On target

THIRTY-SEVEN

Court pulled the little Skoda Octavia into the open gate of the private home ten kilometers northwest of Suakin. The brown wall stood eight feet high all around, and from the looks of the security gate, Gentry expected to see a large dwelling inside, but once in the gate he found just a tiny, single-story building with glassless windows and several loose goats chewing on hay all around the dirt yard.

And Mohammed's filthy white Mercedes was there, parked in a back corner of the courtyard.

Court could no longer hear gunfire in the distance, and his radio attached to his headset was out of range of any transmissions, so he had no idea what was going on with Zack and his team back in Suakin. He couldn't see the helicopter in his rearview mirror, but that meant nothing, as the chopper had been flying so low that it would not be visible from this distance anyway.

Oryx was behaving himself. Twenty milligrams of OxyContin saw to that. He remained conscious-alert, more or less-but he didn't really seem like he gave a damn about what was going on. He sat quietly in the passenger seat, buckled in with his hands secured together in his lap, and he just looked out the window at the scenery on the drive like he was a first-time visitor to the country he ruled. They'd passed many donkey carts full of people getting the hell out of town, desperate to avoid whatever craziness was going on in their normally quiet streets on a normally quiet Sunday morning. There was the regular morning commercial traffic of the day, as well, and even this far from the city, trucks and buses and camels and donkey carts were heavy on the road, even in front of this house. And Oryx just took it all in. He wasn't smiling, he wasn't freaking out, he was just watching everyone go by.

He was just the way Gentry wanted him.

Court, on the other hand, was miserable. The sharp pain in his back got sharper with each bump of the tiny car, and there were a hell of a lot of bumps on the road from Suakin. Sweat drained into his eyes, and some bug that looked like a horsefly and flapped around like a small bird had harassed him the entire drive, causing him to swat and duck and inevitably to jab the motherfucking arrow deeper into his motherfucking shoulder.

Court parked the car and took a look at Oryx. No, he's not going anywhere. He climbed out of the vehicle and stood up straight for the first time in fifteen minutes. He drew his Glock and held it down to his side. Mohammed was nowhere to be seen. Court assumed he was sitting in his car waiting, but he couldn't see into the tinted windows and had no idea if the police official was in the car or in the house.

As he approached, Mohammed climbed out of the Mercedes. His hands were empty, so Court holstered his gun. The tall Beja man looked agitated, which did not surprise Court in the least.

Mohammed walked towards Court, who stopped not far from his own car. Clearly the policeman had not noticed the black man in the front seat, nor had he noticed, apparently, the arrow in Court's back. Some policeman, thought Court, but the man's mind was focused on other confusions at the moment. "What has happened? On the radio they say there is shooting. A lot of shooting!"

"Yeah, it's nuts down there."

"They were shooting at you? The army was shooting at you?"

"Some of them."

"Did you do it?" Mohammed asked.

Court shrugged. "I did what I came to do, yeah."

"But if you are here… who are they shooting at now?"

Court looked back over his shoulder, past the arrow in his back, and at his car. Mohammed followed the white man's eyes.

"Who is that?"

"Some guy I picked up along the way," said Court.

Warily, but not warily enough, Mohammed passed by the white man and knelt down to look through the open passenger window. His body stiffened in shock. Quickly he rose back up. "It's His Excellency. I don't understand. I thought you were supposed to-"

Mohammed spun around, the irises of his wide eyes narrowed on the silencer three inches from his forehead.

He did not hear the gunshot that killed him.

"Who is this man?" Abboud asked as Court helped him out of the car. Already the American had lifted the man's car keys out of the dirt, had wrapped the bloody head in a blanket. He turned away from the president and began dragging Mohammed by his arms to the back of his own vehicle.

"Local policeman. He was working for the people who hired me to assassinate you."

"What?" And then, "Traitor!"

The American opened the trunk of the Mercedes. With the arrow piercing muscles in his upper torso it was torture to scoop the dead weight off the ground and then lift it, then roll it into the back. But he got the job done. He then looked up at Abboud. "How's your heart?" He unzipped his pack and retrieved a clear plastic bottle of water.

"My heart?" Abboud asked, unsure if he understood the question. "My head feels a little strange. But my heart is good. Why?"

"Your health okay? Blood pressure? Any respiratory issues?"

Abboud walked closer, stood behind the car next to the white man with the arrow in his upper back and the odd questions. The man dropped the water bottle in the trunk with the body. What sort of insanity was this white devil a part of?

"I am very healthy. What are these inquiries about my condition? And why do you give a dead man a bottle of water?"

Court pulled the president's tie from around his neck, then he unbuttoned the remaining buttons of his starched white shirt. He pulled it free of his black slacks and let it hang loose, exposing a white V-neck undershirt. "It's not for him. Hop in."

"Hop?"

"Get in the trunk. Now!"

"With-"

The white man pulled Abboud by the back of the head, shepherded him more than pushed him into the back of the car, then used a folding knife to cut out the internal trunk release cord. The thick Sudanese man pushed the dead body out of the way to comply with his instructions. He did not want to cross this man.

He did not want to assist the man attempting to kidnap him. He did not want to climb into the dark sedan with this bloody carcass of a traitor to his country.

But more than anything, he did not want the American's operation to switch to plan A.

Ten kilometers southeast of Gentry's position, Zack Hightower had managed to get all of his men into the first of two long, symmetrical, uniform, two-story buildings. The shopping center had a nongovernmental-agency cold and efficient construction look to it, and handmade wooden stalls with low-hanging eaves were built haphazardly around it. It was more like a low-rent urban flea market than an American mall. The floor inside the building was full of dirt, like runoff from the hillside washed through the ground floors during the rainy season. Also, along with the goods for sale inside shuttered and gated kiosks, trash was everywhere in the open center, as if squatters were common. This was no great surprise, considering these buildings were a hell of a lot more secure than the actual homes of the majority of those living in and around Suakin. Hightower assumed there must be some security here, but the security had apparently cleared out when five wild-eyed and bloody white men, dressed like soldiers and firing machine guns at helicopters and government troops, came rolling and sliding down the hill outside.

The row of buildings was ruggedly built but certainly not impenetrable. There were waist-high windows without glass, doorways without doors, and behind this shopping center was another, identical two-story block of shops, literally dozens of windows and a long rooftop from which someone could get line of sight into an open window on Whiskey Sierra's position.

And the motherfucking helicopter was circling right over them now.

Four's leg was a mess, bleeding from multiple points. Zack guessed he'd lost well over a liter of blood already. Most men would not have been on their feet, much less still in the fight, but Milo was a former Navy SEAL; he'd been pushed physically further than 99.99 percent of the rest of the American population, so he could shrug off this battle wound for a few minutes more.

But, Zack knew, once he'd lost two liters, he'd be down, unconscious or close to it. He was desperate to find his men some cover, to tend to Four's wounds, to consolidate ammo, to catch their fucking breath.

They were three blocks from the sea now. Two had used a hatchet to knock a hole through the wall of a small basket shop into the back of a post office. It was only just after seven a.m., so the office was still closed, but there were voices coming from the other side of the shuttered front door and windows. The team moved into the room, low and behind the counter. Five went to the front door, cracked it open, and then quickly closed it. He turned back to Sierra One, who had positioned himself to cover the hole in the wall they'd just crawled through.

"No dice, Zack. GOS out the wazoo. They're hanging back, thinking it over, but they'll see us if we break cover."

"Roger that," said Hightower. He knew this force against him must at least be entertaining the possibility that the president of their nation was a captive of the men they were shooting at. It should have made them think twice before engaging, giving an advantage to Whiskey Sierra. But this was a chaotic and confused situation, and Zack knew he could not trust the training and reasoning of his enemy to check their fire.

He nodded to a metal circular staircase that rose into a dark hole above them. It looked more like a small storage space than a second floor. "Three, punch out and try and get access to the roof, but watch for that chopper. We want to keep moving southeast, towards the port."

Dan, the dark-bearded Paramilitary Operations officer, complied. He moved quickly with his French-made FAMAS F1 assault rifle high towards the darkness. When he was gone, Zack looked to Two, then nodded to Four. "We've got to stop his bleeding, or they'll be able to track us."

Two began limping over to Four before Zack finished the thought. Four guarded the hole in the wall with his machine gun while Two dropped to his kneepads next to him and began pulling medical supplies from his small pouch on his chest rig.

A minute later the helicopter flew by low and slow, trying to get a look inside the windows of the second story.

"Dan." Zack used his radio to call Three on the roof.

"Yeah, boss?"

"I need you to do something about that Mi-17."

A pause, and then the reply, "I'd love to, chief, but I left my Stinger missile in my other pants."

Brad and Milo laughed. Spencer was down a hallway that led to an open room, doing his best to cover a half dozen points of entry by himself. Zack barked, "Three, that chopper has got to go. I don't give a fuck how you do it, but you don't come down till that Mi-17 goes down, how copy?"

A hesitation, but the answer was firm. "Good copy, Zack."

"We're gonna pass Four's HK up to you. That's better than your FAMAS." Zack looked to Four, who, though prone with his back propped up against the wall and covered in blood from his right knee down, did not seem happy about relinquishing his weapon. He handed it over to Brad who, in turn, passed his F1 to the wounded man. Brad ran up the staircase with the big gun. A few seconds later, he came down with Dan's weapon around his neck and went back to work on the bloody leg.

Hightower spoke into his headset. "There is no way we can get out of this city with that bird overhead. Once we're on the open road, there will be nowhere to hide from the air. We defend this building until that chopper is dealt with. If Dan can get the Mi-17 out of the way, we are going to head east, to the waterline. We're going to swim out of here. Everybody copy that?"

"Four can't swim, boss," said Two.

Zack looked at Four, who's face was whitening with the loss of blood.

Four said, "Fuck that shit. I'll swim if you tell me to swim."

Zack looked back to Two. Brad shook his head emphatically. Milo started to protest, but Hightower raised his hand. "You cut that macho man bullshit right now. Nobody is impressed." Then he transmitted to the team. "Okay, we head to the water anyhow, make 'em chase us, then we disappear. We'll double back over ground we've already covered. If we're lucky, then they'll think we went for a swim. We're going to need to use a little subterfuge."

To a man they nodded as one. They understood the stakes. They knew no one would be coming for them. They knew they were on their own. They had only themselves to rely on.

And the Gray Man.

Zack reached to the satellite phone on his chest rig and punched the number six on the keypad. He noticed his bloody arm again, wondered how much longer he'd be operational if he could not stop the bleeding. He pushed the concern from his mind as Gentry answered.

Sierra One asked, "Yo, brother, things as fucked-up on your end as they are over here?"

"Oryx and I are clear. It sounded like you guys were engaged pretty heavily."

"Still are."

"You got a plan, Charlie?" Gentry's sarcasm was directed at plan Bravo, which hadn't turned out so well.

"You know it."

"I doubt it."

A pause from the other side. "I'm workin' on it. Where are you?"

"We're fifteen klicks northwest. I've switched out the wheels I left town with. Nobody followed us."

"Well, shit, kid, sounds like you're sitting pretty compared to us. We're hemmed in, two casualties, ammo short. The army has backed off, hoping this Hip flying overhead can frag us so they don't have to expose themselves again. I guess they either don't think we have their president, or else they don't care."

"A Hip? I didn't know the GOS flew Mi-17s."

"It's definitely a Hip."

"Who are the casualties?" Court asked.

"Milo took a round in his leg. We've controlled the blood loss, but he ain't walkin' out of here on his own power."

"And the other?"

"Yours truly."

"You operational?"

"Hell yeah, I'm fraggin' skinnies like there's no tomorrow. Just caught a little ding to the forearm of my non-shooting hand, although on a day like today, all hands are shooting."

"Shit. One casualty here, too."

"Who?"

"Who the fuck do you think, Zack? You sent me in alone, remember?"

"I know that, dickhead. I didn't know if you were talking about Oryx."

"Oryx is fine."

"You get a boo-boo?"

"Something like that."

"Where are you hit?"

"Upper back, with an arrow."

"Uhhh, repeat last?"

"I got shot with a damn arrow. Haven't taken it out yet. I'm working up to it."

"So there's an arrow sticking out of your back? For real?"

"Affirm."

"What the hell? Ain't nobody shooting arrows around here."

"Well, I didn't fucking back into it, Zack! I never saw the shooter. Beats taking a 7.62 from one of those PKMs the army's blasting back there."

"An arrow. I'll be damned."

"Look, Zack. I can get to you guys. I'm pulling into my hide right now. I can zip-tie Oryx to a support beam and haul ass back to you. I've got my Glock and a mag left, maybe I can-"

"Negative. You stay put and protect the package for now. I don't need you charging in like Custer and losing the president in the process. We'll keep trying to wiggle out of this shit on our own."

"Understood."

"How you gonna get that arrow out?"

"I'm going to ask the president to help me."

Zack whistled. "He may be disinclined to cooperate."

"Yeah. I'll have to persuade him."

"Well, good luck with that. But while you're over there playing cowboys and Indians, the grown-ups are shooting real guns in my neck of the woods. So get your principal secure and your shit straightened out and check back with me."

"Roger that."

Zack disconnected the call. Just as he looked back up, gunfire from a heavy machine gun hit the north side of the building, scattering plaster and concrete through the dusty air of the room like thick smoke. All three men dropped to their chests and returned fire into the wall. Zack shouted into his mike, "Come on, Dan! Clear my fuckin' sky already!" But his words were drowned out by the incredible noise.