Page 13 of Her Righteous Protector

“Then I want to see it.”

“I don’t have it, my guy Mohammed has it. He’s coordinating everything for me.”

“Roger, a lot of cash has exchanged hands. I would have thought that by now we’d have something to show for it. I want to see what Mohammed has.”

Roger pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his vest pocket and once again searched all of his other pockets for a matchbook. Max felt, then saw Kane come out the door and step up beside him. “You talking about the weapons?” he asked.

Roger lit his cigarette.

“Yes,” Max answered.

Roger pulled out his mobile phone, pressed a number, and started speaking in Arabic. He was going fast, but Max kept up. He doubted that Roger had any idea that Max knew the language as well as he did. The man hung up and continued to look at his phone, then he slid over to Max.

“Here, scroll through the pictures.” Max saw the ten Sig Sauer p226s, ten Ka-Bar knives, not his first choice, but they’d do. There were eight AK-47s and two M4A1s. Then there were the four MP7s but no M240s. Max also saw that the four MK13 sniper rifles weren’t there, and the grenade launcher that was there wasn’t worth a damn.

“Tell him to get those to us today. We need to make sure they’re in working order. I want my men to feel comfortable with them now. Also, I want two decent grenade launchers, not that China shit.”

Roger nodded as he took back his phone. “I’ll make sure you get the stuff he has in the next hour, and you’ll get the rest by dawn tomorrow.”

Max nodded, then went back into the workshop. He walked over to Cullen who was done bullshitting, thank the good Lord. “Whatcha got?” he asked the man.

“I looked over the purchase orders from the Afghan Construction company. I used a translation app, they look good. They even have a high-ranking Taliban signature for the receipt of the plaster. Nigel did a great job pulling this off; I think we should make it through the checkpoints. What I’m worried about is some kind of plan to get us back out of Afghanistan, but he’s saying he has some ideas.”

Max looked over at the Brit who was in the shop office talking to the owner.

“What about Randall, what has he got going for us?”

“He’s delivering on all the plaster and the trucks. They’re supposed to be here tomorrow morning, bright and early. I’d say the real problem is getting all of us over here from the hotels without drawing attention to ourselves. But I have a plan, and it’s sneaky.”

Max chuckled. “Does it include alligators?”

“And sparklers,” Cullen grinned. “You got to throw them off the scent. But seriously, this will work.” Cullen got a funny look on his face.

“When will you give me a run-down?”

“I’ll have it to you in an hour. Just want to talk to Asher; I have to see if he can scrounge up something.”

“What kind of wild goose chase are you sending Asher on?”

“A good one, you’ll like it.”

Max nodded, then moved along to talk to Kane who was wearing a welding helmet. The goddamned perfectionist was making sure that the welds were strong enough to hold. Max couldn’t help grinning to himself. He picked up a welding helmet from one of the stations and tugged it on, then tapped Kane on the shoulder and motioned him back toward the foundry.

“Yeah?” Kane asked.

“Let’s send out an update to Simon.”

Kane jogged back to the wall by the office and picked up his backpack, then came back and took out his tablet. Max watched as he pulled up the encrypted message site, then he lifted his eyebrow.

“Update them on the mode of transport to Afghanistan. The paperwork looks pristine to get us there, it even has the Taliban’s leader’s cousin’s signature on it, so we should be good at all the checkpoints to get us to Kandahar. Zed’s Arabic is fluent, and Leo is passable and they are both dark enough to pass for natives so they’re going to be two of the drivers. Randall is currently working on getting them their proper identification so they can pass border checks. Roger has highly recommended a local Pakistani for the third truck.”

Kane was typing as Max was talking.

“Most of the weapons we need will be here in two hours. You and I are going to check them out to make sure they’re all in good working order. The others will be here at dawn, or they damn well better be.”

Kane looked up and waited for Max to continue to talk.

“Well, you talk about the cages, since you’ve been over there inspecting them.”