The Mercenary (2 page)

A
UGUST
1, N
OUAKCHOTT
, M
AURITANIA

K
irk Mann wasn’t a people person. So that made him perfectly suited to his job as part of the Savage Seven. He was actually second in command and his specialty without fail was as a sniper.

He didn’t work with a scout because they didn’t have enough extra manpower to have someone designated that way on their team. There were only six of them. When he’d been in the U.S. Marines he had relied heavily on his sniper scout, Joe Gibbs, but that was a lifetime ago. And Joe was dead now. Kirk sometimes thought that Joe’s ghost was with him on his missions.

Today he was in another unstable republic in Africa—this time he was killing the deposed president of a corrupt “republic.” This part of the world changed leadership the way models changed their clothes at a fashion show. Kirk had spent a lot of time here.

They were working for the new government run by a man in a large African country most people in the States had never heard of. The Savage Seven had no political alliance and worked for the highest bidder. Kind of like Blackwater, except smaller and choosier about who they worked for. Jack Savage, their leader, took jobs in places that paid well.

“Are you taking the shot or what?” Jack asked in Kirk’s ear.

Jack was halfway around the world in London at their headquarters, watching the setup through the camera mounted to Kirk’s helmet. The reminder that he wasn’t alone was the one reassurance that Kirk liked.

“Give me a second.”

“What are you waiting for?” Jack asked. “Wind?”

“Yes. There was a slight gust a minute ago. I want one shot.”

“That’s what you are known for,” Jack said.

“True that,” Kirk said. He pulled out an anemometer—a handheld weather station, and waited for his reading to come back. There wasn’t much difference between where he was and where the target was, but Kirk had always been a careful shooter. He had his shot lined up. He glanced down at the anemometer and made the adjustments to his trajectory to account for the wind.

He was in a run-down apartment building that ran along the alleyway from the headquarters for the Al Tarvaani faction. They were a group of Muslim fundamentalist who had been trying for years to reclaim land in this part of the world, which had been theirs centuries ago.

Kirk didn’t care what their beef with the current government was. He did care that he got this job done and kept moving forward. After a while he realized that when he stood still the world didn’t make sense to him.

“I’m lined up now,” Kirk said.

“You are good to go,” Jack said.

Kirk was not the only member of the team in-country. JP “Laz” Lazarus was downstairs in a car waiting for a quick escape. Laz and Kirk had done this same job many times and worked together like a well-oiled machine.

“Laz?” Kirk asked.

“I’m ready when you are.”

Kirk took a breath and held it, letting out half of it he lightly squeezed the trigger as Karzon—his target—stepped away from the table where he had been sitting. He stood and leaned over the table pointing at something on the map he had been studying with his men.

Kirk exhaled and pulled the trigger. He watched as the bullet struck his target between the eyes and the man fell back into his chair. He was dead. Kirk always struck true and lethal. He watched for a moment through his sight to confirm his target was dead.

“Tango down,” Kirk said.

“Copy that,” Savage said. “Now move.”

Back in the Corps he would have had to get a DNA sample to affirm he’d hit the right target, but with Savage there wasn’t really any paperwork trail. He packed up his Barrett .50 sniper rifle. Kirk grabbed his bag as the men with Karzon scrambled to their feet, firing bullets toward his location. But he suspected they didn’t really know which apartment building he was in because none of the bullets came close to him.

Kirk was down the three flights of stairs, out onto the street, and into the waiting car in less than sixty seconds. As soon as Kirk was in the back, Laz took off, driving not like a man with escape on his mind but slowly through the light traffic. They kept moving away from their target toward the airport. Kirk didn’t look up or around, but concentrated on putting his weapon away.

He was a weapon of war and had been for the better part of his adult life. He was a tool that was used for the purpose that it had been made. Hammers didn’t think about the nails they put in the wood and Kirk Mann didn’t stop to think about the man he’d killed. But sometimes, Kirk felt all those deaths added up.

“How’d it go?” Laz asked.

“Same as always. Sweet and clean.”

“You okay?”

“Perfect, why?”

“I don’t know. Just checking. This is our third operation in a row…”

The very last thing he wanted to do was discuss how much time he hadn’t taken off with Laz while Jack was on the line. “Yeah, so this is what we do—keep the world a safer place.”

“Hell, yeah,” Laz said. “But everyone else has had a few weeks off—

“And you want some, too?”

“Yes. I’ve got a sweet little piece waiting for me Stateside, but I can’t get back to her until
you
take a day off.”

“Am I cramping your style, loverboy?” Kirk asked.

“Screw you,” Laz said.

“Boys,” Savage said.

“Yes, sir,” Kirk said.

“Laz’s love life will have to stay on hold. I need you two to head to Johannesburg ASAP.”

“I’m surprised. I was thinking we’d hit Somalia next,” Laz said. “All those pirate attacks off their coast.”

Kirk was, too. Lately there had been a lot of attacks on shipper freighters and yachts in the Indian Ocean.

“Not yet. I’m in talks with our contacts in the area,” Savage said.

Kirk wasn’t surprised. The pirates operating off the coast of Somalia were out of control and the governments who were being affected there were all trying to put an end to it. But jurisdiction and fuck-all stood in their way. So men like the Savage Seven would be the ones to restore peace there.
Ooo-rah.
The companies that were trying to ship oil and other freight through the region had to be good and pissed at the hijackings that had taken place over the last six months.

“Why Jo’burg?”

“Anna’s on the horn with a high-profile witness to a murder. It happened on Onyx Diamond Group property, so the local authorities have no jurisdiction.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“It appears the shooter was the woman’s fiancé,” Savage said.

“Bodyguard and extraction duty?” Laz asked. God, he hated doing that kind of thing. “We aren’t babysitters. We are guns for hire.”

“I know that,” Jack said.

“Why can’t Liberty Investigations handle this?” Kirk asked. He really didn’t want to have to go to Johannesburg right now. “Send her to her embassy and tell them to keep her safe.”

“Liberty doesn’t have anyone close enough. Look, she’s scared and freaking out and she’s a friend of Anna’s. Just keep her safe until we can get there,” Savage said.

“What’s her name?” Kirk asked.

“Olivia Pontuf. She’s an American but recently lived in London. She’s been in Johannesburg for the last six weeks with her fiancé, Ray Lambert, managing director of Onyx Diamond Mines.”

“Do you have mission specs on this?”

“I’m sending a file to you both right now.”

Kirk received the file on his satellite smartphone and opened it up. The woman was beautiful. Breathtaking, really, even on the tiny display screen of his smartphone.

“Well, hello,” Laz said. “Forget about my needing time off.”

Kirk laughed. Laz was always on the make. Of all the guys on the team, he was the closest thing they had to a playboy. Most of the men were like Kirk, more interested in the job.

Kirk didn’t know if Olivia Pontuf was anything like Anna Sterling. If she was, then Kirk could understand Laz getting excited over her. Anna was one of the few women Kirk had met in the last few years who had held his interest.

Looking at that woman, he wondered why she’d thought about getting married. She didn’t look like the wife-and-mother type. But then who was he to judge someone by their looks? He remembered his sweet little wife—Abby. He’d once wanted a family, but that desire had died with his young wife and stillborn son more than twenty years ago.

That event and the USMC had shaped him into the man he was today.

A
UGUST
1, S
ANDTON

O
livia couldn’t stop panicking as she drove back to the house she’d shared with Ray—a murderer. She tried in her mind to justify what he’d done. Maybe he had some sort of explanation that would make it all okay.

But she highly doubted that. He’d pointed a gun at her. How was he going to explain that?

He’d killed a man. No matter how she sliced it, she couldn’t forget that. Anna had promised to send a man from her husband’s team to protect her.

The irony of this situation wasn’t lost on Olivia. Ray, the one man she’d relied on to protect her in this hostile, beautiful world, was now the one she needed protection from.

She still had the envelope he’d asked her to bring to the mines and she had nothing else. Her handbag. A nice designer clutch that held only her lipstick, coin purse, and one credit card. Hardly enough to get her out of the country. And though Anna had said to go directly to the airport, Olivia knew she needed clothes and more money.

She drove with a purpose, no longer enjoying the scenery but instead flying through the city streets until she reached her residential neighborhood. She pushed the button that activated the gate to her community.

The guard smiled and waved at her and she forced herself to wave back. She felt her breath getting shorter as images kept flashing through her mind. Images of Ray shooting someone—she still didn’t know who. And images of Ray glaring at her as she drove past his car, aiming his gun at her.

He would have killed her.

Her hands started to shake and she almost lost it, but there was no time for that. She forced everything to the back of her mind and found a kind of calm that she knew was false. She only had to keep it together until she got to the airport. Then she would get on the plane and get the hell out of South Africa.

She pulled into the circle drive of the house she shared with him. Burati came to the front door as she came up the walk.

Her bodyguard…would he protect her? She had no idea, and she didn’t want to take a chance that Ray may have called him and asked him to keep her here.

“Shall I bring the car around back, Ms. Pontuf?” Burati asked.

She shook her head. “I’ll be going back out soon. I have a lunch date with a friend of mine.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

“Burati? Has Mr. Lambert called?”

“No, ma’am.”

Olivia nodded. She felt safer knowing that Burati hadn’t talked to Ray. He might not like her, but she didn’t think he’d kill her.

She walked calmly into the house, not wanting to alert the guard if what he said was true. She went straight to her office and found her backup flash drive, then she went to her closet and took down her Louis Vuitton duffel. She grabbed clothes randomly and tossed them in. Then she changed her shoes from the heels she had on to her running shoes. She went to the bathroom and grabbed toiletries off the vanity.

And walked out the door. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the rumble of Burati’s voice. She didn’t speak Afrikaans well enough to understand what he was saying. But she didn’t take any chances. She went back into Ray’s office and opened that middle drawer again. This time she took everything in there and put it in her duffel.

She had no idea if it was important or not, but she wanted everything she could find on Ray. Anything she could use to figure out what was going on.

She walked into the hallway, pulled her sunglasses on, and made her way to the front door. In the large foyer with its marble floors and gilt-framed artwork she heard Burati’s voice.

“Ms. Pontuf?”

She kept walking. This foyer represented what she’d always thought of as security. How foolish had that been? Things couldn’t protect her. Money couldn’t protect her, either, she realized. She walked out the door, hearing Burati behind her but very afraid to stop and talk to the man.

She got in the car as he came to the door. She noticed he had his hand on the butt of his handgun as she climbed into the car and locked the doors. Her car was bulletproof and she knew Burati wouldn’t waste a bullet on the car.

She started the engine and put the car in drive. She wondered if they’d let her leave the compound. She didn’t worry about that right now. She just had to get away. If Burati had been alerted to what had happened, that meant Ray knew she’d seen something.

Her mobile phone rang and she glanced at the caller ID.
Ray.

Should she answer it?

She had no idea what to do, but went ahead and answered the call because she needed to know what he was going to do. If he believed she had seen him kill a man or if she’d simply driven by him and noticed the gun.

“Hello,” she said, trying to sound calm and as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about her day.

“Olivia,” Ray said. “Where are you? I need you to go to the house and wait there for me.”

“I can’t do that, Ray.”

“Why not? You know that Jo’burg isn’t safe for you on your own. You could turn down the wrong street and find yourself in a bad neighborhood.”

“Or I could just walk into our home and find you waiting for me.”

“You could, but I won’t hurt you,” Ray said.

“You pointed a gun at me.” Olivia realized she didn’t know Ray. Not the way she should have before she’d agreed to marry him.

“Darling, I didn’t know it was you. That man was trying to kill me, and I was afraid you might be his accomplice,” he said. “You’re clearly distraught, go back home and we’ll talk about it. I’m not sure it’s safe for you. Everyone knows you are my fiancée.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m leaving Johannesburg.”

“Where are you going? Burati said you’d packed a bag,” Ray said.

She took a deep breath. “I…a friend of mine is going through a tough time and she asked me to come and stay with her.”

“Which friend?” he asked.

“A school chum…Anna Sterling. I don’t believe you know her.”

“Where is she?”

Olivia knew better than to say London. So she stuck with the truth to a certain extent. “Washington D.C. I’ll call you when I get there and let you know when I can come back. Maybe you will have taken care of the threat to yourself by then.”

She wondered if she should have kept that information to herself. What if he did something to Anna?

She’d have to call Anna and warn her.

“Olivia?”

“Yes, Ray.”

“I still need that envelope you were bringing to me,” he said. He sounded aggravated with her now.

“I left it with the guard at the gate of the Onyx mines.” Olivia usually didn’t hold with lying, except maybe a little white lie when a friend had made an unfortunate fashion choice.

In this case she figured that Ray didn’t deserve the truth from her. And he’d killed a man. She didn’t care what the circumstances were; she knew she couldn’t marry a man who was a murderer.

She wondered if this was a onetime crime or if Ray had done this before. She knew that the diamond mine property was private and Ray wasn’t answerable to anyone except the diamond consortium.

“Did you?” he asked.

“Yes, Ray, I did. And now I have to go. You know I don’t like to talk on my mobile while I’m driving,” she said, hanging up the phone.

She put the phone on the passenger seat and tried to think who she could go to with the evidence she had. The U.S. Embassy had no authority over the diamond mines. The only governing body that did was the diamond consortium. Her cousin Amy’s husband Phillip was on the board of the consortium. They lived in Denmark, so they weren’t exactly local.

But she thought she might have to give them a call once she was safe. She wasn’t going to be able to think or really take a deep breath until she was out of Jo’burg. She just didn’t feel safe here.

She felt tears burn the back of her eyes, but she didn’t cry. Wouldn’t allow herself to be that weak. Nothing bad had happened to her. She’d witnessed Ray doing something unspeakable, but that didn’t mean she had to break down. She could keep it together. She repeated that to herself until the words became the truth and she calmed down.