He shook his head. ‘Don’t be stupid. Of course it was. I needed it.’
‘You nervous?’
‘Shitting myself.’
‘Then why go? Reed’s long gone. Stay here.’
‘If I stayed, I’d never forgive myself.’
‘Why?’
‘This is what I signed up for,’ he said, lifting the rifle to hammer his point home. ‘Can’t abandon the purpose of my role on my second assignment.’
‘This really is your second task?’
He nodded.
‘I’d rather you didn’t go,’ she said. ‘Personally. Putting all the official shit aside. You’re not a bad guy.’
‘You’re not too bad yourself,’ he said.
For a moment he wavered.
Perhaps Beth was right. There was little chance he could gain ground on Reed, let alone intercept the man’s plans and stop him in his tracks. Even if he never tracked Reed down, he would almost certainly get himself killed setting off on a solo trip across Somalia. The war-torn country didn’t have the best reputation for treating foreigners kindly, let alone their own people. He would run into armed bandits looking for a quick buck over and over again until finally he succumbed to the odds.
On top of that, Beth’s face sported a pining expression, staring hard at him in an effort to convince him to stay. She wanted him, and he wanted her, despite everything that was unfolding around them.
He started to lower the rifle.
Then Lars’ voice came roaring back, ringing in his ears as it replayed on a constant loop in his mind.
Don’t get any ideas.
The man had explicitly told him not to get involved with Beth, warning him of the consequences in the fuselage of the cargo plane. His words hammered home. If King stayed, Lars would know why. He would understand that King had folded in the face of adversity.
And, on top of everything, King had his own personal motivations. He was willing to capitalise on any chance he could get to make Reed pay for his actions — no matter how slim the odds.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This is my job.’
He brushed straight past Bethany Morris and strode for the front door, not daring to look back unless he changed his mind.
Now that he had committed to the journey, he hardened his demeanour, removing emotions from the equation entirely.
There would be hell to pay for what Reed had done.
With echoes of Tijuana ringing in his thoughts, he tightened his grip on the HK416 and made straight for Beth’s open-topped jeep.
25
He left the compound behind in a trail of dust, not daring to look in either of the side mirrors in case he caught a glimpse of Beth on the terrace. He’d been secretly hoping she shared his urges ever since he’d spotted her approaching in the jeep earlier that day. He liked the way she carried herself, and he liked the way they meshed, and he liked almost everything about her down to the way the right side of her mouth twisted up when she smiled, but all of that melted away as the reality of the situation dawned on him.
He would never see again.
And — on top of that — he had almost no chance of success with what lay ahead.
But he’d faced the same adversity in Tijuana and Guatemala, and he’d come out on top.
The thought of Reed disappearing into the complicated web of the extra-legal world and living out the rest of his days in unanswered luxury sent fury through his chest. King wouldn’t let the man get away, even if it meant he himself died in the process.
The burden on his shoulders weighed him down as he mounted the path Reed had spoken of the previous afternoon, a one-way dirt track that ran along one side of the compound’s perimeter and twisted into a disintegrating neighbourhood nearby. He plunged into a scene similar to a big-budget Hollywood disaster movie, complete with demolished buildings resting in pitiful piles of rubble and the burnt-out shells of old vehicles that had been torched long ago.
Everything about this land was steeped in misery and suffering.
Much like King himself.
He hardened his resolve, forcing all unpleasant thoughts out of his mind and practicing a measured process of meditation, breathing in deep for seven seconds, holding the breath in for seven seconds, then exhaling for seven seconds.
Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t shake the invading thought that his superiors would likely chew him out even if he achieved the best-case scenario in the coming days. He could stop Reed in his tracks and deliver justice to the man, but the responsibility for the two dead Force Recon Marines rested squarely on his shoulders. It had been his role to step in and clean things up — instead, he had aggravated the situation.
For all he knew, Reed had been biding his time to escape the compound unseen, and had been forced into action when King showed up. Maybe if he’d stayed out of the equation entirely, Reed would have escaped without incident.
That would have been preferable to the way the situation had graphically unfolded.
He settled in for the drive. A brief look at a satellite interface in the passenger’s footwell of the jeep had revealed that Afgooye lay seventeen miles outside of Mogadishu’s city limits, buried in the hostile Somali countryside. He had no idea what he might encounter that far off the beaten track, but the isolation would work in his favour. It wouldn’t be hard to spot a fellow six-foot-three American in a remote village.
That was, if Reed was still there.
Something told him he would be.
Whatever was set to occur in Afgooye, King imagined it would involve a process. There had to be an endgame to his mad plan, something that sent him riding off into the sunset to live out a carefree existence.
He settled into a steady rhythm, tuning out the section of his brain working overdrive to ponder the worst-case scenarios that lay ahead. There was no use considering what might be on the horizon. Whatever it was, it would involve a gun and his reflexes. He didn’t operate in a complicated field.
Half an hour out of Mogadishu, as the surrounding rubble and buildings packed with dust-coated civilians melted away, King determined he was halfway to Afgooye. The air blasting over the windshield and bombarding the open-topped cabin was hot and heavy. He wiped a palm across his forehead, already slick with sweat, and returned it to the battered wheel a moment later. All natural light had faded into the distance as he drove further and further from civilisation.
He spotted the convoy a hundred feet in the distance, cresting a rise in the trail and soaking in the sight of a cluster of headlight beams all at once. He gripped the wheel with white knuckles, inwardly panicking, confused by the darkness and the hostile terrain. A quick glance at either side of the trail revealed impenetrable fields of weeds and potholes. Any attempt to steer around the group of vehicles would result in disaster. The inhospitable terrain would snag his wheels, grind the jeep to a halt, and then he would be left to the mercy of whoever lay ahead.
He couldn’t stop and reverse, either.
It was the only remaining option — the trail had narrowed considerably, preventing any kind of turn that didn’t involve at least five or six points — but it would prove disastrous. No matter how fast he backtracked, the convoy would sense something awry and give pursuit.
They would travel faster forward than he could backward.
As he got closer, he realised they’d arranged their vehicles in a rudimentary barricade across the trail, taking advantage of a short expansion in the width of the route. They had all the odds on their side.
King couldn’t make out much more due to the headlights shining directly into his eyes, but he reached down and nonchalantly thumbed the safety off the M45 in the holster on his waistband. He slid the gun free and tucked it under his leg, keeping one hand wedged between his thigh and the tattered seat in case he needed to react all at once.