Free Sabotage by C. G. Cooper Page A

and the spoon, giving Cal enough time to push the pin back in. No, the guy would die, drop the grenade, and take at least three of them with him to meet the Grim Reaper.
     
    "You don't have to do this," Cal said. He even put his empty hand in the air. The man was glancing around him with furtiveness and buckets of sweat were pouring from his forehead. He had a scraggly black beard, and he looked like he could have been either eighteen or thirty-five.
     
    "They kill me," the man said.
     
    "Who will kill you?" Cal asked, trying to calm the man down.
     
    "They kill me," the man repeated. He moved the grenade and held it to his chest. He looked like a child who was guarding his toy from the other kids on the playground.
     
    "Give me the grenade," Cal said in a firm, yet quiet voice.
     
    The man shook his head and Cal half expected him to drop the grenade. He was in a panic. He kept looking around the room as if willing his comrades to rise to save him from this tragedy, but then Cal saw the resignation flicker in the man's eyes. He swallowed and then two things happened simultaneously. Four silenced rounds came in from Cal's right shooting the man in the face and neck. His legs crumpled, and then a black shadow tore in. Cal, for a nanosecond, believed the form to be Liberty. Fear tore through his body as he realized Daniel had thrown himself onto the man. Of course it would be Daniel, his protector, always ready to sacrifice his life for Cal’s life. 
     
    Cal was too late. There was nothing Cal could do except fall back and try not to get sprayed by the coming explosion. He counted down the seconds in his head. Three—two—one. He was on the ground now, curled up in a fetal position. Yet, there was no explosion. He was surprised to hear first a chuckle off to one side which was joined by laughter from the hotel room door. Top and Gaucho.
     
    Cal looked up to see them both smiling and he turned to where Daniel's mangled body should have been. But he wasn’t dead. Daniel was leaning against the wall, tossing the grenade, without pin or spoon, up in the air repeatedly. He sauntered over and Cal watched the projectile go up and down. That's when he saw it, and Cal joined in the chorus of laughter.
     
    Whoever had painted over the original coat of the grenade hadn't finished or it had gotten scraped off, but the light blue stripe going down the side of the Mark II’s pineapple-like grids was now apparent.
     
    “It was a practice round.” Cal breathed. Daniel nodded, his smile grim. "Then why did you shoot him?" Cal asked.
     
    Daniel shrugged and said, "I had to be sure."
     
     
    + + +
     
     
    After they'd had a couple minutes to take a breather from their near-death experience, Cal put in a call to his contact at the Egyptian Intelligence Service. The man assured Cal that he had nothing to do with the unfortunate incident. He apologized profusely while promising to escort some men over to fetch the two men who were badly wounded, yet still alive, and in addition they would clean up the rest of the mess.
     
    When the intelligence operatives arrived it took all of thirty seconds for them to confirm the dead men were associates of the financier Cal and his men had been in Egypt to interrogate.
     
    "How do you think they found us?" Daniel asked the scrawny intelligence colonel.
     
    The man's jaw clenched and he kicked one of the dead men in the side. "I think it's obvious that someone spoke, and I can promise you that the leak will be found and plugged."
     
    Cal could tell by the man's tone that the fiery colonel would leave no stone unturned, but that still didn't mean that Cal had to let him off that easy. "Colonel, I was wondering if you could do us another favor."
     
    The man nodded quickly. "Name it, and I will take care of it."
     
    Cal had already been thinking that this stupid incursion by the terrorist thugs was a blessing in disguise. If what was about to happen actually did, and their travel plans were