Or, at least, most of the contents.
‘Oh my God,’ Beth muttered, as the remnants of the haul bed’s payload appeared before them.
King hadn’t noticed originally, but Reed had transferred the cargo in a hurry, simply leaving some of it where it lay. What was left behind spoke volumes regarding the sheer scale of the operation at the Afgooye compound.
He cast his gaze over bundles of U.S. dollars, scattered intermittently across the ground in front of their tractor unit. Twenty thousand dollars here, fifty thousand dollars there. Still perched on the tractor unit’s step, he spotted a few clusters of the bills that had cascaded down the shallow slope into the undergrowth he’d fired upon moments earlier. Those bundles seemed larger in size — each of them at least one hundred thousand USD.
All in all, King estimated that Reed had been in such a hurry to leave that he’d abandoned several million dollars in his haste.
‘Unbelievable,’ he said. ‘You think he’d be so careless? Seems like a set-up.’
‘Unless this is nothing in comparison to the bulk of the money,’ Beth said. ‘What if the entire haul bed was full?’
King stared up at the haul bed tilted towards them, hovering ominously in the sky like a giant’s bathtub. He paled as he spotted a thin coating of more hundred-dollar bills littered across its floor. Another million, maybe more. Just sitting there for scavengers to help themselves to — all because Reed didn’t feel like loitering a few minutes more.
‘That would be billions,’ King said. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘Says who?’
‘I mean…’ King started, but he couldn’t fathom the scale of what Reed had done. ‘Why would they keep that kind of money on the premises? That’s the stuff of empires. That’s how entire countries are founded.’
‘You saw the size of the operation,’ Beth said. ‘There’d be billions and billions in profits if you apply that to an extra-legal ring stretching across Africa. You know how much money is in the shipping industry alone? It’s staggering.’
‘And they’d leave it in a haul truck for anyone to waltz in and take?’
‘From what you’ve told me,’ Beth said, ‘it seems like they had it heavily guarded. That didn’t stop Reed.’
‘You think they’d keep it all in one place?’
‘Maybe it’s not all in one place. Maybe they have dozens of these trucks.’
‘That’s unfathomable.’
‘What else are they going to do with it? It’s money they’ve made by skirting around the existing system. They can’t deposit it in banks. They can’t do anything with it but hoard it in gross quantities. Reed must have smelled opportunity and taken advantage of it.’
‘Which brings me to my next point,’ King said. ‘What the hell is Reed going to do with it?’
‘Hoard it for himself?’ Beth said. ‘I’m not following.’
‘How’s he going to do that? There must be an endgame to all of this. If he has over a billion dollars in undeclared cash, he’s facing the same problems the people at Afgooye were. He can’t dump it in a bank. I’d say he switched it to a smaller truck with an attached trailer — but then what? He can’t drive around Africa avoiding authorities forever.’
‘The boat option. It’s the only feasible way to get it out of the country.’
‘And then? He has to get off somewhere.’
‘Let’s focus less on what his plan is and more on hunting him down,’ Beth said. ‘Sound good?’
King nodded. ‘I’m overthinking. Let’s go. He’ll still be following this trail — there aren’t any other options.’
He transitioned from the exterior step to the driver’s seat, slotting the big tractor unit into gear and applying pressure to the brake pedal to keep it in place. He remained that way, waiting for Beth to swing into the passenger seat in turn. There was nothing left for them to see here.
He started to grow suspicious when she failed to materialise in an orderly fashion.
‘Beth?’ he called.
She swung into the cabin a moment later. ‘You don’t think it’s an awful waste to leave all that money lying around?’
‘Of course I do,’ King said, ‘but have you got a better idea in mind?’
‘No-one will miss a couple of bundles.’
‘They won’t miss it. But your CO will throw you out of the military if it gets found on your person. Don’t even think about it.’
‘I mean, I’m probably out regardless…’
‘Not if we catch Reed. And we’re right on his heels. Besides, you didn’t hear the conversation I had with my handler before. We’re officially in bed with the upper echelon now. He can make your problems go away. So don’t get any ideas in the meantime.’
She nodded, a little hesitant to agree but wise enough to see the reality of the situation, and swung the door closed behind her. It slammed with a certain finality, sealing them both off from the tantalising prospect of siphoning a few million dollars off for themselves.
As King kicked the tractor unit into gear and set off along the unlit road, Beth craned her neck to watch the sea of money fading into the black.
‘There’s more lying there than I’ll make in a fifty-year career,’ she said, suddenly glum. ‘Let’s hope Reed gets what’s coming to him.’
39
The idea of billions of extra-legal dollars moving freely around the country with a bent Force Recon Marine kept King wired long into the overnight drive.
He didn’t want to lose a second of time on Reed’s tail — he had resolved to catch up to the man through sheer endurance.
Beth dozed restlessly beside him as he followed the road for hundreds of miles. The electronic clock on the truck’s dashboard had broken long ago, which helped the minutes blur into hours. King tried not to pay attention to the duration of the journey and instead shrunk into his own thoughts, pondering the kind of life Bryson Reed would live if he made it out of Somalia scot-free.
There would be unbridled luxury and unabashed freedom. If he set himself up correctly and took the proper precautions to ensure he was never caught, he would be free to do as he pleased for the rest of his life.
King thought of the corpses the man had left in his wake and applied a little more pressure to the accelerator.
The satellite phone in the passenger’s footwell screamed into life. King leant across fast and answered it by stabbing down with a well-placed finger, hesitant to disturb Beth’s slumber. He hefted the phone to his ear and kept his other hand firmly on top of the steering wheel.
‘Lars?’ he said.
‘I found you,’ came the reply.
‘What?’
‘My new position has perks. I’m allowed access to all kinds of DARPA wizardry. Based on the last location you called from, I’ve pinpointed you on one of our satellites. You’re driving half a truck, correct?’
Despite everything, King smirked. ‘Yeah, you could call it that.’
‘Good. The road you’re running along has almost zero turn-offs. There’s a few dozen vehicles along it, so I don’t know which of them is Reed. I found the haul truck too late. He’d already switched over to another vehicle, but I’d assume it’s a semi-trailer of some kind. He must have already had that in place.’
‘He’s been planning this for weeks. And he has no shortage of cash.’
‘Where’d he get the money to fund this kind of operation?’
‘Suddenly abducting dock workers makes a whole lot of sense,’ King said. ‘That part always confused me — why’d he bother killing so many of the men at the port if he just wanted to follow the trade route to its inevitable payload?’