At the same time, the Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara was slowly tearing itself apart. The fear and chaos we’d caused was intended to be inflicted only upon the terrorists, but it had quickly spread to the wider community. General Al Sabah was now positioning himself to be the new Iron Man of the Arabian Gulf, and had half the Zubaran Army on his side. The emir was on shakier ground than ever. It seemed very likely that the emir’s regime would fall, not to Islamic Fundamentalist fanatics as originally feared but to a militant opportunist who wanted to become a world power broker overnight.
The entire situation was a confusing mess that threatened to send the region spiraling into chaos. On top of it, we’d paid a steep price for our questionable success. Almost one-third of our personnel had been killed in action at this point.
I was terrified of what would happen to Sarah if we stayed in the Zoob. So Tailor and I had talked it over for a long time. I then talked to Sarah, while Tailor talked to Hudson, and that was as far as the talking went. There were others I liked, others I’d have liked to bring in, but I couldn’t trust anyone else. We were getting out.
That was easier said than done, of course. I could, I suppose, have just gone to the airport, whipped out my passport, and tried to buy a plane ticket, but that would’ve created questions. In any case, I was sure Gordon’s people had mechanisms in place to catch us if we tried to run. So we’d have to be clever.
I’m not really that clever. I’m not the guy that comes up with cool tricks or brilliant plans. Neither is Tailor, regardless of what he might tell you. But you don’t have to be clever if you have clever friends.
Tailor stood watch while I entered a phone booth outside an Internet café. Zubara still had pay phones aplenty, unlike the United States. Foreign workers fresh from South Asia didn’t have cell phones that worked in the country, so they often made use of the pay phones until they got situated. I had a cell phone myself, of course, but it was issued by Dead Six, and I wasn’t about to use it for this.
I pulled from my pocket a wrinkled piece of paper. Scrawled on the paper, in my own handwriting, was a long telephone number. Using a prepaid international calling card that I’d bought with cash, I dialed and waited. It took several seconds to connect, then began to ring.
Ling answered the phone on the second ring, sounding a little sleepy. I had no idea what time it was where she was. For that matter, I had no idea where she was.
“Um, hello?” I said awkwardly, hoping like hell she wasn’t pissed that I’d ignored her e-mails.
“Who is this?” Ling asked firmly.
“It’s Valentine. Remember Mexico?”
Ling was quiet for a second. “Michael Valentine? This is a surprise.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“It’s three o’ clock in the bloody morning here,” Ling said, not actually sounding irritated. “Of course you woke me. Are you calling to take me up on my offer?”
“Actually . . . I need your help.”
“Is that so? What sort of help?”
“I’m in kind of a bad spot here, and I need to get out of it.”
“Where are you?”
“The Middle East.”
“It would help if you were more specific, Mr. Valentine.”
“I’m in the Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara.”
Ling paused for a moment. “Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, I can see where you might be in some trouble then. How did you come to be there?”
“That’s a long story.”
“Can I safely assume that you’ve been getting into trouble there, or perhaps causing trouble yourself?”
“That’d be a safe assumption,” I said, nervously looking around. Tailor gave me a thumbs up through the glass.
“Very well,” Ling said. “What sort of help do you need, then?”
“I need to get out of here,” I said flatly. “As soon as possible. Normal methods of transportation aren’t workable. I need to just disappear.”
“Just you?” Ling asked.
“No, me plus three others. People I trust. I don’t care how we go, and right now I don’t even care where we go, we just need to go.”
“What’s going on?”
“Look, I can’t stay on the line too long. If we’re gone too long they’ll notice, and then there’ll be questions, and that will cause problems.”
Ling chewed on that for a moment. “I see. I see. So tell me, honestly. Why should I help you? How can I even trust that you’re not now working for someone trying to set a trap for my organization?”
“Because a bunch of my friends died trying to help get that girl off that boat before she disappeared. Because I, personally, risked my life to keep her safe, even though you never even told me why she was important. I have money. I’ll pay if I have to. I just need your help.”
“As luck would have it,” Ling said after another long pause, “I’ll be in that part of the world shortly. Do you have a way for me to contact you?”
“Not securely, no,” I admitted. “I have a phone, but it’s probably monitored. I’m on a pay phone right now.”
“I see. Okay, I’ll need you to call me on May fourth. We’ll set up the meeting then.
“Meeting?”
“Yes. I want to meet with you face-to-face. If all goes well, we’ll have no problem getting you and your friends out quickly after that.”
“Can’t we all just go the first time? Things are circling the drain here.”
“We can do it my way, or I can go back to bed, Mr. Valentine,” Ling said, ice in her voice. “It’s up to you.”
I exhaled. “Okay, okay, we’ll make it work. I’ll call you on May fourth and we’ll go from there.”
“Good,” Ling said. Her voice softened just a bit. “Please be careful.”
“Thank—” Ling hung up on me before I could finish thanking her.
Chapter 13:
Hasa Market
LORENZO
May 3
I was in the kitchen when my phone buzzed, indicating a new text message.
Hasa Market. 4:00 at the fountain.
Wait for further instructions. Come alone.
I scowled. Come alone? Why did he need to specify that? Did he somehow think that this was all some sort of scheme to get him into the open? Was he afraid Dead Six was coming for him, too? Or maybe he thought that I just wanted to get the info out of him and then cheat him out of the money. . . .
Or it was a trap for me. There were plenty of people in this country who would pay Hosani good money for my head. “Carl, check this out,” I called.
My partner joined me a second later. He only glanced at the phone for a second. “Trap, it sounds like, maybe.”
“Could be. But we need the info. It’s worth the risk.”
“You going alone?” Carl asked suspiciously.
“Of course not. Hasa is a busy place. It’s that fish souk right off the docks at the end of Umm Shamal. Plenty of places for you guys to stay incognito.”
Carl shook his head. “No vehicles in there. I can blend in. Reaper, not so much.” That was true. Our techie was about the palest white boy we were going to find in five hundred miles. I had given Jill crap about walking like an American, but she was a master of disguise compared to Reaper. “I miss Train.”
I missed Train, too. The big guy had been a virtual killing machine and had been great backup for situations like this. “We’ll stick Reaper in the van back a ways. He’s our ride out if we need him. We’ll stay in radio contact.” I tried to keep Reaper away from the hands-on part of the work. It wasn’t exactly his area of expertise. But he was street-smart enough to keep his eyes open for anything suspicious.