Da’ud’s killer froze dead in his tracks as he saw Omair coming directly for him.
The man raised his weapon and fired a burst of bullets. They buzzed like hot hornets past Omair’s head. But Omair kept marching forward, covering his
progress by pressing the triggers on his automatic pistols, the recoil jerking like jackhammers through his body as men scattered in his wake. Omair wanted his target alive, for starters.
The North African arms broker raced for his jeep. Da’ud’s killer, out of ammunition now, dropped his gun and fled after the North African.
Ferocity and purpose burned through Omair. He would not let his brother’s killer escape, no matter the collateral damage, no matter the cost to himself.
One of Omair’s bullets hit his target’s hand. The man stalled for a second as blood began to darken the soil at his feet. In that time the North African yanked open the driver’s door of the jeep, scrambled behind the wheel, reached for the ignition and hit the gas. Tires spun, kicking up red dirt as the jeep raced off, door open, leaving the bodyguard defenseless.
Omair holstered one of his pistols while aiming the other at Da’ud’s assassin’s forehead. As he reached the man, Omair unsheathed his ceremonial jambiya—an ancient weapon carried by his warrior forebears. Only with this dagger could he mete justice as per the desert code—an eye for an eye, a ceremonial dagger for a ceremonial dagger. Just like the blade that had killed his brother.
Panic burned in the assassin’s eyes and his face dripped sweat as Omair grabbed him, dragging him into the dense jungle foliage and shoving him hard up against a tree.
“Please…don’t kill me,” the man pleaded in Arabic.
Omair had only contempt for the plea of this assassin who made a living killing others. As a broker of death himself, Omair believed an executioner should die
honorably when his time came at the hands of another—and it always did come. That was the nature of this job.
“Is that what my brother said, when you came in the night to slit his throat?” Omair whispered, pressing the jambiya blade against the man’s throat.
He could smell gasoline. He could hear more shooting, more yelling, men rushing into the jungle.
“Who paid you to kill Da’ud?”
The man squirmed, moaned, started to say something. But a crashing sounded in the forest undergrowth, men coming toward them as they chased one another.
Tension strapped across Omair’s chest. “Tell me his name!”
But before Da’ud’s killer could speak, shots were fired through the thick leaves. A stray bullet hit Da’ud’s killer square in the throat. Blood and air gurgled and sputtered from the wound. The man slumped into Omair’s arms. Hot blood soaked through Omair’s shirt.
Omair checked the killer’s pulse and swore violently. He was gone, just seconds before he might have spilled the name of the man who’d ordered him to assassinate Da’ud.
Quickly, he lay the dead man’s body on the ground and rifled through his pockets, finding nothing. Then he caught sight of a small medallion on a gold chain around the man’s neck. Omair lifted the medallion in his fingers. It was the image of a sun superimposed with a dagger.
The mark of the Sun Clan.
A chill washed through him.
The Sun Clan was an ancient tribe of warrior Moors that had once ruled the Atlas Mountains in Western Sahara. They were rumored to have gone to battle with the Al Arif Bedouins hundreds of years ago, clashing over land that now formed the Kingdom of Al Na’Jar. The ancient princes of the Sun Clan had this emblem tattooed onto their skin. Omair frowned.
This was the first time he’d seen this ancient symbol in medallion form around the neck of a MagMo terrorist. It troubled him—there appeared to be more and more MagMo links to the unrest in Al Na’Jar, and now this symbol tying back to an ancient battle with the clan of his forebears.
He yanked the medallion loose, then pocketed it. Crouching low behind thick ferns and leaves, Omair listened for more sounds of the men in the forest. But an explosion suddenly pounded the air, pressure thumping against Omair’s eardrums. He winced as a ball of flames whooshed up from one of the weapons trucks. Fire started to crackle into the forest.
Another explosion ripped through the air as the second truck went up. Through the leaves he could see Escudero’s vehicles had also caught fire and the blaze was spreading across the road. Black smoke roiled above the forest canopy.
Cutting his losses, Omair slipped away into the jungle.
He’d lost his opportunity to get the name of Da’ud’s killer, or find out who’d sent him. He’d lost any chance to follow the arms shipment—the weapons had gone up in smoke. He might also have lost his entire family in the JFK jet blast, which would mean he was the new king of Al Na’Jar—a role he did not want under any circumstance.