The man with the bullet in his arm had his head bowed. King noticed his body jerking unnaturally up and down with each breath. The guy was crying, great sobs that wracked his whole body with motion.
How sad, King thought, his adrenalin still racing.
Keeping the barrel of the M45 trained on each of the four men to make sure they made no sudden movements, he let the unharmed pair help their injured friends back into the vehicle. Grunting and moaning, the two wounded men piled into the back seat, bleeding all over the upholstery.
The unharmed duo ducked into the front of the vehicle and screamed away from the scene, the tyres sending geysers of sand in every direction. King kept the M45 trained on the rear window, just in case any of them felt the need to squeeze off a potshot on their way back.
When the battered old sedan had faded into the darkness from whence it came, King fished a magazine out of the top of his duffel bag and reloaded the weapon, chambering a fresh seven rounds into the gun and discarding the old mag into the duffel to ensure he left no evidence of his presence behind. He breathed out sharply, settling his heart rate, and continued.
‘I love Somalia,’ he muttered to himself.
17
An hour later, King sensed the Port of Mogadishu up ahead. Lars had made him skim a crystal-clear satellite map of the city before he’d landed, and it helped to register where certain landmarks were located. He spotted Aden Adde International Airport to his right, lying dormant and shadowy at this time of the evening.
He didn’t imagine it saw much civilian traffic during the daytime, in any case.
Mogadishu ranked low on the list of desirable tourist destinations.
A mile north of the airport’s perimeter, he slunk onto an industrial trail that weaved between darkened warehouses and scrap heaps. This portion of the town smelt awful — a sickening coagulation of rotting waste, abandoned infrastructure, and general disrepair. King kept the M45 at the ready, anticipating an ambush at any moment. He employed everything that had been taught to him in segments throughout his short but action-fuelled military career, taking tactics from the SEALs and the Delta Force in portions.
He kept low and quiet, darting efficiently from shadow to shadow, never loitering in the open. He moved with the practiced grace of a trained professional, something that had been drilled into him more times than he could fathom. He kept a pace neither slow nor fast, travelling at just the right speed to avoid drawing the eye.
For good reason, too.
When the scrap heaps and corrugated warehouses gave way to broad swathes of concrete and inspection sheds, King sensed he was passing into the port territory itself. He froze on the spot as a party of workers materialised ahead. It had to be almost midnight, which made him ponder why the hell these men were out here at such a late hour.
But, as they passed him by, he realised he had been foolish to judge so quickly.
The men were weather-beaten, their clothes filthy and bedraggled, but they posed no threat. They lit up cigarettes and talked animatedly amongst themselves, heading for the outskirts of the port where King imagined their rusting vehicles had been parked while they finished their shifts.
He let them go about their evening, not daring to interfere. His presence would be automatically assessed as hostile in intention if he appeared seemingly out of nowhere, stepping up to quiz them about an illegal pipeline that he suspected was running out of these docks.
Besides, he had no idea which of them were involved.
If any.
Drugs and guns.
That’s what Reed had said. The man had spotted an exchange between unknown parties, running a staggering quantity of weapons and narcotics off newly-arrived container ships and into trucks that funnelled them along a route that ran seemingly the entire width of the country.
King wondered if he would stumble upon it tonight.
He doubted it.
If Reed truly had taken three of the participants out of the equation, it would have sent the pipeline into disarray. King had learnt enough about the criminal industry during his brief stint in the Delta Force to understand how smuggling routes worked. When it came to the scale of business that Reed had stumbled across, any disruption to the routine would throw the entire flow of shipments off. There would be delays at the port, which would translate to delays further down the line.
Afgooye.
That’s what Reed had said. He’d made it to Afgooye before turning around.
King knew little about Somalia, but he imagined a town west of Mogadishu, further inland, where millions and millions of dollars in unregulated cash accumulated in offices you wouldn’t look twice at. He knew that the most inconspicuous-looking outfits often contained the darkest secrets.
That got him thinking…
He ghosted further into the docks, staying hidden in the lee of towering sheds and warehouses on the outskirts of the port. He didn’t know exactly what he was searching for, but he imagined security would be tight in the portion of the port reserved for the arching towers of shipping containers. He kept his eyes peeled for anything resembling a security office, a low building containing archives of footage that would make his job a hell of a lot easier. He spotted several of the white CCTV cameras on his journey through the docks, making sure he stayed well outside their field of view. If any of them had caught the incident Reed spoke of, he could return reassured that he had their man.
He realised Lars would be counting on a successful recruitment mission. King couldn’t see any other reason for his presence in Mogadishu. He didn’t have the experience to properly investigate, but he had the intuition to sense a man who would work better as a solo operative when he saw one.
Reed checked all the boxes.
So far.
His heart almost leapt out of his chest as a wire screen door flew open a dozen feet ahead, jerking around on its hinges so abruptly that for a moment he thought one of the security cameras had spotted him.
A man in a high visibility vest and tattered overalls stepped down off a small terrace and touched a faded lighter to the cigarette dangling from his lips. King crouched low and widened his eyes, scrutinising every minute detail of the man’s appearance, from the age of his clothes to the expression on his face. He seemed unperturbed, comforted by the smoke break, a welcome reprieve from the monotony of his job.
As King observed, the man stretched each limb in turn, bending down to lengthen his aching hamstrings and cracking the knuckles on each hand while the cigarette hung limp from his mouth.
The fact that he was still here at midnight, as well as the sedentary position he must have adopted over the last few hours, told King everything he needed to know.
He made up his mind and burst into action.
First, he switched the M45’s safety back on and tucked it into the rear of his waistband, ensuring he wouldn’t accidentally shoot himself in the leg. He had the moral integrity to remove firearms from this particular confrontation. He considered himself reckless, but not foolish enough to murder a port official in cold blood with no evidence that he was involved in any wrongdoing.
The terrace rested only a single step above the dusty ground, which left only a few feet of space between the dock worker and the open doorway he’d just stepped through. King darted smoothly into the space, now fully illuminated by the flickering lightbulb overhanging the terrace. If the man turned around he would see King standing there, and panic accordingly.
Even then, it would be too late.
At six-foot-three and over two hundred pounds, King figured he outweighed and outsized the dock worker by at least sixty pounds. The guy was frail and short, almost to the point where he appeared malnourished. His face was pockmarked by gruesome acne scars.