Fortune Favors (2 page)

Neither man noticed Mutabe, still meandering forward in the grip of a narcotic fugue, but it would have changed nothing; Kismet and the Gurkhas knew that their lives were now measured in minutes, perhaps only seconds.

Sergeant Armitraj opened fire with the machine gun, sweeping across the approaching headlights. It was impossible to judge the strength of the advancing force, but there were two armored troop carriers, side by side, leading the charge. Higgins suspected they were only the tip of the spear.

The machine gun rounds seemed to have no effect, prompting the two Gurkhas to fire another volley of grenades. Armitraj selected a white phosphorus round, and both men fired together, point blank at the vehicles. This time there was no delay.

Higgins’ round detonated on the hood of the APC on the left, decapitating the vehicle and lighting up the night. The WP grenade from Armitraj’s launcher hit directly behind the other vehicle, and erupted in a blaze of solar intensity. The surviving personnel carrier continued to advance, now only fifty meters away, but the wreckage caused by the grenades hampered the rest of the column, forcing the other vehicles to swing wide out into the desert. Higgins now caught a glimpse of the size of the attack force: there were seven vehicles altogether. Two of that number were out of commission thanks to the grenades. Higgins had killed one of the armored personnel carriers, but there remained three more, at least a full platoon sized element. The white phosphorus grenade had showered an old military Jeep with flaming metal, forcing the surviving officers to abandon it to the flames, but there were two additional Land Cruisers, each stuffed full of combatants in black berets, charging nimbly around the wreckage toward their flanks.

Higgins quickly loaded another grenade, but the leading vehicle was already too close. Kismet meanwhile, opened fire with his CAR15, showering the driver of the APC with armor piercing rounds. The hardened tungsten and steel bullets ripped through the armor, and began ricocheting crazily inside the metal interior. The vehicle swerved and stalled.

Armitraj once more unleashed a stream of lead from the machine gun. Every tenth round was a tracer, zipping through the night like a red laser beam to mark the path of destruction as he homed in on one of the flanking APC’s. A second line of tracer fire appeared from the opposite direction however, as the gunner in turret of the armored vehicle targeted his DShK 12.7-millimeter machine gun on the Gurkha sergeant’s location. Armitraj knew what was coming but his only reaction as the incoming tracers walked across the sand toward him, was to close his eyes.

A bullet struck the Minimi gun, shattering its mechanism and exploding the unfired rounds in the feed tray. An instant later, Sergeant Taranjeet Armitraj erupted in a spray of red, his body shredded by an unrelenting torrent of enemy fire and fragments of his own weapon.

Higgins knew without looking that Armitraj had fallen; he had marked the cessation of heavy automatic fire from his fellow soldier’s location. He did not mourn for his brother, not even to the extent he had felt grief at the earlier loss of Corporal Singh. The immediacy of the current battle, and the certainty that at any moment, he too would feel the icy hand of death on his shoulder, made such grief irrelevant. He emptied his magazine at a Land Cruiser, shattering its windshield, and then rapidly loaded another HE grenade into the launcher.

Not far away, Kismet was reloading his weapon, burning through magazines rapidly, but making every shot count. The enemy convoy had ceased advancing, their vehicles now a liability. The troops inside hastened from the impossible-to-miss targets, spreading out and seeking cover. More than a dozen had fallen, picked off by Kismet as they filed through the narrow doorways of the APCs; God alone knew how many more would never leave those vehicles, yet their numbers seemed undiminished.

Higgins dropped a grenade close enough to blast the nearest Land Cruiser over on its side. The fuel tank ignited in a secondary explosion that jetted sideways away from the exposed undercarriage. The shock wave momentarily stunned the Gurkha. His vision doubled, leading him to wonder if he had taken some shrapnel to the skull, but he ignored the side-effect of the concussion and slammed another magazine into his rifle. It was his last.

Kismet was attempting to fix enemy positions by the angle of incoming fire and rising from cover only long enough to snap off one round at a time before ducking down again. Higgins switched the selector on his own weapon to single shot as well, but knew it would merely delay the inevitable—that moment when he squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. He raised the M16 above a dune crest, firing at what he thought might be a sniper position, then ducked down again.

It would be over soon, he realized, and for some reason decided that he didn’t want to die alone. He had always known death in combat was a possibility—for a Gurkha it was almost inevitable—but he had never imagined that he would be the last man standing. Kismet was only twenty meters away, but reaching his position would mean running a gauntlet of enemy fire.

Kismet wasn’t a Gurkha. He was by his own admission barely a soldier; he was a reserve officer, engaging in military drills in order to pay for a college education, with no combat experience. Higgins would have willingly died for any man in his regiment, even the much-loathed officers, but for this American?

You’re going to die anyway, mate
.

He almost laughed aloud at the admonishment of his inner voice. “So I am.”

He triggered a three-round burst over the dune crest, then launched into motion. He had gone three steps when a 7.62-millimeter slug from an enemy AK-47 ripped across the back of his right thigh. He winced at the unexpected burning sensation, but his leg did not fail and he did not stop running. After a dozen more strides, with blood streaming down his leg and into his boot, he made a desperate dive for Kismet’s position.

“I’m out,” shouted Kismet.

Higgins indicated his own weapon. “My last.”

Kismet nodded gravely and laid his carbine aside. Then he did something that left Higgins stunned. He drew his blade, the
kukri
Higgins had given him earlier.

The large knife was the signature weapon of all Gurkha fighters, and this one had belonged to the fallen Corporal Singh. Higgins had offered it as a token of his respect for Kismet, in that now barely remembered moment when he had glimpsed a bit of steel in the young officer, but had never expected to see it used by the American.

You’re one of us now
, he had said. And at the time he had meant it, even though so much about what had happened that night remained beyond his comprehension.

How did I forget that
? he wondered.

The lull in firing from their position gave a clear signal to the enemy. Higgins could hear the orders, barked in Arabic, for the soldiers to advance cautiously on their position.
Not much longer now
.

He had no idea how many rounds remained in the magazine of his M16—he figured he could probably count them on one hand. He set his gun beside Kismet’s and drew his own
kukri
.

The first man to crest the dune led with his rifle, flagging his approach with the barrel of his AK-47. Kismet heaved the boomerang shaped blade against the gun, smashing it aside in a spray of sparks then reversed the edge, hacking across the soldier’s torso. Higgins sprang at the next man, pivoting on his good leg and putting his full weight behind the cut.

A headless enemy soldier fell back into the arms of his comrades.

As if linked by a common mind, Higgins and Kismet dove into the heart of the approach. The stunned Iraqi riflemen had no idea how to repulse the crazed attack; they could not shoot for fear of hitting each other. They parried the assault with their rifles, swinging the wooden stocks like cudgels when they saw an opportunity, but several of their number prudently fell back.

As retreating soldiers formed a ring around the knife-wielding pair, Kismet and Higgins repositioned, back to back, to meet whatever attack was to follow. Both men were bruised from numerous blunt traumas and Higgins’ right trouser leg was soaked in his own blood, yet the fire in their eyes was undimmed.

There was fire in the eyes of their enemy as well. The soldiers of the Republican Guard orbited their position warily, their visages twisted with a mixture of rage and trepidation. Some of them drew bayonets which they affixed to their AK-47s while others drew long fixed-blade combat knives.

One strident but nevertheless commanding voice was audible above the rest. Higgins didn’t know enough Arabic to translate, but he had been a soldier long enough to know when an order to attack was given. The ranks began moving in, more cautiously this time, determined not to be taken off guard.

Higgins gripped the haft of his
kukri
fiercely and waved it back and forth in front of the advance. He assumed Kismet was doing the same. The American officer’s back was pressed reassuringly against his own. At least he wouldn’t die alone. “A pleasure serving with you, sir.”

“The pleasure was all yours.”

Kismet’s voice sounded strange when he said it, and it took Higgins a moment to realize that the American was laughing; a harsh, sarcastic chuckle, but a chuckle nonetheless.

My God
, thought Higgins.
He’s actually laughing in the face of death
.

“Hey, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir?” Higgins was in awe, wondering what the American would say or do next, but Kismet’s voice was now only solemn.

“See you in the next life.”

PART ONE

Strange Bedfellows

ONE

The
present

In the deepening twilight, the becalmed surface of the South China Sea resembled an expanse of black velvet, stretching in every direction almost as far as the eye could see. The only landmass visible to the occupants of the Bell JetRanger 203 helicopter, beating the air high above the inky waters, was the eastern tip of the Malaysian island of Borneo, rising out of the sea to the south.

Nick Kismet gazed through the Lexan viewport, watching as even that last remaining link to terra firma dissolved in the distance, and then swung his gaze forward. He shifted uncomfortably in the cramped rear seat. The headset he wore over his close-cropped dark hair allowed him to converse both with the other passengers and the flight crew, but its primary function was to muffle the noise of the rotor blades as they hacked through the air, giving lift and speed to the craft. He knew from experience that the sound was almost deafening; even muted by the foam earpieces, it was still loud enough to destroy the illusion of floating peacefully above the darkened sea.

His fellow traveling companions were strangers, though he knew two of them by reputation. One of the female passengers had made a furtive effort at introductions, but no one else had manifested a desire to converse once the helicopter was airborne. The crossing would be brief and there would be plenty of time to socialize once they reached the ship.

The vessel to which they were bound was a mid-sized cruise ship, based out of Hong Kong. It was presently flying the flag of the Sultanate of Muara, from where it had just commenced a historic voyage that would, if all went according to plan, last nearly two years and take the ship to every corner of the globe. By arrangement with the shipping line, the craft had been renamed
The Star of Muara
and would be operating both as a fully-staffed maritime luxury resort and a museum of priceless antiquities for the next twenty-two months.

Unlike his fellow passengers, Kismet was neither enjoying the thrill of a helicopter ride, nor particularly looking forward to a week of being pampered aboard the cruise ship. With respect to the former, he’d had more than had his fill of helicopters during his brief time in the US military; even a sleek JetRanger held no more excitement than a drive to the corner store. As far as his stay aboard
The Star of Muara
was concerned—well, that would be work.

At the time of his death a few years earlier, the man who had ruled as Sultan of Muara for nearly thirty years had achieved an undreamed of level of wealth. Although ranked only as the forty-seventh wealthiest man in the world, his riches were unique in several respects. He was not an entertainer or athletic god, nor was he a politically elected figure; his affluence did not depend upon his popularity among a fickle public. Neither was he a hedge fund manager, or the chairman of a board of executives, entrusted with the responsibility of making money for others, and therefore beholden to his shareholders. The Sultanate of Muara, a sovereign nation nearly three hundred years old and occupying a few thousand square miles of the island of Borneo, guarded one of the largest petroleum reserves of any nation outside of OPEC. As the supreme ruler of its simple monarchy, the Sultan had been its sole protector and beneficiary.

Despite his wealth, the late Sultan had been a man of moderate habits. Although he had certainly made his share of impulse purchases and lavish gifts for his wife and son, he had been a careful manager of the royal treasury. Under his guidance, Muara’s oil industry, and subsequently its economy, had thrived. So, in turn, had the royal family.

For all his frugality, the Sultan had succumbed to a single expensive vice: he was a collector. For nearly twenty years, he had set his heart upon accumulating art treasures and priceless historical relics, slowly building what was rumored to be the most impressive collection of antiquities anywhere. It was a difficult claim to verify since the international trade in such properties was highly restricted and most of the pieces in his private storehouse had been traded illegally many times over the centuries. During the Sultan’s lifetime, only a few discreet visitors had the privilege of viewing the treasures of Muara. Because the relics were illicitly obtained, they were not reckoned as part of the Sultan’s net worth, and inasmuch as many of the pieces were unarguably priceless, the Sultan of Muara would rightly have earned a place much higher on the list of the world’s wealthiest men; perhaps at its very top.