He pulled partially off the road, rolled down the windows, let the heat waves push in, and waited. He turned off the CD player and Meat Loaf’s baritone vanished.
The smaller truck stopped beside his. While two of the turbaned men with subguns pointed their weapons at him, the man in the truck’s passenger seat climbed out and walked to the cab door of the other vehicle. He also wore a turban; the bands of sweat seared into the material spoke of the intensity of the heat.
The driver looked at the man as he approached.
He reached for the sheaf of papers on the front seat. They sat next to his fully loaded Glock with one round already in the chamber.
“Papers?” the man asked in Pashto.
He handed them through. They were straightforward and appropriately signed and distinctively sealed by each of the tribal chieftains who controlled these stretches of land. He was counting on it that they would be honored. He was encouraged by the fact that in this part of the world not abiding by a chieftain’s orders often resulted in the death of the disobedient ones. And death here was nearly always brutal and never entirely painless.
The turbaned man was profusely sweaty, his eyes red and his clothes as dirty as his face. He read through the papers, blinking rapidly when he saw the august signatories.
He looked up at the driver and appraised him keenly. He spoke first in Dari and then in Pashto. The driver answered solely in Pashto.
The papers were handed back.
The man’s gaze went to the back of the truck, his look a curious one. The driver’s hand closed around the small black box.
The man spoke again in Pashto. The driver shook his head and said that opening the truck was not possible. It was locked and he did not have a key.
The man pointed to his gun and said that that was his key.
The driver’s finger hovered over the red button.
He said in Dari, “The tribal leaders were clear. The cargo could not be revealed until its final destination. Very clear,” he added for emphasis.
The man considered this and slid his hand down to his holstered sidearm.
The driver’s finger grew closer to the button as he watched the other man.
He tried to keep his breathing normal and his limbs from twitching, but being seconds from getting blown into oblivion did certain physiological things to the body that he could not control.
The man finally withdrew, climbed back into the truck, and said something to the driver. Moments later the truck sped off, kicking up dirt behind its rear wheels.
He waited until they were nearly out of sight, heading in the direction opposite to his, and put the truck back into gear. He drove off slowly at first, and then punched the gas. His weariness was gone. Every sense he had was at its highest acuity.
He didn’t need the music anymore. He lowered the AC because he suddenly felt rather cold. Perhaps from having Death in such close proximity?
He followed his directions, keeping to the exact route. It did not pay to stray out here. He scanned the horizon for any other pickup trucks coming his way, but none did.
He could imagine that word had been communicated up and down the line here that the cargo truck was to be given safe passage.
Nearly eight hours later he arrived at his final destination. The dusk was starting to gather and the wind was picking up. The sky was streaked with clouds and the rain looked to be a few minutes from pouring down.
When he arrived here he had expected one precise thing to happen.
It didn’t.
CHAPTER
2
THE FIRST THING to go wrong was that his truck ran out of gas as he pulled into the stone building’s rear door. He had extra fuel tanks, but someone had miscalculated.
The second thing to go wrong was the gun being shoved in his face.
This was no turban toting a subgun. It was a white man like him with a .357, its hammer already pulled back.