The Second Ship (The Rho Agenda #1)(30)

Abdul Aziz was that means, and now he had what he had come for, although even his masters would be shocked at the import of the information. Perhaps Allah would make a place for him after all, despite his shortcomings.

He smiled to himself. Never had he crossed a border easier to penetrate than the border between the United States and Mexico. The desert was his home, and this desert might as well have been an oasis when compared to the great Arabian Desert in which he had lived a goodly portion of his life.

And once across that border, he had not paused longer than it took to highjack a car and dump its former owners beneath six inches of dirt, somewhere in the desert between El Paso, Texas, and Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Now, as he glanced around at the wet mess in what had been a comfortable living room in a quiet Los Alamos residential neighborhood, Abdul shook his head. Getting back across that border was not going to be so easy. Inshallah, God willing, it would happen. At this point, whether he lived or died made little difference. No one would stop him before he returned to his hotel room and broadcast the e-mail message that would change the world.

Unlike some of his associates, Abdul did not enjoy killing. He was merely indifferent to it. The reason he was so much better at it than most was because he had no more emotional response to carving up a child than to preparing a steak for dinner. Even less, since the steak at least made him hungry. All those who had lusted after the kill had not lasted nearly as long as Abdul had, allowing their lust to force them into mistakes that he never made. At least until today.

But this was no mistake of emotion. It was one required by his mission. Tonight there would be no time for cleanup, so he had not bothered to avoid the mess.

He glanced over at the armchair that held the body of Dr. Sheldon Brownstein, formerly the number three physicist working on the Rho Project. Beside him, bound and gagged with duct tape, were the bloody bodies of his wife and two children, a boy and a girl, ten and eight years old respectively. Tomorrow these bodies would be found and all hell would break loose, but tonight, Abdul Aziz had what he needed. He would deal with tomorrow when it arrived.

Abdul nodded at Dr. Brownstein with grudging respect. The man had been strong, unwilling to break until after Abdul had finished with his wife and started in on the children. But finally the information had come, flowing out of the man’s lips so rapidly that Abdul had to tell him to slow down, to ensure the digital recording was intelligible.

Switching on the television, Abdul swept the room one last time with his eyes, not that he thought he had missed anything. He merely wanted to remember this, the place where he had changed the history of the world. Perhaps one day even the Americans would thank him for what he had done. A thin smile spread across Abdul's hawk-like features. He would not hold his breath for that day.

Exiting through the kitchen door, the same one he had entered two hours earlier, Abdul moved into the backyard, then down onto the steep canyon slope that dropped off directly behind the house. His car was parked over a mile away, in the parking lot of an all-night grocery store, and he would not chance walking along streets to get back to it. It was full of gas for his run to the border, but that run would have to wait until he had returned to his hotel and sent the message.

A small sound brought Abdul to a sudden stop. It was impossible to move on the steep, shale-covered slope without making some noise, but the noise he had heard had not come from him. The light from the quarter moon created more shadows than illumination, but to Abdul's trained eyes it might as well have been daylight. In the shadows on the slope ahead, another shadow awaited him. In the shadow's hand, moonlight glinted from the blade of a knife.

Abdul glanced up the hill. He was much too near to the houses to risk the sound and attention a gunshot would produce, unless he absolutely had to. Apparently the shadow's thoughts were similar.

Aware he had been spotted, Abdul's adversary stepped out from his hiding place, moving at a steady walk toward Abdul. American Special Operations Forces agents, whether they were Army Rangers, Green Berets, SEALs, or Marine Recon, had a unique look and smell about them. Then there was Delta Force; most of the group had served in multiple types of special operations roles—cross-dressers, as Abdul thought of them.

Over his years of encounters with them, throughout the Middle East and Africa, Abdul had developed the ability to immediately spot which breed of the beast he was dealing with. Lean bodies, hungry eyes, the stink of reckless self-confidence, tattoos over large portions of the younger ones’ bodies.

They came home from their wars around the world, quickly became bored with civilian life, and went back to what they knew best, becoming mercenaries or, as they preferred to be called, security consultants.

This one had the ex-Delta stench about him. That was good. It meant there would be no backup coming.

The two men lunged at each other simultaneously. Abdul spun aside from the underhand thrust of the merc, his own curved knife barely missing his opponent's throat. Abdul reversed the arc of the blade, sweeping in low, a move that was blocked with a left forearm.

The merc was good, no doubt about that, but not nearly good enough. Abdul drove his body forward so the other man’s knife grazed his side but missed vital organs. With a rapid twisting motion of his wrist, Abdul dislodged his knife from the merc’s block, bringing it up flat, the tip sliding smoothly in through the man’s solar plexus.

Immediately, the merc grabbed Abdul’s knife hand in a grip of iron strength, but it was too late. The entire length of the blade had penetrated the man’s chest and lung. Still, Abdul had to marvel at his strength of will. Ever so slowly, the merc forced the blade from his body as his other hand pressed forward, locked in Abdul's grip.