CHAPTER 78
Parker slowly buttoned the shirt, sitting on the edge of the bed in the Gulfstream jet’s medical suite. The shirt was too large, especially after his loss of nearly fifteen pounds from the last several days. His cheeks had a hollowed look and, although color was coming back to his face, he still saw shadows under his eyes. But for the first time in days his face was clean-shaven.
Parker squeezed his hand, testing his arm. The knife wound, fortunately, had been more of a glancing blow. It had been stitched and was already scabbing up.
“I have some good news.” Scott was standing at the door as the Gulfstream taxied to a parking spot at Luton International Airport, about an hour’s drive from London.
“What?” Suddenly Parker realized how low his batteries were. He wouldn’t have a lot of energy for a long conversation.
“We’re stopping here to pick up another passenger. You want to guess?”
Parker gave him a quizzical look.
“Apparently someone from Saudi Arabia thought they needed to keep one of us for safekeeping. It couldn’t be me or you.”
“Hernandez?”
“Yeah, you got it in one.”
“Is he all right?”
“You can ask him in a moment.”
Parker stood up, tucking the shirt in his pants that were — like the shirt — two sizes too big.
Scott indicated the door with a nod of his head.
Parker walked to the open hatch, looking out to a drizzly, rainy midday at Luton. A long black limo pulled around the hangar and stopped at the bottom of the aircraft’s steps.
“What the hell?” Moncrief was standing behind Parker, looking down the steps. “I knew he’d do anything to get out of a mission, but this is ridiculous.”
Hernandez climbed out of the limo with two others. One was a well-dressed Saudi wearing a white, open-collared shirt and a dark pinstriped suit. The cut of the suit was from Savile Row and had the shape of accented broad shoulders, tapered down to a thin waist. He seemed a man of royalty. The other was similarly dressed but was very different. He too had well-cut clothes, but his stomach bulged out from the suit and raincoat he had on.
“Hey, Colonel.” Enrico Hernandez didn’t look any worse for wear.
Parker grabbed Hernandez’s arm in a shake, like the Roman warriors of yore, above the wrist, then hugged his teammate.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir. At first it was kind of crazy, but Ali took care of me.”
Ali stood next to Hernandez.
“Colonel, I have heard much of you. I am Prince Ali bin Saud. On behalf of my nation and my father, we wish to thank you. Yousef al-Qadi had become a danger to us all.”
“Then why take Hernandez?”
“Both you and Hernandez had become targets. If we didn’t take him in, the Crni Labudovi henchmen would surely have. Knez was on your trail, as you know, but there were more. One particular man was right on Enrico’s tail when we stepped in.”
Parker looked over Ali bin Saud’s shoulder. Another man was standing back, looking around, seemingly uncomfortable, scanning the buildings around the runway.
“Colonel, this is Mr. Zaslani of Mossad.” Scott stood at the bottom of the stairway. “So you were able to find Hernandez after all?”
Zaslani didn’t say anything, but looked sheepishly away from Scott.
“The hunt for Yousef al-Qadi certainly made for some odd bedfellows.”
Parker was reminded of the fable about the scorpion and the tortoise. Each needed each other to cross the river, but in the end both died.
“Colonel,” said Ali, “my father wishes to show his appreciation for your help.”
Parker just shook his head. “That’s not necessary.”
“We will do something.”
“Just make it up to Hernandez.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Colonel.” Hernandez was beaming. “My little girl has a scholarship for college, for medical school, for any degree she wants.”
“Good.” Parker looked back to Scott and the airplane behind him. Parker did a double take.
“Your eyes do not deceive you,” said Scott. “We have a transatlantic flight of our very own.”
As their jet taxied onto the active runway, Parker leaned across the aisle. “Prince Ali bin Saud. Should I know who he is?”
“Yes, his father is the secretary of the Bay’ah Council. You have a very powerful friend.”
CHAPTER 79
“I need money.”
The hulking Chechen leaned forward on the mattress, holding his head in his hands.
“You are lucky, my friend.” The doctor, a friend to Liaquat Anis since medical school, sat in a chair across the small room. He was the lucky one, working with the sick at Lahore General Hospital. He had a job.
“A concussion and…” he leaned back in the straight back wooden stick of a chair. “A survivor of meningitis.”
“Allah has a purpose.” Umarov’s eastern European village had survived another disease several forefathers ago. The black plague had given him an immunity unique to his survival.
“No one survives.”
“I did.”
“We found what you were looking for.” Another man, much younger, with a long, curled black beard and a dirt-covered robe, came into the room. “A man we know had been hired to kill him in London.”
Umarov looked up. His forehead still had a blood-damped bandage wrapped around it.
“Yes.”
“The kill was canceled later.”
“By who?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Well, who is this piece of shit?”
“He was an American by the name of William Parker. He was Zabara. He stopped the Canada cell.”
Umarov stared at the man as he spoke the words.
“Parker?” Umarov stood up. “His name is Parker?”
“Yes. Here is what you need.”
“Passport?”
“Everything.”
“And money.”
“Yes, everything. U.S. dollars. And he may still be in Afghanistan. Our people tell us he was sick when he came out of the mountains. You may have a day on him.”
“I understand.”
“Your airplane leaves in just a few hours. London and then Atlanta.”
CHAPTER 80
“Excuse me?”
The girl behind the counter of the Chevron gas station barely looked up. It was late, near closing, and her cash register was off. “Yeah?” Her southern accent stretched out the one-syllable word.
“I’m looking for Highway 39.”
The Chevron stood near the back door of Fort Benning, one of the largest Army bases in the South. This particular back door, however, lay in the middle of nowhere. Except for the lights of the station, the highway was dark and lonesome. The only neighbors of the gas station were the miles of pine trees.
“It’s just down twenty-seven, about ten miles south of here.” Now she looked up at the person she had been speaking to… and tried not to stare. God, he is big. The clothes were off-brand. His upper arms stretched the sleeves of the plain polo shirt to the point that they almost seemed to cut off the blood. He wore a Braves baseball cap, but it was still full of color, fresh, new as if purchased that very day in the Atlanta airport. It covered up his forehead. His hair was an orange and red, cut short on the sides, almost like a military cut.