Page 37 of Steel Vengeance
“Should I be worried?”
He laughed, deep and gravelly, and for a moment, she didn’t even realize it was him. “When I get back from the graveyard tomorrow, I’ll help you figure out the shipment details. I owe you that much.”
“Really?” Her breath caught.
“Yeah. It’s the least I can do.”
“How?”
“We’ll go to Islamabad, talk to the port officials. Someone’s gotta know something.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Money talks. And we’ve got U.S. dollars.”
She hesitated.
“If you want to get to the bottom of this, that’s the way.”
She thought for a moment. “You could ask Omari before you kill him. He’ll know.”
He hesitated. “That’s not exactly the conversation I was planning to have with him.”
“I know,” she whispered. “It’d just save us time.”
He was silent for a beat.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said finally. “No promises, though.”
Sloane gave a little nod. “That’s all I ask.”
CHAPTER 14
The graveyard was overgrown and forgotten, like it had been lost to time. Crumbling crypts with stone arches jutted up from the waist-high grass. Some were falling apart, rubble piled up around them. Tombstones leaned at odd angles, barely visible through the brush, and in the distance, purple hills rolled lazily, dotted with dried shrubs and bare trees.
It was a sad place. Isolated.
A perfect spot for a killing.
Stitch had gotten there early. According to Sloane, Omari left home at two for his weekly visit to the gravesite, and the drive took about half an hour.
It was already 2:15. He’d been waiting for 20 minutes, holed up in a hollowed-out crypt at the far end of the graveyard where the land blended into the hills. There wasn’t much of a border—just a mess of weeds and crumbling stone swallowed by the wilderness years ago.
The crypt was big enough to keep him hidden but small enough to be overlooked. Other crypts were scattered around, some with arches still standing, some collapsed into ruins.
Sloane didn’t know exactly where Omari went when he came here, only that he was dropped off at the entrance and walked in alone. Always alone.
Stitch wasn’t surprised. The place was deserted except for the dead, and even they seemed forgotten.
Who was Omari visiting? His parents? Grandparents?
Stitch settled deeper into the shadows, letting the tall grass and the crypt keep him out of sight. Fitting that the drug lord would die near his ancestors.
He checked his watch. 2:20.
Footsteps. Someone walking through the grass. Stitch leaned forward, keeping to the shadows. Was it Omari? A little early, but maybe.
He crawled to get a better look—and his heart sank.