Dead Six

It was a Mitsubishi truck, with a ragged tarp covering the back. It passed us slowly. The driver was a blond Caucasian and the passenger was a black guy, so they probably didn’t live here. It didn’t have a tailgate, so that was one less thing to worry about. “This one looks good,” I whispered. Carl nodded and rolled out behind him. “Jill, the white truck. Get ready to intercept.” I pulled the hat low onto my head and placed my hand on the door handle. The metal was scorching hot to the touch.

“Have visual. Truck’s coming toward the roundabout. Distraction time,” Jill reported matter-of-factly.

“Good luck, everybody,” I said. The van rolled up behind the Mitsubishi. “Now, Jill. Go! Go!”

I opened the passenger-side door. We had disabled the interior lights. The truck was slowing on the roundabout. We had one shot. Jill was dressed as a local, weighed down with bags of groceries. She blundered right into the path of the truck, playing oblivious to the hilt. The driver of the Mitsubishi hit the brakes. Red lights illuminated my world. I was out of the van in a heartbeat, Carl pulling the door closed behind me. I could see the passenger’s profile in his mirror, his attention on Jill.

The tarp was dusty with talcum-powder sand. Trying not to make a sudden impact against the shocks, I slid under and right onto the burning heat of the truck’s diamond-plate bed. The horn sounded, making me flinch involuntarily. I heard Jill shout back at the driver and could imagine her shaking her fist.

“I’m in,” I whispered.

Jill heard and continued on her way across the road. Carl pulled through the roundabout and headed in a different direction. I lay on the metal that was hot enough to fry bacon and tried not to cry. The truck rolled forward. I slowly shifted myself around on the greasy, hot surface until I was squished in the shadow of the cab as much as possible. After another minute we left the paved road and the tires began to make a different noise on the gravel. We were getting close. The brakes whined as we stopped.

“You’re coming through the gate,” Reaper informed me.

I could barely hear the passenger. “Hey, Studley, what’s up, dawg?” I couldn’t make out the guard’s response. “We’ve got the last of the stuff from Safe House Five. . . . I know, right?” There was laughter.

“Interior guard is waving them past. You’re inside.” Then music started playing in my earpiece. It was some techno-remix of the Mission: Impossible theme.

“Turn that shit off,” I hissed.

It stopped. “Sorry, just trying to set the mood.”

The brakes whined as we rolled to a stop. The smell of diesel was strong in the air. The engine died with a gurgle, and the doors slammed. I heard voices speaking in English, somebody laughed, and then it was quiet.

“They’re walking away from the truck. You’re parked just south of Building One.” I had memorized the overhead layout of the place, and we had numbered every structure inside. “You’ve got somebody on the wall directly above you. Hold on a second—I’ll warn you when you’re clear.”

I scurried around until I could see out the back. The interior of the fort was getting darker by the minute. There were only a handful of exterior lights scattered about, and luckily most of them were low wattage. Once it was fully dark, this place was going to be my playground.

I’m coming for you, Valentine.

Chapter 18:

Civil War

VALENTINE

1955

As darkness fell on the tiny Gulf emirate, the Zubaran Civil War began in earnest. Fighting had broken out all across the city as forces loyal to the Royal Family clashed with the numerically superior forces of General Al Sabah. According to news reports, there was heavy fighting near the palace. As expected, the Royalists attempted to retake Zubara’s seat of government.

By now, most everything we were taking with us was packed onto pallets, ready to be loaded onto the boat when it arrived. Everything else was being systematically destroyed. We were leaving nothing behind for the Zubarans to capture.

A lot of us didn’t have anything to do. Everything had been broken down and packed away, so we didn’t even have a television to watch. We ended up gathering on the roof of the dormitory, where we had a pretty good view of the city, to watch the fighting.

It was like a grim fireworks show. The occasional stream of tracer fire arced into the darkened sky. We could see flashes and hear distant rumbling as both sides shelled each other with artillery. Jets roared overhead, and ancient air-raid sirens screamed throughout the city. Several large fires had broken out. Volleys of rockets were exchanged. We watched in awe as a Zubaran jet, engulfed in flames, plunged into the bay.

I sat on an old metal bucket and played my harmonica. I was rusty, but I’d been pretty good back in the day. I played a sad, lilting tune. I didn’t know what it was called, but no one seemed to mind me setting things to music as we watched Zubara burn.

“We caused this,” Anita King said. She stood near me, arms folded across her chest, looking off into the distance. “We destroyed this country.”

“We were trying to prevent this,” Holbrook said, looking through a pair of large military binoculars.

Tailor’s face was briefly illuminated as he lit a cigarette. “This was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said, snapping the lighter shut. “There was no way a handful of guys was going to come in and change the course of this country.”

“Then why did you sign up?” Holbrook asked.

Tailor shrugged. “It was something to do. I was bored.” He cracked a smile, and Holbrook shook his head.

Frank Mann, the armorer, was with us. “It’s been nice working with you guys,” he said. “You didn’t abuse my weapons. I appreciated that.” We all chuckled.

“You know what really pisses me off?” Holbrook asked. “You know they’ll try this again.”

“Who?”

“Whoever the hell we work for. These black-ops guys. Project Heartbreaker failed. But you know they’re going to try this again somewhere else. Might be a year from now, might be twenty years. But they will try again. And a handful of guys will die trying to accomplish a mission an entire army would have trouble with.”

He was right. If Gordon Willis was representative of whatever shadowy organization he worked for, I knew they’d try something like this again. Our employers had no regard for human life, neither ours nor those of civilians caught in the crossfire. They would do anything, no matter the cost, to accomplish their ambiguous and convoluted goals. We were the ones that paid the price.

Whoever they were, they were powerful, well-funded, and connected. And they were arrogant. I had no doubt in my mind that they’d try again someday. A strong wind gusted from the ocean. A storm was coming, unseasonably late in the year.