Page 14 of Her Righteous Protector

Max looked over Kane’s shoulder and saw him key in the description of the cages and how they would be deployed on the trucks. Kane looked up at Max.

“Anything else?”

“Tell the commander that we anticipate leaving in thirty-six hours.”

Kane nodded, keyed in the info, then sent the missive.

“Well, that’s done. Simon didn’t give me much shit about Kostya coming, you and Gideon did a good job on the backstory. But what kind of chatter have you seen come in from the CIA? Have you been monitoring them?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Kane shook his head at Max. “Of course I have. The men in black have looked over the backdated e-mails, but they haven’t found anything that’s raised any kind of red flags. We know what we’re doing.”

Max gave Kane an arch look. “If you were such a damn hotshot, you would have gotten into that attorney’s computer and found the will.”

Kane narrowed his eyes. “I can’t very well get into a computer that isn’t connected to anything, now can I?”

“What happens when he’s on the internet, can’t you access him then?”

“Jesus, Max, you really think it’s that easy? I’ve sent two e-mails with spyware to his AOL account but he hasn’t clicked on them. I need him to do something like that so I can get into his computer. He’s not hooked up into any kind of network that I can see. It’s probably just his lonely old desktop computer that was built before the year two thousand.”

“And here I thought you were the best,” Max smirked.

“You’re an asshole.”

It was fun getting under Kane’s skin, it didn’t happen all that often.

“My work here is done,” Max said as he sauntered away.

5

Thirty-three hours had passed since his last check-in with Simon. Max stood next to the loading dock and watched as the second truck was loaded with plaster. Nigel had arranged it so that nobody from Pakistan Gypsum was here at the warehouse, including the night watchman. It had taken a little less than an hour to load the first truck and ensure that the cage was securely hidden, but that the men could see out and had enough air coming in. The cages had been built long and narrow, so that if the Taliban were to pull out one layer of a side bag, the cage would still be concealed by another bag. Asher had worked a stint driving short-haul, so he was quick to point out the best way to load the bags of plaster so that one side could be easily dislodged between checkpoints and then quickly repacked without looking out of place.

Ali Baqri was driving the first truck, and despite Kane’s epic failure with the attorney in Chicago, the man was able to come up with quite the background check on Ali. Max had no idea how he was able to find anything, considering the fact that Ali was a citizen of Pakistan, but Kane managed it. Anyway, it confirmed Roger’s advice that Ali was the right man for the job, so he was the third driver. His truck had Cullen, Asher, and Kostya in the cage. Leo would drive the truck that was being loaded. Kane and Nic were already inside the cage, all three of them armed and loaded for bear as they watched men load the bags around and above them on the flatbed truck.

Finally, it was time to load up Zed’s truck. Max, Ezio, and Raiden got inside the cage. It was placed up close to the truck tractor, and then Nigel, Roger, and Randall started to load the bags of plaster. They were going to be flying blind when it came to communications; they’d already tried to see if their mics would work while they were concealed under the bags and discovered they wouldn’t. Max knew that Kane must be feeling like a baby without his pacifier since he couldn’t use his tablet. The only consolation was that here in Quetta they had signals on their satellite phones so they could call and text one another. Hopefully, that would continue.

“Who chose our roommates?” Raiden asked as the last bag of plaster was placed, and the three men were ensconced in darkness.

“I did,” Max said.

“Why did you stick us with Ezio?” Raiden asked. “All we’re going to hear about is Samantha this and Samantha that. He’s been with her for over a year and he still hasn’t shut up about her. What in the hell were you thinking, Max?”

Max let out a loud laugh. It was true.

“I resent that,” Ezio remarked. “And, I counter with the fact that you have been moaning about Lisa going out whitewater rafting without you, and we’ve been stuck looking at pictures and pretending we give a shit.”

“He’s got you there,” Max said to Raiden. Seriously, I need to get a whole new team of bachelors.”

Max was comforted to feel air coming in from the side and the top of the cage, Asher had done a great job of explaining the best way to load the bags.

The truck began to move. He looked down at his watch—it was oh-four-hundred hours. Even though A75 was a major highway and it was only one hundred and twenty-eight kilometers to the Afghan border, it was going to take them five to six hours because the trucks were so heavily loaded. The crapshoot was going to be how long they’d need to be at the checkpoint into Afghanistan.

* * *

Max, Raiden, and Ezio were all zoned out. Maybe once every ten minutes there would be something loud enough for them to hear and comprehend, but that had been it. They’d been at the border crossing for twelve hours. If Leo wanted to get their attention about anything, he was supposed to grind the gears of the truck, so right now they were safe to rest. When they got past this checkpoint, Ali had said that there shouldn’t be any more checkpoints until they got close to Kandahar, which was another one hundred and fifteen kilometers. Before they’d left Pakistan, Max received intel from Simon that there was a small distribution warehouse located on the outskirts of the city. It had suffered some light damage during the bombings, but from the aerial shots that they had, it should provide enough coverage to hide the three trucks.

Once again the truck moved forward. Was it an inch? Two inches? Leo was a good driver, no grinding of the gears.

Max grinned to himself. He’d done well not to have included Cullen on his truck with him; it was always a careful balancing act. Yeah, Cullen could entertain the hell out of you, but then there was the point where you felt like throat punching the asshole.