Choke Point

TWENTY-NINE

30K charged across the deck and toward the gangway.

Meanwhile, on the shoreline, the NLA troops burst from their observation positions and came rushing toward the trawler, rifles raised.

Kozak would later say that the blade in Tamer’s hand seemed to come from nowhere. It flashed once in the dim light before the agent plunged it home in the boy’s chest. The kid was falling back as Kozak screamed and Ross gave 30K the order to move in.

30K gritted his teeth. The rules of this game had suddenly changed. Tamer had committed a crime, and the Ghosts were now free to assist the NLA troops in capturing him.

‘30K, we need Tamer alive,’ Ross reminded him.

‘Understood,’ he spat, then swore under his breath.

Not two seconds after Tamer killed the boy — and seeing that the NLA troops were moving in — the little runt scurried back across the deck, through an open door, and disappeared into the navigation bridge.

30K was only a few heartbeats behind.

A dark passageway lay before him.

Then a sound from above, someone scaling a ladder just a few steps away.

He seized the rungs, rushed up –

Arriving breathlessly in the trawler’s bridge, dimly lit by several battery-powered lights.

And there, near the main controls, was Tamer, initiating a rapid-fire sequence of keystrokes on his computer.

‘Hold it,’ 30K said in Arabic.

Tamer did not turn back.

Two more NLA troops rushed in behind 30K, along with Kozak.

‘Get your hands off the keyboard!’ screamed 30K.

Tamer kept banging away.

‘I said stop!’

Tamer typed even faster now.

Well, the boss had said they needed Tamer alive. There had been no mention of unharmed.

30K shot him in the leg, and when the man whirled back to face 30K, he had a pistol in his hand.

But it wasn’t pointed at 30K.

Tamer lifted the weapon to his own head, and 30K practically leaped toward the man, shouting, ‘No, no, no!’

The gunshot was deafening inside the bridge, the windows sprayed with blood as though from a powerful hose. 30K caught the agent as he was collapsing to the floor, his limbs twisting at improbable angles.

Kozak rushed around 30K and went directly to the laptop. ‘He’s erased the entire drive, all the files, the whole nine.’ Smoke began pouring from the keyboard. ‘Holy shit, acid bomb, too,’ said Kozak, beginning to cough.

30K checked Tamer for a pulse — a formality to be sure. At least the little bastard was proficient at suicide.

‘This guy …’ Kozak began, thinking aloud. ‘He’s gotta be dirty, killing the kid, man … He’s in bed with Delgado probably. He didn’t bolt because he wanted to question the kid, see how bad his own leak was. Shit …’

30K stood and backhanded something off his cheek. Blood. ‘What a mess,’ he grunted.

They stood there for a few seconds, just collecting themselves and staring down at Tamer until 30K took a deep breath, cleared his throat, then shared the grim news with Ross and Pepper.

‘Clean it all up and get out of there ASAP. Do it now,’ snapped Ross.

30K looked to Kozak. ‘Get me something to wrap around this bastard’s head so he doesn’t bleed all over me.’ Then 30K regarded the NLA troops and added in Arabic, ‘Get outside and get the boy. Get him back to the church.’

The two troops nodded and rushed off.

‘This was going to be so beautiful,’ said Kozak. ‘We’d hack into his computer, send him misinformation, order him out of here, and keep him in the dark the entire time. It was going to be sophisticated and high-tech, not a friggin’ bloodbath.’

‘Like you said, he had people watching that restaurant like a hawk. You can have all the toys in the world, but they don’t beat a pair of eyes on a target — and there’s no way to tell which set of eyes was watching. Could’ve been anybody in or around that restaurant. It was a calculated risk. They took it. And now look at what we got.’

‘Well, our hands are clean. I got the boy’s murder on video. Nobody can say shit,’ said Kozak.

30K regarded Tamer’s body. ‘What about his suicide?’

‘Cross-Com got that.’

‘So then yeah, I guess you’re right,’ said 30K. ‘We’re clean. And our CIA leak has been plugged for now. But man, that poor kid …’

‘Yeah,’ said Kozak, his voice cracking now. ‘I can’t get him out of my head.’

‘Me, too.’

Back in the church’s basement office, Ross asked for a moment alone as he pulled back the blanket and stared down at the boy’s face, now cast in a deepening pallor.

His first thought hadn’t been how they’d cover up this mess; it’d been how they would tell the boy’s father. Ross felt responsible and wanted to do that himself, but Mitchell would never allow that.

The boy, like many others during wartime, would simply vanish, and his father would mourn silently and avoid seeking help from the authorities because he’d fear retribution. When he’d learned for the first time what his son was doing, Ross had seen it in the old man’s eyes: the impending danger, the thought that maybe my boy is already dead. A resignation.

And now, they couldn’t even return the boy’s body because of the security risks. It’d have to be ‘taken care of’ so that no evidence remained. The NLA troops would handle all of that. Meanwhile, Maziq would have the unenviable task of preparing Tamer’s corpse for transport.

Ross put his hand on the boy’s forehead, and he was wrenched back to Virginia Beach, to 14 August, a day he could not revisit now. Not now.

He slipped the blanket back over Bady’s head, then left the office and returned to his men, who were waiting for him near the basement door.

‘We’re not sure if he called the Agency or not,’ said Ross. ‘But either way, our plans remain the same. We’re going in tonight.’

‘What about lunch?’ asked 30K.

The question caught Ross off guard. ‘Lunch? It’s ten now. We’ll hit the warehouses at 2 a.m. Why are you thinking about lunch?’

‘I mean the kid. He delivered lunch every day to employees in the warehouse. He ain’t gonna show up tomorrow.’

‘Can’t worry about it,’ said Ross. ‘Getting another kid or trying to put some other Band-Aid on that could be worse. They’ll call the restaurant, the boy will be missing, and we’ll leave it at that. It’s a loose end that might be too risky to tie up.’

‘How ’bout some good news?’ Pepper asked wearily. ‘I’m sure we could all use it. I heard back from the guys I left at the hotel. The pilot decided to have dinner, and we finally got some good pictures of him. I forwarded them back home, and we just received the ID.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Ross.

Pepper slipped a tablet computer from his armpit and read from the screen: ‘Bakri Takana. He’s a former Sudanese pilot who saw action in Darfur. Experienced combat jock overqualified for drug smuggling. He’s probably a freelancer hired by our guys.’

Ross nodded and faced the group. ‘All right. Let’s see what Mr Takana plans to fly out of here in the morning.’