Ling appeared from behind the crane, alone. She confidently strode toward me, closing the distance in a matter of seconds.
“You can put your hands down now, Mr. Valentine. It’s fine,” she said, not quite smiling.
Feeling silly, I slowly lowered my hands. “You’re alone?” I asked, looking around.
“Of course not,” she said. “My men are observing you and your friends. Just a precaution. Please do not take offense.”
“None taken,” I said, looking down into her dark eyes. “Thank you for coming. I need your help.”
“So you insist.” She looked past me at the Land Cruiser. “You can tell your friends to come out. I won’t have them shot.” The corner of her mouth turned up in half a wry smile.
I nodded and squeezed my throat mic. “It’s clear. C’mon up.” I looked back at Ling. “You want them to leave their weapons?”
“No, it’s fine,” she said dismissively. “I’m not worried.”
“You don’t have to drop your weapons,” I said into my microphone. “Bring my gun up.” I heard doors slamming behind me as my friends climbed out of the truck.
“So, Mr. Valentine, to business,” Ling said, not wasting any time. “I apologize for dragging you out here like this, but I always prefer to deal face to face.”
“I remember,” I said flatly.
She didn’t bat an eye. “And frankly, I’m curious to just who it is you wish me to help smuggle out of this country.” Tailor tapped me on the shoulder and handed me my gun. I quickly holstered it. “Ah, Mr. Tailor,” Ling said, “it’s good to see you again.”
Tailor nodded but didn’t say anything. I then introduced Ling to Hudson and Sarah. Sarah seemed to pique Ling’s interest a bit.
“I think I understand now, Mr. Valentine,” Ling said, excessively polite as always. “Is this your girlfriend?”
“Uh . . .” I mumbled, surprised by the question.
“Yes,” Sarah said levelly. “I’m his girlfriend.” She gave Ling the evil eye, but the Exodus operative either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“This makes more sense now,” Ling said thoughtfully, looking at Sarah. She smiled. “Yes. Well, this is very unorthodox, but I see no reason I can’t help you while I’m here. Like you said, Mr. Valentine, my organization owes you a great deal, and we’ve never had a proper chance to repay you.”
“You’ll help us get out of Zubara?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ling replied. “Unfortunately, it won’t be right away. We have business in the region and aren’t ready to leave yet.”
“How long will it be?” I asked. “I’m not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but time is a factor. Things are rapidly going south here.”
“I’m aware,” Ling said. “However, I still have a job to do myself. Your transportation out of Zubara is a freighter that my organization owns and operates, and it’s still at sea.”
“You flew here, right?” Tailor asked. “Can’t we fly out on that plane?”
“No, you can’t,” Ling replied, almond eyes narrowing slightly. “I, too, have orders I must follow. The freighter is the only method of transport I’m to make available to you four. It will arrive when it arrives and leave when we’ve finished here. You can choose to be on it or not. It was the best I could do.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said.
“Mike, I don’t know about this,” Sarah said quietly.
“Yeah, man,” Hudson said. “Are you sure about this?”
“Guys, please,” I said. “This is our only shot. Remember what happened to Singer? I trust these guys more than I trust Gordon Willis and his cronies.”
“You’re right.” Hudson nodded.
“I trust you,” Sarah said, looking up into my eyes. I smiled at her, then looked over at Tailor.
His brow was furled unhappily. He didn’t say anything for a moment, then nodded. “Fuck it, we don’t have a choice.”
“Okay,” I said, looking back at Ling. “We’re in. How do you want to do this?”
Ling smiled as if oblivious to the near-argument we’d just had right in front of her. “Here,” she said, handing me something from her pocket. It was a cell phone. “This is secure. A number I can be reached at is programmed into it. Use it sparingly and keep it with you. I’ll contact you when we’re ready to leave. I’m afraid it might be short notice.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “We’ll make it work. Do you have an approximate time frame?”
“Possibly a week. I know that’s a long time, given your circumstances, but as I said, it was the best I can do.” She looked down at her watch. “I need to be going now. We’ve been here too long, and I have a lot of work to do myself. It was good to see you again, Mr. Valentine.” Ling smiled at me. “Please be careful. I’ll be in touch.”
VALENTINE
Fort Saradia National Historical Site
May 8
0800
It had been several days since our meeting with Ling, and there’d been no word from her since. This wasn’t unexpected, but it was nerve-wracking. The goal now was to stay alive long enough for Ling to get us out of the country. It would suck to get killed so close to being home free.
There was another problem, too. The longer we waited, the greater the chance one of us would get second thoughts. I knew Tailor wouldn’t change his mind. Once he made a decision, he always went through with it, even if it wasn’t really a good idea. I wasn’t so sure about the rest of us.
Especially Sarah. The idea of just leaving her friends and running away from Project Heartbreaker bothered her, a lot. Hell, it bothered me. Aside from Tailor and Hudson, there were a quite a few guys that I was friends with, and I hated to think what would happen to them after we disappeared. But I didn’t know them that well. I wasn’t sure if I could trust them. If I told them we had a way out, what would they do? Would they report it to Hunter or Gordon Willis? Would they want to come along? If so, would Ling and her people agree to that, or would they call the whole thing off since we tried to change the deal?
My greatest fear was that Sarah would decide she didn’t want to go. There was no way I was leaving without her, either, so that meant I had to stay as well. That thought terrified me. Not because I was worried about myself; I was worried about what would happen to Sarah. I didn’t think I could bear it if anything happened to her.
Project Heartbreaker was falling apart around us. I didn’t know how Gordon and his people would handle doing damage control and cleanup. There was the possibility that it might involve Mr. Anders just murdering us. One way or the other, I really didn’t want to wait around to find out.
Despite all this, the missions didn’t stop coming, and they seemed to get more and more ridiculous as time went on. Our casualties had been severe. We were losing guys left and right, and yet they kept asking more and more of us.
We had just gotten briefed by Gordon on our next operation. Our chalk, plus Cromwell, Holbrook, Animal, and another new replacement named Fillmore, were all present. Our assignment was, to be blunt, fucking ridiculous.
Seems there was this Spanish billionaire-aristocrat-industrialist named Rafael Miguel Felipe Montalban who was the head of the Montalban Exchange, one of the largest and wealthiest corporations in the world. According to Gordon, this guy was using his money to fund General Al Sabah in Zubara and had his hands in other things as well. Conveniently, he was sailing up the Persian Gulf on his insanely luxurious yacht, the Santa Maria.
No problem, right? We’ll just blow up the yacht, take this guy out, and be home before beer-thirty. But no, Gordon says, that won’t work. Instead we were to be inserted onto the yacht via helicopter, storm the ship, and capture Rafael Montalban alive. We were then to retrieve him and his personal laptop computer and bring them back to base.