Dan and Milo were still scooting down the hill on their haunches, their weapons held high out in front of them for balance as well as to keep the barrels from getting fouled in the dirt, when Zack saw Sudanese troops appear on the ridge. He and Spencer each dropped a soldier with a burst to the chest at fifty yards, and this sent the rest of the GOS riflemen diving for cover at the top of the hill.
Hightower screamed over another long burst of covering fire from Spencer, ordered Brad to help Dan get Milo in the first door in the first shop of Mall Alpha. The wounded twenty-nine-year-old Paramilitary Operations officer was all but out of the fight for now; he could not get up to his feet without the other two men pulling on his massive amount of armor and gear. They moved out, and Spencer's rifle clicked empty.
"Cover!" called Sierra Five.
"Covering!" answered Zack, dropping to his knees and firing a single round at a head that appeared at the top of the hill. His round went low, digging into the hard dirt and creating a tiny avalanche of dust and rocks.
Spencer got his gun reloaded and back into the fight just as the helicopter flew over the hill directly in front of him and Hightower. Zack could confirm now that it was, in fact, an Mi-17 Hip, a Russian-made chopper that the government of Sudan was not known to possess. He did not dwell too long on this revelation, as the Mi-17 opened fire with a heavy machine gun hanging from one of its outboard pylons.
"Move!" Sierra One screamed to Sierra Five, and both men turned to run for their lives.
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.