Page 10 of Set Fire to This Cardhouse

“Not at all.”

Well, that’s one thing they can agree on.

The road they’re driving down now is narrow, an empty plastic bag trundling in the wind, trash piling up on the sides. Charming. A tourist destination waiting to happen. Toby relaxes back into his seat just as Mike pulls the car over and throttles the engine. It dies with a gurgling sound. Toby empathizes.

“We’re here.” Mike flashes him another grin that spells anticipation, teeth contrasting with his tan. “Let’s see what they have for us.”

When Mike hops out of the car, Toby allows himself half a beat to notice Mike’s ass, then he follows suit.

‘Here’ turns out to be a small shop that proudly displays its limited selection of weapons. Most of them look used and unreliable, as likely to backfire on the shooter as they are to hit an actual target. As Mike seems to enjoy inspecting their options in great detail, Toby leaves the choice to him and only takes over when it comes to discussing conditions in a broken mix of English and Arabic—haggling works best if you don’t display the kind of eagerness that weapons seem to inspire in Mike.

Toby can only hope the guy isn’t as trigger-happy as current evidence suggests.

***

Hotel Tfeila is a yellow-washed, six-floored building that towers above its surroundings, its architectural style dating back some decades. With nearly eighty rooms, it accommodates a critical mass of guests to grant them a certain level of anonymity.

They rent two rooms with a connecting door on the top floor, drop off their bags and get changed. Toby digs through his suitcase for the two-way communication set he brought, popping his ear bud in as Mike does the same with practiced ease. With their newly acquired guns wrapped in a couple of T-shirts and hidden in plastic bags, they leave the hotel.

Dusk is setting as they drive out to the industrial port, the sand dunes glowing in a reddish gray, the ocean a stretch of dark blue before them. There isn’t much traffic, but their truck isn’t alone on the single paved road leading to the port.

Like any industrial port, it’s a gritty place. Oil tanks and rusty shipping containers dominate the scene, colors flaking off—form follows function. Two large container ships and several smaller vessels are currently moored at the long, concrete landing stage. They find a parking spot between other vehicles, most in even worse shape than their beat-up truck, and sit in silence once the rumbling of the engine has died. Workers are hurrying this way and that, the place buzzing with an end-of-the-day energy that signals it’s near quitting time for most people around.

Mike slaps the steering wheel. “Ready?”

Toby takes him in. Decked out in faded khaki pants and a dark, washed-out T-shirt, Mike will be one of only a few white faces around, but he should pass for a worker signed on to one of the ships. Hopefully, the same is true for Toby.

“Ready?” Toby repeats. “No. I hate flying blind, but I guess this is as good as it gets.”

Mike shrugs. “We’ve got weapons and a working theory. I’ve faced worse odds.”

“Yeah.” Toby exhales and mentally reviews the details of a high-resolution satellite image he studied while waiting for his flight to depart—before the GPS signal cut off abruptly, one hostage’s cell phone was tracked to a building that sits just outside the fenced-off area, east of the port’s beating heart of activity. The best way to approach unseen is to stay inside the fenced area for now, ducking between containers and vehicles to get as close as possible before venturing out.

While Toby doubts the terrorists can rely on state-of-the-art security, there’s really no way of knowing what he and Mike will face once they get close to where they hope to find the hostages. All they’ve got to go on is their training, relevant experience, two Walther pistols, and the assumption that, like most terrorist cells, this one will be small, composed of maybe five or six members.

“All right, let’s go.” Mike leans over to reach for the plastic bag sitting at Toby’s feet. His hand brushes Toby’s knee, and while the contact is brief, it snaps Toby straight out of his thoughts.

“Hold on.” It occurs to Toby that he doesn’t know how accomplished Mike is in keeping people alive; getting in and out of places could suggest he’s better at targeting than he is at protecting. “Let’s just run through the plan one more time.”

The plan, such as it is.

“Get close without being seen.” Mike unwraps his pistol with careful hands. “Split up, scout out the scene: how many people, what kind of weapons, are they holding the hostages here?”

“Our first priority” —Toby holds Mike’s eyes— “is to get to the hostages before anyone else does. You get that, right? Not taking down the kidnappers. Success means we get the hostages out, even if a couple of guys get away.”

“Right.” Mike nods, sharp and quick. “Gotcha.”

Toby squashes the anxious need to keep going, to explain how the scale is tipped in their opponent’s favor: they’ve got the numbers, the familiarity with their surroundings, the hostages. All Toby and Mike have is the element of surprise, which they need to maintain for as long as possible. If there’s a way to remove the hostages without anyone being the wiser, Toby would gladly walk it, and if Mike wants to take the kidnappers down afterwards, that’s fine with him. Priorities, though.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Toby forces down the nervous jitter at the base of his spine. This is what he trained for.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s,” Mike agrees. He lifts his T-shirt to hook the pistol into the waistband of his pants, and Toby’s attention is caught for the shortest of moments by the smooth, flat expanse of Mike’s stomach.

Toby snags his gaze away and reaches for his own weapon. He lifts his hips off the seat to stuff the pistol into his pants, then lets his shirt fall back down to hide it. When he glances at Mike, he finds him looking already.

Tension stretches between them, ready to snap. Showtime.

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