Brandon. It’s what I’ve come to expect from you.”
Gazenga’s smile had a slightly queasy edge to it, and he took another swipe at his forehead. “Thank you, sir.”
Drake looked over his reading glasses and scowled, mindful of the importance of maintaining his role as a replacement for the father who had been lost. “Is there a problem?”
Fear flashed briefly in the young man’s eyes. “No, sir. Why would there be?”
“Because this is a tough assignment. About as tough as they get. But that’s the job we’re stuck with. Castilla is a damn fine man, but he’s a politician. I’d already been working in intelligence for fifteen years when he decided to leave his law firm and run for local office. We’re the experts, and to some extent we have to protect the country from the revolving door of Congress and the White House.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.” His voice had a comforting force to it, but there was still something audible in the background. Doubt.
“You’ve seen the same things I have, Brandon: the military and intelligence communities getting more and more politicized and bureaucratic. Constant grandstanding and posturing by the people who are supposed to be leading us. A deficit that’s pushing us into another collapse. This country is on life support, and as much as I hate to admit it, the energy coming out of the Middle East is our blood supply. Without it, this country dies.”
“I completely agree, sir,” Gazenga said, but Drake was unconvinced and decided to press his point home.
“Can you imagine what will happen if we let Iran modernize and go nuclear? There won’t be any way for us to combat their influence in the Middle East — we’ll end up in a groveling contest with the rest of the world to see who gets the opportunity to spend the rest of their lives kissing Persian ass. We have a window of opportunity here, Brandon, and it’s closing fast. We need to make the politicians understand that the American military’s failure as a nation-building organization doesn’t mean that it’s not the greatest instrument of punishment ever created.”
Gazenga nodded, seemingly regaining the resolve he’d let slip. But for how long? Drake was starting to see the limits of his influence over the young man, and it worried the hell out of him.
“All right. That’s all, Brandon. I’ll go through your report in detail tonight and let you know if I find any problems.”
Gazenga seemed relieved to be dismissed and hurried from the office. A moment later a side door opened and Dave Collen strode in.
“Have you had a chance to go through this yet?” Drake said, tapping the folder on his desk.
“Yeah, Brandon sent it to me this morning. His normal thorough job. Hell, he almost had
Drake nodded slowly, fixing his gaze on a blank section of wall across from him.
“This has the potential to put our problems with Castilla to bed,” Collen said. “Why don’t you look happy?”
“It’s Brandon. I’m starting to see cracks.”
“Are they wide enough that you want to do something about it?”
“No. Not yet. But I think we have to start considering the possibility that he’s going to become a liability sooner than we’d planned.”
16
Dembe Kaikara grimaced as the ancient Volkswagen bounced through a deep rut, causing the bullet lodged in his thigh to grind against bone. The bleeding in his side had stopped on its own, but the wound in his leg was far worse. The scarf tied around the entry wound was so tight, he could no longer feel the accelerator beneath his foot, and yet the seat was still soaked through.
The narrow dirt track cut through an informal settlement consisting of buildings clapped together from old signs, discarded lumber, and wire. People sat in the shade, glancing briefly at him as he passed and then just as quickly turning away. It was a place where those who didn’t quickly learn to mind their own business didn’t survive to adulthood.
His head was becoming increasingly fuzzy from blood loss, and he struggled to recall the directions that had been so thoroughly drilled into him before leaving Uganda. A toppled water tower became visible to his right, and he turned hesitantly toward it, forcing the low-slung car off the road and onto the dry, cracked earth it had been carved from.
He had considered running, but where would he go? He was in South Africa illegally, and a hospital would report his gunshot wound. Van Keuren certainly had called the police by now, and they would be looking for him.
Not that he really feared things like deportation and prison — he had faced far worse from the time he was a small child. No, the only thing he feared in this world was Caleb Bahame. There was no way to run from him. He would see. And he would send the demons.
Kaikara finally rolled to a stop in front of a group of men sitting on the hoods of a line of polished luxury cars that looked hopelessly out of place in the surrounding poverty. He recognized only the thin, scarred face of Haidaar — one of Bahame’s most trusted disciples. The others were Nigerian drug dealers who controlled the surrounding settlements and understood how to get things done without attracting the attention of the South African police. Guns of various types and a few stained machetes leaned against their bumpers, never far from reach.
His vision blurred and he nearly fell trying to get out of the car, leaving himself leaning heavily on the door with blood rolling down his leg. The laughter of the Nigerians wasn’t quite loud enough to cover Haidaar’s footfalls, and Kaikara tried to find the strength to meet his eye.
“What happened to you?”
“The woman had a gun. She shot me.”
More laughter from the Nigerians. They seemed to think his misfortune should be commemorated with a drink and began passing a bottle of liquor.
“I’ve been bleeding for a long time,” Kaikara said, his voice sounding as weak as a woman’s, even to him. “Is there someone here who can stop it?”
Haidaar gave him a disgusted sneer and pulled the car’s rear door open. When he threw back the blanket spread across the seat, he took a hesitant step backward.
“What is this?”
Kaikara looked down at the bodies of the young couple he’d carjacked. “The van Keuren woman escaped. I had to get rid of her car…”
Haidaar stood in stunned silence for a moment, fear flashing across his face before being replaced by anger. He grabbed Kaikara by the back of the neck, pulling him away from the car and throwing him to the garbage-strewn ground.
“You lost her?” he screamed. “You let a woman do this to you and then you let her get away?”
Kaikara tried to get to his feet, but he was too weak. All he could manage to do was hold his hands up in a pathetic attempt to protect himself. “She had a gun. She ran. I—”
Haidaar kicked him hard in the side, flipping him onto his stomach and then grinding a foot down on the bullet wound in the back of his leg. “Not far from your ass, is it, Kaikara? It looks like
The Nigerians had taken notice and were surrounding them, weapons in hand. One with a machete moved in, and Kaikara’s words came out in a panicked flood. “No! I was driving! The bitch must have had the gun under the seat. She—”
The machete came up and Kaikara tried to crawl away, but pain and blood loss made his progress almost comically slow.
“Stop!” he heard Haidaar shout. “Find him a doctor.”
“What?” one of the Nigerians said. “Why would you want this worthless piece of shit to live even one more
