“Thirteen hundred euros. You show me the money first.”
“I’m not showing anybody anything until I find my friend.”
He sensed danger pressing in on all sides, then, glancing at his feet, saw a trail of blood on the pavement.
Akil!
A massive jolt of adrenaline slammed into his system. Pivoting on his right foot, he started to trace the blood out of the alley.
Two punks in black blocked his path, hatred in their eyes.
“Get out of my fucking way!”
He picked up one of them and was about to throw him against the wall when he felt the point of a knife against his back.
“Arrêtez!” (Stop.)
He did.
“Where’s my friend? I wanna see him.”
Guys on each side grabbed his arms. “We’ll take you to him.”
He pushed them off roughly.
Yasir said, “There’s no reason to get excited.”
“I’m cool. I just want to see my friend.”
“Come with me. I’ll take you to him.”
People were craning their necks out of the apartment windows, watching what was going on below. Itching for a fight; more blood.
Crocker was trapped in the alley and on their turf. He tried to remain calm even though his blood was pounding.
“I want to see my friend first. Then I’ll pay you for the bike.”
Someone shoved him from behind. “Shut up, old man! Get in the car!”
He stumbled forward and somehow managed not to fall. More punks seemed to have appeared out of nowhere-like hyenas who smelled blood.
“Get in the car! Fucking liar!”
What car?
They pulled him roughly around the corner, where he saw a BMW with blacked-out windows parked on the side of an adjoining alley.
For a split second he considered running. But two big guys dressed in black emerged from the front seat. The punk on the driver’s side waved a silver automatic through the sulfuric light.
“Get in!”
The back door popped open.
With a mass of angry punks behind him and armed thugs in front, Crocker had no choice.
He was bending down to look inside the back of the car when someone pushed him so he fell forward and landed on the seat. The barrel of a Glock was literally two inches from his face.
Inside was another motherfucker armed with a handgun.
Before he could say anything, the door slammed and the car lurched forward, tires squealing. That’s when he saw eyes looking up at him from the floor near the third thug’s feet.
Akil.
Chapter Eleven
Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
– Sun Tzu
The seconds pounded in Crocker’s head as the coast road flew past, the sky thick, pitch black. Two guys with Soviet-made Makarov pistols laughed at some private joke up front. Another armed thug leered at him in back. Akil was on the floor to the man’s right with his mouth and hands taped.
Crocker’s own wrists were duct-taped together in his lap.
This sucks.
Crocker figured they were going to Rafiq’s place. There they would be interrogated and shot. Tortured, possibly.
He could almost smell the fear and desperation oozing from Akil. From Edyta’s death on K2 to this, in less than a week.
He felt bad. Responsible.
He’d met Akil’s parents and sisters. Knew the poor bastard’s life history.
Born outside Cairo. Moved to the States with his family at age six. Back in Egypt all of them had lived in two rooms. In suburban Virginia, Akil got his own room with his own bed. Remembered jumping up and down on it like it was a trampoline.
No one in school understood him, since his family spoke Arabic at home. Within a few months, he learned English. Adapted. Made friends.
When it came time to graduate from high school, his parents had plans for him to go to college and work for a cousin who ran a small trucking company near their home. Akil joined the navy instead, went through BUD/S, and became a proud member of SEAL Team Six. When he returned home after earning his trident, his father insisted his son wear his dress uniform and go with him to visit all their friends and family in the community. Akil had become the final validation of the family’s decision to immigrate to America.
Now this…
Crocker couldn’t let the dream end here. He focused intently.
The car was new. Maybe even brand-new, judging from the scent. Black leather seats, dark wood paneling on the doors.
The men were dressed in black. French-Arabic or Middle Eastern. All in their twenties. Slick operators. Far more sophisticated than the punks he’d tussled with in the alley. They carried themselves like they had money.
He searched for the slightest opportunity. A tiny bit of leverage. Anything to get them out of this before they arrived at Rafiq’s place, where more of them would be waiting and things could get ugly.
All he could think of was that maybe one of the doors was unlocked. But he wasn’t sure. And with the oily-haired fucker beside him sneering and pointing the Glock at his face-with his finger on the trigger-he wasn’t about to try.
They zipped by the turnoff to Cassis, the place where Crocker had pulled over on the Triumph Legend less than an hour earlier.
The moment was screaming at him. Do something. Do something, goddammit!
But what?
“Who the fuck are you?” the driver asked.
“My name is Crocker. I’m a Canadian.”
“You work for your government?”
“No. I’m a climber.”
“What do you mean, a climber?”
“I climb mountains and train people who want to learn to climb.”
“Why do you want to see Rafiq?”
“I’m here as a tourist. I’m looking for a bike to tour through Europe. Figure I can really get to see the countries that way.”
“You’re a bad fucking liar.”
The driver nodded in the mirror to the man seated beside Crocker, who reached into the American’s pockets and located his wallet. Inside he found a thick wad of euros but no ID.
The two men spoke in Arabic, then the driver looked back at Crocker and said in English, “Now I know you’re a liar.”
Precious minutes passed. Above the smooth growl of the engine and the electronic dance music pumping over the stereo, Crocker heard a choking sound. Looking down and to his right, he saw two streams of yellowish puke shooting out of Akil’s nostrils, a pained exclamation in his eyes.
“You’d better do something. My friend’s going to choke!” he shouted in English.
The thug beside him smacked him with the back of his hand. “Shut up!”
Some of the vomit had splattered across the leg of the guy’s black jeans. He seemed more concerned about his pants than the fate of Akil.
“Cochon!” Spitting at Crocker’s teammate. Like choking on his puke wasn’t bad enough.
Almost simultaneously the driver screamed in Arabic, “What’s that horrible smell?”
Then things happened fast. The thug in the backseat kicked Akil in the stomach with his boot. And the driver went apoplectic, shouting, “My car! Motherfucker! Get that nigger out of here. Throw him in the trunk!”
He steered the car abruptly right and stopped on the shoulder in a cloud of dust.
It took both men-the thug in the passenger seat and the dude in back-to pull Akil roughly out, the driver all the time screaming instructions in Arabic. “Watch the leather seats! Clean it. Make sure you clean it all up! Get rid of that fucking smell before I kick your asses!”
Crocker noticed that the driver wasn’t holding a weapon.
So he propelled himself over the seat, grabbed the Makarov pistol that was lying on the console with his hands still taped together at the wrists, and brought his arms up with all the violence he could muster into the driver’s jaw.