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He pushed a button on the remote in his pocket and the heavy doors that once welcomed the city’s Christians opened enough to allow him to drive inside. He parked the jeep amidst the overturned pews and headed for his living quarters at the back. The crates that he normally would have had to navigate were conspicuously absent. The sale to Kariem had wiped him out of merchandise and he’d need to sell the diamond to his fence in New York before he could bring in any more. On the bright side, his demonstrable lack of inventory would give him time to figure out what he was going to do about his client list. The under-the-table sales to the government still seemed safe, but the situation with Abdo was tricky. The problem was that while Abdo was far stupider than Kariem, he was just as vicious. He wasn’t going to just sit quietly by while his weapons supply dried up.
Best to consider the problem with the assistance of a few of the beers he kept stashed in the fridge behind his desk. Hopefully, the power had been on all afternoon. There was nothing worse than getting back from nearly being dismembered only to find a fridge full of warm brew.
He pushed through the door but then froze when he saw a man sitting at his desk. He had a dark complexion beneath shaggy hair and a slightly more presentable beard. It didn’t take long for recognition to kick in.
Black spun and sprinted back into the nave, leaping what was left of the altar before spotting the shadow of someone in his path. He tried to get around it, but without being quite sure how it happened, his feet were taken out from under him and he found himself rolling uncontrollably across the rubble-strewn floor. He was about to get up and start running again when a woman slipped a blade under his chin.
Where the hell had she come from? The bitch was wearing white pants and a blouse that was completely free of dust and sweat stains. How was that even possible?
She stared down at him with her dark hair hanging down on either side of his face. Black usually went for girls who were young and easy to impress, but this woman was gorgeous. Her age was impossible to determine—the athletic shape looked late twenties but the face had a few subtle lines that suggested early forties.
He heard footsteps and tried to spot the approaching man without causing the blade to cut into his throat. Finally he came into view, looking down at Black with an expression of vague disappointment.
“Mitch! Come on, man. Don’t let me get killed by a chick. Especially one this hot.”
The woman eased the pressure of the blade against his skin and looked up at Rapp. “I like him.”
* * *
“This is the best you could do? Arms dealing to both sides in a civil war?” Rapp dropped behind Black’s desk again and fished a beer from the refrigerator.
“Come on, man. You said to stay out of your way. How much more out of your way can I get? I’m off the edge of the fucking earth.”
It was hard to argue. The kid could follow instructions.
“Have a seat, Kent.”
He did as he was told, looking a little hopeful at Rapp’s rare use of his alias.
His real name was Steve Thompson. The Kent Black bullshit was an effort to make him sound more like the jet-set private contractor he
’d always wanted to be. In truth, he was a poor Montana kid who had grown up with fewer creature comforts than he had here in Africa. His father had been a crazy survivalist who’d spent half his time preparing for the end of the world and the other half beating on his son. That was, until he’d disappeared. There hadn’t been so much as a hint of foul play and no body was ever recovered, so the younger Thompson—now Black—had been cleared and shuffled off to a foster home.
He’d eventually become an Army Ranger and top-notch sniper. The problem was that he’d seen his father in every commander he’d ever had and eventually was booted out of the military for insubordination.
Rapp had actually considered taking Black on when he hit the street, but it wasn’t an idea that lasted long. The kid was gifted, but also unpredictable and in possession of a seriously broken moral compass. So, while perhaps not CIA material, he was just the man for the shit detail the president had handed out.
“Seriously, Mitch. You don’t want me in South Sudan? I’ll disappear. How about Borneo? Or Siberia. I could—”
“Shut up.”
He fell silent, fidgeting in his chair like a schoolkid called in front of the principal.
“Do you want a job?”
The young man didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Was I not clear?”
“Word on the street is that you left the Agency.”
“That’s right.”
“So you’ve gone private?”
“Something like that.”
“And you want to work with . . . me?”
