The drive through the small city didn’t take more than fifteen minutes before the convoy was on the outskirts where the neighborhoods turned into farms and occasional factories.
Qafar held the black box in his lap as his SUV — the second in line — followed the lead vehicle through the winding streets and down onto the flats of the plains below. The moon was high in the cloudless night sky, obscuring the view of some of the nearby stars with its bright light.
A dark silhouette rose on the horizon on the right side of the road. As the convoy drew closer, the passengers could see it was an old warehouse. Qafar looked down at his watch again. Nearly half past the hour. A nervous tension filled his veins. He didn’t know why. Maybe the sooner he got out of Pakistan, the better he’d feel. Nasir’s words about the Americans being on his trail had filled him with a new sense of dread.
The convoy turned off the main road and into the gravel drive leading into the warehouse property. The lead vehicle — with Nasir in it — drove around to the back and then through an opening where two huge doors hung on either side.
All six vehicles pulled into hangar-like building and came to a stop in the center. Qafar looked out at the dark, vacuous room. Rusted beams supported a skeletal metal frame underneath a tin roof. It looked like the place had been abandoned for decades, maybe more.
“This is where we’re changing vehicles?” Qafar asked.
The driver nodded. “The other cars should be here shortly. Stay here. I’m going to go check.”
Qafar accepted the explanation with a nod and looked out the window once more. His driver walked up to the lead SUV and got in the back.
Afi was in the rear seat of Qafar’s ride and leaned forward. He put his hand on Qafar’s headrest. “Soon, my friend, this will all be over, and we won’t have to worry about looking over our shoulders anymore.”
“I hope so, my friend. It will be nice to be able to come and go as we please. If what Nasir says is true, we will be free men once more.”
The words barely escaped his mouth when Nasir’s SUV lurched forward and came to a stop at the other end of the warehouse — a good eighty feet away.
“What’s he doing?” Afi asked.
Qafar noticed movement on a catwalk high up over the floor to the right. In the darkness, it was difficult to see what it was. A second later, he had his answer. A muzzle flashed over and over.
More bright explosions of gunfire immediately accompanied it. The weapons were quiet — silenced by suppressors — but still popped loud enough to hear in the SUVs.
“It’s a trap!” Qafar shouted.
Bullets thumped into the roof of the SUV, shattered the windows and windshield, and pierced the tires.
Afi reacted quickly, kicking open his door and taking aim at the shooter closest to their vehicle. He opened fire, emptying his magazine at the gunman but missed with every shot. The second after his weapon clicked, the shooters fired at him again, showering the back seat of the SUV with hail of deadly metal. Afi’s body shook violently with every round that tore through him until he fell into the seat and stopped moving.
Qafar instinctively grabbed the pistols out of the black box and flung open his door. The two closest shooters were reloading. His eyes shot over to the far side of the warehouse. There was a door in the back corner — the darkest part of the building. He could make it. He had to make it.
Qafar clutched his new pistols in both hands and took off as fast as he could go. The men on the catwalk saw their target running and quickly adjusted their aim as he passed underneath. They opened fire, but Qafar jumped to the left and right, avoiding the bullets pinging off the concrete around him.
When he reached the darker part of the room, he virtually disappeared, making hitting him even more difficult.
The men called down to someone on the floor for assistance.
The door was only thirty feet away. He didn’t dare look back. Not now. Not when he was so close.
He slid to a stop and stuffed one of the pistols in his belt to grab the door handle. When he tried to push it down, though, a sickening feeling coursed through him in an instant. The door was locked. He took the pistol in his hand to fire at where he thought the lock might be, but a familiar voice stopped him cold.
“What exactly were you planning on doing once you got outside, Abdullah?”
Qafar spun around to see Nasir’s face, barely visible in the shadows.
“You betrayed me. You betrayed all of us. Our blood is on your hands.”
“Oh, I know.” Nasir stepped forward to a point where a ray of pale moonlight shone through an opening in the roof. “I can’t tell you how many nights it will keep me up. But sometimes we have to do these kinds of things.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Qafar.
He panted for breath but noticed Nasir was holding his pistol at his side. Qafar reacted quickly and raised his weapon, aiming it at Nasir’s head. He took the second gun out of his belt and held it next to the other.
“It seems you forgot about these, old friend. Now here is what is going to happen. You’re going to walk me back over there. You will tell your men to stand down, to put their weapons in your truck, and then you and I are going to take a long ride.”
Nasir almost looked amused. His right eyebrow rose. “Oh? And where are we going?”
“Like you said. We’re going to Tajikistan. When we cross the border, I’ll let you go. If you do anything stupid before that, I will kill you with the very guns you gave me.”
His fingers felt the cold of the triggers. Qafar almost wanted Nasir to try something. But the Pakistani officer was his ultimate bargaining chip, a virtual guarantee of safe passage.
“There was never any plan to take you to Tajikistan, Abdullah. There will be no safety for you there. We will hunt you down no matter where you go. It’s over.”
Qafar’s face tensed, and one of his eyes twitched. “No!” he yelled. “It’s not over yet! It will be over when I say it is!”
Nasir’s expression softened to an almost devilish smile. “All your men are dead. Afi along with them. There’s nowhere for you to run. Now you can put down your guns and die like a man. Or you can die like a dog. Doesn’t matter to me which one you choose.”
Afi’s lifeless face passed before Qafar’s eyes. He looked beyond Nasir at the bodies of his men being dragged out of the SUVs. All the shooting had stopped. Four soldiers in black were standing twenty feet behind Nasir. Qafar couldn’t believe it was ending this way. But if he was going to die, he would take Nasir with him — and as many of the others as he could.
“If I die, you die, too, old friend.” He let out a yell as he squeezed the triggers. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
His fingers alternated, firing one shot and then another at Nasir who stood motionless, watching the muzzles blaze until both weapons clicked. Qafar’s fingers kept pulling even after he realized his magazines were empty.
He stared in disbelief at Nasir, who was untouched by the bullets. “How? That’s impossible!”
Nasir took a casual step forward so that only his face was illuminated by the moonlight. He pouted and shook his head once. “You should always check to make sure you’re using live rounds when someone hands you a gun, Abdullah. You remember the guns we gave you? They all had blanks.”
Qafar was incensed. Rage boiled up inside him, and he started to charge. Nasir merely raised his weapon and unloaded ten rounds into Qafar’s chest.
The terrorist stumbled, struggling to keep his balance and stay on his feet. He swallowed, then coughed. His mind fought the mortal wounds as long as he could before he dropped to his knees. Qafar desperately fought to keep conscious. Across the room, on the other side of the warehouse, he saw Nasir’s men pull Afi’s body out of the SUV and drop it on the floor like he was a bag of garbage.