On target

FORTY-FIVE

President Abboud was a big man, taller and broader and thicker than Gentry by a wide margin, but he was sixty-six years old and did not possess even a modicum of the training in the brain and muscles and soul of the American warrior. It should have been no match.

But for the morphine. Abboud knocked the Glock pistol away with his first strike, wrapped a meaty hand around each of the American's wrists, and pulled their bodies together. Six moved slowly and sluggishly, did not even realize he was being attacked for the first few seconds of the action. He thought Oryx was just freaking out about the possibility of having the CIA's backing pulled out from under him and was just slapping at Court like a frustrated child.

But when Gentry hit the ground, slamming into his wounded back under the weight of the huge Sudanese president, the danger of the situation became apparent to him through the dulled reality of his doped-up senses. The drugs were not enough to block the flash fire of excruciating agony as it registered in his shoulder and then transferred to his brain. He screamed out, and a series of punches rained down on him from above. Court covered his face, focused on the pain in his back to wake his adrenaline, to jump-start his muscle memory and to get this big bastard off of him.

From the light of the tiny fire, Court's narrow eyes located the next punch, a right hook already on its way from on high. Gentry short-circuited the attack with an attack of his own: he hit Abboud hard in the nose. The president's hook landed a quarter second later, but it was weak and poorly targeted, the fist turned quickly into a hand that reached up to his face as he fell on his back, holding his broken nose and wiping free-flowing blood from the swollen nostrils.

Gentry kicked Oryx off of him the rest of the way, rolled over, and began crawling around looking for the pistol. He found it against the wall, retrieved it as he stood, then retrieved Oryx by his shirt collar and pulled him into a standing position. Within seconds he had the moaning man's hands zip-tied behind his back, and a minute later the Skoda tore through the high grasses on its way back to the main road.

Gentry thought over his options, and this did not take long, as there were so few. He had no idea where he was going, other than to just find some new hide so he could work out a plan. Oryx rubbed his face against the upholstery in the backseat of the car because he could not use his hands to wipe the blood away, and he moaned and cussed softly in Sudanese Arabic.

The phone rang. Gentry had no interest in listening to one more petition from Zack to do what he was told, but he answered the phone anyway. The rage and adrenaline from the fight in the shack still had his emotions in high gear.

Court said, "The time for talking is over, asshole. If you're going to come after me, come on, because the quicker I kill you once and for all, the quicker I can break cover and get my job done!"

But it was not Zack on the other end of the line. It was Denny Carmichael. He said, "Young man, Sierra One explained the problem at hand. I am calling to see what I can do to rectify it."

Carmichael was scared, nervous about having one of his men on a rogue mission. Court could hear it in his voice.

"I'm sorry, sir. Killing Oryx at this point will create a disaster I am not prepared to be a part of."

"I understand how you feel. I was one of the architects of Nocturne Sapphire. All along, we knew that if we could take him alive, he could be very useful to us and to his country. But unfortunately we cannot leave any trace that the CIA or any U.S. operator was in Suakin yesterday. If evidence comes out, then we will have a massive international superpower crisis, which is, frankly, a hell of a lot more important than civil war in a third-world nation."

"So you agree there will be war. A civil war with the backing of the Chinese and Russians?"

"Civil war, yes, in the short term it is likely. But we do not see the superpowers playing an active role."

"Maybe you don't have the assets in place to see it happening."

"I can assure you, we have close contact with officials very high in the Sudanese government."

"How close is your contact?"

"Extremely close."

"How high are the officials?"

"Extremely high."

"Well, I have the fucking president sitting in the backseat of my car, so when you can get a source higher and closer than that, maybe you'll impress me."

There was a long pause. "There is an important trade deal in the works."

Gentry couldn't care less. "Yeah, so maybe we take it on the chin from the Chinese. That sucks. But we'll get over it."

"That's not for you to decide."

"Actually, it is. I've got the president. I intend to get him to the ICC alive. I am going to do the right thing here. There are a lot of people in this country who are depending on it. You guys had the right idea; Nocturne Sapphire was the right op. Yeah, it was hopelessly fucked-up because Sudan Station doesn't know its ass from a hole in the ground, but we were damn close to pulling it off. I'm going to finish this. You guys at Langley need to realize that what I am doing here is the right thing, and you need to rethink your-"

Denny's calm but annoyed countenance of all their earlier conversations morphed in an instant to screaming, shouting vitriol. "I don't have time to listen to a sermon from a pissant like you! Let me explain something. The past four years have been a cakewalk for you. There are people up here who have a soft spot for Court Gentry. You did good work for a long time for precious little thanks, and that earned you a great deal of respect in the SAD. When the shoot-on-sight went out on you, there were some in the bureaucracy here who were borderline insubordinate in their conviction to the cause, and the operation to eliminate you suffered for it.

"But now, Mr. Gentry, now there is not a man left in the agency who's on your side. Not only will I reinstate the SOS, but I will bump it up to the top of the priority list. It won't be some half-assed Echelon tracking, intradepartmental memoranda and Interpol watch request. It will be coordinated teams of tier-one hunter-killers, SAD/SOG Paramilitary Operations officers, Combat Applications Group, proxy teams of bounty hunters. I will personally arrange that every available SAD asset will be brought to bear against you.

"There won't be a rock big enough for you to crawl under, a handler foolish enough to sponsor you, a country brazen enough to allow you inside its borders.

"Zack is going to hunt you down. He will stop you, and he will kill you. You may still have a pulse for a bit, Mr. Gentry, but as of this very moment… your life is ended!"

Carmichael did not say anything else. Neither did Court. He liked getting the last word… but at this moment it seemed as if the last words on the subject had been spoken. No clever quip could blunt the impact of Carmichael's rant. This man was not threatening anything that he did not have the power to put into motion.

After an extremely long pause, the man from Langley spoke quietly. It sounded to Court as if he were hanging up the phone as he did so.

"That is all."