Blam!

Adam went down hard on top of Badaki's flattened door. He rolled and came up on his right knee, arms extended, making snap sweeps of the room with his 9mm.

Mini dust devils that had erupted from under the crashing door eddied into the bright beams of sunlight coming through the bay window. Otherwise...

Nothing.

Nothing alive that is; the place smelled like a butcher shop. And though it required but a flash vision of the scene for Adam to evaluate the immediate situation, the entire situation was complex. But the bottom line was: He was too late.

He raised himself upright. He tucked the Browning back under his shirt.

Adam could see a small arm of the burgundy pond that was on the floor under Badaki's desk. It had burst its bank, and a meandering red rivulet had formed and snaked its way to the point where the top edge of the flattened door had come to rest. Adam skirted the gelling stream and went alongside the desk. He knew what was on the other side. But when he looked down he became transfixed.

He was staring at a headless body. It was clothed in a white dishdasha robe. Much of the white was now sopped bloody-murder red. A nasty-looking knife was lying beside the corpse.

When he did pry his gaze away, Adam surveyed the room... for the time being he avoided the window.

Besides the office desk –Adam had the fingers of his left hand steadied on its edge– there were three plain wooden chairs and a day-bed upholstered in tan-colored leather. A rumpled grey blanket was lying on the floor in front of it. The walls were bare, except for a brand new map of the Gulf of Aden region. He could see a small en-suite bath through the open door of a converted closet.

Adam expelled the air from his lungs, lowered his chin to his chest and drummed his fingers on the desk top. Then he slowly swiveled his head to the left.

It was around mid-day and the sunlight streaming through the bay window was intense. The object planted on the window sill was blacked-out in the bright glare. Adam took three steady paces and stood over the object. He removed the embroidered kufi cap from its top and set it on the window sill. A couple of pigeons were patrolling the outside ledge. They glanced at Adam with indifference. He clenched a fistful of the matted hair that hung limply from the thing. He lifted it from the sill; a sticky suction added to the strange weight of it. He raised it to eye-level. He turned it round.

Adam was staring into the cold dead eyes of Badaki. They were frozen open in shock. But a fever of hatred and evil still emanated powerfully from their black depths. Adam returned the stare in kind.

He stuck the head back into the goo on the window sill, faced it toward the Gulf. He replaced Badaki's kufi cap.

Adam looked out and stared at Sira Island, its historic Fortress high atop, and then beyond, over the sea. He felt something draining within, as though an onerous weight in his upper body that had amassed and gelled over a long period was now liquefying, gushing down, gathering momentum, flushing out the soles of his feet and dispersing in an invisible wash.

"Rest in peace, Cole," Adam whispered.

He lowered his gaze and spotted Vendetta sitting far off, alone at the pier –the other two vessels were gone. The pigeons caught his eye. The male was strutting about in tight circles, his chest feathers proudly puffed. He was doing a pretty fair job, considering the working conditions, but the female was stubbornly doing her best to ignore the poor bugger's efforts.

Adam turned on his heel and strode to the washroom. He scrubbed his hands clean in the sink, looked up and regarded the reflection in the mirror with dismay. The face looking back was someone he recognized from over a decade ago. His eyes were full of renewed life and hope. Adam realized an enthusiasm for living –one of Ava's dearest qualities– had been magically restored in himself. He slapped his cheeks with wet hands then dried them on his pant legs.

Adam departed Badaki's office with not so much as a sideways glance towards the window. He headed out to the street in search of a cab.