looked at each other briefly before lowering their rifles. The one on the left handed his gun to the other, and from inside his robe, he withdrew a machete and rushed Fox with a war-like cry.

What an amateur.

The man was quick with the blade as he swung downwards to the left. Fox leaned back on his right leg and pivoted to the right to dodge it. He did the same thing but to the opposite side as the man swung the machete downwards to the right, missing him again. The man swung across, but Fox raised the briefcase and caught the blade with it, then kicked his assailant in the groin. The man doubled over, dropping the machete. With his free hand, Fox grabbed the devil’s head and pulled it downwards into his upward swinging knee, dropping him.

Fox looked up at the remaining devil. He seemed to have trouble managing both assault rifles. Fox was about to rush him as he fumbled with them, but a frying pan suddenly crashed down on the devil’s head from behind. When he dropped to the ground, a few others jumped at the opportunity to have a go at him by kicking him while he was down-including the woman who had sacked him with the frying pan.

The confrontation was brief, but ended with the three devils being lifted and carried overhead by small groups of men. Fox observed this and decided that the townspeople would take care of them as they saw fit, now that they were unarmed and posed less of a threat.

Fox felt something at his feet and saw Musa’s soccer ball. He picked it up and walked over to Musa, who stood next to his mother. She was back on her feet, surrounded by a few more of the villagers. Fox knelt down and handed Musa his ball.

Musa took it with both hands and smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. That was very brave what you did, standing up to that Janjaweed bully. You’re a good kid, Musa. Take care of your mother. She’ll always need your help.” Fox rubbed Musa’s bald head, making him laugh. “I’ll see to it that some help comes soon to keep those bad men away.”

Just then, Ibrahim and Adam ran up to him, laughing as they all threw their arms around Fox. For a second, Fox felt an emotional attachment to the three boys that made him not want to let them go, but he had to. For the moment he couldn’t do anything more for them.

The boys let go of him and Fox stood up, walked up to one of the camels that belonged to one of the devils and climbed onto its back. He then waved to the crowd before he rode off.

The entire village waved back to him and cried out their thanks and praises. Musa, Ibrahim, Adam, and dozens of other children ran after him, up until the edge of the village, cheering and waving their goodbyes to Fox as he rode away into the desert.

Fox didn’t quite reach a mile before he pulled the reigns of the camel to make it stop. He dismounted and took out his satellite phone from under his robe.

“There’s no need for that, Warrant Officer,” came a voice from the sand.

At that point, five figures sprouted up from the sand, dropping their sand-colored robes to reveal their army fatigues.

Warrant Officer Pat Hiller, Fox’s friend in the SEALs, walked up to him. “I take it things went smoothly.”

Fox handed Hiller the metal briefcase without answering. Something stirred at the bottom of his gut and it got worse. A familiar acidic taste followed and he ran off to the side, fell down to his hands and knees and threw up.

Hiller ran to him. “Whoa, buddy. You okay?”

Fox waved him off without answering. A mother and son were nearly slaughtered, maybe more, and I was about to walk away. How the hell could I be okay? Shit, Jessica would still be alive had I followed up on my instincts on her employers instead of ignoring them.

Fox spewed his stomach contents into the sand a second time. Tears soon followed. He’d become a killer with a single-minded purpose-not the man Jessica was going to marry.

“Listen, buddy. You don’t look so great,” said Hiller. “Extraction’s supposed to be in precisely four minutes. The Chad border ain’t too far away. Are you sure you can handle the helicopter ride?”

Fox took out a handkerchief, dabbed his eyes, and then wiped his mouth. “I’ll be okay. It’s probably just traveler’s sickness.”

“Traveler’s sickness my ass. We’re getting you to a medic.” Hiller helped Fox get up. Fox walked back to join the other SEALs and looked at each of them. He didn’t know their personal stories, only their individual skills. Looking at them, he saw himself as he was five years ago. Those were the days when testosterone drove him, rushing into battle-whether he was rescuing hostages from Somalian pirates, or from other terrorist cells. Those were the days, when he killed an enemy, it was out of self-defense. Since Jessica’s death, self-defense for him was nothing more than a euphemism. It was only now that he began to realize this. It must be why he threw up.

A helicopter would be arriving soon to pick them up. He’d know by the time it landed whether or not he could continue with this life.

Chapter 4

Novinsky Boulevard, 121099, Moscow, Russia, 12:03PM local time

The white-haired man twirled his pen as he gradually squeezed the phone harder by the second.

“Yes, I heard you the first time. Just remind them that we’re not responsible for the safety of their men or any breach in their security.”

“They’re arguing that the security breach came from our end,” said the man on the phone.

“Pandora was in their possession when it went missing. You tell the Sudanese officials that we have an endless supply, which we’ll sell to other clients that we regularly do business with. Let them know that if they want to continue doing business with us, they’ll have to guarantee that there won’t be any more security breaches, especially since it puts us at risk also. And tell them that whether we choose to accept them as clients again will be at our discretion.” He slammed the phone into its cradle. Bloody salespeople, don’t know when and how to control the clients.

He got up from his desk and walked over to the window. He was on the ninth floor of the modern office building at the corner of Novy Arbat and Novinsky Boulevard. Thirty years ago he never would have imagined working in a clandestine organization, much less being the leader of one of its cells-the October Cell-named after the month it was established.

There were other cells throughout Europe, mostly consisting of ex-intelligence and military officers. He told himself that nations rise and fall, but wars are common, and have been since the beginning of time. He mused that war would always yield great business. He might consider the fall of the Soviet Union, and his inactivity in the former KGB, as a mixed blessing. The knowledge and experience he had acquired had allowed him to help jumpstart the Arms of Ares, which had seen worldwide revenues of over four billion in the last eight years in arms sales. He expected those revenues would triple with Pandora in their possession.

There was a knock at the door. He stopped twirling the pen and inserted it into the breast pocket of his charcoal-gray suit.

“Enter,” he said, without taking his eyes off of the traffic below. Through the window, he saw the reflection of one of his staff members, closing the door behind him.

“Excuse me, sir. There’s been some troubling news.”

“If it’s about our loss in Darfur, I’m fully aware of it.”

“It’s not about Darfur, sir. It’s about our satellite laboratory.”

The white-haired man turned away from the window to face him. “What do you mean?”

“There’s been an attack. We’re not sure when, but it must have been recently.”

The white-haired man approached him slowly. “Pandora, is it safe?”

The man didn’t answer immediately. Either he didn’t know or he was afraid to tell him.

“Is it safe?” he yelled.

“We don’t know, sir,” the staff member said. “We got a distress signal that was cut off within seconds of it going off. When we tried to contact them, there was no reply.”

“Valerik, where is he?”

“He cannot be reached, sir.”

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