The endless scenery zoomed by as Duke sped off into the horizon. He checked his watch, it was 9 AM and the sun was rising higher with each passing minute. He reckoned that at the speed he was going, he would surely make it to Mali before noon.
He had awoken at 6 AM. As soon as the sun's first rays streamed through his windows. And he had been riding ever since he left fifteen minutes later. Armed with his laptop, his gun and no pair of extra clothes, he had begun his journey towards the coastal city of Mali; a hostile road by anyone's standards; the road to Mali went through the everglades with their teeming crocodiles before it entered the worst type of terrain, the harsh salt desert. Winds swept in tiny grains of sand that danced about on the roads in wispy mini tornadoes. Population density was down to a minimum, with a few scattered townships at great distances.
As the wind streamlined across his helmet, Duke thought back to the conversation he and Damien had the previous night
"So what you gonna do hon? Buy air tickets? You only have till tomorrow."
"No, I can't afford air tickets. And I don't think I'll make it in time anyway. I think I'm gonna go there by bike."
"What?" Damien cried from the other side. "How the hell you gonna get there by bike? You'll probably get eaten by crocodiles on the way or something, or worse, you'll turn to crispy toast in the middle of the desert!"
"Yeah, but it's the only option."
Damien opened his mouth to say something but then shut up. He knew it was pointless arguing against Duke in such situations.
"So what you gonna say to him if you do catch up?"
Duke could hardly give a reply that time. And that was exactly what he was thinking about, riding along on his bike through the salty desert air. The temperature was beginning to rise and his dark attire and bike were going to make him bear the brunt of it. But those were the least of concerns in his mind. Nothing would stop him from meeting Christian, he was now sure of that, but then what exactly would he do once he did meet him? Damien's words came floating back to his mind again.
"I mean, don't hit him or anything when you see him sweetie, cause we both know what he's capable of doing when he's in a fight."
"Don't know, we'll see."
"And where does that girl fit into all this? The red-haired one I met at the bar."
"Don't know." Duke replied again as Damien sighed at his redundancy.
And then Damien had launched into a vivid description of what had happened to the people who Christian had intercepted that fated night, telling him every detail of Randy and his unfortunate mates, how a couple of them were still hospitalized and how one of them would probably never be able to reproduce, even if he wanted to.
And Duke had barely listened. He was deep in thought of what he would do. But there was one thing he did know; there was no way he was going to sit back and try and forget the whole incident.
~~~
"So that's where we split up right."
"Yes, after we get in the ship and enter E-deck, you're gonna make your way to the control room and I'm gonna continue towards Mr. Checkov's private collection."
The plot seemed perfect to Christian. This would probably be one of the easier tasks they had been on. That did not mean he would be on a lower caution level. But everything had been perfected to the last routine, and things didn't look like they could go wrong now. Christian smiled to himself as he recalled how things had gone wrong on their last job; that moron had entered in the password wrong!
Christian shook his head to clear his thoughts. He needed a break from their jobs, and he was going to get it after this task. There was a lot of thinking he had to do; a lot of thoughts had to be expunged from his mind.
~~~
It was 11 AM when Duke pulled up at a kerb on the outskirts of Mali and tugged of the helmet on his head. It had been boiling hot inside but he had made it before he had to face the worst part of the afternoon sun. A young boy who looked to be about 14 eyed Duke as he unzipped his jacket and strode of the bike.
"Hey, is that a BMW?"
Duke smiled as he patted his bike, "Yup."
"Cool, can I take a ride?"
Duke stared at the kid shaking his head in wonder.
Duke thought about how he'd made it to the town and Christian was somewhere there too. But the only information Duke had, pertained to where Christian would be sometime that night. He had no clue as to where he was at that very moment. He decided to acquaint himself with the scenario that he would be facing that night. After all, he had to be fully prepared, or he would miss his only chance.
Ten minutes later, Duke made his way into a coffee shop and was glad to find his much preferred lemon iced-tea on the menu. That would give him something to sip at whilst he got down to business.
He flipped open his laptop and immediately started searching for wireless internet connections. The screen showed up quite a few and Duke was surprised that they were all encrypted. He sighed as he realized that more and more Internet Service Providers were taking notice of illegal usage of their bandwidths and had begun to encrypt their usages.
That would hardly deter Duke though. A few minutes of code filtering, and he was through.
Through and blissfully breaking through and scanning the security reports of the private docks and on board a luxury yacht called the Nebressa.
~~~
It was evening time and Damien was just getting off from work as his phone buzzed. It was his neighbor, Mrs. Writer, asking him not to pick up Valary from the play group for she was free herself.
