He snorts softly. “Not a bit. Part of the game, though. Negotiating, I can do.” He lets out a deep breath, steadying himself; the rest seems to have done him a lot of good, but we both need a solid night’s sleep.
He lets the hood slam closed. Slides behind the wheel and turns over the motor—it coughs, chugs a few times, doesn’t catch; another turn of the key, more chugging, and then it finally catches with a coughed-up cloud of white exhaust, setting to idling.
The shop owner nods. “See? Is good. Deal?”
Apollo taps the fuel gauge, which is nudging toward empty. “Top off the fuel, and yeah, you got a deal.”
A nod, a scratch of the rounded belly. “Deal.” He extends a hand to Apollo, and they shake.
The owner wiggles himself behind the wheel of the Toyota, gestures toward the front of the shop. “Fuel up, change oil, okay? Quick.”
“Sounds good, thanks.”
Twenty minutes later, the Toyota—rusted red with a white top and newer off-road tires—is idling out front of the shop, beside the hulking deuce-and-a-half, freshly fueled up with new, clean oil. The shop owner even threw in a few cold, sweating liters of water. I climb behind the wheel—here, the shift pattern is printed clearly on the shifter knob, whereas on the military truck it was on a plate riveted to the dash. Apollo climbs up onto the step, reaches into the cab, withdraws the M-16 and the spare mag, quickly tosses them both onto the rear bench of the Toyota, while the owner’s attention is momentarily distracted by a shouted question from the other man, still in the shop working under the car on the lift. Apollo is about to turn away when he bends on the step, looking at the floor—he reaches in again and comes out with the knife I’d thought I’d lost. This too he tosses on the rear seat, then closes the door of the cab and hops down.
His left arm has stopped bleeding, finally, but his shirt sleeve is reddened from mid-bicep down. He’s lost a lot of blood, he’s just playing it tough. No other choice, really.
He climbs in beside me, buckling in—I do the same. “To Tunis.”
“To Tunis,” I echo.
* * *
It’s a long,hot, boring drive. Evening falls as we approach Tunis. Maybe it just feels like a long time—not much more than an hour, I’d say. Apollo dozes off, at some point, leaving me with the windows down, hot air rushing around the cabin.
As we enter the outskirts of Tunis, I nudge Apollo. “Hey, babe. We’re here.”
He grunts, sitting upright. “Shit, I slept.”
“You needed it,” I say. “I’m glad you did.”
He glances at me as he stretches, yawns. “How are you holding up?”
I shrug. “I’ve had to pee for at least half an hour, I’m starving, and I have no idea where to go next. We have no ID, no means of communication, no money, and no prearranged rendezvous.”
“You don’t know how to call anyone?”
I shake my head. “Their phone numbers are all super complicated, because they’re these end-to-end encrypted phone lines and shit. So, no.” I eye him. “Do you have any way of accessing any of your bank accounts?”
He considers. “Doubtful. Like you said, no ID, no cards, nothing. And I’m not even sure there are any banks in Tunis that can access my accounts anyway. Plus, Spaulding is still out there, and I have to assume he’s still looking for us, which means monitoring my accounts. I know for a fact he has that ability. And I know it’s my money and business contacts he’s after.”
“Did he make you transfer money to him or something?” I ask.
We’re just trundling slowly along a four-lane boulevard through suburban Tunis, the sea in the distance to our right. Powerlines follow the road, which is separated on the right by a low stone wall, with a parking lane between the road and the one- and two-story shops and flats on our left. Once in a while, a car will pass us on our left, and the driver will stare—at me, in particular. Apollo with his Greek skin coloring and black hair, maybe doesn’t pass for a local but certainly doesn’t stand out like I do, being pale white with platinum blond hair.
Apollo taps on his thigh with a fingertip, a rapid rhythmless thoughtful gesture. “I have contacts in Tangier—former, errr, business contacts, shall we say, with whom I’m still on good terms. But Tangier is at least…god, two thousand kilometers from here? We’d need money to refuel, at least.”
An idea hits me. “I have something that may work. It’s risky, especially since we have to assume Spaulding is actively looking for us, like you said—he’s not going to just let us get away with this. And if Spaulding is looking for us, he’s going to have Rasmussen and Djakovic on our trail, too.”
“What’s your idea?”
“Lots of holes in it,” I admit. “But it’s the best I can come up with. We have to find someone willing to let us use their phone to call internationally. I know Mom’s cell number by heart. I can call her and be like, ‘we’re loving our vacation in Tunis, say hi to Uncle Harry for me,’ or something like that. Mom will understand what I’m saying, and pass the message along. The risk is, if they’re monitoring Mom’s line, which we have to assume they are to be on the safe side, it will let them know we’re here. So at that point, we’d have to hope Uncle Harry and the crew find us before Rasmussen and-or Djakovic do.”
Apollo hums thoughtfully. “It’s the best option we’ve got, I think—theonlyoption, the way I see it.” He glances at me. “Djakovic and Rasmussen. Who are they?”
I forgot he wasn’t part of the investigation that led us to him—I was assuming he knew everything I knew. Exhaustion is getting to me, too.
“Djakovic is the guy from the warehouse in New York. Low-level criminal. Petty theft, cheap hits, smuggling, small-time drugs. Basically, Djakovic is muscle for the bigger fish in the European crime world. Spaulding doesn’t know him, doesn’t hire him—Spaulding tells his right-hand man, Rasmussen, to get something done. Say, we need this stolen shipment of TVs moved across the border from, like, Kyiv to Moscow or something, right? Rasmussen knows a guy like Djakovic, and hires him for the actual work.”
