The driver looked at the man as he approached.
He reached for the sheaf of papers on the front seat. They sat next to his fully loaded Glock with one round already in the chamber. He hoped he didn’t have to use it, because a pistol against a subgun would only have one outcome—his death.
“Papers?” the man said in Pashto.
He handed them through. They were appropriately signed and distinctively sealed by each of the tribal chieftains who controlled these stretches of land. He was counting on it that they would be honored. He was encouraged by the fact that in this part of the world, not abiding by a chieftain’s orders often resulted in the death of those who disobeyed. And death here was nearly always brutal and almost never immediate. They liked for you to feel yourself die, as they said around here.
The turbaned man was drenched in sweat, his eyes red and his clothes as dirty as his face. He read through the papers, blinking rapidly when he saw the august signatories.
He looked up at the driver and appraised him keenly, then he handed back the papers. The man’s gaze went to the back of the truck, his look a curious one. The driver’s hand closed around the small black box and he pressed the switch on the side, engaging it. The man spoke again in Pashto. The driver shook his head and said that opening the truck was not possible. It was locked and he did not have a key or the combo required.
The man pointed to his gun and said that that was his key.
The driver’s finger pressed down on the red button. If they shot him, his finger would release and this “idiot switch” feature would detonate the explosives and kill them all.
He said in Pashto, “The tribal leaders were clear. The cargo could not be revealed until its final destination. Very clear,” he added for emphasis. “If you have a problem, you need to take it up with them.”
The man considered this and slid his hand down to his holstered sidearm.
The driver tried to keep his breathing normal and his limbs from twitching, but being seconds from getting blown into oblivion did certain physiological things to the body that he could not control.
Five tense seconds passed during which it was not clear if the turban would stand down or not.
The man finally withdrew, climbed back into the truck, and said something to the driver. Moments later the truck sped off, kicking up a cloud of dust behind its rear wheels.
The driver disengaged the detonator and waited until they were nearly out of sight before putting the truck back in gear. He drove off slowly at first, and then punched the gas. His weariness was gone.
He didn’t need the music anymore. He lowered the AC because he suddenly felt rather cold. He followed his directions, keeping to the exact route. It did not pay to stray out here. He scanned the horizon for any other pickup trucks with armed men coming his way, but saw none. He hoped that word had been communicated along the route that the cargo truck was to be given safe passage.
Nearly eight hours later he arrived at his final destination. The dusk was starting to gather and the wind was picking up. The sky was streaked with clouds, and the rain looked to be a few minutes from bucketing down.
When he arrived here, he had expected one precise thing to happen.
It didn’t.
CHAPTER
2
THE FIRST THING TO GO wrong was his running out of gas as he pulled through the stone building’s open overhead door. He had extra fuel tanks, but apparently someone had miscalculated.
The second thing to go wrong was the gun being shoved in his face.
This was no turban toting a subgun. It was a white man like him with a .357 pistol, its hammer already pulled back.
“Is there a problem?” the driver said.
“Not for us,” said the man, who was heavyset and jowly and looked closer to forty than thirty.
“Us?” He looked around and saw other white guys creeping out of the shadows. They were all armed, and every gun they had was pointing at him.
This many white faces here stuck out like a planet going out of its orbit.
“This is not part of the plan,” the driver said.
The other man held out a cred pack. “There’s been a change in plan.”
The driver studied the ID card and badge. It showed that the man’s name was Tim Simons and identified him as being an agent with the CIA. He said, “If we’re on the same side, why the gun in my face?”