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“We’re grown men,” Reid told him. “Just rip the Band-Aid off. It’ll only hurt for a moment.”
He regretted it the minute he said that last part, but there was no help for it now. Taking a breath, fully expecting to get shot, he shoved off the wall and stepped around the corner.
All six men stood there, fully armed, their guns in their hands, but not one of them raised. He could see in their faces, they were every bit as uncertain of his motivations as he was of theirs. That uncertainty was the only thing that proved they weren’t Fariq’s men. They were his.
“If I said I wasn’t happy to have this conversation, I’d be lying,” Reid finally said, extending his hand. “What’s your name?”
Breaking out in a crooked smile, the other clasped his forearm. “Cobb.”
“You realize I’m on my way into the lion’s den, not running the other way. I want to stop the son of a bitch.”
Still clasping his wrist, Cobb leaned slightly toward him, that crooked smile of his broadening. “When a gun comes with the uniform, sometimes you have to use it. The trick is, making sure you’re using it for the right reason.”
In his opinion, no reason could have been more right than putting Fariq in either prison or his grave. He said as much but saying it was a lot easier than accomplishing it. He had six men now, but that didn’t make the fight any easier. Fariq still had a fortress, and they were still grossly outnumbered.
“What’s the plan?”
“Get to the boats and stop Fariq before he launches. If he escapes, he’ll disappear.” Christian shrugged. “I was going to scale down the cliff and was headed for the armory to get climbing rope, then go in via the water.”
“He has men stationed on the balconies, ready to pick you off if you try. There’s no cover out there. We’d have a better chance at survival if we jumped.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the rocks directly below my balcony,” Christian said. “The waves wash over them, but there’s only about two inches of water there.”
“I never said it was a good chance,” Cobb reminded with a smirk.
Trust him to get stuck in an impossible shot-out situation with a comedian.
“Down the stairs we go.”
The stone staircase that led down to the boats was accessed through the kitchen’s wine cellar. Cut directly into the rock, the tunnel was a circular descent, sporadically lit by battery-powered lanterns. They stopped at the armory, gearing up, head to foot in the flak armor Fariq kept in stock, complete with tactical helmets equipped with communication headsets, night vision, and thermal vision goggles, and loading up on as much ammunition as they could carry.
“Grab your communicators,” Reid told them. “Radio channel three.”
Aliya was very much on his mind as he set his own radio and battery pack and hooked it onto his belt. By now, NATO would have her, and they’d be safely flying over the ocean, far away from Fariq and his long-range weapons. Right now, they would be flying as fast as they could and would be doing everything they could to stabilize Aliya and assess her injuries. As soon as they could, they’d get her to a doctor, and she would be fine.
There was enough information on the microdot he’d given Avery to guarantee the NATO handlers kept their word, whether they wanted to or not—she was Fariq’s sister, after all. Her brother had made a lot of enemies, but both he and Aliya had made a lot of sacrifices for them over the years. That had to count for something. Before he was done, Reid was determined to make sure he collected every favor those sacrifices had bought him, and he would keep her safe—from the good guys as well as the bad.
From the moment they moved out, abandoning the armory to make their way to the kitchen on the main floor, it became apparent Reid was the only one who had never been in the military, but he had picked up enough over the years to blend in with the mercenaries who accompanied him. His movements were every bit as cautious and confident as he took point, leading the way to the underground cellar. This was his operation, and he wasn’t Fariq. He wasn’t about to let someone else take the risks for him.
They didn’t make it through the first full circle to the next landing before they were pinned down in their first gunfire. There were no places to hide, just the jagged cracks and crevices in the carved-out stone tunnel and the descending curve of the staircase. For every step down they crept, another step below was revealed. Sometimes, there was a gunman on it, sometimes not, but there was no such thing as sneaking up on them or taking them by surprise, not after that first round was fired and the first enemy soldier killed. All he could do was keep pressing forward and hope it took Fariq longer to launch his fleet than it did him to get to the man.
Reid had his doubts, and those doubts only grew in dread and volume the further down he went. The resistance against him began to dissolve, but even then, those doubts didn’t lessen. More and more, instead of men ready to open fire, he beganrunning into men kneeling on the dark stairs, arms laid down and hands folded in surrender behind their heads.
He wasn’t prepared to take prisoners. Apart from zip-tying them wrist-to-ankles on the stairs before continuing, he couldn’t afford to take the time to deal with them properly. The more of them that gave up, the faster he was able to go, but even so, the dread inside him grew. They were giving up because they knew they’d been abandoned, and few had the stomach to play kill-or-be-killed with him, the man who had been Fariq’s second-in-command. While that might mean he was able to move faster, it didn’t mean he was moving fast enough.
It was a long way to the bottom, made longer with every gunfight or give-up he had to deal with before he could continue on. It took hours to reach the bottom, but he knew he was close when the gun fighting stopped altogether, and everyone he encountered was kneeling in surrender. He knew why the minute he broke through the tunnel into the open cave, its secret doors thrown wide open to let in the early pre-dawn light of yet another day. It had taken him all night to reach the bottom, and Fariq and his fleet were gone.
The wind off the water whipped over him, bringing flecks of salty sea-spray to cool his face as he removed his helmet. In a rare moment of disgust, he flung it into a cove the size of an abandoned football field, lined with empty docks. Not a single boat had been left for them to continue their pursuit.
“Son of a bitch.”
Coming up behind him, Cobb looked into the empty cove. “Look on the bright side, mate. At least we can have a rest now, yeah?”
From behind them, someone called, “Incoming! Military chopper, flying low over the water. Looks like he’s coming back to finish the job.”
Cobb took one look out from under the shielding cliffside and laughed. “That’s not Fariq, my friend. That’s the Wild Mustangs. We’ve just jumped from the fire into the frying pan.”
“Not exactly.” He’d lost Fariq and with him, the best chance he’d had to guarantee Aliya’s permanent safety, yet Reid couldn’t help his weary smile. “Looks like the cavalry has finally arrived.” And with them, Reid realized his entire life as Fariq’s man and the world’s most second wanted criminal had ended.
