Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(74)

The three men bobbed their heads obediently but didn’t say a word. Umar fought a smile. It had taken him years to engender this kind of fear in his subordinates. Years of maneuvering and fighting and killing. But it had all been worth it for moments like these. Moments when he could wield his superiority and power without ever having to touch the weapon slung over his shoulder.

Leaning forward, he pushed back the branches on the shrub, revealing the small footprints on the ground beneath. The plant’s leaves had protected the imprints from the fury of the storm. “As you can see, we are still on the correct path, and—”

The shrieking laugh of a child somewhere nearby cut him off. He cocked his head, listening…

There it was again!

“Follow me,” he hissed, breaking into a jog. Winding his way through the undergrowth, he hopped over twisting roots and dodged snaking vines. His men were not nearly as dexterous. In fact, he was pretty sure the quiet curse and muted thud he heard was Azahari falling to the ground behind him. He did not turn to check. Instead, he skidded to a stop at the edge of a clearing. One look at the crude little village cut into the middle of the jungle told him immediately what he was dealing with.

Orang Asli, the backward forest dwellers of Malaysia. The types of tribal people he considered barely better than the monkeys hanging in the trees. Poor. Dirty. Ignorant.

His lip curled as he grabbed the strap of his Kalashnikov, effortlessly lifting the weapon to his shoulder. The butt was a familiar pressure. The trigger rubbed smooth by the continual presence of his finger. “Azahari and Noordin, you two will come with me. You”—he turned to the third man—“will stay back here and provide a lookout.”

Stepping from the clearing, weapon raised, he slunk into the center of the village where a circle of wicker stools sat empty. A group of children laughed and danced in the hazy air down by a stream while the adults gathered in a small, defoliated gap in the nearby forest. Down on their knees, the women were busy spreading wet rice onto mats—which they would later pull out into the sun to dry—and the men were kicked back against the trunks of trees, smiling and talking, cracking a joke here and there if the occasional burst of laughter was anything to go by.

Simpletons, Umar thought with disgust before loudly clearing his throat.

Twenty pairs of wide, terrified eyes turned in his direction. The men pushed away from the trees, the women scrambled to their feet. “Where are the Americans?” he demanded in Malay, making sure his tone adequately conveyed his intent to kill them all should they refuse to answer. “I know they came through here. Where are they? Which direction did they go?”

North toward the border was a given. But whether the anak haram and the woman continued on a straight trajectory through the jungle or whether they decided to take an easier, yet more circuitous route on one of the logging paths was key. This close to Thailand, he could not afford to guess. Catching them before they crossed over was already going to be a very close thing.

“Answer me, you smelly, witless pigs!” he bellowed, taking a few menacing steps forward, feeling Noordin and Azahari shadow his every move. The barrels of their machine guns were a welcome sight in his peripheral vision. “Answer me!” he screamed again.

The women shrank back upon his advance, crying out in alarm as the men arranged themselves in front of them in what Umar figured was supposed to be a wall of opposition.

What? Do they think they can glare me to death? It was almost laughable. And if he had not been in such a hurry, he might have allowed himself a good chuckle. But the clock was ticking…

He opened his mouth to make another demand when the frightened cry of a child caused one of the women to push past the screen of men. Tears streaming down her face, the ugly little shrew yelled something in that ridiculous, clipped language of hers to the little girl running toward her.

Noordin swung his weapon in the child’s direction, and that was more than the woman could stand. She broke away from the group of adults and raced for the girl. But Umar was on her in an instant, catching her by the arm and using her own momentum to jerk her off her feet. He smiled with glee at the grunting whoosh of air that pushed from her lungs when he slammed her spine into the ground. From the corner of his eye, he could see the other adults shuffling anxiously, though stupidity and terror—and the fact that Azahari kept them pinned beneath the evil black eye of his AK-47—stopped them from interfering. Placing one foot on the woman’s abdomen, her stomach muscles quivered beneath the tread of his boot when he pointed his machine gun straight between her eyes.

“Where are the Americans?” he asked. This time, he kept his voice low. So only she could hear. “You may not speak Malay, but you understand that word. Americans,” he stressed.

She shook her head, causing the orchid stuck in her ridiculous mess of fuzzy black hair to quiver. Crying pitifully, she babbled something he did not begin to understand. Rolling his eyes, his patience having frayed to near nothing, he turned to Noordin. “Grab the girl,” he instructed. “Maybe that will encourage this bitch to grow a few more brain cells.”

Noordin did as he was told, swooping down on the little girl and lifting her into his arms despite her banshee shrieks and violent flailing. Azahari stepped up to Umar. “I do not think she understands, abang,” he said. “I do not think any of them do.”

“She understands enough,” he growled, hauling the woman to her feet and shoving the barrel of his AK under her chin. “Place the girl on the ground, Noordin,” he said when the man stopped next to them. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember why he had been so annoyed with Noordin, who followed orders so very, very well. “And be careful to keep the end of your weapon in contact with the child’s head.”