Page 67 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

“Grazie mille, Mattia,” Raven said with a faultless accent.

“Prego.”

34

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

“That’s gotta be him,” McGuire muttered as he angled for the curb, pounding the horn on his Daihatsu van with the flat of his big hand.

The traffic around Kuala Lumpur’s international airport was always crowded with colorful taxis, ride shares, buses, and passenger vehicles, but today was a real logjam. He laughed at the cursing faces screaming at him from behind their windshields in God knows what languages as he bulled his way over to the curb.

McGuire hit the button to open the sliding door of the unmarked white van. The former SAS operator was bearded and his arms covered in sleeve tats—standard operator chic. But the Black man standing at the curb was dressed in business casual and gripping a well-worn, deep-pocket leather duffel. His bald head was smooth as a trailer hitch, and his eyes were covered by a pair of wraparound sunglasses. With his massive physique straining the fabric of his shirt and slacks he looked more like a professional bodybuilder than a stone-cold killer.

But McGuire, a former operator himself, easily recognized a fellow apex predator just by the way he stood.

“Davis?”

“You got it.”

“McGuire.”

McGuire stuck out his hand. Davis’s long fingers wrapped around McGuire’s like a child taking hold of a doll’s hand.

“Thanks for the ride, brother.” Davis tossed his leather duffel onto the bench seat, then climbed in after it.

McGuire pulled open a silvered Faraday bag, designed to keep signal radiation out—and in. “OPSEC, my boyo. Need your phone.”

Davis grunted with the effort and annoyance of fishing his phone out of his pocket and tossing it into the bag.

“You’ll get it back after the mission.” McGuire punched the button to close the sliding door as he glanced into his side-view mirror.

“You’re the last one to arrive. Where’d you fly in from?”

“Started in Benghazi,” Davis said. “Routed through Cairo, then Saudi. A couple of overnight layovers. Could’ve walked here faster.” His deep basso profundo voice rumbled like an idling Chevy small-block V8 engine.

“Yeah, well, sorry about that, mate. I didn’t make the travel arrangements.” McGuire punched the gas and leaped out into the river of honking cars.

“No worries, man. Just sayin’.”

“I get it. Might as well settle in. We’ve got a wee bit of a ride.”

As soon as McGuire cleared the airport’s bumper car traffic, he hit the hands-free call button on his steering wheel. A heavily accented voice picked up on the other end.

“You have him?”

“On our way. Don’t start without us.”

The phone clicked off. McGuire glanced at Davis in the rearview mirror.

“I read your jacket. CIA paramilitary.”

“Eight years, six months, twenty-four days.”

“I’m surprised we never met. You and I were in theater together about the same time.”

“We had a saying in special ops. If you knew I was there, I wasn’t doing my job.”

McGuire chuckled. “You must’ve been good at your job, then. You stick out pretty good. You’re built like the Michelin Man.”