One Night Only

Dante

All in all, I’m paid for having slept late and had a lot to drink last night. It’s six in the morning and I’ve only had two hours of sleep, but that’s not what affects me the most, it’s the alcohol, the fucking raw. I feel like I’m getting my head drilled in. I’m irritated by Enzo’s voice. For that reason, I sent it in the other van. We’re going back to the airport in five SUVs. My men and Muhammad’s are going, they will escort us to the plane. Before I left I thanked him for everything and for not saying anything about last night, that I left without telling them anything. He understood the reference when he knew it was a call from my girl.

The road is long to the airport. That’s why it took us so long to arrive. It could be said that almost an hour.

The first two vans in front, my van is in the middle, stop in the middle of the road.

Why?

Ours also stops in its tracks, behind them, causing those coming from behind to stop. I look at Franco; he is sitting in the passenger seat. I hope he says something, but he never speaks.

“Call Fabricio and ask him what’s going on, why are they stopping” I order Franco. His replacement is Fabrizio. He’s the other guy in charge of running the squad when he’s not around.

Fabricio is in the first van along with some of the team and in the other there are more of my armed men and the Arab accompanying them. The one in the middle is where I go, the next Enzo accompanied by our people and the last one just like the first ones.

We are very well protected, but apparently something interfered our way.

Franco obeys my order, but apparently no one answers his call.

“Sir, they’re not responding.

When I’m about to protest and ask him to come down so I can see what’s going on. We see the doors of the second van open. At that one of the armed men goes down and comes to ours with quick steps. He touches the window and Franco lowers the one on his side.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Sir,” he turns to Franco, “we’ll have to wait a few seconds.” A man blocked our way as he passes with several camels through the pass.

I snort exasperated. What I was missing. My head is starting to hurt. Even dark glasses don’t help my eyes, which hurt from the sunlight.

“And do we help you move them? It would be faster” says Roy, another armed man who is in the back seat.

I sigh and massage my temple. Franco looks at me; he waits for my answer. I nod my head to let him know that I accept.

I do not want them to get out of the vehicles, it is territory that we do not know and where we are not well known yet. I don’t want to risk it, but if there’s no other way to hurry the camel boy, what else do I do?

The moment they get off and Franco accompanies them, I try to close my eyes for a moment. Meanwhile, they are coming back.

That’s when my cell phone rings. I curse in a whisper. The call insists, so I force myself to open my eyes again. The Czech is Enzo. When I’m about to take the call, I hear some gunshots.

“Damn it!” i mumble”. I hope these assholes didn’t kill those animals to get them out of the way.

I ignore Enzo’s call, I leave the mobile on the seat, I get out of the vehicle and I go to the first van, but I don’t manage to get there, since the shots are coming back, and being more than before. It’s a barrage of bullets tearing through the sky. Now I know that they are not the ones who started nor did they shoot the animals to move them.

The first thing I do is take cover behind the second SUV. I didn’t manage to get to the front to find out what’s going on, because the shots are still going. The advantage there is that the vehicles are armored, but the worst thing is that I find myself outside of them. I take out one of my weapons, which always accompany me in the holster that I carry on my shoulders, I take off my jacket and roll up my shirt sleeve. It’s a hell of a heat here in Morocco.

The shooting doesn’t stop. I can’t communicate with Enzo or Franco. I left the damn cell phone on the seat. I remember and curse for my stupidity.

I’m trying to sneak up to the first van. I’m not going to hide inside any of them. I’m not going to let my men fight and I run away like a coward. That doesn’t go with me. I like to kill and defeat those who mess with me, with my people, with what belongs to me. I managed to get to the next vehicle. That’s when I visualize Franco lying on the ground upside down shooting at the enemies. It is covered by a rare vegetation. We find ourselves on a desert road, where no one seems to pass. All around us there are only a few mountains of sand and strange plants.

It’s not the desert, but it’s something similar.

“Sir” he says when he sees me. He is a few meters away from where I stopped”, what are you doing here? He should take shelter in one of the vans.

“I’m not such a babe to hide” I reply annoyed. What happened?

“I don’t know exactly.” Give a few shots. I follow him in the act “. I only know that we were helping the young man with his camels, but at that many guys came out armed and with turbans, well covered. They started shooting at us. I just managed to run a little and throw myself here.

“And the others?” I’m still on my own.

“Some are still attacking from those points” he points to some mountains and more vegetation. A few have already fallen. We’ve lost a few because we were caught off guard.

It was to be expected, they did not let them run for cover. Since they don’t stop shooting, it’s easy for some of them to have already fallen.

Damn, I’m losing men, and that’s starting to worry me.

At that Franco shouts: “Run!” He gets up and comes to me so that we can run together to another place.

It detonates a big explosion. It’s a grenade that was thrown under the vehicle. Due to the impact we flew out until we fell to the ground and rolled down some dunes.