The Freedom Broker, page 29
“You win, but lean on me if you need to. The bush is thick here.” He set her on her feet, making sure she was steady. A slight pink tone had seeped back into her skin. The insulin must be working.
He passed her his canteen. “Have some.”
She swallowed several gulps. “Thanks.”
“You could have confided in me. I told you about what happened in Chad.” He kept his tone low, wanting her to know he could be a trusted confidant.
“And have you worry about me letting the team down?”
“There’s no one I’d trust more to have my back. We’re all human, fallible, but when you and I work together, we’re unbeatable.” He brushed soot from her cheek with his right thumb.
Her gaze was thoughtful, and more open than he’d ever seen.
She placed her hands on either side of his face and pulled him closer, their lips almost touching. His breath quickened.
The wind shifted suddenly, and a ghastly stench filled the air.
They both drew back.
“What’s that?” she asked.
He raised his M4. “Let’s take a look.”
Rain began to fall heavily as they cut through a clearing. A stronger whiff of that horrible stench hit them hard. Beside an enormous tree was something that shocked even a jaded soldier like Rif.
A large tire smoldered around a man’s neck, his head and upper body charred to the bone. The fire had obliterated any facial features, but a quick assessment of the victim’s size and uniform left no doubt.
General Ita Jemwa.
Thea held her hand over her mouth and nose. “Prime Minister Kimweri suspected that Jemwa was behind the attack. But necklacing? Someone had a serious ax to grind.”
“Exactly. A quick shot to the head would’ve done the job.” Rif had zero doubt about who was responsible.
Nikos.
Thea had to realize for herself that her brother was damaged and dangerous. She trusted Nikos too much and was overly protective of him. Rif hoped she wouldn’t pay for her caring nature.
She was staring through a small opening in the bush showcasing the striking Victoria Falls Bridge when Papa’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She read the text. Alea iacta est.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“More damn Latin.” She scanned her phone. “Alea iacta est—the die is cast. The kidnapper’s latest text. Attributed to Caesar as he led his troops across the Rubicon, past the point of no return.” She looked up. “Roll the dice, win or die. What’s the kidnapper talking about?”
“The Rubicon was named for its color, from the red mud deposits.”
“Zimbabwe has red mud and a giant river.” She gestured to the Zambezi, then suddenly became animated. “Victoria Falls Bridge, the crossing over the kidnapper’s Rubicon. Whatever was supposed to happen with the oil rights is irrelevant now. The kidnapper never asked for money or concessions. It was all about this moment, arranging a showdown.” She turned in the direction of the bridge. “Let’s go.” She started an awkward jog, her footing uncertain.
He ran after her. Given the kidnapper’s strange texts, her reasoning made a twisted kind of sense. Clearly General Jemwa wasn’t the kidnapper. And given what had happened to the old soldier, he wondered if the kidnapper might be Nikos after all.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Thea and Rif hurried toward the legendary Victoria Falls Bridge, which linked Zimbabwe to Zambia via car, foot, and train. The steel girders arched proudly over the river’s second gorge, the steady roar of the falls an ominous reminder of nature’s power. Heavy canopied vegetation shrouded the area in shadows, and rain poured from the sky.
Though Thea still felt a little dizzy and weak, the thought of finding her father spurred her on.
“Can you head down into the valley, check the bridge from below?” she asked Rif.
“I’d prefer to stay together.” Rain trickled down his face.
“If I get into trouble, I need you to be free to help.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Okay, but no crazy moves. Let’s keep in touch via our cells.”
She stuck a bud into her left ear and called him. “Testing.”
He adjusted his own earpiece. “Got it. See you soon.”
Dark clouds commingled, gathering force. Wind gusted, blasting grit and sheeting rain into her face. Her sodden clothes clung to her body.
The sound of rotor wash caught her attention. A helicopter flew low overhead, headed toward Zambia. Who would be out in these conditions?
She made her way onto the main road. Rif skirted the footpath and headed for the underside of the bridge for a different vantage point.
She rushed to the outpost. Three border guards were slumped on the ground, eyes staring blankly at the darkening sky. Bullet holes leaked blood onto their neatly pressed uniforms.
Two figures stood in the middle of the deserted bridge, where the bungee-jumping platform was positioned. She recognized her father’s unmistakable profile.
Alive!
Her spirits took a sudden nosedive, however: someone stood beside her father, gun in hand.
She hurried onto the pedestrian footpath on the bridge, closing the distance to her father, who teetered on the bungee platform. Seconds later, she recognized Maximillian Heros. The gun in his hand told her everything.
The Greek police inspector was Papa’s kidnapper.
She flashed on her father’s hand signals in the photo. Five and zero: 5-0. The police. Max Heros. She got it now. But why?
Max nudged Papa closer to the platform’s edge. A gentle push, and Christos would plunge almost four hundred feet into the Zambezi River. If the fall didn’t kill him, the rapids, rocks, or crocs would finish him off. An Australian woman in her twenties had once miraculously survived the fall when her bungee cord snapped, but she’d been young, healthy, and very, very lucky.
Thea moved closer to the center of the bridge, taking in her father’s bedraggled appearance. Even so, his shoulders were squared. He hadn’t given up—not even close.
“The bridge is rigged with explosives.” Max’s voice wavered, his left hand holding his cell in the air. “Stop where you are, or I’ll blow us all to pieces.”
A strong gust of wind rattled rain against the girders. She froze, noting the detonation cord stretched a few inches above the pavement. Another step, and she could’ve blown them all up.
A quick survey confirmed the inspector’s words. The entrance from the Zambian side had been blocked by an eighteen-wheeler, so no one could access the bridge from the west, and he’d rigged explosives on the Zimbabwean side.
It was unbearable. Papa was so close, yet she couldn’t reach him.
Rif’s voice buzzed in her earpiece. “Keep him talking. I’ll approach the bridge from below, try to find the bomb.”
She looked at Max. “I won’t come any closer. Please step away from the edge so we can talk.” She remained still, but her mind kicked into gear. She had to remain detached, work it like any other case.
“You figured out the final text,” Heros said.
“Help me understand what’s going on, Max.” Using his name would help strengthen their bond, and being up front in every statement was crucial. If he sensed deception, it’d all be over.
“Your father isn’t the hero you think he is.” He cuffed Christos in the head with the gun, hard. Papa stumbled, then glared at his captor. A strong gust of wind threatened to sweep them all into the gorge.
“What do you mean, Max? None of us is perfect; we all have flaws.” She kept her voice even, calm. De-escalation was key.
“Christos hired me to fake his own kidnapping.”
Gabrielle crashed through the foliage on her way to the bridge. She held her M24 in the ready position, the H-S Precision stock held against her shoulder. She wanted to be prepared if she ran into General Jemwa’s soldiers. She worked her way along the tree line, visibility low in the drenching rain. Finally, an opening in the thick brush appeared. She could just make out three figures standing on the bungee-jumping platform: Max, with Christos Paris beside him, and Thea Paris approximately twenty feet away.
Max had found the billionaire. The police inspector would be a national hero in Greece.
She assessed Thea’s body language. Her hands were open, as if she was trying to keep her emotions on an even keel.
But Max had a gun pointed at Christos. He was the kidnapper! But why? What the hell was going on?
She settled into hiding fewer than two hundred feet from the bridge. Two minutes later, she had set up the parabolic microphone from her backpack.
Max’s baritone rumbled in her earpiece. “The bridge is rigged with explosives. Stop where you are, or I’ll blow us all to pieces.” Any remaining hope that this was a misunderstanding evaporated. His voice radiated tension, anger.
Gabrielle used the gun-shaped handle to wedge the microphone in a bush with the eighteen-inch dish facing the bridge. She tilted it like an antenna on an old TV until she’d trained the directional mic on the target.
She picked up her rifle. Adjusting the scope, she zoomed back to Max. He held a cell phone in his hand. Probably the detonator.
She couldn’t let him set off the bomb.
Gabrielle ran through her checklist, calculating the wind conditions, rain, humidity. Max and Christos stood close together. It’d be a challenging shot. She’d need to pick her moment carefully. Christos was positioned at the open edge of the bungee platform, and she didn’t want to lose the hostage over the ledge.
She entered the sniper “zone,” breathing steadily, ignoring everything but the rifle and the target. The world narrowed; her senses heightened. She had to wait. Her crosshairs rested on Christos Paris’s head, which now obstructed her view of Max. The oil baron looked determined, showing little fear. Christos shifted, dropping lower in her sights as he widened his stance. Then he tilted his head, very slightly and slowly, so that his gaze could scan the platform. He was searching for a way out.
Max moved into view. The anguish on his face cut to her soul. Framed in her crosshairs was the first man she might’ve broken her one-night rule for. All the rules.
This was the moment. She inhaled a breath and held it, flexing her finger. All she had to do was fire. His head was in her sights.
Do it now. Clean shots in hostage situations were rare, and snipers couldn’t hesitate.
Her trigger finger trembled, but it wouldn’t close.
She couldn’t fucking do it.
She exhaled, berating herself. Max had become the enemy. She had the shot. Why the hell was she hesitating?
Max’s voice rumbled from the mic. “Christos hired me to fake his own kidnapping.”
What?
Chapter Seventy-Five
Rif clambered down a steep hillside, scrambling to maintain his footing. The bridge over the Zambezi River straddled Zimbabwe and Zambia, an impressive arch of steel girders joining the two countries. At the underbelly of the bridge, he discovered a makeshift wooden platform that day laborers must have abandoned because of the storm. After a quick search of their equipment, he tossed pliers, a blowtorch, and a few other tools into his backpack.
He hoped Thea could keep Max Heros talking long enough for him to neutralize the bomb. The police inspector had clearly arranged this bizarre situation because he had a message to deliver, but what, exactly, did he want?
Rif’s fingers white-knuckled the slippery railing while he scanned the steel girders, searching for anomalies. He’d had some experience with ordnance, but it wasn’t his specialty.
Max was both a cop and a rich asshole, so he would have the contacts and finances to create a complex device. If the bomb consisted of two separate compounds that needed mixing to be armed, the best way to defuse it would be to blow up the two compounds while they were still separated. But he didn’t have any C4.
Given the circumstances, though, he hoped that Max would have been forced to improvise a more basic device. He remembered a Marine friend in Iraq encircling a bomb with shaped charges, using the technique to chunk out the device. But that wouldn’t help here. Once the first charge blew, Max could simply shoot Christos.
A metal glint just underneath the bridge caught Rif’s attention. He leaned forward for a better view. The bomb was placed in the most inaccessible spot possible. He scaled the girders, avoiding looking down at the plummeting depths of the river below.
Sweat and rain made him wish he had gloves. His fingers ached as they clung to wet steel. Thea’s voice in his earpiece spurred him on. She was doing great.
He kept climbing. Almost there. The bomb clung to the inside of one of the girders, like a tumor adhering to bone. Most explosive devices consisted of one of four nitrates—ammonium, sodium, potassium, or calcium—along with whatever exotic mixture provided the desired outcome. Fire, projectiles, and explosive damage were among the most common. This was one of the latter varieties—there was enough C4 to decimate the bridge. If he could remove the primer from the volatile material, and if it wasn’t hot-wired, it’d be a lot easier than defusing the detonator.
Especially this detonator, which was linked to a cell phone. Max, or even an accomplice, could trigger the explosion at any second.
One option left.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Thea couldn’t quite process Max’s words. Papa had hired him to fake his own kidnapping? No way. But Christos’s defiant expression and the set of his jaw seemed to confirm it. She’d seen that look before.
Her stomach twisted, but her voice remained firm. “I believe you, Max. But why did my father hire you?”
“Oh, I’ve done lots of work for Christos over the years. When you like deals to go your way and can’t keep your zipper up, having a police official in your pocket can be quite useful.”
There was a ring of truth in all that. Papa was relentless when he wanted something, and she’d witnessed his womanizing streak herself.
“But why fake his own kidnapping?” she asked.
Max prodded Christos in the arm. “I think you should answer that one.”
Papa spoke for the first time, his mouth bloodied. “Nikos was planning to kidnap me. I had to beat him to it.”
Nikos? It couldn’t be. “But . . . killing Piers? He was part of our family! All the staff on the yacht . . .” She pulled back. She couldn’t afford to antagonize any party here. The situation called for de-escalation.
“No one was supposed to die.” Papa glared at Max. “I trusted the wrong man.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Regrettable but necessary. It’s a shame those people chose to work for a monster.”
She turned to her father. “Why didn’t you just confront Nikos?”
He didn’t answer at first. Seconds passed. “Because I’m afraid of my own son. He wasn’t just going to kidnap me. He wants to kill me. This was the only way to draw him out.”
Max’s face darkened. “Prince Nikos becomes a boy soldier, a killer. Now that boy is the world’s most prominent arms dealer.”
“Arms dealer?”
“Your brother is Ares—and Ares wanted to reclaim his rightful throne.”
Nikos was the world’s most infamous arms dealer, the one who kidnapped CEOs? Shock rippled through Thea’s brain.
“Christos had me track your brother for years. I stumbled on something recently that revealed his alter ego,” Max said.
“I did my best to help Nikos when he was a boy, but he was damaged beyond repair,” Christos said. “As Ares, he sold arms to rebels, contributing to political unrest; he kidnapped and murdered people. Then I found out about this twisted revenge plot.”
Goose bumps rippled along Thea’s arms at the thought of how her brother could behave when someone interfered with his plans. She touched the scar on her face. Even with Max Heros holding Papa hostage on the bridge, she was more worried about Nikos.
Rif’s voice murmured in her ear. “I’m cutting around the bomb so it’ll fall into the gorge. Wait for my signal.”
Rif balanced on a girder, twisting his body so he could access his backpack. The falls roared below, causing black vortexes of swirling water. If he survived this, he could always join the circus as a tightrope walker.
The conversation on the bridge sliced to the marrow. It didn’t surprise him about Nikos, but what the hell had Christos been thinking, hiring Heros to kidnap him? Why hadn’t his godfather come to him with the problem?
Shaking his head, he ignited the torch. Black smoke filled his vision. He waited for it to clear, then opened the oxygen valve. The blowtorch’s white-hot flame began to chew at the girder. But would he have enough time?
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Thea blocked out her emotional pain so she could defuse the situation and get them all to safety. Only then could she sort through the implications of her father and Nikos’s machinations. The sky had darkened even more. Thunder rumbled, reverberating through the gorge. Despite the rain, her mouth was gritty, dry. The cold gusts of wind on the bridge were chilling her bones.
She stared at the bungee-jumping platform and the coiled cords with their harnesses. She couldn’t rush Max. It was crucial to listen, to ask open-ended questions, to let him vent.
“Why are you holding my father prisoner if he was paying you?”
“It’s not about money. Christos treats his employees like chattel. Disposable.” He rapped on the back of her father’s skull with his Glock. Papa winced.
Thea was growing angry, but she kept her tone earnest and open. “Did Christos mistreat you somehow?”
“This has never been about me. This is all because of my half sister, Laila, a talented engineer who made the mistake of working for Paris Industries. She had safety concerns about the oil rig she worked on, and she voiced those concerns to Christos himself. He told her that they could discuss the problems over dinner. Bastard hit on her, a girl half his age.”
Max was gesticulating, the gun waving. She wanted to lunge forward and disarm him but not before Rif gave her the go-ahead.
