Waiting until he was secured in the rear cabin, she boarded the C40B. Shortly after takeoff, she had advised the rest of the team that she was to question Al Zahrani. The CIA operatives very kindly offered to assist. However, she wasn’t sure they’d have the stomach for what she planned and certainly wouldn’t have allowed it.
Eventually walking into the room and coming face to face with the monster, after all those years, was a great disappointment. He didn’t recognize her. He didn’t even show the faintest interest in her. Frankie was a stunningly beautiful woman. She turned heads wherever she went. When she walked into a room, she was noticed. Sickness swelled in her stomach as the realization hit her. He didn’t find women attractive, he only found young girls attractive. She sat down and stared into his eyes, willing him to recognize her. His hands were bound and his mouth gagged. He looked back at her uninterested. However, the faintest hint of recognition flickered in his eyes. Her deep blue eyes, inherited from her father, somehow betrayed her Middle Eastern looks. The more he stared, the more he began to remember something and the more sick and disgusted Frankie felt. She nodded at him, letting him know his memory was correct.
Tied and gagged, he suddenly realized the danger he was in. The tables had turned; the abused was about to become the abuser. Frankie stood up and tightened the gag, adding another one just to be safe. Once completely silenced, the struggling Al Zahrani put up a fight as Frankie secured his legs to legs of his chair. She smiled as he sat, his legs slightly spread, at her mercy. Al Zahrani wore the traditional thawb, a long white robe that fell to his ankles. Given the summer climate, he had elected not to wear cotton pants underneath and instead, as she fought the struggling Al Zahrani, Frankie found only a pair of boxer shorts.
A phone ringing in the other room caught her attention for a second, but only for a second. She looked down on the wretchedness of the man who sat naked from the waist down in front of her. His manhood lay limp and frightened, unlike the day it had met the far younger Frankie.
Her anger swelled again and fear flashed in Al Zahrani’s eyes when Frankie produced a knife and without a moment’s hesitation swept the razor sharp blade across the top of Al Zahrani’s scrotum. A second and third slash ensured that Al Zahrani would never again harm a child and never again need to use a standing urinal. Zahrani passed out from the pain and blood flowed freely from the wounds. Frankie picked up the offending articles and deposited them in the restroom before flushing them away deep into the chemical waste system that would render them useless for any attempted reattachment.
The door flew open as Frankie was pushing towels against the wounds in an attempt to stem the blood flow.
“Oh fuck!” shouted Steve.
Frankie removed the towel, sending Steve’s own testicles running for cover as he convulsed at the sight before him, dropping his cell to the floor.
Frankie calmly stood up and retrieved the cell.
“Hello?” she said.
“Christ, Frankie, what have you done?” asked Carson.
“Don’t worry, it’s still alive.”
“Does he need medical attention?”
“Well I wouldn’t exactly call him a he any longer and medical attention probably wouldn’t be a bad thing if you want him to reach the US alive.”
Carson killed the line and contacted the pilot. The nearest stop with decent medical facilities that they could use safely and secretly was the Princess Royal Medical Centre in Gibraltar, a UK overseas territory that was nothing more than an outcrop of rock measuring 2.6 square miles on the southern tip of Spain.
A one-hour emergency stop had the less than perfect Al Zahrani stitched and in a condition that would ensure he survived the Atlantic crossing.
Carson just needed to work out what he should do with Frankie, who had not one ounce of remorse for her actions. It was, however, out of his hands. Frankie was on the case at the request of the President. Having sworn the CIA team to secrecy over the matter, they were the only people, except for the surgeon, who were aware of the extent of Frankie’s handiwork.
Carson climbed into his car for a private meeting with President Mitchell. A meeting he was not looking forward to.
Chapter 54
Nick had spent the day travelling across the desert. The evacuation plan was executed to perfection. Over twenty different routes were in operation ensuring that even if the Americans did spot some of the terrorists escaping, the impact to the cause would have been minimal. However, with trucks and vehicles camouflaged to blend in with the environment and speeds restricted to ensure minimal dust disruption, only the keenest eyes looking from close range would have spotted any of the escaping terrorists.
Nick and Ibrahim had traveled throughout the day and half the night to reach their destination, a small port to the south of Port Sudan. Suakin Port was once the main Port of Sudan but over the years had become usurped by the far larger port to its north. On an ancient natural inlet, the original city sat in ruins within the harbor. In its day, it would have been a spectacular sight but like many Third World cities, it was merely a reminder of the great place it once had been.
Ibrahim led Nick onto the small freighter that would take them onto their next destination, Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, via a small port on the northwest coast of Yemen.
Having landed at Port Sudan airport, Flynn, Reid and the teams spent the evening and very early morning in the main port where it became abundantly clear that the chances of finding Nick Geller amongst the hustle and bustle of one the region’s busiest ports and where the majority of the locals earned their living were negligible.
“This isn’t going to work,” Flynn said, looking at the vast port area and the thousands of people swarming around them. “But I still think he’s heading east.”
“He’s probably already there,” sighed Reid.
“I’m not so sure. He’d know we had AWACS up as soon as we intercepted Al Zahrani. If I were him, I’d have gone to ground, literally.”
Reid wagged her finger excitedly. “And you had the same training as him!”
“Yes,” agreed Flynn without enthusiasm.
“So what would you have done?”
“I wouldn’t have come here, too obvious. I’d have picked a smaller port, still busy enough to lose myself if I needed to and board a vessel that wouldn’t look out of place making the crossing to Saudi Arabia or Yemen.
“I have no idea how far that is,” Reid admitted. “Is it a thousand miles or so? In which case it’d be a fairly big ship, no?”
Flynn shook his head. “No, it’s about 150 to 200 miles and no, it wouldn’t need to be that big a ship.”
“Oh, okay, so where to?”
Flynn hit the transmitter on his two-way radio and spoke into the small, discreet mic. “Guys, back to the airport,” he announced. Turning to Reid, he said, “I’ll know when we see the charts.”
Back on the Osprey, Flynn grabbed the charts and maps, his finger tracing up and down the coastline of Sudan and Eritrea to the south.