Complicated Creatures: Part One Read online

  “Anything new, sir?” Sam asked, leaning down to touch the joystick on the desk, adjusting the angle of the camera and the zoom.

  “No. He’s insisting he’s a small time hawala dealer from Helmand. Still calling himself Mirwais Khan,” Collins answered.

  “Do you think it’s true, sir?”

  He shrugged. “Dialect and accent suggests he’s from Farah. He’s clearly extremely intelligent. Well-educated. And he’s endured the advanced interrogation tactics like a stalwart. I’d say he’s military trained at least. He won’t talk using the usual methods. The CIA is running facial recognition, but we’re certain he’s high up in Nazar’s organization.”

  “Hawala dealer, sir?” she asked. “So he’s saying he just moves money for Nazar?”

  Collins shook his head. “Not even that. Says he’s much lower on the food chain. He insists the photos we have were from the first time he’d ever met Nazar face-to-face.”

  “May I know his physical condition, sir?”

  “Couple cracked ribs, broken nose, two missing teeth, three broken fingers.”

  Sam nodded, looking again at the man on the screen. He was wearing a tattered tunic and pants, probably still damp with water, blood, and sweat. They’d worked him over pretty well in the past few days. Most men broke under the pain of the beatings, the oxygen deprivation, and the water boarding. Few ordinary men could withstand that level of interrogation.

  “Has he received medical attention, sir?” Sam asked, looking at Collins as she straightened.

  He favored her with a twitch of his moustache. “I thought you might want to pull a Florence Nightingale act.”

  Sam gave a brief nod. She twisted on her hijab again, covering her head and the shoulders of her battle dress fatigues. She removed her guns, knives, keys, and pen, laying them out neatly on one of the tables. She picked up the bag she’d brought in.

  “I’ll station Cartwright and Moon outside the door,” Collins told her.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Sam made her way through the building to the holding room they kept the man in. It was a simple room, small and with enough room for a mattress, toilet, and sink. One half of a wall was a panel of break-proof window, covered in metal fencing. The door, a sliding metal grate. She made her way to the entrance, waiting for one of the guards to release the lock. She stepped in as the guard slid it back, dropping the bag on the floor beside her.

  The man on the mattress moved his arm, peering up at her. She was relieved she could still see his eyes under the swollen skin and bruising. He had a heavy beard, though his hair was cropped close. She guessed he was in his late twenties or early thirties, though it was difficult to say with all the damage. He sat up slowly, painfully, clutching his side. Two of the fingers on his left hand were at odd angles. He winced as he let go of his ribs.

  “May I help you?” Sam asked him in Persian, gesturing gently at his hand.

  “Are you a nurse?” he asked in heavily accented English.

  “No,” she answered in Persian, smiling gently. “But I think I can help you. If you like.”

  The man watched her warily for a long moment before giving her a single, abrupt nod. Sam reached into the bag and brought out gauze and tape, some antiseptic cream. She moved toward him slowly, holding her hands in front of her. She sat next to him on the mattress, facing him.

  “Will you give me your hand?” she asked.

  The man watched her, his body tense. Finally, he extended his hand toward her. Slowly. She noticed the slight tremor, though his face showed no emotion. He placed his hand in hers tentatively. She covered his hand with her other one, looking into his eyes. They were unusual. A startling green hazel with deep cognac-colored striations. He was watching her equally closely, wondering if she was truly there to help him. She saw the question in his eyes. She smiled gently again.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked in Persian.

  He looked down, his brows drawing together a fraction of a second. He shook his head, lifting his eyes back to her.

  A lie.

  “Because this will,” she said, popping one of his fingers back into place.

  He gasped, immediately trying to wrench his arm back, but she held fast to his wrist. “Do you want me to fix the other ones?” she asked gently, not letting go.

  He grunted his acquiescence after a long pause, but she was already popping the other one back into place. She held her hand tight over his hand as he jerked and trembled, trying not to make a noise.

  She looked at the broken finger on his right hand. “Do you want me to fix this last one?” she asked quietly.

  He watched her through pain-addled eyes for a long time. Finally, he nodded slowly. She let go of his left hand and waited for him to place his right in her own. She noticed only slight callouses on both his hands. This man did no field work or farming, nothing mechanical, nothing heavily manual.

  “Tell me your name?” she asked.

  He looked down again, but his brow didn’t knit. His face smoothed infinitesimally. As if he were readying himself. “Mirwais.”

  Another lie.

  She felt along the knuckle of the broken finger for a moment before tugging it into place. He gasped again; this time a choked curse followed. She taped his fingers tightly while he watched her.

  When she was done, she asked him to wash his face so she could put antiseptic on his cuts and split lips. He moved slowly but he complied, satisfied she would not hurt him. As he cleaned himself, she pulled out a thermos and two small tin cups along with a small package of biscuits. She poured hot, heavily sweetened chai made the Afghan way before closing the thermos. When he turned around, drying his face on the sleeve of his shirt, he stood stock still.

  “Would you like tea?” she asked in Persian. A control question. She watched him closely.

  He looked up from the tea to her, his expression surprised, and then a flicker of gratitude. He blinked once as he said yes, his eyes clear. She handed him a small cup. He sipped it, closing his unusual eyes at the small pleasure. She could feel the relief emanate from him. Then he stiffened.

  She took a sip from her cup to show him it wasn’t poisoned.

  She offered him a biscuit.

  He took the biscuit, watching her. She also took one, again to show it wasn’t poisoned.

  They drank their tea in silence. His breathing was labored, his posture stiff from the pain in his body. But he did not complain. He said nothing.

  They watched each other.

  She offered him another cup of tea. He nodded.

  As she refilled his cup, he thanked her quietly this time, touching his hand to his heart.

  “Would you like me to put antiseptic on your face?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She let him sip his chai while she dabbed the cream gently on his face. Taping his cuts where she could. He placed his tea cup upside down on the floor to indicate he was finished.

  “Why are you showing me kindness?” he asked in English.

  “Because I need your help,” she answered in Persian.

  “How can I possibly help you?” He spat out a bitter laugh, following her back into Persian. Good, she thought. It will be easier to get clearer indicators from him in his own language.

  “You met a man named Ibrahim Nazar. Who is he to you?” she asked.

  He blinked, his brows gathering slightly. He looked down. Back up. “He’s no one to me.”

  Lie.

  “Why did you meet him, then?”

  His expression smoothed. “I’m just a hawala dealer. He asked me to send money. That is all.”

  Lie.

  “Do you know where Nazar is?”

  Eyes down. Then back up. “No.”

  Lie.

  “Do you know how to find him?”

  Brows knit. Blink. Expression impassive. “No.”

  Lie.

  She nodded. Now she knew what his lies looked like. She picked up the cups and the biscuits. When she put e
verything in the bag, she looked at him again.

  “I can’t help you with your ribs or your mouth,” she told him. “But I can give you something for the pain. Would you like that?”

  He watched her momentarily before nodding.

  She called out to the guys to come in.

  “I’m sorry to have to do it like this, but they won’t hurt you while I’m here. They’ll just hold you so I can safely inject you,” she explained to the man in Persian.

  The guards came in. One handed her a small syringe roll.

  The man calling himself Mirwais had fear in his eyes as they held him down by his shoulders and arms. But a defiance as well. As if he expected a betrayal.

  “Don’t be afraid. They won’t hurt you while I’m here,” she told him again in Persian, looking him in the eyes until he calmed. She turned his arm gently, tapping out a vein.

  “Are you sure?” she asked him quietly, again in Persian.

  They watched each other for a moment before he finally nodded.

  She injected him with number four grade pure heroin. From Ibrahim Nazar’s own confiscated shipments to Iran.

  She waited as the cloud of euphoria passed over his unusual hazel eyes.

  Then she began again.

  “What is your name?”

  Chapter 10

  October—Present day

  Mogadishu, Somalia

  S A M A N T H A

  Call it good manners. Call it military training. Whatever it was, it was generally Sam and Carey’s habit to announce their presence and intentions in a country they were visiting on official business. Just in case. With their names, backgrounds, and current line of business, they’d be flagged anyway. Better to stay friendly, or at the very least, civil.

  Sam and Carey liaised with the local CIA field office and the US Embassy in Mogadishu within two hours of touching down to let them know they were in town looking for Cameron Kurt, formerly a Sergeant in the 5th Special Forces Group out of Campbell, Kentucky. They’d tracked Kurt to Somalia, where he was trying to negotiate down a K&R demand for a Dr. Steven Bassett, an employee of Trytium Enterprises, a long-time client of Leviathan Risk. Dr. Bassett had been kidnapped while conducting an evaluation on a uranium ore excavation site his company was considering acquiring. Little had the hapless Dr. Bassett realized the mining operation had been part of a recent takeover by the al-Shabaab, a radical Somalian militia group interested in leveraging his kidnap to fund their more nefarious pursuits.

  Kurt had done an admirable job so far, negotiating the radical militia group’s initial ransom demand down from twenty million US dollars to three in the forty-odd days he’d been here, if Simon’s intel was accurate. The CIA and US Embassy knew the al-Shabaab held Dr. Bassett, also an American, but no one had provided much more information than that during the debrief, keeping the meeting short and concise.

  As Sam and Carey watched Foreign Service officers and CIA field agents file out of the conference room they’d been debriefed in, she chewed her lip. The whole thing reeked of what remained unsaid. The CIA and the US Embassy weren’t getting involved for a larger reason. Sam knew it. So did Carey. They exchanged looks before Carey drew aside one of the officers, a former Navy man and a friend from his days at Coronado. Sam remained at the edge of the office, one eye on the office window overlooking the Embassy’s cubicle farm.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Carey asked quietly.

  The man ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “We’re about ninety-five percent sure they’re not giving up Bassett, no matter what Kurt puts on the table to get him back.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a uranium ore mining expert, man. Al-Shabaab thinks they’ve got buyers in Iran, possibly Pakistan. This isn’t about a ransom funding a two-bit militia anymore. The CIA’s in on this now,” he explained, eyes glancing nervously over Carey’s shoulder to the outside window off the conference room. “The Al-Shabaab have graduated from robbing a liquor store to trying to hold up Fort Knox in one leap.”

  “And?” Carey prompted.

  The man’s bounced briefly to Sam. She drank her coffee, looking bored, a safe distance away as she kept her eye on the door.

  “There’s been mining-induced seismic activity spotted by drones patrolling the Northern Maakhir area,” he told Carey in a low voice. “It’s now an al-Shabaab stronghold. The extraction sites are there. I’ve seen the pictures from drone surveillance. I’d bet my 401(k) they’re keeping Bassett there, running the excavation.”

  Someone passed the window, looking in on them. Carey patted the guy’s shoulder and said in a cordial voice, “You tell your wife I send my best. She makes the best damn lasagna I’ve ever tasted, and don’t tell my mama.”

  The guy nodded, shaking Carey’s hand quickly before leaving the office with a nod to Sam.

  “If this shit isn’t a recipe for a hot-ass mess, I don’t know what is,” Carey muttered as they left the Embassy. “Uranium dealing, an expert that may or may not get exchanged for a chunk of untraceable bills, and a highly mobile militia group with the predictability of a squirrel with its ass on fire. I don’t like it. Let’s get Kurt and get the fuck out.”

  “If they’re sending drones in on regular surveillance, it’s a target,” Sam murmured in agreement. “Add seismic activity and you’re looking at a real possibility of an airstrike within the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. No one will survive. Bassett’s ass is good as grass.”

  An hour later, they met up with Simon and Henri at the hotel.

  “We just missed him,” Simon informed them. “Bank confirmed Kurt was in this morning, picking up an undisclosed sum of cash. If he’s following protocol, he’s underground now. Won’t be coming back to the hotel or anywhere anyone can find him with that amount of money.”

  “Now that Kurt’s got the money, the exchange goes down sometime in the next twenty-four hours,” Henri added, his expression grave. Julien Henri had a narrow build, supple, ageless midnight skin and a shockingly deep voice tinged with a French lilt. “It gives him enough time to prepare, but he won’t want to hold the money for long,” Henri told them.

  Carey looked up at Samantha. She nodded.

  Carey filled them in on what they’d learned at the Embassy.

  “Fuuuuck me,” Simon groaned. “Bloody airstrikes now? Give a wanker a fuckin’ break!”

  Henri watched Sam and Carey exchange looks before breaking out into a wide grin as he guessed what they were thinking, his eyes excited.

  Simon’s head swiveled to Henri. Then Sam.

  “We’ve got the fire power stored in the jet,” Sam shrugged. “And we’ve got the connections to get anything else we need between the four of us.”

  Carey looked at Simon and Henri. “You boys interested in stirrin’ up a little trouble?”

  “Like cowboys?” Henri grinned.

  “Uh…not quite.”

  “No, mate,” Simon answered. “More like the bloody cavalry. This is so fucking American—I love it!” He shot up. “I need to see a man about a car.”

  “Henri—See if you can pull some of your remaining strings at Leviathan to get a handle on where the exchange is happening,” Sam asked. “If it’s somewhere other than the mining area, we need to know that ASAP so we can let our contacts at the Embassy and with the CIA when and where we’re doing the extraction,” Sam told him. He nodded, pulling out his phone.

  They agreed to meet up in an hour in Sam’s suite to begin planning.

  As Carey followed Sam onto the elevator, he peered down at her. “What was all that about being too damn old to be dragging people out of hot zones a month ago?”

  She shrugged, hitting the button to their floor. “What’s the point of living without a little risk? And besides, we’re already here. What the hell else we got to do?”

  “Kurt doesn’t even work for us yet,” Carey shook his head, smiling in spite of himself.

  “Oh, but after this, he will.”

  *<
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  October—One day later

  Northern Maakhir Region, Somalia

  S A M A N T H A

  “What are you wearing, love?” Simon Michelson purred.

  Sam’s lips twitched. Cheeky bastard. She touched her earpiece. “You saw me six hours ago. What do you think has changed?”

  “You have a gun now,” came his reply.

  “Careful, Michaelson. I may have just hired you, but I won’t hesitate to graze the side of your head with a copper-jacket I polished myself this morning.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty,” he answered, unfazed.

  Sam chuckled softly, touching her earpiece to turn off her mic as she adjusted the Leupold scope on her Barrett M95. She scanned the sandy, vermillion cliffs of the mining area they were covering while flat on her belly, her rifle propped on its bipod legs. The whole package fit nicely under her ghillie suit. She couldn’t imagine anything less sexy than being covered in burlap netting, sandy dirt, and dried shrub. If Simon Michaelson could use that as a foundation for naughty imaginings, the man was not right in the head.

  “Hey, Michaelson,” Carey clicked on. “How come you didn’t ask what I was wearing?” His amusement was clear even through the comms.

  “Don’t want to imagine your ugly mug, mate,” Simon replied.

  “Shut up both of you,” Julien Henri chimed in, his voice a hoarse whisper. “You’ll give me PTSD.”

  They were deep in the heart of al-Shabaab territory covered in sand and camo, lying in triangle formation around the encampment, holding rifles that cost as much as a new Kia. Henri was stationed the closest to the site because Simon had called it—he was a right crazy bastard. Over the course of the hours they’d lain in wait, Henri had inched himself closer until he was less than fifty yards out from the encampment they surrounded. Carey was somewhere around a hundred yards out. She was covering both of them at about three hundred yards away. Simon remained hidden among the brush less than a mile away in a modified Humvee kitted out with a machine gun he’d procured from God knew where.

  “I’ve got movement,” Henri whispered. “Third tent to the left. Four, no—five tangoes exiting. No sign of the cargo.”