Hakim slowed the boat down as the yacht likewise slowed, its powerful engines humming as it moved in gently alongside the launch so as to prevent the wash from its hull rocking the smaller vessel too harshly on the waves.
Abrahem looked up at the deck and saw at least three individuals silhouetted against the dawn sky. Another, no doubt, would be at the wheel.
‘Salaam,’ called one of the yacht’s crew, touching two fingers to his forehead.
‘One to come aboard,’ Hakim called in hushed tones.
The crewman opened a gate in the railings running the length of the yacht’s hull as Abrahem got to his feet and slung his backpack over his shoulders, tightened it in place as with one hand he slipped a wickedly curved blade from his pocket and held it concealed behind his wrist.
‘It is time,’ Hakim said. ‘Good luck my friend, may Allah watch over you.’
Abrahem moved forward and threw his left arm tightly around Hakim’s shoulders as he pulled the younger man close to him.
‘And you Hakim, my friend.’
Abrahem turned the blade expertly over in his free hand and with a rapid, vicious swipe he plunged the silvery knife deep into Hakim’s skull just below his ear. The razor sharp weapon crunched through thin bone and Abrahem felt Hakim stiffen as a sharp intake of breath was suddenly expelled and his body fell limp in Abrahem’s grasp.
Abrahem released the body and let it fall over the side of the launch with a crash of water as he leaped up to the yacht’s side and hauled himself aboard. The crewman before him barely had time to react, opened his mouth to shout a warning before Abrahem thrust the clenched knuckles of one hand deep into the man’s thorax.
The crewman’s throat collapsed, strangling off the warning as his eyes bulged and he staggered back from the railings. Abrahem slashed the blade across the man’s belly and he gagged and bowed over at the waist, one hand instinctively trying to hold closed the deep incision that had split his stomach open and sprayed dark blood across the pristine white deck.
Abrahem grabbed the man’s hair and hauled him backwards through the railing gate and hurled him over the side. The crewman hit the water even as Abrahem launched himself toward the bridge as a shout of alarm went up.
Two men charged him, shouting in Arabic as they rushed in across the deck, shadowy figures hunting him down like demons.
Abrahem slipped the pack from his back and hurled it into the face of the furthest man as he dropped down low and brought the blade up into the belly of the nearer. It was a clumsy blow, designed more to frighten and pitch him off balance than to kill him. The man yelped as he saw the blade coming and hurled himself to one side over a deck locker, and Abrahem turned to face the second man as the rucksack hit the deck alongside him.
Abrahem slashed out with the blade, caught the man’s forearm with a faint spray of blood that provoked a cry of pain as his attacker jerked aside and swung a heavy — looking metal bar of some kind at Abrahem’s skull. Abrahem ducked the blow easily and drove the point of the blade straight forward into the man’s plexus. The weapon sank with a rasp deep into the man’s body and he gasped, his eyes wide as Abrahem twisted the blade and yanked it out. The serrated edge tore at the man’s flesh and the grooved surface of the blade allowed blood to spill in torrents as the man screamed in pain and fear and collapsed onto the deck.
Abrahem turned and saw the other crewman fleeing for the bridge. He dashed up the steps and slammed the door behind him, his panicked face looking out of the window as he locked the door.
Abrahem leaped across the deck and up the steps in pursuit. He could see the ship’s captain screaming down the radio, his face contorted with fear, and the crewman cowering alongside his captain with his gaze fixed on Abrahem.
Abrahem smiled as he watched the captain staring at his radio in confusion, unable to understand why he could not raise the coastguard. Fear of the unknown. Abraham’s rucksack contained a modulating frequency jammer sufficient to block all radio channels within a limited distance by decreasing the signal — to — noise ratio, a device stolen from the American soldiers when they abandoned Basra to anarchy and bloodshed.
Slowly, Abrahem turned and retrieved the rucksack from the deck, then carried it to the bridge. He unpacked the jammer and showed it to the captain through the window. Despair ripped across the man’s face as he recognized the device.
‘Give me the boat, and I shall give you your lives,’ Abrahem called through the window.
The two crewmen looked at each other and then shook their heads in unison.
Abrahem shrugged and then pulled a 9mm pistol from the rucksack, aimed, and fired twice straight through the glass.
Both men barely had time to scream before they were hit. Abrahem turned and with a sharp blow from his right elbow he smashed the rest of the window and reached in and unlocked the door. He shouldered the door aside and strode onto the bridge to see both men lying on the deck, gripping their wounds and weeping as they begged for mercy. Both men had voided their bowels, a sickly stench permeating the air. Death, it was always so undignified, not like in the Hollywood movies where a single gunshot dropped the victim instantly. It was a gruesome, painful, drawn — out experience both for those dying and those witnessing. But it was also necessary, especially now.
‘Go in peace, Inshallah,’ he said.
Abrahem fired two more shots, both of them this time impacting the victim’s skulls with a thud that silenced their pleas. Then he calmly put the pistol away and began the onerous task of disposing of the bodies over the side of the yacht, making sure that their bellies were slit open before he did so to ensure that the expanding gases of decomposition did not cause the corpses to float on the ocean surface to be found by the patrols or the coastguard.
As soon as his grim task was complete, Abrahem turned the yacht for the Kuwaiti coast and eased the throttles open. He had a long journey ahead of him, and he did not want to miss his flight.
XIV
‘It’s important!’
‘I understand that ma’am, but I don’t have the authority to let you in regardless of your badge.’
Hannah Ford stood at the entrance to the Defense Intelligence Agency with Vaughn alongside her and fumed in silence as she confronted the security guard blocking her access to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s DIAC building.
‘We called in advance,’ Hannah tried again. ‘We were told to report to this desk and await further instructions.’
‘And you have reported,’ the security guard replied. ‘Perhaps you should get on with the next bit?’
Hannah smiled a tight grin. ‘I haven’t got all day, genius. Y’know, criminals to catch, fugitives to hunt, things more important than standing guard?’
Vaughn took Hannah’s arm as the guard’s composed expression crumbled into a scowl.
‘Come on,’ he said as Hannah allowed herself to be led away. ‘They’re giving you the run around. You know how this works, we do it enough ourselves at the Bureau.’
Hannah sighed as she tried to contain her indignation. She did indeed know how the system worked when one agency simply did not want to talk to members of another agency. Meetings were booked then cancelled, or the subject would mysteriously not be available when agents arrived to question them. Documents would be promised but then never materialize or take months to do so, when they could be retrieved instantly using digital archives.