Court said, “Damn, Zack. Your boss is an asshole.”
“Tell me about it.”
An hour later, Court Gentry parked the Skoda at the shack hidden in the marsh grasses, climbed out, and entered with his pistol raised in front of him. The dark hooch was just as he’d left it, though even hotter and stuffier.
Oryx was just as Court left him, as well. Gentry had injected the Sudanese president with a syringe preloaded with a sedative that would knock him out for roughly two hours, and then he’d flexicuffed his hands behind his back and around the sturdy central support beam of the shack. Upon return he was cross-legged, and his head hung down as if sleeping. Between his knees Gentry had left an open bottle of water. He didn’t really know how Abboud would have drunk from it, bound as he was. But as it turned out, it appeared that the president had slept the entire time.
Thirty minutes earlier Court had dropped the surviving members of Whiskey Sierra, and one of their two dead operators, at the ocean-side pickup point fourteen miles north of Suakin. The men immediately concealed themselves and their fallen colleague in a thick mangrove swamp. Zack handed Court a small receiver that picked up a transmitter on board the Hannah so he could know where the boat was at all times, even if coms went down for some reason.
The original plan had been for the Zodiac dinghy from the Hannah to come to shore and pick up the team, but there was no way they would attempt that in daylight now. Instead, one of the crew on the CIA ship would pilot the two-man mini sub into the swamp and pick up each man, one at a time. It would take the rest of the day to effect this retrieval but it was felt by all that this was far preferable to having four injured men sitting chest-deep in brackish water for eight hours while waiting for a night pickup by the Zodiac.
Court had been instructed to return to his hide and get Oryx ready to move at a moment’s notice. It would be late evening before someone could return for the final two trips to bring out the president of Sudan and the Gray Man, but if the pickup site became somehow compromised, Gentry would need to be ready to scout out a new location on his own.
Court unhooked Oryx from the support beam of the shack, laid him on his back, then placed next to him his bottle of water and a bag of raisins that had been in his backpack.
“Eat,” he instructed.
Oryx did not move.
“You aren’t unconscious, asshole. That hypnotic I gave you has worn off.”
The president continued to lie still.
“Dude, I’m really not in the mood to play right now.”
The man did not move.
Court knelt down above him and lifted his meaty left arm into the air by his wrist. Gentry acted like he was taking his pulse, but he held the arm over the prostrate man’s face and let it go. If he were unconscious, the hand would have hit the president in the nose, but instead it lowered slowly and then flopped dramatically to the side.
“Sit up,” Court said angrily. The man still did not react.
Court pulled a multi-tool from his pack, opened the wire cutters, and placed the president’s pinky finger between the cold metal pincers.
Immediately President Abboud opened his eyes. He smiled sheepishly, his white teeth a stark contrast to his coal black face. “That is a clever trick, holding the patient’s arm over his face like that and letting it go.”
“Glad you liked it. Get your ass up, or I clip off this finger. Turning you over to the ICC with nine fingers instead of ten is just as good as far as I’m concerned.”
Oryx sat up in the dirt. He took the water and drank half of it before placing the bottle back down.
“I feel sick.”
“Just the meds. It will clear out soon enough. And you probably have a mild concussion from the Big Bang this morning.”
Oryx nodded. He asked, “How is your back?”
“It feels like some asshat shot me with an arrow. How do you think it feels?”
“Did you rescue your men from my men?”
Court looked into the man’s eyes. “Some of them.”
Oryx nodded slowly. “I regret the loss of life on both sides of the battle today.”