“Are you armed?” I asked as I maneuvered the Land Cruiser through a roundabout.
Sarah seemed surprised by the question. “They gave me a forty-five.” Sarah, like me, was wearing an untucked, short-sleeved shirt over her T-shirt and body armor to conceal her weapon.
“Okay,” I said. “If the shit hits the fan, fall back to the truck and let me cover you. If I get hit, get in the truck and leave without me.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Mike, you don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. You’re a mission-essential asset. It’s my job to get you in and out of there alive. If it gets bad, you grab our target and get her out. If you can’t do that, leave her with me and get yourself out. This is how it works. Okay?” She briefly looked like she was going to argue with me, but simply nodded.
Asra Elnadi insisted that we meet in a freight yard near the Ash Shamal docks. She told us that she’d be coming alone. This simplified things for us a little, as we’d only have one person to exfiltrate. Nothing complicates a simple extraction mission more than the would-be extractee showing up with an entourage of friends and family.
Using a GPS unit in the truck, I navigated my way through a labyrinthine maze of old warehouses and stacked shipping containers. The Ash Shamal docks were one of the busiest ports in the Persian Gulf, and the surrounding facilities were huge. They were also uncontrolled. There were no fences, no cameras, no access control points, and as near as I could tell, no security. The harbor police occasionally did patrols through the docks at night, but those patrols had fallen off as violence had risen in the district. The police in the Zoob were probably either sympathetic to General Al Sabah’s fermenting revolution or didn’t want to get killed in it.
It was just after midnight when we finally arrived at the predetermined meeting point. It was a large, open area surrounded by walls of shipping containers stacked four and five high. There were a couple of small buildings and a long, metal sunshade, under which dozens of forklifts and utility vehicles were parked. Along the rear of this concrete pad was a massive warehouse. The area was dark, save for lights on the front of each of the buildings.
I killed the headlights as we slowly rolled into the open, noticing an Audi sedan parked between two forklifts. “Xbox, Nightcrawler, I think I have eyes on the package. Where are you?”
“We’re almost in position,” Tailor replied. “Okay,” he said after a few moments. “I can see you.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on top of a stack of conex boxes to the south of you. Gotcha covered, nice and quiet.” This meant that Tailor was providing overwatch with a suppressed rifle. It was too dark for me to see where he was, but from on top of any of the stacks of containers he’d have a commanding view of the area, especially using the thermal scope Frank had pulled out of the armory.
“Nightcrawler, Shafter,” Hudson said. “We’re just around the corner. We can be on top of you in a couple seconds.”
“Roger that,” I said as I got out of the truck.
I looked over at Sarah. “You ready?” She nodded again, not looking at me. I reached into my pocket and took out a flashlight. I flashed it at the Audi three times, paused for a few seconds, then flashed it a fourth time. The Audi’s headlights flashed back at me five times. The dome light came on briefly as the driver’s door opened. A slender female figure climbed out of the car and closed the door behind her.
Sarah and I approached slowly. I stayed a few paces behind Sarah and scanned the area. Even though I had Tailor watching me and some backup, something was bothering me. I felt vulnerable.
“Stay here,” Sarah said. “I’m going to go talk to her.” She then keyed her own radio microphone. “Xbox, I’m making contact with the package now.”
I waited for him to acknowledge Sarah before speaking. “If this takes too long, I’m going to grab her and throw her in the truck. If she tries to get back in her car, draw down on her.”
Sarah looked a question at me. “Hunter’s orders,” I said. “She’s coming with us whether she likes it or not. I was told to shoot her if she tries to run. So you need to make sure she understands that the only way she’s getting out of this alive is if she does what you tell her. If she gets cold feet, I’ll put a slug through her. If I don’t, Tailor will. Clear?”
“Yeah, clear,” Sarah replied, walking away from me. I didn’t know what the hell she was being so touchy about. The fact that Asra Elnadi was a woman didn’t make her a good person. She was a black-market arms dealer who sold weapons to terrorists. If she hadn’t come to us first, she’d have probably ended up dead when we went after Federov. Maybe it was a chick thing.
I was standing about fifty feet away from Sarah when she addressed the target in Arabic. I constantly scanned the surroundings. I was gripped by a sense of unease that I just couldn’t shake. Was it because of the previous night, or was it something real?
“I’ve got the package in tow,” Sarah said over the radio, sounding relieved. “So far so good.”
I activated my microphone again. “Xbox, Nightcrawler, you see anything?”
“Negative,” Tailor replied. “It’s quiet. Why? Something up?”
“Just a bad feeling.”
“Hang on,” Tailor said. “I just had a door open. . . . There’s a couple guys walking up some exterior stairs.”
It might not be anything, I thought, just somebody working late, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I couldn’t see anything moving in the darkness. “Xbox, where?”
“Two hundred meters due north of you. They’re on a catwalk on that three-story warehouse. Shit, they just walked behind something. I lost them.” I could see the building in question but couldn’t make out any details from here. There was a long pause as Tailor searched through his scope. “They were carrying boxes or something, but it’s hard to see details through this thing.”
Sarah seemed to have our contact under control and was gently leading her my way. I wished she’d hurry the hell up. Asra was babbling away, nervous. The arms dealer had a high-pitched voice. Something she said seemed to spook Sarah, and they started moving quicker. She sounded nervous over the radio. “The package thinks she might have been followed.”
My attention focused back to the warehouse. I’d just caught a tiny flicker of movement at the top.
“Okay, I got visual on one of them again. He’s setting down his box.” Tailor sounded uncertain. “Wait. Shit. It’s a weapon, I say again, he’s got a weapon. Get out of there, Nightcrawler! Engaging!”
Sniper. “Understood, moving!” I said, breaking into a run. There was no cover where we were. We had to get out of there. “Sarah!” I yelled, digging the Land Cruiser’s keys out of my pocket. “Get her in the truck!”
“I heard him!” Sarah said, grabbing the package by the arm and pulling her along. Asra balked at this and began chattering at Sarah. She seemed like she wanted to know what was going on. There wasn’t time for that. I caught up with the two women, took Asra by the other arm, and hauled her roughly back to our Toyota.
She struggled and bitched at me. I looked over at Sarah as my left hand went to the butt of my gun. “Tell her that Federov is coming for her, and if she doesn’t get into that truck right now I’m going to fucking shoot her.” Sarah conveyed my warning to Asra. The arms dealer’s eyes went wide, and she complied with my command. I hurried for the front seat. Muffled cracks echoed across the storage yard; Tailor had started shooting.
“Xbox, do you have—” But a deafening bang cut me off. Bits of metal flew from the hood of our truck. I lurched to the side and threw myself to the pavement behind the car. The next bullet exploded through the engine block, destroying it. Asra started screaming. “Out! Out!” I shouted, crawling toward the women. Windows shattered as huge bullets lanced through our ride.
Sarah reacted quickly, getting as low as possible. I reached up, got a handful of Asra’s suit jacket, and yanked her to the ground. We were pinned. The sniper had something huge,
and by the rate of fire, semiautomatic. Our Toyota wasn’t cover, it was just concealment.
“Got one. Shit! Can’t spot the other guy. Shot’s blocked. Moving!” Tailor shouted.
A hole as big around as my fist punched through the Toyota’s side panel. The bullet dug a divot into the ground, launching stinging asphalt bits. If we ran for the nearest conex, not all of us would make it, but if we sat here, we were as good as dead.
Asra stood, panicking, trying to flee. Sarah knocked her down before I could. A bullet whined through the space she had just filled. Sarah threw her body on top of our package to hold the struggling woman down.
This day just kept getting better and better. The sniper had disabled our vehicle first so we couldn’t run. The only reason we hadn’t been hit yet was luck.
“This is Shafter. We’ve got multiple vehicles inbound from the east at a high rate of speed. We got more company!”
“Copy!” I said. Another heavy slug plowed through our truck, showering me with shattered safety glass. “Hurry!”
“Got you, fucker,” Tailor gasped as he opened fire. The gun was suppressed, but the supersonic bullets cracked by over our heads. “He’s down! I got him!”
I rolled over. Sarah was still on top of the flailing woman. “Are you hit?” She shook her head. Asra was in shock, covering her ears with her hands and babbling like an idiot. “Shut her up!” Fluids were pouring from our perforated truck. More bad guys were inbound. It was time to go. “Shafter, we need extraction, now!”
I scanned nervously out the window as we raced away from the scene of the shootout. This was exactly why we always tried to use multiple vehicles. The colonel was going to be pissed that we’d lost another one. Wheeler was driving, Hudson was riding shotgun. Tailor was in the back of the van, scanning out the rear window with his rifle in his lap. Sarah and I were in the back, too, as was our guest. Asra Elnadi was still prattling on about something.
“What’s she saying?” Hudson snapped.
“She says she’s very sorry. Federov must have had her tailed, and . . .” Sarah scowled. “Mike, she says you’ll regret roughing her up, and that she’ll complain to our superiors and have you punished.”
I looked over at her incredulously. The arms dealer was an attractive woman of about forty. Her mascara was running badly. She glared back at me with an indignant look that said don’t you know who I am?
I made a face at her and turned toward Tailor. “What took you so long back there?”
“There was a crane in the way. I couldn’t get a shot. I had to run a ways.”
“If you didn’t smoke so damn much, you’d have gotten there faster.”
He turned around and grinned at me. “You ain’t worth that!”
Conex containers were flying past as we sped out of the port, pulling onto a main road. Wheeler had been trying to keep our speed reasonable, so as to not draw attention to us, but he floored it now that we were in the open.
“Damn it. A bunch of sedans just pulled out behind us,” Tailor snapped. “They’re on us.”
“They weren’t in visual range,” Wheeler said tersely. “How’re they following us now?”
“She’s been bugged,” Hudson said. Asra shrieked at me as I ripped her purse away, but sure enough, I found the little tracking device a second later. I passed it forward, and Hudson tossed it out his window. Too bad they had a visual on us now, which meant we either had to lose them the old-fashioned way, or shoot it out. “Pat her down, Sarah.” Sarah didn’t complain, but Asra Elnadi certainly did. “Tell her that she can either let you do it, or I will.” Once that was translated, it finally shut her up.
We raced south, toward the main part of town. There was more traffic here, which we could use to our advantage. “I’m going to get on the parkway,” Wheeler said as he took the turnoff. It made sense. It was way too easy to get lost on the backstreets. Hudson was on the radio with Control, trying to get us some help. Several sets of headlights were gaining rapidly on us. They’d followed us onto the parkway.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Wheeler suddenly applied the brakes. Traffic had slowed to a stop.
“Oh, God, what now?” I asked in frustration. Then I saw the flashing lights. Zubaran security forces had set up a checkpoint. Two police cars were parked there, along with an army APC, and the road had been funneled down to a single lane in the center. Camouflaged soldiers and blue-suited police officers were stopping each car, checking the occupants. One car had been pulled off to the side to be searched.
This was new. Our antics had been causing the Zubarans some serious problems, but this was the first time we’d run into a random checkpoint.
“It’s the damned curfew!” Wheeler said, looking around anxiously. There was nowhere to turn off. They’d placed the roadblock such that anyone pulling onto the parkway would be committed, and flipping around would bring us right back to the pursuing mobsters.
“They’ve stopped,” Tailor reported from the back. “They see the cops too.” At least Federov’s men weren’t stupid enough to start a gunfight with the police right there, but we were trapped. “We’ve got to go through. Hide your guns.”
They were still searching that one car, and it appeared they only left room enough to search one at a time. We might get through this. Other cars were being waved through with just cursory examinations. But then again, we were a carload of obvious Westerners. Dead Six had provided us all with forged documents for just this contingency, but if the car got searched and they found our weapons, we’d have a serious problem.
“Let me do the talking,” Sarah suggested. She was the only one of us that spoke the language.
Hudson thought about it for a second and then struggled to maneuver his bulk between the seats so Sarah could get up front. It was rather difficult for him, but finally we got Sarah into the passenger’s seat before we were close enough for the troops at the checkpoint to see us.
It took forever for the line of cars to move forward. The soldiers ahead seemed to be as unmotivated as third-world armies normally were on this kind of duty. We had a good chance of breezing right through this. As an added bonus, we’d be long gone before Federov’s men could make it through. There were over a dozen soldiers and cops manning the checkpoint, but only a few of them seemed to be engaged in doing any actual work. The rest stood around shiftlessly, smoking or talking to each other.
Tailor stashed his rifle under a blanket. “Everybody stay calm, but if this goes south, lay down as much fire as you can. Wheeler, drive right between those cop cars and get us the hell out of here. Sarah, your job is to make sure we don’t have to do that? Got it?”
Sarah just nodded. Hudson was sitting on the other side of Asra now, looking really uneasy. He and Wheeler had spent a lot of time manning checkpoints in Iraq, and I figured he’d much rather be on the other side of the roadblock right now. “Wheeler, be cool, man. Just be cool.”
A few minutes later it was our turn. Wheeler rolled his window down as a soldier walked up to the van. The soldier was young, but he seemed like he was on the ball. He kept one hand on the pistol on his belt as he scowled at the carload of Westerners. The back of the van was dark, and had no windows. He didn’t seem to have a flashlight.
The soldier said something. Wheeler just smiled and passed over his papers. Sarah responded in Arabic, but the soldier snapped back at her harshly. He either didn’t like being addressed by someone he wasn’t talking to, or he didn’t like being addressed by a woman. He studied Wheeler’s papers intently, looking for any discrepancies. It was just our luck that we’d found one of the only people in the Middle East who gave a shit about doing a good job. Even better, he spoke English.
“Americans?”
“Yes, sir,” Wheeler responded, cheerful as he could be. “We’re working on the natural-gas pipeline for Zubara National Energy.”
The soldier nodded but seemed suspicious. “What is your business in Ash Shamal? This is a dangerous place for Americans at night.�
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Wheeler had already thought of the cover story. “We had to pick up some diagrams at the Ash Shamal branch office. It took longer than expected, and I got lost in the dark.”
The other soldiers were all sitting on their asses, but many of them had rifles close at hand. The cupola on top of the armored car was manned and equipped with a machine gun. The car ahead of us pulled away, giving us a clear shot to freedom. Wheeler’s eyes flicked nervously forward. The young soldier was nodding as he thought about Wheeler’s story.
“Foreign criminals are murdering people in this part of the city. There was a shooting down at the harbor. Do you know anything about that?”
“No, sir,” Wheeler replied cautiously.
“No?” The soldier asked sarcastically, and leaned farther in. Sarah tried to speak to him again, but he ignored her. Damn it, why wouldn’t he just let us go? His gaze lingered on Asra and her smeared makeup. Then he studied me and Hudson for a moment. My carbine was in the backpack between my legs. I moved one hand to the sliding-door latch. The soldier removed his head from the window and addressed Wheeler loudly. “Step out of the car. All of you, step out of the car.”
“Officer, can’t we—” Wheeler began to speak but stopped as the soldier suddenly yanked out his pistol and stuck it in our driver’s face. “Whoa! Hey, man! Relax!”
“Out of the car!” the soldier shouted. The other soldiers and police officers looked up in confusion. The APC gunner swung the machine gun around so it was pointed at our van.
I didn’t have my own window. I could only see the soldier’s extended gun hand now. More troops appeared behind us, curious at the commotion. They tried to look in through the tinted back windows. Tailor reached under the blanket. Sarah was shouting something in Arabic. The soldier was shouting back at her. Somebody banged something hard against the opposite side of the van. Asra flinched so violently that it made me jump.
Then there was a gunshot. The Calm slowed everything down. I looked just in time to see the soldier’s gun move down out of recoil. Wheeler said something unintelligible. A small amount of blood splattered against the interior of our windshield.
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