Terror Bounty (14 page)

It was night and Rick still hadn’t been
able to process any of this shit.

Greenwood’s people hadn’t shown up. In
fact, nobody had shown up, not even the cops. There had been no witnesses, or
if there’d been no one had deemed it important to report it in. This made Rick
lose a little more faith in humanity.

Jesus
,
what was wrong with him? Had he expected this entire quest to be nothing but
sunshine and rainbows? Of course not, but he definitely hadn’t expected to see
people murdered right before his eyes.

Then again, was it really murder? They
had been outnumbered and Dikmans had clearly stated his intention to kill them.
What Olivia had done was self-defense. Hell, she had saved his life! Why was he
feeling bad about this?

His nerves were shot and he was thankful
for the whiskey that the kid behind the front desk had found for him. It went
down smoothly with yet another chicken salad panini.

He was sitting by the window, keeping an
eye on both the warehouse down the street and the computer through the camera
surveillance. Nothing was happening and it was giving him too much time to
think. The room stank of rotting wallpaper and the hotel was definitely not
ranking well on Trip Advisor. But location trumped everything.

Rick turned when he heard keys jingle in
the lock. Olivia came in and for an instant they just stared at each other as
if they were strangers all over again.

“Nothing yet?” she eventually asked.

Rick shrugged. “I ate all my sandwich.
You take care of the bodies?”

“By the time they’re found, we should be
long gone.”

She pulled up a chair and sat next to him.
She reached for his paper cup and took a sip from his drink.

“Something’s been bothering me, Olivia.”

“Look, it’s not as if I had a choice in
the matter.”

He shook his head, avoiding her eyes. “I
can understand how you can be this business savvy, considering the trade you’re
in. I can understand how you can get fake passports, traveling money, how you
can get two seats on an overbooked flight. I can even understand how someone
like you could somehow become the Mario Andretti of boat racing.”

Olivia offered a tight smile. “Just
something you pick up in this line of work.”

“But here’s the rub. When we met, you
told me pros don’t carry weapons. You obviously learned how to handle them
somewhere. And don’t tell me you picked that up on the street, okay? Everything
you’ve done so far, that has serious professional training written all over it.”

She shook her head and stood up. “You’re truly
mistaking…”

“Cut the bullshit, will you? I’m not that
square.” It was his turn to stand up and he went to her. “We said no more
secrets, remember?”

“Rick, I can’t…”

“Enough!” he barked while throwing his
half-empty cup of whiskey against the wall. “I’m sick and tired of being jerked
around. It’s like I’m a child and nobody wants to tell me what the fuck is
going on. That’s enough.”

She stared back at him, took a deep
breath, and ran her fingers through her long hair.

“I’m with the Secret Intelligence
Service.”

This knocked the air out of Rick’s lungs.
It made sense but he hadn’t really expected this.

“You mean British intelligence? MI6?”

“Yes, MI6.”

“Wow.”

“Two years ago I was planted into this
Dutch gun smuggling ring to keep an eye on Greenwood because we knew they were
one of his suppliers. We needed to have assets in place before we could
actually plan a successful operation to stop him.”

“But I fucked things up?” Rick asked, the
reality of the situation registering at long last.

“Yes and no. My superior told me to help
you, that it might speed up the process after all.”

“What? They put their money on me?”

Olivia smiled. “Have you ever played
Bridge? Or Blackjack? People have strategies that will only work if everyone at
the table keeps to their game.”

“But those who don’t know the rules can
screw it up for everybody.”

“Exactly. It works both ways. Now we know
about you so you’re a known element. Greenwood doesn’t know about you. So it
was decided that you could be our wild card.”

This was insane, Rick thought. The CIA
and now British intelligence. They were backing him up for no other reason that
he was a fly in the ointment. He had the peculiar feeling that he wasn’t much
different from a monkey with a bag of dynamite.

“The guy at the airport, was that your
boss?”

“Yes,” she answered. “He is my immediate
superior.”

“He looked pissed.”

“Three years ago, MI6 sent two agents to
eliminate Greenwood. They were never seen again.”

Rick exhaled and crashed on the bed. “Beautiful.
Just fucking beautiful.”

“It’s become a personal matter for many
of us. Greenwood has to be stopped. I just got word that he’s preparing another
attack, your FBI is in crisis mode. We need to get to Greenwood before he
strikes again.”

It was now technically their third day
staking out the Cairo warehouse. Rick thought it was more impressive to think
about it in those terms but in reality they’d spent only one full day, a few
minutes the day before, and a few hours this morning. Now they were back in
their alley and boredom was setting in.

He looked at his watch. It wasn’t even
lunchtime yet but it was close enough. “You want me to get some of those
paninis again?”

“What’s with you and these sandwiches
anyway?”

“Is it my fault if they’re fresh and
delicious?” he said, drawing a smile from Olivia.

“All right, fine. I’m officially putting
you in charge of culinary duties.”

“Thank you, a wise decision. You won’t
regret it.”

She smiled again and it was a beautiful
sight. He couldn’t quite forget yesterday’s events, the three dead bodies and
his role in hiding the evidence, but he was slowly wrapping his head around it.

He had spent half the night awake. When
Olivia had noticed he’d dismissed it as simply the discomfort of sleeping on
the floor while she was cozy in bed, but the truth was that he was trying to
justify his actions.

His father and his uncle had both been
law enforcement. Rick had grown up with this. He had been taught that it wasn’t
unlike being a doctor: do no harm. Public service was about helping people,
police work was about saving lives. But it was also about justice.

And Dikmans had deserved this particular
brand of justice.

So okay, Rick could live with that. It
was time to toughen the hell up. There was more to the world than just some
suburban rulebook. He stood up and headed out of the alley to get sandwiches.

He paused when a faded red Honda stopped
in front of the warehouse. Rick returned to the alley and ducked next to
Olivia.

“Is this it?” he whispered.

She didn’t reply and they stared at the
scene. Two men got out of the car. They were Caucasian and dressed casually.
The driver had some sort of tattoo inside his forearm. They headed to the
warehouse and removed the large padlock.

“It’s them, isn’t it?”

Olivia nodded faintly. “They have to be
Greenwood’s people, yes.”

“Then it’s our cue.”

Rick straightened up and walked out of
the alley. Olivia padded after him until they were side by side.

“Say,” he began. “I forgot to ask. Is Olivia
your real name?”

“The first name is real, yes.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

This mundane conversation was making Rick
forget how stressed he actually was. They walked until they were by the car and
then they stood with their hands in plain sight, anything to appear
nonthreatening.

A few minutes later, the two men came out
of the storage facility, each carrying a bulky crate, a sort of old-timey
footlocker. There were no markings on them but Olivia had mentioned that there
was Semtex explosives inside. They came to a sudden halt.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Rick said, presenting
the palm of his hands. “We just want to talk.”

The two OWL men set their crates down.
The shorter of the two was visibly worried.

He leaned toward his partner. “Sagan,
what do we do?”

“Shut up.” He turned to the intruders. “Who
are you?”

“We’re sympathizers.”

“And admirers,” Olivia added with the
broadest of smiles.

The two terrorists glanced at each other
and had hushed exchange.

“Let’s talk inside.”

They picked up their crates again and everyone
entered the warehouse where they would have a measure of privacy. One of them shut
the door halfway.

The air was stuffy, dusty. Rick had
expected to find a place chock-full of weapons and military equipment. Instead,
aside from these two crates, there was nothing of interest. There were a few
boxes with romance paperbacks in them, some gardening tools from another era,
old chairs and mattresses.

The man with the tattoo stood with his
feet apart. “So what do you guys want?”

“We wanna talk with Mr. Greenwood,” Rick
replied.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Olivia smiled, turning on the charm. “I
suppose that’s why you don’t have an owl tattooed inside your forearm.”

“Bring us to Greenwood, we have to talk
business.”

There was a pause. This Sagan guy was
considering all the angles.

“Are you associated with a police agency
or any other government organization?”

Rick shrugged. “I used to be part of my
neighborhood watch. Does that count?”

“Do you have papers? Let me see your IDs.”

This was the price of doing business and
they had no choice. It was risky, they were opening themselves up to reprisals
from terrorists, but the alternative was going home empty-handed.

Rick and Olivia handed over their
passports and Sagan took his time inspecting them, flipping through the pages
to look for visa stamps and anything else that could mention something about
the visitors.

He gave them one last look and left the
warehouse. Meanwhile, the second guy – a goon with the face of an over the hill
boxer – planted himself in front of Rick and Olivia, blocking the way in case
they wanted to flee.

Even though the door was pulled down a
fair bit, Rick noticed that Sagan was leaning against his car while making a
phone call.

“What’s your name?” Rick asked their
captor. “You don’t have to tell me your real name if you don’t want to, you can
just say Mike or Rachel, anything to seem friendly.”

The man didn’t even blink as he kept his
mouth shut.

“Okay, not the talkative type. I respect
that.”

Rick started pacing around to keep his
mind off the fact that he could very well end up with a bullet in the head. If
yesterday’s events were anything to go by, the Egyptian neighbors wouldn’t even
notice.

After an eternity, Sagan returned. In his
hand was a small electronic device which resembled a Geiger counter with a wand
that was attached to it.

“Strip,” he ordered.

“Excuse me?”

“Take off all your clothes. I wanna be
able to count your pubic hair.”

“Now, come on…”

Olivia shook her head and put a hand on
Rick’s shoulder. “It’s okay, do as he says.”

She went first, unbuttoning her blouse
and letting it fall off her shoulder. She showed no sign of being uncomfortable
with this and it made Rick feel like a wimp. He took a deep breath and followed
suit.

When he was down to his briefs, he turned
his head and noticed Olivia shrugging out of her bra and then pushing her
panties down. She did so shamelessly, without so much as a second thought.

Those MI6 people are insane
, he thought before getting naked himself.

Sagan then came forward, flipped a switch
on his device, and scanned both their bodies with it. No alarms went off.

“Did we pass?”

“With flying colors,” the tattooed man
replied. “Get dressed, we have a long way to go.”

“Where are we going?” Rick asked as he
quickly put his underwear back on.

But the terrorists didn’t answer. They
were carrying their crates back to the car.

The trip was a mystery. It was a great
unknown. Rick and Olivia weren’t permitted to go to their hotel to collect
their belongings. They were immediately blindfolded, stripped of their new
phones and wallets, and led into the Honda. They weren’t tied up but Sagan
sternly warned them against removing the blindfolds.

They drove through the city until they
reached an airfield. By the sound of it, Rick didn’t think they were at Cairo
International. It was quieter, not as busy. They were marched across a
scorching tarmac and then led into an aircraft.

There were only a few steps to get in so
it wasn’t anything commercial. It was something small. It smelled nice and
there was a little bit of an echo as Sagan instructed them to sit down. It had
to be some sort of small jet, probably incapable of carrying more than eight or
ten passengers.

“Where are we going?” Rick asked while he
was strapped in a cushy leather seat.

“Keep your mouth shut. In 20 minutes,
when we’re high enough, I’ll let you know so you can get rid of your
blindfolds.”

They eventually took off and Sagan kept
his word. Rick and Olivia removed the blindfolds and looked around. They were
in a small private plane. On the bulkhead was the inscription
Beechcraft
.

“Where do you think we are?” he asked
Olivia.

“In the sky.”

“You know, you really don’t charge enough
for your comedy shows.”

Outside the porthole there were no
discernible features, just a bright sky as far as they could see. They could be
going anywhere.

Olivia eventually dozed off and Rick
envied her. He wanted to do the same but what if he never woke up? What if they
were being taken somewhere so they could be killed?

Hours later, Sagan ordered the two
passengers to put the blindfolds on again. Shortly after, the plane began its
descent and they landed. It wasn’t smooth. In fact, Rick was reminded of
driving through rural Maryland.

They climbed into what seemed like a Jeep
– there was no roof but Rick felt a roll bar. Then they drove away for a good
15 minutes before they could remove the blindfolds for one final time.

“Just where in the hell are we?”

Even though there was no answer from
Sagan, Rick could guess. They were driving along a road of red dirt. On each
side were great plains with tall grass. Acacia trees dotted the landscape.

They were somewhere in central Africa.

“Oh my God…” Olivia said.

Rick followed her gaze until he spotted what
she was looking at. There was a handful of giraffes standing tall, confident in
their element.

“Where are we?” she tried again. “The
Congo, Zambia? Mozambique, Tanzania?”

“We’re almost there,” Sagan answered,
keeping his eyes on the road.

Despite the insanity of the situation, of
not knowing where they were, Rick had to admit that it was incredibly gorgeous.
It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Some people paid fortunes to go on
safaris.

The only thing it cost him was possibly
his life.

After almost half an hour they reached a
small village. It was so rustic that it was borderline stereotypical. There
were thatch-and-mud houses – more like huts, really – built around a center
square where livestock was running wild. Rick wondered if this was even a real
place and not a tourist attraction.

“You can step out now,” Sagan said.

Rick got out and offered his hand to help
Olivia down but she didn’t take it. Now that they weren’t moving, the air was
stifling. Their clothes were too heavy for Africa.

As they looked around, they saw the
second terrorist leave the Jeep. He went to the back and pulled out two
carry-on bags. It was what little luggage Rick and Olivia had and they took
possession of it. Apparently, some of their people had gotten to their hotel in
Cairo after all to get their stuff.

It was scary to realize how competent
they were. The silver lining was that there was no compromising material since
everything important had been left in Amsterdam.

Then, an old woman who had to be pushing 80
walked towards him. She was smiling broadly and with her colorful dress she was
a most welcome sight.

She said something in a foreign language
while she patted Rick and Olivia on the cheeks.

“What is she speaking, Bemba?” Olivia
asked.

Sagan got one of the Semtex crates from
the Jeep. “She welcomes you to the village. Come, this way.”

They followed him through the square.
People were going through their daily routines: men were herding animals, women
were milling grain or otherwise preparing food while sitting on the ground. It
was picturesque, definitely not a hotbed of terrorism.

On the other side of the village was a
structure without walls, just a roof and wooden posts to hold it up. Over a
dozen kids were sitting on the ground and a white man close to 50 acted as the
teacher.

“Hello, my name is Will. How are you
today?”

Together the children said, “Hello, my
name is Will. How are you today?”

“You’re not Will, I’m Will!”

The kids laughed and so did the man.

“Again, but this time with your own
names.”

He reiterated the command in the African
dialect from earlier and the children repeated the exercise, this time
substituting their actual names.

Sagan stopped with his visitors just
outside this makeshift school. “Stay here, the boss will come out when he’s
done with the kids.”

He walked away with his crates, giving
orders to the others.

The teacher turned his head and saw the
newcomers standing outside. Then he surveyed his students.

“Practice what you’ve learned today for
fifteen more minutes and then we’ll be done for today.”

Without grumbling, the kids spun toward
each other and started interacting in shaky English.

So this is it
, Rick decided. This was Willis Greenwood. He had succeeded.

He had found the most wanted man on
earth.