The Socotra Incident (Eric Ritter Spy Thriller Book 3) by Richard Fox

Author:Richard Fox [Fox, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Triplane Press
Published: 2015-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Ritter and Mike sat in the humid Nairobi afternoon, sweating through their khakis, in front of a run-down café. A waitress brought them a plate of mahamri, lumps of fried dough that smelled of coconut and cardamom, and two cups of hot water with plastic envelopes on the saucers.

Ritter picked up the envelope and tossed it back on the table in disgust.

“We’re fifty miles from the farms growing AA-grade coffee beans, and they have the nerve to serve instant,” Ritter said.

“War is hell,” Mike murmured as he munched on a mahamri.

Ritter checked his watch and scanned the passing traffic. Battered trucks and vans puttered by, adding the smell of exhaust to the funk of sweaty bodies and third world sewage systems. Their contact was late, and as the only two white faces on this street, they could practically be spotted from orbit.

“You have any guesses on who the original buyer of the…item is? Can’t be the Iranians—the delivery boat went right past it. Thing like this should be damn expensive, more than the people we normally deal with could afford,” Ritter said. Terrorists normally bought their weapons in small batches, spending their money as soon as it came in from donors. To save up anything more than a few million dollars for a purchase was out of character for al-Qaeda and their ilk.

“Maybe a country? Iran slipped enough to Hamas or Hezbollah for the purchase?”

Mike shrugged.

“Good talking to you, Mike.”

A van with a door bereft of paint pulled up next to the café, and the driver rolled down his window. An African with a wide smile and gleaming ivory teeth smiled at Ritter.

“Hey, boss, you going on safari in Amboseli?” he asked, his accent thick and local.

“No, Tsavo,” Ritter answered. The van’s side door slid open, and a Semitic-looking man with gold-rimmed aviator glasses waved Ritter and Mike inside.

“Didn’t our mothers warn us about getting into cars with strangers?” Ritter said to Mike as he left a generous tip and picked up his backpack. Mike took the rest of the mahamri with him, plate and all.

The seats of the van felt like they were made of a sliver of torn leather and springs. The open windows and fine coating of road dust promised a long trip without air-conditioning.

“Sorry we’re late. Traffic,” said their driver, who now spoke like an Englishman.

“When was your last operational update?” asked the man in the sunglasses. All business. That was a trait Ritter could appreciate.

“Nothing since we got off the plane in Nairobi and got the pickup location,” Ritter said.

“We have the target location. We’ll lift off soon as we get to the airfield,” Sunglasses said.

The van smacked a pothole and sent mahamri flying. One piece remained on Mike’s plate. He offered it to the man in the sunglasses, who shrugged and took it.

“How long of a drive?” Ritter asked. The road ahead was unpaved. Shoeless children darted across the road. Men in carts powered by wide-horned buffalo drove the beasts onward with switches.

“Not long.

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