Free Black Hawk Day Rewind: An action packed spy thriller (Mark Savannah Espionage Series Book 1) by Dominick Fencer, Baibin Nighthawk

murderer.
    “Digitrevenant69, HD data incoming, payment when translation completed, he who seeks finds. MK.”
    Mark destroyed the device and buried the pieces as Pavel returned the following message, “Digitrevenant69, QSL, the early bird gets the worm.” Pavel was implying he’d get to work on it the next morning in his time zone.
    Mark returned to the observation point and began his two-hour stretch of guard duty.

25
     
     
    “How about some scorpion tea?” BAT FK23 Bantam asked the other two agents at seven in the morning, picking up the bottle.
    “No thanks, better to open a bag of cookies; Kamaal, I gladly leave you my ration of dried meat. Bat, please hand me that condensed milk crap, I’ll dilute it with some water,” said Li-2.
    “Last night the four guards were all asleep!” Kamaal went on talking sarcastically. “We should tell that asshole Bouda that he is paying dormice instead of sentries.”
    He did not complete the sentence before Mark said, “But what the fuck!” He was messing around with his smartphone and was very annoyed.
    “What is it?” asked BAT F.K.23 Bantam.
    “A message from the two agencies...they say that the image files sent yesterday were corrupt, so no pictures, fuck!”
    “That's strange,” said Kamaal. “I checked everything carefully, besides it's a brand new device.”
    “I will take some others of the Westerner. Kamaal, do you have the backup?” asked Li-2.
    “Of course, just because we’re in Pakistan or Afghanistan does not mean that taking a picture is stealing the soul of the people and that it is sacrilegious. I'm going to look for it in the car and come back.”
    “Very funny and clever this Pashtun,” Mark said, giving him a pat on the butt.
    “Mmm, this scorpion tea is really good, I feel like Apollinaire when he wrote The Eleven Thousand Rods," said BAT FK23 Bantam laughing, as he sipped Kamaal’s tea after he had gone.
    “Aha! Kamaal, we have one who delights in early 20th-century erotic literature!” exclaimed Li-2 as Kamaal took his seat again and handed him a new photographic device.
    “Bat, go fuck yourself. You have finished the tea that you found so disgusting and now you pretend to be a professor on a topic that you would do better not to talk about.”
    “Yeah! Now we have a philosopher as well!” Mark added.
     
    At noon, the building was still empty, there was no movement and no one had arrived: the Westerner had not shown up.
    “When the guards take their break we’ll go back in and place the devices again,” BAT FK23 Bantam said. “Hopefully, the spider will come out of its hole.”
    “You had better hope that it’s not another scorpion Bat,” replied Li-2 with a laugh. He was completely bored with the situation by now.
    BAT FK23 Bantam did not have time to answer because their three smartphones announced a new message simultaneously.
    “Ah...” Mark was the first to open his message.
    “Well?” Bat asked.
    “The mission is over. Bouda is neither in Pakistan nor in Afghanistan but presumably in Europe. I have to leave the country immediately and go to Langley –documents and tickets at the airport – hand delivery. Kamaal, you have to take me to Peshawar.”
    “I read it; we’ll leave in ten minutes. Bat, are you coming back to Herat with me? Can you confirm that?”
    “Affirmative, Kamaal. What a pity that we can’t return to your brother, he was so nice!”
    “Fuck you, Bat! And it's the second time that I’ve told you that in such a short time. Maybe you like it? Look here you, neither Li-2I nor I...”
    “Let's go, I’ll take care of the equipment,” said Mark with a laugh. He was glad to be getting out of there even though he had collected no other information.
     
    After a dusty and boring trip, they said goodbye and parted at the Peshawar airport. The British agent found his documents and his plane ticket in his jacket pocket after running into a careless Emirates Airlines’ hostess, who apologized for