by Mark Parragh
Through it, Georges tried to focus on one thing: the IP address of the alert station back in the war room in Palo Alto. It became the lifeline he clung to. If he could just make it through this…
At last it stopped. He didn’t know how long it had gone on. He’d lost all track of time. There was nothing but pain and an IP address. He heard himself whispering the numbers to himself over and over.
Then a hand grabbed Georges by the hair and pulled his head back off his chest. He saw Manu breathing hard, glaring into his bleary eyes.
“You ready to do what I say now?”
Georges tried to speak but all that came out was a pained squawk. He swallowed blood and tried again.
“I’ll need my laptop.”
Crane tossed the room quickly and efficiently. Georges had taken his laptop but left everything else. There was nothing to suggest what he’d done or where he’d gone. No note explaining his plans, no scrap of paper in the trash with an address or a phone number. There was nothing. He checked his own room in case Georges had left something for him there, but again found nothing.
He swore and threw himself into the armchair beside the desk. He tried Georges number again, but again the call immediately went to voice mail. There was nothing he could do.
A moment later, his phone rang. It was the war room.
“We’ve got him,” said the voice.
Crane was instantly on his feet.
“Tell me.”
“His laptop just phoned home with an SOS. He asked for you. He needs help.”
No kidding, thought Crane.
“He gave a Yaoundé address. Sending it now. He’s being held there. One man on him, maybe more in the house. He said to tell you to hurry.”
Crane was already at the door. As he hurried down the hall, a text message pinged with the address Georges had sent.
“I’m on it,” he said, and hung up. At least Georges had managed to call for help when the trouble got too deep. That was something.
Of course, he could have just told him what he was going to do from the beginning. The fact that he hadn’t meant he thought Crane wouldn’t have let him do it.
And he was probably right, Crane told himself as he ran for the car.
Across the room, Manu paced back and forth like an angry cat. “What do you mean, nothing?” he said. He was on his phone with his sister again. He’d sent her to the Afriland First Bank with a passcode, expecting her to come out with another magical ten million Francs.
“You give them the password I said? Say it back to me.”
He went to the desk and checked the nonsense string Georges had given him. He looked back at Georges in suspicion.
Georges knew he was running out of time.
“What did they say?”
Manu took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay,” he said. “No, stay there. I’ll call you back.”
He put down the phone and turned to Georges.
“You messing with me? You play me for a fool? There’s no goddamn money!”
“There has to be!” Georges said, knowing perfectly well that there wasn’t. “You must have got the passcode wrong.”
“She didn’t get the passcode wrong!” Manu snapped. “There’s no account. Passcode or no! You lie to me and I’ll cut you up good.” He pulled up his pant leg and drew a long, thin blade from an ankle sheath. He held it in front of Georges's face.
“You see this? You gonna see it real close if you’re fucking with me.”
Georges said nothing. He just wanted to lie down somewhere, curl up on his side, and ride out the pain. But he knew it would just get worse from here. He hadn’t thought this out well enough. Someone would have to be left standing at the end, either Einar Persson or someone from Yanis’s gang. He wasn’t just going to walk out with Romy.
And where were they? What if Einar had killed them all and still had Romy? What if Romy had been killed in the crossfire?
He wasn’t cut out for this, he realized with a sudden and complete certainty. He was meant to be in his workshop, building tricks and weapons for someone like Crane to use. That was his strength. Officer Makoun had tried to tell him, “do something smart.” But he never quite managed to stay on that course for long. He always found a way to convince himself that whatever he thought of was the smart thing.
It definitely hadn’t been this time, and he was going to pay for it. Maybe with his life.
“Maybe something went wrong,” he said thickly, through his swollen and bloody lips. “On their end. I can try again.”
“No, man. Nothing went wrong. It worked before. You’re trying to play me.”
Manu slowly pressed the tip of the blade against his chest. Georges felt the skin stretch taut beneath the hard steel, then suddenly give way. He gasped in pain.
“How’s that?” asked Manu, a sadistic leer on his face. “That okay?”
He drew the blade half an inch across Georges's chest, the skin parting like a zipper.
“You give me my money, or do I keep going?” Manu snarled.
“I told you…I…I can—”
Then there were two quick gunshots. Georges’s heart leapt in terror, and he felt the blade move in his skin as Manu tensed.
But then Manu released the knife. He looked down at Georges in surprise, then fell across his lap and didn’t move. Gravity slowly pulled the knife down, and the tip of the blade dug a small divot in his flesh as it fell free.
Georges looked up and saw John Crane standing outside the casement window.
Crane stepped through the window, his pistol aimed steadily at the closed door. He crossed the room quickly and grabbed Manu’s knife with one hand.
“You all right?” he said as he sliced the cords holding Georges's right arm to the chair.
“I will be.”
Crane handed him the knife and returned his attention to the door. Georges started cutting himself free. He heard shouting voices outside, someone banging on the door. Crane raised the pistol and fired three more shots through the top of the door. It was enough to dissuade whoever was out there.
Georges pushed Manu off himself. Manu’s body fell to the floor, and he seemed to groan as air was forced from his lungs. Then Georges stood up and gasped in pain as circulation returned to his lower body. He wavered and fell against Crane. Crane put an arm around him to hold him up, and they retreated toward the window, Crane’s gun still leveled at the door.
“I’m sorry,” Georges said. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve got courage,” said Crane. “I’ll give you that.” He turned and checked the window, then pushed Georges behind him. “Go. We’ve still got your sister to deal with.”
Chapter 53
One of the things Crane had bought on his initial supply run when he arrived was a first aid kit. He got it from the trunk of the car and let Georges work on himself while Crane drove. Georges had taken a couple painkillers from the kit, and now he was applying a large patch bandage to the slash across his chest. He was a bloody mess but that couldn’t be helped now.
Hopefully Georges had given him the right location this time. He assumed so. Georges's original plan had gone to hell. Crane figured he was smart enough to see it was time to let him handle the situation.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he finally said as the Yaoundé traffic started to clear, and he could pick up some speed.
“I thought if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t let me do it.”
Crane scoffed. “You think?”
“I couldn’t send you up against that man again,” said Georges, “I know what he’s capable of.”
Crane was quiet for a moment. “I’m a little bit insulted you didn’t think I could handle him.”
“That’s not it!” Georges protested. “I just…this is my problem, not yours. I know I asked you for help, but I shouldn’t have.”
“Well, that’s bullshit.”
“All right, all right.” Then Georges gasped as he wiped a disinfectant swab
on his cut cheek. “I thought I could solve it without putting you in any more danger. I was wrong.”
“You figured we’ve got two enemies now, so why not set them after each other instead of us. Let Einar and Yanis rip each other up.”
“Something like that.”
Crane shrugged. “It’s not the worst idea you’ve had. But it leaves too much to chance. And it could have gotten you killed, and then how would you help your sister? You ready to let me run this thing now?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I get it.”
“All right,” said Crane. “I don’t know what we’re going into, but it’s going to be rough. Can you handle the shotgun?”
The paved road gave way to packed red dirt surrounded by tall grass and Moabi trees. Georges remembered valleys like this from his childhood. His parents would take him and his sister out to the country and teach them about the native plants and wildlife. Their mother would collect leaves, seedpods, and feathers as they hiked through the forests. Then they would have a picnic lunch alongside some stream, and their mother would quiz them on what she’d found while their father bargained with the local farmers for produce to take home.
It had been a good life, but it was gone now. He was here for something very different this time.
Georges sat with the Mossberg shotgun in his lap. It was a compact, dangerous looking gun that wasn’t like shotguns he’d seen before. There was no shoulder stock, just a short hand grip that ended in a rounded ball. Along with the short barrel, it looked like something that had been sawed down, but apparently it came that way. Crane had checked the tube magazine before he handed it over.
“You’ve got six shells,” he’d said. “This is a twenty gauge gun. It’s meant for home defense. And you’re not an experienced shooter. So you’re not going to have much effective range. Only shoot if somebody’s right on you. If they’re more than about a hundred feet out, you’re better off making yourself hard to hit than standing there shooting at them.”
Georges looked down at the gun again. Was he ready to kill someone with this thing? He knew he was capable of killing. He’d done it before. But that was self-defense. He’d killed to save Crane’s life and his own. This felt different. They were deliberately going into danger. They would be actively going for Romy, and they would have to fight anyone who got in their way.
Romy. He’d been just as useless to her as he had to his mother. Yanis’s goons hadn’t viciously attacked her and left her bleeding in the street, but they’d maimed her just the same. Oh yes, he could point the shotgun at one of them and pull the trigger if he had to.
But maybe they would be lucky, he thought as he saw the van parked on the side of the road ahead. Maybe Persson had wiped out the Ibiza Boys, and Yanis had gunned Einar down with his dying breath.
“Here we go,” Crane said quietly. He slowed the car and pulled off into the tall grass perhaps fifty yards behind the van. He cut the engine and checked the pistol one more time. As he opened the door, Georges heard distant gunshots, a burst from an automatic rifle, then three single answering shots.
No such luck. That meant Einar was still fighting, along with at least one of Yanis’s men.
“Stick close to me,” said Crane.
Georges nodded, then hurried after Crane, who had set off into the woods. They moved parallel to the road, but far enough back for the foliage to hide them. As they passed the van, Crane stopped suddenly, then veered toward it. The side door hung open and Georges saw blood on the dirt outside. Then he saw the body hanging out of the door, feet lying still on the ground as the blood pooled around them.
Crane checked the inside of the van, then turned the body over. Georges recognized him from the house. He’d been shot in the belly, not here but somewhere out there among the trees. Now that he was at the van, Georges could see the trail of blood and the marks of hands scratching in the dirt. He’d crawled back here but lacked the strength to climb into the van.
Crane left the body where it lay. He checked the van for keys, but they were gone. Whatever weapon the dead man had carried had been lost somewhere along the way. There was nothing for them here.
But that wasn’t quite true, Georges realized suddenly. There was the body and the message it represented. This was where gunfighting brought you, a final crawl through muck and elephant grass while your life oozed away into the thirsty earth. The darkness close behind, overtaking you at the end until all light and life was gone.
Georges knew he could kill if circumstances forced him to. Could he die if he had to?
Crane tapped his shoulder with the back of his hand. “Hey. Let’s go.”
Georges nodded, and they set out at a steady trot, moving through the grass and rows of trees in the direction of the farmhouse.
Crane had memorized what little detail the online map and satellite view of this place had given him. He kept himself oriented to the house where he assumed Romy was being held but didn’t go straight toward it. He led Georges in a ragged arc to approach the house from the side. If Einar was still alive against all of Kamkuma’s men—and the sporadic gunshots said that he was—then he wasn’t defending a position. He was mobile, striking where he could and moving on.
The shots were coming from different directions, and there was the occasional shout as someone tried to locate a friend. Einar had scattered them. They were crashing around the bush, probably frightened half to death, shooting at any movement. It made the orchard a very dangerous place. But on the other hand, Romy was probably unguarded. He suspected they’d find her tied up somewhere in the house, alone.
They crossed a drainage ditch bridged by a muddy plank and reached a clear area where the one-time farmer had parked his machinery. Crane saw an old sprayer, fresh bullet holes stitched across its rusting tank. There was a toolshed, metal door hanging off its hinges. There was a clutch of aging blue oil drums. And across a few more yards of packed dirt and gravel, there was the house. It was a small, single story building of cream-colored plank siding with a brown metal roof, a doorway at one end, and two square windows cut into the wall. He couldn’t make out any movement inside.
He checked Georges one last time, then broke out of the cover of the elephant grass. They crossed quickly to the toolshed. He spotted more blood in the dirt outside the gaping door and stopped. He fell into a crouch against the sunbaked metal wall and saw the remains of a tripwire in the dirt. Einar had expected them to approach this way. He leaned around the corner and searched in the dark until he saw the muzzle of a shotgun positioned in the debris on the floor, aiming up at the door.
It had worked from the look of things. Someone had entered the shed and set it off. There was no body, and less blood than if it had hit its target dead on. But it had winged one of them at least and alerted Einar.
“Watch out for traps,” he murmured to Georges.
“This whole place is a trap.”
That was true enough, but what else could they do? The best strategy for survival now was to spend as little time in the killing zone as possible.
There was another burst of fire from somewhere and a voice called out, “Help me!” It was far away, in the opposite direction from the house. That was a positive sign. Crane peered around the corner of the shed and saw nothing.
“Come on,” he said, then set off for the doorway.
Crane half expected to feel a bullet slam into him as he ran, but there was no shot. They reached the house, and Crane stopped short. Georges was breathing hard behind him. Crane studied the doorway, looking for another tripwire, but saw nothing.
Moment of truth.
Crane took a breath and led with his pistol as he stepped through the door.
He came into what had once been the kitchen. The room was lit only by shafts of sunlight from the windows. Dust danced in the light and the glare made it hard to make things out. There was a door to another room, probably the only other room given the size of the house. Crane saw tracks in the dust.
The floor creaked a
nd groaned as he crossed the kitchen toward the other door. Water dripped from a hand pump onto a metal plate. Crane gestured to Georges to stay out of the line of sight of the doorway.
Then he leveled his pistol and swung around the door frame.
The small room had the other window he’d seen from outside. On the opposite wall was another window and the front door. There were a few sticks of furniture left behind.
“Go away!” shouted a terrified voice. “I swear I’ll do it!”
In the gloom of the back corner, tied to a creaking wooden chair, was Romy. Crouched behind her, with a pistol to her head, was Yanis Kamkuma.
Chapter 54
Crane gripped his pistol in both hands and stepped forward into the room.
“Be very careful, Yanis. Your life’s hanging by a thread.”
Yanis thrust the muzzle of his gun against Romy’s temple. “I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her right here!”
Romy was terrified, but she appeared unhurt. Einar had tied her firmly to the chair and covered her mouth with tape. Her nostrils flared as she breathed in fast and hard. Yanis was crouched behind her, his back pressed into the corner. Crane could see the drag marks in the dust where he’d pulled the chair from the middle of the room. He was out of his depth, panicked, just trying to survive. That made him more dangerous than he’d ever been before.
Georges slid around him into the room. “Romy! It’s all right,” he said. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine.”
Everything was not fine.
“Cover the doors,” Crane snapped at him. The shotgun was useless with Romy as Yanis’s human shield. But someone might come through the front door at any moment.
“You’ve got nowhere to go,” he said to Yanis. He was stalling, watching how Yanis moved, waiting for the moment when he had the best shot at taking him out without hitting the girl in front of him. “She’s all you’ve got to bargain with, but if you kill her, then it’s just you and the two of us. How do you think that ends for you?”