The Oracle (Fargo Adventures #11) - Clive Cussler Page 0,67
They’re worth nothing if they’re dead.”
The four men climbed up the hillside. Jimi followed Makao to his pickup, taking the passenger’s seat as Makao got behind the wheel, while the other two jumped in the back. Makao’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out, looked at the screen, recognized the Tunisian number. He dropped the phone in the cupholder, ignoring the call. The phone buzzed again and Jimi reached for it.
“Don’t answer. It’s Tarek,” he said. “I don’t want him to know what’s going on.”
“He’s not going to like it if he finds out.”
“Who says he’s going to find out?” he said as he maneuvered the truck back and forth on the narrow road until he was facing downhill.
Once they reached the lower trail where the Fargos’ truck was abandoned, he turned off the headlights and continued on at a much slower pace.
“Why’d you turn off the headlights?”
“Making sure we get down this hill alive and past that farm. It’ll be hard to collect a ransom if we’re dead.”
“You’re driving a white pickup. They’re bound to see it once you’re on the main road. It’ll be safer with the lights on.”
Makao ignored him, driving as fast as he dared on the straightaway, then slowing to a snail’s pace at the next curve, his eyes straining to make out any details in the road.
“Pothole,” Jimi said.
Makao cursed when the front end dipped down, slamming into the dirt road. At this rate, they were never making it down the hill. He finally turned on the headlights, hoping whoever was at that farm wasn’t watching.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
However long the night, the dawn will break.
– AFRICAN PROVERB –
Myriad emotions flashed across Okoro’s face as he listened to what Sam was telling him. “You say my daughter is one of the hostages at the school?”
“With my wife,” Sam said. “Had we known anything like this would happen, we never would’ve—”
“No.” He stood, fists clenched, directing his rage at Sam. “I was told she’d be safe up there.”
“You have every right to be angry,” Sam said.
“One thing I know about Zara. She would never blame the people who helped her live her dream. She would blame the people who stole it.” His jaw muscles ticked as he held Sam’s gaze. “Who are they? Boko Haram? Fulani terrorists?”
“We’re not sure.”
“I’m going to find these men. And I’ll kill them if any harm comes to my daughter.”
Lazlo burst into the front door, out of breath. “Lights . . . Headlights.”
“Where?” Sam asked.
It took him a moment before he could answer. “Coming down from the hills.”
Sam and Okoro ran outside, then down the drive, until they had a view of the road that ran across the north edge of the property. Sam caught a glimpse of headlights about three-quarters of the way down the hillside before it was lost in the trees again. “We may have about ten minutes before they get here.” He turned around, looking at the dead guards lying outside the mud-sided building, wondering if he should hide them.
There wasn’t time. The vehicle was coming fast.
Sam passed out the long guns taken from the dead men. “Don’t shoot unless I give the order.”
Okoro and his three farmhands followed Sam. “I say we just kill them.”
“As much as I agree with you,” Sam said, stepping over one of the dead men, “alive will be better.”
“Why?”
“Because they might provide valuable information about where the girls are.”
Lazlo rejoined them. All five men set up behind the dead gunmen’s pickup, aiming at Makao’s white Toyota as it pulled into the long drive and stopped about two hundred yards out.
“Do you think they saw us?” Lazlo asked.
As if in answer, the vehicle suddenly reversed, tires spinning in the dirt as it backed to the road and sped off.
Sam stood, watching as the red taillights disappeared around the bend, not relaxing until he saw the Toyota cresting the hill past the bend in the road. “Something alerted them.”
Lazlo held up one of the phones from the dead guard. “Missed phone call, would be my guess.”
“I’m going after them,” Sam said, walking behind the barn.
“Not without me,” Okoro replied, following him and Lazlo.
Sam had no sooner slid behind the wheel than his phone rang. Amal’s number showed on the screen. “It’s Makao,” Sam said, then answered.
“Show me my money or you’ll never see your wife again.”
The words echoed through Sam’s brain and he clamped his mouth shut when what he wanted to do was reach through the phone and strangle the