Cabot took a deep puff, his eyes hot as the ember at the end of the cigar. “Who sent you?” he asked, blowing the mouthful of smoke into the man’s face.
The man coughed and stepped back, the smile falling from his face.
“Someone who doesn’t appreciate your meddling in their African affairs.”
“So, that is what this is about—money?”
“No, Monsieur Cabot, money is what we carry in our pockets. What we are talking about is power and the hundreds of millions of dollars it costs to keep it,” the man said, turning to the door. “But trust me, Andre, you will find out all about it very soon.”
When he was gone, Cabot lifted the box off the table and slammed it into the wall before rounding the desk and yanking open the drawer, revealing a silver Walther PPK.
He stared down at the pistol, debating whether he should pick it up, rush out into the lobby, and put a bullet in the man’s head, when there was a polite knock at the door.
“What?” he shouted, looking up to see Beck step inside his office, holding out a satphone.
“Qui est-ce?” Who is it?
“Vlad,” the man answered, making no attempt to mask his disdain. “He says he has a solution for getting someone into Grand-Bassam.”
Cabot took the phone and pressed it to his ear, suddenly calm despite the rage that had consumed him moments earlier.
“Yes?”
“Do you still need a pilot?”
“Why, do you suddenly have a plane?”
“Yes, and plenty of room for cargo.”
“And what is it going to cost me?” Cabot asked.
“My marker.”
Cabot had learned long ago that there was no such thing as data protection. If information was recorded, either physically or stored on a drive, it could be hacked or stolen. Which was why unlike most men in his line of work, he committed everything to memory.
He paused before answering, pictured Vlad’s file in his mind. The Russian owed him a little less than a million U.S. dollars.
Most men in Cabot’s position wouldn’t have bothered with such a paltry sum, and instead of trying to collect the money would have killed the Russian.
But not Cabot.
For him, the money was secondary; what mattered was the respect. Breaking and bending men like Vlad to his will. His strategy was straight out of Clausewitz’s On War—first Cabot bought up all the man’s outstanding debts and then put the word out on the street that no one was to do business with the Russian, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the financial isolation brought him back on bended knee.
“Agreed,” Cabot said. “How soon can you begin?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Very well, but Vlad, this is your last chance. If you fail, I will kill everyone you have ever loved. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes,” the Russian said. “Crystal clear.”
“It seems our luck is beginning to change,” he said, hanging up the phone.
“So, Vlad has a plane,” Beck shrugged. “You still cannot fly.”
“No, but Zoe can,” Cabot said.
“Your daughter?”
“Go to the house, tell her to start packing.”
“And what about you?”
“I have some favors to call in,” Cabot said, turning to his desk.
8
CEUTA, SPAIN
Three hours later, the navigation computer alerted him that he was a mile from his destination. He killed the engines, dug the earplugs from his ears, and flipped the night-vision goggles up. After the continuous roar of the Mako’s engines, the silence was deafening.
Hayes was soaking wet, his face raw from the abrasive spray of the salt water, and his head ached from the night-vision goggles against his skull. But he’d been here before. Alone and beat to hell. His muscles aching, eyes burning from lack of sleep. Every fiber of his being begging him to stop before it was too late.
He thought back to the army, trying to remember the phrase they used to throw around when anyone got tired: You can rest when you’re dead.
What a bunch of bullshit, he thought, lowering his night vision and turning his attention to the tangle of marshland off the port bow.
From the cockpit, the cove appeared deserted, the only sign of life the tangle of reeds that choked the bank swaying in the wind. Even with the night vision, Hayes was unable to pierce the dense undergrowth or see anything past the dilapidated dock that bobbed near the beach.
He double-checked the coordinates.
This is the right place.
He dug the flashlight from his pocket and pointed it at the dock. He strobed the pressure pad—two long, one short, just as he’d been told—and waited.
The seconds ticked by, the thick marsh air weighing oppressively against his skin, the only sound the buzz of the mosquitoes around his ears.
Besides his ability to withstand pain and privation, Hayes’s time in Treadstone had given him a unique insight into the worlds that populated the gray zone—the shadowy world inhabited by the ghosts of cast-off countries.
Most of what he’d learned of Luca Harrak was rumor—hushed words traded over a round of drinks in one shithole bar or another.
The warnings came in whispered Russian, French, or Arabic—the language didn’t matter; the words were always the same—“a savage who’d sell his mother if the price was right.”
But Hayes had been in the game long enough to realize most of it was bullshit. Ghost stories told by rough men at the end of their serviceability. A way for them to remember the “bad old days” when they mattered.
The only thing he knew for certain was that to Luca punctuality mattered—not as a virtue but because the smuggler had learned that it was harder to hit a moving target. Hayes glanced at the Sangin Neptune strapped to his wrist. The Day-Glo hands told him that he was thirty minutes late.
Shit. Had they gone?
The answer came from the shadows, an armed man stepping out of the foliage that lined the bank, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He strolled leisurely to the edge of the dock, pausing to take a final drag of the smoke before flicking it into a barrel.
The contents ignited with a rush of flame that looked yellow through the night vision and Hayes watched the man wave him toward the shore.
He started the engine, the voice in his head screaming at him as he guided the boat toward the channel.
Are you crazy? Do not go in there.
But Hayes had come too far, gone through too much to turn back now.