Mark Greaney - On target

A genuinely offended expression covered Abboud's face. It remained as he asked, "What happens now?"

"We wait."

"How long?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Nobody tells me nothing," Court said as he pulled items out of his bag. "For now, eat your lunch and stop asking me questions."

Oryx shrugged and opened the package of raisins. He seemed more relaxed than Gentry would have expected. As he picked at the tiny pieces of fruit, he said, "Mr. Six, you must admit I am not giving you any trouble. I do not know why you show so much anger towards me."

Court began taking off his shirt. The burning sting deep into the bone of his scapula made the action miserable. "Remember, I was coming in to blow your head off, so I honestly don't think you're being treated so bad."

"I was talking about your words to me. Your striking of me back in Suakin. You are not the image of the honorable American soldier that your country tries to sell to the world."

"I am not an honorable American soldier."

"Then what are you?"

"I'm the guy they send in when some asshole does not deserve to be treated honorably."

As Oryx chewed raisins slowly, he looked across the darkness at his captor. "But, sir, this is your profession. You are here because of what the West considers to be war crimes in the Darfur region. That does not involve you personally, nor, I will venture to say, does it involve members of your family. There is no reason for you to treat this as a personal vendetta. Can we not keep our relationship at a professional level while we are together?"

Court did not respond. Instead, he opened a tiny bottle of disinfectant he'd retrieved from his bag. He leaned forward, reached back, and did his best to pour it where it would run down his shoulder and into his wound. Oryx continued, "Back in the car. You hit me in your moment of rage because you cannot control yourself. Your anger is more base, more degenerate, than the calm reason that I apply to the war in Darfur for which I have been indicted by this kangaroo court of yours."

Gentry winced as the medicine penetrated the swollen hole in his back. But he looked at Abboud across the three feet of dim space. "You think I hit you because I was out of control?"

"Of course you did. I saw it in your eyes. You were scared and angry, and your emotions controlled you. You lashed out-"

"Look in my eyes now. Am I in control?"

"Yes. In this moment you are, but-"

Court punched Abboud in the face again. The man's beefy head snapped back and then forward, his lip fat and red immediately.

"What is wrong with you?" Oryx covered his face as he shouted.

Gentry tossed the empty container of antiseptic back in the bag. "All sorts of things."

"Maniac."

"Yeah. You might want to remember that."

Gentry spent the next ninety minutes telling president Abboud to shut up while writhing in agony from the pain in his back. The extraordinary heat and humidity simply piled on to the misery of the afternoon. Twice Court fished through his backpack for hydrocodone pills, but both times he refrained from taking them. His pain was real, as was his body's desperate need for a moment's respite from the agony, but Court knew he should hold out and wait to hear from Zack.

Zack finally called around four p.m. He and Milo were back on the Hannah; Dan would be arriving in the mini sub within the hour. Court was told it was likely they would use the same exfiltration point in the mangrove swamp, as they had not been compromised. The pickup time would be midnight, meaning Gentry would just have to sit tight for the next seven hours or so before getting Oryx to the water.

Court hung up the call with Zack and looked at Oryx. The president stared back at him. His black bald head was covered in sweat beads that hung like ornamentation, glistening whenever a warm breeze fluttered one of the torn burlap walls enough for the sunlight to filter in to illuminate them. His hands were unbound.

Court next looked to his backpack. Seven hours, with nothing to do but sit here and suffer… he thought about the pain and the cramping in the muscles around the pain site and the fact that he would need to have his body and his muscles as limber as possible for any eventuality as soon as he was on the move again. The only means to that end, he told himself, would be to get some relief for the pain now.

He did not need much convincing.

Sixty seconds later, Oryx had his right wrist zip-tied to the center beam of the shack. His left arm was free to drink water or eat food or to take out his manhood and piss in the dirt if he were so inclined. Gentry made sure there was nothing within reach he could use as a weapon or a tool. Court told himself that Oryx was secure, and Oryx could take care of himself for a while.

Next the American opened his backpack, went right past the hydrocodone pills, and pulled out the most potent injection of morphine the CIA had given him. He tore the preloaded injector from its sterilized package and popped off the plastic tip to expose the needle.

Oryx backed away, afraid.

"Don't worry," said Gentry. "This one's for me."

He injected twenty milligrams of the heavy opiate into his left arm. Immediately he sat down and leaned back against the wall of the shack, out of reach of his captive.

Within a minute and a half his eyelids began to flutter, his pupils became smaller, and the pain began to subside.

Oryx could clearly see the effect the injection was having on his captor. "Madness. What kind of a soldier or spy takes drugs during a mission?"

"Shut up," Gentry said. The room around him softened into a gentle blur. He then said, a tad too defensively, "The pain will slow me down later if I don't take the edge off now."

"And your heroin will not slow you down?"

"It's not heroin, asshole," Court snapped back, but he knew the drug was similar in effect to heroin, though it did not produce its high for as long a duration.

"You are a drug addict," Abboud said flatly.

"And you are a genocidal despot. Get off my back."

Any self-flagellation Gentry may have felt for taking the heavy narcotic while operational went away in seconds, as the rush of the drug's initial effect gave way to an exaggerated sense of well-being. Within ten minutes of injecting himself, he was deep in conversation with Abboud, a 180-degree turnaround from his earlier behavior.

But Court was not entirely incapacitated. During the course of their polite conversation over the next half hour, Oryx asked him for his real name and his home address, asked to borrow his phone, and asked if he could get a closer look at his very fine pistol. The Gray Man was under the influence of a mood-altering opiate, but he was not insane. Each time he just smiled genuinely. When the gun was requested, he even laughed and replied that Abboud had made a nice try.

By a quarter till five, Court was at peace in the dark shack. It was a chemically induced peace, and a peace at a decidedly inopportune time for a warrior like Gentry. As he chatted with Oryx or talked to himself, he found himself incredibly proud to be on this mission, proud to be sent along with the brave men of Whiskey Sierra, God rest the souls of two of them, and proud to be trusted by the legendary Denny Carmichael.

With his eyes closed in blissful tranquillity, he began to fall asleep, the heavy sedation edging out the loss of inhibition that had him deep in conversation with his captive. Just as his head lolled to the side, his phone beeped.

Court stared at it, his eyes as wide as saucers. He looked up at Oryx and smiled. "Oh shit. I'm in trouble."

He answered it. "Hello?"

Hightower said, "Okay, Six, we're gonna have to push up the timetable."