III. Nouakchott, Mauritania

III. Nouakchott, Mauritania

III. Chapter One

Half past six is a time that barely exists in Toby's vocabulary. It is, frankly, indecent.

Somehow, he's still on his way to Liu's office, just thirty minutes after an unscheduled wake-up call. He's dressed. His belt matches his shoes. He's a fucking professional, that's what he is.

His plan foresees taking the most direct path to Liu's office with only a brief coffee stop on the way. Jesy's, "Hey, Toby, wait a minute!" sabotages that. Best laid plans and all.

He likes Jesy. He really, really does, and he's willing to eat a tub of hair dye if her recent placement behind the reception desk isn't part of her training as an agent—always good to learn about the inner workings of a security system before trying to take one apart from the outside. The urgency in Liu's voice conveyed an unspoken order to avoid delays, though.

Toby doesn't slow his stride as he gives her a passing shrug. "Sorry, J! Got to hurry."

"Who'd have guessed." A crooked grin twists her mouth. "Travel department dropped off an envelope for you; sounded urgent." Despite the curiosity in her voice, they both know she can't ask, and he can't answer. Not that he'd have anything to share even if he wanted to.

"Thanks!" He turns on his heels, hastily packed suitcase swinging with the abrupt change in direction, and snags the envelope offered to him before he continues on his merry way.

"Your tie is crooked!" Jesy calls after him.

While moving through the access control routine, he gives her a two-fingered salute and a half-stifled yawn. Jesus, he hates mornings, and early ones in particular. There's a special place in hell reserved for the person who first decided to take a perfectly good clock and equip it with an alarm. One more step towards machine dictatorship, that's what it is.

Once the elevator doors close behind him, he slits the envelope open. Not unexpectedly, it's a flight ticket. Nouakchott International Airport, via Paris-Charles de Gaulle. The flight departs in less than three hours.

All right, then. Time for the mental checklist.

Essentials packed: check. Three complete sets of passport and matching credit card: check. Flight ticket: check. Briefing from Liu: incoming. Message to Matt that Toby won't be able to watch Haley this weekend: to do.

Fuck, he hates it when last-minute orders make him a bad uncle—small consolation that it's easier to lie on voicemail than it is to lie to his brother's face or, worse, to Haley's. It easily tops the list of what Toby hates most about his job.

***

The kidnapping of two American tourists by Islamist terrorists has yet to leak to the press. That's the good news.

The bad news is that there is a kidnapping of two American tourists by Islamist terrorists. Also: it's in Mauritania. And another thing: their suspicion that the hostages might be held in a building situated near Nouakchott's industrial port was founded on shaky information, and even if they're right, the kidnappers will make a move sooner rather than later, possibly across the border into the north of Mali. Furthermore, the local infrastructure won't be of much use to them, and Toby has to limit all technical equipment to whatever fits into his suitcase and won't be seized by customs.

On the bright side, acquiring weapons won't be a problem, and this is what Toby trained for. He suspects the same is true for Mike, who'll be touching down in Nouakchott just before Toby.

When Jada left, one of her parting shots accused Toby of a persistent negative attitude. To prove that he's evolved, he puts the chances of recovering the hostages at an optimistic fifty.

***

The situation leaves no time to rest after the flight, so Toby swallows enough sleeping pills to spend most of the journey blissfully conked out. An apologetic stewardess rouses him in time for the landing. She shows no traces of spending six hours on her feet, make-up and smile flawless. By comparison, Toby feels crumpled.

He sets his seat upright and watches Nouakchott draw closer. All he sees is sand of a dusky pink color, sharply confined by the ocean on one side. They land with a bone-shuddering thud that jerks him fully awake—who needs caffeine?

The moment he steps out onto the gangway, hot, dry wind spits sand into his face. Moving with the flow, he proceeds into a small terminal that's separated from the main area by a row of white screens, and passes through the typical set of airport controls without any problems.

In the arrival hall, he is accosted by loud, insistent offers of cab rides and rooms for rent. No, thank you. Places to be, hostages to save.

In spite of the glaring heat, he breathes more freely once he's back out in the open. Shielding his eyes against the sun—sunglasses, dammit; there's always something he forgets—he needs several seconds to adjust to the brightness. Only then does he spot Mike, leaning against the side of a beat-up rental truck and seemingly unaffected by the chaos raging around him. He's just as attractive as Toby remembers.

They exchange a short greeting before Toby hops in on the passenger side, happy to leave the driving to Mike. It gives him time to arrive mentally as well as physically.

A close-up of Mauritania's capital reveals sand-covered roads, the beach and desert joining forces in their attempt to swallow small houses that hardly ever reach higher than two floors, far surpassed by the towers of a mosque. The car's air conditioning is sputtering tiredly, blowing lukewarm air at them.

"This air-con's about as sluggish as my brain." Toby has to raise his voice above the noise of the engine.

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Mike turns off the temperature control. "Roll the window down."

Toby complies, lowering his own window to allow a heated breeze inside as Mike does the same on his side. The noise level increases, but the stream of air feels nice on Toby's face. Like staring right into a hairdryer.

With a sigh, he leans back in the passenger seat and shields his eyes against the low-standing sun, studying Mike's profile. With black sunglasses, framed by the light of a fading day, Mike looks like an actor straight out of one of those older movies in which men talk about true grit, drive dirty cars, and smoke all day. Quite abruptly, Toby wants.

It's the lingering effect of the sleeping pills, that's all. He quells the idea.

Mike glances over. "Better?"

"Better," Toby confirms, almost shouting to be heard over the wind and the engine. "Explain why customs in Mauritania take just as long as they do back home? Shouldn't airport security reflect the general level of safety in a country? Seems logical."

"Depends." Mike's grin is a quick flash of white, hands relaxed on the steering wheel. "With a police force that can't keep a handle on domestic crime, you sure don't want to import even more trouble."

He's got a point; not that Toby will concede it.

"Great," he shouts instead. "And now we're stuck rescuing a couple of idiots who think the State Department's travel warnings are a joke." He shifts in his seat, the cracked faux leather sticky to the touch. "What part of ‘strongly advise against non-essential travel' allows room for a sightseeing tour? Tell me, please, because I want to know."

Mike laughs, an easy sound that catches Toby by surprise. "Let's assume that they've learned the lesson. But feel free to berate them when we get them out."

If we do.

"Thanks, man. That's generous." Toby turns his attention to the various shops that streak by outside the window. Must be the Cinquième Arrondissement, Nouakchott's shopping district.

After riding in silence for the duration of a block, Toby turns back. "When, or if?"

Mike's expression hardens. "When," he says curtly.

"All right." Toby nods to himself. When. Compared to Mike, Toby's attempt at optimism still falls short. You always see what's wrong before you see what's right. He wishes it didn't grate, even now.

"Oh, by the way…" Mike's grip on the wheel, having tightened just briefly, is loose again, and he's navigating the increasingly dense traffic as if he knows the roads by heart. For all Toby knows, this isn't Mike's first time here.

"By the way?" Toby repeats. He props one foot against the dashboard and twists his upper body to face Mike. If it was Haley in his place, Toby would tell her to put her feet on the floor, NOW, young lady, but chances are the airbags in this car are defunct anyway, so if they end up crashing, having his legs folded behind his ears is the least of Toby's concerns.

You always see what's wrong.

"By the way" —Mike's lips twitch— "you make for a convincing blond. I hear they have more fun."

"I'm a natural, and you know it."

Mike sends him a sideways look before turning his focus back to the road. Their car stutters over a pothole, no shock absorbers getting in the way of a teeth-rattling jolt.

"I am," Toby insists. "Didn't have time to do anything with it before rushing off, and anyway, this doesn't seem like the kind of operation that needs it. Also." He's getting on a roll now. "You're the dark and tall type, so I understand why you'd be envious of how easy it is for me to quickly change my hair."

"What's tall got to do with it?"

Fair question. Not one Toby has a ready answer for.

Fortunately, Mike chooses that moment to swerve into a side road without warning, a move that has Toby gripping the dashboard to avoid getting jerked around—he trusts that seatbelt like he trusts a politician promising free stuff for all, which is to say very little. He's quite sure that Mike delights in leaving behind a cacophony of outraged honking. Freak.

"Give me a heart attack," Toby mutters. "Sure, just go right ahead. Be my guest."

Mike laughs at him. Laughs. "You didn't become an agent to drive five miles under the speed limit, Brown."

"Do you trust the brakes of this car?"

"Not at all."

Well, that's one thing they can agree on.

The road they're driving down now is narrow, an empty plastic bag trundling in the wind, trash piling up on the sides. Charming. A tourist destination waiting to happen. Toby relaxes back into his seat just as Mike pulls the car over and throttles the engine. It dies with a gurgling sound. Toby empathizes.

"We're here." Mike flashes him another grin that spells anticipation, teeth contrasting with his tan. "Let's see what they have for us."

When Mike hops out of the car, Toby allows himself half a beat to notice Mike's ass, then he follows suit.

‘Here' turns out to be a small shop that proudly displays its limited selection of weapons. Most of them look used and unreliable, as likely to backfire on the shooter as they are to hit an actual target. As Mike seems to enjoy inspecting their options in great detail, Toby leaves the choice to him and only takes over when it comes to discussing conditions in a broken mix of English and Arabic—haggling works best if you don't display the kind of eagerness that weapons seem to inspire in Mike.

Toby can only hope the guy isn't as trigger-happy as current evidence suggests.

***

Hotel Tfeila is a yellow-washed, six-floored building that towers above its surroundings, its architectural style dating back some decades. With nearly eighty rooms, it accommodates a critical mass of guests to grant them a certain level of anonymity.

They rent two rooms with a connecting door on the top floor, drop off their bags and get changed. Toby digs through his suitcase for the two-way communication set he brought, popping his ear bud in as Mike does the same with practiced ease. With their newly acquired guns wrapped in a couple of T-shirts and hidden in plastic bags, they leave the hotel.

Dusk is setting as they drive out to the industrial port, the sand dunes glowing in a reddish gray, the ocean a stretch of dark blue before them. There isn't much traffic, but their truck isn't alone on the single paved road leading to the port.

Like any industrial port, it's a gritty place. Oil tanks and rusty shipping containers dominate the scene, colors flaking off—form follows function. Two large container ships and several smaller vessels are currently moored at the long, concrete landing stage. They find a parking spot between other vehicles, most in even worse shape than their beat-up truck, and sit in silence once the rumbling of the engine has died. Workers are hurrying this way and that, the place buzzing with an end-of-the-day energy that signals it's near quitting time for most people around.

Mike slaps the steering wheel. "Ready?"

Toby takes him in. Decked out in faded khaki pants and a dark, washed-out T-shirt, Mike will be one of only a few white faces around, but he should pass for a worker signed on to one of the ships. Hopefully, the same is true for Toby.

"Ready?" Toby repeats. "No. I hate flying blind, but I guess this is as good as it gets."

Mike shrugs. "We've got weapons and a working theory. I've faced worse odds."

"Yeah." Toby exhales and mentally reviews the details of a high-resolution satellite image he studied while waiting for his flight to depart—before the GPS signal cut off abruptly, one hostage's cell phone was tracked to a building that sits just outside the fenced-off area, east of the port's beating heart of activity. The best way to approach unseen is to stay inside the fenced area for now, ducking between containers and vehicles to get as close as possible before venturing out.

While Toby doubts the terrorists can rely on state-of-the-art security, there's really no way of knowing what he and Mike will face once they get close to where they hope to find the hostages. All they've got to go on is their training, relevant experience, two Walther pistols, and the assumption that, like most terrorist cells, this one will be small, composed of maybe five or six members.

"All right, let's go." Mike leans over to reach for the plastic bag sitting at Toby's feet. His hand brushes Toby's knee, and while the contact is brief, it snaps Toby straight out of his thoughts.

"Hold on." It occurs to Toby that he doesn't know how accomplished Mike is in keeping people alive; getting in and out of places could suggest he's better at targeting than he is at protecting. "Let's just run through the plan one more time."

The plan, such as it is.

"Get close without being seen." Mike unwraps his pistol with careful hands. "Split up, scout out the scene: how many people, what kind of weapons, are they holding the hostages here?"

"Our first priority" —Toby holds Mike's eyes— "is to get to the hostages before anyone else does. You get that, right? Not taking down the kidnappers. Success means we get the hostages out, even if a couple of guys get away."

"Right." Mike nods, sharp and quick. "Gotcha."

Toby squashes the anxious need to keep going, to explain how the scale is tipped in their opponent's favor: they've got the numbers, the familiarity with their surroundings, the hostages. All Toby and Mike have is the element of surprise, which they need to maintain for as long as possible. If there's a way to remove the hostages without anyone being the wiser, Toby would gladly walk it, and if Mike wants to take the kidnappers down afterwards, that's fine with him. Priorities, though.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Toby forces down the nervous jitter at the base of his spine. This is what he trained for.

"Okay," he says. "Let's go."

"Let's," Mike agrees. He lifts his T-shirt to hook the pistol into the waistband of his pants, and Toby's attention is caught for the shortest of moments by the smooth, flat expanse of Mike's stomach.

Toby snags his gaze away and reaches for his own weapon. He lifts his hips off the seat to stuff the pistol into his pants, then lets his shirt fall back down to hide it. When he glances at Mike, he finds him looking already.

Tension stretches between them, ready to snap. Showtime.

It's Mike who turns away first. He pushes his door open and jumps out with the lithe energy of a predator. After a reassuring touch to feel the gun under his shirt, Toby opens the passenger door, hops out and inhales deeply, filling his lungs with the fresh evening air that comes on the heels of a hot day in the desert. He tastes salt on his lips, and the gritty bitterness of sand.

Squaring his shoulders, he averts his eyes from the rapidly dwindling brightness, the ocean seeming to soak up what little light remains at the western edge of the sky. Then he follows Mike into the shadows.

***

Similar in style to most of the buildings here, their target location is a two-floored affair, which lets Toby hope that its similarities extend to lack of a basement. Unfortunately, the architect wasn't a fan of bright spaces and replaced normal windows with uninspired rectangular holes, dimly lit against the rest of the walls and too small for even the most dexterous adult to squeeze through. Thick walls; might be sound-proof.

They creep close without raising any alarms, bellies to the ground, and separate. While Mike slithers around to the back, Toby moves to assess the situation on the other side.

When he peers around the corner, he finds the front door standing ajar, light spilling out to paint a bright stripe onto the ground. He creeps closer, listening intently.

Footsteps. A dissatisfied grunt. Rustle of paper.

The light flickers, steadies again.

He stills, rising up on his fingertips, ready to beat a hasty retreat.

"C'est de la foutaise," someone says. Bullshit. The footsteps continue, someone pacing in a circle, probably on the phone. Heavy boots.

Torn, Toby hesitates for a second, then inches forward, hugging the ground. Quiet, quiet.

"On doit agir." We need to make a move.

Through the gap between door and frame, Toby catches a pair of boots passing by, spots a machine gun before it disappears from sight again. Further back, a second man is perched on a chair, leafing through some paper. Young.

"D'accord. Bon." All right.

Toby retreats as quietly as he came. Using a neighboring building for cover, he waits for Mike to join him.

It doesn't take long: one moment Toby's alone, the next Mike is right there, a fluid quality to his every move that Toby can't help but admire. He himself was built for efficiency and precision rather than grace.

"Think I found them," Mike hisses. "On the other side. Hard to see through the window, but—"

"Actual window?" Toby interrupts. "Can we get in?"

"Too small. Same as on this side." Mike shifts. His knee presses into Toby's thigh, and Toby counts to three before he puts an inch of space between them. "Got a look inside, though," Mike continues—which means he found some way to climb up. "Saw a door, guy posted outside. No windows for the room he's guarding."

Jackpot.

Toby breathes a little easier—they're in the right place. For now. "Think they might be about to move," he tells Mike, quickly sketching out what little he caught. "Guy was speaking French, by the way."

With Toby's senses on high alert, adrenaline buzzing in his stomach, he registers Mike's quiet hum like a ghost touch, travelling down his spine. He dismisses it as irrelevant to the job.

"Mali?" Mike suggests. "Or Senegal."

"Possible. Either way, I'm getting an amateur vibe." Which isn't necessarily a good thing, could make them more likely to act on irrational impulse. Nothing to be done about it. Shifting on his haunches, Toby keeps an eye on the building. "So, since you saw the layout, what's your take?"

***

What most movies don't show is that the action tends to go down fast, blink-and-you'll-miss-it. Most of the time goes into preparation, travel, information and equipment gathering, and then, afterwards, there is paperwork to complete because the Agency has yet to come across a form it doesn't like—and that's nothing to say of the slew of additional documentation required if the whole thing kicks off judicial proceedings.

Executing a plan is the short-lived culmination of all that prep work, and doubles as a bridge to the work that comes after.

***

It's two steps between the door and the pacing terrorist in the front room. Toby can't miss, really.

Before the first body even hits the ground, Mike is already past, sprinting for the corridor that leads to the back room. Toby's second shot finds its echo inside the house—it's the Walther, Mike's Walther, thank God—and then silence, a heart-stopping second of it.

Down the corridor, another body hits the ground with a heavy thud. Toby's second target merely slumps over in the chair.

"Clear," Mike grits out, his voice crisp in Toby's ear.

"Clear," Toby confirms. He pauses to check on the first guy, and Jesus, he's barely twenty, way too young to die even as he's gasping out his last breaths, blue shirt darkened where the bullet hit. Toby swallows against the acid taste at the back of his throat. Fuck. He moves on, confirms the guy in the chair is dead, then follows Mike, weapon at the ready—no light on the second floor, doesn't mean there's no one there.

Tiny kitchen niche, water boiling in an iron kettle. Around a corner, and Toby arrives just in time to watch Mike take out a door lock with two precise shots that bounce off the bare walls. Toby swings around, his back to Mike, weapon trained on the corridor. "What," he asks without turning his head, "did that lock ever do to you?"

"It stood in my way."

"You need therapy."

His pulse rattles in his ears. A scratch of movement—he tenses, ready, ready, then realizes it's from inside the room Mike just unlocked. Toby glances back, catches Mike's eye. They exchange nods, and Toby moves closer, covering Mike's back.

Mike throws the door open with enough force to have it bounce back.

Dim illumination from a bare light bulb overhead. Two middle-aged men, cowering in the farthest corner of the small, dirty room. Their T-shirts are torn in several places, one sporting a large bruise on his cheek, the other's hair matted by blood that's dried to a rusty color. Two blankets and a bucket keep them company.

Paul Weld, Nathan Mettel. Now that Toby knows they're alive, he's ready to use names.

"I'll get them out." Mike jerks his chin at Toby. "You check upstairs, make sure we won't get a nasty surprise."

Works for Toby.

"We'll get you out of here," he tells the hostages, what little good it will do to calm them down. Then he slips back into the corridor, no sign of further opposition so far. Three guys, is that really all? He'll be at a disadvantage going up the stairs, but that's a risk he has to take.

He pauses at the foot of the stairs. A deep, silent breath, holding the air in his lungs for one, two, three seconds. Exhale. Mike is talking in his ear, voice soft and low, it's over now, the worst is over, we'll get you home if you just hold out a little longer, it's really almost over. It's a lot of words for someone who doesn't qualify as talkative, and even though it isn't meant for Toby, it settles his heart rate. They'll be out of here in a matter of minutes.

He exhales on another controlled breath. With his next intake of air, he launches himself up the stairs, coiled like a spring.

But no one's shooting. There is no sign of life upstairs, just one large room spanning the entire floor, empty but for a metal chest, a bed and a nightstand with the Koran sitting on it. Toby checks the contents of the chest and finds two duffle bags. He slings them over his shoulder just as Mike's voice cuts off abruptly.

The connection is dead.

"Mike?" Toby whispers.

What answers him isn't Mike's voice, but the hum of an approaching car, wheels crunching on gravel. The engine cuts off right outside the front door, and fuck, that's just as bad as a dead comm link. Can Mike hear it back there? Fucking fuck.

"Mike." Maybe the silence goes just one way. "We got company. Car just stopped out front. Stay."

No reply. Of course there's no reply.

Toby ducks down low, silently moving to what is an actual window on this floor. He rises from his crouch just enough to scan the entrance area, counting on the cover of darkness.

Two guys climb out of a white van. One rounds the vehicle to open the rear doors, the other heads for the building.

"Incoming," Toby hisses, but doesn't dare hope that Mike will hear him. Checking his weapon on the way to the stairs, he doesn't pause to consider his options, just lowers himself to the ground and slides down head first—slow and controlled, gun out front.

He's halfway down when the terrorist finds the dead bodies of his companions in the first room. His muttered curse doesn't carry; Toby would have missed it if he hadn't been listening closely. From above, he watches as the guy creeps along the corridor, back to the wall as he's gripping a rifle with a sawed-off barrel. Too confident or too inexperienced to alert backup? Still, there's no way Toby can get a clear shot from here.

Wait.

He waits.

He waits until the precise moment the guy has rounded the corner, then straightens and silently pads down the last few steps, one eye on the front room. Clear for now.

Toby is halfway to the corner when someone shouts, "Drop weapon or I shoot him!" Strong French accent. Nervous tremble.

"All right, easy. I'll put it down." Mike, no trace of fear in his voice. Toby draws closer. "Don't shoot, okay? You won't get money if you shoot him."

"I still have one," the terrorist barks out, but when Toby peeks around the corner, it's just in time to see the guy removing his arm from around Nathan's throat, pushing him towards Mike with a hard shove. Mike catches Nathan, only to twist around and put himself physically in front of the hostages, arms spread wide like he's hoping to shield two grown men all by himself. He can't. Of course he can't.

"Easy," Mike repeats.

"You are who?" The guy's hands are trembling a little, but he keeps the rifle pointed straight at Mike's chest, one unsteady finger on the trigger. It won't take much to startle him.

Nathan's eyes flick to Toby. Now. Now.

A second later, Toby's shot finds its target.

The force of the blow propels the terrorist's body towards Mike, but he doesn't make it far, slumping to the ground with a muted gasp, still clutching his rifle.

"Check him," Toby bites out, already whirling towards the front room. Number Five must have heard the shot.

Number Five did, indeed. He also must have found the bodies—to the opposite effect of his dead companion: just as Toby dashes out of the house, the van starts up, rear doors still open, swerving to avoid a collision with the neighboring house. For good measure, Toby fires a shot at one red taillight that rings clear in the night; the light goes dark. Maybe it'll buy them some time before the guy returns with reinforcements.

It isn't until Toby lowers his pistol that his hand starts shaking.

One misstep, and he could have been the only one to make it out alive. Fuck.