Closing myself in the second bedroom, I tap the screen. “Aazar.Salam.”
“Salamto you as well, my forked-tongued friend. I did not expect to hear from you so soon after the mess in Lahore. Or…at all.”
“I’m not that easy to kill.”
He laughs, the rich sound almost enough to make me smile. The man has lost two wives and five children in his forty-three years, but when he laughs, he does it with his entire being. “I suppose not. How may I relieve you of your money this time?”
“Raziq Ali.”
Only silence answers me. Fuck. Aazar is one of the few men I trust not to sell me out for a better deal. He deals in whispers. Rumors. Information no one else can get.
“I’ll pay double.”
“You will pay more than that. Because after Raziq Ali finishes with you, Viper, you will be nothing more than a handful of scales floating on the wind. And I will be strung up by my testicles and flayed alive.”
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy? The one I’m after is a doctor.”
“I am certain. There is nothing to be gained going against this man. You will find only death. I am sorry, my friend. I cannot help you. Except to pray you live long enough to call me again.”
“He’s hurting women and children, Aazar. If I can’t stop him… Fuck. I might as well take a megaphone into the busiest market in the city and confess to every one of the Viper’s crimes.”
After another long pause, Aazar sighs. “What do you need?”
“Anything you can give me. Where he lives. How many men he might have with him. Strengths. Weaknesses. All of it. Name your price. Because if I live through this, I’m out.”
“Twenty. In cash.”
I sink down onto the mattress. “I’ll be in Kabul tonight. Keep your phone on.”
“Watch your back, my friend. I am counting on that money to disappear. Do not die before you pay me.”
* * *
“Leo Basher?Griff Hargrove, Nomar Garcia, and Lisette Moreau,” Austin says when we board the plane.
Basher rises with a wince. “What the hell is this, Pritchard? Senior Citizens’ Day Out?”
Griff swears under his breath. “I’m thirty-eight. I’ve got at least another decade before AARP comes calling.”
“And you’re down an arm. Not that I can talk.” Leo gestures to his right eye. “Fake as fuck.”
“Myarmis right here. Also, since Austin doesn’t share with the rest of the class, I’m also mostly deaf.”
“Enough!” I take Lisette’s arm and guide her past Griff and Leo. “Ford, Trevor, and the rest of Second Sight are ass-deep in another emergency. McCabe and his team are somewhere in South America trying to stop a goddamn civil war. And we only have eighteen hours before Raziq’s deadline. Stow the gear so we can get the fuck in the air.”
Austin passes the flight attendant a stack of bills. “Go home. We’ll get our own peanuts.”
“Of course, sir.” The woman pockets the cash and hurries down the steps.
Once he secures the door, I stow the bags and retrieve bottles of water from the galley. Lisette hasn’t said a word since we left the hotel. I sit across from her, silently begging her to look at me. But her gaze is locked on her phone.
She didn’t see the four bags of weapons Austinprocuredfrom the streets of Istanbul. Or the C4. Detonators. Knives. Flash bangs.
Or the burqas. Before we land, she’ll have to change. In the three years she’s been gone, women have lost the few rights they once had. She won’t even be able to show her face in public.
“Lisette?” Griff asks. “Do you want some coffee?”
A single tear trails down her cheek. “One cup. My…last cup.”
