The woman raised an eyebrow, as if he had asked the most ridiculous question in the world, and didn’t respond.
King stood frozen on the tarmac, the back of his neck already heating under the sun. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ she said, her voice calm.
‘Did you hear me?’
‘I heard you. Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
King spun and pointed to the rear of the rapidly fading cargo plane. ‘Where’s it going? The plane.’
‘What plane?’
King understood what was happening. ‘Oh. Right. We’re keeping everything on the down low?’
‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a hapless civilian I happened to stumble across,’ the woman said. ‘And we’ll keep it that way. Nobody’s told me who you are, but you’re allowed to do whatever you want.’
‘Bethany?’ King said.
The woman froze. ‘Beth. How’d you know?’
‘My handler told me.’
‘Who’s your handler?’
‘I don’t think I’m supposed to share that information.’
‘Whatever. Get in.’
King hurled the duffel bag into the rear of the vehicle and clambered into the passenger seat alongside Beth. Before he’d even begun to swing the door shut, she stamped on the accelerator, throwing him against the seat back as the jeep roared off the mark. He shot her a dark look and wrenched the seatbelt across his chest, securing it into place just in case.
She glanced across to meet his gaze. ‘I don’t think the seatbelt’s necessary.’
‘I’ll take my chances,’ King said.
‘Something against women drivers?’
‘Something against you.’
She smirked and veered radically off the runway, taking a dusty trail overgrown with weeds and roots. The jeep bounced and rattled as it battled the terrain. King reached out and seized the handhold on the inside of the passenger door, stabilising himself.
‘If you’re this worried about crashing,’ Beth said, ‘then I don’t know what you’re here to do.’
‘How do you know what I’m here to do? I could be a computer technician.’
She looked him up and down. ‘You’re not a computer technician.’
‘Just keep your eyes on the road,’ he said. ‘You might not be happy I’m here but that doesn’t mean you have to get us both killed.’
‘Do you know Reed?’ Beth said.
King kept his mouth shut.
‘Answer me,’ she said, her tone demanding.
‘What makes you think I’m here for Reed?’
‘Despite the danger of the region, there’s really not that much going on out here. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was sent to pick up a mysterious government operative being smuggled into the country through a cargo route just a couple of days after one of our own shot up a trio of radical militants.’
‘Is that all you know about what Reed did?’
‘Is that all I know?’ she said incredulously. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. He was basically sprinting around the complex telling everyone within earshot what he’d discovered at the port. I don’t know why he did it. It’s how all the trouble started in the first place. He’s an idiot.’
‘Is he prone to mistakes like that?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s our best man. Which is why all this is so surprising.’
‘Does he know that he messed up?’
‘He does now.’
‘What’s his reaction been like?’
‘Look,’ she said, lifting a hand off the driver’s seat in a stop-right-there gesture. ‘I don’t know you well enough to get personal. I don’t know who you are, or what kind of influence you have. I’ve been told to cooperate with you but I’m not about to go spilling everything I think about this situation. You could be a goddamn assassin for all I know. So sit there, shut up, and wait until we get to the base. Then you can question Reed all you want. I don’t want to be wrapped up in this bullshit.’
King shrugged. ‘Whatever suits you best.’
The jeep trundled through what had once been an industrial district, abandoned long ago and cast into ruins by the civil war. Weeds choked everything in sight, spilling over from the rundown airport they’d just exited. Realising that he hadn’t assessed where he’d landed, King craned his neck back to get a good look at the long, disused stretch of tarmac they were leaving behind.
The cargo plane that had deposited him unceremoniously in the middle of the runway had stalled at one end of the space, pausing near a low building. King assumed it was the terminal.
‘Civilian airport?’ he said, even though he recognised the ridiculousness of his own question.
Beth scoffed. ‘Besides crates of supplies and the odd shadowy military individual like yourself, I don’t think a visitor has passed through that building in a decade. The pilots and crewmen unload their gear, and then they’re gone. If it’s important cargo, we’ll be sent across to safeguard the transaction. Too much opportunity to gain some side profits by force out here.’
‘Sounds like fun work.’
‘There’s nothing fun about this place.’
‘I was joking.’
‘I know. But I want you prepared for the climate. I don’t know what office you came from stateside, but everyone out here is looking to kill you. I mean everyone. Once you step off AMISOM territory you paint a target on your back to anyone in the area.’
‘Don’t worry,’ King said, thinking of Mexico. ‘I’m used to that.’
‘I’m sure you are…’
‘You don’t seem to be a fan.’
‘I don’t know you. Why on earth would I be a fan?’
King shrugged, and said nothing. ‘You’re unusually hostile.’
‘This is an unusually hostile place,’ she said. ‘Get used to it.’
King’s gaze instinctively flickered over to a shadow on the edge of his peripheral vision. He felt the natural processes kicking in, his muscles tensing themselves like coiled springs. Beth’s incessant warnings, coupled with the hasty nature at which he had been thrust into this uncomfortable situation, had set him on edge. He darted his attention across a handful of demolished structures, some barely hanging onto themselves. There was rubble everywhere, and plenty of vantage points for enemy combatants to conceal themselves.
In the open-topped jeep, he shivered. They were seriously exposed.
‘Has this place been cleared?’
Beth shot a glance at him. ‘What do you mean?’
’What if we get our heads blown off on the way to base camp?’
‘They’re not fighting for this area,’ she said with a smirk, as if he had asked the dumbest question in human history. ‘It’s clear.’
‘How far are we?’ he said, suddenly nervous.
She looked at him. ‘I thought you were here to clean things up.’
‘I am.’
‘Well, you look like you’re shitting yourself. I can’t say it’s reassuring.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘You sure?’
‘Just drive.’
They made it through the thickest parts of the industrial district and onto open ground, which served to expose them even further. Despite King’s heightened state of awareness, he hadn’t seen a soul so far. Nothing changed as the scenery shifted to vast fields strewn with overgrown grass, debris and piles of rubble. He caught a glimpse of the coastline, facing the Indian Ocean, pale blue and sparkling underneath the Somalian sun. King marvelled at how the water could look like paradise in a region as war-torn and dangerous as this. Then the sea disappeared as Beth steered the jeep back into the destroyed city, passing through a residential neighbourhood that had seen better days.
‘This is the most dangerous stretch,’ she said. ‘Because it’s populated. Keep your eyes peeled.’