“One problem,” Carl said slowly. “What about the girl?”
“Aw, hell.” He had a point. We couldn’t just leave Jill here alone. I suppose we could have tied her up, but that didn’t really go along with trying to get her to trust us. If this meeting didn’t go well, she was still my ace in the hole. The other times I had gone out since she’d been here, there had always been at least one member of my crew here to make sure she didn’t try anything stupid. She had behaved, so far. Drugs were an option.
Then Carl surprised me. “We take her.” He caught my look of confusion. “Extra eyes we could use. I saw her after that bomb went off. She was tough. Most folks don’t do that good first time they see a bunch of guts blown all over the street. We used to have a girl on the team.”
He knew how much I hated when he brought up that bit of our past. “Her and Kat don’t have very much in common,” I said.
Carl shrugged. “Personality? No. But both pretty girls, skinny but still with big tits and a nice ass. The good parts are in common.” As usual, Carl was a subtle poet of a man. “Pretty girls come in handy in this business, go places we can’t, talk to people we can’t. But that’s not what I meant. This girl, she’s a good girl.”
“Carl, oh man, I can’t believe this,” I laughed. “You’re getting soft in your old age. She’s grown on you, hasn’t she?” I didn’t think Carl was capable of actually liking anyone.
That got him. He raised a meaty hand threateningly and waved one stubby finger in my face. “We’ll stick her in the van. Make her feel helpful. This don’t change nothing. It sure don’t change the plan. So don’t you give me no shit about getting soft. I’ve burned fucking villages. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” He folded his arms. “That said, I don’t like your backup plan no more.”
“Me either,” I said slowly, but it wasn’t like he had a better idea. For us, it was either find Dead Six or die. Nothing else would stop Big Eddie’s rampage. “Hosani had better come through.”
The four of us were gathered around the kitchen table. I had just outlined what was going down this afternoon. Reaper pulled up a Google Earth view of the Hasa neighborhood on one of his laptops.
“That’s a pretty open area, Chief,” Reaper said. “I can’t see them trying to take you out in the middle of all that.” The market was right off the docks. There were warehouses to the north, and a school and a mosque to the southwest. There were three roads in. At any given time of day, the place was packed with witnesses.
“If it is a trap, they’ll send another text, telling me to walk somewhere else quieter. That gives them a chance to see if I’ve got anybody tailing me.” I nodded at Carl. “You’ll need to be discreet.”
“What do you want me to do?” Jill asked quickly. It was almost like she was eager to prove that she was worth something.
I glanced at Carl. He shrugged. I already knew his opinion.
More than likely, nothing was going to happen. Hosani would give me an address or something, and I would slide him the backpack of cash. That was it. Odds were that this was going to be relatively boring. But then again, I had thought the same thing about Al Khor, and that had ended up with blood raining from the sky.
I placed the Bulgarian Makarov in the center of the table with a metallic clunk. “You said you know how to use this?”
She looked at me suspiciously for a second, then back to the gun, then back at me. “Who am I supposed to shoot?”
“Nobody in particular. You’re going to be a lookout if Hosani tries to bring in help or if Dead Six shows up. Early warning, that’s it. This is just for self-defense.”
“Got anything bigger?”
“No. You get the chick gun.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s one of the most common guns in this part of the world for a reason. It works. It’s concealable. And that’s really important because like most shitty countries, Zubara’s got strict gun-control laws. So unless you want to go to prison forever, don’t get spotted with this. If you need to ditch it, I’m not worried about it, just drop it in a garbage can and keep walking.”
Without further hesitation, she picked up the gun. I noted that she was careful to keep it in a safe direction and her finger was indexed outside the trigger guard. Maybe she had been taught well. “It’s . . . double action. The safety works backwards from Dad’s Beretta . . .” It took her a second to find the magazine-release. The Makarov had its magazine release button in the heel of the grip, unlike most American guns. She dropped the magazine on the table, then pulled the slide back, looking inside the empty chamber. She grinned maliciously. “Do I get bullets, too?”
I had to admit that she had a pretty smile. “We’ll work up to that.”
VALENTINE
Fort Saradia National Historical Site
May 3
1030
Tailor, Hudson, Byrne, and I were already sitting in the classroom when Hunter came striding in, Sarah in tow. “I’ll be brief, gentlemen,” he said, opening his laptop and hooking it up to the display screen. “You’re moving out shortly.”
“We were told that we’ve got a lock on our next target, sir,” Tailor said.
“That’s right,” Hunter replied, bringing up a picture on the screen. “This is your target, Jalal Hosani.” Hosani was an average-looking Middle Eastern man, with styled hair and a scruffy, stubbly goatee. He was dressed in a brown suit and a white shirt with no tie, as was the fashion. “He’s going to attempt to flee Zubara today. He’s not going to get out of the country alive.”
“How do we know this, Colonel?” I asked.
“Asra Elnadi,” Hunter replied. “During her interrogation, she told us that one of Hosani’s bodyguards was an ex-lover of hers, and they kept it on the sly. She was able to contact him and get him to sell out his boss.”
“No employee loyalty,” Byrne suggested.
“Not in this business, son,” Hunter said. “With his boss skipping town, this guy’s probably out of a job anyway. So he tipped off our contact without knowing who she’s working for.”
“How do we know this information is credible?” I asked.
“I made it clear to Ms. Elnadi that there would be severe consequences if the information she gave us proved to be false,” Sarah said coolly. “She’s afraid of us. I don’t think she’d try anything stupid, especially since we’ve kept her alive so far.”
Hunter switched the screen to a map of the city. “The target will be attempting his escape from a small warehouse that he owns in the Hasa Market, in Umm Shamal. This warehouse is right on the pier. According to the information Ms. Elnadi gave us, Hosani owns a boat. His escape plan is to load up his boat, hoist anchor, and sail away. Asra’s ex-boyfriend told her that he’s meeting someone in the warehouse around sixteen hundred hours, and that he’ll be leaving immediately after.
“There are several places he could go, so if we lose him he’s probably gone for good. Your mission is to intercept Jalal Hosani at the docks and kill him. There are no secondary targets. Tertiary targets are any of his employees and bodyguards that you encounter.”
“We’re going to kill him in the middle of Hasa Market in broad daylight?” I asked. “Sir, that’s one of the busiest markets in the city. It’ll be packed by mid-afternoon.”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Valentine, but it is this or nothing. Any questions?”