“Well, you did,” she said coldly, fidgeting with the key in her hands. I started to say something, but she interrupted me. “But you know what? It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but it’s okay.”
I gave her a sidelong glance, not really sure what to say. Sarah laughed, lightening the mood in the room just a little bit. “Have I mentioned I’m crazy?” she asked.
“I gathered,” I said, allowing myself a half smile.
“I’m also confused.” Sarah exhaled heavily and continued fiddling with the key, trying to think of what to say. “After the other night, I think I got it,” she said. “I mean . . . Jesus Christ, I killed a guy, and I cried my eyes out. You go out and do that every day, and they just expect you to keep on doing it and not break down. You broke down, didn’t you?”
I looked down at the floor, lowering my head just a little. “When I saw that girl, I . . .”
“I know,” Sarah said quietly. “I know. It really bothers you when men hurt women, doesn’t it?”
I was surprised by the question. “I guess. I mean . . .”
“I can tell,” she said. “Even when you were dragging Asra Elnadi along, you were very careful with her. You probably didn’t even bruise her arm.”
“I would’ve shot her if she ran,” I said levelly. “Just like I was ordered to.”
“I know,” Sarah said. “It would’ve bothered you for a long time, though, wouldn’t it?” I nodded my head slightly. “I read your file. I know about your mom. That had to have been awful.”
I had just been a teenager when she’d been robbed and murdered by some random meth-heads. “It was, but it’s been a really long time.”
“I didn’t get you at first, you know,” she said. “I mean, you’re cute and everything, but I didn’t think you’d be good for much more than a roll in the hay.”
“You think I’m cute?” I interjected, trying to deadpan.
“Shut up,” Sarah said, grinning and giving me a little shove. “I’m serious. I didn’t think we’d . . . you know . . .”
“Yeah,” I said. “This is kind of intense, isn’t it?”
Sarah nodded. “But I get it now. I know you guys are under a lot of pressure out there. I mean, oh my God, look at how many people we’ve lost already!”
“Sarah—”
“I’m not finished. That doesn’t change what happened. I came here to help you. You yelled at me and made me feel like a piece of shit.” Sarah’s cool words hurt me like I was being stabbed. “And I need to know where we stand, right now. Because if this is how you are . . . I’m sorry, I mean, I know what you’re going through now, but if this is how you are, I’m not going to be a part of it. I spent three years in a bad relationship, and I’m not going through it again.”
I was quiet for a few moments as I tried to figure out what to say. The thought of driving her away terrified me. The thought of trying to build a relationship with her, in the middle of war, also terrified me. I wasn’t sure which scared me more. Sarah gave me a hard look, swallowed, and spoke again. “Mike, if you want me in your life . . .”
“I want you in my life,” I said awkwardly. “You’re just . . . you’re amazing. I can’t even tell you. I—”
Sarah gently placed a finger over my lips, silencing me. “It’s okay. I just needed to hear you say that. Thank you.”
We sat together, quietly looking into each other’s eyes for a long time. Butterflies danced around in my stomach, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Right then I knew that I was falling in love with her. It was an amazing feeling, and it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t even know if either of us was going to make it out of Zubara alive.
As I looked into her eyes, I asked myself, is it worth the risk? I realized that I’d already made my decision, even before I asked the question. This woman had seen me at my best and at my worst, and she still wanted to be with me. What kind of fool passes that up?
I took the silvery trinket from Sarah’s hand, opened the chain, and gently hung it around her neck. She’d said it was pretty.
“Are you giving me this thing? Too cheap to buy me a real present?” She laughed.
“I found this thing that night,” I said awkwardly. “So . . . I’m giving it to you, as a promise of a fresh start.”
Sarah crinkled her brow at me. “That is so cheesy, but really sweet too. So yes, I accept your token of apology.” She laughed again. “Oh, I almost forgot. You’re off for the next three days at least.”
“The next three days? Are you serious?”
“I talked to Hunter for you. I convinced him you and your chalk need a break. So you don’t have anything to do for the next three days but lounge around the fort and relax.”
“What about you?”
“I have a briefing I have to be at in . . .” Sarah glanced at her watch. She wore it upside down, so that the face was on the underside of her right wrist. “Four hours. I don’t have anything to do until then.”
“I can think of something,” I said coyly, knowing I sounded more dorky than suave.
“Oh really?” Sarah said, sounding coy herself, as she moved in to kiss me again. “Sounds interesting . . .”
Some time later, Sarah and I lay together in my bed. She was asleep in my arms. Her hair smelled like strawberries. She was a quiet sleeper.
I don’t know how long I lay there, holding her in my arms, thinking about things, before I feel asleep. What chance did Sarah and I have in this place? What else could I do? Could we get out somehow? Even if I could find a way to escape Zubara, would I be able to convince Sarah to go with me and leave everyone else behind?
Chapter 11:
For the Good of the People
LORENZO
April 20
I punished the bag until my knuckles bled.
It was an eighty-pound leather punching bag that I’d found used in a local market. Some duct tape, and it was good as new. I’d hung it up in the corner of the garage and was using it for some stress release. I worked out religiously every morning, but this was different. I’d already been striking the bag furiously for half an hour, and stinging sweat was leaking into my eyes.
I imagined that the bag was Big Eddie. If I could get my hands on whoever he was, I was going to absolutely destroy him. The nerve, the audacity, to threaten me, to force me into this . . . I was going to make him pay. I’d worked for him for years, doing his bidding, stealing things, killing people, robbery, extortion, you name it. I had been his lapdog, and I didn’t even know if he was real. Disgusted with what I’d become, I had eventually walked away, naively thinking that I could be safe from his machinations. But somehow he’d figured out who I really was, and that had given him leverage. With a shout, I stepped back and side kicked the bag so hard that a jolt of electricity traveled up the bones of my leg.
I switched my mental picture, and now the bag was the Dead Six operatives. My life was growing complicated, and I didn’t like that one bit. My elbows left skin on the bag as I nearly bent it in half with the impacts. Nobody knew a thing. Reaper’s electronic digging couldn’t find them. Hosani hadn’t called me back. None of the urchins, scumbags, villains, and criminals I’d contacted had a clue who they were. They were ghosts.
They’d slip up eventually. Everyone did, and then I would take them. But what if I couldn’t find them before Eddie’s deadline? Or even worse, what if their operation finished, and they just went home? And the worst possible scenario: Adar’s box had already been shipped back to the US and was sitting in some CIA warehouse where they had no clue what they even had.
If that was the case, then I would just have to proceed without it. And that meant my odds of success went from slim to near zero. If the pace of the killings tapered off, then I was going to have to assume the worst, and then I would have to do my worst. I’d have to stick Jill out in the open and see what happened.
Here I was, perfectly willing to take an innocent woman and basically sentence her to death. What kind of mo
nster was I?
You’re soft. Weak. I slammed the bag again and again, breath coming in ragged gasps. Even a couple of years ago, I would have handed her off in a heartbeat. The problem was that she wasn’t just a number in an equation now. She’d been living here for a couple of days. She was a decent, kind, trusting person. She was the sort of person that I had avoided all of these years, because they were exactly the type that I didn’t want to hurt. I hung out with evil for a reason. She was just a scared girl who only wanted to go home.
With that bleak thought, the last of my energy evaporated, as even I have my limits, and I just hugged the bag close to stop the swaying. Every muscle in my body was on fire, and sweat drizzled down my face and onto the bag, but the leather was cool under my skin.
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re kind of intense?”
I hadn’t heard her enter over the rhythmic pounding in my ears. Jill was standing at the base of the stairs into the apartment, watching me. I pushed away from the bag. “Yeah, I get that once in a while. . . . What’re you doing up so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said with a shrug. The bruised discoloration around her eye had subsided and she was looking better. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. You know.”
I walked around the front of the van. “Understandable. But if you’ve come to talk about it, you’ve really got the wrong guy,” I said as I picked up my shirt. My torso and limbs were crisscrossed with scars from bullets, knives, burns, and shrapnel, and most of them had not been stitched up by actual medical professionals, either. It always made me a little self-conscious.
“If I wanted somebody in touch with their emotional side, I’d talk to Carl,” she replied sarcastically. “Wow. You know, you’re pretty ripped for an old guy. . . .”
“I’m not that old.” Well, I had been in junior high the year Jill had been born.
“Easy there. I was just trying to make a joke. Seriously, though, you’re going out looking for Dead Six again today, aren’t you?”
“That’s the plan,” I answered as I pulled the shirt over my head. It was instantly drenched with sweat. My muscles ached. “I’m going to check out Al Khor today.” It was the safest, and therefore most boring, part of town. It was also the most modernized section and was where the Americans and Europeans tended to live. There was a possibility that someone over there had seen our shooters.
She was regarding me strangely. “Take me with you.”
I stopped. “Why?”
“I’ve been cooped up in here for days. I’m bored.”
As a professional liar, I’m a master of knowing when I was being lied to. I just waited. She rolled her eyes. “Fine. It’s just something I have to do. I have to feel like I’m doing something. This might just be business for you, but this is personal to me. These people killed my friends, and they tried to kill me. Then they burned them. They were good men, and they deserved better. I have to do this.”
Sighing, I studied her. I could understand that feeling. I could even kind of respect it.
“Please?”
I didn’t say anything as I pushed past her and climbed the stairs. My silence must have hit a nerve, as she immediately blew up. “Damn it, Lorenzo! I’m not some useless child. I don’t care what your stupid secret mission is! I—” She was cut off as the bundle of clothing hit her in the face.
“Get dressed,” I said from the top of the stairs.
“Is this a burka?”
“Sort of. If you’re going to be here, you might as well learn how not to be totally useless. I said get dressed. You coming or what?”
***
It is surprising how foggy it can get along the Persian Gulf in the mornings. A fat gray cloud hung over the city, and only the lights at the tops of the buildings in the Khor district were visible as we crossed the bridge.
“Is this really necessary?” Jill asked through the bag that was covering her head. “Can I take this off yet?”
“Think she’s lost enough?” I asked Carl. He shrugged. “It’s for your own good, Jill. If you’re captured, this way you can’t be tortured into telling them where our hideout is.”
“You mean if I run away, I can’t sell you out,” she snapped. “Well, duh. I was lost in the first couple of minutes, but that was a while ago, and now we’re on the Gamal bridge going over the ocean. I can tell. The embassy is only a couple miles from here. It’s the only big bridge in town, and it sounds like we’re on a big bridge, so unless we drove all the way to Dubai while I wasn’t paying attention, can I please take this stupid bag off now?”
Carl leaned over from the driver’s seat. “She’s got a point.”
“Next time, it’ll be a blindfold and a gag,” I muttered. “Okay. Take it off.”
Jill complied. “See? Told you.”
“Goodie for you. Now listen carefully. I’ll be talking to a lot of people. You’re going to do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, and you are not going to talk. At all. You sound like an American and walk like an American. Hell, you’ve been eating American food, and you even smell like an American. Keep your head down, shoulders slumped, because you’re too damn tall, and stay behind me.”
“I’ve been around this part of town before,” Jill replied.
“Not like this you haven’t. There’s a lot of women around, and in Khor, most of them are dressed pretty normal. You’re not one of them. You’re invisible. You’re going to play my obedient little wifey-poo, which means you carry the shopping bags and mostly just watch. I’m going to teach you how to blend in. We’ll be in radio contact with Reaper back at base if we need him.”
“What’s Reaper do?”
“Besides play video games and watch porn?” Carl responded. “I’m not sure.”
“Reaper’s tapped into everything. Hacking, information piracy, anything complicated. In a way, he’s as good at what he does as I am at what I do. Hell, he could screw with the traffic lights here from our apartment if we need him to.” In truth, behind Reaper’s pathetic tough-guy facade lurked the soul of an über-nerd who should have been working for NASA.
“What’s your job, Lorenzo?”
I smiled. “I’m management.” In actuality I wore a few hats, none of which Jill needed to know the specifics of. I was the master of disguise, the acrobatic second-story man, the con, the swindler, the lady’s man, certified locksmith and safecracker, a ruthless fighter with hand or blade, and wasn’t too shabby as a gunslinger. “These guys do all the work. I take the credit.”
“What’s Carl do?”
“Drive and shoot stuff,” he explained. “People are stupid, so talking to them, that’s Lorenzo’s job.”
“Carl’s always my backup when we work. He’s the getaway driver and heavy artillery.”
“How many guns do you have in here?”
“A few . . .” And an RPG and a mess of Semtex, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Can I have one?”
“No,” Carl and I responded simultaneously.
***
This part of town was sleek, modern, damn-near swanky. Most of the buildings looked new, all glass and concrete. It had been less than a decade since the current emir had deposed his father. The old emir had been a pretty typical dictator, and he’d stuffed his Swiss bank accounts fat while most of his people lived in poverty. The current emir was a decent enough sort by all accounts. Sure, he was still ruthless and brutal, but he’d decided that the days of his country being a cultural backwater were done. He’d made friends with the West, told the Fundies to chill out, brought in big-time infrastructure investments, and even went so far as to say crazy, controversial stuff like Israel shouldn’t be burned into nuclear oblivion. Like I said, pretty decent by this part of the world’s standards.
And Al Khor was the shining example to the rest of the world that Zubara didn’t suck anymore. I don’t know if the emir was jealous of the nearby UAE or Qatar, but he was doing his best to keep up with the Joneses. Fueled by oil money, Zubara no
w had three hospitals, a university, luxury hotels, a big museum, a fancy new zoo, and, very impressively for a city of under a million residents, two Bentley dealerships.
Too bad the emir had stepped on so many toes in the process, because the line of people mean enough to take him down was getting longer and longer.
“Sabah! Sabah! Sabah! Sabah!” the crowd at the end of the street chanted, led by some professional agitator in a black hood with a bullhorn. They were a hundred yards away, and there were probably fifty of them, all relatively young and nicely dressed, probably students, and they were stacked in front of one of the tall municipal buildings. They were waving signs with pictures of a bearded man wearing a purple beret. Since there weren’t any rocks or Molotov cocktails being thrown, it was relatively boring.
I stopped to watch. Jill halted obediently behind me. In true chauvinistic style, I had loaded her with a bunch of bags full of items purchased from the local shops. If you were going to be questioning merchants, it helped to spread a little love in the process. Jill had followed me for hours now, not understanding a word that passed between me and the various people I’d spoken with. I wondered if she was sick of it yet.
Glancing back, I saw that she was waiting patiently, burdened down by fifty pounds of miscellaneous crap that was probably just going to get thrown away after Reaper picked through it for souvenirs. Interviewing merchants looking for Dead Six had been an utter waste of time. Only Jill’s dark eyes were visible under the blue silk scarf. Those eyes drifted over to the protestors, then back to me, wondering what was up.
The sidewalks were relatively crowded with the late lunch crowd, and we were right in front of a café filled with government employees, who were trying to eat and watch the protestors at the same time. Nobody was close enough to hear me speak English, so I leaned in.
Dead Six-ARC Page 24