He thought he knew where the conversation was headed before Beth had even opened her mouth.
‘Victor and Johnson are dead,’ she stammered. ‘They can’t find Reed.’
22
King left the sedan in the middle of the trail, ducking into Beth’s jeep as she slotted back into the driver’s seat. He kept his finger inside the trigger guard of his M45 — more for reassurance’s sake than anything else. The surrounding plains felt suddenly barren and hostile, shifting into something menacing as the new reality of the situation dawned on both of them.
Reed isn’t who he says he is.
‘Tell me everything you know,’ he said as Beth started back for the compound.
He kept his tone calm and measured, even though every part of him wanted to panic. If they never saw Reed again, the operation would be regarded a colossal failure.
The momentum from Tijuana would dissipate.
And, more importantly, Bryson Reed would disappear into the civilian world.
Never to be seen again.
The man would have had substantial systems in place to transition into a new identity. He wouldn’t have gone through with this if he didn’t have a backup plan.
Now, King wished he’d returned to the security office and forced more information out of the dock workers.
‘Someone caved Johnson’s throat in—’ Beth started.
‘That piece of shit,’ King snarled, gripping the M45 tighter. He took his finger out of the trigger guard, employing trigger discipline in case the rage built to an uncontrollable level.
‘Not so fast,’ Beth said. ‘It could be a coincidence.’
‘Why?’
‘You remember Victor?’
King paused. ‘Uh, no. We never met.’
‘Oh. Right. Well, he’s a full-blown alcoholic. Spends his nights snooping off the base and getting blind off moonshine in the fields.’
‘How hasn’t he been chewed out for that yet?’
‘He’s discrete enough. He has the day shifts at the perimeter of the compound, and he does his job well enough. I guess none of us were willing to do anything about it when there were more pressing issues at hand. Everything involving Reed broke out at the same time Victor started ramping up his nightly adventures.’
‘Right,’ King said.
‘Besides, we’re the only U.S. forces in the country, I believe. You’d be surprised how flexible our orders are. Not as lax as yours, obviously, but there’s surprisingly little command to hold us accountable. At least, for the time being.’
King simply nodded.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘the peacekeepers found Victor a few feet away with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So he could have come back from a stroll in a drunken stupor and thrown retorts at Johnson. Tempers could have flared. Then he could have killed himself out of guilt. We don’t know exactly what kind of issues Victor had. You never know…’
King shook his head. ‘Where does Reed fit into that?’
‘No idea. There’s been no sign of him.’
‘It’s bullshit,’ King said. ‘He set it up that way.’
‘You can’t be sure.’
‘I know what he’s capable of.’
‘How?’
‘You can just tell,’ King said. ‘Spend enough time around trained killers and you understand if someone has what it takes to go on a rampage. Reed could have done it. Especially after what I found out at the port.’
Beth froze in the driver’s seat, letting the car drift across the trail. She battled a shiver and regained control of her motor functions. ‘Don’t tell me it’s bad.’
‘It’s bad. I think.’
‘What’s he been doing?’
‘I don’t know. One of the guys there thought I was Reed. Because we look similar.’
‘You don’t look that similar…’
‘He only saw Reed on security cameras. We’re the same build. Big guys. Similar facial features.’
‘I guess.’
‘He saw Reed kidnapping his workers.’
‘What?!’
‘What kind of experience did Reed have in the military before the Force Recon Marines?’
Beth shrugged. ‘No idea. Didn’t ask. We don’t talk much about personal shit. Might touch on too many raw nerves.’
‘I’m betting he has extensive combat training. I’m betting he killed Victor and Johnson like it was nothing, and now he’s going through with something he planned to do all along. Maybe a little earlier than expected, because I showed up.’
‘We’ll never find him,’ Beth said. ‘Not if he truly wanted to disappear. We have to hope he wants to come back and silence us also.’
King looked at her. ‘I don’t think we want that.’
‘I do. I want to put a bullet between his eyes.’
‘He might do it first.’
‘I don’t care.’ He could sense the raw emotion in her voice — the shock of the escalating situation had started to fade, replaced by something close to fear. It didn’t sound like she meant it. ‘My career’s over anyway. They’ll find out I wasn’t at the compound when all this went down. They’ll find out I followed you. They’ll throw me out of the military. Or throw me in prison.’
‘Don’t think like that yet,’ King said. ‘We’ll sort this out.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Why did you follow me? I was specifically sent here to do the things you, Victor, and Johnson aren’t allowed to do.’
‘And look where that got them,’ she muttered.
‘You might have ended up the same way if you made it to the port. Hell, I barely made it out alive myself.’
‘But you did. And you found something.’
‘I barely found anything.’
‘You know Reed’s lying.’
‘That doesn’t help much if he’s no longer around.’
‘It means everything,’ Beth demanded, suddenly stern. ‘I would have bought the Victor-Johnson dynamic hook, line and sinker if you didn’t let me know Reed’s full of shit. I would have spent a week searching aimlessly for him, worried about his safety. Now I know he’s rotten.’
‘Don’t get one hundred percent certain yet. Reed could be bad, but that doesn’t mean Victor didn’t kill him and hide the body. It could just be a crazy coincidence.’
Beth shook her head, resolute. ‘Not out here. That kind of thing doesn’t happen. Besides, ever since the peacekeepers told me I was in disbelief that Victor could do something like that. He’s a drunk, but not a violent one.’
‘Then it’s more than likely Reed’s our man,’ King said.
‘He already is, isn’t he? Regardless.’
‘Dodgy business at the port pales in comparison to the murder of two enlisted soldiers.’
‘Not if he really has gone on a killing spree,’ Beth said, then left her mouth hanging open, as if she had been ready to say more but the words that came out of her lips made her pause in consideration. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it. Abducting dock workers one by one? What the hell’s he doing?’
‘I have a theory,’ King said. ‘It’s long-winded though.’
‘We have time. I’d say we have ten minutes left on this road before we make it back to the compound. AMISOM needed to operate well out of the centre of Mogadishu. So they could stay out of trouble. Which is ridiculous, in the end, isn’t it?’
King shrugged. ‘No-one could have expected anything like this.’
‘So what’s Reed doing?’
‘I think it has something to do with Afgooye.’
23
Beth glanced across, taking her eyes off the road momentarily. ‘The village?’
‘I don’t know what it is,’ King admitted. ‘You’d know more about it than me. But now that I’m looking at my conversation with Reed in a new light, that seems like the only thing he wasn’t bullshitting about.’