Robert Ludlum's the Treadstone Exile

by Joshua Hood

  Hayes had been hoping for a better outcome—hell, he’d even been willing to take an ass kicking, but a bullet was a different story.

  Yeah, I don’t think so.

  By now the soldiers had been drawn closer by the violence, each one wanting to see the general kill the American. From the ground all Hayes could see were boots and the barrels of the soldiers’ AK-47s, but it was all he needed.

  His plan was simple: Roll to the right, grab the closest barrel with his left hand, and pull whoever was holding it into the general’s line of fire. If it worked, Hayes estimated that he would have enough time to draw his own pistol, get to his feet, and kill a few of them before they shot him down.

  If it didn’t, well, at least Hayes got to die on his feet.

  22

  KORHOGO, IVORY COAST

  The closest barrel was three feet to his right and Hayes was ready to make his move when he heard a screech of tires skidding to a halt, followed by a burst of automatic rifle fire crackling through the air. He winced, expecting to feel the burn of hot lead across his chest, but instead he heard a woman yelling orders in French.

  “General, put down that pistol!”

  “I am in command here,” the man snapped back.

  For his part, Hayes wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but whatever it was, he knew he didn’t want to address it from the ground.

  He scrambled to his feet and found an auburn-haired woman standing in front of the general, a scrum of heavily armed men standing menacingly on her flanks. All it took was one look and Hayes knew the men were mercs—South Africans, by the looks of the FALs and Vektor R4s in their hands. But why are they here, and who’s the chick? he was wondering when he realized she was looking at him.

  All it took was the slightest of nods and the pit bulls were moving—shouldering through the gaggle of Ivorian soldiers, rifles up and ready.

  Hayes turned to face them, right hand now glued to the pistol at his waist.

  “Don’t even think about it,” one of the mercs said in French.

  “Doesn’t anyone here speak English?” he asked, falling back into his earlier role.

  “I said, don’t even think about it, mate,” the man repeated, this time in English.

  “Hey, cool’s the rule, right?” Hayes said, raising his arms above his head for the second time that day.

  “On the top of your head, fingers interlaced and joined,” the man said, waiting until Hayes complied before tugging the pistol from its holster. “Nice bit of kit, this,” he said, nodding appreciatively at it.

  “That old thing?” Hayes said. “Won it in a poker game.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I keep it.”

  Hayes shrugged, knowing he didn’t have a choice.

  “Get him to the truck,” the woman ordered, before turning back to the now-cowed general.

  Hayes started toward the truck, passing close enough to the woman to hear her ask, “Any sign of the Russian?”

  The Russian? Vlad? What the hell has that idiot gotten me into now? he wondered, letting the men drag him toward the Hilux.

  It was the first time he’d thought about the Russian since landing. The realization that he’d left the man’s body lying on the floor of the cockpit came with a twinge of guilt, but Hayes brushed it away, knowing he needed all of his focus if he wanted to stay alive.

  “Grab some hood,” the man said, and Hayes complied, leaning over the front of the truck.

  The man who searched him knew his job and quickly had the contents of his pockets and the money belt with his passport and extra cash laid out on the front of the truck.

  “Get his watch and belt, too.”

  Hayes unbuckled his belt and added it to the pile but made no move to take off the Sangin Neptune strapped to his wrist.

  “Your ears full of shit or did that general blow out your eardrums, bruh?” the man asked.

  “My ears work fine, but if you want this watch, I hope you packed a lunch.”

  “Is that a fact?” the man demanded, stepping into Hayes’s face. “What if I shot you right—” but the woman cut him off before he could finish his threat.

  “Wikus, get him in the truck and up to the hangar now.”

  “Better listen to your mama, boy,” Hayes winked.

  “Get your ass in the truck,” Wikus said, grabbing him by the shirt and shoving him into the back of the truck.

  Moments later they were speeding across the tarmac, Hayes crammed between the two men, Vlad’s blood staining his fingers like henna. It was a short drive to the terminal, but long enough for his head to fill with a hundred questions.

  Hayes got out of the truck, the mercs herding him up a flight of steps and through the door. The interior of the terminal was outdated—faded like a picture from an ’80s travel magazine—the once-colorful mural that adorned the wall covered with antigovernment graffiti and grotesque caricatures of President Soro.

  Hayes had decided there was nothing to gain by antagonizing his captors, and since getting out of the truck he’d assumed the deferential slump of a man resigned to his fate. But beneath the hunched shoulders and bowed head, his blue eyes never stopped moving. They darted back and forth across the hallway, noting every doorway and window he passed while keeping a pace count in his head.

  For all he knew the two men had been ordered to take him out back and put a bullet in his head. If this was the case, the entire venture was pointless, but Hayes knew that as long as there was breath in his lungs, it was his duty to escape.

  Not for his sake, but for that of his wife and son.

  Twenty paces to his front, the hallway formed a T intersection. One of the mercs used the barrel of his FAL to prod Hayes to the left, and a second jab to get him through the metal door on the far wall and into one of the concrete-block detention rooms on the other side.

  The room was small, maybe eight by eight, the only furnishing a stainless-steel table, two chairs, and a mirror mounted to the back wall.

  “Cuff yourself,” Wikus ordered, tossing Hayes a pair of handcuffs.

  “Seriously?” he asked.

  “Either you do it, or I’ll have him do it,” the merc said, nodding to his fellow South African, “but trust me, you don’t want him putting cuffs on ya.”

  “Good to know,” he said, snapping one of the cuffs around his wrist and the other to the length of lead pipe welded to the table.

  “Make yourself comfortable, mate. You and I’ve got a lot to talk about,” Wikus sneered before he and the other merc stepped out of the room.

  Looking forward to it.

  Like most operatives, Hayes had spent his fair share of time inside the “tank.” He’d been the detainee—the man chained to the table—wondering what horrors the people on the other side of the two-way mirror had in store for him. But he’d also been the man behind the glass wondering how much pain he’d have to inflict to break the person on the other side.

  Thanks to the time spent in the latter position, Hayes knew all the dirty tricks interrogators liked to use—tricks like cutting a half inch off the front legs of the detainee’s chair so that he was constantly sliding off the edge.

  Nice try, he thought, switching out the chairs before taking a seat.

  Having already studied the room and finding nothing of interest, Hayes turned his attention to the only link between himself and the men who’d taken him into custody—the cuff around his wrist.

  There was no doubt that the South Africans knew their job, but the fact that Wikus had used a handcuff piqued his curiosity.

  Having to detain someone was one of the hazards that came with the job, which was why any time Hayes went on an op, he always packed a handful of plastic zip-ties. The reasons were obvious: they were light, durable, and strong as hell. But most important of all, they were disposable.

  A handc
uff, on the other hand, seemed like a pain in the ass. Not just because they were heavy and needed to be maintained, but mainly because unless you wanted to buy a shit-ton of cuffs, you had to go back and retrieve them every time you used a pair.

  It seemed like an unnecessary hassle and brought up the question: Why does Wikus carry a pair of handcuffs?

  He found the answer engraved at the base of the cuff snapped around the lead pipe, in tiny letters that read REPUBLIC ARMS MODEL 65—SAP.

  Model 65 . . . general issue for South African cops assigned to Koevoet, Hayes thought.

  Koevoet, or crowbar as it was translated in English, was the nickname of South West Africa’s Police Counterinsurgency Unit. The group of specially trained men who used controversial and often brutal tactics to “pry” apartheid-era insurgents from the civilian population.

  Hayes had never met any face-to-face, but he knew enough about their reputation to start thinking about using the ceramic cuff key sewn into his waistband to get the hell out of there.

  But before he could let himself out, the door swung open and Wikus stepped gleefully into the room.

  “Oh, mate,” he said, slamming the door behind him and throwing the latch, “you and me, we’ve got something to talk about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the naughty things I found in this,” he said, tossing Hayes’s bloody assault pack on the table.

  23

  BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA

  Cyrus Vandal sat in the center of the shipping container, naked except for the pair of ratty sweatpants and the black hood his captors had pulled over his head. Using his legs, he scooted back in the chair, the cold metal frame against his bare skin sending goose bumps rushing across his body.

  But it was a momentary discomfort, barely noticeable after the previous twelve hours he’d spent shivering in the darkness, the corrugated-steel prison sucking the heat from his body. He did everything he could to stay warm while his Slovakian captors beat on him until their arms got tired.

  When he still refused to talk, one of his interrogators stepped to the edge of the container and ordered one of the guards sitting outside to priniest’ hadice—bring the hose.

  Before joining the CIA’s Special Activities Division, Vandal had spent ten years as a Navy SEAL. Thanks to the twelve brutal days he spent at SERE, he knew what was coming when the man in the navy-blue track suit appeared with the faded green garden hose.

  “We’ll see how tough he is now,” one of the interrogators said, taking the hose from the man in the track suit.

  At SERE the cadre had taught them to shut off their mind—“go to your happy place.” But at the moment all Vandal could focus on was the nozzle being shoved into his mouth and the rush of well water down his throat.

  Most men would have cracked, told them the color of their mother’s underwear after that, but not Vandal.

  “C’mon, guys,” he choked out, after vomiting a stomachful of water on the floor, “I was a SEAL, you think this is the first time someone has tried to drown me?”

  “Just wait until the boss gets here,” the lead interrogator said after zip-tying him to the chair. “We’ll see how funny you find it then.”

  But Vandal had no intention of waiting. As soon as his captors closed and latched the door he went to work on the zip-ties securing his muscled arms behind his back.

  Sitting in the darkness, he knew there were easier ways to make a living than working for the CIA’s Special Activities Division. Jobs that didn’t involve getting your ass beat by a handful of Slovak gangsters.

  But where’s the fun in that? he thought.

  Without a watch there was no way to tell the time, but when Vandal paused to take a break, he could tell that the sun had come up from the heat radiating off the container. After catching his breath, he worked his thumb over the edge of the cuff, feeling the notch he’d cut in the plastic.

  Almost there.

  Vandal set the notch against the sliver of metal on the back side of the chair, pulled his arms apart, and was busy trying to saw through the cuffs when he heard voices outside the Conex.

  He redoubled his efforts, worked at the cuffs until the sweat rolled down his face and his shoulders were hot from the lactic acid building up in his muscles. He leaned forward and pulled his arms apart, straining against his bonds.

  The plastic popped but refused to give. Before Vandal could try again, the metallic jangle of the latch being thrown told him he was out of time.

  With no other choice, he slumped forward in his chair and dropped his head, assuming the position of defeated prisoner seconds before the door groaned open. He sat there, ears straining in the dark, feeling the eyes on him, waiting for someone to speak.

  Then he heard it, the raspy voice of Ján Malicar—leader of the Dunajská Streda underworld and one of Interpol’s most wanted criminals.

  “So this is the guy who’s been giving you so much trouble?”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “Bring him outside, we’ll see how tough he is.”

  The guards stepped inside, their boots echoing off the Conex as they walked over. “We told you, asshole,” one of the men said before grabbing the back of his chair.

  They dragged him back the way they’d come, the metal legs scraping over the floor like nails on a chalkboard.

  Before he could close his eyes, the hood was ripped free, the sunlight blinding after the hours of darkness. Vandal tried to drop his head, get away from the light, but before he had a chance, a pair of rough hands had him by the chin and were torquing his head skyward.

  “So, you are the Yankee dog the Americans sent to kill me?” Malicar demanded, hand dropping to the knife strapped to his hip.

  “That’s right,” Vandal replied in perfect Slovak.

  “He speaks,” the man smiled to his cronies as he ripped the blade free, the light glinting off the razored edge as he held it in front of Vandal’s eyes. “Let’s see what else I can get you to say . . .”

  But before he had a chance to finish his threat, Vandal snapped his head forward, driving his forehead into the man’s nose.

  “Aaaaagh!” the man screamed, hand racing to his shattered nose, the blood already gushing down the front of his shirt.

  Before the guards could leap into action, Vandal spread his arms as wide as he could, clenched his core tight, and whiplashed his body forward in the chair. The second the cuffs snapped free, he was on his feet, scooping the chair off the floor and flinging it at the guards.

  The man with the broken nose swiped at him with the blade, but Vandal twisted left, watched the blade flash past his face, and caught the man’s wrist. He twisted until he heard the snap of the bone and then, in one smooth motion, hip-tossed the man to the ground.

  Still holding his arm, Vandal stomped down hard on the side of Malicar’s throat. He took a second to gather his strength, and then with a sharp pull snapped the man’s neck.

  24

  KORHOGO, IVORY COAST

  Next door to the detention room, Theresa Mallory pulled another cigarette from the pack of Marlboro Reds and lit it off the butt of the previous. As a rule, she only allowed herself five cigarettes a day, but that had gone to shit when she arrived on the flight line, found the plane shot to hell and General Dábo seconds away from putting a bullet through the pilot’s forehead.

  What would have happened if I hadn’t arrived when I did? What would I have told the boss?

  She knew that she might have been able to handle the loss of one or the other, but both? The thought sent a shudder up her spine.

  Just like everyone else who worked for Cabot, she was afraid of him. But unlike the gun thugs, fixers, and money men he used to keep DarkCloud afloat, Mallory wasn’t afraid that he would kill her—though she had no doubt the Frenchman wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger if he thought there was something to be ga
ined by her death.

  No, there was nothing he could do—no physical pain or psychological trauma—that hadn’t already been inflicted on her in the charnel house of her birth, the public housing where she’d learned firsthand that there was nothing sacred about human life. It was just another commodity, a pound of flesh to be bought for a handful of quid or stolen at the point of a knife. For Mallory, physical pain was nothing; her fear came from the emotional coldness that Cabot used to control the women in his life.

  Even now, standing there in the detention room, the cigarette smoke tumbling free of her mouth—only to be immediately inhaled through her nose—the thought of failing him was a fate worse than a thousand deaths.

  She heard boots in the hallway and turned toward the door. The shadow that fell across the threshold was followed by a respectful knock.

  “Come in,” she said in French.

  The door swung open and General Dábo stepped inside, a shorter man in gray coveralls behind him.

  “I have brought the head mechanic, as requested,” he said with an obsequious nod and one of his polished smiles.

  Mallory had met hundreds of Dábos in her life, big men with eggshell-thin egos who used charm and guile to get what a gun could not. It was this ability to see past a man’s façade and into the innermost recesses of his being that had attracted her to Cabot in the first place—and the reason she’d risen so high in his organization.

  “Thank you, General,” she said.

  “But of course, madam,” he replied. “Is there anything else that I can—”

  “You can wait in the hall,” she snapped, ignoring the blaze in his eyes.

  She waited until the door had closed and she heard Dábo’s footfalls receding down the hall before turning her eyes to the man in the coveralls.

  “What is your name?”

  “Drissa . . . Drissa Zadi,” he gulped.