Reed reminded him of himself.
‘Sit tight,’ King said. ‘I’ll snoop around, check out the car if it’s still there, and see what kind of effect you had on the smuggling route. If you killed three important guys, the whole outfit would have been thrown into disarray.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Reed said.
‘You mean that?’
‘Of course. To be honest, I’m only worried about what you and your superiors might think. Inwardly, I know I did the right thing. You should have seen the amount of stuff they were bringing in, man. It’s supplying all the forces out here. It’s facilitating the war. They all deserved to die, and if I could do it all over again — now that I’ve had time to think about it — I would have shot all six of them in cold blood. Call me a psychopath all you want. It’s the truth.’
King nodded. He agreed, but he couldn’t vocalise it.
Not yet.
‘It’s utilitarian,’ Reed said, almost talking to himself. ‘Kill one to save a hundred. Imagine if we stopped the flow of weapons into Mogadishu. It’d choke the life out of the fighting. You know how much easier it is to kill someone when there’s tens of thousands of AK-47s lying around on the black market?’
King raised a hand. ‘Enough semantics. We’ll talk again when I’m back.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Late tonight. I’ll meet with you tomorrow morning?’
‘Sounds good. Don’t get into trouble.’
Yeah, right, King thought as he shook the man’s hand. What else am I supposed to do?
13
He’d managed a sizeable chunk of sleep on the flight over from Washington, so he spent the rest of the afternoon waiting restlessly in the main lodge for night to fall over Mogadishu.
It set him on edge. The worst part about operations was having time to think. By no means did he consider himself an idiot, but sometimes instinct outweighed careful, attentive planning. He tried to take his mind off what lay ahead, and focused instead on keeping his business private. Men and women in all kinds of different uniforms flowed in and out of the lodge, accompanied by Victor, Johnson and Beth at regular intervals.
King didn’t speak to anyone.
He didn’t know the true extent of his jurisdiction just yet. He deemed it prudent to act like a fly on the wall, simply observing the peacekeeping operation without talking to anyone. His business was with Reed — and no-one else.
As much as he liked the brief time he’d spent with Beth, he wasn’t about to let those natural instincts overpower the crux of his presence in Mogadishu.
He was here to validate whether Reed was telling the truth, and report it back to Lars.
Nothing more, nothing less.
So he kept to himself for most of the time, exchanging polite greetings with the AMISOM members that interrupted him, but otherwise remaining silent.
At six in the evening, as the distant, intermittent cracks of gunfire began to die away as the sun melted into the horizon and bathed Mogadishu in an orange glow, Beth dumped herself down in the chair opposite King. She eyed him quizzically until he felt the need to manage a question.
‘What’s up?’ he said, twirling a pen he’d found in one of the drawers over the gaps between his fingers.
‘What’s up?’ she mimicked. ‘What’s your deal?’
‘I’m just sitting here. Not bothering anybody.’
‘By doing nothing you’re bothering all of us. Aren’t you here to talk to Reed?’
‘I talked to him.’
‘And?’
‘I got all the information I need.’
‘So you’re getting extracted?’
‘Not just yet.’
‘What business do you have with him anyway?’ Beth said. ‘You’re not here to hand out disciplinary measures — that’s for goddamn sure.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You’re not a superior. I’m still trying to work out exactly what you are. You were too vague in the jeep.’
‘That was deliberate.’
‘I know.’
‘I need to verify a few things that he told me,’ King said. ‘I’m waiting to do that.’
‘Verify with who?’
King shook his head. ‘You’re not following.’
‘You’re not explaining well enough.’
‘I’m not supposed to be explaining at all.’
‘Give me something, at least…’
She reached over and touched a hand to his knee, keeping her gaze locked onto his. He recoiled from the gesture and shook his head, a wry smile spreading over his features. ‘That’s not going to work, Beth.’
She smirked back — knowing exactly what she was doing — and leant back in similar fashion. ‘Seems to work more than it fails.’
‘Not with me.’
‘So you’re verifying whether Reed’s telling the truth about what happened at the port?’ she said. ‘You’re going to sneak out of here late at night, stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, and if everything adds up you’ll offer Reed a job working with you? Doing whatever the hell it is you do exactly? Because it seems like that’s the way things are headed. He should be discharged or arrested by now for his actions, none of which were allowed, but instead he’s resorted to holing himself up in a unit back there and waiting for you to make up your mind. Am I right?’
King cocked his head, surprised at what she had managed to discern with such little information. ‘You’re half-there. But he doesn’t know I want to recruit him.’
‘So you do?’
‘Nothing’s set in stone.’
She nodded, thinking hard. ‘He never seemed cut out for this kind of thing, anyway.’
‘How so?’
‘He’s restless as all hell. He wasn’t put on this earth to guard things. He keeps to himself, but I can tell he wants to do more than patrol a fence.’
King nodded. ‘And yourself?’
She looked up. ‘Oh — no, thank you. I’m perfectly fine where I am.’
‘I wasn’t offering you a job. I was just asking…’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, a little too curtly. ‘I don’t want anything to do with the world you operate in. It’s my job to look after you while you’re here, then I’m going straight back to protecting these fine men and women.’
She gestured around the communal space, where six peacekeepers were spread out across the warmly-lit room, halfway through meals or playing cards. They were all of African descent, and all of them seemed worn out by the day’s proceedings. They would sleep well tonight.
Besides the language barrier, King didn’t know what he’d say to them in any case. Small talk wasn’t his forte, and he had already disclosed an uncomfortable amount of information to Beth, information that probably should have stayed private.
He grimaced as he realised that she had inadvertently managed to wring some sensitive facts out of him over the course of the day.
‘Look, I’ve already said too much,’ he said. ‘Just let me go about my business.’
‘Don’t go to the port.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Look how well it worked out for Reed. And if you’re looking to recruit him, then it means he’s on your level. So can you really expect a different outcome? What do you need to go there for anyway?’
‘I need to see what kind of disruption he caused.’
‘So you’re actively looking for the smuggling ring?’
‘I have to.’
‘Why?’
‘He could have bullshitted ninety percent of this story to make himself seem more talented than he really is. If he’s restless, and he wants out of here, that’d be the way to do it. Make up a tale about how you thwarted a crime ring and hope to God that no-one investigates your story. You see what I’m getting at?’