“No,” the leader of the three bellowed. “I refuse.”
He turned toward Shakir with fury in his eyes. But Shakir calmly pointed a small tube at the man and pressed a button on the top. A dart fired outward, hitting the Libyan resistance leader in the chest.
The man’s face registered surprise and then went blank. He dropped to his knees. His two cohorts reacted with shock but then raised their hands. They didn’t want any part of this fight.
“Wise decision,” Shakir said. “I’ll send you back to your country. Where you shall await further orders. When the government falls, Alberto will nominate someone to take up the reins. You will give that person your full support no matter how bad your prior dealings were.”
“And then?” one of them dared to ask.
“And then you’ll be rewarded,” Shakir said. “The water will be allowed to flow again, at a higher level than before, and you’ll be glad that you complied.”
They looked at each other and then at their leader, who lay slumped on his side. “What about him?”
“He’s not dead,” Shakir insisted. “He’s merely suffering from my latest weapon. A new version of the Black Mist that causes paralysis. This is a less powerful form. It induces a waking coma. Something doctors call a locked-in syndrome. He can see and hear and feel everything a normal person can, but he can’t react, respond or even cry out.”
Shakir leaned close to his beaten adversary and flicked his forehead. “You’re still in there, aren’t you?”
“Will it wear off?”
“Eventually,” Shakir said. “But it’ll be too late for him.”
Shakir snapped his fingers and the guards rushed to the fallen man. Without the slightest hesitation, they picked him up and hurled him over the stone wall into the crocodile pit.
The crocs reacted instantly. Several of them lunged. One had an arm, one had a leg. They seemed about to tear him apart when a third one barreled in, snapped its jaws on his torso, snatched him away and swam off to a deeper part of the pool.
“We keep them hungry,” Hassan said, grinning.
The remaining Libyans looked on, horrified.
“The crocodiles don’t believe in mercy,” Shakir said. “Neither do I. Now, come with me.”
The group moved on, leaving the crocodile pit behind and heading down the nearest tunnel.
—
Kurt, Joe and Renata watched the carnage from above. Any thoughts that they weren’t dealing with a full-blown sociopath were gone.
“Let’s not end up like that guy,” Joe suggested.
“Not interested in being a dinner snack,” Kurt said, agreeing. “The people on the back of the ATV looked like medical personnel. They must have a lab down here. We need to find it.”
“And they went down the tunnel going in the other direction,” Joe said.
Kurt was already on his feet. “Let’s see if we can find them without getting ourselves into trouble.”
50
The security supervisor at the Osiris hydroelectric plant remained at the control desk, watching the clock. The images on the computer screen in front of him flickered and changed in their usual monotonous rotation and the supervisor fought off the desire to rest his eyes. Main lot, secondary lot, north exterior, south exterior, then all the internal camera shots. There was no job on earth more boring than watching security video. It was always the same.
As this thought ran through the supervisor’s head, he suddenly felt more awake. A tiny spark of adrenaline had hit him from somewhere.
Always the same.
It dawned on him that the images shouldn’t be the same. He should have seen the technician appear on at least three of the camera feeds as he made his way to the catwalk by the hydro channel to replace the burned-out sensor.
He grabbed the radio and pressed the talk switch. “Kaz, this is base. Where are you?”
After a slight delay, Kaz’s voice responded. “I’m out on the catwalk, replacing the camera.”