Then the noise of an approaching vehicle made him freeze in his tracks.
The unmistakeable roar of an engine materialised ahead, out of sight, on the other side of a T-junction. King ascertained which direction the car would come careening around the corner and positioned himself accordingly, aware that he only had seconds to act.
It was nearly identical in make to the sedan full of common civilian thugs that had ambushed him earlier. It screamed around the corner, its rear tyres losing traction against the gravel and kicking up two fountains of the stuff. King hesitated at the sheer recklessness of the manoeuvre.
All was not as it seemed.
This wasn’t an ordinary response to a break-in. It couldn’t possibly be.
These men moved with a furious pace, as if the port had to be guarded with their lives.
He sensed that Reed’s claim of a smuggling ring might have some merit after all.
King forgot about the finer details and darted out of the shadows, moving as fast as his massive legs would allow, intercepting the sedan at the slowest point of its wild turn. He yanked the driver’s door open — as he suspected, they’d left it unlocked — and manhandled the driver out of the seat.
The procedure proved simple enough. In the pair’s haste to respond to the wailing alarms, neither had bothered to secure their seatbelts, so King simply hauled the driver out into the dirt with sheer physical strength and dove into the now-vacant seat.
The passenger was scrambling for something resting on the centre console. The primitive, survival-oriented part of King’s brain told him it was a gun, so he broke the guy’s nose with a single jab with his right elbow.
A crack echoed through the cabin, audible over the screaming engine. King reached across the passenger — whose hands were flying to his face to cradle his broken septum — and released the catch on the opposite door. He followed up with a one-handed shove, sending the man hurtling without resistance out of the car.
King straightened up, slammed both hands down on the wheel, and wrenched the handbrake, grinding the uncontrollable sedan to a halt in the centre of the trail. As soon as the car decelerated, he forced the lever back down, stamped on the accelerator, and twisted the wheel in a tight arc.
The sedan rocketed back the way it had come, shooting past the two dock workers who had been commandeering it seconds earlier. They had rolled to their feet, coated in dust and gravel rash, shaken by the encounter.
The nearest man could have snatched for the driver’s door handle and probably seized a respectable grip on the thin stretch of steel, able to offer resistance as King sped past. Instead he simply stood and gawked at the brazen act of grand theft auto.
The guy hesitated long enough to lose his vehicle forever.
King smirked as he tore down narrow laneways, twisting left and right, evading any sign of pursuing dock workers. He didn’t know how many men were stationed at the port overnight, but the last thing he wanted was to find himself in a civilian firefight.
These men didn’t deserve to die.
At least, he didn’t think they did.
He made it back onto Jaziira Road, leaving the port behind. Despite the relative success of the infiltration, he slammed an open palm against the top of the steering wheel and cursed in frustration.
He’d expected more.
Whether Tijuana had convinced him that scoping out the port would prove easier than he thought, or whether the dock workers truly were hiding something sinister, he found himself more confused leaving the docks than he did when he’d first stepped foot on the premises.
He massaged a headache that had sprouted to life in the panic. Now that he was well clear of the port, he took his foot off the accelerator and coasted along the track, trying not to draw unnecessary attention.
Nothing about the situation added up.
The port security was airtight and precise. King had met a sizeable wave of resistance when trying to flee. The guards weren’t contractors hired at minimum wage to half-heartedly protect the port. They had been determined to stop the intruder at any cost.
He didn’t know what that meant in terms of their guilt.
Then there was the matter of Bryson Reed.
King could hardly believe what the dock worker had told him. He had no conclusive evidence that Reed had been abducting people at the port, but all signs pointed to the man masking his true intentions. The security official would know more — King imagined a faction of the military would forcibly bring him in for questioning as they tried to work out what to do with their misbehaving Force Recon Marine.
King was a recruiter, and Reed had spectacularly failed his job interview.
Nothing else was required save for a plane flight back stateside.
This wasn’t his problem anymore.
Then, in a shower of sparks and a screech of twisted metal, it became his problem.
He rounded a tight bend in Jaziira Road and drifted into the middle of the trail in the process, his mind wandering. He hadn’t seen another vehicle for the entire duration of the journey — accordingly, he dropped his guard. The oncoming car had its headlights beaming, the first sight that tore King’s attention back to the present.
He twisted the wheel sharply to avoid a collision, but it seemed like the other driver had applied similarly lax precautions to their trip, electing to coast.
Their side mirrors collided together and broke off each vehicle simultaneously, shockingly loud right next to King’s ear. Both drivers stamped on the brakes, King twisting the wheel sharply to screech to a halt in the dead centre of the road.
He had the M45 ready to fire in a heartbeat.
Out here, any sign of human interaction spelled trouble.
He’d learnt that within a few hours of touching down in Somalia.
But when he darted out of the sedan and trained the M45 on the other vehicle, he noted the faded khaki paint of the military jeep and the blond hair of the woman behind the wheel. She was slow to react, twisting her head to meet King’s gaze. If he was a common criminal, he could have gunned her down effortlessly in the time it took her to throw her door open and lurch out into the dirt.
King found himself strangely angry at her lack of situational awareness, but when he squinted in the low light and made out the expression on Beth’s face, he froze.
‘Beth?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’
She flapped her lips like a dying fish, searching for words but unable to form them properly. He didn’t press her for answers, knowing she would produce the right string of syllables if given enough time to process whatever news she’d received.
‘I left the compound,’ she said quietly. ‘To come after you.’
‘Why?’
‘Thought I might be some help. I wasn’t doing anything otherwise, and I saw you leave. I don’t know…’
‘You really shouldn’t have.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s fine, though,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t know why you’re so scared.’
She wasn’t done, though. Eyes wide, she raised her right hand and held up a two-way radio, standard military issue. Nothing spectacular.
‘We use them to communicate with the peacekeepers,’ she said, still looking like she’d seen a ghost.
‘Okay.’
‘They just called.’
King thought about what the security worker had said.
One by one.
I’ve seen the footage.
Please tell me my men are alive.