Read Online Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins - Free Book Online

American woman. But as you know, rescue attempts over the past year have resulted in pirate deaths. It will not be easy getting information.”
    Gray stood and shook the man’s hand. He read between the lines. To break that silence would require additional funds. But Gray feared if too much money was thrown into the search, it could raise the suspicions of Amanda’s captors. A delicate balance had to be struck here—but for now they had no choice.
    “I understand. Do what you must,” Gray said. He shook the man’s hand and wished him good night, using his native tongue, which earned an appreciative smile from Amur. “Haben wanaagsan.”
    Gray waited for Amur to leave the restaurant before motioning the others up. “We should get back to the hotel.”
    They headed out as a group. Even at this hour, the streets were clogged with trucks, people, and carts. Sizzling food stands, tiny tea stalls, and makeshift shops packed both sides of the street. All around, Boosaaso bustled, hammered, rang, and shouted.
    They kept to a tight knot as they traversed the crowded streets on their way toward their hotel.
    Seichan spoke at his ear, her breath hot on his cheek. “You were right. We’ve picked up a tail.”
    Gray stopped at a fruit stand, studying the exotic fare while searching the street behind them. He noted two figures in street clothes who ducked out of sight as he had stopped. “Two of them?”
    “Three,” Seichan corrected. “The woman in the green sarong by the door of that internet café.”
    Gray didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary in her appearance, but he trusted Seichan’s assessment.
    Kowalski remained oblivious. He picked up a banana and sniffed at it. “Are we buying something or not?”
    Gray headed away, continuing toward their hotel, drawing the tail in his wake.
    “So Amur is not as loyal as the CIA claimed,” Seichan whispered.
    She leaned toward him like a lover. Physical contact between men and women was frowned upon in this country, but there was a strange, heightened intimacy in being this close without touching.
    “Painter suspected as much,” Gray mumbled.
    The director had reviewed the various potential contacts here and selected Amur specifically because of discrepancies in his behavior in the past. It seemed the man was not above playing one side against the other, especially with big money involved.
    Once a pirate, always a pirate .
    Gray sauntered down the road with his teammates, not bothering to try to shake the tail. He wanted the others following his team. Amur was playing a dangerous game, but one that suited their purpose.
    Because two could play that same game.
9:01 P.M .
    Tucker Wayne maintained a safe distance behind Amur Mahdi, keeping a city block between them.
    The radio embedded in his ear buzzed. “Do you have him?”
    It was Commander Pierce. Tucker touched his throat mike and subvocalized his answer. “Affirmative.”
    To blend in with the locals, he had pulled a loose plaid macawiis tunic over a thin Kevlar jacket and donned a regional turban to hide his hair and further shadow his features. Not that there weren’t white faces here. It seemed the city drew opportunists from around the globe. He heard German, spanish, and French spoken alongside the continuous dialects of African languages.
    Still, he kept almost entirely out of sight of his target, trusting another’s eyes more than his own.
    Several meters ahead, Kane kept to the shadows, ghosting along, sticking to the crumbling wall of a palatial estate, gliding around and over obstacles. Few eyes glanced at the shepherd’s passage. Plenty of dogs—half-starved waifs, showing ribs and bony legs—roamed the streets.
    A block away, Amur turned a corner and angled away from the busier zone of newer hotels and larger estates. He moved with determination into a bulldozed section of the city, occupied by cranes, piles of rubble, and metal trailers, all in readiness for the expansion of the neighboring