“But why are you telling me all this?” He made his words come out slow and halting, like he was settling into a long speech. “Aren’t you worried that—?”
He sprang to her midsentence, spun her and caught her in a headlock with his left arm. Shouts bounced around. One chance. As his right hand gripped her jaw and yanked sideways, pain slammed into his skull. The room twisted. His crown exploded with heat.
A force grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him backward, as Hamid scrambled away—gasping but alive, fuck it. The silhouette of a sidearm rose above him. The pricks had pistol-whipped his wound. He bit down on his cheeks, internalizing the pain pinballing through his head.
A female soldier leaped down in front of him, a reinforcement from above. Flynn pulled at his captor—captors, now, one pinning each shoulder. They bore down as he dragged them across the dirt toward Hamid. He tossed forward to flip them but the reinforcement launched a boot to his gut. His breath yelped out.
“Don’t touch his face,” spit Hamid as she repositioned her scarf and hood. “The rest of him is yours.”
The woman pulled out a cable tie and sprang round back of Flynn as the other goons pinned him. It clicked as it tightened around his wrists. Warm liquid dribbled down his forehead and into his eye. Blood. He blinked to clear it but a filmy smear remained, coloring the room red.
Damn sedative must have slowed him. No point fighting now. Better to concede and hope they didn’t take it out on the journalist. Light flashed in his face. A phone camera. Taking his picture for their press release? His vision swam in blues and reds.
At least with a dirty face, a bandaged head, an eye socket running with blood and a scruffy half beard he’d be unrecognizable from the teenager Australia remembered. A soldier shoved him to the floor face-first. Something smashed into his lower back. A knee? He inhaled through the pain. In his peripheral vision, the woman stepped back and leveled her rifle. One chance and he’d screwed it up.
“We’ll take a more attractive photo once we get you cleaned up,” said Hamid, her voice ironed smooth. “Maybe I’ll shave you myself. And now, my other pretty one, you must write a note for me.”
With his cheek rammed into the dirt, Flynn watched Hamid tower over Tess. Tess lifted her gaze, defiant, her fists clutching her cargoes. Hamid snapped a command—in Amharic?—and something small pelted through the hole. A soldier passed it to Hamid. Baby wipes.
“Clean your hands first,” hissed Hamid, handing them to Tess. “You’re filthy and I don’t want the paper smudged.”
“A note?” said Tess, with a hint of challenge.
“To your producer. You will write exactly what I tell you.” Hamid’s robe swished as she lifted something from it. “Use this.”
“My notebook.” Tess said it like an accusation.
“Date it a week ago, exactly. Write, ‘Quan. There’s nothing in the story linking al-Thawra with Denniston Corporation. Hyland’s clean.’”
Tess scoffed, a tick from the back of her throat. “Let me guess. Quan will receive this after my death?”
“Write it or I’ll remove your hand and write it for you. And no tricks—I know your handwriting.”
Shaking her head, Tess pulled a pen out of the notebook’s spiral top and began writing.
“Good,” said Hamid, peering over her shoulder. “Now add, ‘I can’t trust using a phone, so I’m posting you this.’”
The pen rolled over the pad.
“Sign it with ‘Ciao’ and two small Xs. And now a T, with a full stop.”
Tess looked up, her forehead creased. “You’ve been reading my emails.”
“Do it.”
Biting her bottom lip, Tess returned to the note. When she was finished, Hamid snatched it, smiled and stomped on Tess’s right foot. Tess yelped. The pen skidded onto the dirt by Flynn’s nose. Hamid ground in her heel a couple of seconds before releasing. Tess crumpled to her knees, air scraping into her lungs. Jesus. Flynn bucked against his guards but all it got him was a smack on the head.
Hamid stepped back, sniffing. “Oh, and thanks to the information on your laptop, I’ve discovered the identity of your other whistle-blower. She will soon meet the same fate as the first. Nice and tidy.”
A cry squeaked out of Tess.
“It’s over.”
“Never,” Tess breathed, raising her chin. “If I found out the truth about al-Thawra, someone else will, too. They’ll take you down, along with Denniston and Senator Hyland.”
Wait—Senator Hyland? He was in on this? Shit, Flynn was even more dead.
“No. You have kindly revealed a crack in this organization and I am fixing it. I am going through your so-called evidence piece by piece to ensure there will be no more lapses.”
Tess pushed to her feet with a slight grunt. “You can’t win this.”
“I already have and your death will seal it. In a matter of days, the US and its allies will announce war on Somalia. Very soon, the senator will be president.”
“With you behind the scenes doing his dirty work.” If Tess was scared, she hid it well. Wrap it up, sunshine. This ain’t comfortable.
“You say that as if you think it is he who is in charge of me,” Hamid said, brushing a streak of dirt from her robe.
“He’s got you believing you hold the power here? You know that sucking people in and spitting them out is what he does best? You’re his pawn, as much as these people.”
“Oh, I am looking forward to the hour I get to spit you out.”
A swishing noise. Hamid was climbing the ladder. The pressure on Flynn’s lower back released. More scrambling marked one soldier’s departure, followed by another. The one remaining guy rubbed Flynn’s face in the dirt and let go.
Flynn inhaled dust, pain stabbing his chest. A cracked rib? The hatch clonked shut, sucking up the beam of light.
“I have nail scissors,” Tess said weakly, nodding to his bound hands. “You took me by surprise with that move on Hamid. I should have done something, tried to grab a gun, or...”
“You couldn’t have done anything. And for future reference, don’t try. I can look out for myself. You should, too.”
In a minute she’d snipped off the ties. He rolled onto his back with a groan and pressed his fingers into his ribs.
“It was worth a shot,” she said. “Broken?”
“Don’t think so.” Hope not. He hoisted himself onto his elbows, suppressing a wince, and wiped his eye clear with his jacket sleeve. “Your foot...”
Tess swept her leg around in front of her. Even in the gray light a scarlet bloodstain stood out, spreading over the toe of her sock, following the path of a darker stain like fresh lava over old. The sock was stuffed with something—a bandage?
“They ripped out your toenails.” The pricks. As torture went, it was old-fashioned but painful as hell, by all accounts. At least nails grew back—given the chance. “What did they torture you for?”
“A dossier of the evidence I have on them—they wanted to know whether there were copies and where they were.”
“Did you tell them?”
“Everything.” Her answer was strangely short.
“There’s some shit going down here, isn’t there?”
“Oh