The well-manicured greenery lining the side streets he was driven down suggested a peaceful, almost idyllic existence for the residents of Riffa. Mark remembered hearing that many considered Bahrain to be the original site of the garden of Eden; looking at the well-watered plants all around him — an oasis in the middle of a desert island — he could almost believe it.
They eventually turned into a wide driveway and pulled to a stop in front of a solid metal gate; the gate had been painted white and was the only break in a white wall that appeared to encircle an estate.
The driver of the Cadillac spoke into his cell phone and the gate swung open. Two soldiers, dressed in camouflage uniforms and carrying M16 assault rifles, waved the car through.
The two-story house in the center of the estate was large — maybe ten thousand square feet or so, Mark guessed — but not overly ostentatious. It was coral colored and stuccoed like most of the rest of the residential buildings in Bahrain. A wind tower rose up on the left-hand side, though Mark guessed it was more for ornament than function. The original wind towers, found throughout the Middle East, had been constructed to capture the wind that blew above the trees and channel it down into the living quarters below. But that had been in the days before air-conditioning.
Mark was pretty sure that the people who lived here had all the air-conditioning they needed.
32
Decker figured he could have tried to run when he saw Holtz — he’d spotted his boss from a couple hundred feet away, across the beach — but what was the point? If Holtz had been able to find him here, he’d be able to find him again no matter where he ran.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Deck?” Holtz was staring right at Muhammad.
“What do you mean, buddy?”
“Don’t ‘buddy’ me.” Holtz walked right up to Decker. They were both big men, roughly the same height and weight, though much of the weight that Holtz — a former linebacker — carried was around his waist. “You know what I’m talking about. I came to see you in Bishkek and you ran out on me. And slashed my tire. What the hell was that all about?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I haven’t been back to my house since before I went climbing.”
“Bullshit.” Holtz poked his finger into Decker’s chest.
Decker just looked at his chest, and then at Holtz.
“I’m taking the kid,” said Holtz.
“No can do, Bruce.”
“This is way over your pay grade, Deck. I know Mark must have asked you to do him a favor, and I can appreciate that you guys are friends and that you owe him for what went down in Iran, but you have to back off on this one. And slashing my tire, man. That was bush league.”
Decker deliberated for a moment and concluded there was no point in continuing to lie.
“How’d you find me? I ditched the car and my phone.”
Holtz smiled. “You kept the key to the Explorer, though.”
Decker’s hand went to his front right pants pocket.
“I had a GPS transmitter wired to it,” said Holtz. “Runs off the same battery that unlocks the car.”
Decker smiled. “Bastard.”
“Hey, I was doing it for your own protection. Now move. You’ve abducted a child that isn’t yours and I’m taking him back.”
“He’s an orphan. He came from Daria’s orphanage. Mark asked me to take care of him.”
“I’ve been hired by our government—our government, Deck, the United States of America — to do a job. And I intend to do that job.”
Holtz took a step toward Muhammad, who was oblivious to the discussion that had been going on. Decker put up his arm, blocking Holtz.
“No,” said Decker. “I promised Mark.”
“Take your hand off me now, Deck, or you’re out of a job. Plus I’ll blacklist you with DoD and the Agency.”
Decker kept his hand in place. “You didn’t bring any backup, did you?”
He and Holtz had gotten along pretty well over the time they’d known each other. They’d talked a lot of football, had played poker over beers… It occurred to Decker that this superficial familiarity had led Holtz to misjudge the situation.
“You don’t scare me, Deck.”
“It was a mistake not to have brought backup.”
“I said, take your hand off me.”
“Or?”
“Or nothing. But I’m still taking the kid.”
Holtz pushed forward, prompting Decker to throw a fake punch with his left hand to Holtz’s head. When Holtz ducked and blocked the blow with his right forearm, Decker threw all his weight and strength into a massive uppercut to Holtz’s solar plexus. His fist connected with a thud and Holtz was thrown back a few feet, dazed but still standing.
Decker followed up with a chokehold that lifted Holtz off the ground and a leg sweep that sent him tumbling into the sand. He straddled Holtz on the ground, threw a handful of sand into his face, and then fired off two lightning punches to the gut, knocking the wind out of Holtz for a second time.
Muhammad noticed what was going on and started crying.
“Sorry, guy,” Decker said to the boy as he flipped Holtz onto his belly.
Using the rough, frayed rope attached to the end of the paddleboat, Decker hog-tied Holtz as fast as he could. That done, he stood, pulled out the key to his Explorer, threw it down in the sand next to Holtz, and said, “I parked in Tokmok, at the gas station that’s right off Route 365. You can catch a cab there for fifty bucks. In the meantime, I’ll be taking your Jag.”
So much for ever working for CAIN again, he thought.
Decker stuck his hands into Holtz’s pocket and pulled out a set of keys. There was probably a tracking device on the Jag too, but he’d use the car to put some distance between him and Holtz in the next hour and then figure something else out.
“Hey, Muhammad! My man! We’re going on another adventure, how about that?”
Muhammad looked apprehensive, but he didn’t resist when Decker picked him up and began to jog toward the hotel. When Decker got to their room, he yanked open the door.
“Jess! We gotta blow.”
At that point, Decker got a whiff of something that stank. His first thought was that maybe Jessica had done something she wanted to fess up to, but then he saw that the yellow poly propylene climbing shirt he was wearing was stained with something that looked — and smelled — like shit.
“Oh no, don’t tell me,” he said. He lifted Muhammad up off his hip at the same time Muhammad started to cry.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
“Ah… that really sucks,” she said.
“It’s not funny.”
“I know.” Jessica started laughing. Decker couldn’t help but smile too.
“OK, it’s a little funny.”
Everything was so chaotic and awful — the crying, the shit, Holtz, Mark, and all this on top of his father, God he hoped his father was going to be OK — that it had swung around to being funny. The chaos of war he could handle, but when it came to a two-year-old and ailing father, he was out of his depth.
“Listen,” said Decker. “Grab the pull-ups, we’ll change him in the car. We gotta go.”
33
A frail man with thin gray hair and a thick gray mustache sat at a table in the shade of a date palm tree, in a garden courtyard that abutted the side of the house with the wind tower. He wore dress slacks and a starched white shirt that was open at the neck. His brow was creased, his cheeks and the skin under his eyes drooped, and his ears and nose were old-man large. In front of him sat a glass of ice water that was wet on the outside from condensation. Behind him, louvered shutters had been closed over tall windows, leaving only the stained-glass fanlights above the windows exposed. A carved wooden door framed by intricate plaster molding opened from the house onto the garden.