In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(44)
Okay, so obviously talk of what happened on the Patton was strictly prohibited.
Duly noted. And totally frustrating.
***
Two days later…
Sharif crested a shallow wave and caught a long glimpse of golden coastline dotted by multiple graduated lines of tall, white structures. The skeletal framework of cranes looked wispy thin in the distant harbor, dwarfed by the steel gray hulls of numerous freighters.
It was a port of some sort. A large one by the looks of it, and the city snuggling next to the bustling port appeared to be larger still.
A sane man would’ve cried with joy, but Sharif felt no elation. Because he feared he was no longer sane. Because he could no longer believe his own eyes. What he was seeing might very well turn out to be a mirage.
A hallucination.
After all, this morning he’d been carrying on a conversation with his dead mother…
Only, she hadn’t been dead. This morning she’d been standing at the wheel, dressed in a beautiful guntino and staring at the taut white sails.
“You’ve been led astray, my son,” she said softly.
He’d been in the process of explaining how things had changed since her death, how he’d been forced into his current situation, when she suddenly dissolved, simply faded into nothingness, much like Alice’s Cheshire Cat. Except there’d been no lingering smile hanging on the warm wind, only the quiet words of her gentle condemnation…
So no, he set no store in the vision before his eyes, only licked dry, cracked lips and steered toward the horizon, waiting for it to all just disappear.
Only…it didn’t.
A motorboat sped by him, kicking up hot salt spray and churning bright green algae in its wake.
This was no hallucination. Even his fevered brain couldn’t conjure those details.
Still, it felt like years passed as he gradually inched closer and closer, closing in on a giant freighter slowly lumbering into dock. A man standing on the deck of the freighter waved his arms and angrily yelled something.
Sharif didn’t speak Swahili, but he understood enough to know the man was telling him he shouldn’t sail here. Something about merchant vessels only.
Sharif tried calling out, but a dull croak was all he could manage from his parched throat. So he held up his injured hand, now dark and bloated with infection and managed to whisper one word in English, “Hospital,” before his whole world faded to black.
***
“Interpol needs a sketch of Sharif’s face.”
That name, and the memories it evoked, made Becky shiver like she’d been sitting in a bucket of ice water. Swinging away from the computer and the CAD software she was using to design the bike for the Blackhawk’s player, she stared at Frank’s concerned expression.
“Do you think you can do that?” he asked softly.
She made a face and waved her hand at the fifteen-foot tall caricatures she’d painted of the Knights all along the shop’s impregnable walls, each one was detailed and specific, not to mention a spitting image of the man it was modeled after. “What do you think?”
“I’m not talking about can you accurately draw the guy.” He frowned and went to cross his arms before wincing and remembering he had one in a sling. The man should’ve gone in for surgery days ago, but for some reason, she had no idea why, he appeared to be putting off the inevitable. The big, stubborn oaf. “I’m asking if you’re emotionally ready to see that face again?”
Emotionally ready? Uh, no. She could happily go the rest of her life without setting eyes on that ugly mug. But she wasn’t the type to throw up her hands and play the wounded victim when there was something she could do to help put the bastard securely behind bars where he belonged. “What about the surveillance photos you have of us on the sailboat? Don’t some of them show his face?”
“Nope. They only caught glimpses of his profile and the back of his head. Not enough to run against facial recognition software. And of the million or so Sharifs in the world, about one hundred have worked as interpreters for the U.N., if you can believe that statistic. The guys and gals at Interpol would very much like to find out just which Sharif they’re after.”
“Yeah, okay.” She nodded, bracing herself to not only see that evil face again, but to personally construct it. Somehow that was worse, more…personal. “I guess there’s been no word at the ports?”
He shook his head, regret and frustration clear in his expression.
Yeah well, she was pretty regretful and frustrated herself. Regretful that she hadn’t driven that KA-BAR straight into Sharif’s blackened heart when she had the chance, and frustrated that he was still roaming around out there…somewhere.
The thought sent a shiver of trepidation racing down her spine, but she ignored it. With the U.S. government’s resources and those of the international community, he’d be caught eventually. Of course, it had taken nearly ten years to get Osama bin Laden, so maybe she was playing the part of the cockeyed optimist.
Whatever.
She wasn’t going to think about that. Not now. Especially when she had something she’d been needing to get off her chest and, what do you know? Here he was. Here she was. And, for the first time in two long days, they were alone together.
“Frank,” she murmured, “I know you said to let it go, but I can’t help but notice there’s this…tension between us, and I…I just wanted to say—”