She hated herself a little for the nod she gave him in return. ‘Enemy of my enemy and that shit, yeah, I heard it all before. But sharing the same foxhole don’t make us allies.’
Saito glanced at Ruiz and gestured for him to put up his weapon. ‘Perhaps a show of good faith will help.’ He explained that Amadayo had been the Combine’s primary asset in Somalia, but he was not the only one. A man named Kaahi, an officer of the Federal Government with responsibility over the national television station, was also in the employ of the group. ‘Kaahi’s intelligence directed us to the mansion,’ Saito noted. ‘Clearly he was sending us into an ambush.’
‘He’s Ramaas’s man,’ said Ruiz. ‘On the take at both ends. Obviously decided it was time to burn his bridges with the Combine.’
‘So it’s likely this Kaahi bloke will know where the target is.’ Marc reluctantly holstered his gun. ‘Ramaas has got to have his hands in the Federal Government somewhere. Otherwise, they’d have turned him over to the United Nations the moment that bomb-threat video went live.’
‘We find Kaahi and interrogate him,’ Saito said to Lucy, then looked to Marc. ‘Meanwhile, you will help Ruiz repair the Osprey.’
‘All that before sunrise?’ Marc snorted.
‘Exactly.’ Saito walked down the cabin and pulled a panel off the wall, revealing a storage compartment behind it. Inside, Lucy saw the wheels of a dirt bike and an electric engine in a skeletal frame. ‘So, let us not waste any more time, yes?’
Marc leaned close to her and spoke in a quiet tone. ‘How did we end up working with our enemies again?’
‘Bad karma?’ she suggested, gathering up her gear.
*
Solomon stood on the balcony, looking out over the lights of the city. Below, the night was young and Monte Carlo was open for business, the clubs and casino packed with people seeking a taste of elegance and adventure in their lives. He frowned, his hand reaching up to toy with the slender chain around his neck. The people down there were sailing across the surface of the world, insulated from the harsh realities of it by money, position or just indifference. He doubted that many of them understood that their reality was only one version of things, balanced atop a thousand other truths that were harder and more unpalatable.
And the hardest truth of all was one that Ekko Solomon had learned with a blood cost. The world turns on secrets, and most of us are better off not knowing them.
He ran a finger over an odd-shaped piece of metal on the end of the chain. To most, it would have appeared to be an abstract thing, a discoloured steel talon; but a soldier would see it for what it really was, the trigger from a Kalashnikov assault rifle. The gun it came from had been destroyed long ago, but Solomon kept this part of it as a constant reminder to himself of where he had come from and what he had done to rise from there.
He heard Delancort’s careful footsteps on the balcony’s wooden decking. ‘Henri,’ he said, without turning around. ‘Any contact?’
‘No, sir,’ said the French-Canadian. ‘But that is as expected. Our people in Mombasa say the C-130 touched down on schedule. Lucy and the Englishman were not on board.’
‘You do not approve of Marc Dane’s involvement.’ It wasn’t a question.
Delancort sighed. ‘I admit he has a useful skill set and has proven to be resourceful . . . But I have to question his commitment, sir.’
‘He just dropped into one of the most lawless regions in Africa,’ Solomon replied. ‘To help us. Is that not commitment?’
‘With all due respect, isn’t it Rubicon that is once again helping him?’ Delancort walked to the edge of the balcony. ‘He brought this situation to us. We were peripherally aware of both the Kurjaks’ and Abur Ramaas’s existence, but this business with the Exile device . . .’ He trailed off. ‘Dane only came to you because no-one in Europol would take him seriously.’
‘You think I am indulging him?’ Solomon’s eyes narrowed. ‘You saw the pirate’s threats, Henri. This is not some phantom Dane is chasing. It is a credible threat to the world.’ He nodded to himself. ‘And if we can do something about it, we will. That is the principle Rubicon was founded upon.’
‘No nation but justice,’ said Delancort, translating the Latin quote that sat beneath the Rubicon corporate logo on the office’s wall. ‘You have set yourself a high bar, sir.’
Solomon nodded again, his gaze briefly dropping to the moonlit waters of the bay. ‘Redemption is a long road.’ His hands tightened on the rail ringing the balcony. ‘I wish I could do more. It does not feel like it is enough.’
‘Ramaas won’t succeed in trying to blackmail the three largest nation states on earth,’ Delancort said, with a sniff. ‘He’s deluded if he thinks he can. The only variable is whether he dies before or after the weapon is detonated.’
Solomon gave him a look. ‘Do not underestimate him. I grew up around men like Abur Ramaas. He is a jackal, and jackals are as intelligent as they are vicious.’ His gaze lost focus for a moment as he pictured the other man, imagining the warlord as if he were a shadowy mirror of himself. Solomon shook off the mental image. ‘Believe me when I tell you, this game of his has not yet been fully revealed.’
Delancort hovered on the cusp of a reply, but then the door to the balcony slid open and Kara Wei was standing there, pale and wide-eyed. ‘There you are! You need to come see this, sir. We got another flash traffic upload from our source in Beijing.’
Solomon and Delancort exchanged glances. The woman Kara was referring to was an asset Rubicon had cultivated inside China’s security services, a remnant left in place from other, past operations to defy acts of terror.
‘Ramaas put up another video,’ Kara explained. ‘Everyone – and I mean everyone – is going to scramble once it gets around.’
‘He’s made more threats?’ said Delancort.
She shook her head. ‘It’s more like he’s sending out party invites.’
*
The Zero MMX dirt bike had a quiet electric motor rather than a gasoline-powered one, so it sped them along the highways of Mogadishu like a ghost.
Lucy resented the fact that she had to play passenger to Saito’s driver, but the Japanese mercenary was the one who knew where to find the target, and after threading through darkened alleys and dimly lit streets they emerged across from a six-storey building in the Warta Nabada district. Saito hid the bike between a low wall and a parked panel van, and together they slipped into the courtyard of a shuttered apartment complex across the way. Both of them were shadows, their faces hidden behind dark shemaghs that covered head, neck and shoulders.
Lucy scanned the building through a monocular. A sign in English and Arabic script over the entrance said it was a television station belonging to the Federal Government, but she saw little sign of official presence there. No soldiers in Somalian Army uniforms, no policemen – but there were a handful of twitchy, stringy-looking youths armed with rifles gathered around a cargo truck and a weather-beaten Yukon SUV. Harried civilians were moving in and out of the building in twos and threes, carrying boxes or equipment cases that were going into the back of the truck.
She panned up, finding an orchard of antennae and satellite dishes on the roof. Some of the offices were illuminated, the yellow glow of their lights spilling out through the wire anti-frag meshes over the windows. Lucy passed the monocular to Saito and let him make his own survey. ‘Looks like they’re pulling out,’ she offered. ‘How do you know this Kaahi character is even in there?’
‘Because I’m looking at him right now.’ He pointed. ‘Third-floor window, second across.’
Lucy could make out a thin man in a white shirt and red tie gesticulating angrily at a woman in a hijab. He was trying to direct her to do something, but she was reluctant to obey. Finally, he turned away and disappeared from sight.
Saito handed back the monocular. ‘He’s leaving and taking anything useful with him,’ said the mercenary. ‘It makes sense. Kaahi knows that the Combine will becom
e aware of his duplicity. He doesn’t want to be here when that happens.’
She jutted her chin toward the men at the entrance. ‘Those boys look like bandits to me. Ramaas’s men, I reckon.’
He nodded. ‘Kaahi still has value to Ramaas. The man is a government official, after all. He’ll want to keep him alive.’ Saito paused, checking his gun before pulling his headscarf tight. ‘There is a side entrance. We go in that way, low profile. Isolate Kaahi and interrogate him.’ He gave her a look. ‘You will do as I tell you, yes?’
‘For now,’ she replied, flicking the safety off her SMG. ‘Lead on, man.’
Saito followed the low wall into a pool of gloom beneath a busted street light and then crossed the road when the attention of the gunmen was elsewhere. Lucy stuck to him like she was his shadow, letting the Combine operative take point as he eased open the side door and entered the building. But her finger never strayed too far from the trigger of her MP7, and she was ready to put a few rounds in Saito’s centre mass if he tried to dry-gulch her.
They found a service stairwell and started up it. Saito was well trained, that was clear from how he moved. Back in the day, Lucy had been on transnational exercises with Delta and their opposite numbers in the Tokushu Sakusen Gun, the Japanese Self Defence Force’s counter-terrorist unit – but those men had always kept their faces hidden behind balaclavas and did not mix with the US Army operators off mission. Saito had the same hard-trained and precise economy of motion in his movements as the TSG guys, and Lucy couldn’t help but wonder how the man had ended up in the employ of the Combine.
Was it something like her own circumstances, the last grab at a final option after all others had faded? Lucy was indebted to Ekko Solomon and the Rubicon Corporation for saving her life after her own commanders had thrown her to the wolves. Was Saito following a similar path? Was he damaged goods forced to leave behind his nation’s service? Or had he joined the Combine out of a more basic, less principled impulse?
Marc had not exaggerated when he said that Saito’s paymasters killed his friends, and it was equally true that the Combine had spent time and effort trying to do the same to everyone in Rubicon’s Special Conditions Division at one time or another. It was hard not to take it personally.
More than once, the SCD had crossed swords with the shadowy cadre of power-brokers and arms dealers, and it never ended well. The Combine were old money, the top tier of a rich elite who wanted to stay there by manipulating a status quo of global brush-fire wars and terrorist horrors. Rubicon was everything they were not, a vigilante force that answered to no-one.
No-one but Ekko Solomon’s conscience, she corrected herself. Lucy tried not to think too hard about that. She had vowed that as long as she could keep looking at herself in the mirror each morning, she would continue to be part of Solomon’s crusade. If that ever changes . . . She pushed the thought away.
Saito paused as they reached the third floor and opened the door from the stairwell a crack. Voices wafted out from the corridor, a man and a woman arguing in the local dialect. ‘That’s him,’ whispered Saito.
*
‘But who are these men?’ Esme asked the question, and Kaahi’s anger grew at her impertinence for asking it. ‘Why are they here so late at night?’
‘That is not your concern!’ he snarled at her. The woman was supposed to be his assistant, but she talked to him as though she was his mother. ‘Just do what I tell you!’
Esme made a sour face. ‘You cannot blame me for asking. You must have heard the reports coming in from the east of the city – people are saying that there was a gun battle! They are saying the Al Shabaab militants camped out there were attacked by the American military again, and –’
‘Just shut up!’ he bellowed, silencing her with the interruption. ‘You don’t know anything!’ Kaahi pushed past her and strode toward his office. ‘Get back to work!’ He threw the last comment over his shoulder and wrenched open the door.
Esme was more correct than she knew, but Kaahi wasn’t about to tell her that. He was on his way out of this city, out of this country. In a few hours, the money Ramaas had promised him would be in his hands and he would be on the first jet to France, or Spain, or whatever country he wanted.
That belief evaporated as he entered his office and found two people waiting there, a man and a woman in military apparel. Neither of them had been in the room a few moments ago, before he left to give Esme her dressing-down.
He took a breath to call for help, but then the man pulled the scarf he was wearing away from his face and all the energy in Kaahi’s body faded. The Japanese he had met in a street café earlier that day was standing there, no longer looking like some dissolute foreign tourist. Kaahi’s mouth moved but no sound emerged.
‘You were paid to provide a service,’ Saito told him gravely. ‘Imagine how disappointed I was to learn that you reneged on that agreement.’
A dozen options flashed through Kaahi’s mind. His eyes darted around the room, as he realised that his only escape route was back through the door. He weighed the lies he could tell in an attempt to deflect the blame. He even considered violence, but the guns carried by Saito and his companion ended that train of thought half-formed.
In the end, he decided to stall for time. ‘I . . . can explain,’ he began hopefully.
‘Cut to the chase,’ snapped the woman, in a coarse American accent. ‘Where’s Abur Ramaas, dickhead?’
Saito gave her a wan look and then nodded. ‘Indeed, yes. That is the most salient question.’
Kaahi’s hands knitted together and his eyes strayed to the clock on the wall. If he could keep these foreigners talking . . . His rescue was on the way. All he had to do was delay long enough for it to arrive. ‘You can’t go after him. Not now. The odds are in his favour. He’s changed everything.’
‘I disagree,’ Saito said, and he drew a long, needle-like knife from a vertical holster on his webbing vest. ‘You are making it necessary for me to compel you.’ The Japanese glanced at the American, as if he was uncertain how she would react. The woman showed no response to the open threat.
Something occurred to Kaahi. ‘You haven’t seen it, have you?’
‘Seen what?’ demanded the American.
He took a step toward a portable DVD player on his desk, but she lifted the gun slung at her hip, aiming at his belly. Kaahi paused and raised his hands. ‘Press play,’ he told her. ‘Ramaas sent a new message to your president and all the rest of them. Watch it and you’ll understand.’
*
Lucy scowled, and then she tapped the button on the little device. The disc inside whirred into life and the screen flickered before resolving into an image of Ramaas. It was filmed in the same kind of floating, handheld camera style as the earlier ‘declaration’ she had seen on the Themis, but the backdrop was different. The walls behind Ramaas’s head were old, painted metal patched with rust. It had an industrial look to it, like a factory or something similar.
‘You men of power,’ he began, showing his teeth. ‘You have had time to think on the lesson that I taught you.’ Ramaas leaned in, until his face filled the screen. ‘Now you must pay for your sins against my people and my nation. You must pay in treasure or in blood. You choose.’ He chuckled, rubbing at the cheek beneath his damaged eye.
The camera followed him to a table, upon which was a commercial maritime chart showing the coastline of Somalia. Scattered atop it were photos and blueprints of the Exile device – but no sign of the steel case itself.
‘You will give me respect,’ Ramaas went on, ‘because I will show you all that you are no better than me. A brigand.’ He patted the blueprints for the bomb. ‘There will be an auction,’ he continued. ‘In twenty-four hours’ time. Here. You will pay me for the right to know where the weapon is hidden.’
‘You sneaky son-of-a-bitch,’ muttered Lucy. ‘So he is about the money after all.’
Kaahi gave a nervous giggle. ‘He has out-played you!’
/>
On the screen, Ramaas was still talking. ‘Bidders must be present at the location of my choice. No more than two representatives from each interested party. And believe me . . . There will be many interested parties.’ He reached out and took the camera from the hands of the person using it and carried it to the map. The screen blurred as the autofocus shifted and the chart became sharp and clear. A thick finger tapped the paper where a red cross had been drawn in the ocean. ‘Here,’ intoned Ramaas. ‘And bring no warships or aircraft within one hundred miles.’ The disc clicked again and the playback halted.
‘What’s out there?’ said Lucy.
‘A commercial gas-drilling rig,’ Saito replied, thinking it over. ‘Abandoned in place following this country’s misfortunes. A good location for such a gathering. He’s planned this well.’
She chewed her lip. ‘I don’t like the implication there, about interested parties.’ Lucy shot a look at Kaahi. ‘Let me guess, you’re in this because he used your connections to upload the video, am I right?’ Off his nod, she stepped around the desk until Kaahi was between her and Saito. ‘So who did you send it to? Washington, Beijing, Moscow . . . And where else?’
Saito answered for him. ‘Anyone who is interested in owning a nuclear device. I would imagine that list is lengthy.’
Kaahi drew himself up, finding some shaky defiance. ‘How does it feel to be the victim this time?’
‘He has not succeeded yet,’ said Saito, and his hand moved in a blur. The long, thin stiletto blade he held pierced Kaahi’s neck above the collarbone and sank in deep.
Lucy reacted with a jerk of motion, but it was too late to stop it happening. Saito held the weapon in place for a beat as Kaahi gasped out his final breath. Then the blade whispered back and out and the man fell to the floor, crimson jetting from the entry wound.
‘Shit!’ Lucy took a step toward the dying man. ‘You didn’t have to –’
‘He told me what I needed to know,’ Saito went on, and he was moving again.
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