CHAPTER 70
Yousef’s truck
“Praise Allah,” breathed Yousef as he saw the convoy moving up the valley.
Now in the truck, Yousef stayed low behind the front wheel, waiting for the others to arrive as the wind whipped over his truck. He checked his rifle again to make sure that the magazine was seated. He had another full clip. He left on the vehicle’s lights, knowing that it made him a target, but equally sure that Zulfiqar’s men wouldn’t find him quickly enough without a lighted beacon to follow.
Whap!
A round struck the front hood of the truck.
Yousef felt the vehicle move, rocked by the force of the round. His fear began to take over again.
Whap!
Another round struck the radiator. Again, the truck rocked back and forth. Liquid started to gurgle out the bottom of the engine.
Yousef rubbed his forehead, feeling extremely feverish. In fact, despite the cold he was dripping in sweat. Muscles shaking.
The lights of the trucks came closer.
Zulfiqar. Come on.
He became emboldened once more by the approaching lights.
Yousef stepped out of the truck and sprayed the rocks with a full clip of ammunition. Sparks popped up as the bullets careened off the harder rocks. He stooped down below the truck, ejected the empty magazine, and loaded another.
Just as Yousef turned to spray the rocks with another clip, he felt a metal cylinder pressed against the back of his head.
“Put the rifle down.” The voice was in English.
Yousef didn’t turn around. Without doubt, the man he knew as Sadik Zabara would squeeze the trigger. He heard not an inkling of hesitation in his voice. Yousef dropped the rifle.
“You will not escape this valley,” said Yousef. “You will die here.”
“Lie down on the ground.”
Yousef lay spread-eagled with Parker’s foot on his back. Parker slid his hand down the side of Yousef ’s coat, finding a cell phone. He tossed it into the rocks.
Yousef started to raise himself up, and Parker popped him on the side of the head with the pistol.
“Who are you?”
Parker didn’t answer.
“I’ll have them cut your throat with a dull blade.”
Parker ignored the threat and searched through the other side of Yousef’s coat until he found what he wanted. The international cell phone.
“You have meningitis. You can feel it by now. The fever. Neck and head pain? At best, you have a few hours of consciousness left. Do you understand?”
Now Yousef lay in silence.
Parker turned the cell phone on, hunching below the truck and out of sight of the approaching trucks. The phone only had two numbers in it. He looked at them closely, memorizing the numbers carefully despite his head aching, nausea, and fever overwhelming his body.
312?
Chicago.
Parker crushed the second phone and tossed it far in to the darkness. He turned to Yousef.
“December twenty-first, 1988. You recognize the date?”
“No.”
“How about Pan Am 103?”
Sullen silence.
Parker cracked Yousef on the back of his skull with the pistol butt. It was a good, solid hit, but only intended to stun him. Yousef would remain conscious, but the disease would continue its progress. The lining to his brain would continue to swell and the bleeding would start. Blood seeping out of the corners of his eyes and ears, his fingers and toes turning black, with the blackness progressing up his legs and arms. Shortly, his legs would not work. He would try to speak, but nothing would come out. Soon the smell of rotten flesh from gangrene would keep any human away. It would not be a fair death nor one that Yousef would want his young son to watch. It would only be fair to the many whose deaths Yousef had caused.
“With exactness grinds He all.” Parker slipped into the darkness.