The First Casualty

66

Knapsack on his back, Jason dashed through the lobby, the Barrett in his hands, wiping the smile from the desk clerk’s face to be replaced by astonishment. The camera equipment had become as superfluous as the National Geographic charade, both left in the room.

Viktor was in the driver’s seat of the Toyota truck parked at the front door. “Taxi? Is set rate for airport!”

Carefully placing the sniper’s rifle in the truck’s bed, Jason climbed into the cab. “First the mosque. And stand on it!”

Emphani and Andrews had shed their backpacks the instant they could spare a hand to wriggle out of the straps. Emphani took a step before his knees buckled.

Without hesitation, Andrews scooped him up, slinging him across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He immediately felt the warm fluid soaking through his own shirt. “Goddammit, man, why didn’t you say you were hit?”

A faint chuckle. “And you would have done what, call 9-1-1?”

Before Andrews could reply, there was an earth-trembling blast and a hot wind strong enough to nearly knock him down. Turning, Emphani still draped across his shoulders, he gaped at what he saw.

The top half of the minaret had simply vanished, leaving a cloud of gray-brown dust slowly settling around the shattered base like a woman putting on a shawl. Tiny metallic parts, the remains of the machine, were distant stars in the early morning light. Viktor was as skillful with explosives as he proclaimed himself to be.

“Jesus Christ on a…”

Apparently, his astonishment at the amount of damage done by a pound and a half of C-4 had rendered him unable to describe the appropriate mode of transportation.

The battered Toyota’s worn brakes screeched just outside the mosque’s courtyard. Jason was yelling and motioning from the passenger’s seat.

Burdened with Emphani, Andrews waddled across the sand. “Gimme a hand here, Artiste.”

Jason helped Andrews gently lay Emphani flat in the truck’s bed before climbing over the side. “You ride with Viktor. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.”

Andrews took one last look. “Poor bastard took one meant for me.”

Jason was unpleasantly surprised how much blood had accumulated in the truck’s bed in the few seconds Emphani had lain there. Kneeling, Jason pulled his knife from its leg scabbard and cut away the blood-drenched shirt. A small tide of crimson was flowing down the right arm. It didn’t require a second look to see why: A neat hole just below the armpit was gushing blood like an uncapped oil well. Jason used the knife to cut a strip from Emphani’s shirt and then to tighten the rude tourniquet. From what he could see, the brachial artery had taken a direct hit. Without medical help in the immediate future, the man would bleed out. Jason had seen worse deaths. A fatal loss of blood meant the victim drifted quietly off to sleep, never to wake. Relatively painless or not, helplessly watching a comrade die was not an experience to which Jason would ever become accustomed.

“How bad is it?” Emphani was whispering.

“Ah, a scratch. You’ll be fine.”

It could have been a cough, but more likely it was a weak laugh. “Jason, you cannot lie for merde.”

Before Jason could reply, Emphani had grabbed his shirt in a remarkably strong grip. There was nothing strong about the voice, though. Jason had to put his ear next to Emphani’s lips to hear.

At first, he thought he couldn’t hear. Then it dawned on him what the dying man was saying.

“Harvard?”

Emphani smiled, managed a nod, and lay back flat.

Whatever thoughts and emotions Jason had were interrupted by a frantic tapping on the cab’s rear windshield. Chief’s mouth was open, yelling something that could not be heard over the rumble of an exhaust long without a muffler, the rattle of a chassis loosened by washboard-like roads and the general clatter of loose objects banging around the bed with each gully, ditch, or pothole. What was clear was that he was over Jason’s shoulder. One glance answered the unasked question.

Behind them, almost obscured in the Toyota’s dust, was another truck, this one mounted a flashing blue light and filled with armed men in uniform. Apparently, Mali’s finest had not only managed to survive the damage Viktor had done, but round up reinforcements as well. Worse, they seemed to be gaining.