Another silenced shot. It was high, striking the man slightly below the base of the skull. The impact from the high-power sniper load nearly decapitated the man. He fell forward into the mulgas rustling the limbs as his body rolled through the tiny branches. The sound carried through the camp.
“We better move fast, Gregg. That had to wake someone up.” Jake readied his Glock.
From all the observations, they had determined the training camp had two dormitory tents sleeping seven each. Two from each tent had sentry duty at night. The largest tent, Yasir’s tent, housed only two occupants, Yasir and one other assumed to be Hashim Khan. Near one corner of the camouflage netting was a communications tent and a supply tent—both should be empty this time of the morning.
Kaplan made the call. “All teams, go, go, go.”
CHAPTER 6
Hajjah Palace
Hajjah, Yemen
I
SABELLA HUNT’S HEAD didn’t just hurt, it debilitated her. Contusions on her forehead and the back of her head felt like a vise had been placed on her ears and her skull slowly crushed. With the pulsing of each heartbeat, the pain intensified.
She scanned the room, even with blurry vision she could tell she was in a holding cell of some kind. Metal bars mounted in the single window were caked with dust and dirt that matched the brown glass. A rough-hewn wooden door directly opposite the window had a four-inch square peephole—a peephole someone opened and closed every few minutes, checking to see if she had regained consciousness. Not yet, she needed time to think of a way to escape.
Dry, stale dust caked her tongue and throat. She could feel the dehydration, her body longing for a drink of water. She’d been in this country too long. The dry, arid desert had taken its toll. She coughed.
The peephole opened and a man brought some food and a tin cup with a few swallows of liquid. Both were horrid, but she didn’t care. Isabella was disoriented, her head throbbed and vision blurred so she reaasoned food would help. She ate and drank, but it made her drowsy and sluggish.
She still didn’t know what had gone wrong. One minute she was doing her job—assistant to a shipping magnate in the port city of Aden—sitting in her office updating an export contract, when a man she’d never seen before rushed through the door, grabbed, and hit her. She fell onto the desk face first and smashed her forehead against the computer monitor. When she tried to stand, something smacked the back of her head and the office went black.
Had she blown her cover? More importantly, when would Bentley send someone after her?
She knew he would. Sooner or later. She hoped it would be Kaplan. They’d worked together on her last two missions. Both times posing as a couple. The first time as vacationers in Italy, they consulted a man named Vincent Corsaletti, a man who was known for his powerful connections. Vinny, as he preferred to be called, helped them locate an escaped prisoner from Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention camp. Corsaletti was a Sicilian information broker.
With Corsaletti’s help, Hunt and Kaplan assisted Italian authorities in raiding the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan and apprehending an al Qaeda facilitator who worked for Yemen’s Political Security Organization and responsible for shuttling terrorists around the globe.
Their second mission together sent them to Tripoli, Libya, posing as a newlywed couple and potential customers for a Libyan shipping company. Corsaletti informed them the owner had ties to Ian Collins. They attempted to extract information from the owner to help them locate and apprehend the assassin known as Shamrock. The owner disavowed any connection to Collins, refusing to discuss the matter any further. Hunt and Kaplan were escorted out and they were left at a dead end.
She thought of the mission often, it had been different than the others. For her, it was special. A turning point in their friendship. Her thoughts were interrupted when the outside bolt on the huge door swung open. The black void that appeared outside the open door disappeared when two large men stormed into the room. The larger man picked her up, placed her in a wooden chair, and held her down while the second man grabbed her arms and pulled them behind the chair.
She recognized the feel of flex cuffs being slipped around her wrists and kicked the larger man in the groin. His grip relaxed causing the chair to tip onto its back legs. The man in back lost his grip on her hands. Free of the flex cuffs, she leapt forward, head butting the first man in the gut, knocking him to the floor.
She spun around to take a punch at the other man when she felt the sting in the back. Every muscle in her body contracted and she collapsed on the rough-hewn floor.
“American Tasers. Work well, yes.” A third voice said.
She’d been tased once before. She didn’t like it then and nothing had changed. Affectionately called “riding the bull,” it was something all operatives had to endure during training, but there was nothing
affectionate
about it.
By the time she regained use of her limbs, she had been repositioned back in the chair, flex cuffed, and strapped to the chair with duct tape.
“Who do you work for?” The third voice asked.
“You know who I work for.” Hunt said. “Your goons kidnapped me.”
Knuckles crunched the side of her face. Blood spurted from her lips, splattering against the stone wall behind her.
“We can do this either way. The hard way or the easy way. I don’t care, I have all night. Again, who do you work for?”
“Hilal Shipping.” She braced herself, expecting another blow to the head but instead some sort of stick was rammed into her gut.
She gasped for air but the void in her chest wouldn’t fill. She lurched forward against the restraints, begging for air. Finally it came. A small sip at a time. Her lungs burned. Her gut hurt. What seemed like minutes were mere seconds.
She raised her head, tried to focus—he was smiling. The left side of his face burned, no eyebrows or eyelashes. His left hand missing two fingers. His disfigured face not as appalling as the stench from his rotten teeth. His gums were brown, teeth black.
“What is your job at Hilal Shipping?”
She struggled to speak. In broken breaths she said, “I’m administrative assistant to Ahmed al-Hilal. Owner of Hilal Shipping.”
“How long have you worked at Hilal?”
“Six weeks.”
“And before, you worked for the CIA, yes?”
“No, I never—“
The next blow broke her nose. Blood flowed over her chin, dripping onto her lap.
“Leave us.” The man commanded.
She heard two sets of footsteps walk away from her. The man lifted her chin with his stick. She felt his hot breath against her face. Smelled the stench of rotten gums.
“You will tell me the truth or you will die. I’ll leave you to think about how our next meeting will go. But I promise you this, I won’t be as polite.”
Footsteps walked across the room.
The door slammed and bolted shut.
Isabella’s chin fell to her chest. Pain radiated through her weakened body. Blood dripped from her nose and mouth as her lips formed the words, barely audible to her own ears, “Gregg.”
CHAPTER 7
T
HE SAS STRIKE team had been regimented to perfection. The operation meticulously planned and each soldier knew his task. Jake watched Kaplan drill the soldiers time after time, covering every angle and every possible scenario. If something were to go wrong, each man should instinctively know what to do. Stay the course, don’t over react, and maintain focus.
Underneath the canopy the terrorists used low light kerosene lanterns and flashlights to avoid detection from the air by overflying aircraft or satellites. In the nighttime desert, even the smallest output of light could be seen from miles away.
Team one entered the camp’s perimeter first. Their task was to secure the communications tent, disabling any opportunity for outside transmissions.
Mounted on support poles underneath the netting were floodlights that went undetected during surveillance. A detail neither Jake nor Kaplan had contemplated was about to turn the mission into a tragedy. The floodlights were activated by trip wires randomly strung around the perimeter—tripwires that also went undetected…until the first SAS soldier stepped on the wire.
The area lit up like a football stadium at night, blinding the soldiers wearing the NVGs. The men ripped off their night vision goggles but the initial blast of light had temporarily impaired their vision. Now six men stood sightless in the middle of an enemy camp.
Sitting ducks.
Jake and Kaplan were outside the perimeter when the lights came on. Far enough outside to escape being blinded by the NVGs. The eleven-man team was now a five-man team and Jake and Kaplan were the only ones at camp level who could still see.
Within seconds after the camp lit up, Jake heard the terrorists yelling inside the tents. The six-blinded soldiers dove to the sand and rolled.
“Gregg. We have a problem.”
Kaplan charged forward motioning Jake to watch Yasir’s quarters. “Snipers, fire through the netting. Take out the dorm tents.”
Teams two and three, the teams designated to hit the dorm tents, were deepest inside the camp and the most exposed when the first of the terrorists scrambled into the open.
Sniper rounds peppered the tents.
Screams of agony filled the desert night air.
Jake crouched to a firing stance on one knee. He took aim at the tent closest to his position. Three men ran out, two covered in blood, all firing wildly in the air as they ran into the night.
Jake noticed Kaplan in the same one-knee stance firing into the other tent.
More shots rang out. Silenced rounds continued to spray the tents. The snipers had done their job. The movement stopped and the camp went silent.
“Jake, Yasir.” Kaplan was up and running for the terrorist’s quarters.
Jake moved faster and was waiting when Kaplan arrived.
They stood outside, Jake heard whispering. “Drop your weapons.”
Kaplan looked at him. “What are you doing?”
“Giving Yasir a chance to surrender.” Jake said. “Just like Bentley wanted.”
A voice came through the headset. “Team one operational, communications and supply tents secure.”
“Good. Go help the others. Make sure both dorm tents are neutralized.”
Jake and Kaplan parted the tent doors with the barrels of their pistols.
Kaplan looked in, “Mustaff Bin Yasir?”
Crouched in back were two people, one Yasir. Jake recognized him from the preponderance of photos he’d studied. The other an Asian woman, not Hashim Khan, the American traitor they were looking for.
Yasir and the woman were huddled in the rear, Yasir holding a knife to her throat using her tiny body as a shield.
“No shoot. No shoot.” The woman pleaded.
“Drop the knife.” Kaplan stepped toward the pair, his barrel switching from Yasir to the woman to Yasir.
Jake moved next to Kaplan. “Let her go—now.”
“No shoot. No shoot.” She screamed.
Jake felt his anger swell. He couldn’t be responsible for letting another woman die because he failed to react fast enough.
† † †
A sudden clap of thunder blasted in his ears and caught Kaplan by surprise as he watched the pink mist fly from the back of Yasir’s head. The terrorist fell backward into the canvas tent and tumbled to the desert floor.
He saw Jake still pointing his gun at Yasir’s lifeless body, now crumpled on the floor in a bloody pile.
The woman started screaming in a language he didn’t know. After what Jake just did, Kaplan didn’t have time to deal with the Asian woman so he hit her in the head with the butt of his gun rendering her unconscious.
Securing her hands and legs with flex cuffs, he turned to Jake. “What the hell did you just do? Alive, Jake. Alive. Bentley wanted him alive.”
Jake lowered his gun. “He was going to kill her. We need her more than him.”
“How the hell do you figure?” Kaplan pointed toward the unconscious woman. “We don’t even know who she is.”
“Look at her. She’s Asian. Why would an Asian woman be in this camp? Don’t you think that’s a little odd? Whatever her reason for being here is something we need to find out. That makes her our priority.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Jake? I don’t know you any more. You’ve gone off the deep end. Ever since Beth died, you shoot everything and everyone in sight. The whole concept of ‘capture alive’ eludes you. You’re careless and irresponsible. And your behavior endangers the safety of those around you.”
“Shut up, Gregg. I did what had to be done. It was Yasir or the woman.”
Kaplan shoved Jake in the chest, knocking him two steps backwards. “You’re no better than an assassin. You’re like, like…Ian Collins. Or worse, Laurence O’Rourke.”
Kaplan saw it in Jake’s eyes, he’d struck a nerve.
Jake raised his pistol, aiming it at Kaplan’s head. “Don’t ever talk to me that way again.”
“Jake, two things you better get through that thick skull of yours. One, you need help. Serious help. When we get back, I’ll talk to Bentley.”
“And two?” Jake asked.
Kaplan heard Jake’s sarcasm. “Two. If you ever point a gun at me again, you better use it…or I’ll kill you where you stand.” Kaplan paused to let the words sink in.
He turned and walked out of the tent.
CHAPTER 8
Two Days Later
J
AKE TIGHTENED HIS seatbelt as the Challenger jet descended into the West Texas desert. It was the same Challenger he flew on to Ireland back in March when he discovered the secret cache of weapons buried beneath the ancient Irish ruins of the Creevelea Abbey. Since March, he’d flown on it numerous times. Bentley sat in the seat across from him and hadn’t spoken a word since they left Langley. For that matter, Bentley hadn’t spoken a dozen words to him since he returned from Australia.