“I should have gunned you down in the bar of your stolen boat,” drawled Colonel Westmoreland. “I saw you itching to pull on me — should have given you the bullet you deserved right then and there.”
Jonah raised his head and opened his mouth to issue a smarmy response, but the wind left his lungs as the massive soldier kicked him in the back of the head, slamming him back into the concrete. Klea screamed from beside him, her wail piercing the stillness of the night.
The colonel lifted Jonah a second time, pulling him to his feet as his knees buckled beneath him. Jonah tried to make sense of his blurry vision, the bitter, metallic taste in his mouth, his pulse ringing in his ears like a gong. He caught a single glimpse of Klea’s dark eyes staring at him in horror and for he realized that for one infinitesimally small moment he was Colin, staring back at her as he was torn away, bottomless loss welling up in her eyes.
“You just made one of these skinny-ass sand niggers a rich man,” bellowed the colonel. “They couldn’t fucking wait to drop a dime on your ass.”
The colonel pulled back a single fist, ramming it like a piston into Jonah’s left kidney. Jonah collapsed, blacking out just long enough to wake up to the sound of his own gasping breath. Mercenaries grabbed fistfuls of his borrowed clothing, dragging him bodily out of the compound — and into a hail of stones and chanting.
The village had awoken. Men and women — from young, tall sons to hunched grandmothers — surrounded the mercenaries, massing and indistinct in their flashing lights. Eyes and teeth glinted white in the glare, fists waved in the air with righteous fury. A cascade of unintelligible shouting and chanting was accompanied by an irregular rain of arcing rocks, pummeling the men from all directions.
Panicking, one of the mercenaries jerked his rifle to his shoulder, eye already at the custom scope as he yanked back the plunger back to chamber a live round.
“Did I say you were cleared to engage?” barked the colonel, slapping the twitching man’s barrel to the ground before he could loose a bullet. “Push your way through!”
The mercenaries shoved back at the building crowd, Jonah wriggled free of the colonel’s grip for just long enough to shove Klea free of her captor. She spun, her light frame launched sideways. In an instant, she tripped on the hem of her beautiful dress, stumbled and fell, disappearing into the mass of villagers.
Swearing, three mercenaries rushed into the spot where she’d fallen, beating the crowd back with kicks and rifle butts. But she was gone, vanished into the mob as if she’d never been anything more than a figment of Jonah’s imagination.
“Leave her!” shouted the colonel as the churning body of villagers pushed against the mercenaries, threatening to envelope them as well. Furious, the three soldiers retreated to the colonel’s side.
Having taken a prize from the mercenaries, the crowd grew ugly, daring, bravely advancing on the them, grabbing at their leveled weapons.
“You’re going to regret that,” whispered the colonel to Jonah, his lips pulled back to reveal gold-capped molars and a cruel sneer.
Jonah met the sneer with a smirk, watching as the colonel drew his pistol, cocked it, and aimed it at Jonah’s head, oblivious to the crowd. Reconsidering, he thumbed the safety back on, drew his hand back and slammed the butt of the gun into the side of Jonah’s face once, twice, three times, each with a sickening sound of metal on bone.
Jonah lapsed into forced unconsciousness with a sick feeling of total satisfaction seeping into his very soul.
You go your way, he thought, holding Klea’s dimming image in his mind. I’ll go mine.
CHAPTER 17
The convoy wound its way through the scrublands of Somalia, a mismatched collection of rusting Land Cruisers following the faint ruts of a long-forgotten trail. Perhaps a hundred thousand years ago the area was lush jungle and fertile savannah wetlands. Now it was little more than motley drab brown underbrush with the odd patchy tree defending any ground where moisture briefly accumulated. A handful of tiny white clouds spread across the radiant blue sky, too slight to even cast a shadow as they passed across the rippling sun.
Jonah bounced in the open bed of a Regan-era Toyota truck. He’d been tied to a machine-gun emplacement in the tailgate, hands bound behind his back. The SUV behind him was missing its front windshield. Jonah could see the squinting mercenary within. He had a single new bandage wrapped around his head and over one eye to add to a collection of scarred-over facial wounds.
The one-eyed driver caught Jonah making eye contact and scowled back, drawing a callused finger across his throat.
Jonah briefly wondered what motherless shitbird had sold him and Klea out. He doubted it was the orange-haired village elder, his rescuer. Then again, Jonah doubted much happened among the clan of fishermen that wasn’t under the man’s direct instruction and supervision.
Still, Jonah preferred to think of his rescuer as a friend. Besides, a bullet was still a step up from a slow death by dehydration.
In the distance, Jonah caught sight of a single spec hanging in the clear blue sky. He recognized it as a Bettencorps corporate helicopter from Anconia Island, approaching from the sea. The shiny white craft hung low, rotors slicing through the oppressively hot morning air as it passed the convoy with a roar of engines and airfoil blades. Ahead now, the helicopter flared and landed behind a hill in a cloud of blinding dust and sand.
The convoy crossed the crest of the hill, winding down to a landing zone inside a dry lake bed. Wind and dust drifted by in clouds, propelled by the still-oscillating helicopter blades. Four bodyguards spilled from the helicopters and set up a perimeter. The heavily armed men ushered the convoy into the lake bed, waving in one vehicle at a time.
The one-eyed mercenary got out of his truck to cut Jonah’s hands free. Jonah tried to stretch his arms, but the mercenary yanked him off the back of the truck and shoved him up against the side. A second, baby-faced soldier searched him again for hidden weapons while the other kept watch. The men zip tied Jonah’s hands behind his back again and forced him to kneel in front of a small motor pool. The collected vehicles appeared for the most part to be of the same drab, rusting collection, but one truck stuck out in particular. Jonah recognized it as a high-performance Ford Raptor, a pickup with bulked-up wheels and suspension, massive engine, designed for the rigors of desert racing.
The zip-ties hurt; they dug into his wrists as the two mercenaries lifted him to his feet and led him to a canvas tent on the far side of the lake bed. They walked him past the center of the group, past fuel tanks, ammunition, medical supplies and finally three late-model Toyota Land Cruisers. This was no ordinary mobilization; this was a staging area for a large contingent of private soldiers. Somebody in the region — be it a pirate compound or terrorist cell — was about to have a very bad day.
One-Eye and Babyface pushed Jonah into the tent, and back onto his knees. The colonel stood behind a folding standing desk, typing on a ruggedized laptop. He was dressed in the same stinking blood-flecked armor he wore in the village the previous night. The colonel grabbed Jonah by his shirt, towering over him. The man wound his fist back, almost to his right ear, closing his eyes with a look of intense, nearly sexual pleasure on his face.
At least we got straight to the point, thought Jonah.
Behind Jonah, the main entrance to the tent rustled with the sound of two men entering.
“Really, Colonel Westmoreland?” came a droll, almost bored voice as a handsome, tall, and very tanned man stepped behind the colonel and clapped a single, friendly hand on the armored back of the still-scowling mercenary.