Chapter 32
Nolan kept his head on a swivel as they drove to the café.
Kori was coming with Ayman, who had folded like a piece of paper after two minutes with Ahmed.
He’d admitted to the theft and had wired the money back to the corporate account.
His resignation was in hand as well, and he’d give it to Lamya at the meeting after a full confession in front of the board.
“How is everyone doing?” Helena asked in the SUV.
“I was scared,” Lamya said, her voice clear. “But now I’m just angry.”
“I’m relieved I haven’t seen any of the men who attacked us two years ago,” Fiza admitted. They’d kept to the background and hadn’t said anything during any of the previous meetings, but Nolan had kept an eye on them and had checked in with them at Desert Sun Farm.
“I’m disappointed Garang isn’t here,” Kuol confessed. Everyone nodded in agreement. It was as if they didn’t want him and wanted him at the same time. The threat of him still hung heavy in the air as they got out at the Blossom Café.
Through the window, Nolan saw who must be Zarifa laughing with Wick, Aniyah, and the Rose sisters. Elisha and Faith floated around as if they were the waitstaff.
“Let’s do this,” Lamya said with determination as she got out of the car.
“Happy birthday!” the café cheered as she entered.
Nolan kept close to Helena and stood directly behind Lamya. His firefighter brothers looked on from their various positions around the café. They all nodded as if everything had been going okay.
“Oh my, do you look like your mother,” Zarifa said with her hand to her chest. “Happiest of birthdays. And Abu, you look like your father for sure.”
“I don’t get it,” Helena whispered to him as Lamya began her spiel about taking over the companies to gauge Zarifa’s reaction. “Ayman caved to everything, but he says he’s not in contact with Garang. Yet Marwan’s location is where they showed up.”
“I think it’s pretty clear that he was lying. Did Ayman send them or did Marwan?”
“Incoming!” Wick suddenly yelled, moving fast enough to shove Lamya behind him, so that Lamya stumbled into Helena and the two of them fell backward into Zarifa.
Nolan reached for them to slow their fall as gunshots rang out. The glass shattered as people screamed. Half ducked for cover, the other half came out with weapons and returned fire.
“Take cover in the back,” Nolan told Helena and the group huddled on the ground. “Go!” He shoved tables to form a wall to protect them as he moved them behind the makeshift wall.
“What is happening?” Zarifa screamed over the sounds of fighting.
Drones were firing into the café as Wick yelled that men were sneaking into Keeneston on foot. Nolan realized the SUVs had been a distraction. The attack on the military center—all of it—was just a distraction.
A group from Keeneston shot down the drones, but there was only a moment of peace before dozens of men charged the door.
They were slowed down by the café. Elisha and Faith were firing their weapons with precision while Wick was immediately in British SAS beast mode. Aniyah raised her gun and fired.
“Ow! Someone shot my fucking toe!” a man across the street yelled.
“Oops. I got too excited and forgot my glasses.” Aniyah dug around in her purse and pulled out her glasses. Then she fired again and the man stopped jumping around on one foot and fell to the ground.
“Nice shot,” Elisha told her.
Nolan and his firefighters prepared for hand-to-hand. His team was surrounding Abu, Fiza, and Nafisa on the far side of the café. Kuol was right next to Wick fighting to protect his friends and family.
Just then backup arrived from every location.
Lucas, Talon, and Jackson from the bed and breakfast. Kori, Kellen, and Ahmed from the farm, then a whole contingent of Davies men and women, along with the entirety of the Bluegrass Ops group.
Nolan could hear them coming from all directions on Main Street, closing in on the fight and tightening Garang’s men into a small group.
Men broke through the broken windows now that their escape paths were cut off and the fight was on.
The street was filled with fighting and somewhere down the street Pam revved her engine.
Nolan reached under his shirt and pulled the hatchet he’d had at the small of his back.
He stood before the barricade ready to fight.
A warlike shriek came out of Fiza as a man entered the café.
Her face went pale and her whole body shook, but she didn’t run.
She grabbed the gun from Kuol and shot. And shot.
And shot. Fiza didn’t stop until she was standing over him clicking the trigger of the empty gun.
She stopped then, the gun dropping from her hand.
Kuol caught it and reloaded. Her sister wrapped her up in a hug as they both shook.
“Revenge is ours, sister,” Fiza said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
The fighting continued, but seeing Fiza spurred Keeneston on.
“This will be over soon,” Nolan called out behind him. “Stay hidden, okay?” Nolan bent his knees and prepared to fight as a man launched himself toward Nolan. “Helena? Okay?”
A stone formed in the pit of his stomach.
He turned to check on Helena and all he saw were the overturned tables.
A man charged and Nolan swung the hatchet, slicing the man’s arm and the artery that would have him bleeding out in under a minute.
“Helena?” Nolan ignored the man now on the ground and looked over the tables. “They’re gone!”
“What is happening?” Zarifa cried out over the sound of fighting.
“Garang wants Abu and Lamya,” Helena responded as she kept her arm around Lamya. They were behind the overturned tables and bullets were flying. Helena wanted to check on Nolan, but she couldn’t be a distraction. Not now. Not when everyone was in danger.
“But why? What does Garang have to do with any of this?” Zarifa asked, nearly hysterical.
“He wants to take over the company, either by killing them or forcing them to sign over power to him. As you know, there’s a lot of money and power in the three companies. It would give him the advantage he needs to end the war and take control of South Sudan,” Helena told her.
A bullet slammed into the table and they all screamed while backpedaling away from the gunfire toward the kitchen.
Helena turned, her eyes going wide at the sight before her. Men filled the kitchen. Zinnia was on her knees with her hands behind her head and a gun aimed at her.
“Ladies,” Garang said calmly, “come with me quietly or I’ll put a bullet in her head before doing the same to you.”
Helena grabbed Lamya’s hand to try to buy them time, but it didn’t work. Lamya was already moving. “Let her go and I’ll come.”
Garang raised the gun and arced it toward Zinnia. Helena gasped as the butt of the gun slammed into Zinnia’s head and Zinnia crumpled to the ground. “There. She’ll live. Now come.”
Lamya stood as she entered the kitchen. “Leave them. They don’t have the power to do anything. You only need me.”
“That one put a Red Notice on me. She’s coming.” Garang turned and walked out the door. “Bring them all or kill anyone who stalls.”
Men grabbed them and marched them out the back door. Helena thought about screaming, but it would get them killed instantly. She would buy herself time to figure a way out of this.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she saw the bodies of Rahmi soldiers on the ground in the back of the café. They’d been killed as Garang snuck into the back. There was no SUV waiting. Instead, there was a minivan with a monogram on the back window.
“Drive,” Garang told Helena.
Helena and Lamya got into the front. Zarifa got into the back behind Helena. Garang got into the back behind Lamya so that he could keep the gun pointed at her head. “There’s a plane at a private airfield thirty minutes away. Drive.”
“Toward Lexington?” Helena asked.
“No. Other direction. It’s how we got in. We set the decoy as if everyone was coming from Lexington and then came in through the woods on some farm.” No wonder no one saw them.
Helena put on her seatbelt and quietly made Lamya do the same before she pulled out of the back parking lot. Fighting was still going strong on Main Street, but it was to the left and they turned right down an empty Main Street in that direction.
Helena glanced in the rearview mirror and watched Keeneston and any chance of rescue grow smaller and smaller.
“Hello, love,” Zarifa said, her voice practically purring. Helena glanced in the mirror to see Garang lean over and kiss Zarifa.
“What the hell?” Lamya exploded in shock.
Zarifa laughed and even Garang smiled, his body relaxing now that the fighting was out of sight.
“Even someone as powerful as my man needs someone he trusts to handle the money. How do you think he knew where to find you and the others? It wasn’t hard to frame Ayman.
I’ve been blackmailing him over the money he’s been stealing from the company.
He told me he’d been invited to Keeneston, but imagine when I found out he was going to a different party than me? The rest was easy to figure out.”
“What do you want?” Helena asked.
“First, you’re going to die for being a pain in my ass,” Garang said casually.
“Then Lamya and I need to have a talk. You can think about it on the drive. You either join me or I kill you. Then I’ll go back and kill your brother, if he’s not already dead.
I did give orders to take him out. He’s worthless to me.
You’re the one with the power now. He’s got nothing to offer me until he turns eighteen.
Keeping him from turning eighteen seemed the prudent thing to do. ”
“You are so sexy when you take control,” Zarifa whispered.
Helena had heard about your life flashing before your eyes.
What flashed there wasn’t her childhood or college years.
It was everything she would miss out on if she died that did.
Love, marriage, motherhood . . . that’s what went through her mind.
She glanced at Lamya and saw the fear she was sure was reflected on her own face.
Helena drove without thinking until she blinked and noticed the trees lining the road as she flew by them.
A flash of a memory of her hitting the fence pole and Bella being flung from the car hit her hard.
She glanced at Lamya and saw the seatbelt.
Helena looked quickly and saw the symbol for the airbags around them before checking the rearview mirror.
Neither Garang nor Zarifa was wearing their seatbelts.
Garang was sitting on the edge of his seat with the gun resting on Lamya’s seat.
“What if we both agree to work with the New Renaissance?” Helena asked into the silence, causing Lamya to turn and glare at her.
“How do you know about that?” Garang asked.
“Do you think you’re the only one who has been approached?
You know they’re global. I’m very powerful in my own right.
For instance, I can get that Red Notice dropped.
They wanted me to look the other way on cases and help certain people.
I said no, not realizing how powerful they were.
But you’re part of them, aren’t you? I started paying attention and it just makes sense they’d want you to be a part of them.
” Helena loved that her law degree gave her a masters in bullshit, because she was using it now.
“Did Bosch recruit you too?” she asked, using the Renaissance artist from the Netherlands she’d seen in museums since she learned everyone used a Renaissance code name.
“No. It was me who did,” Zarifa answered. Only years in the courtroom hid Helena’s surprise.
“Let me guess, Mary Sidney, the female poet and translator of the time?” Helena asked, trying to get Zarifa’s code name for Bluegrass Ops in case they lived through this.
Zarifa snorted in disgust. “Botticelli, since I am the Venus.”
“You’re my Venus,” Garang told her.
“Of course,” Helena agreed, trying to keep Zarifa talking.
“The money, the natural resources, the ability to hide shipments—it would make sense you were recruited. Then, with Garang working with you, he could greenlight all government assets to run through the company if need be. Plus, he’d control the shipping, the people, and the government contracts.
You two would rule the whole area, not just South Sudan.
But to do that, you need Lamya to sign the company over, to die, or to join you. ”
“You’re a smart one, aren’t you?”
“It’s why they want me,” Helena replied. “If I agree to join, will you let me live?”
“We’ll see. Keep driving for now.” Zarifa pulled out her phone and sent a text.
No call. Nothing for Helena to listen to. However, they’d be able to pull the number from Zarifa’s phone. They were getting close to the highway. The curving country roads would end soon. Helena was out of time.
She looked at the curve ahead and glanced at Lamya. “Hold on,” Helena mouthed silently as Garang and Zarifa spoke to each other.
Helena drove straight for the trees. She survived a crash once. She hoped she’d survive it again. She heard the sound of metal crunching, then she saw the airbag coming straight at her, and everything went dark.