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“Are you insane?”
A young Asian man was standing behind the counter of the open-fronted shop. He wore a black shirt and an Indiana Pacers cap, canted low over his taut, anxious face.
His nose wrinkled at the smell of the stranger. “What the hell happened to you?” The young man had a perfect American accent.
Gideon considered how to answer. “Long story.”
“Get in here.”
Gideon looked around, then walked inside.
“Dude, this town’s crawling with those jihadi assholes.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Did you just get dropped off a spaceship?”
“Something like that,” Gideon said.
“Are you not aware that the insurgents took over like half the province yesterday? Look at them the wrong way, they’ll drag your ass off the street and shoot you.”
“Good to know,” Gideon said, peering out the door before turning back to the young man. “Do you have a phone I could use?”
The guy shook his head. “They cut the lines. And cell coverage has always been shit around here. But listen, my family’s heading to KM as soon as it gets dark. You can come with us. If my grandfather wasn’t sick, we’d have been gone already.”
“Kota Mohan’s downriver. I’m going upriver.”
“Upriver?” The young Chinese guy stared at him. “What the hell for?”
“I’ve got someone waiting for me with a boat. His name’s Daryl Eng.”
“I don’t think so, dude. Daryl headed for KM like eight hours ago. Took his whole family.”
Gideon felt a spike of dread. “How do you know this?”
“Daryl’s Chinese, se y‘€ame as me. We pretty much stick together around here. My people have been here for like three hundred years, but the Muslims still consider us outsiders and infidels and all that shit.”
For a moment, Gideon considered taking the young man up on his offer. But only for a moment. “I need to get upriver. Do you know anyone who might be able to help me?”
The young man laughed. “Maybe a psychiatrist.” When Gideon didn’t laugh, the young man shrugged. “Your funeral, bro.”
Gideon smiled. “You sound like you’re from Ohio.”
“Indiana. Lived in Fort Wayne for ten years, then went to college at IU in Bloomington.” He held up his hand, showing off a heavy gold college ring. “Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. Came back here temporarily to help out with a family business situation and—”
His words were cut short by a burst of machine-gun fire somewhere in the distance. A truck engine raced, getting closer and closer.
“Get down!” the young man said.
Gideon was barely able to conceal himself behind the counter when a Toyota pickup packed with heavily armed young men, some of them only boys, cruised down the street. Gideon waited for the truck to pass before he stood.
“You wa
Gideon shook his head. “I have to go.”
The young man cocked his head and studied Gideon’s face. “You’re serious. You’re really go
Gideon felt compelled to tell him his story but decided to keep it simple. “There’s some family business I need to take care of.”
The young man nodded sympathetically. “Same reason I’m here. Family’s family, right?” Then he wrote something on a piece of paper, handed it to Gideon. “You got enough money, this guy’ll take you anywhere.”
Before Gideon could look at the paper, he heard tires screeching outside. The Toyota pickup was doing a U-turn somewhere down the street.
“They’re coming back. Someone ratted you out.”
“Is there a back way out of here?”
The young man ushered Gideon toward the rear of the shop, into a small room that smelled of fried food. Eight people were crammed inside, staring fearfully at him as he moved past them and out the back door, which deposited him in a squalid alley. Beyond its narrow mouth the river was visible. Gideon thanked the young man and started working his way toward the river.
He’d gone about a block when he heard automatic gunfire in the near distance. Hiding behind barrels and boxes in the narrow alleys that paralleled the main road, he made it to the river within ten minutes.
Almost.
Only a broad avenue separated him from the long wooden quay ru
Gideon paused behind a pile of rubbish.
Three young men wearing turbans and carrying AK-47s lounged by one of the boats. This was not turban country. If someone wore one around here, it was because they were consciously adopting the uniform of their Middle Eastern confederates.
Gideon's War and Hard Target
For the first time, Gideon glanced at the piece of paper....
screaming monkey
Screaming monkey? Before Gideon could think any more about it, bullets started slamming into the wall next to his head.
CHAPTER NINE
OMAR HAQQ WAS LATE for work. He hurried toward the helipad for Trojan Energy’s storage and logistics facility, which took up several square blocks of the industrial zone on the outskirts of Kota Mohan. Being a security officer here had once been considered a plum job. But over the past few months, several oil depots and processing plants in Mohan had been sabotaged by insurgents. At least a dozen of his colleagues had been killed, and twice as many wounded. Because of this, a day didn’t pass without some new security procedure being instituted.
Before, company employees only had to show their badges at the facility’s main gate and that was the end of it. Now every badge was embedded with a microchip that only gave you access to those parts of the facility for which you were specifically cleared. People were always walking into the wrong areas and setting off the alarm. When that happened, Omar was supposed to run to the site of the breach with his gun drawn. No walking. He had to run. If you didn’t run, you were subject to a fine of at least five rupiahs.
And now Omar’s heart sank when he saw his boss, Abdul Momat, standing at the counter of the security office by the chopper pad. He expected his boss to give him grief for being four minutes late. He would probably fine him for that, too. Oddly, his boss didn’t even seem to notice that Omar was late. In fact, he was surprisingly cheerful.
“Biometrics!” Abdul said, smiling with paternal pride as Omar rushed to his station behind the security desk and logged on to his computer. “Biometrics will stop the terrorists.”
“Biometrics,” Omar repeated, although he had no idea what the word meant.
Abdul patted a wall-mounted panel beside the door to the helipad. In the center of the panel was a glass circle, like an unblinking eye. Next to the eye was a green button. Omar had never seen anything like it.
“They installed it last night,” Omar’s boss said, brushing some invisible dust from the surface of the panel. “Starting today, we will be identifying every employee and visitor by sca
Omar was not quite sure what a retina was, much less how you sca
“A lot of my people just complain,” Abdul said. “But you? You see the big picture.”
“I try, sir.”
Their conversation was cut short by the sound of a fist rapping impatiently against the counter. The man standing there was white, his face covered by a heavy but neatly trimmed beard. He wore a baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses. “Sorry to interrupt your important conversation,” he said in a tone that didn’t sound the least bit sorry, “but I’m supposed to be on that chopper out to the Obelisk.” He pointed toward the idling chopper outside. “Dr. Cole Ransom.”