A Life Not My Own Ch. 04

Though freaking scared for my life, I could tell the difference between Winnie's HK MP7N (aka the euro-built death machine) cycling and the other weapons. Even as I saw Jen silently counting and the guy who hit the cart crying out his last breath, I saw the plan coming together. The second guy in the room tracked Winnie's shot, so he looked left.

Jen popped up and shot him. Had his gun been pointing straight ahead it would have been a quick-draw, but he was still trying to bring his AK to bear when Jen put three shots in his jihadist left-of-center mass. Dead, dead, dead. The third guy was my old buddy Mohammed Omar. He charged in and unloaded on full automatic.

I stopped peaking and dodged out the corner of the sofa between Jen and wherever Winnie was hiding. Omar caught my move and walked the fire toward me when he clicked empty.

"Mag!" Winnie screamed. I saw her get up from a small scrimshaw table she'd been using as cover and run Omar's way from the right.

Jensen rose up and circled in on the left. I stayed put. Winnie banked some bullets into the doorway for no reason I could see until Omar twisted and fired bullets off to the right, trying to hit Winnie. This was Jen's cue to point her gun around the left corner and put several bullets into Omar. Playing bridge with these two would be a hell of a lot of fun.

Winnie peaked around the corner, hesitated then called out.

"I hear footfalls and Mohammed isn't dead but he soon will be," Winnie commented coolly. "Plan?"

"Help me get him outside -- Jen, cover us from the door," I acted decisively.

"What are we going to do?" Winnie muttered as we dragged Omar under his arms to the railing outside our room. Seven of Harrow's armed security guards came up the stairs and the leader began yelling at me.

"He wants us to put Mohammed Omar down and step away," she translated -- damn her and her command of the spoken word.

Okay, that's how it was being played, I thought.

"Winnie go inside and don't give up your arms no matter what," I stated decisively. Winnie scampered back. The guards kept coming and seemed willing to risk me and my pistol in order to get Omar back. I heaved Omar up by the back of his shirt, put the pistol to the back of head and made eye contact with the security team leader.

"Christus triumphe!" I shouted and put a slug through the back of Omar's skull and rained grey matter and bone fragments down to the gardens below. I let go of the body and about half of us watched it tumble over the railing. I then raised my hands and let them disarm me. See, Moluccans are devout Christians who are raised on sectarian violence with their Muslim neighbors

For a single crucial second I gave them a moral quandary. Omar was dead -- were they going to kill me over the death of some damn dirty Muslim by a man who invoked Christ's name? They didn't know me or that I was an atheist but they wanted to believe a guest got some payback that their loyalty to Harrow denied them.

Indeed, they handled me with kid gloves. They could have shoved me to the ground and stomped on me hard but they kept hold of my shoulders and marched me away. I went to the far side of the complex to this surprisingly modest bungalow separated from the hotel complex by a moat that doubled as an outdoor pool. Even more surprising, Eloise and Dee intercepted me at the arched bridge and my security buddies exchanged a few pleasant words and departed.

The Harrow twins nodded, took me by the elbows and led me inside.

"It is nice to see you still alive," Eloise said softly. From across my body, Dee shot Eloise a worried look. "Dom, are you going to make a break and run for it if we take our hands off of you?" Eloise snorted.

"Nope -- I can't leave my ladies, I wouldn't leave you to Old Man Harrow's wrath and I have unfinished business," I answered in Czech. Eloise let go of my arm. A few seconds later Dee did too.

"You meant to wink, right?" Dee inquired in Czech then caught herself.

"Well, I was planning to, miss, but I wanted to make sure you didn't dodge the wrong way," I nodded. There was silence until I arrived at the veranda. Big Bad Terrorist Guy, the Sultan and Michael were sitting back and, in theory, drinking religion specific beverages.

"Oh Dominic," Michael Harrow hoped up, highlighting his finely sculpted bronzed physique, "you've created a bit of the dilemma." I could be a smart ass but sometimes it's worth it to pamper the intellect of a psychopaths.

"That was not my intent," I bowed to the Sultan first then nodded to the terrorist and finally looked confused to Harrow.

"Mr. Omar seems to have died, Dominic, while on the way to make peace with you," Michael looked like a polar bear coaxing up a baby seal to a blow hole.

"Oh...that's was what that was," I nodded. "You know he didn't like my female translator and while in the process of working that out, some unseen party tossed two grenades in the room. A shot rang out and then a full firefight ensued."

"I did assume this was a trap set by Omar and I did execute him in front of your staff," I seemed apologetic. "I found such a lousy ambush to be insulting." The Main Terrorist shifted as what I said was translated to him though I had the sinking impression he spoke Spanish just fine though he talked in what I believed was Arabic.

"Mr. Tariq Masud wants to know what lies you used to lure Omar to your place," Harrow translated.

"I told Omar I had found the penis and balls he was seriously lacking," I replied deadpan to which the Sultan let slip a chuckle and Harrow grinned before conveying my words. "Honestly Mr. Masud, after I played Frisbee with his knife earlier this morning, what could I have possibly have said to lure Omar to my place for a three on three showdown?"

Belatedly Harrow passed the message on but Tariq was already reading my eyes and judging my level of guilt. He spoke few words but I made out the words 'Christus triumphe'. This caught the Sultan by surprise and he was not appreciative of my ploy.

"Mr. Masud wants to know when you found God," Harrow asked with that shark-like grin.

"I haven't but I really wanted to kill Omar and do it in a way that didn't get me killed by the security staff," I revealed. "If Mr. Harrow has taught me one thing in our short relationship it is that the only good enemy is both good and dead. I had a chance to remove Omar and I took it. There seems to be a misconception that my lack of a body count makes me vulnerable."

"Besides, ask anyone -- the sequence was two grenades first then several short bursts of fire, a full auto assault rifle going off then two bursts and a final pistol shot," I stated evenly. "I'm no tactical savant, but why would we be spraying the only entrance to the room? Saving ammo and waiting for help to arrive would seem saner.

That means someone was trying to force an entry and that means someone put Omar up to this," I was concluding. "Which means Omar was already dead despite what I did."

"How do you see that?" Harrow studied me.

"The Sultan would definitely find out who violated his hospitality," I lied. I didn't think he knew who did what, but keeping the butcher on my side was worth some flattery.

"He would have Omar interrogated and someone would have been in trouble," I stated. The Sultan nodded and developed his own wicked smile. Heaven be praised, the Sultan said the dumbest thing.

"I'll need to have my security team talk to your staff Michael, to determine how three heavily armed men made it to Mr. Umstead's part of the hotel," the potentate demanded.

"Of course," Harrow responded but there was no joy in that voice. He hadn't believed Omar would kill me. He was trying to kill one of my girls, he'd used substandard (to the quality of my professional women) tools to get the job done and had not only missed the mark, he was now caught in the back-blast.

The Sultan wouldn't get far; of that I was sure, but Harrow would be swallowing his pride for a moment because right now he needed the Sultan's good will. The group dynamic told me that the Major League Terrorist knew what I knew now as well. Omar was a fanatic nutjob, but he had been Tariq's fanatic nutjob and that man's life had been expended in a way that didn't support Tariq's, and therefore his God's, agenda. That was trouble.

"I'll go wait in my quarters for the Sultan's men to question me," I said, then nodded to Tariq and Harrow and bowed again to the Sultan. No one said a thing as I left which made me wonder about the existence of a Higher Power after all. Here I was still alive in the land were pineapples were a style of grenade and missive was the misspelling of missile; yay me.