Dead Six

workable. I need to just disappear.”

“Just you?” Ling asked.

“No, me plus three others. People I trust. I don’t care how we go, and right now I don’t even care where we go, we just need to go.”

“What’s going on?”

“Look, I can’t stay on the line too long. If we’re gone too long they’ll notice, and then there’ll be questions, and that will cause problems.”

Ling chewed on that for a moment. “I see. I see. So tell me, honestly. Why should I help you? How can I even trust that you’re not now working for someone trying to set a trap for my organization?”

“Because a bunch of my friends died trying to help get that girl off that boat before she disappeared. Because I, personally, risked my life to keep her safe, even though you never even told me why she was important. I have money. I’ll pay if I have to. I just need your help.”

“As luck would have it,” Ling said after another long pause, “I’ll be in that part of the world shortly. Do you have a way for me to contact you?”

“Not securely, no,” I admitted. “I have a phone, but it’s probably monitored. I’m on a pay phone right now.”

“I see. Okay, I’ll need you to call me on May fourth. We’ll set up the meeting then.

“Meeting?”

“Yes. I want to meet with you face-to-face. If all goes well, we’ll have no problem getting you and your friends out quickly after that.”

“Can’t we all just go the first time? Things are circling the drain here.”

“We can do it my way, or I can go back to bed, Mr. Valentine,” Ling said, ice in her voice. “It’s up to you.”

I exhaled. “Okay, okay, we’ll make it work. I’ll call you on May fourth and we’ll go from there.”

“Good,” Ling said. Her voice softened just a bit. “Please be careful.”

“Thank—” Ling hung up on me before I could finish thanking her.

Chapter 13:

Hasa Market

LORENZO

May 3

I was in the kitchen when my phone buzzed, indicating a new text message.

Hasa Market. 4:00 at the fountain.

Wait for further instructions. Come alone.

I scowled. Come alone? Why did he need to specify that? Did he somehow think that this was all some sort of scheme to get him into the open? Was he afraid Dead Six was coming for him, too? Or maybe he thought that I just wanted to get the info out of him and then cheat him out of the money. . . .

Or it was a trap for me. There were plenty of people in this country who would pay Hosani good money for my head. “Carl, check this out,” I called.

My partner joined me a second later. He only glanced at the phone for a second. “Trap, it sounds like, maybe.”

“Could be. But we need the info. It’s worth the risk.”

“You going alone?” Carl asked suspiciously.

“Of course not. Hasa is a busy place. It’s that fish souk right off the docks at the end of Umm Shamal. Plenty of places for you guys to stay incognito.”

Carl shook his head. “No vehicles in there. I can blend in. Reaper, not so much.” That was true. Our techie was about the palest white boy we were going to find in five hundred miles. I had given Jill crap about walking like an American, but she was a master of disguise compared to Reaper. “I miss Train.”

I missed Train, too. The big guy had been a virtual killing machine and had been great backup for situations like this. “We’ll stick Reaper in the van back a ways. He’s our ride out if we need him. We’ll stay in radio contact.” I tried to keep Reaper away from the hands-on part of the work. It wasn’t exactly his area of expertise. But he was street-smart enough to keep his eyes open for anything suspicious.

“One problem,” Carl said slowly. “What about the girl?”

“Aw, hell.” He had a point. We couldn’t just leave Jill here alone. I suppose we could have tied her up, but that didn’t really go along with trying to get her to trust us. If this meeting didn’t go well, she was still my ace in the hole. The other times I had gone out since she’d been here, there had always been at least one member of my crew here to make sure she didn’t try anything stupid. She had behaved, so far. Drugs were an option.

Then Carl surprised me. “We take her.” He caught my look of confusion. “Extra eyes we could use. I saw her after that bomb went off. She was tough. Most folks don’t do that good first time they see a bunch of guts blown all over the street. We used to have a girl on the team.”

He knew how much I hated when he brought up that bit of our past. “Her and Kat don’t have very much in common,” I said.

Carl shrugged. “Personality? No. But both pretty girls, skinny but still with big tits and a nice ass. The good parts are in common.” As usual, Carl was a subtle poet of a man. “Pretty girls come in handy in this business, go places we can’t, talk to people we can’t. But that’s not what I meant. This girl, she’s a good girl.”

“Carl, oh man, I can’t believe this,” I laughed. “You’re getting soft in your old age. She’s grown on you, hasn’t she?” I didn’t think Carl was capable of actually liking anyone.

That got him. He raised a meaty hand threateningly and waved one stubby finger in my face. “We’ll stick her in the van. Make her feel helpful. This don’t change nothing. It sure don’t change the plan. So don’t you give me no shit about getting soft. I’ve burned fucking villages. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.” He folded his arms. “That said, I don’t like your backup plan no more.”

“Me either,” I said slowly, but it wasn’t like he had a better idea. For us, it was either find Dead Six or die. Nothing else would stop Big Eddie’s rampage. “Hosani had better come through.”

The four of us were gathered around the kitchen table. I had just outlined what was going down this afternoon. Reaper pulled up a Google Earth view of the Hasa neighborhood on one of his laptops.

“That’s a pretty open area, Chief,” Reaper said. “I can’t see them trying to take you out in the middle of all that.” The market was right off the docks. There were warehouses to the north, and a school and a mosque to the southwest. There were three roads in. At any given time of day, the place was packed with witnesses.

“If it is a trap, they’ll send another text, telling me to walk somewhere else quieter. That gives them a