The three matched eyes and nods and then flowed from the hallway. The three filed from out in a well-rehearsed formation, three bulldozers clearing the space. Alastair circled around Cameron to cover the right side of the room where the giant slept while Cameron launched from the shadowed hall into the opposite direction. Behind him followed Pepe, scanning from the left and then settling next to Alastair. They found no confrontation. The only guard in the central room was the man on the sofa, and he would never wake again.
Cameron continued to sweep his wing of the suite, the kitchen, dining room, and other bedrooms. All were clear, no guards, no Christine.
Christine was the woman in the master bedroom with Abbo.
Cameron spun back toward that end of the apartment, his MP-5 forward, and his steps wide and swift. He recounted the rooms in fleeting checks, deck clear, walls clear, ceiling clear, check, check, and check. Departing gifts for each room, charge engaged with a twist, apply to the inside of the door jam, and then go.
Cameron’s heartbeat was in his neck, closing his throat. His body and action were truly autonomous. He crossed the central room and pressed down the hallway toward the master bedroom.
Alastair and Pepe waited outside of the slightly open bedroom door, set to pounce.
The hallway was long and the last steps eternal.
From the bedroom Abbo laughed again deeply, sickly, and there was the sound of another, of a woman, breathing in heavy rhythm, fornicating.
Cameron’s eyes were locked on Alastair and Pepe. Their heads subtly nodded in a rhythm to his steps, timing his entry, their launch.
The door burst open to let Cameron cross the threshold.
“Don’t move!” screamed Alastair as he and the other two commandos stormed the room and surrounded Abbo, naked on the master bed, beneath the woman he was enjoying an instant before.
Abbo’s bright white eyes beamed wild, lunging out of his skull toward the three invaders. Mounted on Abbo’s groin, her back to the three was a woman, naked and beading in sweat. His large hands firmly clutched the thin waist of the woman, almost encircling her, a caucasian woman with long flowing chestnut hair.
* * * * *
Chapter 36
Abbo’s Suite, Burj Khalifa Level 105, Dubai
Cameron, Alastair, and Pepe were members of an elite fraternity. The Corsican Second Foreign Parachute Regiment, the Special Forces spearhead of the French rapid reaction force. These three men were plucked as the elite of the elite, to go first and laser dot the targets for the Special Forces spearhead. They were once super soldiers, trained to execute missions that would otherwise be suicide. The training these men received, matched only by very few elite services, set them as masters of compartmentalizing. In their peak, they were mentally above their operations, beyond reproach in their tasks. Compartmentalization is the perfect unconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, or beliefs. Perhaps that is why, when still physically and mentally acute, their time came to muster out. Part of what made these men super soldiers is that they were not machines. To scan a room out of the corner of ones eye and then, in less than a second, calculate the next action may appear an inhuman mechanistic ability, yet the judgment to make the instantaneous call, stems from the soldiers humanity.
Humanity was the reason soldiers were not sent on missions that involved them personally.
Soldiers could not be expected to compartmentalize a hostage situation involving their sister, at any point in the operation the risk was too high that soldier could compromise himself, could compromise the mission.
Yet, there was no one else for this mission.
Perhaps Pepe had lost his edge.
Perhaps Pepe was merely a super soldier.
Pepe did not utilize his attuned peripheral vision entering Abbo’s bedroom. He focused on those two bright white beaming eyes and, from the instant the door burst wide, was directly over Abbo, the muzzle of his MP-5 thrust into Abbo’s forehead.
The window of Pepe’s mask revealing his upper face and eyes blazed varying shades of red. On no other mission had his blood burned. The rapidly forming beads of sweat appeared pink across his brow.
The muscles through Pepe’s chest and upper body clenched and flexed tight as his arm extended forward, sinking Abbo’s skull deep into the pillow. A vein shot up on Pepe’s forehead and neck and, though anatomically incorrect, appeared to pierce right down into his hand, into the submachine gun, into Abbo.
“Aargh,” said Abbo, a blood ring saturated where muzzle cut into flesh.
“Pepe,” said Cameron.
Pepe did not respond. He leered at Abbo, into Abbo, he owned Abbo Mohammed.
“Pepe,” said Cameron again. “It’s not her. She’s not Christine.”
Pepe blinked heavy, his stare still given to Abbo, first one blink and then another, a wince, and then another.
“This isn’t Christine,” said Cameron, his voice somber.
Pepe’s eyelids blinked heavy again, then again, meaty steaks slapping his eyes to attention, and then slowly, he shifted his gaze up across the bed to Cameron and Alastair.
“Quoi?” asked Pepe.
“This is not Christine,” said Alastair.
For the first time since entering the room, Pepe, the once super soldier trained to be mindful, to see all at once, looked into the face of the woman mounted naked on Abbo.
The woman was hyperventilating, crying, her cheeks streaming with tears. From far inside her throat barely audible sighs and squeaks escaped in rapid burst. Her entire body quivered and she was barely able to hold herself up on the man she was entertaining seconds ago.
“This is Antoinette,” said Cameron.
* * * * *
Chapter 37
Abbo’s Suite, Burj Khalifa Level 105, Dubai
Alastair removed the crumpled linen from the foot of the bed to drape the trembling woman’s nude body. In a tender manner, he placed his hands on her now covered shoulders and gently removed her from the groin of the titanic warlord. She let Alastair ease her to the floor. Her breathing, already elevated, increased and her lower lip began to rapidly quiver. The subtle sighs and squeaks that had fought to escape her an instant before became squawks and caws as the woman, really not more than a girl, slipped into hysterics.
“Shhh,” said Alastair. He held the girl’s shoulders firm and gentle in his hands. “We’re not going to hurt you. You’re okay.” He squatted to her height then matched his calm blue eyes to hers, “Breathe. You’re okay. Breathe in through your nose like this.”
As Cameron watched Alastair calm the woman, he thought how different she was now from earlier in the evening, from the playful young woman at the table in the At.mosphere restaurant.
“Out through your mouth,” said Alastair, “there.”
Her name was Antoinette.
“Again, breathe in through your nose, that’s right.”
Antoinette and the other girl that had been with Abbo, Mary, each had green eyes and wore their chestnut hair in the same fashion as Christine. That was Abbo’s thing, his fetish. All of the women in the warlord’s harem could pass for Christine, or sisters she never had.
“Okay, now can you take a walk with me?” asked Alastair.
The woman in the restaurant floors above was flirtatious and seductive. That was before three armed commandos stormed the master bedroom and mentally overwhelmed her. She was now in shock and as a broken child. Alastair calmed Antoinette and was escorting out of the master bedroom.
Cameron had seen girls like Antoinette on countless missions. Things were going to get worse in her world before they got better. For the moment she would be okay.
The ability to maintain the calm of oneself and surroundings during a mission is a key factor, a matter of training. Alastair Main, the devil, was a natural, smooth and sedating, a real snake charmer. Alastair had once told Cameron that
he had learned to control himself and his environment as a child in the bush, from his father the big game hunter, and from the true masters, the bush warriors of the Laikipia plateau.
Cameron and Pepe were trained in tactical breathing and other techniques of calm by the Legion. Alastair had been raised a predator. Alastair had taught their team a thing or two about hunting, about mimicking the other predators of the wild.
The basic law of biology is that most body functions are on autopilot so the brain does not consciously have to think about making them happen. The autonomic nervous system manages heart rate, body temperature, breathing, blinking, and digesting. All of those functions operate in an involuntary reflexive manner. In stressful situations however, all of those systems can go out of whack. Add the adrenalin and real time danger of combat stress and loss of calm can mean life or death. Elite training in the Second Foreign Parachute Regiment had taught them how to be attuned to their bodies and override the autopilot where they could. They could not tell their kidneys how to function, or mentally force their body temperatures up or down, yet through practice they learned to use tactical breathing and blinking, as a bridge back to a calm optimal condition to fight.
Cameron rolled his eyes back over to Pepe.
Pepe was calm now. The window in his mask was no longer the index shades of Dante’s inferno. There had been a time when the stress of the moment would not have edged Pepe. Fortunately, his tactical training kicked in with a slight push from Cameron. Cameron had said his name a number of times before the outside world registered and then Pepe literally blinked himself back to the moment.
The muzzle of Pepe’s MP-5 still pressed against the warlords head. Not with the same skull crushing force he applied during what Cameron could only define as a rage, yet with still enough pressure to ensure Abbo was not going to flinch.
Yes, that was pure rage.
Cameron recognized the fervor in Pepe’s eyes. He had seen the madness many times before on the faces of enemy combatants that fought with a cultish intensity beyond reason. He thought himself, his team above and immune to such irrational emotive drive. Yet this warlord, Abbo Mohammed, had hijacked a yacht with Pepe’s sister onboard. To liberate Christine they had stormed the warlords Somali compound to discover Abbo had separated her from the other hostages. Christine was to have a role in his Dubai harem.
That was the intel they had.
Christine was their motivation and each hour she was held hostage would push them closer to the edge. Cameron was not surprised by Pepe’s reflex, entering the room to find Christine serving as a concubine to a warlord, witness to her act of forced fornication.
The woman in the master room was not Christine, or in the act of forced fornication.
Christine was not in the suite and she had not been with the harem.
Their self made mission had a primary objective of infiltration and exfiltration of one primary target, Christine Laroque. Now the mission had taken a turn.
* * * * *
Chapter 38
Abbo’s Suite, Burj Khalifa Level 105, Dubai
Abbo Mohammed sat propped against his headboard. A crimson stream trickled from the center of his forehead where the muzzle of Pepe’s MP-5 had broken the skin.
“What do you think you are doing,” said Abbo, the baritone of his voice resonating with contempt.
Cameron lifted a pillow from the side of the massive bed, “Here, you can cover yourself up.”
“Does my manhood make you feel inferior?” Abbo shot Cameron a judging leer. “Good. I feel no shame. You should have shame. Thieves in the night, and you, Cameron Kincaid, I see you beneath your mask. You think you can steal from me?”
“We aren’t here to steal,” said Cameron. He dropped the pillow.
“No matter,” said Abbo, his voice confident and deep. “You will not leave alive. My men will never let you leave.”
Pepe had composed himself. “They are all dead.”
“You think the men in other room and the hall are the only soldiers that protect me. You are foolish. I have men downstairs that will be arriving any moment to take your heads.”
“Also dead,” said Pepe.
Abbo furled his brow. “You play. You will see.”
“The tall one, the two skinny men, the one with the scar? Dead, dead, dead, and dead, and your driver too, oui, he is also dead.”
“That is impossible,” said Abbo.
“No,” said Pepe. “Far from impossible.” He produced a knife from the inside of his jumpsuit. “I cut their throats one by one.”
Abbo jolted himself from the bed, away from Pepe.
Cameron lifted his MP-5, “Ah, ah. Stay right there.”
Abbo peered up at Cameron, judging the next action, and then relaxed back onto the headboard, the attempt to scramble failed.
“You are the assassins,” said Abbo. He straightened his back and then cleared his throat. Abbo’s head drooped around to Cameron, “You, you are a spy from the CIA, or one of the others from above maybe?”
“No,” said Cameron. “I’m just the wrong fella to mess with.”
“Seems you hijacked the wrong yacht,” said Pepe, “and took the wrong girl.”
Abbo began to lean forward, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
In a flash, Pepe raised his MP-5 high and then thrust his elbow back into the chest of the captive giant. The headboard cracked loudly as Abbo’s weight burst back.
Abbo yelled up at Pepe, “What do you want with me!”
“Where is Christine?” asked Pepe.
“Who is Christine? I do not know who you are talking about.”
Pepe’s stout body twisted and his knee flew up into Abbo’s chest, planting the warlord further into the bed.
Abbo lifted his hands to cover himself, his eyes wide, “Really I do not know what you are talking about. I do not know about a yacht or this girl Christine.”
Pepe swung the muzzle of the MP-5 back toward Abbo’s face.
“Hold on,” said Cameron. “We are talking about the Kalinihta. Demetrius Stratos’ yacht you hijacked and took to your compound when you kidnapped his son Nikos and Christine, the woman that was with him. We have Nikos and we want Christine.”
“You fools,” said Abbo. “I did no such thing.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Cameron.
“You have been deceived. Dada is the kidnapper. It was him that kidnapped my son and took him to this compound you speak of. The compound belongs to Dada.”
“What are you saying?” asked Pepe.
“I have nothing that far north. Dada took that compound from the Merca when he drove them out. Why would I hijack that yacht? I have no quarrel with Demetrius Stratos. I have been dealing with him for years.”
Cameron shook his head, “You’re lying.”
“No, no,” said Abbo. “This is about money.”
“What money?”
“The waste disposal money. That is what Dada wants. Demetrius charges one thousand euros per ton to dispose of toxic waste created by the companies across Europe. For five euros per ton, the National Volunteer Coast Guard allows his ships to dump millions of tons of the waste. They dump far out in Somali waters. Demetrius pays me, and then pockets the difference. Why would I ruin all of this?” Abbo gestured his hand around the suite. “This is that scheming Dada. Dada is in London to rework the deal for the Somali Marines.”
Alastair had returned and was at the foot of the bed, “He is lying to save himself.”
“I am not lying. Dada has made a fool of you to win the deal with Demetrius and to take me out at the same time. My spies tell me he tries to get double increase. He wants everything. He is the one that sent you, is he not?”
“Why do you say that?” asked Cameron.
Abbo lowered his voice, wounded he said, “Maybe you work for Dada? Maybe you were the ones who took my son? What have you done with him? Have you killed Feizel, killed my son?”
“He’s lyin
g,” said Alastair.
“He’s not,” said Pepe.
“When is the last time you saw your son?” asked Cameron.
“I have not seen my son in weeks. He is not content to stay here. He is young and travels through Europe with the young people, where the young people dance. He was last in Ibiza when I spoke with him, then he disappeared.”
“Disappeared? What do you mean?” asked Cameron.
“We always talk, every few days. Then nothing. He did not use his credit cards. No one had seen him. I was told he had been kidnapped and taken to the compound in Kismayu. By the time my men were able to get there, the compound had been burnt to the ground. Was that you?”
“Yes,” said Cameron. “We liberated Stratos’ yacht and crew from the compound.”
Abbo stretched his neck tall, “Did you see my son? Do you know what that dog did with him?”
“Not everyone was there,” said Pepe. “That is why we are here.”
“Then I must go to London,” said Abbo. “I know now what he is up to. I will set things right with Demetrius, and I will torture that dog Dada to find out where my son is.”
“Your son is dead,” said Alastair.
“What?” asked Abbo.
“Feizel was in on the deal to screw over his old man,” said Alastair. “The heir to the throne. Just didn’t play out like he thought.”
Abbo’s eyes began to blaze red, “Now you lie!”
Alastair continued, “He had a gun when we arrived. What kidnapper would give their hostage a gun?”
“Where is he? What have you done?”
“He is dead,” said Alastair. He nodded toward Pepe. “My friend shot him in the head.”
Abbo shouted a guttural scream, “No this cannot be!” He threw his outstretched hand up toward Pepe’s neck, his wrists and fingers gnarled in the air prepared to mangle. Pepe’s knees buckled as he dropped back to dodge the lunging warlord. Pepe squeezed his trigger as the warlord soared toward him.
The Somali Deception Episode II (A Cameron Kincaid Serial) Page 7