“Where is your man!” shouted Girma, back near the truck.
Kimko could shoot the bastard himself — but could he take the bodyguards as well?
Girma walked through the door. “Where is he?” demanded the African. His AK-47 was slung under his shoulder, his hand near the trigger.
“He’s late,” said Kimko.
“Ha! You see — you cannot trust these people. Chinese.”
“He’s working with the Brothers,” said Kimko.
“Ha, the Brotherhood are cowards. You see, none of these people have the strength of Girma. Girma is a lion!”
Girma is an asshole, thought Kimko.
“How long do you wait?” Girma asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t wait!” shouted Girma. “You go to see him.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Girma smiled. “You are with the lion now. Come.”
Chapter 22
The women had settled into a kind of semicomatose state of shock, huddled together next to the ruined outbuilding on the slaughterhouse property. Gunfire continued sporadically in the city, stoking up for a few minutes, then dying down, like a fitful whale surfacing for a romp before heading back to the depths. Nuri knew from MY-PID that the Sudan First army was routing Meurtre Musique. It was a murderous fight, with the defeated shown no mercy; both sides simply gunned down anyone who attempted to surrender, women and children included.
“Looks like some of them are headed in our direction,” he told Boston. “Can we call in the Osprey?”
“They ain’t gonna make it,” said Boston. “They’re waiting for Li Han to show up at the meeting. Colonel Freah wants the MV-22 to stay away until they make the attack. Might spook him.”
Naturally, thought Nuri. It was the right decision, but it didn’t make things easier for them.
“What do you think we should do?” he asked.
“I say we cross out of this field and head north,” said Boston. “We get into the brush, hide there. Sitting here makes no sense. The tangos are more than likely to come up and look in the building. I know I would.”
“You think we can get them moving?”
“We can always carry them,” said Boston. “I’ll scout down to the road and come back. Be ready.”
Nuri got up and went to the nurse, Bloom. She was holding the baby in her arms, swinging him gently back and forth. The baby’s mother was passed out next to her, slumped backward against the side of the building.
“We have to move,” he said. “The troops are coming this way.”
“They’re exhausted,” said Bloom.
“We have to move.”
“I can’t.”
“We have to.” Nuri looked at her. “You’re with MI6?”
She shook her head. “I was. I quit.”
“Well don’t quit now.” He reached down and helped her up. Then he looked at the woman who’d given birth. Her mouth gaped open; Nuri wasn’t even sure she was still alive until he bent close and heard her breathing.
There was no way she was moving on her own. He dropped to his knee and shifted his shoulder so he could lift her in a fireman’s carry. He rose with a grunt, stumbling back a step, not quite balanced. Then he started to move toward the road.
There was a low whistle in the air behind him.
Shit, he thought as the mortar shells began to land near the main building.
Chapter 23
“Where’s the Russian going?” Flash asked Danny over the radio as their subjects got back into the jeep.
“Damned if I know.”
“They didn’t take anything.”
“Yeah, I know. Stand by.”
Danny had MY-PID replay the translated conversation. It sounded as if the African Kimko was with knew where Li Han was.
“What’s going on?” asked Melissa.
“They didn’t want to wait for Li Han,” Danny told her. “I think they’re going to find him.”
“Shouldn’t we go there?”
“Let’s let them get there first,” said Danny. “If I bring the Osprey in, Li Han may run.”
“It would be easier to talk to you if you didn’t have the helmet on,” Melissa said. “At least flip the shield up.”
“I’m watching them,” he told her.
“Oh.”
He flipped the shield up anyway. “I’m not trying to be rude.”
“I know. I just — I’m not familiar with your gadgets.”
MY-PID told Danny the car was stopping at the house where they had placed the initial bug. He flipped down the screen again and watched the UAV feed as the men went to the door. The African who’d been talking to the Russian took the lead. Their two escorts fanned out around them. There was a flash, then they entered the building.
“Shit,” said Danny. “Whiplash team — Osprey, get to that building! Flash, let’s go.”
He turned and started to run. Melissa climbed out of the ditch and sprinted just behind him.
“What?” she gasped between breaths. “What’s going on?”
“Looks like they’re trying to get a discount on the price,” said Danny.
Kimko gripped his pistol as Girma leapt from the jeep, gun blazing. The gunfire had actually started from the house, but that was immaterial — the whole thing was bollocks.
Damn, damn, damn.
Kimko started toward the front door, then realized that was exactly the last place he wanted to be. Even if he managed to get the UAV now, Girma was sure to shoot him. He was just too unstable.
If he was going to get out, he was going to get out now.
Without the UAV?
Without the UAV. But with his life.
“I’ll cover the back,” he yelled, bolting from the front of the house.
Danny was about fifty yards from the back of the house when the Osprey swept in, pivoting around to the street side and depositing the team. The Russian’s people had gone through the door; there was gunfire inside the building, a metal staccato of Kalashnikov rifles.
“Left!” Danny yelled to Flash. “Take the left.”
“Subject running eastward,” warned MY-PID.
“Zoom.”
The system ID’ed the figure as the Russian. He was about sixty yards from the house, running toward the warehouses.
“Was he inside the building?” Danny asked MY-PID.
“Negative.”
“What does he have with him?”
“One handgun, unidentified.”
“Radio?”
“Uncertain. No transmissions.”
“Track him. Stay on him.”
“Tracking.”
Danny decided they could ignore the Russian for now; obviously he’d panicked.
“Osprey, take out all the vehicles around the target house,” he radioed. “Team, stand back.”
The chain gun under the MV-22’s nose began to revolve. A spray of black and red began to spit from the mouth of the 30mm twin cannons, chewing the vehicles into pieces with the staccato jabs of a boxer hitting a speed bag. The quick and brutal rhythm eliminated the jeep and the two white pickups parked at the side.
Suddenly the Osprey jerked hard on its wing, fire igniting behind it — flares.
Someone inside the house had fired a missile.
Chapter 24
The woman Nuri carried seemed to gain ten pounds with every step. She was slung over his shoulders and inert, like a sack of rapidly hardening cement. His pace slowed as he ran down the hill toward the road, and even the inspiration provided by the mortar shells that were starting to fall in the field near the house began to wane. He squeezed the woman’s legs tighter as the shaking ground caused him to lose his balance. He caught himself, only to jab his left foot into a hole a moment later. He tumbled forward, trying to send his free shoulder to the ground first and avoid crashing onto the woman.