by Mike Ryan
“But you must know people that could help me.”
Nails audibly sighed into the phone. “Where do you wanna go?”
“I don’t care. Anywhere but here.”
“OK, I guess I can help you out. There are several illegal border crossings that will get you into Swaziland.”
“What do I have to do? Go over a mountain? Cross a river?”
“No, just go through the fence,” Nails said.
“Say what?”
“There’s a strip of fence that lines the road separating South Africa and Swaziland between Pongola and Piet Retief. There are a couple of soldiers from each country guarding it.”
“I gotta go through soldiers? That doesn’t sound like a good career move.”
“No, no, no. They’ll check your passport, but as long as you contribute to their retirement fund, they’ll let you through. And if you don’t have a passport or ID, it just costs you more.”
“You sure about this? You’re not sending me into an ambush or anything?”
“Hey, you came to me ’cause you trusted me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So trust me when I tell you it’ll work,” Nails said. “Besides, you won’t be the only one there. There’ll probably be close to a hundred people crossing on both sides of the border.”
“And people do this?”
“All the time. It’s actually quite common.”
Myers was with an analyst, looking at a computer printout before taking it back to where Stephenson was standing. It was a somber mood in the room, knowing they had lost their target multiple times.
“There’s been no sign of her anywhere,” Myers said.
“She’s going to disappear soon if we don’t find her in the next twenty-four hours.”
“It would help if we knew what her plans were.”
“But we don’t.”
“I mean, if she’s planning on leaving the country, she could go just about anywhere from there.”
“Tap into surveillance feeds at the airports and have her picture circulated to all border checkpoints.”
“She’s probably not going to use any of those methods,” Myers said. “I mean, she knows we can check them all.”
“I agree, but it’s doing our due diligence just in case she makes a mistake, so let’s do it anyway.”
“And after that?”
“Pray she makes a mistake.”
Porter had called a taxi from the hotel she was staying at to take her to the Swaziland border. Once she got there, it was just as Nails told her. The taxi peeled out of there immediately, just in case there were police nearby. When Porter got out, she was standing next to maybe seventy other people, who were also looking to gain illegal entry into Swaziland. And there were a good forty to fifty people on the other side of the border looking to do the same.
Porter took a deep breath as the group of people she was standing with started approaching the armed guards. The guards turned and faced people, checking IDs, inquiring about their plans. A couple people had no ID and were singled out, told to stand to the side so they could deal with them after the main group had gone. A guard finally got to Porter, who handed over her passport that Nails had made.
“And what are your plans?”
“Uh, just visiting a friend,” Porter said.
“For how long?”
“I’m not sure, probably a few days.”
Porter had one of her hands in her pockets, where she already had some money waiting. She removed her hand, the money folded, but making sure it was clearly evident. The guard noticed she had a good amount, much more than most contributed. He handed the passport back to her and continued checking some others. Once the main group was finished, he instructed them to pass.
“There’s a white bucket on the ground there,” the soldier pointed. “You know what to do.”
One by one, the people, including Porter, put their money into the bucket and moved on. As she walked further and further into Swaziland, she instinctively looked back, almost expecting to see someone charging after her. But there was nothing. She kept walking, continuing to look around, still not sure if her troubles were behind her.
Stephenson came rushing into the room after getting word from Myers that they had something.
“What do you got?”
“About two hours ago we got word that Porter crossed into Swaziland through an illegal border crossing,” Myers answered.
“How do we know?”
“We picked her up on a security camera, then our guys on the ground did some digging. We got the license plate of the taxi she was riding in and questioned the driver, who told us where he took her.”
“So she crosses illegally, gives the guard a few bucks, then she’s gone.”
“Not necessarily,” Myers said. “She’s traveling on foot. Our guys are now in Swaziland too with the van. We should be able to catch up with her.”
After an hour of constantly communicating with their team on the ground, they finally caught up to Porter again.
“We got her!” Myers said, putting his fist in the air.
“Dead?” Stephenson hopefully asked.
“No. They’ve followed her into the Mahamba Protected Landscape area. They’re near the Makondo River.”
“What’s their status?”
“They’re engaged.”
Porter was near the edge of the river, kneeling down, continuously firing her weapon. The men she was firing at were spaced out at a good distance and were taking cover behind some rocks. She was out in the open. She was in a bad spot and she knew it. A couple of bullets ripped into the water, some fell into the ground by her feet, but as the minutes passed, they seemed to be getting closer. She couldn’t hold them off, and she couldn’t even get a good shot at them.
Taking a quick look behind her at the river, Porter backed her way further into it, until the water came up to her knees. She continued firing, though she had no hopes of really hitting her targets. Then she yelled out in pain, crouching down and putting her hand on her thigh after a bullet ripped through her leg. She shrugged off the pain and stood up straighter, continuing to fire at targets that weren’t all that clear.
A few seconds later, Porter felt another bullet enter her body. The force of the bullet, only a few inches from the previous time she was shot in the shoulder, completely knocked her off her feet. She felt backwards into the water, her body spinning around as she lay face first. The force of the water started carrying her downstream, the Dark Sky agents running toward the river to see her body. They watched as the river carried her body away until they could no longer see it. Satisfied that the job was done, they checked in to let their superiors know that the job was finished.
Finally having a smile on his face, Myers tore himself away from the desk and walked over to his boss, relieved at finally having good news to tell him. The pleased look wasn’t lost on Stephenson.
“We got her,” Myers said.
“Dead?”
“Looks that way. They caught up with her at the river and exchanged gunfire. Porter got hit and fell into the river.”
“They have the body, right?” Stephenson asked.
“It floated down the river. They said it wasn’t moving, though.”
The look on Stephenson’s face quickly changed from hope to despair. Not having a body was the worst-case scenario for him. Unless it was found, he was going to go under the assumption that she was alive.
“She has to be dead,” Myers said.
“She’s pulled too many disappearing acts. Until a body is found, we are going to assume she is still alive.”
“Aren’t there crocodiles and hippos in that river?”
“I don’t care what’s in it,” Stephenson answered. “With our luck, a crocodile would come along and Porter would wrestle around with it and strangle it before moving on.”
Though Myers was more hopeful than his boss about Porter’s demise, he had to go with Stephenson’s wishes.
He notified the analysts not to shut the case down and to keep the alerts out on Porter in case she showed up somewhere.
“You really think she’s still out there?” Myers asked.
“Until I see a body… I know she is.”
Porter’s body washed up on shore only about a mile or so away from where the shooting took place. Although she was hurt and in pain, she pushed herself up and got to her feet, looking around to make sure she wasn’t walking into an ambush. The area was clear, nothing but grass and trees in front of her. She was in pain, but it was nothing she couldn’t push herself through. Right now, the only thing she cared about was that she was safely out of danger.
Porter stumbled forward, starting to walk toward a clump of trees, wanting to get out of the open. Once inside the cover of the tall and plentiful trees, she could just blend in. Even if they were still looking for her, they’d have no way of knowing where she came back onto land. And even if they did eventually figure it out, she would be long gone by then. But for now, she was finally safe. Finally, she had disappeared.
About the Author
Mike Ryan is a USA Today Bestselling Author. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, and four children. He’s the author of the bestselling Silencer Series, as well as many others. Visit his website at www.mikeryanbooks.com to find out more about his books, and sign up for his newsletter. You can also interact with Mike via Facebook, and Instagram.
Also by Mike Ryan
Read the next book in the Cari Porter series, The Porter Predicament
OTHER BOOKS:
The Silencer Series
The Eliminator Series
The Extractor Series
The Cain Series
The Brandon Hall Series
The Ghost Series
The Last Job
A Dangerous Man
The Crew