Dead Six

a plan to kill me the moment I walked in the door. These guys undoubtedly knew that I had a concealed-firearm permit, but they hadn’t said anything about it.

“Who, exactly, is we?” I asked, looking over the contract Gordon had pushed in front of me. It was full of vague legalese and only referred to Gordon’s organization as the party of the first part.

Gordon grinned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to sign to get filled in on all of that, Mr. Valentine,” he said and set an ornate pen down in front of me. “All I can say until then is that you’ll be serving the best interests of the United States and will be protecting your country from enemies foreign and domestic.”

I picked up the silver pen. It had XII, the Roman numeral for the number twelve, engraved on it. I wondered what it meant. I took a deep breath and signed the document. Gordon smiled.

“I guess I’ll have to call my boss and tell him I’m not coming in Monday,” I said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Gordon answered. “We’ll take care of everything. You can take the direct-deposit form with you if you don’t have your bank routing number available right now. Within forty-eight hours, you should receive a packet with everything you need to know. You’ll be deploying within two weeks.”

“Deploying where?” I asked, handing him back his pen.

“Everything will be in the packet,” he said. “Until then, take some time to get your affairs in order. You’ll likely be out of the United States for an extended period of time.” Gordon stuck his hand out. I hesitated, then took it. He had an excessively firm handshake. “Welcome aboard,” he said and stood up. I gathered my papers and stood up as well. “You did the right thing.”

“I hope so,” I said, taking my papers and turning to leave.

“Mr. Valentine?” Anders, the big guy, said as I opened the door. I turned and looked back at him. “If you fail to arrive at the deployment location at the appropriate time, we will come get you. It’ll be best if you’re punctual.”

“I get it,” I said and closed the door behind me. What the hell did I just do?

LORENZO

Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara

January 20

The marketplace was busy, the large Sunday crowds nervous. Change was coming, and the people could feel it. I made my way through the bustling place, gray and incognito as usual, dressed like the locals in a traditional white thobe and checkered headdress. In my line of work, you never stick out. It keeps you alive longer.

There were three sections of Zubara City (Ash Shamal, Umm Shamal, and Al Khor). Each was a narrow sliver of land extending into the Persian Gulf for a couple of miles. Half a million people were packed on those three little peninsulas, mostly Sunni, some Shiite, a mess of imported workers, and I was spending my day in the poor, dangerous one, Ash Shamal.

Nobody used the country’s official name, or the abbreviation CGEZ. The Americans or Europeans who ended up here usually called it the Zoob. The rest of the world just referred to the tiny country as Zubara.

I got to the entrance of the club fifteen minutes early so I could survey the area. This neighborhood was one of the oldest in Ash Shamal, but there was much new construction underway. It was also one of the more traditional. It was interesting to note the fundamentalist graffiti that was popping up in many of the alleys, and even more interesting was that the local authorities hadn’t bothered to cover it up. Either there was too much of it to keep up with, the official government types didn’t bother to come into this neighborhood, or the cops actually agreed with the message. Either way, it was a grim omen.

Zubara was a relatively modern state, dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century by the current monarch. Bordered by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the tiny nation wasn’t nearly as rich as its neighbors but was relatively clean, organized, and, by Arab standards, efficient. Zubara was one of the jewels of the Persian Gulf, but that appeared to be changing with the current power struggle, and my specialty was to capitalize on the inevitable chaos that would result.

I had spent my entire adult life in various third-world countries. I’d seen revolutions, famines, wars, and the utter collapse of societies. I made my living on the fringe of mankind. I didn’t know what was going to happen here yet, but I knew something was coming.

Zubara would be just another job, just a little more difficult than normal, or so I tried to convince myself. It had been six months since I had been drafted for this job. Six months since Eddie had brutally murdered one of my crew just to let me know how serious he was. Half a year of preparation and groundwork to pull off an impossible mission. There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I prepared for this meeting.

I walked around the block to scope out the back entrance, just in case. There was some construction going on across the street, but the workers all looked like the normal Indonesians and Filipinos that did all the grunt labor in this country. I saw no indications of a trap. Making my way back to the front, I leaned against the corner of a building and watched the club. The man I was supposed to be meeting would probably be running late, like pretty much everything in this part of the world. I couldn’t spot anyone else surveying the place, so it was either safe or they were really good.

Waiting gave me time to think, which was unfortunate, because right now thinking about what I was doing just made me angrier. This job sucked. It was suicide, and I had been forced into it against my will. It was going to take months to accomplish, but once this gig was completed, I was going to devote my life to finding the man who put me in this situation. I vowed that I was going to go on a killing spree that would become the stuff of legend.

My thoughts of murder were interrupted when a black Bentley parked in front of the club. The luxury car didn’t seem out of place on the same street as a vendor selling live chickens, but that was the nature of the Middle East. The driver exited and held open the back door for his charge. The man that stepped out was in his forties, wearing a brown suit, white shirt, and no tie. This was pretty fashionable apparel in the region and was what all the cool terrorists were wearing.

He was early. Amazing. The driver stayed with the vehicle. I waited a few extra minutes, watching for anything out of the ordinary before I followed him into the club. The interior was dark and cooled by rows of ceiling fans. Inside, the social club was far nicer than its drab outside appearance suggested. It was relatively crowded by middle-aged men smoking hookahs, playing chess, and bitching about local politics.

The server acknowledged me as I entered, but I waved him off as I spotted the man I was looking for sitting at a table in the back. The server retreated deferentially.

The man saw me approaching and nodded once. I pulled up a chair and sat. “Lorenzo,” he said before taking a sip of his pungent tea. “I didn’t recognize you.”

“That’s the general idea,” I responded. Say what you will about the man-dresses, they were actually pretty comfy and enabled me to conceal a few weapons. Even still, they do make you look like a big stupid marshmallow, and you can hardly run in one. I’d taken a few days to brush up my Arabic and perfect the local accent. I’d grown my beard out, and my natural features enabled me to pass for a native Zubaran rather easily. After all, I had a knack for blending in wherever I went. “Good to see you again, Jalal.”

Jalal Hosani smiled. “No, it is not good, I am afraid. You are a wanted man in this country, if I recall correctly.” His English was perfect. It should be, since he’d attended Oxford, paid for by his friends in the Qatari royal family.

“Actually, no. You’re thinking of Syria, and the UAE . . . oh, and I think the Saudi courts want one of my hands. This is my first time in lovely Zubara. It’s kind of nice, except that whole pending revolution thing. So, what brought you here?”

“Business grew difficult in Baghdad,” he said with a casual wave of his hand, as if a couple hundred thousand American troops interrupting his illicit arms dealing was a minor inconvenience. Jalal pulled a silver cigarette case from his suit. He offered me one. I shook my head. “Still the health nut, I see.”

I only smoked when the cover required it. “Cardiovascular fitness comes in handy in my line of work.”

“About that.” Jalal lit his cigarette and took a long drag. “What is your work this time?” He waited for me to respond, and when I didn’t, he continued. “I see . . . Usually your work involves the involuntary transfer of wealth