Reed shrugged. They could think whatever they wanted. Whatever the case, enough confusion would reign to give him more than enough time to make it five hundred miles up the coast, to the tiny seaside village of El Hur.
He briefly wondered why Beth hadn’t been woken by the gunshot and come hurrying out of the lodge to investigate.
Perhaps she was panicking.
Choking in the heat of the moment, like the incompetent soldier she was.
Reed ducked into the security booth at the edge of the compound and fetched Johnson’s M4A1 carbine. The man had left the weapon resting against the console, propped up and fully loaded, as if beckoning Reed to acquire it. He slipped a finger inside the trigger guard, just in case there were any surprises waiting outside the gate.
Then he disappeared into the shadows.
20
At the Port of Mogadishu, the door to the security office burst open with unmistakeable intensity.
King recognised the force applied to the other side of the wood as an act that couldn’t unfold in a normal situation. Whoever was barging their way in meant business, and he treated the resulting confrontation accordingly.
King was off the chair in a heartbeat, crossing the few feet of empty space before the door had entirely opened. He used all two hundred pounds of his bulk to shoulder it back in the other direction, jarring enough to stun the man on the other side into hesitation. He knew it was a man because of the resistance he met — enough kinetic energy slammed against his frame to rattle his bones in their sockets.
King didn’t pause, not even for a half-second.
He hurled the door open with a single, violent heave, revealing a stocky dock worker snatching at the sides of the doorway. He was fumbling with some kind of cheap black market handgun — King realised the man had stormed into the office with the gun raised up in front. He hadn’t been anticipating the door to hurtle back against him, jamming his finger awkwardly in the trigger guard and knocking him off-balance. He’d been leaning forward, expecting an incident, nervous for what he might find.
Either the guy had seen King enter the office — which didn’t make much sense considering he’d been trawling through security footage for over twenty minutes — or somehow, the guy he’d tied up had managed to alert his colleagues.
King yanked the guy forward by the collar, violently, holding nothing back. With his other hand he smashed a meaty forearm down into the guy’s wrist, hard enough to break bone and send the handgun skittering wildly out of his palm.
Now disarmed, King could afford to employ recklessness.
He brought his free hand up and wrapped it around the other side of the man’s collar, now holding him by the neck in a two-pronged grip. He let out a grunt of exertion and heaved the guy inside, sending him tumbling head-over-heels across the carpeted floor.
The guy had been thoroughly unprepared for any kind of resistance, judging by his panicked reaction. He scrabbled for purchase on the carpet — finding none, he simply curled into a ball, anticipating blows to rain down.
But he made the timeless mistake of using both hands to protect his head.
King thundered a front kick into the guy’s side, rocketing the heel of his combat boot directly into the liver. He felt all physical resistance ebb out of the dock worker in a single instant as the man succumbed to agonising pain. King had taken a punch to the liver in training over a year ago, and the memory still hadn’t faded from his mind.
It had been one of the most painful experiences imaginable.
He had then learned to implement it in his own arsenal.
The results spoke for themselves.
The liver kick carried enough weight to intimidate the pair into submission. The first worker — the guy who seemingly manned the office — didn’t move, his skin paling and his eyes wide. The newcomer had doubled over and didn’t seem to be concerned with anything other than making it through the next few minutes without passing out.
King turned back to the monitors.
Did he have time to check the two remaining video feeds?
He scolded himself for his own foolishness, as he realised there was no need to investigate any further.
What the security worker had said to him single-handedly incriminated Reed in something darker. At the very least, it proved he hadn’t been truthful about the encounter with the smuggling ring.
If there even was one.
King regarded the pair of sorry souls at his feet and shook his head in anger. Enough was enough. He couldn’t hang around this office any longer. He had no idea whether half the dock workers at the port had been alerted to his presence or not. He fetched his weapon, determined not to use it and trigger a full-scale meltdown of natural order. So far, he had kept matters strictly to physical combat. He promised himself he’d keep it that way until he was well clear of the port’s limits.
In any case, he had enough evidence for Lars.
Reed wasn’t their man.
He checked the first worker’s restraints were still bound tight, and noted the condition of the second man. Both weren’t going anywhere fast. Satisfied that he had time to break away, he slipped out of the office, plunging back into the night without a word of explanation to the two men he’d left in the room.
Hopefully, they considered themselves lucky enough to simply escape with their lives.
As he hurried back the way he’d come in a low crouch, he considered what he’d discovered. It had been the right move to stop himself before investigating further — he was inexperienced, and even the slightest slip-up had the potential to turn tensions disastrous. The less time he spent snooping around, the better — and he didn’t need the full details in any case.
What he needed was a confirmation of whether Reed would serve as a potential recruit to Black Force.
The answer was a resounding no.
Yet, something didn’t feel right.
A restless tic began in his neck, throwing him off as he retraced his steps out of the port. He had caught Reed in the act of … something. He didn’t know exactly what. A major part of him wanted nothing more than to return to the compound and beat the security worker into submission until he got answers.
How many men did he snatch?
What did he do with them?
Why’d he do it?
King paused in his tracks.
He faltered.
Then he spun on his heel.
He made the decision to return to the security office and get to the bottom of what Bryson Reed was involved in when wailing klaxons roared into life across the port.
21
Just as abruptly as he’d turned, King instantly switched directions again and bolted out of the docks. Sirens screamed all around him, complete with strobe-like flashing lights to signal to everyone in the port that an intruder had been found in their presence.
Either the first guy broke out of his restraints, or the second guy recovered.
It had to be the restraints. King regarded himself as one of the toughest sons-of-bitches on the planet, all things considered, but a well-placed liver shot had put him down for over ten minutes. The pain hadn’t faded away for more than an hour. He certainly hadn’t felt like moving for far longer than it had taken someone to activate an alarm.
So it came down to the first security worker. The guy must have set to work as soon as King stepped out of the office, using some kind of nearby object to saw through the restraints. King had secured the vest tight. He was surprised the worker had capitalised so quickly.
Now he sprinted down the laneway, abandoning all caution, flying past locked warehouses emanating horrific wails of distress. The alarm system rivalled the decibel level of an old-fashioned military siren — the kind that signalled an incoming nuclear strike. King shook it off, regaining his composure and pushing himself faster.