The Taste of Fear (A Suspense Action Thriller & Mystery Novel) Page 11
“Oh wow.” She craned her neck to stare up at the massive snow-capped mountain. “Was it dangerous?”
“Nah. The fourteen in the eight-thousand-meter club are the ones you have to be careful with. Everest, Lhotse, K2…”
“Have you climbed any of those?”
“Not yet. But I reckon I’ve just found a new hobby. How about you? Safari?”
“How did you know?”
“Every foreigner up this way is either climbing Kili or going on safari. That, or they’re with some church group spreading the Good Word.”
“Where are you going now?”
“Dar es Salaam.”
“You’re not flying?”
He jerked a thumb at the backseat. Scarlett turned and saw it was piled high with climbing gear, so much so Sal would have had a tough time squeezing in back there. “More in the boot too,” he said. “They barely let me take it on the jet from Brizzie. No way it was all getting on one of those rinky-dinky things that fly up here. Where do you reckon I turn?”
“No much farther,” she told him. “Do you do this a lot? Climb mountains and stuff?”
“I’m a lawyer actually.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Can’t see me in a suit?”
She eyed his board shorts and flip flops. The slogan on his T-shirt read: “Kimchi Cures Bird Flu.”
“No, I can’t,” she said with a smile.
“That the turney?”
She made an impulsive decision. “Keep going.”
“Wait, there’s a sign. This is it.” He flicked the blinker.
“Keep going,” she repeated.
He gave her a curious look, but didn’t slow.
“I’m going to Dar es Salaam as well,” she explained.
“You want a ride all the way there?” he said, surprised.
“If you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. But what about your flight?”
“Screw it.”
“And your husband?”
She shrugged. “Screw him too.”
Scarlett was pleased with her decision to remain in the car. Not only was Thunder a much needed breath of fresh air, he was genuine, a rare find among her Hollywood crowd. And apparently he didn’t recognize her, which was also a refreshing change. She felt like she could be herself, without the pressure of meeting the impossible ideals that people expected movie stars to meet. Indeed, instead of Thunder telling her what she wasn’t, he was accepting her for what she was. Moreover, she no longer had to worry about negotiating her way onto the plane, getting from the airport to the embassy, and most of all, Sal. In short, she couldn’t have asked for a better stroke of luck than for the Australian to have come by when he did.
During the ride, Scarlett told Thunder a little about the safari, purposely omitting the hot air balloon ride and the lioness attack. The balloon ride was personal. The lioness attack was just plain disturbing to recount, even now, in the light of day.
Then she asked him about his climb up Kilimanjaro. She’d never known someone who’d climbed a mountain before, certainly nothing the size of Kilimanjaro—the only thing most of her friends climbed, including herself, were stair climbers—and she was both fascinated and impressed. According to Thunder, there were a number of routes to the summit. He had taken Lemosho, the longest and most scenic. Seven days of hiking through terrain such as rainforests and snowfields and ice cliffs. He’d hired two porters—a cook and a guide—and they were the ones who’d told him the tales concerning the eight-thousand-meter club, tempting him to give one of them a go. He told her if he ever made it to the top, he was going to hit a golf ball off it, to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. She still wasn’t sure whether he was kidding about that or not.
“Why did you come to Africa in the first place?” she asked him.
“Short and long of it, my dad died, which made me sort of pause and evaluate my life. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t like the direction it was heading.”
“You mean as a lawyer?”
“I worked my arse off for the past ten years. Put in the hours, moved up through the firm. But I realized the next ten would be more of the same, and the ten after that. More money, I reckon, more prestige, but nothing new. So I left.”
“So you’re not on vacation? You actually quit?”
“Best decision I ever made. I finally feel free. Climbing Kili, all I thought about was getting to the top. Nothing else. No deadlines, no clients, no contracts, nothing.”
Scarlett realized she was envious of him. “What are you going to do now?”
He shrugged. “No idea. But I’ve saved up enough to last me a while until I figure it out.”
Scarlett wondered if she could ever quit acting just like that. For so many years it had been all she’d wanted to do. Recently, however, the glam was wearing thin, and it was starting to feel more and more like hard work. The early mornings and long hours in the makeup chair, the charity dinners and interviews and photo shoots, the constant pressure of shouldering multimillion dollar productions. Then again, if she ever did quit, what would she do with her time? Sleep in late every day? Climb mountains? Sail around the world?
Sure—why not?
A Swahili hip hop song spliced with an English chorus came on the radio. It was pretty catchy, and they listened to it in silence for a while. She saw another junked car on the side of the road, bringing her number count to twelve so far. Five miles farther on Thunder mentioned he needed gas and pulled into a Shell station.
“Petroli? Dizeli?” an attendant said, rushing over as they got out of the car.
“Do whatever you need to do, mate,” Thunder told him.
The attendant shook his head, not understanding. Thunder wrapped his arm around the much smaller man’s shoulder, pointed to the gas cap, and pantomimed filling the tank. The little guy grinned and got to work. Thunder went to the small service station to pay, and Scarlett, alone for the first time in hours, found herself wondering about Sal. Namely, where he was right then. Probably already at Julius Nyerere International Airport. But so what? Once she reached the US Embassy, she’d get an emergency passport issued, get her manager to wire her some money, then buy a ticket on the first flight back to LA. She’d be home soon enough. She didn’t need Sal. She’d made the right choice leaving him back there on the highway.
Thunder returned a few minutes later and said, “Any idea what time your embassy closes?” He handed her an orange juice. “This is the main highway to northern and eastern Tanzania. If it’s anything going into the city like it was coming out, then there’s going to be heaps of trucks. Traffic’s going to be killer.”
Scarlett checked her wristwatch. It was two o’clock. Was there a duty officer or someone on staff 24/7 in case of emergencies? She didn’t know, and she wondered what would happen if she missed getting to the embassy before it closed. She didn’t have money to rent a hotel room anywhere, which meant she would have to find a twenty-four-hour coffee shop and stay awake all night. At least she didn’t have to worry about getting robbed again: she had nothing more to give. No, that wasn’t true. She still had her watch and jewelry. Could she pawn some of it? Her engagement ring alone would get her a week in the city’s top hotel with plenty of change to spare.
“I don’t have a mobile,” Thunder went on. “But there’s a payphone over there. Why don’t you ring the embassy?” He handed her a phone card. “I picked this up inside. The phones don’t take coins.”
Impressed by his thoughtfulness, Scarlett hurried past the pumps to a payphone in a yellow-and-white booth. She scanned the plaque titled “Welcome to Rafiki User Instructions,” picked up the receiver, and found the instructions to be redundant as a recorded voice prompted her to choose between either English or Swahili.
Two minutes later she was back at the car. “The embassy closes at six,” she said.
“Then let’s get cracking,” he said. “It’s going to be tight.”
CHAPTER 15
“Thank you so much, Thunder,” she said. “You’re a life saver.”
“You going to be right?”
“If these guys can’t help me, who can, right?”
He handed her two yellow fifty dollar bills. “Take this.”
“Looks like Monopoly money.”
“Aussie money. I’ve had no problem using it.”
“Did you enjoy my company that much?”
“Even if you get an emergency passport issued, you’re going to need a place to stay tonight.”
“I’ll get money wired.”
“Banks are closed now.”
“Surely the embassy has some service that deals with situations like mine. They’ll figure something out.”
“And if they don’t?”
“I can pawn my watch.”
“Don’t be daft. I might be unemployed, but I’m not broke yet. Take it.”
Scarlett reluctantly accepted the money. “Thank you again, Thunder, really.”
She leaned across the seat and kissed him on the cheek, letting her lips linger for a moment or two longer than appropriate.
A loud pop, like a blown tire, startled them apart.
Scarlett snapped her head toward the embassy gate. A Marine was lying on his side, next to an idling white van. Suddenly three more vans screeched around the corner, pulling up behind the first. The tailgates burst open and six men spilled out. They all wore scarves around their faces and carried AK-47s. They immediately sprayed the gatehouse with bullets. One of them lobbed a grenade.
Thunder yanked Scarlett down against the seat and covered her with his body.
The spitfire cadence of the assault rifles on full automatic continued. There was a loud bang—the grenade going off—followed by a motor revving and roaring away in the direction of the embassy.
All of this happened in the space of a few seconds, not more than a hundred feet away. Scarlett was crazily thinking she was on a movie set—the Marine on the ground an actor, the machine guns shooting blanks—only she knew what blanks sounded like, and it wasn’t anything like the screaming, angry roars of those automatic weapons.
A thunderous second explosion dwarfed the first. Vibrations burrowed up through the seat, rattling her teeth and bones. She squeezed her eyes shut as a shockwave imploded all of the Rav 4’s windows. Gummy shards of safety glass rained down on them.
That was no pyrotechnics.
“My God!” she exclaimed.
“Quiet,” Thunder said.
He pushed himself up and off her. She titled her head and saw him peering over the dashboard, through the open space where the windshield had been. She sat up. The remaining three vans were speeding through the embassy gate. One wall of the gatehouse was in rubble. A funnel of black smoke curled into the air, beyond the perimeter wall.
Thunder said something.
“What?” Her ears were ringing loudly.
“Stay here!”
“Where are you going?”
“They might still be alive.”
“Who?”
He said something else, but she didn’t catch it. The low whine in her head was like electricity whistling along a wire, driving her crazy. He shoved open the door and took off, keeping his head low, running toward the Marine lying prone on the ground. She followed, not sure what she was doing, only that she wanted to be doing something. She stopped next to Thunder, her eyes widening in horror. The head of the young man in the desert battledress uniform at her feet was surrounded by a pool of blood. Half his face was missing. She spun away and vomited everything that was in her, which wasn’t much. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while looking around through blurry eyes for Thunder, who was nowhere in sight.
“Thunder!”
He appeared through the hole blown in the wall of the gatehouse. He shook his head.
They’re all dead, she thought, feeling sick again. That’s what he means. The guards are all dead.
Through the open gate Scarlett saw a large crater dug into the ground in front of the Chancery building. Wreckage from the suicide vehicle was scattered over the green grass and among the flame trees. Aside from the broken windows and the black blast marks on the stone façade, the structure seemed largely undamaged. The American flag atop the twenty-five-yard flagpole flapped undaunted in the wind. Then the front doors to the main entrance flung open and four gunmen herded a group of men and women into one of the waiting vans.
Scarlett’s instincts told her to run, but her feet remained soldered to the ground. She watched what played out dreamily, as if it were all happening in slow motion.
A terrorist attack, she thought, the reality of the situation clubbing her over the head with an almost physical force. I’m witnessing a terrorist attack. Not on the news. Right here, right now.
Three more gunmen emerged through the doors, herding more hostages.
One of them was Sal.
Before she could think better of it, she shouted his name.
A terrorist pointed at her.
That slapped her out of her dazed stupor. Time slung-shot forward. Her vision returned to normal. Sound bubbled back. Shouts in Arabic, cries in English. A burnt, chemical smell hung over everything.
The same terrorist leveled his gun. Red fire erupted from the muzzle.
Thunder snagged Scarlett’s hand and they fled back to the Rav 4, scrambling inside. Thunder threw the transmission into reverse. The tires squealed as the car shot backward. As they neared the gatehouse, he hit the brakes, tugging the wheel to the right. The front tires skated across the asphalt in the opposite direction, coming to rest pointed toward the street. He shoved the gearstick into first and stamped the gas again.
Before he switched to second, however, there was a jolting crash. They didn’t have their seatbelts on and Scarlett slammed forward against the dash while Thunder shot up, cracking his head on the roof. She swung around in her seat. One of the vans was right behind them.
“Go faster!” she shouted.
The van swerved to the left, pulling parallel to them, its engine roaring.
Metal screamed as the two vehicles traded paint.
Scarlett could see the driver only a few feet away. He stared at her, his eyes narrowed slits filled with black hatred. His scarf blew away in the wind, revealing a horribly burned face.
“Faster!” she urged in a voice she scarcely recognized as her own.
The van swung hard to the right, sideswiping the smaller and lighter Toyota, causing the steering wheel to spin wildly in Thunder’s hands. The car careened off the road and collided head-on with the trunk of a palm tree.
Scarlett saw a burst of white moments before the airbag exploded in her face.
A snowy darkness faded to black.
CHAPTER 16
Thursday, December 26, 7:33 p.m.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Fitzgerald snapped off the television and remained seated on the bed for a long time, thinking. His job, it seemed, had just become a hell of a lot more difficult.
He wasn’t surprised the terrorists had attacked the American embassies on the tenth anniversary of the original Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings. He was well aware of how history, and warfare by extension, repeated itself. What did surprise him, however, was that the man he’d been hired to kill had somehow gotten himself tangled up in the whole bloody mess.
Nevertheless, to keep things positive, Fitzgerald’s earlier foresight was now proving to be more important than ever. Back in the Serengeti, when he’d surveyed the s
afari camp from the kopje, he’d realized he wouldn’t get another chance at Brazza, not there anyhow. The camp had been too small. Too many potential witnesses for him to have pulled off something unnoticed. And taking them all out would have been suspicious. You could murder lowlifes with little thought to circumstance and consequence, but he didn’t take out lowlifes. The privilege of his clientele often extended to their deaths. So when Brazza and Cox and the stocky fellow had gone off in the balloon, and the cook had followed on the ground, Fitzgerald had slipped two tracking devices into Brazza’s belongings—one in his suitcase, another in his blazer. The reasoning was simple. If he couldn’t get Brazza in Africa, then he’d get him in Dubai or LA or wherever he went to next.
Which, as fate would have it, was now going to be some Al Qaeda stronghold.
Fitzgerald flipped open his MacBook, attached a white receiver about the size of an external hard drive to a USB port, and used his Wi-Fi enabled thumb drive to connect to the internet. The two tracking transmitters sent signals to the twenty-four Department of Defense satellites orbiting the earth. The receiver could triangulate the transmitter’s location to within eight inches and one-quarter mph. He frowned at the screen now. There were two dots on the map. One was in Moshi, a town in the northeast of Tanzania. The other was on the B129, between Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, Tanzania’s capital.
He watched and waited. The one in Moshi remained immobile while the one on the B129 moved west. He reviewed the archives and discovered that from the time he’d activated the transmitters in the Serengeti, both had stayed together until Arusha, when, on the highway near Mt. Kilimanjaro Airport, they’d diverged. Had Brazza and Cox split up then? That couldn’t be right. They’d both been at the Dar embassy. Since that was the case, he ignored the tracker in Moshi and focused on the one that had gone through Dar and was now heading west. He spent another minute watching more of the same, then went to the window and lit a Kent.
He inhaled deeply, exhaled through his nose, and stared absently at the traffic far below him. By the time the tobacco had burned to the filter, he had come to the conclusion this new twist of events might actually be to his advantage. Because now he wouldn’t have to bother with making the kill appear accidental. Who would suspect an assassin’s bullet when Salvador Brazza was in the hands of Al Qaeda fundamentalists?