Marc slipped into the driver’s seat and gripped the lever that opened the door. “Fareed.”
“Yes?”
“Hold your breath.” He slapped open the door.
The customs officer stomped up the metal stairs, shouting garlic into Marc’s face.
Calmly, Marc drew the gas canister, aimed the nozzle, and sprayed.
The officer choked once and then sprawled at his feet.
Duboe sprang forward. “Glad to know that sucker works.” He pulled the plastic cuffs from his belt and lashed together the man’s hands.
One of Josh’s men came up beside Duboe. He slapped a strip of silver tape over the officer’s mouth as Duboe secured the man’s ankles with a second tie.
“Hamid?”
“Here.”
“We have one down and secure.”
“We have taken out a second.”
Marc watched Duboe and Josh’s man haul the limp body down the aisle and deposit him in an empty row. “How many left?”
From Hamid, “One comes around truck now, he heads for your bus. Inside the guardhouse I do not know.”
“Hang tight.” Marc raised up from his seat and saw Josh slip from beneath the truck. He attacked the third officer from behind. The man collapsed without a sound.
Marc hurried down the stairs and helped Josh maneuver the inert officer into the bus, where he was tied and gagged and deposited beside his mates. “Fareed, Josh, let’s go. I need one more volunteer.”
Duboe was already up and moving. “I’m your man.”
Hamid was there to meet them as they came around the dark front of the bus. “What now?”
“I need one of your men,” Marc said. “Not you.”
“But I-”
“A team leader needs to stay and direct operations if things go wrong.”
Hamid did not like it, but he turned and said, “Yussuf.”
When they were joined by Hamid’s man, Marc said, “Tell him to track close to Josh. Fareed, you’re on point. Duboe, you shadow his footsteps. Everybody check their comm links. Fareed, you have the rest of the money?”
“Is here.”
“Start for the customs house. Tell them you need to pay your duty. Tell them loud as you can.”
“They will think I am insane, offering money without argument.”
“Good.” Marc turned to the others. “Have your spray and your firearms at the ready. Track Fareed, stay unseen. If the officers don’t emerge from the guardhouse, hit it hard.”
Josh asked, “What about you?”
“I’ll circle around back, try to find a rear entrance. Let me know when you’re in position. Ready? Let’s move out.”
Fareed started around the rear of the truck, out where the lights were brightest. The rest of them slipped forward to where the truck’s hood met the shadows.
Beyond the light’s perimeter there was nothing but rocky earth and the detritus of a guard station. Marc moved silently, tracking Fareed. Josh and Yussuf molded to the wall by the side window as Marc moved around back. Duboe held to one pace behind Fareed, playing like a dumb lackey, both men doing their jobs extremely well. Fareed crossed the parking lot, fanning the bills over his head and calling loudly.
Rounding the back of the guardhouse, Marc found a door whose upper half was glass. A shade was pulled down, but a tight slit of light shone at the bottom. Marc risked a glance, saw a large room lit by a bare overhead bulb, and a pair of legs stretched out from behind a side cupboard.
Marc tested the handle, turned it silently. The door was latched at shoulder height. Marc caught a glimpse of a ready room with a burner and a bare table and chairs. He smelled old coffee and grease.
“Three guards in the front room,” Duboe muttered in Marc’s earpiece.
“Go.”
Marc slammed his good shoulder into the door. The latch snapped off. He piled into the rear room and surprised the officer whose chair leaned against the side wall. His belt was open, gut spilling over his trousers. He froze in the process of lifting a cigarette to his mouth. Marc sprayed him tight in the face and raced through the door leading to the front.
Pistol in one hand and canister in the other, Marc flung open the door and ran silently down the narrow hall.
He entered the front room to find Fareed gaping at a guard, who was in the process of rising and aiming a gun at his chest. The guard’s face was turned away from Marc, so using the spray risked bringing Fareed down instead. Marc hammered the guard in the temple with his gun.
The room was suddenly very crowded as Josh and Yussuf shot through the door. Duboe went for the guard closest to the doorway, shoving him across the room and ramming him against the wall.
Marc spun and chopped at the third guard, but the man used the radio to shield himself as he tried to aim his side arm. Marc rammed the table hard into the man, then leaped over and gripped the gun hand, bringing it down into the radio. Sparks flew and the guard jerked as the electric current drilled him. The man slumped to the floor beside his two mates.
Marc rasped, “Anybody hurt?”
Fareed puffed, “Is all good.”
While Josh sprayed each of the downed guards, Marc checked out the front door. The parking area was silent, the night empty. “Let’s move these guys out the back way.”
They were struggling across the rocky earth when Hamid and two others appeared. Together they bundled the limp bodies into the second bus, where the prisoners were trussed and gagged and sprayed a second time.
Marc and Duboe and Josh stepped out and checked the night. The trucker still stood on his rig’s other side, his hands full of papers. He was watching the guardhouse and muttering to himself. Beyond the barrier separating them from the Iraqi border, a long row of trucks waited their turn. Two motors rumbled. Otherwise the night was silent.
Marc said, “We’re done here. Let’s move.”
Chapter Forty-Three
E leven and a half miles past the border, the terrain shifted drastically. Marc knew the exact distance, because Duboe’s laptop came equipped with a military-grade GPS. Josh watched the shifting map over Marc’s shoulder. “They plant a satellite on permanent duty overhead, just for little old us?”
Duboe did not respond.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
A half-moon had risen above the ridgeline. To their right, a rocky stream glinted as it meandered along a wide gulley. Josh said, “Come monsoon time, that whole valley will be filled to the brim. The water will hold enough force to carry away trees, trucks, bridges, whole villages.”
Duboe asked, “Where’d you see that, Afghanistan?”
Josh did not reply.
“What I figured,” Duboe said.
The valley was lined by tall slender trees with bushy tops, shaped like a child’s drawing. Duboe said, “Reminds me of the cottonwoods back home. You never go wrong, digging for water around a cottonwood. No matter how dry the country. Only problem is, the roots can go down twenty feet or more.”
Josh asked, “Where you from?”
