Sabotage: Beginnings (12 page)

“Batya, swap with him. I need a direction to point this thing.”

“Understood commander,” she teased to keep the situation light. “You going to fire that inside this room?”

“That’s the second time you’ve discouraged me from launching this thing. What would you have me do?”

“These are not regular army. Militia maybe, but not professionals.” Batya said.

“And?”

He hit the floor at the explosion of rifle fire inside the room. His eyes buzzed, blurred his vision. The concussion against the back of his skull caused his neck to burn. Justice hesitated to look up, but the aroma of the battle wafted in the already stagnant air.

“And, no need to kill a mosquito with an elephant gun,” she countered, the sniper rifle held just below her waist. “You can thank me later for taking your alleged sniper out of the equation. It looked more like a kid.”

“Oh, momma. You are one bad ass baby,” Fury howled.

She crouched and crawled closer to their side of the room, “What is with this calling everybody baby?”

“Just good ole southern hospitality.” Justice smiled, easing the strain of concentration that had distorted his expression.

“It is most confusing.” She low crawled closer to the door and peeked at the three bodies in the hall. “Now where do we go?”

Fury pressed his back into the rough surface and began to visibly shake. Batya crunched her lips and cheeks as she glanced at Justice. He wasn’t sure about Fury’s odd reaction either. Justice knew his brother had been in sticky situations with the different SEAL teams, so this skirmish shouldn’t have bothered him.

“Baby,” Batya said low, “what is the cause of this reaction?”

“They don’t know I’m gone. How am I going to explain McDuff?” He slapped his palm into his forehead. “I’m fucked. Spend my life in prison after they court-martial me.”

“Shit, Bro. I had no idea you been AWOL all this time.”

“You called. I came. It’s what brothers do.”

Batya said, “That is the ultimate loyalty. We will fix this, baby.”

Fury mashed moisture away from his eyelids as his lips curled with a smile.

“Thank you, but you don’t have to call me baby. It’s just creepy.”

“Are you homosexual?” Batya blurted out.

“Why would you ask him that?” Justice snapped.

Batya shrugged. “Is it a bad topic?”

“It’s just out of character and seems to be none of your business.” Justice’s defensive tone probably told her what she already knew.

“Maybe not, but I’ve been unconscious the last four days. This man saved my life, while risking his and costing McDuff his life. I think I have a right to know him better.”

Fury held up his hand. “But what’s my sex life have to do with anything?”

“I know your military’s policy and their attitudes toward homosexuals. If you are working with a SEAL team and having to conceal your preferences, then you must be a much more brave man than any one of us could imagine.”

“Thank you.”

“I still don’t know where that’s appropriate to ask.” Justice, bothered by the revelation, tried to quash the topic.

“People, seriously what’s the fucking difference? We’re trapped in the middle of hell and you are arguing whether I suck cock or not? Lets focus on getting out of here alive.”

“I do apologize. I assume I’m not quite back to normal yet.” She rubbed her palms over her exposed arms. Both were a deep purple and still swollen from the blows she’d suffered.

Fury gently patted her arms. “You need another week of recovery, Batya. You were bashed up pretty good on the inside.”

“I don’t think we have the luxury of a week. Where are we anyway?” she asked.

“We’re off Khyber Pass, forty kilometers west of Peshawar and leading to Kabul,” Justice said.

“Are we back in Pakistan?” Batya’s voice rose. She bent over—face contorting in pain.

Justice ran his scarred knuckles across his brow. “Hard to tell. The summit at Landi Kotal is about five K inside Paki, but this area is so twisted it’s hard to tell.”

Through gritted teeth. “How far did you drive before finding this place?” she asked.

Justice’s eyes drifted up and to the right, “I’ve an asset, a doctor here. No I didn’t notify anyone. He’s working on a secret polio testing project, but it’s really mapping DNA to locate Osama bin Laden. We believe he’s in country.”

“Fuck, Bro. That’s some serious shit—maybe I shouldn’t be hearing this.”

“No problems, Fury. Your SEAL team is closer than you think. Why do you think you’re held up at the Shamsi Airfield in Paki’s Washuk District? We leased that place from the United Arab Emirates to run drones and supplies through the area. Completely black ops. You should see movement toward Jalalabad’s Bagram Airbase soon, but for now, we’ve got to get you back.”

Fury’s expression glassed over. “If you knew this local doctor, why the hell didn’t you just use him? I’d do anything for you, but look at the shit I’m in.”

Justice left his position at the window. He sat near Fury and rested his hand over his brother’s thigh. Batya glanced back, but was quick to return her watch down the corridor.

“I’ll figure this out. But this doc is close. He’s very close to pinpointing that bastard. He gave me this place, but we couldn’t risk the big target to treat…” Batya turned back. “Me.”

Justice nodded.

“Justice, if we’re this close to bin Laden, then you know what that means, do you not?” Batya’s tone rose and fell at uneven intervals—she sounded worried.

Justice hesitated. He watched her, laid prone on her stomach. Her legs were spread slightly with the right knee bent to form a figure four over the back of her left hamstring. It was an experienced sniper’s position for a stable shooting platform. He tried to remove any thought other than the shit storm they currently faced, but damn her body was amazing.

He and Fury made eye contact. Fury snarled and rolled his eyes as his head shook left to right.

“It means a lot. Tell me,” Justice requested.

“If your government is really this close to locating that devil, then you should anticipate someone else also coming within the area to intercept him.”

Fury raised his palms open. “The Russians?”

“No, Ben Ford,” Justice jeered. “If he’s still alive.”

“Precisely. We may have presented ourselves in a trap,” she said. She looked fatigued, but would never admit it.

“You think he’d beat us to the punch?” Fury asked.

Justice nodded. “But I doubt he’s in this region. The target area is around Abbottabad. That’s here, in Pakistan.”

The three let that theory soak in. There were so many variables at play. Governments at work on both sides, and no sides at all. Unable to trust any partner nations, the tightening of the noose was going to go down the same way they’d run the Saddam Hussein capture.

Lots of misinformation purposefully fed, rapid deployments and withdrawals of special operations forces, press conferences to report on a crisis in the opposite side of the country, and then… And then one small collection of very highly trained professionals would arrive under the cloak of darkness and snatch him away. The old boogeyman plan.

“I’d be surprised if any one person could track that fucker down. An entire world has hunted him. Who the fuck y’all talking about anyway?”

“The man we’re assigned to kill.”

Cracks of wood, mud and painted stucco chips flicked and exploded across the small upper room. The stream of fully automatic machine gun fire caught them off guard. They’d eased into a lax during the quiet. Except for Batya—she was always ready for the unexpected. Smoke and the ringing sound of intended death crowded the space.

Justice shoved Fury down. They had both landed to cover Batya. He saw her face turn purplish red with brilliantly white teeth clinched so tight they might snap. She was suffering agony. But, at least she hadn’t been shot.

“Fuck, who’d we miss? I thought we cleared all of the bad guys,” Justice whispered.

His ears felt as if they’d been stuffed with cotton and then set on fire, but he heard another distinctive cracking sound. It was an old-school bullhorn’s microphone squeal.

“Oh shit, here we go with their surrender demands,” Justice said.

“Justice Boudreaux.”

Justice’s back turned rigid at the sound of his name. That voice—Benjamin Franklin Ford. He and Batya’s eyes were wide and glued to each others.

“Justice Boudreaux. I know you’re in there and probably still alive. This is payback for not warning me about the Greeks.”

“I told you so, Justice,” Batya chided.

Ben continued, “I rescued your whore, and this is how you repay the favor? There was a gentlemen’s agreement.”

Justice lowered his head as another volley of bullets whizzed through the opening to embed in the far wall.

Ben’s laughter cackled through the bullhorn. “Problem was, there was only one gentleman among us.”

Justice shot the middle finger toward the window, though he knew it was childish. Batya slapped his knee.

“I’ve got a polio vaccination waiting for me. Best of luck to the three of you. Sorry about McDuff.” Ben chuckled. “But you know smoking can kill you.”

T
hey sweltered in
the stale upper room, their bodies pressed across the unpadded floor. Each rotated watch down the hallway, while another checked the openings and the third slept. The hourly rotation continued until zero two hundred hours the next morning.

Justice held his hand against the stitched knife wound and cursed the coward who jigged him as he slipped back downstairs. Fury covered him from the stairwell. He forced his hands to stay steady while he checked the vehicle for booby traps or detonation explosives. It appeared clear. Or as clear as he could make it out to be in the early morning’s dusty darkness.

“Clear. Move,” Justice whispered to Fury. Justice crouched behind the vehicle with his eye mashed against the night scope of his rifle. His breaths were deep and irregular—the rifle rose and fell with the rhythm of his breaths.

Fury disappeared for a moment.

Justice heard heavy footfalls and deep grunts as Fury reappeared with Batya clung to his side. Her face shone in the darkness. Pain was her glow.

“Loaded them?” she asked through clamped teeth. She squinted with agony etched across her face.

“Yep,” Justice said. Eyes wide, he scanned the horizon quickly, thoroughly, like a fearful child before bedtime.

Fury tugged on the canvas spread across the back of the truck. “Loaded what?”

“Your alibi,” Justice said.

Fury looked confused. Disappointment overcame Justice that his own brother was still naïve in so many ways. Growing up along Turtle Bayou, Louisiana, it was a different time—a different place. But this was a war zone and if his younger brother wanted to keep his ass alive, he’d better get his shit together. He pushed Fury towards the front passenger seat.

“You mind?” He asked Batya.

“You want your six covered?” she tried to laugh, but it came out more like a groan. Ailing or not, if he wanted someone watching their backs, that she’d be the one to be counted upon.

Justice lifted Batya into the short-walled truck bed. He hurried around to the very back and tucked the canvas tarpaulin beneath the bodies stashed there.

“What the fuck, Justice? Those are bodies back there. We get stopped, they’ll kill us on spot.” Fury ran his fingers across his shaved scalp. The concern in his dark eyes was lost in the shadowy night.

Justice hopped behind the wheel. He had too many objectives to accomplish to be worried about the dead bodies beneath Batya, or the what-ifs of getting stopped in the desert. He knew that unless someone proudly waved an American flag that they’d get mowed down for getting in his way. He also knew Fury’s talent was saving lives—but his was taking them.

“We stop for no one. Much time has been wasted,” Batya snapped, “Move out.”

“You gotta get your head out of your ass, Bro. Keep an eye out so I can focus on this damn trail.” Justice shoved a submachine gun in Fury’s lap before he ripped the vehicle to life and smashed the accelerator.

“What time did you set the demo to detonate?” Justice asked Batya.

“I gave us thirty minutes. Give or take about twenty minutes,” she said slyly. “I enjoy watching my work.”

Justice ducked as the explosion of their two-story hideaway roared ablaze in his rearview mirror. He felt the shock waves from the concussion against his shoulders and neck.

“Son of a bitch, that was close,” Fury screamed.

“I told you I like to watch my work. As it became obvious you had no intention to use the RPG, it was my decision to make proper use of the warhead.”

“Good going. I just hope they don’t activate the cavalry. It’s going to be hard enough pulling off Fury’s return without being chased by a horde of madmen.”

Fury, his expression still wooden, almost disappeared in the moon’s scarce light. “Just what’s the plan?”

“You and poor McDuff were snatched up by this posse of bandits. They pulled a trigger on you and the hero partner of yours lunged to your rescue. Meanwhile you mowed them down in retaliation.” Justice explained, but knew the story stunk of bullshit.