Dirty Sun: A Short Thriller by Guile Tatem

Author:Guile Tatem [Tatem, Guile]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Deepika shook Arya by his right shoulder and he immediately grabbed his neck to halt an excruciating pain.

“We have to go,” he said. He moved to get up, and with Deepika’s help, made it to his feet. His own voice felt far away, he realized, so he repeated himself. “We have to go.” Then the sound of distant sirens broke his fog first, followed by car horns much closer, and then finally, Deepika’s voice, yelling at him from a foot away. “We can’t just leave him there!”

Arya shook his head. His neck and head still hurt, but he could hear and his sight was in focus. He limped through the bushes back into the parking lot and picked up Subash’s limp body under the arms. His ribs on his left side hurt, so his left knee buckled and he almost fell. But he steadied and ignored the pain. He continued back over the median to where the Amby had been rammed, and lay Subash in the mangled back seat and shut the door.

Deepika got into the front passenger seat, and Arya rounded the car, jumped into the driver’s seat, stick-shifted and hightailed over the curb and onto the road.

The sound of sirens faded behind them.

◆◆◆

Islamabad Pakistan, 20:29 Local Time

General Mohammed Khan and Asif Iqbal were huddled by themselves in an antechamber of the main ballroom of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, the palatial, white, neoclassical chief executive’s residence modeled after the American White House, though it was larger, newer, and more luxurious.

Khan scowled at the luxurious Persian rug they stood on, relegated to this rarely seen anteroom, dominated with a deep blood-red color and embroidered through with black and gray, except for the frills on the north and south sides, which were cream-colored. Khan thought for a second about how many homeless the price of the rug could feed, but his mind quickly turned to how many covert agents the price of that rug could put up in locations across the world for months at a time. That really disgusted him.

Iqbal finally cued up the video on his smartphone and handed it to Khan. Khan positioned himself squarely in the center of the rug and held the phone in landscape orientation out in front of him with both hands, as Iqbal watched the screen over his shoulder.

Khan’s eyes became bloodshot. He felt a single vein in his right temple pulsate. He was vibrating.

As they reached the end of the replay of Rajinder Sahani’s execution, Iqbal suggested in Urdu, “Maybe we should cut him loose now. He’s losing it. He’s becoming too much of a risk.”

“No,” Khan replied in English. He carelessly handed the phone back to Iqbal over his shoulder and scratched his beard. “Let’s finish our part, and let us trust Irfan to complete things on his end. Insh’allah.”

“Yes sir.”

“All good at the airport?” Khan asked.

“Sharif is in position,” Iqbal reported.

“Good.”

“He’s leaving,” Iqbal added. “You don’t want to miss the goodbyes.”

“Let’s go.”

Iqbal went and opened the door, and then

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