Vengeance: A Derek Stillwater Novel (Derek Stillwater Thrillers Book 8) (20 page)

Secretary Mandalevo came to bit
by bit. The world was gray and dim around the edges. The first thing he felt was pain. Untied, he reached for his eye and felt the bandages.

After a moment he realized the pain was more extensive. During Nazif’s last outburst he had been beaten unconscious. Knife-like pain jabbed through his side. Probably broken ribs.

Something was wrong with his right arm. It throbbed and was so swollen it looked like a sausage, straining at his sleeve. He suspected a broken elbow.

He thought of his daughters, wondering if he would ever see them again. Adults now.

With a groan, he struggled to sit up. There was more wrong with him than broken ribs. He could barely straighten up. He sprawled on a rug in a bare room. A bucket was placed in one corner.

No window. Bare floor. Single door.

Attached to one wall, a small digital camera.

He wondered if this was being broadcast, or if they were just watching him.

For a moment he was back in a hospital room, sitting next to his late-wife, watching the morphine seep into her veins. A beautiful woman, an intelligent woman, a ferociously wonderful woman, slayed by cancer, now wasted to skin and bones, sleeping the sleep of the dead. He held her hand and reached down to kiss her cheek—

And back to his empty room in Cairo somewhere.

Struggling to his feet, he leaned against the wall, gasping for air. A wave of vertigo swirled around him.

He vomited blood and sank to his knees.

Something inside of him was broken. Something seriously wrong.

What if they were broadcasting this?

He took a deep breath.

Climbed carefully to his feet, leaning against the wall.

With a defiant glare at the camera, he took a step toward the door. And another.

Air burned like lava in his lungs, spears of pain slashed through his side, his eye and skull throbbing in time to his heartbeat.

But he walked. Step. Another. Another.

Gripping the knob with his right hand he turned.

Locked.

Of course it was.

Summoning his strength, he made a fist and pounded on the door. Once. Twice. Three times.

Then he turned and shuffled slowly back to the far wall, where he stood, back pressed to the wall, waiting.

He didn’t have long to wait. The door opened and Hussein Nazif appeared, flanked by two of his thugs.

“So, you are awake.”

“What do you want?”

“We have been over this, Mr. Mandalevo. I want my brother released. I want Derek Stillwater and the other man turned over to me for justice. But I believe we will get Stillwater without your help. And then there will be justice.”

“You mean vengeance.”

Nazif shrugged. “He killed my son. Twelve years old.”

“Who carried an assault rifle and used a Taser to torture a man. On your orders.” Mandalevo grayed out a minute, almost falling, then drew in a molten chest full of air. “You turned your son into a soldier and he died doing his duty, the duty you assigned him. Not Derek Stillwater. He didn’t kill your son. You did.”

In a flash Nazif crossed the room, his hand gripping Mandalevo by the throat, pressing him to the wall, choking him. Voice harsh and low, “You know nothing about duty. You know nothing about war.”

He let go of his throat and Mandalevo slid to the floor.

With a kick to the ribs that caused fireworks to explode through his entire body, Nazif spat out something in Arabic. His two men rushed forward and hauled Mandalevo to his feet by his arms. The pain from his broken elbow pushed him deep into himself, away from this room, away from these madmen.

“Daddy! Daddy! Watch me!” One of the twins, Meghan, at the beach. She was three, maybe four. And with that she flung herself into the waves, splashing the green churning foam, jumping over the crest like a dolphin, laughing and giggling.

And then he was in a different room, sitting in a chair facing a camera once again.

Tumbling into the back of
the car, Derek and Kadish peeled away. The rear window exploded, pelting them with tiny squares of safety glass.

Kadish peeked his head up, then back down. “They’re coming after us.”

From the front seat Noa said, “They weren’t after O’Bannon or his contact.”

“No,” Kadish said. Pulling a machine pistol off the floor, he popped up and fired off a burst toward their pursuers.

A burst of automatic fire chunked into the body of the car. Derek, sprawled half on the floor and the rear seat, pulled out his Colt.

Tires squealing, they roared onto a bridge over the Nile. A round, ornate tower scratched the sky nearby. Billboards advertised McDonalds and Coca-Cola. Popping his head up, Derek noticed the vans, but also saw two tan Toyota pickup trucks with armed men in the back racing along after them.

“More company,” he said.

Peering back, Noa said, “I think that’s Egyptian Army.”

Glancing upward, Derek said, “Two choppers. Military.”

“Can we lose all these people?” Kadish shouted, raising his gun over his head and firing out the shattered rear window.

The driver, a wiry man with a hawk nose and curly black hair, grunted. The traffic on the bridge was heavy, but he drove expertly, swerving in and out of the flow of traffic, slipping into gaps Derek didn’t believe would be possible.

Behind them, the vans were closing, but so were the Toyota pickups, who were firing at the vans.

With a roar, one of the vans closed the distance between them. Twisting, Derek took careful aim and fired at the driver.

The gunman in the door returned fire.

The driver said, “Hold on,” and jerked the wheel. The rear of the car hit the front right side of the van. The driver adjusted. The gunman lost his balance, reaching for the door.

Kadish fired. The gunman tumbled from the door. Derek fired at the driver, who swerved violently, the van tipping dangerously, then righting itself, now a dozen yards from them.

As soon as they came off the bridge, they were in an area of modern high-rises, museums, and sports stadiums. Off to one side Derek saw a massive blue swimming pool.

Then the car swerved left, dodging through traffic, took a hard right, then another left, and slid into the entryway to an underground parking garage of a high-rise. The driver pulled close to an elevator bank and stairwell. They piled out and he roared away.

“Not much time,” Noa said. “Stairs. Third floor.”

They sprinted to the stairs, Derek lagging behind, bad leg sizzling. Then they were on the third floor. He limped after them. Noa, using an entry card, opened a door and they stepped inside.

It was an apartment, furnished, but seemingly empty. “What’s this?”

“Another safehouse.”

“They know we’re in the building, don’t they?”

“Maybe.” Noa sat down and pulled out her phone, punched a button and spoke in rapid Hebrew. She clicked off. Looking at Derek, she patted the sofa next to her.

He sat down, and then it hit him. Again. He leaned forward, bad arm cradled in his good arm, sucking in air hard, heart beating wildly, pulse pounding in his ears.

Kadish said, “Drink?”

“Water?”

Kadish retrieved three bottles of water from the refrigerator, drinking half of his in one gulp.

Taking a swallow, Derek said, “You were following me?”

“Watching your back.”

“Thank you.”

With a sigh, Noa said, “Someone set you up.”

“Me?”

“Specifically you, yes.”

Kadish said, “We caught some chatter. Said, basically, ‘Stillwater will be at Marriott.’”

Derek grew very still. Slowly, thinking it through, he said, “el-Sisi? Urabi?”

They didn’t speak, both of the Israelis watching him closely.

“O’Bannon?” he said.

Noa shrugged. “Maybe.”

Teeth clenched, he powered up his phone. “Who’s on the line?”

Irina: Johnston, Konstantin and myself.

Johnston: Sit-rep.

“The fucking
CIA
might have used me as bait.”

Johnston: Derek—

“O’Bannon demanded I come along for a meeting with this guy, probably his counterpart, then told me to go out on the street and wait, they had sensitive things to talk about. And about a minute later Nazif’s people showed up, and they were being chased by Egyptian military.”

“The setup could have been by el-Sisi and Urabi,” Noa said.

“You know anything about Urabi?”

She nodded. “My people don’t think he or el-Sisi would be supporting Nazif. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t use you as bait.”

“But you think O’Bannon did.”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but it doesn’t have to go that way—”

Her phone rang. She answered it, listened, and clicked off. “Schmuel’s all right.”

Kadish breathed a sigh of relief. Derek said, “Schmuel?”

“The driver. He ditched the car. He’s clear. He’s got an eye on the building and so far he thinks they’ve lost the scent. They’re nowhere in the area.”

“Now what?”

“Give it a little more time, then we’ll regroup.”

Irina: Sholes is calling in.

Before Derek could answer, Noa gripped his arm and held a finger to her lips. She said, “Roll with me. Let her on.”

Sholes: Dear God, Stillwater. Where are you?

Noa: This is Shoshan. Derek’s down.

Static filled the line.

Sholes: What?

Noa: They were chasing us and shooting up the car. He got hit. He’s in bad shape. We’re getting him to a private doctor.

Sholes: Where are you? Dammit, Shoshan!

Noa: I’ll update you when I can.

Sholes: There’s another video. We need to talk to Stillwater.

Noa: He can’t talk to you now. He’s in bad shape. I’ll get in touch when I can.

And she ended the connection, smiling at Derek.

After waiting fifteen
minutes, Noa led them out of the apartment. Out the door, down the stairs and out the front of the building.

A black
SUV
with dark tinted windows pulled up. They climbed in. Schmuel was behind the wheel. “Egyptian military caught one of the vans. At least one of Nazif’s men survived. That’s all we have so far.”

Noa looked at Derek. He shrugged. “At least using me as bait panned out for somebody.”

Schmuel said, “iPad. Cued to the latest video.”

Noa took it and tapped the screen as Schmuel pulled into traffic, keeping a careful eye on his rearview mirror.

Mandalevo sat in
a straight-backed chair in a back room. He wasn’t tied down this time. His head was bandaged. What was visible of his face was a mass of bruises.

In a slow, slurred voice, he read off what must have been a prepared statement.

“The Nazif Brigade demands video proof of Abdul Nazif’s impending release in sixty minutes. The video is to be provided to Al Jazeera, which will verify it and broadcast it on their website worldwide.” He paused, his voice like a steep rasp covered in wool. “If the video is not available at that time, they will cut off my right hand.”

He swallowed, looked away from the camera to someone out of sight, then turned back. “I believe they will do what they say.”

Someone off-camera spoke in Arabic.

Noa said, “They said ‘stick to the script.’”

“At that time we will provide a location for Derek Stillwater to be one hour later. If Stillwater—” Mandalevo shook his head, wincing.

The Arabic voice again.

“’Read it,’” Noa translated.

“No,” Mandalevo said. “Derek, under no circumstances are you to do this.”

The Arabic voice repeated the warning.

Jaw firm, staring at the speaker off-camera, Mandalevo said, “No. I won’t.”

Hussein Nazif appeared holding a black semi-automatic in his hand. He aimed it at Mandalevo’s leg.

“Read it or I will shoot you in the kneecap,” he said in English.

“Just read it,” Derek said, heart racing, the taste of bile on his tongue.

Mandalevo glared at Nazif with his one good eye, then looked at the camera. “If Stillwater does not show up on time alone in the location specified, they will kill me.”

The video ended.

The room was silent.

Johnston:
NSA
is on it.

Konstantin: Our people are working on it as well.

A hairball, thought Derek. But maybe the whole world was working on it.

Derek turned to Noa. “There isn’t much we can do about the first deadline. But do you think your team could throw a net around me in the next two hours.”

Johnston: Do not do that, Derek. Do not give him what he wants.

“I’ve two hours to end this, one way or the other, Jim. We can’t let Nazif make the rules. What is the U.S. going to do about the video?”

Johnston: I’ll find out. But do not go to the location he gives you. He’ll gun you down and then kill Mandalevo and disappear back into the desert.

Noa sat up. “I think I have an idea.”