Authors: Steve Richer
Cairo threw Rick for a loop. The Egyptian
capital was a hodgepodge of architecture styles where the old met the new in an
often clashing manner. After the orderly layout of the European cities where he’d
just spent a few days, and America where he’d spent his entire life, it was a
culture shock.
With Olivia at his side, he walked
through the Khan el-Khalili bazaar which was itself a labyrinth of commercial
endeavors. The souk was almost a city by itself, an outdoor shopping mall on
steroids. It was really his idea to get more clothes that didn’t peg them as
outsiders from the outset.
Rick would have preferred going to JC Penney
but apparently there weren’t any around here.
Before flying down to the Middle East, he
had called the number Hertz had given him. He figured that the CIA would be
able to follow him simply by tracking his passport but the stakes were too high
to bet on that. Rick had therefore given Hertz a heads up.
He had no idea if the CIA man was ten
feet behind him or a thousand miles away doing surveillance through drones and
satellites. It wasn’t his problem. Rick was upholding his end of the bargain.
In any case, he wasn’t under the illusion that Greenwood would show up in
Cairo. Even if the plan worked, they were still in the initial stages of their
courtship.
Olivia rented a car and they drove to the
outskirts of the city. The area was much less densely populated but it wasn’t
quite an industrial park either. The street was wide enough for trucks yet it
still had a pedestrian feel. The road was paved though half covered by sand.
There were commercial buildings but few
customers, just enough foot traffic so that Rick and Olivia didn’t stand out
completely. They strolled down the side of the road. She pointed to a small
warehouse with a wide garage door covered with grime.
“This is the dead drop,” Olivia said. “Guns,
ammunitions, explosives, it’s all stocked here. My people make the deliveries
there. They come pick it up at their convenience, usually a few days after we’ve
left, so I’ve been told.”
Rick nodded. “Smart. When was the last
delivery?”
“Three days ago.”
“Great, so all that’s left to do is for
me to stake the place out until the OWL people show up.”
“What do you mean
for me
?”
“It means what it means. Your job’s done.
Give me your mailing address and I’ll send you your half of the reward as soon
as I get it.”
“Are you mad?”
“Not according to my last psych
evaluation, no.”
“Rick, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t think it will come as a shock to
you but I don’t really trust you. You had your people beat me up and leave me
for dead.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. You were being
scared away. Besides, wouldn’t you agree that things have changed since? I
helped you escape.”
“Only after I saved your life.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Let’s call it
square. You don’t know Dikmans, he’s someone who holds a grudge. He thinks not
being at his beck and call is the equivalent of treason. And after me trying to
leave his employ? He definitely has it in for me. I can’t go back. I can never
go back to Amsterdam.”
Rick looked at her and saw fear in her
eyes. She was sincere.
“It’s going to be dangerous from here on
end,” he said. “We’re not talking about average thugs here. Greenwood is a mass
murderer.”
“I can hold my own, Rick. I think you
know that by now. I’m staying whether you want me to or not.”
He sighed, there was no talking her out
of it. He couldn’t tell her that he was somewhat safe, having the blessing of
the CIA.
“Okay, fine. You can stay.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Following their reconnaissance mission,
Olivia had surprised Rick with some high-tech wizardry. They’d gone to an alley
roughly 50 yards from the warehouse and she had placed a wireless camera,
concealing it behind some rubble. It was linked to a cellular phone which acted
as an Internet hotspot.
This had allowed them to return to their
hotel room nearby because these two foreigners would have looked out of place
staking out the warehouse all night. The hotel was half a mile away and from
their room they could see the building but it was too far to jump into action
from it.
So the following morning Rick and Olivia
went back down to the street and took position near the camera’s emplacement.
The alley was deserted and they didn’t stand out here, during the day at least.
After four hours of drinking coffee and
keeping an eye on the warehouse, it was time for lunch. They found a stand two
blocks over which made sandwiches. Rick had expected some Middle Eastern dish
like hummus and marinated goat or something, but he’d wound up with a chicken
salad panini.
“What are you gonna do with the money?”
he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe take a cruise around
the world. You?”
At that, Rick shrugged. “I never really
thought about it.”
“Then why is this so important to you?”
He hesitated a moment and kept his mouth
shut. From the beginning he had told himself it was because he wanted to join
the FBI, because he wanted to build his credentials. Then there had been the mention
of needing a change of scenery. The money was a great incentive.
It was hard to be honest, Rick thought.
He could barely admit the truth to himself. It all went back to his father.
That’s why he was truly doing it.
His dad had been an FBI agent and while
Rick had grown up believing he was the quintessential G-man, an upstanding
citizen who stood for justice, liberty, and the American way, the truth had
eventually caught up with him.
Special Agent Travis had bungled an
investigation about human trafficking in the beginning of his career. It had
seemed like an honest mistake at first and no one had made a big deal out of
it.
But two years later it was discovered
during an unrelated sting operation in Texas that the people Rick’s father
failed to arrest had moved on to selling eight-year-old girls on the black
market.
Feeling guilty but unable to correct the
past, his dad falsified documents to conceal his involvement. Uncle Peter even
advised him that it was the lesser of two evils. What good would it do for him
to come clean and ruin his career when the damage was already done?
But like all secrets, it eventually came
to light. A wealthy Mexican man whose child had been abducted for this sex
exploitation ring hired a team of lawyers and private investigators to look
into the matter. They were the ones who connected the dots and discovered that
Special Agent Travis had forged documents to cover up his blunder.
Rick’s father was immediately suspended
pending the investigation. There was no question his career was ruined but now
there was talk of prosecuting him criminally.
Only he didn’t wait that long. He drove
out of state, found an open field in West Virginia, and used his back-up piece
to shoot himself in the mouth.
Rick was only starting to come to grips
with that, with how a benign screw-up could transform into a tragic event. Was
that why his life was a mess? Was he afraid to stay too long at a job and make
a mistake that would wreck his entire life?
He was petrified of being a fuck up just
like his father. If he could do only one thing right in his life then perhaps
it could wipe the slate clean.
Doing this, finding Greenwood, it was his
only chance.
He took another bite. “This is a good
sandwich, we should get more for dinner.”
Olivia discarded her half-eaten food and
wiped her hands on a paper napkin. “I thought you said we wouldn’t have any
more secrets.”
He looked at her but again didn’t say
anything. His father’s past, he would never tell a soul. There were some things
he would never share with anyone.
There was a sound, the soft purr of a
high-quality vehicle. A black Range Rover came to a halt in front of the
warehouse.
“Look,” Rick said.
They both kneeled at the mouth of the
alley to observe the scene.
Two men came out of the SUV. They were
each wearing a white burnoose, a long hooded cloak. It was traditionally worn
by Berbers but while most Egyptians wore Western-style clothes, it wasn’t all
that uncommon with Arabs in the region. Rick had seen many people dressed this
way at the Khan el-Khalili bazaar.
“Is that them?” Rick asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t see their faces
with the hoods on.”
Rick nodded. “Okay, there’s only one way
to find out then.”
Rick reluctantly put his food down and
stood up, leaving the alley. Olivia hurried after him.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“This needs to happen,” he replied. “Sooner
or later, this needs to happen.”
“We’re not even armed.”
“It’s the only way,” Rick whispered with
more confidence than he actually felt.
He crossed the street and approached the
warehouse. The two strangers were near the side door. They stopped next to the
Range Rover.
“Hi. Is there any way we can talk?”
At that, the two men turned around toward
him. The first one to push back his hood was Dikmans and he smiled at the
revelation.
Rick’s mouth dried up instantly. “Holy
shit.”
“Good afternoon to you too.”
The second man also removed his hood. It
was Dieter. His grin was pure evil.
Olivia wasn’t as flustered as Rick. She
remained still, balling her fists with anger.
“You really do hold a grudge, don’t you?”
she said.
“This business we are in, it isn’t for
the faint of heart. You joined my group, this means you were supposed to follow
my rules. You were supposed to be loyal.”
“I didn’t betray you, Dikmans. I only
wanted a career change.”
“You see, Olivia, this isn’t like working
for Nestlé. This isn’t like working for IBM. We operate by very different rules
and you broke every single one of them. How can we continue to be in business
with our customers if I can’t even guarantee that my employees can be trusted?
Tell me, Olivia. Please tell me.”
She shrugged. “So what, you’ll snuff us
out now? That’s why you came down here to Egypt, isn’t it? You couldn’t just
let this go?”
Dikmans’s face contorted into a snarl. “For
crossing me this way I should disembowel you with a dull blade, actually. But I’m
in a hurry, killing you is all I can afford.”
This didn’t bode well, Rick thought. He
instinctively peeked sideways at Olivia and this time she looked just as
dismayed as he was. Then they both turned toward the Range Rover when they
heard the faint whir of the tinted window going down.
Behind the wheel was the driver who had
chased them across the roofs in Amsterdam. He was pointing a Walther pistol
with a sound suppressor mounted on the barrel.
This was the end, Rick knew it. He’d come
halfway around the world, so close to reaching his goal, and he was about to be
gunned down in the street by these clowns.
“Look,” he began. “We can talk about
this, all right? Maybe we can come to a financial solution and–”
In a swift, dance-like maneuver, Olivia
moved toward the driver while spinning her body to the side. The driver got off
a shot but hit nothing.
Operating on fear and adrenaline,
understanding very little, Rick crouched to avoid the chaos while Dikmans did
the same.
Simultaneously, Dieter reached under his
burnoose to draw his own weapon.
“No!” Rick shouted.
Olivia was doing her own thing. Now that
she was close enough, she grabbed the driver’s arm and pried the gun away.
Still holding onto the driver’s arm with
one hand, she fired two rounds into Dikmans’s head.
“
Kutwijf!
” Dieter swore.
He brought up his right arm, he was
holding a sleek black Sig Sauer pistol. However, before he could get even a
shot off he was taken down by two bullets to the chest.
As quickly as possible, Olivia spun
around and ended the driver’s life with a shot to the head. She scanned the
area again to make sure there were no live targets.
There were none, all three were dead. It
was over.
At last, Rick climbed back up to his
feet. He was out of breath which made no sense to him since he had done nothing
and the whole event had occurred in a matter of seconds.
“Oh God, oh Jesus…”
Olivia looked around the street. There
were no eyewitnesses.
“Would you rather be dead, Rick?”
“Not if you ask this with a gun in your
hand!”
She moved over to Dieter’s body and fired
one more bullet into his head to make sure.
“Problem solved,” she said coldly.
She wiped the handle of her weapon with
the tail of her shirt and tossed it into the backseat of the vehicle.
“What now? What’s happening now?”
“Help me get the bodies in the car. Be
careful not to put any fingerprints on it. We can always clean afterwards but
you’d be surprised how sloppy one can be after the rush of battle.”
“The rush of battle? What the fuck are
you talking about?”
She opened the rear door and they
painstakingly crammed the bodies inside the back of the Range Rover, the driver
included. When this was done, Olivia slinked behind the wheel.
“Continue to stake out the warehouse
until dark. I’ll meet you at the hotel. If Greenwood’s people show up while I’m
away leave the rest of your sandwich near the remote camera, this will be our
signal.”
He nodded and she drove away. What had
just happened? One second he was doing surveillance on a building and the next
there were three corpses.
He didn’t know whether to be happy or
terrified.