Enemy Contact - Mike Maden Page 0,88

and pointed it at Cluzet’s face.

Cluzet raised his hands higher. “Whoa, hold on there, cowboy. You can take what you want.”

“I want all of it.”

“That will be kind of a problem.”

“Not for me.” He grinned. He snicked the safety release to “fire” with his thumb. “I kill you all, then I take everything.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. But before you kill me, can I pray?”

The man grinned, flashing a golden tooth. “Of course. I’m a religious man myself. But hurry.”

Cluzet dropped to his knees and raised his outstretched hands even higher, shut his eyes, and shouted in English, “Oh, Michael! Thou Great Archangel high above in the sky! If you can hear me, do as I say and bring down your vengeance on these godless heathens now, while I’m still talking, before I finish my prayer, you stupid son of a bitch—”

The ground shook as the four technicals erupted in flames simultaneously, struck by Chinese laser-guided/infrared homing HJ-10 Red Arrow missiles fired from a remotely operated CH-4 Rainbow drone, a Chinese knockoff of the iconic American Predator.

The bandit flinched at the explosions, whipping around just in time to see the wreckage of his flaming vehicle tossed into the desert like a burning tumbleweed.

He spun back around, raising his pistol to fire, but Cluzet shot before the man could raise his gun, putting a nine-millimeter hollow-point round into the bridge of his wide nose, dropping him to the asphalt.

The Spaniard jogged up, a pistol in his hand.

“You okay, jefe?”

“Never better.”

Cluzet stood, turned aside, and spoke into his mic. “Nice shooting.”

The Frenchman was speaking to the lead drone pilot for Star Surveillance, a legitimate security contractor that was also silent-partnered with the Iron Syndicate, who deployed them for operations such as Cluzet’s.

“Thank you, sir.”

“So tell me, how was your nap?”

“Sir?”

“Surely you were sleeping. How else could those bastards have surprised us?”

“They must have taken up position before our cameras were in range. Advance reconnaissance wasn’t in our mission profile. My apologies.”

“Well, we’re stuck here for a while now. Keep your eyes open and alert me if anyone approaches. Understood?”

“Loud and clear, sir.”

Cluzet checked his Russian paratrooper watch. Time was not his friend. He needed eight truck tires right away, but he was out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.

The German approached. He must have been reading Cluzet’s mind. “Where are we going to find tires for your rig?”

“I’ll put in a call back to Beyneu. Perhaps they can bring some out.”

“We could unload your cargo. Reshuffle the load on the other two trucks.”

“That would take hours. And if the police arrive when we’re in the middle of it?”

A wounded cry echoed in the darkness.

“Do you want me to stay with your truck and you take the others and drive ahead? At least most of the load will arrive on time if we push on.”

“And leave you out here to defend yourself? I doubt those bastards work alone.”

Cluzet held up his still-smoking pistol, a PAMAS G1 nine-millimeter. The all-steel gun was a French-manufactured Beretta 92 issued to him in the Légion Etrangère. He never missed with it. “Three pistols are better than one, n’est-ce pas?”

“Natürlich,” the German said.

“Grab the extinguishers from the trucks and put out those fires. No point in drawing attention to ourselves,” Cluzet said.

“And the wounded?” the Spaniard asked.

“Put them out of their misery.” Cluzet laid a hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. “But don’t waste any bullets on them. We might need them later.”

52

Liliana’s Audi coupe pulled into the hotel’s little courtyard at precisely ten a.m., as per their arrangement. She said she wanted to avoid morning rush-hour traffic. Their four-hour trip to Gdańsk would be long enough already. She hadn’t offered to bring him breakfast and he was grateful for that, partly because he woke up still full from dinner and dessert; mostly because he needed to kill the craving for something sweet. “Metaphor alert,” he told himself as he headed to the small hotel gym on the first floor at six a.m., banging out enough burpees to leave him gasping for air and wanting to puke.

And then he did twenty more.

All he really needed was strong, black coffee and he knew exactly where to get it. After his three S’s, he did exactly that, then came back to his room and checked his e-mail and text messages, and even managed to knock out some more of the Dubai project.

But standing there and watching her car pull up created just a little dread in