“I ain’t leaving you, Pach!” Skeeter said.
Riley grabbed the front of the man’s shirt. “Skeet!” he yelled. “I don’t have time to argue! The team can’t afford to lose you, so I am ordering you into that van! Now go!”
Skeeter stood for a moment, glaring at Riley, then dove into the van along with Li.
As Riley ran toward the house, he could hear the sound of tires squealing on asphalt. He went through the back door and crossed to the front of the house. He stopped as he reached the still-open front door and blown-in windows. In the middle of the street, Murphy’s twisted body lay in a pool of blood. He must have been hit running across the street from his position.
Riley knew he had to get him, but he also knew that there was someone else out there with a gun-probably more than one by now. As he contemplated his course of action, a footstep crunching glass caught his ear. He spun around in time to see a surprised look of recognition, a rifle butt driving toward his head, and then blackness.
Chapter 27
Tuesday, January 20
Bari, Italy
Hicks heard Gilly Posada of the Mustang team radio from the roof of the safe house as the vans that carried Predator team rounded the corner. A minute later, the newcomers barged inside.
It had been twenty hours since Billy Murphy had gone down and Riley Covington had disappeared, and the eight Predator team members had spent all but two of those hours either on a plane or in a van. Hicks was exhausted.
Scott met them inside the door. “Guys, welcome. Jim, thanks for coming so quickly.”
“Sure. So what’s the status?”
“We’ve been working like dogs trying to get information. But first, before we get to business, why don’t you guys sit at the table? We’ve got some bread, and Kim’s cooked up some Italian sausages.”
For the first time Hicks noticed the smell of onion, garlic, and bell pepper that hung heavy in the room. He felt a twinge in his empty stomach but declined the offer with a wave of his hand. “I didn’t come here to eat, and I didn’t come here to socialize.”
“Maybe not,” Scott countered, “but you’re going to be an even bigger pain than usual if you don’t get some food in you.”
Hicks gave in. “Fine, Weatherman, serve the food.”
The members of Predator team gathered with him around the scratched table. Hicks sat at the head, then clockwise around the table sat Jay Kruse, Carlos Guitiérrez, Steve Kasay, Chris Johnson, Brad Musselman, Kyle Arsdale, and Ted Hummel.
While the plates were dished out, Hicks scanned the room disapprovingly. It was sparsely furnished and looked like it hadn’t had a good spring-cleaning since Mussolini was in power. Li, the one with the tattoos, brought over plates of food and bottles of Italian beer; the Mississippi giant, Skeeter, sat guarding the front door. “Where’s Khadi?” Hicks asked Scott.
“She’s sleeping in the near bedroom. Logan’s crashed over there somewhere too. Gilly’s scouting up on the roof.”
“What about your prisoner?”
Scott pointed to a dark corner of the large room, where a blanket covered a lumpy shape on the floor. “Mr. Scorpion was getting to be a little too high maintenance, so we shot him up with some happy juice and dropped him in the corner. He should be awake in a couple of hours. So far we haven’t been able to get much out of him.”
Hicks cut off a piece of sausage and stuffed it in his mouth. The flavor of the sauce was incredible, but the spice of the sausage had him reaching for the bottle of Peroni that Li had placed in front of him.
“Beer at four in the morning? Classy, Jim.”
Hicks followed the voice to the bedroom, where Khadi leaned against the doorway. She was still wearing her black outfit from the operation. Her hair was held up with a clip, and she hadn’t applied even what little makeup she usually wore. All eating at the table stopped momentarily as everyone took a long look at her. Khadi shifted on her feet uncomfortably, then walked to the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of Suio sparkling water and sat by Skeeter.
Hicks turned back to his sausage. “Yeah, well, it’s four in the afternoon somewhere in the world.”
“Pago Pago,” Scott said.
“What?” Hicks asked.
“Pago Pago, American Samoa. It’s four in the afternoon there.”
Hicks just looked at him.
“Hey, sometimes it’s a blessing; sometimes it’s a curse.”
“Yeah, well, what do you say you keep your curse to yourself.”
The team ate a little more in silence. Scott walked over to where al-’Aqran was bunched up on the floor. He lifted the blanket to make sure the terrorist leader was still breathing. He was. Scott dropped the covering and returned to the table.
Brad Musselman finally broke the silence. “So, how do we know the football hero isn’t dead?”
Everyone in the room tensed at the question, and Skeeter’s chair audibly shifted on the wooden floor.
“First of all, the ‘football hero’ is the operational leader of Mustang team or Mustang Two,” Scott said forcefully, “and you’ll refer to him and address him with respect accordingly. Understand?”
Musselman waved his fork in a noncommittal gesture.
“Nevertheless, it’s still a good question,” Scott continued. “The answer is that we don’t know for sure. However, we ‘borrowed’ a witness on his way home from work who told us that there was one dead guy who stayed stretched out on the street until the police came. Obviously, that was Billy. But he also said there was a second guy who was carried out of a house on another man’s shoulder. They went into al-’Aqran’s house, and our witness didn’t see either of them come out again. Our assumption is that if Riley had been killed, he would have been left for the police like Billy was.”
“Any thoughts on where he is now?” Steve Kasay asked.
Khadi answered, “About an hour ago, Tara Walsh’s contact here-the guy who told us about the mosque and al-’Aqran’s house-informed us about three warehouses that members of the Cause have been seen frequenting. Two of them are down by the port, and one is closer to the railroad tracks. We were waiting for you guys to arrive before staking those buildings out for activity. Tara’s team is also working on some satellite surveillance. We don’t want to move on one of them without being sure that Riley’s in there for fear that they’ll kill him if we choose wrong.”
“I just don’t understand how Captain America was fool enough to get himself captured,” Musselman said quietly to his plate.
In a flash Skeeter’s chair went rattling across the floor and he was racing for the man. Scott intercepted him just as Musselman jumped up to meet Skeeter’s onrush.
Hicks rose next, and he raced around the table. “Skeeter, get back to your post! Now!”
Skeeter looked at Scott, who nodded. The big man glared at Musselman, who defiantly returned the stare. Skeeter slowly turned around and found his chair, which was now missing a leg. He threw the broken chair across the room and returned to stand in his place by Khadi.
Hicks watched him all the way.
Musselman chuckled and turned to sit again.
Hicks grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “Did I say sit down?”
Musselman looked surprised. “Well… uh… no.”
“You don’t sit down until I tell you to sit down! You want to know how Covington got himself taken? I’ll tell you. He was going after one of his men. That’s what real soldiers do; they take care of their own. That’s what I would do if one of my men was lying in the middle of the street-even… you.” Hicks accentuated these last two words with his index finger poking hard into Musselman’s chest. “And what real men don’t do is sit around sipping their beers, criticizing other men’s acts of bravery. Do you understand?”