Read Online King's Crusade (Seventeen) by AD Starrling - Free Book Online Page A

firm. She switched a desk lamp on and looked around. A series of filing cabinets occupied the west wall. The drawers were labeled by month and year. Jackson opened the one for October, and they went through the files together.
    There was no mention of the Balcher crane in any of the paperwork.
    While Jackson continued to search the other cabinets, Alexa turned her attention to the old computer sitting on one of the desks. Ten minutes later, they still had not found any trace of the Ras Abu’s October shipping orders.
    ‘Now what?’ said Jackson.
    Alexa turned off the desk lamp and headed back into the corridor. She stared at the door at the end. A shadow moved across the light that shone through the gap at the bottom.
    Jackson raised his eyebrows. ‘Tell me you’re not thinking of going in there?’
    A grim smile crossed her lips. She strode down the passageway, turned the handle of the door, and pushed it open.
    A short, portly, dark-skinned man with a beard stared at them blankly from the other side of the room beyond. His stubby, multi-ringed fingers froze in the process of placing a document in the wall safe in front of him.
    ‘Perfect,’ murmured Alexa. She crossed the floor toward him.
    The stranger unfroze, reached inside the safe, and brought out a gun. Jackson shouted a warning behind her.
    She raised her right knee, pivoted on her left foot, and kicked the Beretta pistol out of the man’s grasp. There was a loud snap as his thumb broke.
    A strangled gurgle escaped the man’s lips when she closed her hand around his throat in a chokehold, lifted him bodily from the floor, and slammed him down on the desk next to the window. Her gaze shifted briefly to the papers beneath his head.
    ‘Mr. El Bashir?’ she said. The man struggled frantically beneath her, his heels banging against the side of the table while his fists tugged ineffectively at her arm. His eyes were like golf balls in his reddening face. Alexa increased her grip on his Adam’s apple. ‘A nod would suffice.’
    ‘You’re killing him,’ said Jackson darkly. He had picked up the Beretta and stood holding it as if it were a bag full of snakes.
    Alexa ignored him. The stranger was nodding frantically. She let go, took a step back, and waited.
    El Bashir sucked in air and tried to stand up. His knees buckled and he sagged against the desk with a groan. ‘Who—who the devil are you?’ he croaked after several seconds, rubbing the skin of his neck gingerly. His right thumb was red and swelling up visibly.
    ‘That’s irrelevant,’ said Alexa. ‘We’re looking for the October shipping orders for the Ras Abu. Where are they?’
    The man’s eyes betrayed him. For a fraction of a second, his gaze shifted to the wall safe.
    ‘Search it,’ she told Jackson brusquely.
    The Harvard professor frowned as he walked to the opening in the wall. He ignored the piles of foreign currency stacked neatly at the back of the metal box and inspected a pile of document holders. ‘Found it,’ he said after a minute. He pulled out a pair of sheets from a file and scanned the pages quickly. ‘It doesn’t say who ordered the Balcher crane.’
    Alexa turned her attention to the fat man. Sweat stained the collar of his shirt, and beads of perspiration dotted his forehead and upper lip. She glanced at her watch. Almost fifteen minutes had elapsed since they had entered the building. They were wasting precious time.
    She reached behind her back and brought one of her Sigs out of her body holster. El Bashir blanched when she placed the tip of the suppressor against his forehead.
    ‘You have ten seconds to tell me who hired you to bring the crawler crane from Duba,’ said Alexa.
    The fat man’s lips opened and closed soundlessly. ‘These people—these people are dangerous!’ he finally stammered. ‘They said they would kill me if I mentioned a—’
    She moved her hand and fired a shot into the desk. The fat man jumped, emitting a short cry. Across the room,