Page 5 of Into the Gray Zone (Pike Logan #19)

Kamal poked his head around the stone wall, taking a quick glance. At the top of the stairwell sat a single man in a chair

dressed in civilian clothes, the lightbulb above his head creating shadows around his body. Kamal whispered, “That man is

RAW. He won’t be like the security guard. We need to take him out immediately.”

Agam said, “I’ll handle him. Be prepared to follow me up the stairs on the run.”

Kamal nodded and Agam said, “Wait here.” Kamal watched him retrace his previous steps, going back to the body of the guard

they’d killed. When he returned, he was wearing the top blouse of the guard, the patches on the shoulders making him look

official.

Kamal smiled and said, “Good thinking.”

Agam said, “It’s still risky. Don’t leave me in the wind. We don’t know how many are beyond the door.”

Without waiting for an answer, he stepped out into the light and began walking up the stairs. The man in the chair leapt to

his feet, saying something Kamal couldn’t hear. Agam said something back, then jogged the rest of the way up the stairs. He

reached the top, and without another word, Agam raised his pistol, stuck it in the man’s face, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the weapon was barely louder than a cough, but the damage was catastrophic. The man’s face split open, and he toppled sideways as if all the control of his muscles quit at once, sliding four feet down the stairwell.

Kamal leapt up, hissing, “Let’s go!” He and Randeep broke from the darkness, sprinting up the stairs into the light, reaching

Agam, who was frantically working the old door. He heard them arriving and said, “It’s locked!”

Kamal said, “Move back.”

Agam did, and Kamal raised his pistol, aiming for the ancient bolt going into the wall. He fired once, twice, three times,

and the bolt finally gave, bending inward. Kamal leaned back and slammed the door with the ball of his foot, splintering the

lock, the door swinging in.

They were immediately met with a fusillade of fire, the unsuppressed weapon inside splitting the night with explosive noise.

Kamal dove to the left, Agam and Randeep to the right, the gun inside still firing blindly out of the open doorway. Kamal

saw the location of the muzzle flash, rolled up to the edge, and returned fire, silencing the weapon. He sprang to his feet,

running into the room in time to see another man fleeing to a hallway deeper in. He sprinted to catch up, the man racing to

a cell midway down, with a guard in a chair looking bewildered.

Kamal started firing, chipping the wall around them both, the ricochets louder than the sound coming out of his pistol. One

dove into the cell, the other against the opposite wall, firing his pistol blindly back at him. Kamal ducked instinctively

and kept pulling the trigger, his magazine locking the chamber open, empty.

The guard stood up from the ground, smiled, and took aim. Kamal charged him, throwing the pistol at his head. The man flinched, shocked that Kamal wasn’t retreating; the weapon hurled at his head caused him to fire into the ceiling, and Kamal dove into his chest, slamming him to the floor.

He grabbed the hair of the man’s head and began bashing his skull into the stone, hearing Agam and Randeep rush past him into

the cell. He heard shots from inside the cell, felt the crunch of his target’s skull, snatched the guard’s pistol, and turned

into the cell doorway. He saw a shadow hanging and raced inside, the weapon at the ready.

He swung the pistol around, saw two dead guards slumped on the floor, then Agam and Randeep standing still, arms at their

sides, staring into the corner of the room. Naked but for his underwear, hanging on a hook from the shackles on his wrists,

was Sidak. Kamal said, “Cut him down...” and then paused, seeing the destruction to Sidak’s head. Someone had put a barrel

to his skull and pulled the trigger. Sidak was gone.

Agam said, “When we came in, a man was working on him, another was shooting at us. We killed the one shooting, and the man

next to Sidak shot him in the head.”

He shuffled, then said, “We killed him too.”

Randeep said, “What now?”

The seriousness of their situation slammed into him. They had failed to save Sidak, but that didn’t alter their fate. The

gunfire would have alerted anyone who was on station at the prison. He stuffed the death of his friend into the dark recesses

of his mind, something to deal with at another time, and said, “We need to move, right now, back to the boat.”

Agam said, “What about Sidak? His body?”

Kamal took one more look at his friend and said, “It stays.”

Randeep said, “No. No way. He comes with us.”

Kamal snatched Randeep’s shirt, bored into his eyes, letting the anger of the loss of his friend permeate the room, and said,

“If you want to succeed in what we have planned, he stays . Let it go.”

Randeep nodded, and Kamal released him, saying, “They’ll be coming, and we can’t fight them all. We need to find another way out. Deeper in.”

They returned to the hallway, hearing men shouting about the man they’d killed guarding the stairwell door. Kamal turned away

from the entrance they’d used and began running, Agam and Randeep right behind him. They reached the end just as men began

bursting in. Kamal snatched open a door and they were through, Kamal shutting it slowly, then listening.

The men on the other side were shouting orders and screaming obscenities, but nobody was following down the hallway, apparently

all focused on the cell. He nodded, holding a finger to his lips, and they began shuffling in the darkened room, looking for

an exit. Kamal found one, and they entered a circular staircase, a single bulb illuminating the ground floor below. Kamal

peeked over the edge, saw nothing, and began descending the stairs two at a time, his men behind him. They reached the bottom,

moved to a door, and Kamal cracked it open, seeing the rain had finally arrived.

The outside promenade was streaked with the torrent of falling water, the wind blowing it sideways, Kamal barely able to see

the old cannons along the seawall across from the door. He slid out from the door, feeling the rain strike his face, and glanced

up the promenade to the entrance of the fort. He saw a milieu of men at the base of the stairwell they’d used to reach Sidak’s

cell, dancing in and out of the shadows of the bare illumination, waving their arms and shouting. Beyond them, he could make

out the entrance to the dock.

He said, “We can’t get back to the boat the way we came. They’re in between us and the dock.”

Behind him, becoming agitated, Randeep said, “What are we going to do? We can’t hide here. They’ll find us eventually.”

Agam said, “The seawall. We go over the seawall and swim to the boat.”

Kamal considered it a moment, thinking that the jetty with the boat jutted out into the water for at least seventy-five meters.

That might work. He said, “Yes. That’s the best bet.”

Randeep said, “We’ll get crushed on the rocks. We can’t do that in the dark, especially in this weather.”

Agam said, “I’d rather get crushed on the rocks than be killed by these assholes.”

With that, he sprinted through the rain to the far wall abutting the sea. Kamal hesitated a moment, then turned to Randeep

and said, “Come on. It’s the only way.”

They ran across, the rain slapping against their faces like pebbles. They reached the rock wall next to an ancient Portuguese

cannon overlooking the ocean. Kamal looked down and could make out the swirling foam in the darkness, the waves crashing into

the rocks in a rhythm. Seeing the maelstrom, he had second thoughts.

He looked at Agam and said, “Maybe Randeep is right.”

Agam said nothing, his actions showing his answer. He leapt over the wall, holding on to the barrel of the cannon, his feet

now perpendicular to the stone. He looked at Kamal, then at the surf below him, timing his fall. He waited until the moment

the waves crashed and then let go, falling the thirty feet to the water.

Shocked, Kamal leaned over the stone wall, seeing Agam in the surf, swimming away from the danger of the waves. He looked

at Randeep and said, “He goes, we all go.”

Randeep said nothing, simply staring into the blackness of the ocean. Kamal slapped the back of his head and said, “Get over.

Go.”

Snapped out of his fear, Randeep repeated Agam’s maneuver, dropping to the water below. Kamal followed him, holding on to the barrel of the cannon and taking great gulps of air, feeling the sting of the rain on his face. He watched below, saw the waves strike the rock wall, and willed himself to let go.

He windmilled his arms, the fall much longer than he anticipated, the drop through the rain seeming to take forever. He hit

the water sideways, the impact punching the air out of his lungs. He sank for a moment, then began to fight to the surface,

knowing he had to get away from the wall before the next crash of waves. He broke the surface, took a gasp of air, and saw

the waves coming. He ducked underneath the water, just like he’d done as a child, and began swimming away from the rocks.

When he ran out of air, he surfaced, finding himself twenty feet away from the wall.

He glanced around but didn’t find either Agam or Randeep. He saw the tip of the jetty in the dim light and continued swimming,

the powerful need for survival driving him forward.

Seven minutes later, he reached the end of the dock, clinging to the rocks like a barnacle. He used them to work his way to

the northern side of the jetty, seeing the rubber Zodiac. Climbing over the gunwale was Agam, Randeep’s head bobbing in the

water next to him.

He smiled and scuttled to the boat. In minutes, they were all aboard, Manjit powering the outboard into the sea, the rain

still pelting them. Kamal took one last look back and saw nothing to indicate they’d been seen escaping.

Nobody talked. Not even Manjit. He knew what it meant when they’d arrived. No words were necessary. Sidak was dead, and no

amount of discussion was going to bring him back.

Kamal knew Sidak’s death was his responsibility, and that knowledge weighed heavily on him. The others had agreed to the mission

because they felt the pull of their Sikh heritage, and had agreed solely because the money offered would help them further

the cause of Sikh nationalism.

Sidak had been different. Barely out of his teens, Kamal had hired him to work with Mr. Chin on the computer side of things, using his technical skill. He had wanted no part of hunting the billionaire and, unlike Kamal and the others, held no burning desire for Sikh independence. A skinny kid with an analytical mind, Sidak wouldn’t draw any attention, and having never been incarcerated, Kamal knew he would be perfect for the reconnaissance mission. Kamal had played on their friendship, telling him it would be nothing more than a two-week stint at a hotel. Sidak had trusted Kamal, and he’d finally agreed. And now he was dead just as surely as if Kamal had pulled the trigger.

They reached the mother ship, the rain now a light mist. Mr.Chin helped them anchor the small boat to the side of the hull

and they clambered up the netting to the larger boat, collapsing on the deck.

Mr.Chin said, “Where’s Sidak?”

Kamal said, “He’s dead. They killed him. He was hanging like a slab of meat in the cell, posing no threat, and they killed

him when we came. Shot him in the head.”

The speed of his speech increased the more he spoke, the words tumbling out as if he were trying to absolve himself of the

blame, his mind now grasping what had happened to his friend. He finished, feeling the tears roll down his cheeks and hoping

they were camouflaged by the rain.

Mr.Chin said, “Did he talk?”

Kamal couldn’t believe the callousness of the question. He said, “How the fuck would I know? He was hanging from a hook. They

put a bullet in his head.”

“They? Did you kill them?”

His eyes now slits, Kamal said, “Yes, we killed them.”

Mr.Chin went to the console of the boat and turned on the twin outboards, saying, “Good. So we’re still a go for the billionaire.”

Kamal stood up at the words, saying, “You killed my friend. You did it. You said he’d be fine going into that resort, and he wasn’t.”

Mr.Chin turned from the wheel of the boat and said, “Sometimes my intelligence isn’t perfect, but he was paid well. He knew

the risks, as do you now.”

Kamal was sickened by the discussion, the thought of Sidak dying for nothing more than a paycheck disgusting him. He decided

that Sidak’s death would be about more than money. His sacrifice would mean something to the Sikh brethren.

And Mr.Chin was going to help him do that.