“I am afraid that—”
“Oh, yeah, and no police,” Hayes said, adding a second stack of fresh one-hundred-dollar bills to the first.
“Of course, sir,” the man grinned, scooping up the cash before handing Hayes the key to the washroom.
That’s what I thought.
The washroom was about what he’d expected, a dingy rectangle of tile with a sink, toilet, and rusted metal bench in front of an open shower. It was filthy, but Hayes had made do with worse.
His clothes and hiking boots were little more than rags after being thrown from the truck. He stripped off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. He sat down on the bench and was about to tug the hiking boots off his feet when he felt something hard sitting low in his back pocket.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
Then he remembered.
Zoe’s insulin. Had it survived?
He pulled the case from his pocket and studied the scuff marks across the lid and the dents that came from where his body had slammed into the street. The hinges creaked when he opened it. The undamaged vials inside took him back to the ambush. How small she looked when the men tugged the black bag over her head and rag-dolled her into the back of the Excursion.
The fear in her eyes when he’d tried to get her to jump.
You need to forget the girl, get the hell out of here while you still can, the voice urged.
There was a part of Hayes that wished it were that easy, but he knew that quitting wasn’t an option.
Hayes had his mission and, live or die, he was going to see it through.
He kicked off his boots, stepped out of his pants, grabbed the pile of ruined clothes off the floor, and dumped them into the trash before taking the bar of soap into the shower.
Even with the knob turned wide open, the water wasn’t more than a dribble, but as Hayes lathered up he knew that nothing short of a pressure washer and a new set of skin would have made a dent in his appearance.
After ten minutes of scrubbing, he gave up, and dressed quickly in a pair of tan Carhartts, a faded denim button-down, and a pair of Ariat Ropers.
He was still tired when he stepped out of the washroom, but the shower and the change of clothes had their effect and there was new life in his step when he returned to the counter.
“I need a truck, nothing special, it just has to run,” he told the man behind the counter.
Hayes knew the moment the words were out of his mouth that the man was going to try and screw him, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to get on the road and get to Luanda before the sun came up.
Twenty minutes later he climbed into a beat-up Land Cruiser, the envelope of cash considerably lighter than it had been when he walked into the hangar, but at least he was moving.
It was an easy drive from the airfield to the capital and, as he’d hoped, Hayes arrived just as the sun was coming up.
After the languid decay of Grand-Bassam, the scene waiting for him in Luanda was a breath of fresh air. The towering glass skyscrapers sparkled like diamonds in the morning sun, the well-paved streets and luxury sedans cruising the waterfront a far cry from how it had looked in the early 2000s when the country was still locked in a vicious civil war.
As Hayes continued south along the coast, the glitz and glamour of Luanda faded away as he entered the working-class municipality of Belas. Here the residents were too busy trying to make a living to bother with hiding the scars of war, and there was evidence of the fighting on the buildings that lined the Lar do Patriota.
But Hayes wasn’t complaining. In fact, he found the pockmarked walls and chipped concrete façades oddly comforting.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not normal, he thought as he arrived at his destination.
Instead of pulling up to the hotel, he circled the block before pulling the SUV into an alley across the street. He cut the engine, pointed the binoculars across the street, and thumbed the focus knob, trying to negate the mirage dancing like a dervish across the blacktop.
Despite the end of the hostilities and the economic growth that followed, Angola was by no means safe. And while the heavy police presence around the city center kept the thieves and kidnappers at bay, those tourists brave enough to venture into the surrounding municipality found themselves easy prey.
To combat the ever-growing threat and to ensure the continued safety of their guests, the proprietors of the working-class hotels began upgrading their security. Some hired armed guards, while others constructed eight-foot walls around their property.
Not to be outdone by his competition, the owner of the Hotel Sunshine turned his lodging into a miniature fortress, adding an eight-foot wall and concrete-reinforced gatehouse manned by round-the-clock guards in tactical gear.
While the proprietor was sure the guests saw the AK-wielding gate guards and the razor wire stretched atop the wall as proof that the Hotel Sunshine was the most secure venue in Belas, Hayes saw a prison.
Yeah, I’m not going in there without some serious hardware.
He returned the binos to their spot on the passenger seat and threw the Land Cruiser into gear. He pulled out onto the street and turned north, the SUV’s asthmatic A/C blowing lukewarm air in his face.
Hayes’s reputation as a loner was well earned, but it was not because he liked being alone so much as he disliked most of the people he’d run across during his time at Treadstone. Like most male-dominated professions, it had an overabundance of assholes. Alpha males with testosterone-inflated egos and quick trigger fingers.
But despite the effort he’d expended in his war of self-sufficiency—and against his better judgment—Hayes realized that he needed help.
38
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Levi Shaw was sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the laptop before him, when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The door swung open and a plain-faced woman with short black hair stuck her head through the crack. “Director, your car is here.”
“Thank you, Linda,” he said.
Shaw closed the laptop and shoved it into his battered attaché case, grabbing the holstered Walther PPK from the drawer before getting to his feet. He clipped the pistol to his waist and retrieved a worn Donegal tweed coat from the wicker rack by the door before stepping out.
“You work too much, Linda,” he said, pulling on the jacket.
“Almost done, sir,” she smiled up at him.
“Fine, but make sure someone walks you out to your car,” he said, heading for the door.
“Yes, sir.”
With the sun heading down, the temperature had dropped, and Shaw pulled up his collar before starting down the steps to the Lincoln Town Car waiting for him at the curb.