Chapter Eleven

 

 

Sfax, Tunisia

 

As expected, no one followed Justin and Patton for the first few moments as they arrowed down the side alley. But when Justin turned his head, he noticed two men sprinting behind them. One of them had a white headdress and a black beard. The second man, already struggling to keep up with the first, was shorter and on the heavier side. Both were wearing brown robes.

“Who are they?” Patton also had slowed down.

“Don’t know. Not Abdulkareem or his driver.”

“Someone who works for them? With them?”

“Not sure, but let’s ditch them.”

“Left or right?”

“Can you climb that?” Justin pointed at an eight-foot-high cinderblock wall to their left.

“I’ll leave you in the dust,” Patton said.

He tensed his legs and jumped as high as he could. He hooked his fingers at the top of the wall and lifted himself up quite easily. He scaled the wall and gave Justin a small grin, before jumping onto the other side.

Justin returned the grin, surprised at Patton’s agility, and followed suit.

When he dropped inside the yard of the industrial complex, his feet slipped on a patch of loose sand. Justin leaned against the coarse wall to steady himself.

Patton said, “Hey, old man, falling behind now?”

“I don’t want to embarrass you...”

“Really?”

Patton raced toward the nearest building, which looked like a warehousing complex or a trucking facility. A couple of trucks and two sedans were parked near the entrance, about sixty, seventy yards away.

Justin quickened his pace without looking back and began to gain on Patton. When Justin was a few steps behind the CIA agent, the Canadian slowed down just a beat and glanced behind him. At that exact moment, the head of the bearded man appeared atop the wall. He fought to lift his body up and wavered as he did so.

Justin wondered if the man was being helped up by his companion.

For a moment, the bearded man was balanced on top of the wall, then clumsily spun, before falling hard and rolling onto the sandy patch. He recuperated fast and got to his feet but realized that he would never catch up with the targets.

So he reached into his robe and produced a pistol.

“Get down, Patton. Down!” Justin shouted.

He dove to the ground to his right as a couple of bullets whizzed over his head. Justin crawled toward a heap of construction debris, then slid behind a stack of old tires for cover. A split second later, a bullet tore off a huge chunk from the top tire, sending rubber fragments close to Justin’s face.

He had already pulled out his Sig Sauer pistol. He glanced at Patton, who was on the ground on his back, about ten or twelve feet from the corner of the warehouse building. “Are you hit?” Justin shouted.

“I’m all right.” Patton swung around.

He pointed his pistol at the bearded man and squeezed off a couple of rounds.

Justin also double-tapped his pistol. He missed, as the bearded man had sought cover behind a turned-over wheelbarrow, a few yards from the patch of sand. Justin fired again. His bullets lifted wood slivers from the wheelbarrow, but he was not sure he had hit the man. “Get us a truck,” he shouted at Patton. “I’ll cover.”

“Got it.”

Justin stepped to the right and got to one knee. He fired once, then kept his pistol aimed at the wheelbarrow, waiting for the right moment when the bearded man would pop up. But the man must have figured out Justin’s tactic and remained hidden.

A tense pause followed, as Justin kept his sights on the target.

No movement.

No return fire.

Justin felt his palms sweating, so he retightened his grip around the pistol’s handle. His eyes were fully focused, and the pistol felt like it was a natural extension of his hand. He was in position, expecting an opportunity...

But it never came.

Instead, an engine rumble thundered very close to Justin.

He knew what it was before he heard Patton’s strong voice: “Get in, Justin.”

He stood up, but his eyes never left the wheelbarrow.

The target was still behind it.

Justin fired a couple of rounds, hoping they would pierce the wooden sides. Even if they did not, the suppressive fire should be sufficient to force the target down. At least for a few more seconds, until Justin and Patton had left the warehouse’s yard.

“Justin, let’s go.”

He nodded, lowered his weapon, and ran around the truck. He had barely reached the opened front passenger door when the glass shattered. The eruption sent fragments over his head. He jumped inside the truck as another bullet struck the door.

Patton hit the gas, and the truck jerked forward.

Another bullet thumped against the cab as the truck turned around the corner.

Two men ran out of the warehouse, shouting and waving their hands at Patton. He smiled at them but did not slow down.

One of the men threw a water bottle at the truck.

The other one continued to run behind the truck for another few yards.

“Stubborn, eh?” Justin said.

“Very.”

Patton eased up on the gas as the truck neared the entrance. He yanked at the wheel to make the tight turn, then he slammed the horn with his fist and forced his way into the two-lane road in front of the yard. He swung the steering wheel again, and the truck fishtailed for a moment, then sped forward.

The man who had followed them had fallen behind.

Patton looked at the rearview mirror, then said, “Now, what was that all about?”

“Someone doesn’t want us here.”

“Someone doesn’t want us alive.”

“That too.”

“Our Emirati friends?”

“I thought we reached an understanding with them.”

“Maybe this was a mis-understanding?”

Justin shook his head. “No, this was heavy-handed. Jihadists, no doubt about it, who suspect what we’re doing in Tunis.”

“And how do they know about us?”

“The meeting with the Emirati agents?”

“Abdulkareem sold us out so fast?”

“No, but maybe they were careless, and the jihadists followed them, and, in turn, they found us.”

Patton nodded. “Makes sense. But I want to explore both possibilities. I’ll see what Abe can find about AK—can we call Abdulkareem that?”

“Sure, his name’s quite long.”

“So, AK and his associate: they either gave us up or were sloppy.”

“One of the two, for sure.”

Justin knew by experience that running surveillance was a very resource-consuming activity. It required the surveillants to focus their entire attention and energies into tracking the targets and never losing sight of them. In turn, such an intense operation could easily result in the surveillant becoming the target and never realizing that was the case.

The irony did not escape Justin that he and Patton had missed the Emirati agents following them. We’ve got to do better.

Patton adjusted the rearview mirror, then gave Justin a look of concern. “I think we’re being followed.”

Justin glanced over his shoulder.

A red old-model BMW sedan was flying right behind them and closing the distance fast.