The trouble with tigers, p.15
The Trouble With Tigers, page 15
The Hawk grinned and tucked his gun away. “A clever plan.”
Chapter Twenty-One
We flew to Multan City onboard the Hawk’s private gunship. His men were waiting for us at the airport and drove us to a small gated compound.
Ali, a grizzled fighter and the Hawk’s second-in-command, proudly displayed the grisly head. “As you tell, Sahib.” His heavily accented English made him hard to understand.
I had to admit, the special effects artist had done a bang-up job. “I think it needs a tad more blood.”
Dutch studied it for a minute. “She’s right. Severed heads bleed a lot.”
“That they do,” Dad agreed.
The Hawk nodded. “Have more blood added, Ali.”
Ali picked up the head and hurried off.
Samson paced nervously. “If Mehsud figures out we’re scamming him, we’re all dead.”
I frowned at him. What had happened to the cocky, I’m a badass CIA agent out to save the world from evildoers? God, I hoped he wasn’t losing his nerve.
“Keep Mehsud’s attention on the head. Explain how you killed the Hawk. He’ll want to hear all the gory details,” Dutch told him.
“Tell him the Hawk begged for mercy,” I added.
The Hawk snarled, “Me? Beg for mercy? Never!”
“I know that, but it’ll give Mehsud the big O.”
“She’s right. Mehsud will love it,” Dad said.
Samson glanced down at his watch. “In ninety minutes, my men die.”
“The only people dying is Mehsud and all the terrorists.” I handed out the burkas. “Let’s see how they look on.”
I struggled into mine and watched the guys pull theirs on.
The Hawk yanked at the mesh cloth covering his eyes. “How do women see out of this?”
“With great difficulty.” My burka made me feel like I was wearing a death shroud.
Dutch assumed a model’s pose. “How do I look?”
“Like a man pretending to be a woman. You and Dad are too damned big, and the burkas don’t cover your combat boots.” Hmm. If I gave them a cane and they bent over it and shuffled like they were a hundred years old, they might pass as women. I spotted Ali in the hallway and waved my hand at him. “Woohoo! Got any canes lying around?”
“I will search memsahib.” Ali rushed off.
I turned my attention back to the men. “Alrighty. Let’s hear your mourning wail.”
Dad howled like a coyote in heat.
Dutch kinda sounded like a Basset Hound.
The Hawk’s keening wail was perfect.
“Okay. Okay. Enough. The Hawk nailed it. Try to sound more like him.”
Dutch shrieked like a rabid banshee.
“I love you a lot pumpkin, but that’s gonna get you shot.”
Samson stood there with a horrified look on his face. “Good God, we’re doomed.”
“Suck it up, buttercup. Or have you turned into a fucking coward?” I taunted.
Rage flared to life in Samson’s eyes. “The worst decision I ever made was to use your talents. I rue the day I met you.”
The smug bastard was back. “Me too, princess. Having to save your ass all the time is getting old.”
Dutch body-blocked Samson. “Focus on your men.”
Ali rushed into the room with the canes. “Happy news, Sahib. Samson’s men still live and are in the basement prison.”
The Hawk ripped off his burka. “Was Marta able to get the keys and locate al-Jaheishi’s escape tunnels?”
“Yes. The main escape passageway is in the last cell. Pull the hanging chain and the door will open.”
“If we lock the cell door, will that keep the bastards from following us?” Dutch removed his burka.
Ali shrugged. “She did not say.”
I patted Dutch’s chest. “Take a couple of flash bangs with you. That’ll slow them down.”
He grinned at me. “You think like a cop.”
“No need to be insulting,” Dad growled. “Any news on the missile?”
“A truck carrying the missile entered al-Jaheishi’s compound two hours ago.”
“Last month al-Jaheishi acquired an old Russian ICBM mobile launcher. He can have the missile ready to launch within two hours,” the Hawk said.
I took the canes from Ali. “A little C-4 should take care of that. I say we go light up their lives.”
“It’ll be like the Fourth of July, only better.” A feral smile curved Dad’s mouth.
I grinned. Dad loved blowing up stuff.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Abu al-Jaheishi compound was a three-story stone building surrounded by huge perimeter walls and four massive guard towers.
Samson slowly drove an old battered jeep up to the gates. On the passenger’s seat was a bloody cardboard box with the head.
As soon as he stopped and raised his hands, we ambled toward the gates.
“It’s like being trapped in a bed sheet,” Dutch groused as he did the old lady shuffle.
I smothered a laugh and started keening. Dutch, Dad and the Hawk added their voices to caterwauling.
Heavily armed fighters poured out of the compound and surrounded Samson’s jeep. There had to be at least twenty rifles pointed at him.
I smirked. They had left the gates wide open and the men in the guard towers had vanished. Wailing loudly, we walked right by them and not a single man glanced our way. Nope. The fighters were too busy whooping and hollering over the head to pay us any attention. Several of the idiots fired off their Kalashnikov rifles. To me, it was dangerous and a waste of bullets.
A burka clad woman opened a door and motioned to us. We rushed inside.
The Hawk demanded, “Where is Mehsud, Marta?”
“With his whore,” Marta answered in perfect English and handed the Hawk a key.
Dad snorted. “He’s got the deal of the century going down and he’s fucking some hooker?”
“Sex is one of his weaknesses. Marta simply exploited it,” the Hawk said.
“What about Abu al-Jaheishi?” Dutch straightened to his full height.
“In the john. I put some laxative in his lamb stew,” Marta replied.
I gasped. “He has real toilets?”
“It’s more of an outhouse setup.” Marta picked up a tray with two bowls of God knows what and handed it to the Hawk. “It’s dinner time and the guard will be expecting me. Their cell is down the stairs and to the left. The guard’s armed.” She placed a key on the tray. “That key unlocks all the cell doors. Be careful.”
“I’m always careful.” The Hawk opened the door and started down the stairs. Dutch followed behind him.
Dad pulled off his burka. “Where’s the truck with the missile?”
“I’ll show you.” Marta eased the door open, glanced around and gestured to us. “Follow me.”
We hurried down a narrow dirt street that smelled of urine. Guess Abu al-Jaheishi didn’t believe in sharing his outhouse. I mentally linked with a hawk perched on the roof. “Watch. Warn,” I commanded.
The hawk screeched.
My jaw dropped when I spotted the truck. It was a rusted out 1970s Nissan diesel lorry. Was that duct tape? Dang. It was. They had duct taped the missile to the trailer. I guess that was one way to keep it from falling off.
Dad scratched his head. “How in the hell did they manage to get the missile on that itty-bitty trailer?”
“Uh, duct tape,” I snickered.
Marta laughed. “According to the driver, it fell off a couple of times and even rolled down a mountainside. That’s when they decided to duct tape it to the trailer.”
“And al-Jaheishi didn’t have a problem with all this duct tape? I mean, it’ll take them a couple of hours to get the shit off,” I said.
“He didn’t, but his eyesight is pretty bad.”
“No kidding.”
Dad examined the dented grid fins. “The missile won’t fly properly, and I bet the guidance system is busted all to hell.”
“We still need to blow it up,” Marta said.
“Yeah, it’s repairable.” Dad quickly planted several bombs on the missile.
I glanced around. “You’d think al-Jaheishi would have posted guards on the missile.”
Marta snorted. “He did. The fools couldn’t wait to see the Hawk’s head.”
“It’s a good thing so many bad guys are morons.” I walked over to a holding pen with eight camels and a bunch of goats. They should shake things up a bit. I linked with the camels first and ordered, “Run. Run like the wind. Get far, far away from this place. Don’t let those men stop you.” Opening the gate, I stood back and watched the camels bolt down the street in a lumbering gallop. A minute later, the fighters at the front gate started yelling bloody murder as they got knocked on their asses and trampled.
I turned my Doctor Doolittle powers on the goats and walked them over to the street. “See those men there?”
The goats bleated.
“Yep, those stinky men. I want you to head butt as many as you can.”
The smiling goats trotted off.
Marta and I peeked around the corner. The goats were having a great time, the fighters not so much. Samson stood on the hood of his jeep, watching the goats’ antics with a worried frown.
“That should keep them occupied.” Marta’s voice was full of laughter.
“Oh yeah.” My gaze fell on a metal shed behind the truck. “Oh lookie, Dad, another big red sign. I wonder what kind of goodies they have in there.”
“Grenades, ammo, rocket launchers and an assortment of weapons,” Marta advised.
“Not for long.” Dad placed a wad of C-4 on the back wall and attached a detonator.
Out of the blue Marta said, “Samson can’t stop talking about you.”
I chuckled. “Our relationship is complicated. The smug bastard thought he could intimidate me into working for him. That didn’t go quite as he planned.”
“Did you really shoot off his little toe?”
“I did.”
The hawk screeched a warning.
I linked with him. Crap. “Mehsud and some skinny dude with an eye patch are on the move.”
“al-Jaheishi,” Marta supplied.
Dad pulled his pistol. “Are they heading our way or going for the head?”
“The head.”
“We have fifteen minutes before those babies blow,” Dad warned.
Dutch’s voice sounded in my ear, “Mother Goose we are clear. The party starts in five minutes.”
“Copy that,” I replied.
Marta let out a relieved sigh. “Let’s boogie.”
We followed her to a sewer grate.
I shook my head in disbelief as she lifted the metal grate. “Not very imaginative, is he? If a Seal team paid al-Jaheishi a visit, they’d be laughing their asses off.”
“al-Jaheishi has several poorly disguised escape tunnels.” She climbed down a ladder.
“Paranoid and stupid.” I descended after her.
As soon as I cleared the bottom rung, Dad jumped down. “Move it. I doubt this tunnel is up to code.”
“Good point.” I peeled off the burka and ran for it.
The tunnel came out in the kitchen of a small cafe. The poor cook about had a heart attack when we popped out of the storeroom.
I waved at him all friendly-like. “Hey there, we’re just passing through.” Which seemed to piss him off. Maybe it was me speaking English or the fact that I wasn’t wearing a burka. Whatever.
“Allah Akbar,” the cook yelled and came at us with a knife.
Dad kicked the knife out of the cook’s hand and punched him the face. The cook flew back and crashed into a side of lamb.
I tapped my earbud. “Papa Goose we’re clear.”
“Copy that,” Dutch responded.
“Let’s get to the rendezvous point before all hell breaks loose,” Dad said.
The street was eerily empty. “What happened to all the people?”
“Maybe they wanted a look at the head too,” Marta said.
Dad’s watch beeped. “Take cover.”
We ducked under a fruit market’s awning.
A thunderous cracking boom shook the ground. Pieces of rocky debris and blazing shrapnel rained down, starting several buildings on fire.
A Humvee squealed to a stop and a door was thrown open. “Get in,” Dutch yelled.
The minute our butts hit the seat Dutch punched it.
“Are Chet, Ted and Juan going to be okay?” I was worried sick about them.
Dutch swerved around a burning hunk of metal. “A couple of days in the hospital and they’ll be fine.”
Marta struggled out of her burka. “What about Samson?”
“He and The Hawk are taking out the missile launcher.”
To my surprise Marta looked like the girl next door. Complete with freckles and a ponytail. “Oh God, don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for Samson?”
“Have you seen him without a shirt on?”
“I have,” I answered.
“And you don’t think he’s hot?”
“Hell no. Dutch’s physique puts Samson’s to shame. My guy also beats him in the looks department. To top it off, Dutch kisses like a dream, and he’s a genuine good guy. Samson on the other hand, has the personality of a pit viper. Ethics to him is a four-letter word.”
Marta laughed. “He can be a bit intense.”
“A bit? You’d be better off with the Hawk. At least he likes cats.”
A secretive smile curved Marta’s mouth. “The Hawk’s very good at giving a woman what she needs.”
“And unlike Samson he’s charming.” I met Dutch’s narrow-eyed gaze in the rearview mirror. “Hey, a girl can look.”
“Does that go for me too?” Dutch waggled his eyebrows. “I can look?”
“Nope.”
“We’ve picked up a tail,” Dad warned.
Dutch glanced at the sideview mirror. “The black turban on the motorbike?”
“That’s him.”
I smothered a yelp when a bullet blew out the back window. God, I hated getting shot at.
Dad calmly raised his Glock and fired.
I risked a quick peek. Turban was sprawled on the dusty street. The riderless motorbike zoomed into an open-air café, knocking over tables and chairs.
Kaboom! Four streets over a mushrooming fireball rose high into the air.
The Hawk said in my ear, “The missile launcher has been destroyed. Go to the rendezvous point.”
“Copy,” Dutch said and turned down a side street.
The airport was our rendezvous spot. One more task and we could leave Pakistan forever.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mehsud, Abu al-Jaheishi and his terrorists were dead. Every single one of them. The only ones not accounted for were Kuti and General Brendan. Dutch and my father were sure they had been killed when Mehsud’s compound blew. Me? Not so much.
To keep my promise to all those lost souls, we were returning to what was left of Mehsud’s compound. Dad planned on searching for their bodies while I did my woo-woo stuff.
The Hawk escorted us over to a Cobra gunship. “Is this adequate for your needs?”
Dad checked out the cockpit. “It’ll do.”
“Wouldn’t it be smarter to take a smaller helicopter? It could get us in and out quickly. Gunships are noisy and make attractive targets,” I pointed out.
Dad gave me his “father knows best” look. “The desert is loaded with roving bands of bandits and we aren’t sure what we’ll find at Mehsud’s compound. I want something that can blow those motherfuckers back to hell. Now load the equipment.”
“Yes, sir.”
While Dutch and I loaded our weapons and supplies onboard, Dad ran through the flight checklist.
The Hawk made himself comfortable in the co-pilot’s seat. He said he needed to see Mehsud’s compound for himself. I think he wanted to make sure his helicopter came back in one piece.
“I never knew your Dad could fly,” Dutch said.
“You never asked.”
“Can you fly?”
“I have a pilot’s license. It comes in handy when I have to go out-of-state to find lost critters.”
Dutch kissed the tip of my nose. “It’s going to take me an eternity to learn everything there is to know about you.”
“And then some.”
The rotor blades started spinning.
Dutch put on his flight helmet and gunner’s safety harness. “Does your mother fly?”
“Not with us. She refuses to ride in anything smaller than a commercial jetliner and she has to be drunk to do that.” I gestured to the door mounted .30 caliber machine gun. “You any good with that thing?”
“I am.”
I gave him a thumbs up.
Ducking under the blades, Samson scrambled onboard and buckled in.
I glared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“My boss wants pictures of Mehsud’s compound.”
I snorted. “Why can’t they use one of their nifty satellites or a drone to take pictures?”
“They want a ground assessment.”
“Yippee.”
Dutch patted my shoulder. “It’s only for a couple of hours, honey.”
“God, I hope so.” I was ready to sic the first critter I came across on the ungrateful bastard.
The helicopter lifted off.
The rising sun painted the desert sand tangerine orange with splotches of vermillion. It was quite beautiful. The higher the sun rose, the higher the temperature got.
In a relatively short time, we were hovering over the smoldering ruins. The stupid clock tower was still standing. Except for a flock of vultures there were no signs of life.
Dad set the helicopter down on the roadway. “Can you cross them over from here?”
‘Yes.”
“Watch over her Dutch,” Dad commanded, grabbed his rifle and climbed out.
