Full Throttle(35)

Abdullah tearfully admitted to thinking the stones were real and stealing them off the woman at the night market. After he’d been late delivering the additional syringes of the serum. You see, the narcotic took precision equipment—equipment that had been delayed by weeks—to make, as well as hours to mix. Abdullah had only had time to cook up one dose before Umar and a handful of his men were forced to depart on the mission to abduct the woman. But Abdullah had assured him there would be many more doses waiting at the night market.

There hadn’t been. And the woman had nearly regained enough of her functions to cause Umar real trouble when Abdullah finally appeared.

Now, Umar could have forgiven Abdullah one mistake, but two?

It’d been easy enough to order his second-in-command to put a bullet in Abdullah’s brainpan. It would be just as easy to do the same now to those of his men who were threatening to ruin all his careful planning…

Such mind-bendingly careful planning. There had been finding the desperate hotel maid, paying off the hotel security officer and the men at the window-washing company, bribing the scarf seller at the night market, and the precise timing of the executions and explosions. Not to mention the weeks of misinformation he’d leaked across the Internet to throw the Americans off his trail and point the spotlight on the older sister. All this he had managed to do, to coordinate with the utmost precision because the stars had aligned. Because the American president was due to leave office in a few months and his daughter had dared to allow the horticultural convention to post her scheduled appearance on their website. And all this was about to be ruined by his stupid, overzealous soldiers.

So, yes. He was going to kill someone.

As if Allah was listening to his thoughts and granting his wish, Azahari, his second-in-command—his right-hand man as the Americans would say—appeared on the edge of the jungle. When he saw Umar aiming his AK-47 directly at his heart, Azahari cocked his head, his eyes narrowing as he lifted his hands.

“What is it, abang?” Azahari asked, calling him brother. “Why do you point your weapon at me?”

“You are not my brother,” Umar growled, his finger tightening on the trigger. “My brother is rotting away in an American prison cell. And if you have killed that woman, if you have thrown away the only leverage I have—”

“We were not the ones shooting,” Azahari interrupted, then lessened the blow of the insult of speaking over Umar by bowing his head in submission. He lifted a hand to include the two men now lined up behind him.

“Then where are the ones who were shooting?” Umar demanded, refusing to lower his weapon even though the strain on his drugged muscles was immense. He hoped the young soldiers could not see him shaking. He had learned long ago never to show weakness of any kind. In his world, the weak were used most ruthlessly or killed simply for the pleasure of seeing the satisfying spurt of blood.

“They have been carried downstream,” Azahari told him. “They were trying to follow the Americans across the Sedikit bridge when the man cut the supports and sent them falling into the river. Those that survive the current will likely be dragged back to Ipoh.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Umar growled in English, spitting on the ground to convey his disgust.

Azahari tilted his head, not understanding.

“There is no equivalent translation,” he explained.

Azahari nodded, then motioned to one of the fighters. “If I may,” he said, asking Umar’s permission.

“Indeed.” Umar dipped his chin, finally lowering his weapon.

Noordin, another of his more reliable men, pushed an Italian-made motorcycle out of the undergrowth. Hanging over the handlebars was a black backpack.

“It appears in his haste to escape,” Azahari said, “the American left his equipment behind.”

A smile tugged at Umar’s lips. “So they are alone in the jungle without provisions?”

“It would seem so.”

Good. Very good. “Get on the satellite phone. Call the others,” he commanded. He had sent half his soldiers eastward, toward the highway, in search of the Americans while he headed west to the logging roads. “Tell them we have located the man and woman. Give them our coordinates and tell them they are to follow us into the jungle. We are going on a hunt.”

“But the bridge,” Azahari said, “it is useless. We’ll have to go back to—”

“Where were you born?” Umar interrupted, anticipation burning through his veins, charring away the last remnants of the drug, allowing him to stand taller, straighter.

“I was…I…” Azahari shook his head, confused by the sudden change in subject.