trouble when we try to get out of here, and it’s plan A all the way. Plan A is a bullet between your beady eyes, and I leave you in the street, go home, and count my cash.
“You understand?”
Oryx nodded again. The panic was there, but there was an acquiescence in his expression. He understood now.
“So your job is to make sure plan A isn’t the easy choice for me. Got it? We need to be on the same team here, so this all goes smooth, okay?”
“American? You are American?”
“Absofuckinglutely.” Court was proud to say it. It had been a while since he’d operated in the interests of the United States.
“Good. What is your rank?”
“No rank.”
“No rank? You are an officer, yes?”
Court laughed as he pushed the two-wheeler up against the wall to shield it from view of anyone walking down the street outside. “Just a grunt, dude. It was this or peeling potatoes, and I drew the short straw.”
Oryx did not understand the joke. He shook his head again to clear the lights and declared, “I wish to surrender to your senior commander.”
Gentry chuckled. “Sorry, I’m all you get for now.”
“Very well.” He said it in a disappointed tone. “My head—”
Gentry pulled two pills from his front pocket. “Take these for now.”
Oryx took the pills in his hand, looked them over, but did not put them in his mouth.
“They’re just mild painkillers. I promise you will thank me in a few minutes.”
Abboud popped the pills in his mouth slowly, swallowed another swig of water and choked on it, but did manage to keep the pills down.
“Can you run?”
“Run? I can barely see!”
“Can you move fast, then? Say no, and plan A is my best bet, because we’re going to have to haul ass to get you out of here.”
Oryx nodded helpfully. “I can run.”
“Good man. Now, I’ll help you stand.”
Oryx looked around. He seemed to just now notice all the gunfire. “Who is shooting? What is all this shooting?” Court realized his prisoner really wasn’t quite caught up to what was going on yet. It was no surprise.
“Friends of mine. They are keeping your friends busy. We are going to head through the back of this house here, go south a few blocks, and get in a boat. You ready?”
Oryx nodded again. He was helpfully conspiratorial in his own kidnapping. Even though he was clearly still disoriented, he recognized the alternative and had no doubt in his mind, looking at the serious American man in front of him, that it would be no problem for him to carry it out.
“Let’s move,” said Court. And he pushed Oryx around, shoved him hard to propel him towards the little stone house.
Sierra One, Two, and Four bounced around the inside of the cargo van as it bottomed out, lurched back into the air, and began climbing a little hill. The back doors were wide-open, but Four had strapped himself in with a belt tied to the bolted-in center seats and affixed to him with a quick-release buckle. No one knew where they were exactly, even though they had all spent weeks studying maps of the town. Brad even had a satellite photo of Suakin taped to the steering wheel in front of him. But all the streets looked the same, all the alleyways looked the same, the endless sea of dilapidated burlap and driftwood shacks looked the same, and apparently all the road signs had long ago been used for roofing material or firewood.
The three men had spent the past three minutes stumbling into and then out of little engagements with government of Sudan soldiers from the Sudanese People’s Armed Forces. The GOS units in town seemed disorganized as hell. As often as not, Brad had turned their van onto a road only to find themselves
This was a confused ambush, if that’s even what it was, but what the government troops lacked in organization, they made up for in sheer numbers. As the Whiskey Sierra van blasted through the little streets lining a seemingly endless vista of hovels on the north side of town, more and more Sudanese troops seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. Sierra Four had emptied an entire magazine from his weapon at enemy threats during and since breaking through the corral, and now Milo reloaded quickly, certain there’d be more fighting to come.
Sierra Five’s voice came over the net between bursts of automatic fire a quarter mile from the van.
“Yo, One. I could use some help over here. GOS has backed up out of my line of sight, and I’ve repositioned to a second-floor window, but it won’t be long before they come back and blow the shit out of this hotel.”
“Roger that, Spence,” said Zack. “We’re coming to pick you up ASAP; we’re just a little turned around over here.”
“Just follow the sound of the shooting. I’ve got a dozen or so of Oryx’s guards taking potshots at me from the square. You ought to be able to orient yourself on that.”
“We’re trying,” Zack replied, as Sierra Two made two quick turns to his left, pulled right behind an army jeep with an unmanned Russian machine gun mounted on its rear bed.
Brad made an immediate right.
“Sierra One to Sierra Three, gimme a sitrep on your position.”
Dan did not stop firing to communicate. “They’re hitting me from two alleyways.” Two cracks of his rifle distorted the transmission in Zack’s headset. “Not coordinated fire, and I’ve got the high ground on the roof here, but there sure as hell are a lot of them. They get in below me, and I’m toast. How copy?” Several more cracks delayed Hightower’s response.
“Good copy. We’re on the way.”
“Contact rear!” Milo shouted from behind Zack. In the small metal space of the van, his machine gun sounded like a jackhammer amplified by a heavy metal band’s amp stacks. Zack spun around to engage with his Tavor, but Brad made another quick turn that took them out of the line of fire.
“One, this is Three. I’ve got eyes on a chopper approaching from the north.”
“A chopper? Civ or military?”
“Uhhh, wait one, break. He’s military. Big, fat fucker. Looks like he’s about seven or eight klicks out, low and fast, headin’ this way like he’s got someplace to be . . . Looks like an Mi-17.”
“The Mi-17 is a Hip. The Sudanese don’t have Hips.” Hip was the NATO designation for the Russian-built MI- 17.
“Pretty sure it’s a Hip, boss.”
“Roger that, goddammit,” Zack growled. Not much he could do about an assault from the air right now.
“Five for One!”
“Go Five.”
“I’ve got small arms fire to my west. Not on my position. Sierra Six isn’t a klick to the west of the square, is he?”
“He shouldn’t be. Six, if you are able to transmit, let me know if that’s you.”
“Six, to One.” Court came over the net. His voice was sure and succinct. “Negative. I have Oryx, and we are southeast of the square. We’re making a try for the harbor.”
Zack thought it over as the van made another hard turn, this time to the left. “Must be the SLA rebels. Better late than never, I guess. I’ll take whatever I can get at the moment. Sound like much, Five?”
“I’m not impressed. Doesn’t sound like half of what I’ve got going on right on top of me!”
“Wait a sec,” interrupted Sierra Two from behind the wheel of the van. “This is that alley that runs into the northeast corner of the square.”
“You’re sure?” asked Zack. He had no idea. It looked the same as the last dozen alleys they’d driven
