“So would Big Eddie,” I responded as I stopped in front of another booth featuring camel, the other, other white meat. Yum. “He’s got deeper pockets than the general, but you know how he feels about being exclusive,” I bluffed. I didn’t have access to Eddie’s resources, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it. “Does the name Dead Six mean anything to you?”
“Perhaps,” Jalal responded after a moment of thought. “I will be in touch.” The call ended.
I shook my head. Hopefully Jalal would come up with something. That man had his finger on the pulse of the city’s criminal heart. Now I was just going to have to work my sources until I found something about Dead Six that I could use. Well, why the hell not? I ordered a pound of camel. You only live once.
The short walk back to the apartment compound gave me a chance to think. I had one weapon I could use against Dead Six to get them in the open, young Jill Del Toro, but I was hesitant to utilize her. The idea made me uncomfortable. Carl had been right. I used people. That’s what I did. It didn’t mean I had to like it.
Carl had said that he was surprised that I was sticking my neck out for my family. They weren’t even my blood relations, but they had taken me in. They were the only people who’d ever been good to me. I had grown up on the streets, son of a drug-addled whore and a homicidal beast of a man. I’d been put to work stealing as soon as I was old enough not to get caught, and I had been an overachiever in that respect. By the time I was ten, there wasn’t a lock I couldn’t pick, no pocket I couldn’t get into undetected. I had been a tiny shrimp of a kid, and though that had been handy for fitting through various unsecured windows, it had made me look like an easy target for the other predators. I had solved that by developing a reputation for savage violence. Pipe, knife, chain, brick, it didn’t matter. I never fought fair. Cross me and I kill you.
I had kept that attitude into adulthood, and it had served me well. There had only been one point in my life where I hadn’t had to fight to survive. It had been brief, but I had appreciated it. The people in that manila folder were responsible for that, and I would be damned if I was going to let Big Eddie hurt them for it.
If that meant I had to hurt some other seemingly decent person . . . so be it. In the end it was all just an equation. Whatever I had to do to reach my goals was what was going to happen.
So why did I feel like such an asshole? I sighed as I ascended the steps to our apartment, bags in hand. This was why I stuck to robbing criminals, terrorists, and scumbags. The unfortunate downside of my time with a real family was that I had developed a finely tuned sense of guilt, damn Gideon and all his morals. I had managed to utterly squash my conscience for years, but it was bugging me now.
The apartment smelled . . . really good. “Okay, we’re in a Muslim country, where did you guys find bacon?”
Carl poked his head around the corner from the kitchen. “Same place I find beer. Whenever you buy groceries, everything is too hot or weird with tentacles and eyeballs and shit.”
“You do realize that the greatest thing your explorer ancestors ever accomplished was introducing the chili pepper to Thailand? That was awesome. That whole slave-trade thing . . . not so good.” I tossed my headdress on the couch and followed the smell of pig. Carl was cooking and Reaper was sitting at the table, listening to his conspiracy-theory radio.
Carl looked at my bags as I started unpacking. “You bought camel? Fucking camel? See? What did I just say?”
I realized the shower was running. “Where’s the girl?” I asked suspiciously.
“Jill’s in the bathroom,” Reaper replied dismissively.
I thought about it a second. “How long?” I snapped.
Reaper looked up, stringy hair in his face, disheveled as usual. He tended to keep weird nocturnal hours, fueled by sugar and energy drinks. “Uh . . . ten minutes?”
“There’s a window in there.” If she ran, it could ruin everything. I was across the apartment in an instant and jerked open the bathroom door. The room was fogged with steam. Jill was just stepping out of the shower, naked, absolutely gorgeous, and reaching for a towel. I froze.
“Hey!” she shouted as she quickly covered herself. “You mind?”
I backed out and closed the door.
Carl was waiting for me as I returned. “Thought of that. Window’s too small, and it’s a twenty-foot drop onto asphalt.” He shoved me a plate. “Jackass.”
Reaper was looking at me in awe. “So . . .”
I nodded. I was guessing that Jill worked out. A lot. “Smoking hot.”
“I knew it,” he sputtered, then grinned. “You know, we haven’t had a girl on the team since Kat—”
“She’s not on the team,” I snapped. “Don’t get too attached. Got it?”
Reaper looked down. “I just meant . . . never mind.” He stuck his earpieces back in. Carl studied me for a moment. I gave him a look just daring him to respond. He went back to his bacon.
Jill joined us for breakfast a minute later. Apparently Reaper had decided to help out and had loaned her a Rammstein T-shirt. She accepted the offered plate and sat down across from me, looking a bit indignant. “Next time you should knock.”
I took my time and finished chewing. “Next time you shouldn’t get kidnapped by terrorists.”
“Touché,” she replied. “Fair enough. But just so you know, I’m not going to try and escape, I promise. Who am I going to run to? The cops? That worked real good last time. So . . . mind if I ask a few questions?” When I didn’t respond, she must have taken that as a yes. “What kind of criminals are you?”
The other two looked to me and waited, as if saying, this should be interesting. “The strong silent type that doesn’t talk about their work in polite company,” I replied slowly. “As in, it’s none of your business.”
“Okay, fine. How about, what do we do now?”
Pausing, I wiped my mouth with a napkin. It wasn’t like I could just tell her I was waiting for some sort of contact so I could trade her for the box. I took a moment to compose my response. “You’re going to lay low. We’re going to find Dead Six.”
“Well, I know why I don’t like them, but what’s in it for you?” She was suspicious of my motives, which meant she wasn’t stupid.
“Let’s just say that they have something I want and leave it at that.”
“When you find them, are you going to . . . kill them?” she asked.
“That’s a definite possibility. Does that offend you?”
“No. I just wanted to see if you needed any help.” Jill actually smiled. “It’s still kind of sinking in, but these people ruined my life. As long as they’re out there, I can’t go home.”
I don’t think she realized yet that she could never go home. Once you’ve witnessed a rogue government operation murder US citizens and they’d already reported you as KIA, it was time to just walk away and get a new name. She was now on the official to-do-list. “This isn’t amateur hour. We’re highly trained professionals. What exactly are you bringing to the table?”
“I can take care of myself,” Jill responded.
“No kidding,” Reaper said. His face was still swollen. “Where’d you learn to fight like that? Not that I couldn’t have, you know . . . taken you out, but you surprised me is all.” Carl and I both openly scoffed at him. Reaper couldn’t fight his way out of a cardboard box. “Whatever.”
“My dad owned a martial-arts studio. He taught us how to defend ourselves. I grew up in kind of a rough neighborhood, so it came in handy a couple times. Dad was a good teacher, used to fight professio
nally even.”
Carl scowled. His favorite thing in the world, other than chain-smoking and complaining, was to watch people beat each other bloody senseless on TV. There wasn’t a lot of televised bullfighting, I suppose. “Del Toro . . . Tony ‘the Demon’ Del Toro?” he asked. Jill nodded in the affirmative. That must have been impressive or something from the approving look Carl gave her. “Like ten years ago, I watched him on pay-per-view almost tear this guy’s arm off. I hate those Brazilian jujitsu guys. Guy needed his arm tore off, cocky fodas, so I remember the Demon.”
“Being able to punch out Reaper is great and all, but we’re talking about a team of assassins who’ve been ripping through fundamentalist murderers like it’s nothing,” I said coldly. “Do you even know how to shoot?”
“Dad taught me how to use a gun,” Jill said defensively. That alone meant nothing. There were lots of people that thought they knew how to shoot. Usually if they could hit anything, they were too slow, or if they were fast, then they couldn’t get reliable hits under stress. The kind of shooting I was good at was all about putting a bunch of bullets into my opponent before they could do it to me, and that was not how most recreational types did it.
“Uh-huh. Do you speak Arabic? Can you pass for a local?” In fairness, I already knew the answer to those. And with a little bit of coaching, I could easily get her to pass for one of the local imported Filipina workers: she had the features. Worst-case scenario, the women in the old part of town all wore hoods, and in the most traditional didn’t even let their eyes show. “Can you not stick out like a tourist?”
“Well . . . no.”
“Ever killed anybody?”
She shook her head.
“Thought so. You’re going to stay here, keep your head down, and do exactly what I tell you to. When we come up against Dead Six, they won’t hesitate. You run into that guy with the .44 magnum from the video and he’ll eat you.”
“Phrasing!” Reaper injected. Jill scowled at him.
“So to speak,” I corrected.
“Your old man retired now?” Carl asked, trying to return the conversation to something more interesting to him. “Haven’t seen him fight in forever.”
“Passed away,” she said. “I lost both my parents in a car accident. My brother was a Marine, just like dad had been, but he was killed in the war a couple years ago. I’ve got no close family left. So there won’t be anybody demanding to see my supposedly dead body, either.”
“They burned the embassy car anyway. If these guys are as professional as they seem, they probably found another girl to stick in the car before they lit it up. Nobody is going to recognize that body anyway,” I said. “Hell, that’s probably why they burned the car. They wouldn’t have bothered if they’d nailed all of you.” I didn’t add that that was how I would have done it.
“And if I was missing, presumed taken by the terrorists, then that would have forced a big response from the government,” Jill added. She caught on quick. Dead Six was running quiet. I’m guessing having the American populace watching the news and demanding a rescue mission was not on their itinerary.
Reaper chimed in. “There won’t be an official investigation anyway. These black ops always squash that. There won’t ever be an autopsy to show it isn’t really you, either. Dental records won’t matter. I bet you ten bucks they already cremated them all!”
Reaper was talking out of his ass. “When did you become such an expert on secret government operations?”
“I tell you man, you really need to listen more. The truth is out there.” He was getting defensive. “Roger Geonoy had an expert on Sea to Shining Sea last night. See, there’s an Illuminati plot to control the world’s oil supply, but that’s just the beginning.“
“Oh, not again,” Carl muttered.
“Seriously,” Reaper said, wide-eyed. “A cabal of powerful European bankers and stuff, it all makes sense. Did you know that the US government couldn’t account for billions of dollars last year? Where do you think it all goes, man? It’s for the secret war against the Illuminati.”
“And they’re going to release Loch Ness Monsters into the Gulf to disrupt the tankers,” I added. “How nefarious.”
“Only if the aliens from Roswell he’s always talking about say so,” Carl said. “Shut up already, Reaper.”
“What is it that he does for you . . . exactly?” Jill asked.
“He’s the brains of the operation.”
But the kid wasn’t going to be deterred. “Okay, so you don’t believe in my conspiracy theories, but we’re conspiring to break into a thousand year old secret vault for a mythical crime lord, so we’re trying to track down a secret government death squad that kills witnesses, and there’s apparently a conspiracy to overthrow the emir, but the second I say Illuminati, I’m the crazy one.”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.
Jill looked around the table. “Maybe I was better off with the terrorists.”
Chapter 10:
Hurt
VALENTINE
Ash Shamal District
April 16
2345
Ash Shamal was the poorest of Zubara’s three urban districts, and the most dangerous. Parts of this district were hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism, and the streets weren’t safe for Westerners, especially at night. Much of that was our fault. Since Project Heartbreaker had begun, it had stirred up a hornet’s nest on the poor side of town. The locals were outraged over Dead Six’s dirty work. Most of them seemed to think it was the Israelis. Certain people used this misconception to their own personal advantage.
By certain people I mean General Mubarak Al Sabah. The emir considered the popular general to be a threat, but for whatever reason couldn’t just have him shot. Word on the street was General Al Sabah’s faction of the army was making deals with local terrorist cells. Now, most of these so-called cells were just groups of angry, ignorant locals that claimed to stand against “Zionism” and “American Imperialism” and all that bullshit. In reality, they had no training, no equipment, no organization, and most of them weren’t eager to go off and die for the jihad.
That was, of course, until General Al Sabah started using his connections to equip and train the locals. He was slowly building a small army in Ash Shamal. They were, at best, poorly trained rabble, little more than cannon fodder. But we believed Al Sabah was going to make a move on the emir soon, and he’d need all of the help he could get.
Facilitating these jihadi militias was one Anatoly Federov, the Russian arms dealer Hunter had briefed me about. He supplied them with brand-new hardware from Russia and advisers on how to use the equipment. Al Sabah, in turn, promised to be a very powerful friend to Federov when he managed to overthrow the emir.
Dead Six had no intention of letting that happen. From what I’d heard, we had plans to kill both Federov and General Al Sabah himself. One thing at a time, though. In order to kill someone, you have to find them, and find a way to get to them. Powerful people surrounded by many heavily armed friends are notoriously difficult to get to, for obvious reasons.
That is, unless the powerful person’s disgruntled business partner decides to cut a deal with the people gunning for him in order to save her own ass.
Enter one Asra Elnadi. According to our information, Ms. Elnadi was an Egyptian-born businesswoman who had been educated in Paris. We didn’t know a lot about her history beyond that. We did know that for a few years she had been the business partner and lover of Jalal Hosani. Yet something went wrong, and Asra left Hosani in order to team up with Federov, taking a bunch of his business contacts with her. Federov became a major player in the Gulf; Hosani’s business stagnated, and he went from being a rising-star arms broker to a second-rate gunrunner.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or so goes the ancient cliché. Project Heartbreaker had brought a different kind of hell to Zubara, and people like Asra were scattering like cockroaches. Normally you step on the roaches as they run, but occa
sionally you make a deal with one to get to another, more powerful cockroach.
Okay, that analogy kind of fell apart, but you know what I meant. Through some unknown—to me, at least—back channel, Ms. Elnadi had managed to contact Dead Six and offered to squeal. She was afraid of us, sure, but she was more afraid of her current boyfriend. There was only one problem: despite her expensive European education and status as an international businesswoman of ill repute, Ms. Elnadi didn’t speak English. Furthermore, she had an intense distrust of men and apparently insisted on meeting face-to-face with a woman, one who spoke either Arabic or French.
The result of all this skullduggery and intrigue was that I found myself driving across town in a nondescript Toyota Land Cruiser, sitting next to Sarah McAllister in awkward silence.
We were taking two vehicles. Sarah and I were riding in the Land Cruiser, and would be the ones to actually make contact with Asra Elnadi. Tailor, Hudson, and Wheeler were following us in a van. The plan was for them to hang back until we arrived at the meeting, then fan out and provide overwatch as best they could. Asra wouldn’t be expecting Sarah to arrive alone, but we feared that too much of a show of force would spook her. If we lost her, we’d probably never find Hosani or Federov. If all went well, the only people she’d actually see would be Sarah and me.
“Shafter, Nightcrawler, radio check,” I said, squeezing the transmit button as I talked.
“Loud and clear,” Hudson replied.
“We’re almost there,” I said to Sarah, keeping my eyes on the road. I was tense, and not just because I was uncomfortable being around Sarah. Keeping a low profile for the mission meant that I’d be alone, at least for a short time, if things went south. It also meant that instead of wearing full battle rattle and carrying a rifle, I was in street clothes and a wearing a low-profile vest with thinner plates and less coverage. In a big backpack in the backseat was my FN Mk. 17 7.62x51mm carbine. With the short thirteen-inch barrel fitted and the stock folded, it could be concealed in a pack with a couple of spare magazines.
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