Before Smith could push himself fully to his feet, though, De Vries turned toward them. “I hear footsteps!” he said in a harsh whisper. “They’re coming!”
Smith put an arm around Sarie’s shoulder, and they moved to the back of the tiny enclosure. She reached up and squeezed his hand, a simple act that magnified the guilt gnawing at him. What had he been thinking when he’d agreed to let her come with them? He’d known damn well that it could turn out this way.
Bahame entered with the same young boy and three guards that he’d used to put Sarie in the cage with them. The system the African had devised was simple, but also all but foolproof: the boy, unarmed and too small to use for cover, unlocked the cage while the guards set themselves up well out of reach with guns at the ready. Undoubtedly, there were additional men strategically posted in the passageway, turning it into a hopelessly constricted shooting gallery.
Smith supposed it was to be expected. No one was going to be happy about being put in a cage with one of the victims of the parasite—particularly after sitting a few feet away watching what it was going to do to them. Even the gentlest soul could be counted on to risk the most suicidal opportunity to escape.
“What now, Caleb?” Howell said, approaching the bars.
The African smiled and stepped aside as Mehrak Omidi and a tall man in a spotless white turban and galabiya entered. His skin gleamed like obsidian, as did his eyes as they scanned the room. Definitely not one of Bahame’s followers. Almost certainly from Sudan.
“Who’s he?” Smith said.
Omidi didn’t acknowledge the question, instead watching as the man rolled out the prayer rug he was holding and knelt.
Bahame seemed barely able to contain his impatience, fidgeting like a child in church as the man prayed.
“I’d like to show you why you will never win,” Omidi said when the man stood again and swept aside the plastic in front of the woman’s cage. The bars clanged dully when she stretched an arm through.
The Sudanese used a bejeweled dagger to put a long cut his forearm and then held the wound out to the woman.
He wasn’t expecting her sudden burst of strength and was pulled hard into the bars as she clawed at him. Blood spattered his arm and he was forced to grab her hair with his free hand to prevent her from biting him. They fought like that for a full thirty seconds before he finally managed to pull away, his weight and the slickness of sweat and blood finally trumping her superior strength.
He was clearly shaken by his experience and kept his eyes on the woman as he retreated to the sound of her frustrated screams.
Omidi pointed at De Vries. “Tend to Dahab’s wound.”
The old doctor looked to be on the verge of collapsing from fear, but he managed to pull on a pair of surgical gloves and keep his hand from shaking too much to suture.
Bahame grunted and pointed to their cage, prompting the boy with the key to approach and release the lock.
“Dr. van Keuren,” Omidi said. “Please come out.”
She pressed her sweat-soaked body a little tighter to Smith’s. “I think I’ll stay here if it’s all the same to you.”
“You know what will happen to you if you stay. I’m offering you a way out of here. I’m offering you freedom.”
She just shook her head.
Howell had the tip of the saw blade between his fingers, and he turned his hand subtly so that Smith could see the rest of it running up his forearm. A burst of adrenaline throbbed in Smith’s head, further clouding it. The Brit wasn’t suggesting an escape attempt — that was pointless. He was offering to put a quick and painless end to Sarie van Keuren.
“No…,” Smith stammered. Suddenly, it was impossible to separate her from Sophia. Impossible to separate this day from the one he’d watched the woman he loved die.
Omidi let out a frustrated breath and pointed to De Vries, who was winding a bandage around Dahab’s arm. “Kill the old man.”
One of the guards redirected his aim, and Sarie jumped toward the open door to their cell. “Stop!”
The Iranian just smiled and held a hand out to her.
The Sudanese shoved Sarie and De Vries into the back of a canvas-covered military transport as Omidi looked on. Her companions were still alive — a loose end that infuriated him, but one that he would have to tolerate for the moment. They were formidable men, but the chance that they could escape their prison and stay ahead of Bahame’s men in unfamiliar terrain was unlikely in the extreme. Particularly with time running out so much more quickly than they imagined.
“You remember our agreement?” Bahame said as Omidi started toward the cab of the truck. “You will give me whatever the woman discovers.”
“Of course, my good friend. We fight for the same thing. The freedom of our countries.”
That seemed to please the African, and Omidi accepted his hand, counting on the darkness to hide his disgust. Bahame put his own desires before those of God — something he would be made to pay dearly for.
The Iranian climbed into the truck and started the engine, putting a hand through the open window in a respectful salute as he pulled away.
Bahame glowed red in the taillights and Omidi waited until his image disappeared from the side mirror before pulling out a small GPS unit and switching it on. The signal would transmit the coordinates of Bahame’s camp to a Ugandan military force waiting some two hundred kilometers to the southeast.
In a way, it was regrettable. Smith and Howell didn’t deserve the quick death that he was giving them. No, they deserved to die like their countrymen soon would: insane and bleeding.
51
Jon Smith had taken over holding the lock and Howell was sawing again, though they both knew their time had run out. The infected woman hardly moved anymore, even when their eyes met through the spattered plastic. She’d be dead soon, and that meant the parasite killing her would need a new host.
Footsteps became audible in the passageway and Howell shoved the blade down the back of his pants as they moved away from the bars. A moment later, Bahame and the team he’d so meticulously trained to shuttle people in and out of the cells appeared.
“I’ll allow you to choose who goes in with her first, Doctor. You or your good friend Peter?”
Howell just shrugged. There was no way he was going to spend the last few hours of his life lying in a muddy cage losing his mind. He would undoubtedly choose to go down in a futile last charge. The question in Smith’s mind was, would he do the same? The thought of a few quick rounds to the chest had become strangely comforting over the time they’d been imprisoned there, but he was a survivor by both nature and training. Could he knowingly run straight at the barrel of a loaded AK-47?
“I’m sorry,” he said, clapping Howell on the shoulder. “I think this may have been one adventure too many.”
The Brit smiled. “I told you men like us don’t get old. We just—”
The unmistakable whup of a bomb detonating was followed quickly by three more, shaking the ground violently enough that Smith had to put a hand against the rock wall to keep his balance. Muffled automatic-rifle fire started a moment later, along with a string of shouted orders from Bahame as he tried to get to the passageway leading outside.
Another explosion sounded and Smith threw his arm in front of his face as part of the ceiling collapsed, kicking up a choking cloud of dust that temporarily obscured everything around them. He lunged for the bars, hoping they’d been loosened by the blast, but Howell yanked him back just as the woman who had been imprisoned next to them collided with the rusted steel.