The Last Bazaar (10 page)

The night was not yet over, Alicia saw to that. An intercom system linked to Wi-Fi had been installed inside their sumptuous tents and the Englishwoman made full use of the amenities. “After all,” she said. “You don’t stay in a five-star, all-inclusive hotel and not make use of the friggn’ facilities, do ya?”

So, Drake stood guard and watched as she snuggled in next to Yorgi and waited for the bottles to arrive. In keeping with the superior service of the place two waiters appeared within five minutes, immaculately tailored even down to their black Gucci rain boots, holding silver platters in white-gloved hands. The first knelt beside Alicia and poured red wine, the second set out a table full of cold cuts. Almost before they were gone Kinimaka was falling upon the food.

“Ah, ah,” Alicia clucked. “Prince and princesses only. You peasants can go catch a wild boar or something.”

The Hawaiian glanced at her, a slice of ham dangling from his mouth. “You’re kidding, right?”

Dahl grinned. “If I don’t get my steak I’m going to punch somebody in the face.”

Drake laughed and grabbed a handful for himself. Alicia toasted the team and then went down to a little more snuggling. “So, Yorki, how do you like being married to a treasure hunting, ball-busting chickadee?”

Yorgi, never totally comfortable in Alicia’s presence, inched away. The glass of wine in his hand was already half empty. “Umm, fine. I am good.”

“Good?” Alicia snorted. “I’ll show you good. We just need to ask the guards to leave,” she hesitated. “Unless . . . unless you’d preferred they stayed?”

Yorgi spluttered some more as Drake turned away, hiding a smile. One thing you could say for the inimitable Alicia Myles—she always livened up a room. Or a
tent
, to be more precise. With Kinimaka still filling up it had left Dahl to quickly check the perimeter and the Swede now returned.

“Quite a community,” he said. “I counted over thirty tents like this before I gave up and half a dozen more in a clearing fit for a king. Probably Ramses and his finer guests. Now what is Alicia doing to Yorgi?”

Drake walked to the tent flap. “Any guards around?”

“Bloody hundreds. Add all of these people’s personal minders to Ramses’ own security force and you have a genuine army.”

“So we stay covert.”

“Absolutely. Though with Mano’s appetite and Alicia’s antics I’d say we’re already on somebody’s radar.”

Drake perched on a footstool. “What are they gonna do? Call the front desk?”

“Out here,” Dahl said. “Nothing would surprise me.”

“Point taken.” Drake cleared his throat. “Umm, Alicia, be a good girl now and put Yorgi down.”

The blonde rounded on him. “Careful, Drakey.”

“You’re making too much noise.”

“Never been accused of that before. Okay, okay, whatever. Hey, I have an idea!” Alicia drained her glass and reached for a walkie-talkie. Drake rose to stop her but paused as she held up a hand.

“Hey,” she said when a voice answered. “Do you guys do dancers? Y’know, male dancers?” Her sly glance at Drake ensured he knew she was trying to provoke a reaction.

Drake nevertheless ended the communication for her, urging her to keep a little restraint. “It’s not
One Night in Bangkok
,” he reminded her. “It’s a terrorist arms exchange. And all the staff are slaves who either work or die, I’m betting. So stay focused.”

Alicia sobered at his words, finally relaxing her grip on Yorgi’s neck. The Russian headed over to the other side of the tent.

“So where are we supposed to sleep?” Kinimaka asked. “Us guards, I mean.”

“I guess we don’t,” Drake said. “We guard.”

“There’s always the jungle,” Alicia said a little petulantly.

“Oh yeah. I’d just love to get snuggled down with a bird-eating spider for the night.”

Alicia eyed the sides of the tent as if expecting a visitor. “They have those here?”

“Oh aye,” Drake drawled. “Bigger than a kitten, hairier than a gorilla. They have a sound like a horse’s hooves chasing you through the trees. Great bedfellows, I hear.”

Alicia sniffed. “No doubt I’ve had worse.”

“Classy.” Drake looked away. “So, how about we try to get some rest and wake up refreshed for the morning? I get the feeling tomorrow’s gonna be a blast.”

Dahl eyed him. “Are you being ironic?”

“Sure, mate, sure. Aren’t I always?”

The morning welcomed them in spectacular and now sadly familiar fashion. The heavens spared no quarter as they opened up a deluge of gargantuan proportions, the rain slamming against the tent with a fury none of them could have imagined. Dahl thrust his head into the downpour to get a look at the morning’s proceedings but soon reported that the bazaar seemed to be taking a break.

“Funny that,” Drake said.

An hour later the torrent subsided and the group made their way out of the small tent village. A huge snake lay across their trail but even as they all paused, startled, it slithered away, its lazy undulations almost mesmerizing. Alicia took a deep breath as if she’d just faced down the worst horror of her life and then moved off. Drake grinned at her back. Dahl warned him with a finger to his lips.

“I’d stay quiet, mate, if you fancy keeping your wedding tackle.”

Drake nodded. The bazaar was back in full flow, gaudy market stalls open, tents with openings flung wide and pop music drifting in the background. Groups and couples were already wandering the byways, stopping to browse at various stalls. A group of tired-looking men dressed in white thawbs and keffiyehs emerged from one of the privately marked tents, moving as if they’d been involved in negotiations all night. Drake would have given a year of his life to know what they’d been plotting. If only the CIA had been concentrating more on surveilling this event rather than attending they might have made the world a safer place for decades to come.

As they paused near the end of a trail, dripping trees all around, a chopper rose into the air carrying some unnamable extremist back to his homeland. This was the bazaar’s middle day and some deals had already been struck. The team made a point of heading back toward the river and watched their boat for a while. Smyth made an obvious figurehead, standing atop the deck, looking fresh and staring at the skies as if daring them to drench him again. Nothing passed between the team but judging by the sight of him, Drake had to assume all was well. The nearby guards eyed them carefully, and soon Yorgi signaled that they should return to the bazaar. As they walked away one of the river boats started up and also left the bazaar, its owner’s deals all done.

They made a point of attending the slave market, having agreed the previous night that this was one place they would ensure was liquidated of scum before they left. Crowds of buyers and their entourages were now walking outside and gathering in the tents, the bazaar at its busiest. Drake saw how the deals were made, where the slaves came from and then were stored for later collection, and which guards were the most vicious. The auctioneer in particular warranted something special, maybe a visit from one of Kinimaka’s spiders. The evil, vile glint in his eyes and his actions were not those of a man whose humanity might be salvaged.

Half an hour later, sick to their stomachs, the team exited the slavers’ tent and huddled for a brief confab.

“It’s time to find Ramses,” Kinimaka said. “Vulnerabilities. Targets. Weapons of major interest . . .”

“Dude,” Alicia breathed. “What the hell do you think we’ve been doing? Ramses’ tent is a two minute stroll that way, and his neighbors are probably worth a prod or two.” She indicated a game trail made larger by the men. “Guards are either facing in or out, not both. Also they don’t appear to call in at all, for some reason, so if one disappears the rest don’t know. No communications center, either. We haven’t identified who’s in charge yet. As for weapons—didn’t you see the suitcase nukes, the PU94 plutonium inside their radioactive carrying cases, the stock of prototype RPGs and fluid body armor? Man, we can’t let a single terrorist get away with a single item of that lot. And as for targets, well why the hell do ya think we’re doing all this strolling? For our good health?”

Drake grinned. Alicia was clearly on her game, making up for last night, and the Hawaiian scratched his head as he absorbed all she had just said. “The CIA don’t work that way,” he said. “When we’re gonna do something we say so. At least, we do to the one percent we trust.”

“Not in the CIA—” Alicia tapped his shoulder “—any more.”

“Yup, I got that.”

Again they emerged from the enlarged trail close to the fenced off pit, and now saw several men and women peering down through the bars. With a horde of people between they walked soundlessly toward it, peering at every face and inwardly bemused by the absolute lack of eye contact.

It was then that Drake saw familiar faces. One that caused even him a moment’s panic. Quickly, he caught everyone’s attention and pulled them aside to stare with interest into the forest as two men walked by.

Tyler Webb and Beauregard Alain.

Drake allowed his head to hang, his shoulders to slump. Anything to appear different. Alicia struggled not to send a quick glance at Beauregard. Not one of the team could safely stare at the passersby because they knew of Webb’s stalking abilities and that he would no doubt know them all by sight, but they did manage to piece together the scenario between them.

“Webb’s here to buy,” Drake said as they turned to watch the men’s backs move away. “And Beau’s here as his bodyguard. Shit, Beau might have purposely let this thing slip but I didn’t realize they would be
attending.
”

“Nor me,” Alicia muttered. “Whoa, that man looked good.”

“If Webb’s here to purchase,” Dahl said, “then it can’t be good. We have to mark them down as a definite target.”

“The leader of the Pythians? Most wanted man in the world?” Drake said. “Oh yeah, he’s on the list.”

As the group watched, Webb and Beauregard abruptly stopped, confronted by a small entourage of bearded men. All wore the traditional Arab dress except two, and it was these two who looked to be the most interesting. Drake studied a huge man, up to seven feet tall, and the other who appeared to be his bodyguard. It was a giveaway how both he and Beauregard squared up to each other, equals, and stopped studying their surroundings for danger. It was enough that they watched each other. Drake saw Webb engage in conversation with the lofty individual—whom, he noted, was also quite muscular and probably capable—and tried to read lips.

“Now there’s a shocker,” Dahl said. “You see the big guy? How he holds himself? How the others all defer to his gestures and looks? He’s royalty, I’m sure. That’s our man.”

Kinimaka tried his best not to stare. “Ramses himself? Are you sure?”

“Who else could it be? Expert bodyguard. You can tell by the way Beauregard is so hyper-alert. Entourage of normal guards. His comportment. And the other giveaway—Webb, the so-called Pythian king—has actually been stopped by him and is holding a conversation.”

The group stood carefully, stealing glances, but careful of the vigilant guards both beside Ramses and close by in the jungle. Danger lurked everywhere. As if to corroborate this a thin, bright snake slithered past their feet with no real interest, one of the deadliest creatures on the planet. Drake found himself suddenly unsure which predator to look at next.

“Shit, we’re in trouble here.”

“Don’t worry,” Dahl said, “I’ll look after you.”

“Thanks, Dad. Now, what the hell do we do next? We can’t just follow ’em around.”

“I’m thinking—” Kinimaka began, but then just stopped. The expression on his face put Drake in mind of a coronary and he moved closer to his friend.

“Mano? You okay, pal?”

The Hawaiian’s mouth moved but nothing came out. Shock and quite possibly terror controlled his every decision.

Drake noted the man wasn’t looking in the direction of Ramses but to his left. To another group of men. To . . .

Drake gaped.

“But that’s . . . that’s impossible.”

“It is.” Even Alicia sounded shaken. “But he’s standing right there. Large as life. Attending a fucking repulsive terrorist bazaar with the scum of the earth. Oh shit, guys, what the hell do we do now?”

Drake tried to calm his pounding heart, tried to reel his eyes back in from the stalks on which they currently perched. Three men wearing Armani suits was bad enough; three men wearing
Men In Black
sunglasses was a tad worse . . .

But three men who were clearly agents of the American government, strolling along with smiles and handshakes and knowing glances, already holding wrapped purchases and designer carrier bags, one of them having inserted a red tag inside his breast pocket—which signified that he’d ordered a slave to be collected later—was mind blowing to say the least.

And that wasn’t the most shocking thing about the scenario.

Kinimaka still struggled to draw breath. Drake saw the world spinning inside his own head as everything he knew became unbalanced. Dahl grunted and grunted, trying to come up with a suitable remark and failing. In the end it was Alicia who finally put a voice to their utterly terrifying vision.

“I’m not mad am I? That is who I think it is?”

Drake nodded, mouth dry.

“It’s Robert Price.” Kinimaka’s knees were actually shaking. “The fucking US Secretary of Defense. I . . . I . . .”

Drake swallowed hard, caught in a gamut of emotions. It wasn’t simply a horrendous shock, a terrible betrayal, an unthinkable scenario; not only did it pull the carpet from underneath every hardworking, patriotic agent and solider on the planet, but it also besmirched the memory of Jonathan Gates. The old Secretary had been a good man, loyal to the core, a champion of his country and his friends, but his successor was now proving to be the complete opposite.

“We need to move,” Dahl finally blustered. “They’re heading over here.”

The team suppressed their shock and got to work. The actual act of concealment wasn’t hard—this was the jungle after all—it was the performance they required not to draw attention to themselves. Yorgi ended up facing Price as he strolled by, grinning everywhere as if he owned the place—and the rest stood around in a half-circle as if being berated. Price nodded to Yorgi as he sauntered past.

“Take no shit, lad. Take no shit.”

Drake stiffened and felt Kinimaka do the same. Robert Price was drawling it up, no doubt enjoying his dangerous freedom, acting a mean part. The man should be as far out of his comfort zone as Colin Firth playing one of the world’s most bad-ass assassins, but hey, he pulled it off.

Drake waited as the footsteps went away, loud on the mulch. At Yorgi’s signal the entire group headed back to the bazaar’s main street, quietly reeling from what they had seen.
Webb, Beau and now Robert Price!
Drake allowed the information to assimilate. This coupled with the appearance of the great and mysterious Ramses started to give him pause for thought.

Have we taken on more than we can chew this time?

“Yorgi,” he said. “The tent. Now.”

“I figure so.”

They took a meandering route past the river, wanting to hop over there and confer with Hayden but unsure as to what protocols might be in play. Smyth still stood atop the deck though, a dependable sentry. Kinimaka walked slap-bang into a tree, so disturbed was he, and failed to notice the flailing arachnid that came crashing down and bounced off his broad back. Alicia let out a stifled gasp as the monster scrambled away.

“Shit, let’s get this mission finished so I can get out of this place. My skin is crawling, my body itching. Even my toes are starting to curl.”

They continued in silence, finally reaching the tent and stationing both Dahl and Alicia outside. Kinimaka found his phone and dialed Hayden.

“Hope to fuck you’re sitting down,” he breathed when she answered.