Outsourced

The C.I.A. is awash in money as a result of post-9/11 budget increases. But because of the general uncertainty over the future, it faces a long delay before it can recruit, train and develop a new generation of spies and analysts. So for now it is building up its staff by turning to the “intelligence-industrial complex.”

– The New York Times, June 13, 2005,

op-ed contribution by James Bamford

[T]he contracting boom continuing unchecked…means, says [John] Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, that America’s spy network could soon resemble NASA’s mission control room in Houston. “Most people, when they see that room, think they’re looking at a bunch of NASA people,” Pike notes. “But it’s 90 percent contractors.”

– Mother Jones, January/February 2005,

as reported by Tim Shorrock

Chapter Sixty

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

“LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS.” Iggy’s abort command echoed inside Camille’s head. She doubled over and let out a loud moan to distract the guards, hating herself for what she was about to do. All that mattered now was getting her team out alive. She twisted her wrists and spread her ankles apart. The zip cuffs broke away. She reached for her USP Tactical, slapped the trigger twice and fired two rounds into the middle of Bobby’s forehead at the same moment GENGHIS did the same. Blood splattered onto the stained walls, the freshest strokes on the Abu Ghraib mural.

GENGHIS glanced at Camille, “Sorry. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I wish,” she whispered.

The other guards died before they could discharge their weapons. The inmates erupted in cheers just as the power went out, courtesy of their advance team. Darkness was a relief. With their night vision equipment, they had the advantage.

GENGHIS yanked at Bobby’s keychain, but couldn’t get it off his belt. He unbuckled it and tugged, struggling to harvest keys from the corpse.

Camille turned away. She pulled the dishdashah over her head and tossed the man-dress aside. She was scared Iggy had ordered the abort because he had received intel that Hunter was dead. He would never say it over the comm for fear it would shake her up too much to operate. He was right.

It was pitch dark and she smelled death. Every muscle in her body tensed up and the animal in her told her to run. Breathing hard, she reached around and removed the night vision goggles from where they were taped at the small of her back. She put the NVGs on her head, turned them on and could see again-sort of. The place was so dark, there wasn’t much light for them to magnify and everything seemed to be closing in on her. She knew she had to forget Hunter, pull herself together and concentrate on the egress, so she took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down and focus, but the surging adrenaline made her feel like a frantic beast.

An operator grabbed her arm and tugged. “Move.”

She went with him. They met the team at the slider to the cell block and waited for too many seconds until GENGHIS and COPPERHEAD pushed through them with Bobby’s keys. GENGHIS unlocked it and slid the bars aside. The roar of hopeful prisoners grew louder, wrestling sounds echoing in her head.

The team rushed to the steel door to the outside. COPPERHEAD shoved keys into the lock, but there were too many to try them all. Her breath was fast and shallow. She had to get out. Now. She wanted to body-slam the door and she realized she was losing it. She closed her eyes for a second and imagined she was with her father.

She knew what to do.

“Stand aside. We’re blowing the door.” Camille said as her training took over and she drew her knife from a thigh holster. She sliced off the block of C-4 duct-taped and contoured to her stomach along with a packet containing a set of four electronic blasting caps and a remote detonator, then cut the C-4 brick in two and gave the other half to GENGHIS. She pinched off a chunk of C-4 the size of a golf ball and ripped a strip of duct tape from her stomach. Pushing the C-4 against the lock, she shoved a cap inside, then slapped the tape on to hold it in place.

In less than ten seconds, she and GENGHIS finished setting charges on the lock and hinges.

“Get back and look away!” Camille said as she raced back through the slider onto Broadway and out of the blast range. “Fire in the hole.” She pressed the remote. The explosion thundered through the cell block and inmates screamed.

She dashed through the open doorway, gasping for fresh air.

Chapter Sixty-One

Today, anyone suspected of links to terrorism can be snatched anywhere in the world, put on a secret CIA jet and taken to a country, such as Egypt, for “out-sourced” torture. When [Michael] Scheuer developed his programme he stipulated strictly that only suspects who had been tried in absentia for terrorist offences or had an outstanding arrest warrant were to be targeted… Today there only has to be the suggestion they are involved in terrorism-no convictions or warrants are needed, nor is the permission of another country.

– Sunday Herald [Glasgow], Oct. 16, 2005, as reported by Neil McKay

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

In the past hour Camille had killed an innocent man, busted out of Abu Ghraib and torched a stolen Rubicon vehicle in the desert. Having to perch on GENGHIS’ lap for most of the ride back to Camp Raven didn’t put her in any better mood and she still had no information on why they had had to abort. Even though the radio was encrypted, Iggy didn’t want to use it. It had to mean that Hunter was dead. Iggy just didn’t want to tell her over the air-waves. She absolutely knew it was true when she saw Iggy, Pete and Virgil were waiting on them at the entrance to the ops center.

Camille climbed from the Black Management Navigator and made eye contact with Iggy, but couldn’t read him.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I don’t think so.” Iggy shook his head. “Your bounty worked a little too well. Some Rubicon guards tried to spring him on their own a few minutes before you got there.”

“They get him?” Camille stretched. The other operators stood around, listening. “Is he here?”

“They fucked it up. They’re dead.”

“Hunter?”

He put his prosthetic hand on Camille’s back. “Let’s go talk inside-in private.”

GENGHIS and Pete followed Camille and Iggy into the operations center. Most of Black Management’s business happened at night and the place was buzzing even more than usual. Oversized LCD monitors showed live feeds from unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters and ground troops, all in the green tones of night vision. Like a television producer of a live event, supervisors with cordless headsets studied the screens, giving directions as they toggled between images.

“Just tell me. Is Hunter alive?”

“Best we can tell.”

“Syria?” Camille watched fast moving terrain on one of the monitors, then saw the bright trail of a missile flying away from the Super Cobra helicopter. GENGHIS and Pete stood a few feet away, still within earshot, as they followed the live action on the screens.

“Over there,” Iggy pointed across the room. “That’s Iran you’re looking at. It’s really hopping tonight. Some recon Marines got into a little trouble. We’re keeping the Revolutionary Guard busy while their comrades yank them out.” He turned toward Camille. “I’m afraid we’ve lost our chance to grab Stone. They’re moving him, probably out of the country.”

Camille kept her eyes on the monitor, waiting for the flash as the Hellfire hit its target. It gave her a few moments to sort through a jumble of emotions. She was relieved that he was alive, but frustrated that they had lost their chance to rescue him by only minutes. “We need to find him before that happens. But I’ll go wherever it takes-let’s just hope it’s Afghanistan where we have the infrastructure.”

“Not much chance of that.” Iggy laughed.

“What’s your source?”

“The Brits at AegeanA came through with sigint. Some idiot in the prison made a frantic call to a Rubicon oil exec at home on an unsecured line.”

“So Rubicon is giving its own operatives covers in their petroleum division. Pretty sloppy,” Camille said.

“What makes you think he’s one of Rubicon’s?”

She shot Iggy a worried glance. “You’re not thinking the Agency? But I don’t care who’s involved, I’m going after him as soon as we pick up a trail. Black Management can’t get pulled in any deeper-we have too many Agency contracts. We can’t risk it. This is going to take a very light footprint.”

“Back up a minute,” Iggy said. “You can’t seriously be thinking of going after him on your own?”

“I’ll take GENGHIS.”

GENGHIS was watching the action in Iran. He swung his head around, opened his mouth, then shut it. He paused, then decided to speak. “You surprised me tonight. I didn’t think you had it in you to do what you had to do.”

Camille waited. “So? Are you in?”

GENGHIS nodded.

“Cam, can I talk to you alone?” Iggy said.

“Sure. Pete, set GENGHIS up with some quarters.” Camille turned to GENGHIS. “Be ready to deploy on five minutes’ notice.”

“Yes, ma’am.” GENGHIS saluted her and she knew he meant it.

Camille sat alone in the war room with Iggy, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “We don’t even know at this point if we’re going anywhere to rescue him, but I’ll be honest with you. You’d be my first choice, but I need you here running things and planning the op to come bail me out if it goes south.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him the other part of the truth-that she was afraid his prosthetic arm and leg made him too easy to spot. Artificial limbs were too noticeable if they had to slip through borders and maneuver undetected.

“Understood.” Iggy sighed. “It’s about my new gear, isn’t it?”

“Don’t make me go there.”

“The truth.”

“Iggy…”

“You don’t want to rely on a guy who has to change his batteries every two days.”

“I’d trust you with my life any day. You know that. We’ve been in the field together after you lost them. But…” Her voice trailed off as she grappled for the words.

“But what?”

“You’re not one of the little gray men anymore. You can’t slip around under the radar. You’ve got a signature.” Camille felt her stomach knot. “I’m sorry.”

Iggy looked at her for a few moments before speaking. His dark brown eyes were sad, his demeanor deflated. “Don’t be. All I wanted was your truth. And you know, you’re right. I don’t like to think I have any limits, then I get some goddamn sores on one of these stumps that make me so mad, I’ll run an extra mile just to spite them.”

Camille put her elbows on the table and supported her head with her hands. “I hit some limits tonight, too, but I didn’t run any extra miles. You know that scenario we ran through before you cleared me to the team?”

“Yeah.”

“His name was Bobby.” She stared into the ops center through the window that covered most of one wall of the war room. The image of her bullets blasting the holes in Bobby’s head wouldn’t leave her.

“You froze?”

“Perfect shot.” She touched her index finger to the middle of Iggy’s forehead. Fighting tears, she turned away. “Just like my Daddy taught me.”

“Was he armed?”

“A shorty AK.”

Iggy took a deep breath and held her gaze. “You had a responsibility to your men. You did what you had to do.”

“Bobby wouldn’t have hurt us. I know he wouldn’t have.” She closed her eyes.

“He could’ve. That’s all that matters. The risk wasn’t acceptable.”

“It’s not like I haven’t killed before. I have no problem eliminating the enemy. I’ve done wet jobs, black jobs and I’ve been in combat, but tonight I killed some poor slob who probably didn’t even know how to get the safety off his weapon.”

“Look at me, Cam.” Iggy reached over to her with his birth hand and took hers. “We’ve all been there. We’ve all made that call-the car coming up on us to too fast, the kid waving what turns out to be a goddamn toy gun, the guy holding an AK trying to protect his family.”

From the way Iggy looked her in the eyes she got the feeling he wanted to hold her. She would’ve liked that, but she’d shown too much vulnerability already.

Iggy continued, “I’ll give you the same talk that I always give my boys in a debriefing after something like this. We all loathe ourselves afterwards because we all want to do the right thing and sometimes the right thing is wrong. But you know what I do then? I look at the guys I made it back alive with and remind myself that I did it for them, for their wives and kids back home because, sometimes, Bobby gets scared and squeezes the goddamn trigger.”

“This isn’t the first time,” Camille said, her voice flat. “Or even the second.”

“Not the last, either.” He squeezed her hand. “You know why? GENGHIS was right about something for once-you are one of us.”

All of her life Camille had strived to be one of them, the elite shadow warriors. She had been part of operations with them dozens of times and together they had pulled off the impossible, but they’d never accepted her as their own. No matter how hard she trained, no matter how good she became, no matter that she was in charge of all of them, she was first a woman in their eyes. Now she finally had made it into the club, not because she had endured and achieved, but because she put a bullet through the forehead of a fat man named Bobby.

Camille and Iggy sat together in silence for several minutes, nodding to one another from time to time. Iggy understood and that helped take the edge off. She took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. She motioned with her head to the ops center. “It’s getting late and they probably need you in there.”

Iggy let go of her hand. “There was more in the intercept I need to talk to you about. I don’t have all the pieces, but the way I see it, it could be one of two things. Either Stone’s stumbled over an Agency black op that could compromise them so badly that they’ll take out one of the Pentagon’s men to protect it or someone in the Agency is planning on retiring to a cushy Rubicon position soon and is already doing his new employer some favors.” Iggy turned on his laptop.

“That’s the norm in government now, isn’t it? Throw favors and contracts at a company before you retire, then go collect the fat paycheck. Any idea who it could be?”

“Sure do. That Rubicon exec whose phone call we intercepted. His name is Brian Nelson.”

Camille looked up. “Jackie Nelson’s husband? The geologist Hunter rescued?”

“The very one. Kind of makes you wonder if the whole hostage thing was a way to get some insurance money and get rid of the need for a nasty, public divorce. Nothing spooks hate more than having their personal life dragged out of the shadows by a divorce court.” Iggy waved his artificial hand. “But that’s not where I’m going with this. AegeanA called me as soon as they picked it up; that’s when I ordered the abort. A little later they e-mailed me the recording.” Iggy launched the Windows media player on his laptop. “Listen and tell me if you hear what I do.”

The voice came over the computer speakers. “Aw, fuck. I told you dickheads to start a guard rotation using your top operators. I wouldn’t trust those jerk-off jailors to work night shift at a 7-Eleven. I want him transferred to BALI HAI. I want him where no one can interfere.”

“Oh, my god,” Camille said.

“You heard it, too, didn’t you?” Iggy crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

The voice continued, but Camille quit listening. “You know, last time I saw him, he said something about retiring as soon as he wrapped up a big project, but he’s such an old-school spook, I can’t see him selling out to Rubicon. Not Joe Chronister.”

“He sold you out, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but not the Agency. It’s his life.” She took a deep breath.

“Times change and people change.”

“I should’ve told you earlier. The night everything blew up with Hunter at Tornado Point, Joe recruited me for a contract on Hunter. That’s when the whole Julia Lewis story started. It was his. He tried to screw me one last time before retirement.”

“You’re going to have to put the personal stuff aside.” Iggy scooted his chair a few more inches away from her. “Cam, with that info, I’d say it’s getting pretty clear that the Agency wanted you to take out Stone so Zulu would believe it was a domestic and not tie them to it.”

“Maybe. But it could be Joe working on his own.” She nodded without smiling.

“He could be, but if he didn’t go feral, then Black Management’s been sucked into the cold war between the Pentagon and the OGA. We don’t want to get involved in a proxy war.” Iggy lowered his voice out of old habit, even though the war room was swept for bugs several times a day. “There’s no love lost between the Agency and the Pentagon’s Force Zulu. If a Zulu operator like Stone was caught spying on the Agency-even if he’s spying on a CIA project run through Rubicon-you bet they’d take him to their blackest hole for a nice little chat. The CIA got caught with their pants down on 9/11 and they’ve been fighting the Pentagon for their existence ever since. Right now with Zulu’s recent successes, the future’s not looking too good for our old friends at Langley.”

“Yeah, but it still could be Joe freelancing for Rubicon and the Agency has nothing to do with this. He is getting ready to retire and it makes perfect sense if he’s using Agency resources while he can to set himself up with Rubicon. Talk to your friend who used to be Baghdad’s CIA station chief-the one who’s working for that private spook agency-and see what he can tell you about the Agency’s ties to Rubicon.”

“You mean Whitley over at Diligent? Already have a call in to him.” Iggy stood and reached across the table for his laptop. “Chronister mentioned taking Stone to BALI HAI. We got another intercept when he mentioned something called SHANGRI-LA. I couldn’t tell from the context if they were the same place or not, but I’d bet money they’re a couple of the OGA’s black prison sites.”

“What do you know about renditions and CIA prisons?” Camille craned her neck to read the e-mail that Iggy was responding to. It didn’t seem too important.

“You do know I pretty much set up the operational side of that program? Compared to what we do now, it seems what we started with was kind of quaint-grabbing tangos off the streets as long as they’re not in the US and dropping them off for questioning at whatever Third World country had outstanding charges against them.”

“Your personal contribution to human rights.”

“Ah, if the Agency’s not violating someone’s human rights, they’re not doing their job.”

“We’re going to work from the assumption they’re taking him to a black site. You ever been in one?”

“Pretty much all of them, first-tier and second-tier-Hotel California, Motel 6, Salt Pit, Bondsteel-even the party barge the Navy had floating out in the Indian Ocean for a while. A lot of the first-tier black sites are old KGB facilities-built like brick shithouses. But then there’s Bondsteel. You know that Halliburton built it back when Cheney was running the outfit?”

Camille shook her head and Iggy continued, “You have to get to Stone before he goes into one of those because he’ll never come out.” Iggy shook his head. “But I’ve gotta say, I’ve never heard of SHANGRI-LA or BALI HAI. They could be new or they might have changed the designations since I left the Agency.” Iggy chuckled. “SHANGRI-LA and BALI HAI make it sound like the Agency’s got some PR guy advising them now.”

“I don’t like the idea of messing around with the CIA, but I’ll do whatever it takes to intercept that rendition flight on whatever end we can get to it.” Camille tapped her fingers on the conference table.

“The Agency hardly ever runs those flights itself-hasn’t for years. Most of them are outsourced.”

“Any idea who has the contract?”

Iggy smiled. “Our friends-Rubicon.”

Chapter Sixty-Two

The Green Zone, Baghdad

Joe Chronister had run agents for thirty-two years and he still couldn’t figure out why they thought he was like some overpaid doctor, on call 24/7. He had no problem getting out of bed to meet with them if it was a real emergency, but they were usually like welfare cases, clogging the ER with the goddamn sniffles. CRAWFISH was one of his senior agents, in the old days keeping him informed about what the military was really up to and now snitching on the private military. Never once had CRAWFISH called him in the middle of the night. He yawned as he parked his car and walked onto a construction site where he had arranged to meet his mole in Black Management.

CRAWFISH was in the darkest corner of the site, leaning against a backhoe.

“This better be good. I was sleeping like a baby,” Chronister said.

“Passed out when you heard about the jailbreak, huh?” CRAWFISH said.

“I love Camille dearly, but she’s becoming a real pain in the keister.”

“She’s going to get worse. I thought you needed to know that she’s listening to you. I don’t know all the details because she’s starting to compartmentalize, working directly with Iggy, but somehow she found out about the Rubicon jailbreak immediately via sigint. I’m speculating, but I think it’s safe to assume you were the one the Abu Ghraib guards called first.”

“Listening in on my home phone, huh? That bitch.”

“I don’t know if she knows it or if she’s guessing, but she thinks you’re planning on moving Stone out of the country and she’s gearing up to go wherever she has to.”

“By herself?”

“With another operator.”

“Make sure you’re the one going with her. I think the world of Camille, but if she gets too close, she has to be eliminated. Under no circumstances can she come into contact with Stone again.” Chronister wasn’t quite sure which pieces Camille and Stone had, but his instincts told him that by now it was too many to risk them comparing notes. He wasn’t about to have the capstone of his career come crashing down because Camille butted in where she shouldn’t have. “Tell you what, I’ll cut her a break and try to throw her off with a wild goose chase to some godforsaken place like Ukraine, but if she somehow manages to find Stone, you’re going to have to take them both out.”

“I don’t want to kill Camille,” CRAWFISH said.

“You will if you have to.” Chronister wagged his finger and took a step closer. “Because I hear the JAG at Fort Bliss might reopen a cold case about a major stabbing her CO over thirty times.”

“He raped me. He was going to kill me.”

“Yeah, yeah, but you don’t have any proof of that and the Agency’s holding plenty of evidence, enough to send you to Leavenworth for life.” Chronister smiled to himself. He absolutely loved it when groundwork he’d once done to recruit an agent kept spinning off interest for years.

“Camille’s treated me well. Don’t do this.”

“That’s not what I hear. I hear you treat her like a real lady and she teases you-quite the little coquette. Then she slaps you in the face and fucks Hunter Stone, regardless of how he jerks her around.”

“No. That’s not true. She has a hard time accepting her feelings.”

“Bullshit. Give it up. Camille knows what she likes. She likes dick-Hunter Stone’s dick, to be precise. Face it, Pete. You aren’t even in the running.”

Chapter Sixty-Three

He [Bob Baer, former CIA case officer] says: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear-never to see them again-you send them to Egypt.”

– New Statesman [London], May 17, 2004 as reported by Stephen Grey

The Green Zone, Baghdad

The first calls to prayer were sounding when Joe Chronister drove away from his meeting with Pete. He hadn’t yet given up on a few more hours of shut-eye, but he had something to take care of first. Camille was listening and he had to assume that even his cell was compromised. Rarely did he risk his cover by visiting the Baghdad CIA station, but he was worthless without a secure cell phone and he wouldn’t mind shooting the shit with the guys over a cup of java. A few minutes later he was walking down the hall of the CIA station, peeking in every open door, looking for a familiar face.

Bill Copeland was sitting at a desk, studying a report. Copeland was one of the last of the old CIA bluebloods, with their Ivy League degrees and liberal leanings, who looked down at self-made types like Chronister. He knew his state school diploma and blue collar habits had held back his career, but he wasn’t about to kowtow to men who wouldn’t get their manicured nails dirty.

“Hey, Joe, haven’t seen you for a while.” Bill Copeland looked up from a fax he was studying.

“That’s because you pantywaists stay here in your bunker and only venture out as far as the OGA bar. Never see you outside the bubble where the real action is.” Chronister grinned. “What’s up with all the new faces around here?”

“The Agency has everyone on thirty-day rotations, sixty on rare occasions. As if this place weren’t impossible enough for our kind of work. Try recruiting an agent when you can’t go anywhere without half a platoon of security guards around you. Now if somehow you’re lucky enough to snag one, you have to hand him off in a few weeks to some new guy fresh from Langley. And the agent’s supposed to trust the stranger with his life. If I were an Iraqi, I’d never spy for us. Splendid system.”

Chronister snorted. “Yeah, the big boys on the seventh floor keep setting up dumb-ass regs like that and I can’t help but think the Agency’s not going to be around much longer-between that and General Smillie’s Force Zulu muscling in.”

“That thought has crossed everyone’s mind,” Copeland said as he continued reading the fax.

“Anything interesting going on? I head Black Management nabbed a French spook among the tangos in OPERATION RIVERBED a couple days ago. Fucking French.”

“Take a look at this. Looks like Paris has another one messing around in our business.” Copeland handed him the papers he was reading.

“You got a debriefing document from the interrogation already?”

“Low pain threshold. I hear he’s being questioned at Far’Falastin in Damascus.”

“Those Syrian bastards are tops,” Chronister said as he skimmed the report.

“It gets more interesting. Skip ahead to the description of another agent here in Baghdad. Seems Paris is very interested in CIA ties with Rubicon.” Copeland turned to his computer screen while Chronister read.

Chronister sat down and stared at the page, his mouth agape. “Holy fuck. The spook’s talking about SHANGRI-LA.”

Copeland quit reading his e-mail and turned around. “Are you read into SHANGRI-LA? I’ve never heard of it.”

“And you still haven’t. Whoever didn’t sanitize it out of the report is going to get reamed so hard he’ll never sit down again.” Chronister flipped the pages, moving his lips, talking to himself. He needed more information fast. Official channels would take forever and even worse, would demand a ream of paperwork. He needed Copeland to take a few shortcuts for him. “I need you to check on someone for me. He fits the description more or less of the agent we’re looking for and he knows everything this guy said. He could be the spy. Get NSA intercepts-everything you can.”

“I’m not counterespionage.”

“Live a little. You nail this fucker and I promise you’ll get an EPA for your personnel file.” Chronister counted on the allure of an Exceptional Performance Award. He wanted to get to bed and he didn’t want to get caught up all morning dogging the bureaucracy when he could use Copeland, the paper pit bull. “Sure ups your chances of retiring a GS-15.”

“I am retired.”

“You’re shitting me?”

“Eight months ago. I went to work for a body shop-Lyon Group. They lease me back to the Agency to do my old job for thirty thousand more.” He tapped a green ID badge clipped to his shirt.

“Whatever.” Chronister handed Copeland back the report. “Nabbing that fucking mole will make you a legend when you get back to Langley. Legends get good parking spaces-even if they are contractors.”

As Chronister walked into his apartment, the aroma of hot coffee greeted him but the coffee pot was empty and Jackie was perched at the table, churning out more sketches. The walls, refrigerator and every other goddamn surface were now covered with drawings of Hunter Stone. Everything had been going so well with SHANGRI-LA before that Force Zulu bastard had come along. He had gotten used to keeping regular office hours and he had even come up with a brilliant work-around for his marital problems, using Rubicon’s connections with the tangos to arrange for death doing him and the missus part. The fucker Stone had not only rescued his wife, but he was keeping him up all night and now, when he finally got a few hours at home, the SOB haunted him, mocking him from his own kitchen cabinets.

Chronister picked up the empty coffee pot. “Hey, what’s with the coffee? Couldn’t you have saved me some?”

Jackie sat at the kitchen table in the same white bathrobe she hadn’t taken off since she came back. She didn’t look up from her latest tribute to the wonder boy-Stone holding a small lamb with an adoring Iraqi family surrounding him.

“This is really getting to be too much. You haven’t even gotten dressed. And you’re obsessed with this motherfucker.” He pointed at a picture of Stone.

“Ray saved my life. Did you find out anything about him for me?” Jackie stood and emptied the coffee grounds into the garbage.

“Now how would I ever do that? Oil execs don’t have access to that kind of information.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? I’ve had enough of your game. Oil execs don’t sneak out in the middle of the night, except to visit a mistress. You don’t come home smelling of women. You smell of blood.”

“I do not.”

“You drip with blood.” Jackie filled the Mr. Coffee with water, then threw a half dozen scoops of Folgers into the white paper filter. “I’m not going to argue with you. I know you’re a spy and I really don’t understand why you go to all the trouble of hiding it from me. At first I thought it was to protect me, then I thought it was to protect your cover, and then I finally understood you get some kind of a sick thrill from toying with me, from tricking me into living a lie along with you. Well not anymore. It’s over.”

“You’re not making sense. You can’t leave me. I’ve explained to you about that.” Chronister shoved a slice of white bread into the toaster. When he had first gone deep undercover as a Rubicon oil executive, he had quickly realized that he stood out without a spouse. At the time she had been fun, but it didn’t take too long for the isolation of Iraq to change that and make him realize he had gone a little too far for the project. “Go see that embassy shrink and stop it with these goddamn drawings.” He grabbed a handful of sketches lying on the cabinet, wadded them up, then tossed them into the garbage.

“No!” Jackie sprang toward the trash and scooped out the crumpled papers. He watched in disgust as she brushed coffee grinds from them, then sat down at the table crying as she tried to smooth out the coffee-stained pictures.

“Look at you. You’re a fucking nutcase. No one’s ever going to believe anything you tell them about me. And you know something else, you better give up on your fantasy boyfriend because he ain’t coming back.”

“You know where Ray is?” Jackie looked up, her eyes wide. “You’ve got to save him.”

“Save him? You’re fucking kidding, right?” Chronister laughed and tore down drawings taped to the kitchen cabinets. “I’m taking him to one of my favorite places tomorrow where I plan on taking the gloves off for a man-to-man chat.”

“No!” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“You gonna stop me? You can’t even get dressed.” He walked around the room, ripping sketches of Stone from the wall. Jackie trailed behind him, pleading. He reached for a drawing of Stone saving Jackie and she grabbed his arm, screeching something at him, but he didn’t listen.

“Ain’t gonna happen, baby. He’s not going to save you now. No one can.” He shredded the drawing, the pieces fluttering to the floor. Jackie got down on her hands and knees and crawled around collecting them.

He watched her, thinking about how he could snap her neck and end the drama in seconds, but he was a pro and professionals knew better than to act in rage. It was so soon after the kidnapping that it would be very tricky to eliminate her now without arousing suspicions. There had to be an option he wasn’t seeing at the moment, something clever, something worthy of him.

She collapsed on the floor, sobbing, turning her shredded masterpieces into papier-mâché. The bitch wasn’t going anywhere for now. To be on the safe side, he yanked the phone cord from the wall. He needed to make some calls, but he could use the bedroom phone and his new cell. A refreshing nap might open up the right possibility, something the Agency and the life insurance company would never question.

Chapter Sixty-Four

Statements extracted under torture are totally unreliable, sometimes concocted by the interrogators themselves, the victim merely signing them… Inevitably, the victim admits whatever he is asked to admit. A lie enters the stream of intelligence as the truth.

– Sunday Herald [Glasgow], October 16, 2005, as reported by Neil Mackay

In one video played to jurors last week [in the California terrorism trail], Umer Hayat admitted visiting several terrorist training camps… But his account sometimes bordered on the fantastic, with tales of a thousand terrorists wearing masks “like Ninja Turtle” as they practiced twirling curved swords, firing automatic weapons and pole-vaulting rivers in an immense underground compound-a description that roughly tracks the Ninja Turtles television show.

– Associated Press, March 11, 2006, as reported by Don Thompson

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

Stuffing her mouth with a granola bar, Camille stumbled from her trailer and toward the bunker that housed the ops center. The day shift had come on a few minutes ago and she could count on a steaming pot of fresh coffee. She needed it; she had slept for three hours and felt a wreck. Activity in the ops center had dropped to the usual daytime lull. Most of the monitors were dark and those that were on were rerunning footage from last night’s action, the morning crew fighting vicariously. She grabbed her mug and yelled to anyone who was listening. “Who made the coffee today?”

“Curatalo-brace yourself.”

“Great. I was afraid it was Iggy’s troubled water.” She dumped coffee into her cup, leaving room for more cream than usual. Without bothering to stir, she sipped some down, then headed to Iggy’s office. He seemed to live there, typically working nights and well into the morning. She guessed he had to slip away to shower and sleep midday before things geared up for the evening’s operations, but she suspected he often went for days without leaving the ops center.

Iggy looked up from a satellite image on his computer. “You get any shut-eye?”

“Not much, but I’m sure it was more than you did. It’s hard not to worry about Hunter. Anything new?”

“Yeah, AegeanA picked up a short conversation between Joe Chronister and a guy named Larry Ashland, some kind of a supervisor in Rubicon. They discussed taking Stone to a black site in the Ukraine.” Iggy smacked his lips as he shook his head.

“I take it there’s something you don’t like?”

“A lot. Joe initiated the call from his home phone on an unsecured line. Even though he openly referred to Stone, he used the current code name for the Ukrainian shithole-a program he knows I’ve been read into.” Iggy made eye contract with Camille. “I’ve worked with Joe on at least a dozen projects and you can say a lot of things about the SOB, but his tradecraft is clean.”

“He knows we’re listening.” Camille shoved some papers aside and set her coffee cup on Iggy’s desk.

“Oh, yeah. He knows all right and that means we’ve got a leak a little closer to us than we thought. AegeanA has a wire to his cell. It’s state of the art encryption, but you know what kind of code breakers the Brits are. Not a single call in or out. They did whatever magic they do and checked his records. He uses it constantly, except today.” Iggy put his hands on the top of his head and chin and twisted. His neck popped. “I figure he wasn’t sure if we were sophisticated enough to get through the cell’s encryption, so he placed the call to Ashland on the open line, to make sure we were listening. He wanted to make damn sure we heard what he had to say.”

“He wants me out of his hair,” Camille said. “At least he didn’t hire a sniper.”

“You’re too high profile. Everyone knows you’re in a showdown with Rubicon. Anything happens to you right now, it calls more attention to Rubicon and whatever the hell SHANGRI-LA and BALI HAI are.”

“We knew we had a mole problem.” Camille sipped some coffee. “Any idea who it could be? Who around here knew about the jailbreak sigint?”

“Could be anyone on duty in the ops center last night. I made a reference to it in front of your team when you got back.” Iggy sighed. “Doesn’t narrow it much.”

“Then let’s play along. He wants to throw me off track and send me to Ukraine, then as far as everyone’s concerned, I’m gearing up to intercept a plane there tomorrow. In the interim, do whatever it takes to find out where and what those code names could mean-talk to our green badgers inside the Agency if you have to. We’ve got spies on the inside at the CIA. Let’s use them.”

“Agreed. And I really think you should-”

Someone knocked at the door and both turned toward it. “Yeah. Come in.”

“Sorry to interrupt you, sir, ma’am.” An aide stood in the doorway. “I’ve got Kimo from the main gate on the line. He’s got a barefoot woman in a bathrobe. She won’t say who she is, but says her husband is going to kill her. She’s insisting on talking to Ms. Black.”

Camille reached toward the aide’s radio. “Kimo’s the big Hawaiian guy, right?” The aide nodded. Camille squeezed the button. “Howzit, Kimo? Can you let me talk to the lady?”

“For sure, Ms. Black.”

“Hi, this is Camille Black. How can I help you?”

“I didn’t know where else to go,” the woman’s voice said. “You said you’d help me. I’m Jackie Nelson.”

Iggy and Camille looked at each other, then she turned to the aide and said, “Send GENGHIS to the gate immediately and have him escort her to my trailer. Tell him to stay with her until I arrive. He’s to let no one else in except me.”

Camille jogged up to her trailer with Iggy. An operator she knew only as BEAR stood on the steps, an M4 in hand.

“Where’s GENGHIS?” Camille said.

“No one’s seen him since last night, ma’am,” BEAR said as he stepped aside to let them enter.

“Find him,” Iggy said as he stepped into the trailer.

Jackie Nelson sat in the black leather armchair, staring into space. Her hair was stringy, uncombed and her eyes were red and puffy, but her face wasn’t quite as sunken as when Camille had last seen the woman in her apartment. Still, sitting there barefoot with filthy feet and in a bathrobe, the woman looked deranged.

“Hi, Jackie. This is my good friend Iggy. He might be able to help us.”

Iggy extended his artificial hand. She reached out, touched it lightly, then pulled her hand back.

Camille continued, “Looks like you left home in a hurry.”

“He was going to kill me. He always said he would if I left him and I told him I was leaving.” She rubbed her hands together as she sat down. “There’s something about him. I know he could do it.”

Iggy smiled. “You’ve got Joe’s number all right.”

Camille shot him a stern glance.

“Who’s Joe?” Jackie said. Her arms were crossed and she slumped in the chair.

“Don’t worry about it now,” Camille said. “You’re safe here. I’ll get you some clothes in a few minutes.” Camille held herself back. Camille was afraid that, if she pushed too fast, she would never get anything useful from her.

“I’m so sorry I look like this, but I had to get away. He was in the bedroom. I couldn’t get to my clothes.”

“Smart move,” Iggy said. “He would’ve popped you.”

Jackie’s bloodshot eyes grew wide. “You know Brian, don’t you?”

“Brian and I go way back.” Iggy nodded. “He can be quite a charmer when he wants to, but you don’t fuck with him. He’s a mean son of a bitch.”

“His name isn’t Brian, is it?” Tears ran down her face. Jackie looked up and took a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy and I know I already look crazy, but I’m pretty sure Brian’s a spy.”

“We both know him as Joe Chronister,” Camille said. “He’s been a CIA case officer since Vietnam.”

“I knew it. It was all a lie,” Jackie said over and over, crying as she rocked herself. “I married some fake person.” She cried harder.

Camille and Iggy volleyed glances. Iggy shrugged his shoulders and Camille rolled her eyes at him as she got up to retrieve a box of tissues. She handed it to Jackie and put her hand on her shoulder while they waited for her to calm down. As far as Camille was concerned, emotions were obstacles to be controlled and defeated, not something to be processed. Her own feelings made her uncomfortable and other people’s were worse. She poured a glass of water, then handed it to Jackie, then she sat down on the couch beside Iggy.

The tears seemed to slow and Jackie grew quiet except for snorting sounds. She wiped her cheeks and nose with a tissue. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bother you, but I know he was going to do it. Ray couldn’t save me, he said. No one could.”

“Who’s Ray?” Iggy said.

“Ray-that’s what he called himself. I don’t know his real name. You were looking for him when you dropped by the apartment. Ray rescued me.”

“His real name is Hunter Stone. Why did your husband say Hunter couldn’t save you?”

“He told me Ray, uh, Hunter wasn’t coming back.” Jackie’s voice cracked. She started to cry again.

“Everything’s going to be okay. You don’t need to cry. You’re safe here and we’re going to save Hunter. I promise,” Camille said, keeping her words slow and steady as if she were trying to talk a jumper off a window ledge.

Jackie bowed her head, wiped away tears, then blew her nose. “Sorry.”

“We need to know everything he said about Hunter. Everything, even if it doesn’t seem very important to you.”

Jackie nodded. “Brian, uh, Joe said he was taking Ray to his favorite place tomorrow. He said something about taking the gloves off for a man-to-man talk.”

“Where the hell is that?” Iggy said.

“He’s been working on some big project for the last couple of years. I know that’s what he meant.” She blew her nose into an already soaked tissue. “He wouldn’t tell me a thing. He disappears for days, sometimes weeks at a time. That’s how I knew he wasn’t really an oil exec. He kept going to the same place, but there’s no oil there.”

Iggy held up his prosthetic hand. “Hold on a minute. I thought you said he wouldn’t tell you where he was going.”

“He wouldn’t. I figured it out from the dirt on his shoes when he got home. I’m a forensic soil scientist.” She sniffed loudly, sucking the phlegm back into her sinuses. It grossed Camille out even more than the constant nose blowing. “I don’t know what his project is about, but whatever it is, I have absolutely no doubt it’s somewhere near Zarafshan, Uzbekistan.”

“You can be that specific?” Camille said.

“Only because I analyzed a zillion samples from the Muruntau gold deposits there for a summer job when I was in grad school. I was bored out of my mind and I used to study the micro flora. I discovered a new member of the Terfeziaceae family-a desert truffle-on the roots of a…You don’t want to hear all of this, do you?”

“I’ve heard enough to believe you know what you’re talking about,” Camille said, smiling to reassure her. “Did your husband ever mention SHANGRI-LA or BALI HAI?”

Jackie knit her eyebrows and stared into the room for a few moments. “You know, he did. One time when he came back from Uzbekistan and I asked him where he had been, he said he’d been to SHANGRI-LA. I thought he was just being his usual asshole self.”

Camille and Iggy finished the interview and Camille gave Jackie a towel and some fresh clothes. She showed her into the trailer’s bathroom so she could freshen up.

Iggy looked at Camille and sighed. “You were great with her. But please don’t make me ever go through another interrogation like that again. I’d rather take a cattle prod to some guy’s cajones. I don’t know how therapists can stand it. Hell, a full day of that touchy-feely stuff and I’d fry my own nuts.”

Camille laughed. “Use my computer and get some overheads of Zarafshan. There’s an old KGB prison in the mountains north of there, near all the gold mines. You won’t be able to see the prison-it’s constructed inside an abandoned mineshaft.” Camille walked to the sink and filled a coffee carafe with water, then poured it into her Braun coffeemaker. She wasn’t about to go to Central Asia undercaffeinated.

“How the hell do you know all of that?”

“I was there on one of my first jobs with my dad-old Soviet days. The name was gora-something. You’ll have to check with the spooks. I totally forgot about it. It was an Agency contract to take out one of their own before the KGB softened him up to much.” Camille shoveled coffee into the filter, spilling some on the stainless-steel counter.

“You don’t have to make it strong just for me.”

“You can water it down.” She wiped up the grinds. “The KGB prison was built inside a mountain in an old gold mine that dated back to tsarist days before they started open pit mines in the region. It was an impossible job to get to anyone in there.”

“Right. Your father didn’t know the word impossible. How’d Charlie pull it off?”

“It wasn’t his usual surgical work. We used the air vents. There was no other way. He felt horrible about it. I was thirteen, a kid on my first real mission behind the Iron Curtain. I just thought it was cool.”

“You probably put a lot of poor bastards out of their misery.” Iggy turned the computer on. “So the Agency’s running an old KGB prison in Uzbekistan-one more hellhole under new management. I bet the Rubicon tie-in is that they’ve used those guys instead of Halliburton to renovate it for them. You know I don’t have any qualms about doing whatever we have to do to keep our country safe, but why the hell do we have to use the same goddamn facilities the KGB did their dirty work in? I fought those monsters for years. We were the good guys, taking down the Evil Empire. It gets to me to know our guys are using the same electrodes, the same tubs…”

“You don’t think we need to do it?” Camille turned on the coffeemaker, then retrieved cream from the fridge.

“I’m not saying that at all. The tangos aren’t playing by any rules. You have to get rough with them if you want to find out anything.”

“Seems to me like most of what you get that way is junk. The poor bastards say anything to make it stop.”

“You know, Camille, interrogation is an art. The real masters can extract pure information. The problem is anybody can torture someone. Not everyone who can cut open a head is a brain surgeon. You get the jerk-offs who get off on it and the idiots who’ll keep going cause they don’t know how to evaluate the detainee’s potential. Sometimes the torturers themselves make up shit. But then there are real masters. They’re the ones who know when to quit.”

“Not to change the subject, but I don’t want to think any more than I have to about what they’re doing to Hunter.” Camille leaned against the counter while she waited on the coffeemaker. “GENGHIS and I need to get moving as soon as we nail down a plan. I’d like to bring in some serious hardware and some top operators from our Afghan shop.”

“You know you can’t do that. You have to have a light footprint. Find the nearest airstrip and take your best shots. The middle of the desert, they won’t be running security quite as tight as elsewhere.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Camille pointed toward the bathroom. “Any suggestions on what to do with her?”

“That lady needs help-serious help. Joe’s really fucked her. You know he’s been widowed twice, don’t you? I don’t remember the details. Don’t have to.”

“He would’ve gotten away with it again. I’d like to nail his ass.”

“Accidents happen.” Iggy typed, using all the fingers on his left hand and hunting and pecking with his right. “We have to police our own. I hate it, but sometimes, it’s the only justice. All I need is one more story I can’t tell.”

“You’re saying we should take out Joe in some kind of vigilante justice?”

“It’s been done before.”

“I’m ready to grab him and see if we can extract specifics about where he’s taking Hunter.”

“He’s not the type who’ll break quickly.”

“The voice of experience?” As soon as she got the words out, she wished she hadn’t asked. Iggy was a good man and she liked to believe in good men.

“You don’t want to know, do you?”

Camille pulled a box of corn flakes from the cupboard that Pete had recently stocked. “I guess we can fly her on a Hawk to Amman or Kuwait City and send her off to the States from there.”

“Hell, Joe’s got his hands so full, you could have a press conference send-off from the Baghdad airport and he wouldn’t know it. Send some boys with her on Route Irish to Baghdad International or if you’re feeling generous, a bird could drop her off there.” Iggy entered something into the computer. “This is weird. I’m using our account to order Ikonos images and they’re showing all satellite pictures for Uzbekistan are unavailable. I’ve tried several dates including one three years from now and nothing’s working.”

“Could be a Web site problem. They go over Uzbekistan several times a day when they’re shooting Afghanistan. You think someone bought them all up?” The coffeemaker gurgled. Camille removed the pot before it was finished brewing and poured a cup into a mug with the Black Management black panther logo.

“Doesn’t make sense. Why would you want to keep people from looking at some underground facility you couldn’t see from the sky anyway?”

“Maybe SHANGRI-LA is above ground, though I’ll still put money on it that they’re using the old KGB haunts.”

“That’s a given,” Iggy said. “You always use whatever’s already there. Look at what we do here. Not knocking down Abu Ghraib was obviously stupid, but we use all of Saddam’s old facilities. I’ll check in with the spooks and see what the KGB had going on in that neck of Kyzyl Kum. Looks like you’re going to be tripping down memory lane there.”

Chapter Sixty-Five

Camp Tornado Point, Anbar Province

He should’ve snapped Jackie’s goddamn neck when he had a chance, Joe Chronister told himself as he tried to find a chair with four legs in the former Iraqi Army brig. The place was such a dump that Rubicon hadn’t bothered to take it over even though it was in their corner of the sprawling Camp Tornado Point compound. It smelled like an old slaughterhouse and it probably was. But the cells were intact and that was all that mattered since he had to hold Stone incognito somewhere away from the temptation of Camille’s bounty. It sure beat an empty shipping container for ventilation. Three shooters, a black hood and an old key were all that he needed to hold Stone and a couple of his friends until he had the final piece he needed to start their transfer to Fuckistan.

He heard a car drive up and one of his men escorted Larry Ashland inside.

“My god, how do you stand this smell?” Ashland said, squinting his eyes.

“Hadn’t noticed.”

Chronister sat on the best chair he could find, then shoved one toward Ashland, who stared at the grimy wooden seat but didn’t sit down. The pussy didn’t have a clue they were on to him.

“It won’t kill ya,” Chronister said.

“Where’s Stone?”

“You’ll see him soon enough.”

“I did not appreciate the rough handing on the way in. And I don’t understand why they had to impound my weapons.” Ashland flicked imaginary dirt from his starched white shirt.

“Can’t be too careful around operators like Stone.” Chronister pulled out a pack of cigarettes and held it out to Ashland. “Want one?”

“They’ll kill you.”

“Lot of things do that.” Chronister lit his cigarette, looking over Ashland. “Working the Iraqi side of the op, you have to be curious what it’s all about-how your little piece fits into the big picture. I was thinking it’s time to take you to check out BALI HAI. You know, you can get a good look at SHANGRI-LA from there.”

“BALI HAI. Not SHANGRI-LA?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet, have you? BALI HAI’s the prison; SHANGRI-LA’s the project.” Chronister took a long drag from the cigarette and felt an immediate rush. He had waited a couple of years for the opportunity to screw Ashland. He’d despised the fucker from the first time they had met. “Here’s the deal. We’re transferring Stone and a couple others overland to an out-of-the-way airstrip. No one’s going to be watching for him. A Rubicon rendition flight will ferry them from there to Uzbekistan. You’ll tag along.”

“So SHANGRI-LA is in Uzbekistan?” Ashland nodded his head.

“Yeah and you can send a postcard to Paris from there. They have some nice ones with those turquoise blue domes-”

“What are you talking about?” His countenance fell and he was suddenly very serious.

“You tell me.” Chronister drew his Glock and yelled for the guards. “My wife left me this morning. I’d love to kill someone right now, so don’t push me, you fucking spy.”

“I didn’t touch your wife.”

“Spoken like a true Frenchman.”

A guard shoved Ashland down onto the gritty floor and plastic-cuffed his hands behind his back. “What the hell is this about?”

“We nailed a spy a few days ago on the Syrian border. And that man was a talker. Something he said about a spy and SHANGRI-LA started ringing bells. Next thing you know, I’ve got a file on my desk about some DGSE agent with your ugly mug in it.” Chronister took a long drag from his cigarette, then blew smoke toward Ashland. “And what were you French thinking, calling your espionage agency the DGSE? Now KGB, CIA, SIS, those are cool, spy-cool. But DGSE sounds like some bankrupt trucking company.” Chronister grinned and shook his head. “You know, you can either cop to it now in a civilized conversation or later when we start plucking off those manicured fingernails. Make it easy on yourself.”

“Then Stone didn’t tell you? You know about me from the other agent?” Ashland laughed. “He didn’t understand, did he?”

“Stone didn’t tell me a fucking thing. I tried some dumb-ass new interrogation method I learned at a seminar from an FBI guy. Didn’t work worth a damn, but don’t worry, we don’t use that touchy-feely stuff at BALI HAI. It’s strictly old school.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want to know what you French thought you were doing, nosing around a CIA operation. I thought we were all friends?”

“We used to be. Then you started kidnapping innocent civilians and torturing them in your secret prisons. You start wars under the pretext of preventing Saddam from getting nuclear devices, even though you know he doesn’t have them-because you manufactured the evidence. Now America and its corporations are addicted to the War on Terror like a user to heroin. Your president flouts your laws and constitution. And what do the American people do? They supersize another order of French fries.”

“When are you French ever going to get it through your heads that you don’t matter? La Grand Nation ain’t a superpower. Hell, France isn’t even a player. I’ll never understand why you think you guys have to butt into other people’s business.”

“We have an obligation to defend freedom and democracy-something America used to understand.”

“And I supersize my freedom fries.” Chronister crushed his cigarette out against Ashland’s cheek. “We’re going to have some fun together. I can tell.”

Chapter Sixty-Six

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries

– The Washington Post, November 2, 2005, as reported by Dana Priest

The current transfers mean that there are now no terrorists in the CIA [black site/prison] program…

[T]he Supreme Court’s recent descision has impaired our ability to prosecute terrorists through military commissions, and has put in question the future of the CIA [black site/prison] program.

– President George W. Bush, Address to the nation, September 6, 2006

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

Camille shoved a Leupold Mark 4 spotting scope into a small suitcase stuffed with clothes she didn’t like and planned on dumping along with her other props as soon as she passed Uzbek customs. She stuck an encrypted Iridium satellite phone into a day pack. A few years ago she would have been pushing it to take such an advanced communications device along, but with the proliferation of cell phones, she doubted the border guards would take a second glance. “Hey, I thought you were picking up everything in-country like a good little assassin,” Iggy said as he stood in the middle of the small trailer and watched her pack. “What’s with the scope?”

“All you can count on getting there is old Russian equipment. I love Dragunovs, but their iron sights suck. The Russians have some great optics, but they can be hard to come by.” Camille tossed a pair of Zeiss binoculars and a birding field guide to Central Asia into the small suitcase. “As long as I look like some nutty birder after a scissor-tailed whatever, Uzbek border guards won’t think twice about a good spotting scope.

“Any sign of GENGHIS?” Camille said as she sorted through a stack of T-shirts, trying to lighten the load in the suitcase.

“None and I don’t like it,” Iggy said, shaking his head. “He told Pete he was off to a massage parlor last night after she showed him his rack. Our boys have quizzed every whore in the bubble. No luck.”

“You think he’s our mole?”

“He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s no traitor. I think someone didn’t want him going with you.”

“Not good.” Camille stopped packing and looked up at Iggy. “Any word on the overheads?”

“That’s why I dropped by.” Iggy grinned. “I put the spooks to work on it. Best they could get from Ikonos was that two years ago some company called Tasopé bought up all their satellite images over Uzbekistan-for the next three years.”

“Who owns Tasopé?”

“It’s like opening one those Russian nesting dolls-a bunch of shells. The mother company was an outfit called CRH Salvage. It’s got a dozen names on its board of directors.”

“Who are they?”

“Most of them are high-net-worth types-the kind you’d expect to be doing angel capital investments. The interesting thing is they only own forty-eight percent. Controlling interest is held by three mystery men. The spooks said they went through something like forty-six databases and nada. Can you imagine three people who’ve never had a credit card or a piece of junk mail to their name?”

“That has the Agency’s fingerprints all over it.”

“Get this, their birth dates were all in the forties, fifties and sixties, but the social security numbers were all issued in the past five years. Here’s the kicker: they all have post office boxes in Arlington and Chevy Chase.”

“So a CIA proprietary company is buying up every private satellite image of Uzbekistan for the next three years. The Agency is definitely up to something big there.” Camille zipped up the carry-on suitcase.

“Hold on. We’ve got more. The boys at Lyon are good. When this is all over, we really ought to think about buying them up.” Iggy picked up Camille’s suitcase and carried it to the door of her trailer.

“You’re not using our in-house spooks?”

“They’re busy planning your trip. Had to outsource it to the friendly competition.” Iggy carried her suitcase down the steps. Camille reached for the handle, but he pulled it away. “I got it. As I was saying, one of the guys recognized a name from the work we threw them a few weeks ago researching Rubicon’s holdings.”

“Overlapping directors?”

“Yup. One name-Garry Hoyes. Someone messed up and used him twice. Hoyes shows up on the board of directors of both a Rubicon subsidiary and one of the Agency’s proprietary companies-Tasopé. The Lyon analyst caught it because he once had a neighbor in Philly by that name, so it jumped right out at him.”

“So this confirms both the Agency and Rubicon are closely linked, but we pretty much knew that already. And we now know both are up to something secret in Uzbekistan, but we don’t know they’re working together on the same thing,” Camille said. She felt bad he was carrying her bag, but the sun-baked sand of the compound was as hard as concrete and he could’ve rolled it. “But I’d bet anything they are cooperating. Rubicon has to be working under an Agency contract, otherwise there’s no money in it.”

“There’s more. I was talking to some old Agency compadres about the black sites-you know, the prisons. Seems the heat’s been on ever since that Post reporter broke the story that the Agency’s running its own gulag system. The Poles and Romanians kicked them out. That Supreme Court ruling extending the Geneva Convention to detainees really mucked things up.”

“Interesting, but what does that have to do with Hunter?”

“Hold on. The Agency’s been scrambling to come up with a new way to keep control over prisoners and interrogations. Word is they’ve privatized.” Iggy raised his voice, trying to be heard over the roar of the generators.

Camille stopped walking and looked at him. “You’re kidding? You mean the Agency is using contractors to run their secret prisons?”

“Privately run prisons are a billion-dollar industry back home. Makes sense to me. They’re a proven concept.”

“Let me guess, another sole-source provider contract so they didn’t have to open it up for competitive bids. Damn. I’d like to have had that one. We never get anything decent from them other than knuckle-dragger gigs from the SAD.” She hated prisons, but knew they could be a good way to diversify her company if they could somehow land a contract. She could always hire someone else to run them.

“I heard that Fred Avocet gave Rubicon the contract right before he retired to work for them. Cofer was furious when Fred outmaneuvered him. He was sure Total Intel and Blackwater had it in the bag.” Iggy stepped into the shade of a palm. Its fronds rustled in the light breeze which carried smoke and soot from the burn pit.

The sun burned Camille’s face and she moved into the shade with Iggy. “Last I heard, the Agency only outsourced torture to shifty governments, not private companies.”

“They use their own guys for the heart-to-hearts. It’s the facility management they’ve outsourced, along with detainee transport. Remember the president’s speech about how the CIA was no longer in the business of black sites? He was telling the truth, more or less. The CIA isn’t doing it anymore-Rubicon is.”

“Any idea what the money’s like?”

“Margins are supposed to be terrific. I’ll make some calls and get the specifics.” Iggy’s Gargoyles sunglasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back into place as he started walking toward the helicopters. “You know, it’s brilliant. The Agency for once is actually looking ahead and positioning itself for the future. Bush isn’t going to be around forever. If the next president’s a bleeding-heart liberal, first day in office he’ll repeal the presidential finding that allows black sites. Even Clinton let us outsource interrogations to the Third World, so I’m sure that’ll still be an option, but so much of what they give you is self-serving shit. You need control of your own interrogations. That’s the beauty of outsourcing: you can do whatever the fuck you want. You don’t need a presidential finding because you’re not the SOB doing it-the contractor is. Things go south, the contractor went too far. And god only knows if any laws apply to them. Geneva Conventions sure as hell don’t. So much for that Supreme Court ruling. It’s a beautiful workaround.”

Pete pulled up beside them in the Gator as they approached the rows of helicopters. A Little Bird lifted into the air.

“News?” Camille shouted over the roar of engines.

“The spooks are buzzing that the spy our boys nabbed a few days ago in Syria led to the bust of some big French agent,” Pete said as she turned the Gator off and pulled up the parking brake.

“I meant about GENGHIS.”

“Not a trace. He must’ve split. Guys here do that sometimes-or maybe he was our mole and he couldn’t take it.”

Camille didn’t believe for a second that GENGHIS would betray her, but she wouldn’t put it past any of the guys to suddenly take off or shift over to another company. They did it all the time. “Guess I’m off to Ukraine alone.” Especially after GENGHIS’ disappearance, Camille wanted to keep the final destination as compartmentalized as possible and tell only those who absolutely had a need to know. Rubicon had to keep believing she was after their wild Ukrainian goose so their Uzbek operations weren’t put on the alert. She walked under the giant rotors of a Black Hawk and waved at Beach Dog, who was sitting in the pilot’s seat. He pointed his thumb and little finger to the ground in the Hawaiian wave he always did.

“You need two shooters for your plan to have half a chance,” Iggy said as he lifted Camille’s suitcase into the crew area of the helicopter.

“You coming with me?” Camille looked over the top of her custom-made Oakley sunglasses.

“You asking? Thought you didn’t want to risk taking along a tin man.” He knocked on his artificial hand.

“Where we’re headed, there’s no chance of rust. I thought about what I said earlier. I was wrong. I need someone I can trust and right now, the three of us are the only ones I’m absolutely sure about.”

“I’ll go.” Pete glanced at a Little Bird as it seemed to circle central Baghdad. “I’m a damn good shooter and you won’t find anyone better at scrounging up whatever you need.”

“I’ve got to grab my dumb leg and extra batteries for my combat arm. Like it or not, I’m going to snag a third operator. We need someone for a third position to provide security. I’ll be back in a flash.” Iggy sprinted over to the Gator and drove off. Camille remembered that he’d had problems with the smart leg in loose sand before and she assumed he wanted to minimize the risk of electronic failures since the bendable ankle wasn’t all that critical to the mission.

Camille took off her sunglasses and wiped the lenses on her shirt. Pete stood there, staring at her, waiting for something.

“Pete,” Camille said. “I need someone I can trust back here just in case.”

“We all know you can trust Virgil. He’d be the one you’d call anyway. I’m a good spotter, too, and you’re going to need all the help you can get if Hunter’s going to have half a chance. I’ve watched your back for years. Don’t cut me out of the real action.”

Camille squinted as she stared at Pete, trying to make up her mind. Pete had the expression of a little girl, begging to be taken along with the big kids. Camille preferred working alone and she had her father’s old contacts to get the equipment they needed, but things always came up. Pete had more than once proven her loyalty and she felt bad about having been short with her lately. “Okay. You’ll go as far as Tashkent, help us with the staging, then leave the country when we proceed to the target. You’ve got fifteen minutes to pack and tag someone to take care of the woman in my trailer and get her to the States.” Camille patted the side of the Black Hawk. “This bird lifts off at eleven-hundred with or without you.”

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by CEOs and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers… [T]he agency is flying captured terrorist suspects from one country to another for detention and interrogation. The CIA calls this activity “rendition.”

– The Washington Post, Dec. 27, 2004, as reported by Dana Priest

Private American contractors who help the CIA capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them to secret jails are increasingly becoming the target of investigations in Europe and at home… In some cases, inquiries focus on companies that appear to be thinly veiled CIA fronts… But in other cases, scrutiny by European investigators and human rights advocates has focused on mainstream companies whose part-time work for the CIA now threatens to leave a permanent mark on their reputations.

– The Boston Globe, December 11, 2005, as reported by Farah Stockman

The Next Day

Hunter’s arms ached from being cuffed behind his back for so long; he guessed they had been riding in the van for ten or twelve hours. A black hood covered his head and they wouldn’t allow him to talk, but he could sense at least four other prisoners on the transfer with him. He figured they were either taking him overland to Syria or to an airstrip so remote there was no chance of Black Management noticing them. His bladder was full and it hurt when he shifted his weight. At least just before the trip they had given him an MRE to eat, the first food he’d had in days. It wasn’t enough, but he could feel some strength returning. With little warning, the vehicle came to a stop. They opened the door and hot air rushed inside. It was heavy with the smell of jet fuel.

So it was going to be a rendition flight-a secret flight to a secret prison.

Someone pulled his arm and he tried to climb out, but his legs were shackled with plastic zip-ties. He fell onto the hard ground, smacking his right shoulder. Someone laughed.

He climbed to his feet, then a guard unhooked the hood and pulled it off. The bright morning sun hurt his eyes and it unnerved him that they were allowing the prisoners to see the guards’ faces. Clearly they were on a one-way trip.

There were three other prisoners. Scott Miller, a fellow Bushman from Force Zulu, nodded recognition. Hunter recognized a man with a funky jaw-line beard as a retired Delta operator, GENGHIS, who worked for Black Management. Suddenly things were looking up. He had no idea how Stella managed to infiltrate the group of prisoners, but he was confident she had something clever worked out.

A guard had trouble with the buckle of the last man’s hood. When he finally got it open and took it off, Hunter couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The hook nose, deep-set eyes and chin that was too short for the face Hunter could’ve recognized anywhere. In fact he had-among the Taliban in Afghanistan, in the insurgent safe house, in the Rubicon offices in the middle of the night. He was staring at the man who had started Hunter on this entire hellish journey when he accused him of selling arms to the tangos: Ashland.

Now absolutely nothing made sense as he stood with his accuser, both of them cuffed, wearing Day-Glo prison jumpsuits and about to board a one-way flight on the torture shuttle.

Hunter laughed for the first time in days.

One guard was close enough for Hunter to take out, but the other two stood at a distance with their AKs pointing at the prisoners as they shuffled toward an American-flagged Gulfstream V, registration number N379P. Hunter had always wanted a chance to fly the latest Gulfstream, but somehow he didn’t think he was going to get his wish today. His arms cuffed behind his back made escape difficult, but not impossible. The Rubicon guards hardly knew what they were doing and most of them were foreign nationals imported from low-wage countries, no doubt a Rubicon cost-saving measure that padded its already fat margins.

Back when there was at least some limited cooperation between Force Zulu and the OGA, Hunter and his teammates had prepared dozens of suspected terrorists for rendition flights. They called the process “a twenty-minute takeout” because that’s all the time it took to package a prisoner for a safe flight. In contrast to the Rubicon staff, Hunter and his teammates had takeouts down to a fine art. Dressed in black with their faces covered like ninjas, they communicated with one another through hand signals. He had always kind of enjoyed doing it because of the slick teamwork involved-and because he was convinced they were packaging another bad guy who wanted to harm America. The rendition team took a blindfolded tango into a small room, shoved him to the floor, cut off his clothes and conducted a full body cavity search. Afterwards, they removed the blindfold and snapped a photograph before what Hunter thought was the grossest part: they shoved a sedative up the tango’s ass. Then they diapered him, stuck him in a prison jumpsuit, shackled him, and shoved an earplug headset on him. As soon as they had bagged the tango’s head in a long, dark hood, the takeout was ready for pickup.

The thought of takeout made Hunter hungry. Chinese. Man, he’d love some cashew chicken right about now.

The poorly trained Rubicon guards hadn’t thought of diapers, so he yelled at one he guessed was Filipino. “Dude, do me a favor and unzip my pants and hold my dick. I’ve got to go bad.”

“Piss your pants,” the guard said.

Hunter motioned toward the Gulfstream with his head. “That looks like one of those fancy executive jets. You really want me to whiz on the leather seats?”

“I not touch your dick.”

“Up to you if you want to smell piss for the next few hours.”

The American supervisor sighed. “Hold on. As soon as I cut you out, you have to immediately put your hands in front for me to cuff you again. You take as much as a second to think about it and you’re full of lead.”

Another guard kept his AK aimed at Hunter and he knew the time wasn’t right, but he could work with arms zip-tied in front. The guard sliced through the cuffs and Hunter complied while he fastened him back up.

“Do it yourself now. Hurry.”

“Thanks.” As Hunter turned away from the group and fumbled with his zipper, he heard the other guys requesting the same accommodation. Peeing on the sand, he focused on the rush of relief, knowing he had to grab every little pleasure he could. Things were only going to get worse.

They were individually marched onto the plane and chained into their seats, but their hands were left fastened in front and the hoods were left off. GENGHIS was placed in the seat directly behind Hunter. He wanted to know Stella’s plan immediately, but he couldn’t risk the guards noticing any communication between him and GENGHIS. He would have to be patient and wait for GENGHIS to find the right opportunity to inform him.

When they hit cruising altitude, the guards passed out more MREs and threw them bottled water. Whatever they were going to do with him, they didn’t intend to starve him into compliance. He ripped open the white plastic pouch. Just his luck-it was a frickin veggie burger in BBQ sauce. He devoured it and asked for seconds to try to regain his strength. They were stupid enough to give him another. This time he was luckier, he thought, as he read the outside of the pouch: meatloaf with gravy. Then he tore it open and a package of Charms fell out and onto the floor.

“Crap,” he said to himself. Unlucky Charms, It seemed that whenever someone in crew had eaten the Charms hard candy packed in an MRE, they had been ambushed or nearly had bit it from an IED. He had heard so many freaky stories about those cursed things, he couldn’t understand why the Pentagon hadn’t banned them. He kicked them under the seat in front of him.

The Gulfstream seats really were leather and Hunter felt comfortable for the first time in days-for the first time since he had been snuggled against Stella’s soft body. She was all he could think of as he stared at the LCD view screen and watched the movement of an airplane icon along the projected flight path, south to the Persian Gulf, around Iran, then back north across the Pakistani air corridor. Stella had been so smooth, so wet.

Suddenly, it sunk in what he was looking at on the monitor. The flight plan overshot Afghanistan-they were headed deep into Uzbekistan.

“Okay, asswipes,” the American guard said over the intercom. “We here at Air Rubicon know that you have a choice in your rendition flights and we’re pleased you chose us. In a few minutes we’ll be playing our Halfway to Hell game. The captain will be giving us important information on total miles flown, airspeed, headwinds and all that crap and whichever one of you can guess the closest time to our halfway mark, wins his very last cold beer. But before that, we’re giving you your last shot at democracy and you get to choose the movie.” He held up two DVDs. “We’ve got Bourne Supremacy with Matt Damon or the documentary Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington.” He read the plot descriptions and the cover blurbs. “Okay, which flick will be the last one you ever see in your lives? Raise those cuffed paws if you want Bourne.”

One of the guards snapped a picture with a digital camera of the prisoners with their cuffed hands in the air. They were far from professional and probably didn’t have the training to handle any serious resistance, Hunter noted. He was pleased, too, that the dim lights for the movie would make it easier for GENGHIS to slip a message to him.

“Last call for Bourne,” the guard said.

Hunter’s choice was clear. One of the guys who had consulted on Bourne was a friend of his and even though they had some problems with their sniper weapons, some of the scenes were so realistic, they still gave him chills. He really didn’t want to humor the guards by voting, but just in case it was his last movie, he raised his hands for Bourne.

A few minutes later, Hunter was getting into the chase scene in Goa, remembering one he had once had in Myanmar, when GENGHIS started kicking his seat. He was using Morse code.

Hunter couldn’t figure out how the movie got to a crime scene in Berlin, but he didn’t care while he concentrated on deciphering the message: “B-L-K-M-G-M-T.”

Hunter moved his elbow back and forth between his body and the airframe where GENGHIS could see it, sometimes pulling it back quickly, other times leaving it there for a couple of seconds. “P-L-A-N?”

“N-O. C-A-P-T-U-R-E-D.”

“F-”

Chapter Sixty-Eight

In Uzbekistan, he [Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan] said, “partial boiling of a hand or an arm is quite common.” He also knew of two cases in which prisoners had been boiled to death.

– The New Yorker, February 14, 2005, as reported by Jane Mayer

Gora Muruntau, Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

The sun rose as Camille was lying on her belly in a ghillie suit in the saddle between two sand dunes, tasting dust, smelling of camel droppings and trying to become one with the desert. Every bug in the sun-baked wasteland seemed to have been waiting its entire existence for someone as sweet as she to come along, but she couldn’t swat, she couldn’t scratch. As a good sniper, she was the Kyzyl Kum and microterrain didn’t claw at itself, no matter how badly it wanted to.

Iggy was positioned a good eight hundred meters away from her, across the runway at her twelve o’clock. The winds were still coming off the mountains as they did at night. In the day, when the desert floor heated up, the prevailing winds blew into the valleys and up the mountainsides. Since planes landed into the wind, Camille needed to make sure she and Iggy were positioned so that the main cabin door would be facing them. If it came in now, she would be the only shooter. As soon as the winds shifted, she would begin her slow creep to join Iggy’s side of the runway so that they would both have a clear shot at the cabin door throughout the day.

Camille peered through the scope on the Dragunov sniper rifle, happy to be working with the gorgeous old girl again, particularly in such a grimy environment. As long as it wasn’t over oiled, it could withstand a sandstorm without choking. The Dragunov was Soviet made-designed for abuse.

Gerbils scrambled across ripples of the red sand, but there was no sign of any larger life forms-or a jet for that matter. Hunter had better be on his way. If she had guessed wrong, she would never forgive herself, but this was the only airstrip within hundreds of kilometers aside from the commercial one at Zarafshan. The KGB had used this one to ferry prisoners to Gora Muruntau and if Rubicon was running the place now, they would do the same-she hoped.

She didn’t like it that they were working without a net. The third operator that Iggy had brought along for overwatch was a longtime mercenary who had somehow caught the attention of Uzbek authorities. They had turned him away at the border. One man short, she and Iggy had decided to take Pete along to the target to provide some support, although they knew she couldn’t handle being on her own in the third position.

Camille was a loner when it came to sniping. She didn’t like doing it military style, working in teams of two, a sniper and a spotter, but Iggy had insisted that he could do it by himself and she wasn’t about to challenge his abilities.

So Pete was working with her, lying prone off Camille’s right calf, ready to help calculate distances and wind. Pete could drive her crazy with nonstop chatter, but today she was strangely quiet. She guessed Pete wasn’t comfortable with the fact that she was about to help several people meet their deaths. Camille knew Pete hadn’t seen much combat and she suspected she had never killed anyone. Camille didn’t like killing either, but the mission required it and rescuing Hunter was worth ridding the world of a few more bad guys.

Camille scanned the skies for any sign of a plane, then studied a patch of dead weeds alongside the runway so she would be ready if one arrived. “Wind, south, southeast, twenty-two to twenty-five knots. Gusts at forty. Range me. Verify.”

“Affirmative,” Pete said.

“They’ve shifted.” Camille slowly pulled a clunky Soviet-era walkie-talkie from her pack. “LIGHTNING SIX on the move.”

Camille inched her body through the sand, beginning the long creep around the runway. Sand was pelting her, but at least her trail would be almost immediately covered.

An hour later Camille’s forearms were burning from the coarse sand now embedded into her skin, but she and Pete were almost at the end of the runway-halfway.

Another hour later Camille and Pete had slithered the final inches to their new perch, some three hundred meters away from Iggy, with him at their three o’clock. The desert tasted saltier than in Iraq. Camille spat and slowly took a handful of peanut M &Ms from her pack and inched them to her mouth. The chocolate inside was liquid. She swirled it around in her mouth and chomped down on the peanuts as she set up the high powered rifle’s bipod.

She studied tumbleweeds at the edge of the runway and recalculated the wind speed. The temperature had already climbed to one hundred and eleven and the humidity was so low she knew she had to take care not to overshoot the target; the round would easily tear through the hot, dry air. She could only guess where the plane would end its taxi and where her target would appear, so she calculated multiple ballistic scenarios, keenly aware that direct sun on the target could trick her into thinking it was farther away and any shadows combined with rising heat from the desert floor could jack her up just as easily.

Camille was lying in position on her belly, her weight supported by her left side and she was looking through her scope, studying plants for any change in the wind and distracting herself from worry about Hunter when Pete nudged her.

“Company,” Pete said.

A small white van drove up the only access road, a dust trail blowing away from it in the strong wind. Only parts of the road were visible; the rest had returned to desert. The van crossed the runway and parked on the edge of the tarmac. The driver and passenger were both Caucasian, a Rubicon greeting party no doubt. Camille shoved in her ear plugs.

“Watch the skies. They should be getting close.” Camille double checked to make sure there were no unusual antennae mounted on the vehicle because she couldn’t risk neutralizing them if they were in communication with the plane. There were none. “Hand me the radio.” Camille called Iggy. “I count two.”

“That’s affirmative.”

“I’m clear for both,” Camille said.

“Same here. I’ll take the passenger.”

“Confirmed. Passenger is yours. Advise when target acquired. WILDCAT will countdown from three. Make contact on one.” Camille turned her head slightly toward Pete. “Anything?”

“Negative.” Pete searched the horizon.

Camille shoved the radio toward Pete, checked the wind, then the range to the van. The men sat inside with it running, probably enjoying the air conditioning. The crosswind of twenty-five knots would try to play games with the round. She adjusted the dope and confirmed her reading of five hundred seventy-five meters to the van.

The driver was a clean-cut blond, no older than thirty, wearing reflective sunglasses. Camille aimed just above them, at the middle of his forehead

Iggy’s voice crackled over the radio. “Target acquired. Standing by.”

“Start the count,” Camille said to Pete.

“Three.”

Camille took a deep breath.

“Two.”

She held it.

“One.”

She squeezed off.

Tariq was lying on a sand dune with his brother Habib, watching the abandoned Soviet-era airstrip through binoculars. He had seen the sleek private jets banking over the camp and more often than not, they came on Thursday afternoons and Monday mornings. It was time to practice his new reconnaissance skills on a real target. No one at al-Zahrani’s midday teaching would miss him and his brother. He had shoved an al-Zahrani tract in his pocket to study so he didn’t fall behind the others even though he didn’t want to admit that he was growing weary of the lectures about purity within their ranks. He had left his family in Saudi Arabia to learn how to kill Westerners, not to purge their movement of other misguided Muslims. They were forbidden to leave the camp, but what good were skills at infiltration and evasion if they only tested them on each other? He’d had enough of the exercises with the other mujahedin. If he was going to succeed in New York, he needed real-world practice. Just as he had expected, he saw movement and followed it with his binoculars. Through a cloud of dust, he could see a white van approaching the runway.

Using binoculars, Tariq was studying the infidels in the van when he saw the driver’s forehead explode in a spray of blood and flesh. As he refocused he saw the passenger’s head fall forward, even though the body remained upright, the seatbelt holding it in place. Tariq immediately scanned the dunes, but the sniper was invisible.

He whispered to his brother, “Go to the base. Inform Nasim the CIA plane is on its way. We will smite the infidels here, masha’allah-Allah’s will.”

“But we’re not supposed to be here. We’ll get lashings.”

“Trust me. Nasim is the one who first pointed the plane out to me. He will understand. Go!”

His brother nodded and ran down the dune. Tariq remained on his belly, studying every weed, every pattern in the sand, dreaming of being that sniper, hidden like a scorpion in the dunes.

He watched and waited.

Camille reloaded, expecting to see the jet at any moment. No plane arrived. A half hour passed, then an hour, but still no plane. “Maybe they’re not coming,” Pete said, the first thought she had volunteered all day.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

“I know that the Americans have brought people back to Uzbekistan from Bagram Airport in order to be interrogated and that those people have been brought back by the Americans, on American planes, with American personnel.” Murray [former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan] says there’s no doubt western intelligence knows the information it’s getting is gained under torture,[and] as Ambassador he sent a [British] Embassy official to the US mission in Tashkent to make sure. “She reported back to me that the CIA Chief there said yes, you’re right. I guess this material would have been obtained under torture.”

– Foreign Correspondent, ABC-TV [AUSTRALIA], March 29, 2005, Ambassador Craig Murray, as interviewed by Evan Williams

Gora Muruntau, Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

Hunter looked outside the window as the Gulfstream descended. The landscape made him feel even farther away from home, farther away from Stella. The desolate valley looked like what was left long after the flames of hell had burned themselves out. The desert floor was scarred with the biggest quarries he’d ever seen, gashes in the earth stretching for miles and miles. The open pits themselves were terraced swirls of lifeless dirt, switchbacks into the depths. The sand and rock cleaved from the ground had been dumped in mounds of rubble that were collapsing back into the abandoned pits. The earth had been gutted and the innards left to rot.

Uzbekistan was where the Earth came to die.

Once they were inside a high security facility, he knew they would have little hope of escape and none of rescue. Rubicon would never allow him to come out alive and he would much rather die fighting on a desolate runway than from torture or neglect. Taking over the Gulfstream was his only chance. He stretched as best he could, given the plastic cuffs on his wrists and ankles. His body had to be ready when they de-planed. If he and the other prisoners could find the right opportunity, maybe even one of them would survive. They were an even match with the guards-four prisoners, four guards. The flight crew seemed to stay huddled inside the cockpit, probably some well-paid flyboys who understood that the less they knew about their passengers, the safer they were. As long as the pilots weren’t directly endangered, he doubted they would aid the guards in a rumble.

He knew he could trust the skills of Miller and GENGHIS and he was certain they would jump in if an opportunity presented itself, but he wasn’t so sure about Ashland-or whoever he was. With Hunter’s luck, the bastard would be the only one who came out alive.

As the plane banked, he spotted the landing strip and a vehicle waiting to meet the plane. He couldn’t see how many were inside, but his clenched gut told him the odds had just gotten a little worse.

“Plane at eleven o’clock, turning into the wind to land,” Pete said, kneeling in position a little behind Camille, to her right.

As Camille searched for the plane, she thought she saw Pete check her sidearm. The sparse desert terrain made it unlikely that someone could approach them without notice, but it never hurt to be vigilant. She reached to her right leg and made sure that her new Spetsnaz combat knife was in its thigh holster.

“Wind twenty-five to thirty knots. Verify,” Camille said. The blowing sand felt like a hard rain, scratching at her face.

Pete looked through her scope. “Verified.”

Camille added a click to the right to compensate for the wind.

The small jet taxied to a stop in a sand-covered part of the tarmac, on the edge of the range Camille had anticipated. Iggy had the better position. The additional meters would add several mils of inaccuracy to her shot, but that would be more than made up for because at that distance the bullet would be silent, friction from the air having slowed it enough to lose the crackling sound it made traveling at the speed of sound. She could get off multiple rounds before anyone noticed or could triangulate her position-not that she had any intention of breaking her perfect record: one shot, one kill.

“Range me to the airframe,” Camille said.

“Eight-two-five.”

“Negative. Eight-five-zero,” Camille said. “Verify.”

“Negative. Eight-two-five. Check your dope.”

Camille checked the settings, but was sure they were correct.

The plane sat on the runway while the engines spooled down. After five minutes, the airstairs were lowered and a man appeared in the doorway, a mil dot above Camille’s crosshairs. He was blond, average build and had what looked like a Russian version of an M4 at his side.

“Radio Iggy. First target acquired.”

Tariq had learned a thing or two about stealth in the training camp, not that he really needed it. Whoever the sniper was, he was focused upon the runway, not Tariq approaching from behind. As he crept closer, he saw a white jet coming in for a landing.

The hot desert air took Hunter’s breath away as he stepped through the jet’s doorway, tactical scenarios running through his head. Whoever was picking them up was smart enough to keep a distance. A meter ahead of him, a guard stepped from the stairs onto the tarmac, looking around, his eyebrows knit.

Something was wrong.

Camille watched through her scope as the first prisoner stooped, exiting with the top of his head pointed at her. He looked up and she saw his face.

Hunter-thank god.

She caught sight of the second prisoner climbing down the stairs.

GENGHIS?

Pete took a long, deep breath, but it didn’t clear her head. Her body dripped with sweat. Camille had been good to her, but Joe Chronister was not a man who bluffed. He would make sure the unsolved murder at Fort Bliss was reopened with new evidence that would send Pete to prison for life. She couldn’t go through that.

Pete cocked the Makarov.

Hunter saw no cover, nowhere to run. The landing strip was between dunes with so little microterrain, the sand looked like it was in constant motion. He was actually surprised they hadn’t swallowed the landing strip. The lead guard keyed his radio, calling for the absent greeting party. Something wasn’t going according to plan which meant the guards were off-balance, even if for a few seconds. Hunter flashed a glance at GENGHIS, who seemed to already be inching into position behind one of the guards.

Camille saw GENGHIS edging closer to her objective, but the shot was still clear. She inhaled deeply to steady herself, then exhaled. The shot felt good, so she slowly squeezed the trigger and fired. The recoil jerked the sight. Without a breath, she acquired the next target.

“I’m sorry,” she heard Pete say.

Camille fired again. As she did, her peripheral vision caught Pete getting up from her prone position.

What the hell?

Hunter inched toward the guard closest to him, ready to teach him why he should never zip-tie a prisoner’s hands in front. Though if all went well, he wouldn’t have the chance to use the lesson. Stella’s man GENGHIS was almost in position behind his mark. Without warning, a bullet blew through GENGHIS’ target and exited from the back. A pink mist splattered GENGHIS and both men crumpled to the ground. Another guard swung around and sprayed rounds into Hunter’s fellow Force Zulu operator, then turned toward Hunter.

At the same time Hunter dropped, a sniper’s bullet cratered the guard’s chest.

Camille glanced away from the shot to see Pete kneeling beside her, pointing a pistol at her. She didn’t pause to think. Her right hand reached for her knife as she rolled out of the line of fire, toward Pete. With a single stroke, she sliced through Pete’s Achilles tendon. The calf muscles seized and Pete collapsed toward her, bringing her throat down where Camille needed it. She thrust her knife into her neck. An aerosol of blood spurted out.

“Why?” Camille whispered as she rolled over, using the knife as a handle to pull Pete’s body over hers to hasten death as the blade ripped through her trachea and arteries, dousing her in a fountain of blood. Sickening steam rose from the sun-baked sand. She couldn’t understand it, but she didn’t have time to figure it out. Kicking free from Pete’s body, she twisted around and righted the Dragunov.

Iggy was mad that his first target had moved at the wrong moment and it had taken him two rounds to make the kill. And now he couldn’t get a clear shot at the fourth guard. He was sure Camille had it. He had been in the field and on the range with her several times. Cam was lightning. What was taking her so damn long?

On the tarmac, Hunter saw a guard get up and scramble toward the stairs. Just as the guy lifted his left foot toward the first step, Hunter rushed up behind him and spun around, pushing his left hip against the right side of the man’s body. Back to back with the guard, Hunter threw his zip-tied hands over his right shoulder and looped them around the man’s chin. Hunter dropped to his knees, twisting the neck until he felt it give. He brought his hands back over his own head, flipping the dead guard over his shoulder and onto the ground.

Now the four guards were dead and there was no sign of the ground crew. He picked up the AK-102 with his cuffed hands and stuck his head through the strap.

At that moment he heard the Gulfstream’s engines spooling up, preparing for takeoff.

Blood soaked Camille’s sand-caked hair and she tasted copper as she peered through the Dragunov’s sights. One Rubicon escort was down with an apparent broken neck and GENGHIS lay on the ground beside another one, pressing on his upper arm as blood spurted out. She counted bodies of three other guards and one prisoner. Then she focused on Hunter and saw his head jerk around as if startled. A second later, she heard the roar and understood why: the engines were starting up.

She shifted her sights to the cockpit. If bird strikes could sometimes shatter the reinforced windshield, she was certain her round could do it. It might even extend her the favor of slowing the bullet enough so that it didn’t damage anything beyond the flight crew. An unpressurized ride out of there would be breezier, lower and chillier than she would have liked, but she didn’t see a lot of options. She checked the wind and ranged the target.

The captain would be first; she always respected the chain of command. She took a long breath and exhaled. The shot felt right. But as she started to squeeze the trigger, the plane started rolling while the airstairs were still retracting.

Hunter was hanging underneath the stairs. He swung himself up onto them and climbed into the plane.

Camille had to do her best to make sure Hunter saw her and knew she was there before the plane took off. Otherwise he could head anywhere and she might not find him. But she didn’t want to chance someone else seeing her too soon. She took off the restrictive ghillie suit, stripping down to the T-shirt and shorts underneath, snatched up the radio and called Iggy as she ran, carrying the Dragunov. “Hold your position and give me some cover fire.”

Even though she had spent the entire morning watching the empty desert, she still didn’t want to chance sky-lining at the top of the dune or casting shadows at its base. She ran along its military crest, halfway down it, but the soft sand gave way under her feet and she slid with each step. She couldn’t get any traction. It went against her training, but she would have to risk casting a shadow if she wanted to reach Hunter in time.

Hunter rode the airstairs up and rolled onto the cabin floor of the moving plane. The plastic ties bound his wrists and ankles, but there was no time to search for something sharp enough to free himself. He lay on his back in front of the cockpit door, clutching the compact assault rifle, as he set it to single fire mode. After 9/11, commercial flight deck doors were always locked, but they still needed break-away panels in case of explosive decompression. Knowing Rubicon’s thriftiness, he doubted that they had even installed the latest security door. He pulled his legs back until his knees were over his chest, then he kicked the panel at the bottom of the door. It separated and flew into the flight deck. Hunter flipped around as fast as he could, targeted the captain and fired a round into the back of his head while the copilot reached for the emergency axe. Hunter shot him, then wiggled through the hole.

The plane was picking up speed.

Camille felt the sand give way under her foot and she tumbled straight down the dune, surfing a small avalanche to the firm tarmac. Scrambling back up, she left the Dragunov on the ground and sprinted onto the runway to get Hunter’s attention. Then she realized her mistake.

The plane was speeding toward her.

Hunter hooked this bound wrists over the back of the captain’s seat and pulled himself up in time to see the plane hurtling toward the dunes at the end of the short runway. He glanced at the groundspeed: 131 knots. He had no idea what the rotation speed was, but he could feel the nose starting to lift-it was too late to stop.

Then he saw Stella directly in its path.

Using his elbows, he shoved the throttles forward, then sat on the captain’s lap, grabbed the yoke and jerked the stick back as hard as he could, throwing it into a steep climb, twenty degrees nose high. The plane lurched violently as it zoomed into the sky. As long as he cleared her, he didn’t care if he pulled the nose too steep and it stalled out, dropping him straight to the ground.

“Climb, dammit.”

He wanted the gear up immediately to give her more clearance, but could only stare at the gear lever and his bound hands. The stick started to shake and a stall warning horn blared. Then he heard the electronic voice warning, “Stall! Stall!”

Camille saw the plane racing toward her, seconds away. It was beginning to lift into the air, but it wouldn’t clear her, not with the gear hanging down. Just then the plane’s nose seemed to lift high-too high. The tail scraped the tarmac as it barreled toward her. She dropped with a prayer, covering her head and face with her arms. There was a blast of blistering heat as the engines roared over her, then a small sandstorm scoured her.

Within seconds, she opened her eyes. The plane was already hundreds of feet in the air in a steep climb. Camille’s spirits crashed as she watched Hunter fly away from her.

All Hunter could see was blue sky, but he didn’t feel anything strike the plane. He tried to exhale, but the yoke was buried in his gut. The stall warning shrieked and he knew he had burned precious time. He slammed the throttles forward and shoved the nose over. He was still flying, just barely.

“Come on, punch it damn it,” he shouted over the alarms.

The engines seemed to take forever to respond to firewalling the throttles. A few long seconds later he felt the thrust coming on line.

The alarm stopped.

He eased the nose back up a little and let up on the thrust, making sure he was still in controlled flight before he started a gentler climb. He had always wanted to learn how to fly a Glufstream, but had never had the chance beyond twenty hours of simulator time. It was all just roll, pitch and yaw, he reminded himself as sweat poured off his body. The glass cockpit that he had once admired was now pretty damn intimidating. The basics were displayed by default-artificial horizon, airspeed, fuel-and they all looked good, best he could tell. All of the engine gauges were running parallel.

The desert sky was cloudless and that would help him visually navigate back to Stella. The Gulfstream was a beautiful piece of engineering and most likely came standard with GPS mapping capabilities, but he couldn’t take the time to fiddle with the monitors to figure it out. Right now he just needed to get it to a safe altitude, level out so he could pry the emergency axe from the copilot’s fingers and free himself from the damn zip-ties. But more than anything at that moment, he wanted to quit giving the captain’s corpse a lap dance.

Chapter Seventy

Gora Muruntau, Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

Camille ran back for the Dragunov, then sprinted down the runway toward GENGHIS. She now didn’t care so much about being seen by an invisible enemy. She was more concerned about being shot by disoriented friendlies. She pulled her hat off and let her hair fall to her shoulders, aware that her gender might be what convinced him not to shoot her, in case he didn’t recognize her at a distance. Now she couldn’t see GENGHIS, but only several bodies. As she neared, she could sense someone watching her. She could always feel it when she was prey. She just hoped it was only Iggy following her with his scope.

“Friend! LIGHTNING SIX!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. She waved her hands in the air as she approached the bodies.

GENGHIS and a prisoner she didn’t recognize lay behind corpses of the guards, using them for cover. Their hands were plastic cuffed, but they managed to point assault weapons at her. As soon as GENGHIS identified her, he lowered the gun and instructed the other guy to do the same.

“No offense, ma’am, but you’re the prettiest thing I ever saw,” GENGHIS said as she got closer. He pressed on the wound on his upper left arm.

Flies swarmed around her face, fighting the wind to get to the blood soaking her gritty hair. She was so thirsty she could barely swallow. Sand was a second skin. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re hallucinating.” Camille turned to the prisoner. “Make absolutely sure they’re dead.” To GENGHIS she mouthed, “Who’s he?”

GENGHIS shrugged.

Just because the guy had been a Rubicon prisoner didn’t mean she trusted him around her with a weapon; she would have to disarm him. She handed GENGHIS her sidearm, a 9mm Makarov with a KGB emblem on the handle which she’d picked up in Tashkent. It would be easier for him than the AK. “Keep an eye on this for me, will you?” Camille kneeled beside GENGHIS and sliced through the plastic ties around his wrists and ankles, then cut away the blood-soaked sleeve.

“You got it,” GENGHIS said. He held the gun as he used the palm of the same hand to press on the gunshot wound.

“They’re all dead,” the prisoner said as he shuffled toward Camille, carrying a shorty AK. His hands were bound, but that wouldn’t stop him from pointing and spraying.

“Come over here and I’ll cut you free,” Camille said without taking the bloody knife from the holster.

As soon as he was near her, Camille rushed him, closing the distance. She pivoted her body from the line of fire right before she grabbed the butt of the weapon and twisted it away from his bound hands. At the same time she smacked her knee into his groin. He stumbled to the ground like a civilian. She turned the weapon around and pointed it at him.

“Bitch” he said, doubled over.

“Get up and walk ten feet that way and sit up on your knees. If you so much as stand, one of us will shoot you. And I have a guardian angel on the dunes, so keep that in mind.”

“We share the same enemy-Rubicon. I’ll help you,” he said as he struggled to his feet. “I’m no threat to you.”

“But until I have time to figure out who the hell you are, you’re our prisoner.” Camille kept the AK-102 trained on him as she backed toward GENGHIS.

Camille grabbed the radio. “TIN MAN, break camp and join me. Bring your gear.”

“Negative,” Iggy said. “Will maintain overwatch.”

She knew that Iggy was very worried they didn’t have an overwatch position providing security, even though she didn’t think there was any reason to believe that Rubicon would somehow approach them by surprise.

“We have a man down. I need your medic kit. Bring it.”

“Negative.”

“Dammit, GENGHIS will die. Bring it down, then you can reassume your position. We’ll see a dust cloud well in advance of any approaching vehicles. Come, on.”

After a pause, Iggy said, “Affirmative.”

Camille squatted beside GENGHIS, the AK slung around her shoulder. She pulled off her shooting glove. “Iggy has QuikClot, but I don’t want to wait. You’re losing too much blood.”

“Don’t bother with me. I’m fine.” GENGHIS tried to stand, then sat back down again.

“Dizzy?” Camille said as she glanced at the prisoner, who seemed to be compliant.

“Yeah.”

The hole was smaller than she expected for a second-hand steel-core cartridge. It must have hit a lot of bone, which slowed it down as it went through the guard. She had learned long ago not to second-guess gunshot wounds. Shots that should never kill often did and others that should’ve inflicted substantial damage sometimes barely slowed a target down. “Sorry. You moved a split-second after I squeezed off.”

“If I’d moved a few more inches, you would’ve had one shot, two kills-doesn’t get better than that in this business,” GENGHIS said, his voice stressed. He kept the Makarov pointed at the prisoner, although his aim wasn’t steady.

Sand was caked onto her fingers. She raked them across his pant leg, then she stuck them into her mouth and sucked as much sand and dirt off them as she could. She spat onto the ground, then pulled back on the edges of the wound. “This is going to hurt like hell. Brace yourself,” she said as she thrust her fingers into the wound and pressed. It was warm, wet and soft. “How the hell did you get a ticket for that flight with Hunter?”

“Pete set me up. She’s your traitor.”

“I know. How you doing?”

“Alive,” GENGHIS said in a whisper, his jaws clenched. “Just keep talking.”

“You’re in good hands. Daddy trained me well for combat wounds. You know he used to shoot my pet goats? It was up to me to save them or else they were Sunday dinner.”

“Sounds like Charlie. The man understood motivation.” GENGHIS smiled, but it was strained as he fought the pain. “You ever lose one?”

“Not many.”

Camille looked up as Iggy approached, lugging his gear. Hers was still on the dune. He kept his AK aimed at the prisoner as he dropped his pack near GENGHIS. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Pete sent me,” GENGHIS said.

“What are you talking about? Where is Pete?” Iggy glanced around as he pulled the medic kit from his rucksack.

“Dead.” Camille sighed. The bleeding was under control as long as she kept the pressure up. “She made a move on me.”

“She’s always making moves on you,” Iggy said with a laugh as he used his teeth to tear open a foil packet of QuikClot. “I hope for once this shit lives up to its sales pitch. So where is Pete?”

“I’m serious. She tried to kill me. I didn’t have a choice.” Camille pulled her fingers from the wound and Iggy handed her the packet. She poured the grains directly into the hole. The substance turned dark. “This stuff always reminds me of kitty litter.”

“Jesus. Pete’s our mole?”

“Whoever she was working for must not want me comparing notes with Hunter. And I’m guessing that’s the CIA.” Camille stopped pouring the grains into the wound when the top layer quit soaking up fluid and remained light beige.

“Who the hell is our prisoner?” Iggy said as he gathered weapons from the dead guards, all the while looking around for any movement.

“Dammed if we know,” GENGHIS said.

“You ask him?”

“We’ve been busy getting this bleeding under control. I can sew the artery up later.” Camille took a piece of gauze and applied pressure. The QuikClot made the wound give off so much heat, she had to add an extra layer to insulate her hand. When she was convinced the coagulant had worked its wonders, she wrapped a dressing around his arm to maintain the pressure.

Iggy yelled to the prisoner. “You got a name?”

“Larry Ashland.”

“I’ve heard of you.” Iggy laughed. “You’re the French spook the Agency nabbed yesterday, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m on your side in this. Cut me free,” Ashland said, kneeling exactly as Camille had instructed him.

“I have a hard time imagining me being on the same side as the French,” Iggy said.

Camille squinted. Even with her dark sunglasses, the sun was glaring. Her undershirt was completely drenched between her breasts and her skin was burning. “No way is the Agency going to nail some French mole, then hand him off to Rubicon, even if Rubicon is running some of their rendition flights. It doesn’t add up.”

“Nothing about Rubicon adds up,” Ashland said.

“You got that right,” Iggy said.

Camille pulled out an IV bag of saline from the medic kit. It was hot. Too hot. She broke open an instant ice pack and duct-taped it to the bag. “I’m going to get GENGHIS into the shadow of that dune, then start the IV as soon as it cools.” Camille stood. “I want off this runway when Hunter makes it. If he’s alive, he’ll be back. I’m not sure if he saw me, but he’d never leave a man behind. He’ll be back for GENGHIS and the others.”

“My legs are good.” GENGHIS stood slowly, then plopped back down.

An oily puddle had collected underneath him. One down, four to go. She was surprised he wasn’t going into shock. GENGHIS was one tough mother.

“You grab the weapons and keep an eye on the prisoner.” Camille reached under GENGHIS’ arms, careful not to re-injure him and took a deep breath. He must have weighed over two hundred pounds-all muscle. She turned to Ashland. “Tell me something I don’t know about Rubicon and we’ll let you come into the shade with us. Otherwise, you’re going to bake here until that plane comes back and runs you over.”

“As I said, we’re on the same side. I’ll share all I know.” Sweat rolled down Ashland’s forehead.

“Start talking.” Camille started walking away, supporting GENGHIS.

“Rubicon is working with al-Zahrani. I don’t know exactly how or what, but the project’s called SHANGRI-LA.”

Camille stopped when she heard a code name Chronister had used in the intercepted conversation. “What do you know about SHANGRI-LA?”

“I’ve spent nearly two years at Rubicon trying to find out about SHANGRI-LA. It’s highly compartmentalized. I only know the Iraqi side. Rubicon ships weapons seized from insurgents for use in the project.”

“Where is SHANGRI-LA?”

“Uzbekistan.”

“You’re joking.” Iggy chuckled. “SHANGRI-LA is in this hellhole? At least they have a sense of humor.”

Camille walked GENGHIS to a strip of shade, a dune’s thin shadow. Even without the direct sun, the temperature was agonizing. She eased him down, praying the QuikClot didn’t pop out.

Iggy carried the scavenged weapons to the shady spot, piling them beside Camille. She knew the only reason he wasn’t in a greater hurry to get back to the overwatch position had to be because he wanted to move out immediately. She wanted to give Hunter more time, though she couldn’t imagine what could be taking him so long to circle around and land the damn plane unless the pilots had somehow taken him out first. But it was Hunter. He had to be fiddling around with some cool gadgets, making sure he mastered them before he set it down. He had to be.

She harvested a pair of cheap sunglasses from one of the guards and handed them to GENGHIS.

“Thanks,” GENGHIS said as he put them on.

Iggy started checking the weapons one by one. “Get him mobile. I want to egress and get to that LZ. Someone from Rubicon is going to come looking for their buddies.”

Camille tightened GENGHIS’ belt and raised his feet onto a rucksack to slow down the onset of shock. Cutting back on circulation to the lower body was usually not a good idea, but in this case she was more worried about the vital organs. “I’ve got to pump fluids into him. And I don’t want to move. Hunter will be back.”

“Cam,” Iggy said as he shoved a magazine back into an AK. “It’s been twenty minutes. That’s about two hundred miles in a Gulfstream.”

“It’s fifteen minutes and he’ll be back.” She was certain of it. Hunter had convinced her of his loyalty and that loyalty would extend to his fellow prisoners. She wasn’t going to doubt him again.

“We need to send a burst to our contact in Zarafshan and get the hell out of here.”

“He will be back.”

“We can’t wait.”

“I’m not moving.”

Iggy shook his head as he stared at her. “You’ve got fifteen minutes and that’s it.”

She scanned the area, ready to provide cover fire as Iggy climbed back to an overwatch position. Then she touched the IV bag and decided it was good enough. She tore open a needle packet and pushed the needle into GENGHIS’ forearm to start the IV. She studied Ashland, unsure what to make of him.

Camille said to him, “What do you really think SHANGRI-LA’s all about? You have to have a theory.”

“I can’t prove it, but I’d bet everything I own that Rubicon is helping al-Zahrani train terrorists.” Ashland wiped sweat from his brow. His wrists were still bound.

“This al-Zahrani guy isn’t exactly a politico who can be bought off. He’s a true believer.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t know he has corporate sponsorship.”

“You know, sometimes I even feel a little guilty the War on Terror has been so good to me, but there’s nothing I’d like more than to see every tango wiped off the face of the earth. I can’t imagine even Rubicon supporting the fuckers.” Camille squeezed the bag, forcing the saline into GENGHIS’ arm faster. She radioed Iggy. “He’s going to need more than this. There’s another one in Pete’s ruck.”

“I’ll get it,” Iggy said.

“No. I will. Maintain position.”

“I’ll go,” Iggy said. “You don’t need to see her again.”

“Yeah, I do,” Camille said. Her lips were cracked and her mouth parched. She sipped from a canteen and leaned her head back, looking at the deep blue sky.

No Hunter.

Chapter Seventy-One

Gora Muruntau, Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

A carpet of black flies and beetles already covered Pete’s throat and face. Their constant movement made it harder for Camille to stare at the motionless body. She forced herself to reach for the butt of the Makarov in Pete’s hand, but the muscles had already tightened so that she would have to break the fingers. Rigor mortis came fast in the desert heat. One 9mm pistol wouldn’t make that much of a difference in their arsenal, so Camille decided to cut herself a break and let it go.

The dry desert wind wiped away her tears, but couldn’t blow away the pain. Camille bowed her head and averted her eyes as she felt the hollowness that always follows a kill. She scooped up a handful of sand and let it flow out of her fist onto the body. She knew she had to hurry back with the IV solution, but she stood there, paralyzed by memories of the flesh giving way as she pulled the knife through Pete’s trachea.

At first, Camille thought her guilt was haunting her when she felt a steel blade pressing against her throat.

“Don’t move,” a man said in Arabic.

Camille held her breath, hoping that Iggy was watching through his scope and could get a clear shot. The man’s hand pressed against the back of her head and she couldn’t move without slitting her throat.

The Arab slid her Makarov from the thigh holster, then the knife from her ankle holster. She looked around, searching for an opening. Pete’s Makarov was less than two feet from her, but they couldn’t help her. The tip of the blade pierced the skin under her chin and she could feel blood drip down her neck.

Come on, Iggy.

Then she saw the Gulfstream banking to align itself with the runway and she knew Iggy was distracted.

Chapter Seventy-Two

Gora Muruntau, Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

The Gulfstream’s airstairs couldn’t go down fast enough for Hunter. He couldn’t wait another moment to see Stella. When they were low enough for him to get a good look outside, he spotted two men in the shadow of a nearby dune and a pile of bodies on the runway, but no Stella.

Oh god. I hit her on takeoff.

As the stairs were being lowered to the ground, Hunter bounded down them, then dashed across the runway to the men. Thanks to the Day-Glo prison coveralls, he immediately recognized Ashland and GENGHIS. As he approached them, he could hear a voice coming over an oversized walkie-talkie.

“LIGHTNING SIX, come in. Report.,”

“Where is she?” Hunter shouted. “LIGHTNING SIX, where is she?”

“LIGHTNING SIX, come in.”

“We just lost contact,” GENGHIS said and pointed. “She went up there, Twelve o’clock, five hundred meters.”

“Radio your overwatch and tell him I’m going there and not to shoot me.” Hunter said as he scooped up an AK and checked it for ammo. “Get into the aircraft. Take what gear you can and make sure you load the body of the other prisoner. He’s a Bushman. We don’t leave men behind.”

“Neither does Delta,” GENGHIS said.

As Hunter ran up the dune, he could see a contorted lifeless body lying in the sand. Everything in him screamed. She couldn’t be dead. Not when he was this close. The sand crumbled away under his feet and he could hardly get any traction, as if the desert itself were struggling against him, trying to keep him from seeing her.

His feet finally found some packed sand and he was able to make some progress. He got close enough to see the body and forced himself to look.

Stella’s alive!

Or at least the corpse wasn’t hers.

“Looks like it happened a while ago,” Hunter said as an operator with an artificial hand walked up. He knew him by reputation as Iggy, Stella’s chief ops officer.

“Camille’s work. I’ll fill you in later.” Iggy was breathing hard. He scanned the horizon with his binoculars, then lowered them. “She came back to grab the med kit to help that worthless son of a bitch GENGHIS.”

The heavy wind had wiped away traces of any footprints, but they could see indentures in the sand where someone had climbed down the back side of the dune. The trail stopped on the flat desert floor where the wind had erased it.

“Look at this,” Hunter motioned for Iggy as he pointed to the ground beside Pete. “The blood preserved a footprint.”

“Camille was wearing Merrell hikers,” Iggy said as he squatted by the fly-covered body and studied the print. “That’s from some kind of a sandal. No tread.” Iggy stood. “We’ve got to get out of here. Keep an eye out for anything else unusual while you help me grab the stuff.”

“We can’t leave her,” Hunter said as he wrestled the Makarov from Pete. The bones of the fingers snapped. His Day-Glo prison coveralls had no pockets for him to stick the gun in, so he held onto it.

Iggy reached for the rucksack and saw something that had blown against it. As he leaned over to pick up a small green booklet written in Arabic script, a bullet crackled nearby.

“Hit the deck!”

Both men dug into the sand and pointed their AKs in the direction the bullet had come from-the same direction someone had taken Stella.

“See a target?” Hunter said.

“Negative. So wherever they are, they’re at an angle where they can’t get a shot unless we stand up.” Iggy slipped his arms into the pack’s straps. “We’re going to creep over there, then run down the dune and pray they can’t get into a good firing position in time.”

Several rounds flew over them. Hunter couldn’t see anyone, but fired a burst anyway to discourage the shooter from moving to a better location.

Iggy reached for the walkie-talkie. “GENGHIS, this is TIN MAN. We’re taking fire. Do what you can to cover us. We’re coming in.”

“Understood,” Ashland’s voice crackled through the radio.

“We’ll be vulnerable most of the way,” Hunter said.

“You have any better ideas?”

“No, sir.” Hunter fired more rounds, then began crawling as fast as he could.

The sun scorched Camille’s skin and she regretted peeling down to shorts and a T-shirt, but she was sure she would be more modestly clothed soon enough, if the tangos didn’t kill her first. She sat upright in the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by four young men with AKs. They all wore the telltale beards of the Muslim fundamentalists and spoke Arabic with one another. A cross-eyed one wore a T-shirt silk-screened with a picture she recognized from the wall of Omar’s Electronics in Ramadi. Her translator had told her which one he was, but she couldn’t remember now if he was Abdullah or al-Zahrani. Not that it really mattered which faction of al Qaeda had kidnapped her.

She could pick up only a word here and there, but pretended to understand nothing and wished she hadn’t heard the mention of jihad so frequently. Her arms and feet were bound with a heavy, scratchy rope and she saw no immediate options for escape, but she kept reassessing.

A white Toyota truck passed them going the opposite way, toward the airstrip. She coughed from the dust that blew in its wake. It honked and some of the men in the back waved their AKs at them while others fired joy shots into the air. Well over a dozen tangos were squeezed into the truck bed and four or five more into the cab. This was the third pickup they had met and she hoped to god Hunter was getting them out of there and not coming after her. But she knew he would come. And she had little doubt that he would be too late.

She watched the sky for the Gulfstream.

Carrying his IV bag, GENGHIS wobbled toward the body of the dead Bushman. He grabbed the corpse by the arm and tugged. It barely moved. He plopped to the ground, light-headed, breathing hard. He raised his head toward Ashland. “Get your ass over here.”

“I’m no harm to you. And none of us can get out of here alone, except Stone. Free me. You need me.” He held out his bound hands.

“They didn’t leave me with a knife. It’d be my pleasure to shoot the zip-cuff off you. Hold out your wrists.” GENGHIS aimed his sidearm at Ashland’s wrists.

“No, no, no. I saw Black using shears from the medic’s bag. I’ll retrieve them. And we might need every bullet.”

“Suit yourself.”

A few minutes later GENGHIS was lying in the aisle of the Gulfstream hooked up to a second IV bag that Ashland had found onboard, when he heard Iggy call for backup. The bleeding was under control, but he was feeling light-headed. Ashland set down the walkie-talkie and picked up an AK-102.

“You’re not going to be able to help them with that-too short range,” GENGHIS said as he grabbed for the IV needle in his arm.

“Leave that in. You need it,” Ashland said.

“Fine. But they need a long-range marksman. Help me to the door and hand me the one with the scope.”

GENGHIS pulled himself up using the armrest and grabbed the IV bag from the leather seat. Ashland hurried to support him under his arm and help him walk down the aisle. GENGHIS lowered himself onto the floor in front of the cabin door, dropping the plastic IV bag beside him. Ashland picked it up and hooked it on the bracket for the emergency flashlight instead, then handed him the Dragunov that Camille was carrying earlier.

“Check the rucksack for extra clips,” GENGHIS said as he pulled off the magazine and checked the cartridges. Eight were left. Russian ammo was foreign to him, but he trusted that Camille always worked with the best equipment and had probably acquired match-grade rounds.

“Here.” Ashland handed him three.

GENGHIS grabbed them and loaded two 7.62 rounds as fast as he could while he watched the distant dune. Iggy and Stone were skidding down it and no targets were in sight-yet. He set up the rifle’s bipod and looked through the scope, estimating the wind and ranging to the top of the dune. He adjusted the dope.

Several seconds later, he was tweaking the settings when a man with an AK came into sight above Iggy and Stone. He moved him into his crosshairs and fired. The man dropped, but then two more replaced him. As quickly as he could, he acquired the mark, squeezed off a round and without a breath, aimed and fired again just as the son of a bitch hailed bullets at Iggy and Stone.

Bullets flew past Iggy and the sand was getting softer, pouring in on top of his foot with each step, making it harder for him to pull his leg up. Just as a round zoomed too close to his head, his leg pulled out of its binding and his stump waved in the air. Flapping his arms to catch his balance, he tumbled to the ground and slid down the dune. He looked back. His dumb leg was stuck in the sand, fifteen feet above him.

The tangos were appearing as fast as GENGHIS could take them out and the growing collection of dead bodies seemed to do little to discourage them. GENGHIS had seen it before. The fuckers were determined to get to their seventy-two virgins. He pulled off the magazine and shoved more rounds into it.

Iggy saw Stone glance back, then turn around to help him, but Iggy waved him on. Using his elbows to pull himself along, Iggy dragged himself through the sand to his leg. Bullets kicked up sand all around. When he got to it, he took the knife from his ankle holster and sliced off his pant leg above his knee, cursing himself for wearing long pants. As he strapped it on, sand got into the sock over his stump. With a good seven hundred yards to the plane, it would rub blisters that would plague him for days.

He climbed to his feet and ran.

“Permission to come aboard.” Hunter shouted from the base of the Gulfstream’s stairs, waiting so he didn’t shake the plane because it didn’t take much to spoil a long range shot. Iggy hauled ass down the tarmac, a good four hundred meters away.

“Okay, now!” GENGHIS said as he refilled the mag. Hunter climbed up the stairs, taking two at a time.

GENGHIS fired off more rounds as Hunter stepped over him. GENGHIS said, “The fuckers keep coming. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Ashland moved back so he could pass. He paused and said to Ashland, “As soon as Iggy’s onboard, throw that switch to retract the airstairs, then turn the lever to secure the door.”

Hunter hurried onto the flight deck. The dead first officer was still strapped in. Hunter flipped on the APU as he climbed over the captain’s body into his seat.

As Iggy zigzagged down the runway, he could feel his stump rubbing raw against the sand that had come between him and his artificial leg. The stump had sweated so much, it felt like it was sloshing around in a bowl of water. The hot air seared his lungs, but the bullets skipping off the tarmac around him made him push harder.

It only took one, he reminded himself.

GENGHIS chambered a new round, retargeted and fired in less than five seconds-a personal record, but it wasn’t enough. More and more tangos crested the saddle and he couldn’t drop them all before they started heading down to the tarmac. He gave up on eliminating them as they came into sight and picked off the ones who were closest to Iggy. He was only a couple hundred meters out, but the hordes were gaining on him. They were running and shooting without aiming, but with enough rounds in the air, even a stray bullet could find a mark.

“Hand me an AK and keep ’em coming,” GENGHIS said. They had salvaged four from the Rubicon guards.

The tangos were now within five hundred meters and Iggy was within one hundred. GENGHIS stood, the damn IV dangling from his arm. He saw bright flashes of light and became dizzy. He steadied himself on the bulkhead as he breathed deeply. He took the assault rifle and aimed as best he could, given the iron sights, the distance and the wind.

GENGHIS laid down a curtain of fire while Iggy dashed toward the airstairs. He emptied the weapon in his hands and Ashland passed him another one. Iggy ran up the stairs and GENGHIS extended his arm, grabbed Iggy’s forearm, and pulled him inside.

“Go! Go!” Iggy yelled to Hunter.

GENGHIS threw the switch to raise the stairs and then he leaned outside and stepped onto the top stair while they were retracting. They were the type that the bottom part of the stairs folded over onto the top when they were halfway up and GENGHIS figured he could get off a couple more shots and jump back inside before they started to double over on themselves. Suddenly, the plane lurched and GENGHIS slipped.

The IV catheter ripped away from his arm and blood gushed from the vein. He grabbed for anything and latched onto a bar. Struggling to hold his legs up above the fast-moving ground, he reached for the bar on the opposite side. His muscles strained and blood was everywhere.

The bottom half of the airstairs was folding down on top of him, threatening to squeeze him to death. Bullets cracked through the air around him and he wished to god one of them would hit him. Dying in combat was supposed to be GENGHIS’ fate, not being smashed in stairs. He became dizzier and dizzier as blood drained away and the ground streaked beneath him.

GENGHIS let out a scream and pulled as hard as he could just as everything faded to black.

Iggy climbed out on the airstairs, gripped the chrome with his artificial hand, trusting the microprocessors wouldn’t fail him now because he couldn’t feel if he had a good grip or if the contraption had let go. Only if the suction broke and the artificial limb pulled off his body would he feel anything and by then it would be too late.

The ground was a blur as he leaned out of the plane. He reached under GENGHIS’ arm and pulled as hard as he could, leveraging the force of his own body weight, and yanked GENGHIS back inside. Blood smeared on him as the aircraft lifted into the sky.

Chapter Seventy-Three

Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

Camille searched for landmarks along the route, but all she saw were endless sand dunes, mounds of tailings. After fifteen minutes, the ground opened up into the largest open mine pit she had seen in her life. All of Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah could’ve fit inside with room to spare. It dropped down four to five hundred feet in wide terraced steps. She couldn’t see any equipment and some of the benches seemed to have collapsed down to the next level. When she thought they had finally passed it, it opened up again into a smaller pit, partially separated from the larger one by a high ridge of solid rock.

There was no mining equipment in the second pit and she thought it was completely abandoned until something flapping in the high winds caught her eye.

Camouflage netting.

The pickup turned down a switchback road and began its descent into the mine. A dozen structures were clustered along the north wall of the crater on the wide upper bench. Most of them were oversized tents being whipped by the high winds, but there were five buildings and more were under construction. They looked like they were made of plywood and had scrap metal for roofs. Beyond the building sites, a firing range was set up on the far side of the compound and she could see obstacle courses with coils of barbed wire.

She was being taken into a terrorist training camp-into SHANGRI-LA.

Paradise had never looked so hellish.

Chapter Seventy-Four

The boom in Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg for the $100-billion-a-year [private security] industry, which experts say has been the fastest-growing sector of the global economy during the past decade.

– The San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2004, as reported by Robert Collier

Above the Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

GENGHIS lay on the cabin floor, bleeding and breathing rapidly. He was barely conscious and slipping. Iggy dragged him partially into the galley so he’d have room to work. GENGHIS was covered with so much blood, it was impossible to be sure where it was all coming from. Using his combat knife, Iggy sliced open his prison coveralls to search for worst bleeders. He kept the knife close in case he needed to use it against Ashland.

GENGHIS seemed to be bleeding only from the earlier gunshot wound and from the vein where an IV had been. Chunks of QuikClot had popped out of the wound and the dressing was soaked with blood. Keeping Ashland in his sight at all times, he pressed against the wound with his bio-hand and used his mechanical one to stop the blood loss from where the IV catheter had been ripped out.

“Where the hell are we going?” Hunter yelled through the open cockpit door.

“Got a man down. Stand by,” Iggy then made eye contact with Ashland. “Get me an IV now!”

Ashland plowed through a medic kit and held out the IV to Iggy.

“You know how to spike a vein?”

“In theory.”

“Forget it. Press here and here.”

Ashland wrinkled his face.

“Do it now you motherfucker or I’ll kill you.”

Ashland kneeled down and gingerly placed his fingers over Iggy’s.

“Harder,” Iggy said as he moved his bloody fingers away.

In seconds, Iggy inserted the IV into one of GENGHIS’ veins and started the saline flowing. To hold it into place he slapped duct tape on it. He took over the bleeders from Ashland and ordered him to find blankets. Ashland had the bleeding from the vein under control, so Iggy quickly put a pressure bandage over it.

“Hey, it’s your captain here. I’m taking destination requests,” Hunter said from the flight deck. “I’ve got to head somewhere.”

“Fuel status?” Iggy said, then spoke to GENGHIS, “Come on, come on, buddy. Hang with me.”

“We’re in good shape,” Hunter said.

“Then circle the area and keep an eye out for anything that looks like a tango training camp. I couldn’t get overheads so this is going to be the only look we get.”

Ashland covered GENGHIS with several blankets, carefully tucking them under his legs.

Iggy took out scissors and a set of prepared sutures from the medic kit. He cut away the old soaked dressing, pulled out a big dark clump of QuikClot and several smaller ones and threw them onto the floor. He picked up a needle with his left hand and he stared at it. In the four years since he’d lost his right hand, his left had grown much more adept at everyday tasks, but the needle felt awkward. It was better than using his artificial one that lacked the fine motor coordination and the tactile feedback. He hated himself for not anticipating the need for one-handed sewing and practicing it along with the billion other simple tasks which he had to master all over again. Asking for help wasn’t something he did easily, but he wouldn’t let his pride endanger a teammate. “Ashland, any chance you have experience tying off arteries?” He knew the answer before the question had left his mouth.

“A button pops off my shirt, I donate it to charity.”

“Then get your ass up front and help Stone search for the tango camp.” Iggy snarled at him. Stone could now take his turn babysitting him. “Find a camera. I want pictures.”

“One of the guards was taking pictures on the flight over here,” Ashland said as he ruffled through a bag stowed in an overhead bin. “Here.”

“Great. We’ll need all the shots you can get. Hurry it up,” Iggy said in a normal voice, as he checked on his sidearm. He then turned toward the flight deck and shouted. “Stone, how are you at suturing? I can do it left-handed if I have to, but I’d rather not.”

“Can you fly?” Hunter said.

“You don’t want that,” Iggy said. “Can’t you put it on autopilot?”

“You don’t get it,” Hunter said. “I’m winging it here, trying to keep it between the ditches. This bird’s light years beyond anything I’ve ever flown before. I haven’t even figured out how to turn the autopilot on.”

“Have a seat.” Hunter glared at Ashland as he walked onto the flight deck. The first officer’s body was pale, but it hadn’t abandoned its post. “Think you better pile him in the back. Take the captain, too, while you’re at it.”

Hunter scanned the ground below while Ashland dragged the bodies away. He wanted to work him over, but knew he had to concentrate on keeping them in the air. Ashland returned with a blanket that he spread out over the bloody seat before he sat down on it.

“You’re the son of a bitch who started this whole mess for me. Anything you want to say for yourself?” Hunter turned the yoke, awkardly coordinating the foot pedals. The plane banked to the left. He still didn’t know what the important information about Rubicon was that he’d unearthed. He hoped to finally find out.

“You recognized me. I was afraid you were going to blow my cover. I’ve been investigating Rubicon for nearly two years and I didn’t want to take any chances,” Ashland craned his neck to look out the window. He held a digital camera.

“That’s it?” Hunter turned toward him, his mouth agape. “You’re saying I didn’t come across some great Rubicon secret? Shit. That can’t be all there is to this goat fuck.”

“I’m sorry. I was the secret.” Ashland shrugged his shoulders. “I set things in motion so that Rubicon and the CIA and even your Force Zulu all believed that you were a threat that had to be neutralized. It was the only way I could protect my cover.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“Nothing personal.”

“Right. I’m just a pawn in the Agency’s battle with the Pentagon. So the OGA’s now willing to take out a Force Zulu operator to protect its agents.”

“They’re willing to do it. But I don’t work for the CIA.”

“Who the fuck do you work for then?”

“France.”

“No fucking way. I got screwed by a goddamn French spy?”

Iggy yelled from the cabin. “Believe it, Stone. You got French kissed.”

Hunter shook his head in disbelief. “So what the hell were you doing on the torture express?”

“My cover was blown.” Ashland looked at Hunter and flashed a smile. “But not by you.”

Hunter wanted to take him out, but he didn’t dare let go of the controls for that long until he figured out the autopilot. He had thought of himself as a new breed of super-spy/warrior, believing he had discovered one of the most important secrets of the War on Terror. That had made it worth risking his life. Now it seemed he was a minor player in an unremarkable skirmish. Then he thought of Stella and what she must be going through. He seethed with anger. “If anything happens to Camille Black, I will kill you.”

“Stone! Enough!” Iggy shouted from the back. “No time to explain. Right now I need you to find that tango camp.”

A few minutes earlier, Iggy had opened a clear plastic case of pre-threaded needles, then pulled on a pair of latex gloves. His head turned as he watched Ashland drag a corpse from the cockpit to the back of the plane. He said to GENGHIS, “You still with me, buddy?”

“You sure you can do it?” GENGHIS mumbled.

“Better than I can fly this plane. Hang on. It’s going to hurt.” Iggy stuck his fingers in the bullet hole and pushed around until he found something that felt like an earthworm. He grabbed it and held it while he used gauze to soak up blood until he could actually see what he was working with. He held his breath as he pinched it together with his real hand while his smart hand tied a loop around it, cutting off the wound. He repeated the procedure a couple of times for good measure, then sopped up the remaining blood to make sure he had stopped all the bleeding. In less than a minute he closed the wound with stitching his mother would’ve been proud of.

The Agency had been wrong not to take him back to the frontlines. Even with only one arm and one leg, Manuel Ignatius was still an operator.

“I think we’ve got something,” Stone shouted from the flight deck as Iggy felt the plane descend. “A cluster of structures inside a quarry.”

“On my way,” Iggy said as he removed his leg and brushed the sand off the stump. A couple of blisters were already forming. Whenever he was alone at home, he usually went without the prosthetic leg because it was a relief not to have it rubbing against the stump. Not since Walter Reed Hospital had he let anyone see him without it-until now. He grabbed a pair of binoculars from a pile of gear on a seat, then hopped into the cockpit. Gripping the back of the copilot’s seat with his artificial hand, he steadied himself.

Stone changed the flap settings and pushed down on the yoke, then he banked the aircraft into a tight circle above the compound and pointed. “Look over there. This mine’s abandoned. All the others all have buildings and equipment around them.”

“Yeah, looks abandoned to me. So?” Iggy said.

“Right there. Along the north wall of the ridge between the two pits.”

“Son of a bitch. That’s a familiar footprint.” Iggy studied the area through his binoculars. “I saw several of these in Afghanistan before the invasion. There’s even camouflage netting flapping around. The high winds today must’ve ripped it.”

“SHANGRI-LA,” Ashland said.

“Yeah, SHANGRI-LA-right there in the pit of hell. Who would’ve thunk it?” Iggy pointed at the scattering of buildings nestled in the first level in the smaller of two adjoining terraced craters. Together the pits were some thirty kilometers long and between five and ten kilometers wide. Where the camp was situated on the upper level, the terraced benches were at least a football field wide. “Look at that. It’s fucking brilliant to stick it in an old open pit mine in the middle of a desert wasteland-a fortress on a shoestring. They don’t need to guard the perimeter-no one could rappelle down those walls because the sand would crumble into an avalanche. Looks like the main road is the only way in.” Iggy turned to Ashland. “Go in the back and get as many shots as you can-close ups and wide ones. Let us know when you’ve filled the camera and we’ll get out of here.”

Ashland exited the flight deck.

“You think Stella’s down there?” Stone said while he played with the digital controls, apparently familiarizing himself.

“Stella?” Iggy chuckled. “Haven’t heard her called that in a long time.” He lowered himself into the copilot’s seat. He reached into the pocket of his 5.11s and pulled out a booklet. Camille had told him that Stone was fluent in spoken Arabic and he hoped he could read it, too. “If this says what I think it does, I’d bet my good hand on it.”

“What is it?” Stone reached for it.

“Someone dropped it when they nabbed Cam. I was picking it up when the shooting started.”

Stone flipped through it. “It’s a cleric ranting about returning to the roots of the true al Qaeda.”

“Al-Zahrani?”

“How’d you know? What’s all this got to do with Rubicon?”

“His name’s come up a lot lately,” Iggy said. “Can you take us a little lower? I need a good long look. Someone bought up all the commercial satellite pictures for the next several years.”

“Rubicon?”

“You bet-one of their front companies.” Iggy studied the compound, looking for the best avenues of approach. “I’d give one of my right arms for recon on the deck, but I’m afraid a bird’s-eye view is all we’re gonna get.”

“I ran into some tangos outside of Ramadi who trained here in an al-Zahrani camp. They were the ones who kidnapped the geologist Jackie Nelson. I also know Rubicon has a lot of business here.”

“Yeah, like supporting the frickin’ terrorist camp. Obviously, they have a prison here, too. Camille said there’s a former KGB facility built out of an old gold mine. She said there are underground mineshafts in the hills around here. Our guess is that’s where they were taking you. Now I’m starting to think they’re also using it to keep tabs on the al-Zahrani camp.” Iggy lowered the binoculars and looked at the virtual gauges, but didn’t really understand what he was seeing. “How’s your fuel?”

“Twenty-nine thousand and two hundred-some pounds-enough to take us anywhere in Western Europe with leftovers.”

“I only want to get to Bagram, to Black Management’s Camp Obsidian. It’s our nearest Afghan ops center.”

“It’ll take us about an hour to get there.”

“Beautiful.”

“Not really. It takes us too far away from Stella, uh, Camille. I’d rather find what we need locally and go back. And if you’re thinking of returning with helicopters, you’re asking for some extreme flying.”

“We have to stage from where we have our assets and that’s Bagram.” Iggy scratched his face and felt a couple days’ stubble.

“I think we should go somewhere here in-country, get gear on the black market and come back tonight.”

“Would never work. I don’t know how to contact Cam’s local suppliers who outfitted us and it would be just you and me. Ashland’s not an operator, GENGHIS is down and that airstrip we used is now out of the question.”

“I don’t want to leave Uzbekistan without her. I speak some Russian. You have to have some spooks on staff with old KGB ties who can set us up, wire us some money. The Uzbeks will sell anything for the right price. We can probably even pick up a few old Spetsnaz mercs in Tashkent.”

“I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it would take too much time to orchestrate. As it is, with all the assets we have in place in Afghanistan, it’ll be all I can do to pull something together for tonight.”

“As soon as he’s done with the pictures, I’m heading to Tashkent,” Stone said.

“No, you’re not.” Iggy pointed at him. He could feel his face and neck getting warm. “This is a Black Management op. We have a command structure. Let me introduce you to it-in our world, I’m a five-star and you get to keep your old rank-what’s that, an E-6, E-7?” Iggy held his gaze. “Got that Devil Dog?”

Stone stared at him for several seconds, then said, “Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”

“Good. What’s the distance between SHANGRI-LA and Bagram?”

“You wouldn’t know the station identifier code for Bagram, would you, sir?” Stone said. His voice was stiff with an underlying tone of controlled anger, but Iggy didn’t care. Stone had accepted him as the alpha dog and that was all that mattered.

“Oscar-Alpha-India-X-ray.”

Stone punched the code into the flight computer and a color chart of the Bagram airspace appeared on one of the LCD monitors. “Electronic Jeppesens. Cool. Says here the range is five hundred forty nautical miles-that’s pushing it for helos, sir. And sir, I’m an E-8.”

“Master Sergeant Stone, huh? You don’t see a lot of Master Sergeants out doing field work.”

“I volunteered, sir.”

“Good for you.”

“And you can call me ‘Top,’ sir.”

“We’ve got a rescue to plan, Top.” Iggy reached into one of the pilot’s salesman’s cases and dug around until he found a pen, paper and a calculator. He sighed. “I hate this back-of-the-napkin math when roughing out a mission. Let’s see, we can knock the back rows out of the Pave Hawks and stick in two one-hundred-eighty-five-gallon tanks and that will up our fuel to-three-sixty plus two times…” His voice trailed off, but he continued to move his lips and scribble on the notepad. “A gallon of JP8 weighs six point eight pounds…accounting for all the weight from the extra fuel coupled with the high altitude flying out of Bagram, I calculate a burn rate of nine hundred sixty pounds an hour, give or take twenty.”

“Just listening to your calculus, I’d say you’ve got about five hours of flying time,” Stone said as he tried to read Iggy’s ciphers.

Iggy looked over at Stone. “You’re good-four hours, fifty minutes plus the twenty minute emergency reserve. Average of one-twenty knots is a safe bet, so we need four and a half hours to target. That means refueling twice which isn’t easy.”

“Ferry tanks?”

“Too much drag. We don’t have that kind of time. We’ve got refueling arrangements with the big military for Combat Shadows and Combat Talons, but that’s usually when we’re working jobs across the border in Pakistan or Iran, and it’s expensive.”

“Air-to-air refueling is the way to go-Stella has Pave Hawks?”

“Afghan theater-right where we’re headed.”

“Too bad she doesn’t have Pave Lows so we could take more troops in.”

“We’ve got ’em, but they’re all committed right now. When I left, it was very hot in Northern Pakistan, chasing down another lead on Abdullah. I might be able to move some around. I’ll do what I can. We’ve also got a half-dozen Super Cobras with the latest upgrades.” Iggy turned in his seat and shouted. “GENGHIS, you still with us?”

“Haven’t got rid of me yet,” GENGHIS yelled back.

“I’m not coming up with any good ideas about how to get into that camp,” Stone said. “It’ll be risky, but I’m thinking we’re going to have to pass as tangos and try the main gate.”

“Nah,” Iggy shook his head and pointed to the larger crater. “We’ll fly a Pave Hawk right up to their backside. We’ll come in at night, drop down into the pit at the far end-I’d say it’s about twenty clicks from the camp-we fly inside the bowl right up to the rock ridge. It’ll give us both audio and visual cover.” Iggy motioned to the ridge between the two pits with his artificial finger. A narrow bench along the south tip of the ridge joined the two craters. “You fly. How tough is it to fly that in the dark?”

Stone laughed. “I can barely keep a helo in the air. You need real bus drivers-the best ones you’ve got.”

Iggy pursed his lips and made a whistling noise as he exhaled through them. “My top flier is in Iraq. He’s a cocky son of a bitch, but Beach Dog could pierce the eye of a needle in a sandstorm.”

“I know the guy. Real friendly type.” Stone banked the plane in another circle. “It’s about fifteen hundred miles from Baghdad to Bagram-around three hours by jet if you’re not exactly respectful of everyone’s airspace. It’ll be tight. What the hell is taking Ashland so long?”

“Cam’s been wanting to buy a jet. We could sure use one of our own right now.”

“Outsource it. Get Blackwater to fly Beach Dog up. They rent out.”

“Great idea.” Iggy swiveled in the seat, starting to get up. “I’ve got a secure satellite phone in one of the rucksacks. I’ll start putting everything into place. We’ve got to get to Cam tonight before they fuck her up too bad.”

Stone stopped him before he could leave. “You can’t possibly trust Ashland,” he said in a low voice.

“He’s French,” Iggy said, as if he had used his strongest swear word. “They ally with you only because they don’t have the cajones to take you on, mano-a-mano. But we might need him.”

Ashland cleared his throat. He stood in the doorway of the flight deck. “Camera’s full.”

“Get us out of here,” Iggy said as he stood, ignoring Ashland.

He hopped to the door, but Ashland didn’t move.

Ashland said. “Let’s be clear. When it comes to stopping terrorists, we’re allies-the War on Terror is where we have differences. I’ve risked my life for two years to infiltrate Rubicon-an American company funding terrorists to secure future business-and what’s your CIA doing? Tell me who has cajones.”

Iggy pursed his lips and took a deep breath. He wanted to punch him out on principle, but the son of a bitch was right.

Iggy pushed by him and hopped down the aisle to search for the sat phone and a laptop so he could rough out the SMEAC. If they were going to pull it off tonight, he needed his operation orders ready when they landed.

Chapter Seventy-Five

Shangri-la

The picture of the bearded leader was plastered everywhere in the camp-on banners, on murals painted on the sides of buildings and woven into tents. She had tried to listen in on several conversations to at least pick up which one he was, but she couldn’t decipher anything. As the truck carrying Camille pulled into the terrorist training compound, the driver started honking his horn nonstop. Young men poured outside and circled around the pickup, glaring at her. Half of them wore white dishdashi, the other trousers and shirts. From the hatred in their eyes, she could only guess that some saw her as a Western whore, others as the devil herself. Their rage jabbed her from all directions. Any moment, they could mob her and she sure as hell was going to take as many with her as possible. Her hands were tied in front and she was confident she could at least spray an AK. She eyed the tango with the nearest assault rifle and prepared to ram herself into him and seize it for her big finale.

One of the men grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. He yelled something to the crowd and they started chanting. If she threw her body weight against the cross-eyed tango, she could probably get his weapon. The crowd was ready to rock any moment and she preferred to be the one on the offense.

Three. She took a deep breath.

Two. She leaned back to give herself a little more force.

One.

At that instant, she saw a man step from a tent and everyone looked toward him. He had a long peppery white beard and flowing white robe.

The Osama wannabe.

Abort.

The leader of al Qaeda, or at least one faction of al Qaeda, was less than ten meters from her. She could no longer grab an AK and spray.

She now had to aim.

The al Qaeda leader said something that quieted everyone down, then dispersed the crowd. He slipped back into a small white tent with stylized Arabic phrases over the doorway. She guessed they were verses from the Koran. It was the only tent without his image plastered on it. She had just located his lair.

A man in his mid-thirties, an elder in the crowd, directed the men in the pickup, pointing to a small building near one of the construction sites on the far side of the camp, deeper into the crater. The truck engine started and the driver honked for the leftover crowd to get out of his way. He didn’t wait, just started moving, bumping into anyone in his way.

Haji was on a mission from god.

The pickup weaved through the center of the camp and she was starting to feel a little carsick. It was so hot the doors of the buildings, tent flaps and sides of tents were open. Most of the tents seemed to be dormitories and the fixed structures included a mosque, an open-air madressa and an office building crowned with satellite dishes and antennae.

The compound was perched on the upper level of the abandoned open pit mine’s wide bench. On one side was a fifty meter ridge of solid rock that ran for a couple kilometers beyond the camp, then seemed to open up into another pit; on the other side of the camp the ground suddenly dropped off a good fifteen meters to the next bench, leading to the lower depths of the mine. She could see half a dozen terraces and estimated that the mine was a hundred to a hundred fifty meters deep. The far side was several kilometers away and the south wall was a vertical cliff dropping to the crater’s depths. Except for the rock ridge behind the main compound, the walls seemed to be crumbling. Large chunks of several benches had collapsed and were now sand piles on the next level.

They had no concertina wire, no fences to protect them. They didn’t need it. There was one way in and one way out. Camille kept studying the terrain for alternate exits, but didn’t discover any.

The truck stopped at a building site on the south perimeter of the main compound, two hundred meters from the nearest tent. Concrete pillars had been poured for something and one wall had been roughed out, but no tools were scattered about and she didn’t get the feeling that any progress had been made there for a long time. Adjacent to the site was a small eight by ten shack made of scrap lumber. A padlock hung on the door, but it wasn’t locked. No one had gotten around to painting the boss-man’s likeness on its side. The tangos were slipping.

The truck stopped in front of the shed. Two tangos stayed in the back of the truck to guard Camille, but they didn’t need to. She wasn’t about to try to escape until she knew she could get the head of al Qaeda first.

Several men wheeled out a concrete mixer, then started throwing tools from the shed, emptying it as fast as they could. They clearly had not been expecting houseguests and she hated to impose.

Chapter Seventy-Six

The private firms’ role in the region continues today, with contractors now part of the CIA/military operation attempting to run down Osama bin Laden and his associates along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

– Salon.com, April 15, 2004, as contributed by Peter W. Singer

Camp Obsidian, Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan

The Black Management war room was stuffy from the breath of over two dozen men. Nearly half wore flight jumpsuits, the rest combat fatigues. Hunter stood out with his Day-Glo orange prison uniform which he hadn’t taken time to change out of because he wanted to be included in Iggy’s planning before the mission briefing, not that he had been allowed any real input. Iggy didn’t miss a chance to remind him who was in charge. The only break Hunter had taken was to make sure the body of his fellow Bushman was offloaded from the Gulfstream, identified and transferred over to the big military. When he had ducked away the plan called for a minimum of four Super Cobras for close air support and Iggy was still hoping for six. He was curious if he had managed to round up the additional gunships.

Hunter looked around the room for a place to sit. There was an empty chair by the helo pilot Beach Dog. The last time he’d seen him was in Baghdad when he had knocked him out and duct taped him to a steering wheel. He decided it was better to grab the seat beside GENGHIS.

Standing at the head of the conference table, Iggy introduced his staff-adjutant, intel, operations and logistics officers. Hunter looked back to the doorway to see if the others were coming in, then he realized Iggy must only have included the flight crews and the team leaders. The commanders would brief their men en route, he guessed.

Each of Iggy’s officers briefed his area of responsibility in the op orders, then Iggy spoke, outlining his commander’s intent. So far so good, Hunter thought when he heard that the extraction of Stella was the primary objective and destruction of the tango training facility was secondary.

A giant LCD screen displayed one of Ashland’s long range photos of the terrorist training camp, marked up with arrows and symbols showing each chalk, aircraft, and the surface danger zone. Iggy used it to describe the fire plan sketch.

“Each Pave Hawk will insert a team of three operators. CHALK ONE provides recon, security and support by fire.” He gave the grid where the main force was going. “CHALK ONE will locate the objective while CHALK TWO sets up a kill box around the tangos’ barracks using Claymores to cover our egress.” He explained that Camille-Stella-was being extracted, so that everyone knew that one extra body would be reentering friendly lines. The entire operation was expected to take forty minutes. Iggy continued, “If everyone’s taken out, the Cobras will destroy the target. Now I anticipate a successful mission and upon completion, the Cobras will go in hot and neutralize the camp. When we’re finished, not one of those muj is ever going to threaten America.”

Hunter opened his mouth, then forced it closed. He caught himself shaking his head and tightened his neck muscles. This was definitely not the plan they had roughed out. He flipped to the second page of the op orders to be sure. Without saying a word to him, Iggy had slashed the number of troops to a fraction of the originally planned size.

When they last left off, Iggy was going to shuffle things around so they would have Pave Lows, helicopters that could carry over thirty troops. Without consulting him the operation had gone from fifty tier-one operators to six. Stella had the men and the equipment, but Iggy had obviously decided against it, if that had ever really been his intent. Hunter could’ve accepted the decision from regular military, but this was Stella’s company and her life was the one on the line. He remembered Stella once telling him that she had to give Iggy a minority stake in the company to lure him on board and Hunter was starting to wonder if this didn’t give him a motive to want her out of the picture. He took a deep breath as he tried to hold his military bearing together, listening intently to the rest of the briefing on the mission’s execution, then the administration and logistics. He knew there was no need to hear the command and control section of the briefing because it was far too clear who was in control of Stella’s army.

“Two Cobras will be running forward reconnaissance and providing route security and CAS.”

Hunter wrinkled his brow and felt himself get warm.

“We are expecting soft targets only, so the Cobras are carrying full complements of Hydras and fully loaded turrets with HE and SLAP rounds. The Pave Hawks are each outfitted with rocket pods. The intent is to level the camp after the extraction. We’re taking along AIM-9 Sidewinders in case the Uzbek air force manages to get its MIG off the ground. When inside Uzbek airspace, if anyone lights you up, you’re authorized to neutralize the threat. They’ve allowed al-Zahrani to train terrorists in their country and they’ll have to face the consequences.”

Beach Dog leaned back in his chair and stretched. He was in the requisite olive green flight suit, but wore a bright red, yellow and blue Hawaiian shirt over it like a smock. He held one finger in the air and started speaking before Iggy called on him. “You expecting hostile locals?”

“Negative. We don’t anticipate letting them know we’re there. The only tricky part is crossing the border. The Russians are still helping them keep up their radar equipment there. We’ll fly nap-of-the-earth and through known radar gaps. Intel says that everywhere outside of the border zone, the old Soviet radar net hasn’t been working for years. They have some localized radar at their major airports, but they don’t even have radar contact to control commercial flights over their territory and rely exclusively on position-reports by pilots. Their airspace is up for grabs and tonight Black Management’s going to own it. As for their forces, they have less than two dozen operational Fishbeds and Fulcrums-for you post-cold warriors, I’m talking about MIG-21s and MIG-29s. Their pilots get very little training time in them because Uzbekistan is too cash-strapped.”

Iggy continued, “Two Pave Hawks will transport two teams of three operators each.” Iggy tapped his computer and an old satellite photo of Uzbekistan appeared on the monitor. He gave a six-digit grid for the refueling points. “At zero-one-thirty hours the Hawks will rendezvous at the second refueling point, designation STARLIGHT with a Combat Talon for air-to-air refueling.” He waved his hand in the air for emphasis. “If ever de-briefed, you are to claim that we landed twice each leg in the desert and you believe it was the Russian mob that met us with two Soviet-era fuel trucks. Do I make myself clear?”

GENGHIS carried an IV bag with him and sipped on a Gatorade. He whispered to Hunter. “I’d guess some general’s putting a star on the line for Camille by loaning us that tanker.”

“I’d put my money on the OGA doing it to wipe out the tango base. After we grab her, the tangos will bug out and scatter.” Hunter leaned over to GENGHIS and spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

Iggy slapped the table with his artificial hand. “Gentlemen. There is to be no speculation-no discussion-not a whisper.”

“Yes, sir,” Hunter said and GENGHIS echoed him.

“Each Pave Hawk will top off, then land at STARBRIGHT to refuel the Cobras that do not have air-to-air refueling capabilities. You’ll find the grid in your orders. The Pave Hawks will be carrying hoses and portable pumps. The Hawks will then return to the MC-130 and refuel themselves.”

The briefing ended twenty minutes later and Hunter waited for the men to leave before he approached Iggy, who was sitting down while he turned off the laptop.

“Permission to speak freely, sir,” Hunter said.

“Close the door.”

“Two Cobras and two Pave Hawks-what’s that all about? Where the hell are the Pave Lows and all the troops?”

“Three of our Cobras are in for heavy maintenance. I’m still waiting on the green light from the mechanics for one of the two we’re taking and it has to launch in twenty minutes if everything’s going to run on time.”

“We can’t do this with six operators.”

“It just has to be a little more surgical than originally planned.”

“Doesn’t Black Management have additional air support in theater?”

“It’s committed. There’s a major sweep going on in Northern Pakistan against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Everyone’s stretched so thin, I’ve even got the big Army screaming for more. You’re a Marine. Do the math.”

“I have. You lied to me.” Hunter clenched his jaws and gritted his teeth. He felt a jab of pain from the empty tooth socket, but ignored it. “You said you would redeploy whatever it took to save her. This is Stella’s company for god’s sake. This isn’t the real military. Pull the fucking resources.”

“Get with the 21st century, Stone. We are the real military and we’re in the middle of WWIII right now. Camille understands that. She would never forgive me if I yanked resources in the middle of an op. You don’t do that and you know it.” Iggy closed the laptop. “And I said I would try and I sure as hell did.”

“I’m starting to think you don’t want to save her.”

“Enough, Stone.” Iggy stood and took a step toward Hunter. His face was bright red. “You are not the only one who loves Cam. You’re just the only one who can have her. It’s not fucking fair, but I still saved your ass when that was what she wanted. And you can bet your life I’m going to do everything I can to get her back safely.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well now you do. And I appreciate you not telling her. Dismissed.”

The rotors of the Pave Hawks were starting to move when Hunter walked with Iggy to the lead bird. The operators were standing around on the ramp. The Super Cobras had already left. Hunter patted the side of the Hawk for good luck as he climbed into the back. Beach Dog had stuck a small cat figure with a raised paw onto the dashboard. Hunter had seen them all over Okinawa and was pretty sure they were some kind of a Japanese good luck charm, but he couldn’t figure out how it fit into the guy’s usual Hawaiian motif.

Hunter stuck his head into the front and put his hand on Beach Dog’s shoulder.

“Sorry about what happened back in Baghdad,” Hunter said. “I want you to know I have nothing against your kind of people.”

“Surfers?” Beach Dog looked up from his checklist and smiled. “I think you misunderstood me. All’s cool, dude. Let’s just go save the lady.”

Hunter watched as GENGHIS positioned himself on the outside seat of the four-man NOMEX bench so that he didn’t risk anyone bumping against his arm.

“Sure you’re up to it, buddy?” Hunter said as he sat beside him, not happy that he was about to spend nearly five hours cramped in a middle seat. GENGHIS’ quick rebound surprised him, but he’d known other snake eaters like him. The more bunged up, the more hard-assed they became.

Just then Iggy boarded the helicopter and pointed at GENGHIS. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in the infirmary.”

“Waste of time. The nurse was a dude.”

“Get out. Raab here is my second shooter.” He motioned to a stocky guy standing several feet away on the ramp who looked like he could drive fence posts with his bare hands. He and Ashland were hurrying to smoke the last of their cigarettes.

“With all due respect, sir,” GENGHIS said and continued, “Ms. Black is there because she tried to get an IV to save my life. I owe her and I don’t like debts.”

“I can’t risk others by asking them to count on a teammate who’s already wounded.”

GENGHIS glared at him, then stared at his artificial arm. Hunter started to say something, but Iggy could take care of himself. He’d sure proven that.

“Sir,” GENGHIS said. “Ms. Black has earned my loyalty and my respect. I’ll give my last breath to save her. Besides I’m all knitted up and ready to tango.”

Iggy pursed his lips and held his breath for several seconds as he stared at GENGHIS. “If you show any signs of disorientation along the way, you’re staying in the helo.”

Ashland and Raab approached the Pave Hawk and Hunter could smell the cigarette smoke even over the jet fumes.

Iggy motioned to Raab. “You’re bumped to CHALK TWO. Take Callaghan’s place and tell him to go home for the night.”

“Yes, sir.”

Iggy radioed the replacement orders to the CHALK TWO team leader while Ashland climbed onto the empty backwards-facing seats. The extra internal fuel tanks were a plastic wall within twelve inches of the seats. He wedged himself in and sat sideways with his legs facing the door.

“Hey, hey, hey. What are you doing?” Iggy tapped his artificial hand on Ashland’s leg.

“I left you the last seat. I didn’t think you’d want to sit back here,” Ashland said.

Hunter could tell from the bulges that Ashland had body armor on even though he wore civilian clothes-brown trousers and a white shirt. With his curly jet black hair and swarthy complexion, he could easily pass as one of the tangos like he had when Hunter and Stella had discovered him in the insurgent safe house back in Anbar.

“You don’t have the right skill set for this,” Iggy said.

“But I do. My Arabic is flawless. I might be French, but my mother is Algerian. My father was pied-noir.”

“I don’t give a flip about your pedigree. Get out.” Iggy glanced at his watch.

“You need another Arabic speaker if you want find her. I know you have enough margin with the fuel to cover my weight.”

“Can you shoot?”

“Definitely.”

“I can use you for recon. Finding her is going to be a bitch. But fuck with me and I’ll draw and quarter you myself.” Iggy stifled a yawn as he climbed into the Pave Hawk and strapped himself in. He was ready to blow, so he took a deep breath to calm himself down. He was getting fed up with constantly being challenged and argued with every step of the way. Private military had its drawbacks and one of them was the lack of a stockade.

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Shangri-la

The tool shed was a blast-furnace and Camille was breathing hard. The shed was single-wall construction-thick plywood on a frame of scrap lumber. She was confident that she could kick through the walls and felt a little insulted that they thought so little of a female prisoner that they would stick her in such a minimum security shack. Light came in through a knot in one of the boards and she used it to search the ground for anything that she could use as a weapon. It wasn’t likely, but they might have missed something when hastily clearing it for use as makeshift guest quarters.

The call to prayer sounded tinny. She laughed that even al Qaeda used canned calls to prayer over loudspeakers and didn’t even bother with a real live muezzin. It was the second one that she’d heard since her arrival and it was still daylight out so it had to be late afternoon. She couldn’t wait for the sun to go down, she thought, as she ran her fingers through the sandy floor, systematically searching for a tool. About a half inch below the loose top layer, the sand was as hard as concrete. Sand and dirt were wedged under her fingernails and she reeked of sweat, which wasn’t strong enough to mask the smell of Pete’s blood.

Her finger hit something sharp. A nail. Her spirits soared when she realized it was between four and five inches long. Finally, she had something serious to work with. In case they searched her quarters, she reburied it and then continued her treasure hunt, raking her fingers through the sand, wondering where Hunter was and trying to convince herself that he had gotten safely far away.

If she only could’ve seen him, smelled him, tasted him one last time. They had been within a few feet of each other when the airplane had zoomed over her and now she’d never see him again. She tried to come up with rescue scenarios, but she didn’t want to deceive herself into false hopes that could distract her from what she had to do.

She was confident she could break out of the shack at night, but she doubted she could survive the desert if she ever made it out of the camp. It was a moot point anyway. As soon as she saw the head of one of the two al Qaeda factions, she knew she had to do whatever it took to assassinate him. Taking him out would be a blow the terrorist organization might never recover from, particularly now that it seemed to be splintering in a bitter succession struggle. It didn’t know it, but al Qaeda had brought a suicide bomber into its midst. All she needed now was a bomb.

“Marhaba,” a voice said as someone fumbled with the padlock on the shed door.

She immediately sat down and leaned against the wall and drew her legs up close to her body. It was time to paint the picture of a compliant, fearful female. The Muslim fundamentalists had such a low opinion of women, she was determined to give them what they wanted.

Fresh air rushed inside as the door opened.

“Stay against back wall, please,” a young man said in heavily accented English as he set a large bucket full of water inside the shed. A guard stood outside the door with an AK pointing in at her.

“Don’t hurt me,” Camille said, making her voice crack as if she had been crying.

“Water to clean. Prepare yourself.” He tossed Camille a light gray jilbab and a head scarf.

“Prepare myself for what?”

“Tonight-marriage. The mut’a, insh’allah.”

Camille wanted to laugh and toss the clothes back into his face, but instead she said, “I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t hurt me.”

“Tonight, you marry or you die.”

“No!” She pretended to cry and raised her bound wrists in front of her face and put her hands together as if praying. “I don’t want to die. Help me, please.”

He looked away.

“Who is the groom?” Camille said.

“Al-Zahrani, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,” the messenger said as he closed the door.

“And may al-Zahrani fuck off and die,” Camille whispered as she got back on her hands and knees and continued her search for more nails.

Chapter Seventy-Eight

39° 45' 10.02 N, 65° 09' 15.12 E (Uzbekistan)

Three hours into the operation, Hunter was still awake, unable to snooze like he usually did during insertions, and his body had grown stiff and achy. The seats were nylon stretched over an aluminum frame and they were only marginally better than the alternative, which was the metal floor. More than once he’d sat on the floor for entire missions when the seats had been removed so more troops could be crammed inside. Usually the troop doors of the helicopter were also removed for easy access, but given the sandstorm that they had already gone through, he was happy Iggy had decided against it, probably to reduce drag and conserve fuel. Hunter stretched as much as he could, but with Iggy and GENGHIS sandwiching him, he could move only enough to keep some circulation going in his lymph systems so his muscles didn’t get worse. At least his legs had room to stretch out toward the pilots.

The only light in the Pave Hawk was the glow from the partial glass cockpit. Hunter watched the line of the color weather radar sweep the area, then glanced over to the Doppler navigation system and the LCD map of their location. The Pave Hawk was an older model that seemed to have been retrofitted with the latest in glass cockpit avionics.

An orange light to the left of the pilot flickered, indicating a warning light had gone off. Hunter turned his head to read the caution message on the middle display, but before he could see what the problem was about, it went off. He prayed it was an anomaly. They were pushing the equipment to its limits because Stella couldn’t wait. Right after the sandstorm one of the Cobras had had to turn back because of fluctuating turbine gas tempature. They didn’t need any more problems that might force them back. Iggy had established liberal go/no parameters of one Hawk and one Cobra, but Hunter had his own: as long as one bird would stay in the air long enough to get him within walking distance, it was a green light. Hell, as long as he was still breathing, it was a go.

Beach Dog’s ass was numb and his mind wasn’t far behind. Extended range missions had a way of grinding him down with boredom. Top Guns who retired to long hauls in civilian aircraft must go out of their minds, he thought as he relieved himself in his pee bag.

As usual with a black mission, radio contact was minimal. Today the Pave Hawks were using the calls signs JACKAL ONE and TWO and the remaining Super Cobra was DRAGON ONE. He laughed when he heard that the MC-130’s designation was COWBIRD. Those gas station attendants either had a self-image problem or they didn’t get what the game was all about.

Finally they were approaching the point STARLIGHT and some action. He knew it was too early to start searching for the tanker, but he couldn’t help but watch the radar screen as if it were a video game. Any minute the race with his wingman would begin to see who would be the first one to make radar contact with the tanker.

The radar swept around and around on the screen. He saw a blip, then it faded. A few sweeps later, it reappeared. He was trying to get a fix on it when he heard the voice of the second Pave Hawk’s pilot. “JACKAL TWO, contact five right for forty, beaming south at 120 knots.”

“Damn,” Beach Dog whispered to himself. The first round of drinks after the mission was completed was now on him. He confirmed that the MC-130 was five degrees to their right at a range of forty nautical miles. “Contact,” Beach Dog said over the radio.

“JACKAL ONE is channel 50, looking for gas,” Beach Dog said.

“JACKAL ONE, COWBIRD is holding at STARLIGHT, three thousand feet.”

Beach Dog picked him up on the situation display. He punched the data into the flight computer and it confirmed his rendezvous heading. Pulling up on the collective, he pushed the Pave Hawk to match the plane’s airspeed and worked the cyclic so that the helicopter began to climb up to meet the MC-130. He searched the dark skies for the turboprop aircraft. He had lost the beer in the first bet, but he could still win the second round of drinks from his wingman if he could be the first now to make visual contact.

Several minutes passed and he couldn’t spot it, although the radar told him he was getting close. He hated to roll over and ask for an assist, but he squeezed his mike and did it anyway. “COWBIRD, JACKAL ONE. No joy. Request Christmas tree.”

A flash of red and green caught Beach Dog’s eye as the Combat Talon briefly turned on its exterior lights. “Tally the tanker, one-thirty, high, seven miles,” Beach Dog said to his copilot as he spotted it. He leveled his helo out at two thousand feet, a thousand feet below the tanker and a mere three hundred above the highest terrain. Keying the mike, he said, “COWBIRD, JACKAL ONE, you’re seven-thirty, low for seven.”

JACKAL TWO also called in its position relative to the tanker, indicating that it was also below it and seven nautical miles away.

“JACKAL FLIGHT, you are also cleared into the right observation position,” the commander of the tanker said, giving permission for both helicopters to approach.

Beach Dog climbed five hundred feet above the tanker and positioned himself a thousand feet abeam its wing line so that the MC-130’s commander could see him. Then he heard, “JACKAL FLIGHT. COWBIRD has a tally. Cleared into the stabilized position, left hose. Check nose is cold, switches safe.”

Beach Dog turned off his radar and glanced at the panel to confirm that all weapons switches were off. “COWBIRD, JACKAL ONE’s nose cold, switches safe.”

“COWBIRD, JACKAL TWO’s nose is cold, switches safe,” the second Pave Hawk pilot said.

“JACKAL FLIGHT ready,” Beach Dog said as he had hundreds of times before.

“Cleared to plug,” the MC-130 commander said as he banked the aircraft into a tight circle with the helos on the inside so that they could close on the tanker using their smaller turn radius since they didn’t have excess speed to narrow the gap.

Beach Dog and his wingman were about to pull within feet of the airplane, out of sight of its commander who was relying upon intercom reports from observers watching from the aft side doors. The slightest error could cause a collision in the pitch black night.

Pucker time.

Beach Dog lived for these moments.

Holding his breath, he studied the small yellow light on the pod hydraulic system. It was ready to plug and play. He tapped the controls, coaxing a little more speed out of the craft.

“Forward three, down two,” the commander said as Beach Dog moved toward the basket at the end of the long invisible hose trailing from the aircraft. He fought the airplane’s wake as he stabilized the helicopter just below and behind the tanker. The basket was at his one o’clock. He caressed the controls and flew the fixed probe on the front of the Pave Hawk into the basket. It mated and the gas pump started.

Now Beach Dog had to keep it steady for the next seven or eight minutes. At least the air was smooth tonight. This was his most vulnerable time and he trusted the Cobra was somewhere out there, covering his back. He lowered his seat and ducked down so he could keep an eye on the green refueling light. The world faded away as he focused on the slow dance with the tanker. As much as he wanted to use his feet, he forced himself not to touch the pedals and risk overcompensating. When necessary, he lightly tapped the controls, adjusting his position.

Several minutes later, the red light came on and the transfer was complete. He reduced power and drifted aft for disengagement from the basket and to position the helo on the outer edge of the airplane’s wake.

Time for the Beach Dog to surf the wave.

Banzai!

Expecting to come free of the aircraft, he felt a small vibration, then a tug, so he looked outside. The Pave Hawk was still connected to the tanker. Working the controls, he tried to gently move away from the basket. The MC-130’s take-up reel was supposed to retract the hose. Nothing happened. They were stuck together in midair. The basket needed a little more convincing to let go. He cut back on the throttle and lifted the nose higher to cause drag to slow down his helo so the damn hose was jerked away by the faster plane.

He felt a jolt. The helicopter shuddered and he saw the guide lights under the plane move away. The Hawk yawed to the right, then dropped. Something smacked the windshield with a loud clap and he jumped. It whacked again and again.

Beach Dog worked the controls as if they were an extension of his own body. The Pave Hawk stabilized, but something kept whipping the helo, pounding the glass like an out of control dominatrix.

The hose.

With each whack, Beach Dog was sure the window was going to give and send daggers into them. As the helicopter was thrown around and beaten, he suddenly pictured the steel hose flipping into the path of the rotors. If that happened, that would be it. The forward motion had to stop fast. His airspeed was still over one hundred knots. He shoved down the collective and tipped the nose right up to the edge, daring the craft to flip while he used the airframe to brake. His stomach did a somersault, but the Hawk slowed and the thumping stopped. A caution light flashed on the console to his left. He glanced at the center panel and a gearbox chip light winked at him. The controls were responsive, but the light was now glowing steadily. The detector screened for ferrous particles in the system and if it was telling the truth, the tail rotor’s gearbox was chewing itself up.

“JACKAL ONE, declaring an emergency and setting down.”

Beach Dog slowly looked around below him for suitable landing terrain.

Iggy grabbed the extra headset and gave orders as they were losing altitude. That guy was a true operator, never giving up, giving orders even when Beach Dog wasn’t completely sure they were going to make it.

“JACKAL TWO this is TIN MAN. Activate bump plan. DRAGON ONE, hold position and stand by.”

The helicopter descended straight down. Hunter had thought Beach Dog had it back under control, but they were going straight down so fast, he wasn’t sure anymore. Suddenly, the descent slowed and a few seconds later it kissed the ground. Everyone clapped and whistled and Beach Dog reached over and petted his lucky cat attached to the dash.

“Sierra Hotel,” Hunter congratulated him with insider lingo for shit hot.

Hunter and GENGHIS made eye contact with each other and GENGHIS shook his head, closing his eyes as he said, “Dodged another one. You know my big fear is I’m not going to go in combat. I just know it’s going to be some dumb-ass accident like this because somebody packed the fucking apricots and ate the goddamn Charms.”

Hunter smiled. He had never really believed the old WWII myth among mechanized infantry that every time a tank had been blown up, it had been found to have had a can of apricots inside. He told himself that the modern version about the Charms candy was equally untrue and it couldn’t possibly have been the cause of the difficulties earlier. Urban combat legend or not, he wasn’t about to admit that when he’d downed a MRE in Bagram, he did eat a handful of Charms before he realized what he had done. Bad juju was not something he wanted to mess with.

Everyone sat inside the helo waiting for the dust and sand to settle before getting out. The second Pave Hawk would be there any minute and they would swap aircraft according to Iggy’s bump plan. If this helo could be fixed, it would follow with the second chalk as soon as it was airworthy. The delay shouldn’t cost them more than five minutes, Hunter told himself while he tried not to think about how they were down to one Hawk, one Cobra and one team. Thinking about how bad things were could only jinx them further.

At least the weather was good, Hunter was thinking, when he saw a bright flash of white lightning, then a firestorm of arching electricity. A blue fireball ballooned about thirty meters away from them in the air, to their three o’clock, then he felt their Pave Hawk shake as the blast wave passed through them.

Oh god. JACKAL TWO. Power lines.

An electrical line had snagged another bird.

The helo smacked into the ground and an orange fireball shot a hundred feet into the air, turning night into day. Within seconds, ammunition started to cook off and began popping and shooting out in all directions. Bullets rained on them, pinging against their Hawk while rockets screamed overhead, flames streaming behind them as they launched themselves from the crashed Hawk. Damn Charms.

Hunter ducked, then felt stupid for doing it.

A few moments later, more rocket trails spewed wildly as their motors detonated. Hunter felt for the seven men aboard, then he realized he had just witnessed the rescue mission going up in flames.

Stella.

“Beach Dog,” Iggy said as he released the safety restraints. “You think you can pry that cage off the fuel intake?”

“NSDQ.”

“Night Stalkers don’t quit, I know-but did the Hawk quit us?”

“The coupling didn’t disengage. We were stuck to the end of the fuel hose until the hose finally broke. Without the fuel and air pressure to hold the basket on, you should be able to pull it straight off-don’t even need a hammer.” Beach Dog was already pulling out a toolkit.

“So what’s that for? Something you failed to tell me?”

“The gearbox chip light came on.”

“Serious?”

“Could ground us. You get a lot of false readings in desert conditions, but it can also mean the tail rotor’s gearbox is ready to go. I need to check it out.”

“Do that first. I need to know if she’s airworthy.” Iggy turned to the rest of the crew. “Wilson, get that piece of crap off the probe. Monroe, Ashland, secure the perimeter. Stone, GENGHIS, check if anyone was thrown clear. Look out for the electrical wires and the unexploded ordnance that’s still cooking off.”

“If the aircraft checks out, is the mission a go, sir?” Hunter said, fully aware they were dancing on the edge of the go/no go parameters. He felt to make sure his sidearm was still in place.

“If there are survivors, we have to scrub and work out something else for tomorrow night.” Iggy shook his head. “This is going to hell fast and I can’t leave men here to die.”

“Then call in the Cobra, bump the gunner and let me take the front seat. You can insert me tonight and I’ll gather intel for a second shot tomorrow night. You know Stella might not have until then. Hell, she might not have until morning.”

Iggy ignored him as he put his hand on the fuel probe. The metal arm extended from the right front of the helicopter and was half the length of the crew cabin, but didn’t go out as far as the rotors. The tip was mated with the metal basket and a couple meters of hose dangled from its end. Most of the rubber sheath had been stripped away from the steel hose.

Hunter stood staring at Iggy, waiting for a response. Iggy looked up at him.

“You go in there, Rambo, without support, you’ll get yourself and Cam killed. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to get her.”

“Sending me in tonight might be her only hope.”

“We’re not there yet.” Iggy reached for the metal basket and tugged. It slid off. He threw it as far into the desert as he could, then a transmission from the Cobra came over the headsets.

“TIN MAN this is DRAGON ONE. Be advised we are at joker.”

The Cobra had reached the fuel state where it needed to start thinking about getting onto the ground so the Hawk could refuel it. The Cobras were killer machines, but they had one critical flaw: they couldn’t refuel in the air.

The burning wreckage continued to send out sporadic rocket fire and bullets. Iggy wanted to wait as long as he could to let the fireworks die down before bringing the Cobra in. They would have to stay in the air until their fuel situation reached critical-bingo. At that moment it didn’t look like the mission would proceed and there was no need to risk another bird if he didn’t have to. He keyed his mike, “DRAGON ONE, TIN MAN. Land at bingo. Caution high-voltage lines.”

The Pave Hawk lay on its side, its tail rotor broken off. Hunter could see bodies burning inside the airframe and he could feel the heat increasing. He and GENGHIS walked around it, giving it a wide berth due to the popping ordnance. The fire crackled with gunshots as bullets aboard the downed craft heated up, but the electric lines troubled him more. When they were near the line, both he and GENGHIS shuffled along, keeping their feet close together and in contact with the ground at all times to avoid electricity arcing through them. The flames were so bright they made his night vision goggles useless.

Beach Dog hurried to the tail and opened a panel so he could get to the intermediate gear box. Holding a penlight in his mouth, he pulled out the chip detector screen, hoping he wouldn’t find metal slivers. The dipstick looked as if it had been rolled in glitter. Beach Dog smiled as it sparkled at him-sand. Sand had gotten into the system and magnetic particles in it were causing the false readings. The gearbox was fine.

“Iggy,” he called back, “she’s good.”

Iggy spoke into his microphone to bring in the Cobra and hurry up with the fuel transfer so they could get moving. “DRAGON ONE, this is TIN MAN. Cleared to land at our eight o’clock. Caution high-voltage lines.”

Hunter and GENGHIS had canvassed the area near the burning helicopter, then methodically expanded their search grid. Hunter heard the Cobra come in for the fuel transfer and knew he had to get back in the next five minutes to have a chance at persuading Iggy to send him on it. He was ready to break off from the search and return to the Hawk.

“You hear that?” GENGHIS said.

The Cobra’s engines stopped and Hunter could hear a faint moan that seemed to come from the desert, beyond where he could see with the light of the flames. He turned away from the wreckage, put on the goggles and cupped his hands over the sides to block out as much light as he could. As he scanned the desert floor, he was sure he heard someone.

“My ten o’clock, twenty meters out,” GENGHIS said.

Hunter spotted the body and shuffled in that direction. When he was confident that he was far enough away from the power line, he sprinted. He smelled burnt flesh as he approached the man. Shining an infrared beam on him, he could see black crispy flesh and raw meat. The face was a grotesque Halloween mask, unrecognizable. His clothes had burned away along with most of his skin. The legs and arms were twisted and obviously broken from the fall. The moan grew fainter.

Hunter squatted down beside him and started to feel for a pulse in his neck, then decided it was better not to touch him and risk further injury. “Can you talk to me? What’s your name?”

The guy groaned softly, giving no sign he comprehended anything. Hunter looked at GENGHIS and shook his head. “You know even if we get the bird in the air, Iggy’s gonna scrub the mission because of this guy.”

“I heard. You fly. Do you think they can fix it?”

Hunter took a deep breath. “We’ve been through quite a bit of sand and dust. I’d bet on a false read.”

Iggy’s voice came over Hunter’s earpiece. “SABER TOOTH this is TIN MAN. Return to base. Any survivors?”

Hunter didn’t respond, but stared at the charred casualty. If he allowed a dying man to keep him away from Stella, he would never forgive himself. He also knew he couldn’t live with himself if he left a teammate behind.

Iggy’s voice came over their earpieces again. “Repeat, any survivors?”

Hunter stared at the man and knew what he had to do. He squatted down to pick him up. “Give me a hand with him.”

“Sure thing.” GENGHIS pulled out his sidearm and fired.

Hunter and GENGHIS returned to the Pave Hawk to see the flight engineer retracting the hose. The refueling was complete. “She airworthy?” Hunter said to Beach Dog, dreading the confrontation with Iggy if she wasn’t.

“Itching to go back up there and visit her tanker friend for more juice,” Beach Dog said. “She’s a go.”

As GENGHIS climbed into the helicopter, Iggy grabbed his arm. His face was stormy. “You pulled the same thing you did in Libya, didn’t you?”

GENGHIS stared at him for a few moments without saying anything, then twisted his body away from Iggy and climbed into the helicopter. Iggy gripped Hunter’s shoulder as he got in. “The truth, Stone. Any survivors?”

Hunter strapped himself into his seat before speaking. He despised GENGHIS for what he’d done, and at the same time felt enormously grateful to the son of a bitch. He looked straight ahead and said, “There are no survivors.”

“I thought so,” Iggy said with a grunt as he slid the door shut. “Beach Dog, get us the hell out of here. We’ve got to get to that tango camp before Camille kicks all their asses without us.”

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Shangri-la

Al-Zahrani was taller and thinner than Camille had expected; he had mysterious brown eyes, peaceful eyes which at the same time had glints of mercy and flashes of vengeance. A cleric in a white skullcap read from a Koran while two guards pointed AKs at her. Back home in the Ozarks, they called this a shotgun wedding, except she wasn’t pregnant and the groom wasn’t the one with the guns pointed at him.

Al-Zahrani held her gaze. For a moment she thought he was trying to tell her something.

The young man who had earlier brought her the water and clothes translated the cleric’s words, cheating whenever he could read the same verse from an English translation of the Koran. “And among His signs in this, that He created for you mates, from among yourselves, that ye may dwell…”

She didn’t have much tolerance for religious writings in any language and quit listening while she assessed the tactical situation. Two guards pointed AKs her. It was a poor choice of weapon for the circumstances and she considered baiting them to shoot her just as she maneuvered in front of al-Zahrani so they hit him as well. It wasn’t her best option since she couldn’t guarantee that he’d be killed, but it might be the best she could do.

Her wrists were tied in front of her, but her legs were now free since they intended for her to spread them soon. No one had bothered to search her since they’d thrown her into the shed. The long nail concealed in her sleeve was an awkward weapon, but it was the best she had found. She figured her best chance was to spike it into the soft spot behind his ear just before he tried to enter her. The thought was so disgusting. What a way to die, shot by bodyguards while being raped by the world’s most wanted terrorist. At least Muslims seemed to bathe a lot.

“The Holy Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, made the mut’a marriage halal.” The interpreter stumbled through the translation. She couldn’t figure out why the hell they were bothering, but she guessed it was part of their screwy ethics.

On the way over she had heard a generator, but al-Zahrani’s tent was lit by several oil lamps. They seemed to reserve the power to run their phones and communications and the few lights outside. She hoped al-Zahrani liked to do it in the dark. Like her Night Stalker buddies always said, “Death waits in the dark.”

She hoped the damn thing would get a move on. At least they had fed her before the ceremony and she guessed that was her dowry. They could at least have given her the whole goat. She made a mental note not to serve boiled goat if she survived this and ever married.

After stifling several mini-yawns she managed to get her eyes to tear up, then she caught al-Zahrani’s gaze and made herself smile at him.

He smiled back.

Dumb fuck.

Soon the peace and blessings of Camille Black would be upon him-god help his soul.

Chapter Eighty

41° 59' 40.88 N, 63° 07' 04.49 E (Uzbekistan)

Despite the snafu with the last air-to-air refueling, the next one didn’t make Beach Dog nearly as nervous as Iggy did, whipping out his laptop and revising the mission plan on the fly. He’d seen it happen many times and he had learned long ago that when things started sliding south the next thing he knew he was waking up in an alley in Tijuana with no wallet and no pants, smelling of booze and puke.

Beach Dog descended and began to hug the ground as closely as he could in case the tangos had some kind of radar warning system, even though he guessed it probably consisted of pie tins tied to a clothesline. He was using FLIR the entire mission, but only through the Afghan-Uzbek border region did he fly close enough to the ground to really need the navigational system. Now it was time to show off why Night Stalkers ruled the darkness. He flew five feet above the dunes, too fast to kick up a trail of sand.

“Five minutes to the LZ. Wax up them boards, dudes,” Beach Dog said as he passed over the south rim of the open pit mine, pointed the nose down and plunged two hundred and fifty feet in seconds. He pushed the speed to one hundred sixty knots and boomed through the man-made canyon, a few feet above the floor. “And hang on. We’re going to be flying the Pipeline.”

For the next several minutes the helicopter lurched sharp to port, then to starboard, up, down, sudden drops and immediate climbs. Man, this is flying.

Beach Dog saw a mound directly in front of them and threw the Hawk hard right, but the canyon wall was dead ahead. Beach Dog spun the Hawk in a Bat-turn, rotating one hundred eighty degrees. He slalomed around the hills, throwing the crew left, then tumbling their stomachs to the right.

“You know what Night Stalkers say,” Beach Dog yelled to anyone listening.

“‘Night Stalkers don’t quit,’” several men said in unison.

A vertical cliff popped up out of nowhere. Beach Dog yanked back on the cyclic and shot straight up and onward at warp speed. “NSDQ is so true, but I was thinking, ‘Death waits in the dark.’”

Chapter Eighty-One

Shangri-la

The cleric, interpreter and one of the two guards left the tent, extinguishing all the lights except a single candle. Al-Zahrani put his arm around Camille’s waist and pulled her close. His breath smelled, even from a few feet away. She met his lips and kissed him violently, channeling her anger into passion, seducing him into lowering his defenses. His mouth tasted like an old tennis shoe and his beard and moustache were steel wool, scratching her face. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she leaned her head back, inviting him to kiss her neck. She giggled, visualizing the soft sounds of bubbles rising to the surface in her witch’s cauldron.

Keeping her bound hands pressed together so he couldn’t see the nail, she touched his face with the sides of her little fingers and rippled her hands down his body as if she were a belly dancer. She stopped short of his hard-on.

Gross.

Al-Zahrani shouted something to the guard as he shoved her down onto his sleeping mat and tore off the 5.11s she had left on underneath the jilbab. The guard blew out the candle.

His vigilance was waning.

Good.

Just before the guard left the tent, al-Zahrani pinned her down. He groped at her breasts, shoving the jilbab up around her neck. Camille’s hate was acid burning in her belly. She wanted to fight back, but she knew she had to force herself to play it out until the opportune moment. As soon as he got bored with her breasts, she would work her hands up into position. She prayed he wasn’t a breast man who would linger forever. There was an artery in the stomach, but she doubted she could find it.

Playing with his chest hairs totally disgusted her, so she gave herself a break and worked her hands up to his beard, but when she got there it still had food in it and she didn’t want to touch it. Just as she started to doubt if she could pull it off, he let her slip her arms over the top of his head and move her wrists right where she wanted them-behind his occipital bone at the lower back of his skull. She would’ve preferred to snap his neck, but it was impossible from that angle.

His cock pressed against her, trying to enter her. She wasn’t in position yet and she had to get this right because she couldn’t stomach this again. Wiggling her hips away, she evaded it while she put her right leg on his hipbone. Her foot there kept him stabilized so she could scoot slightly to the left and maneuver her arms into position.

Her forearms rubbed against his neck, underneath his ears and he laughed. She bent her right arm, bringing it down to her chest and pulling his head closer. As hard as she could, she thrust the nail at the sweet spot behind his left ear.

Al-Zahrani moved his head. She missed and the nail flew from her sweaty hands. He didn’t notice. He shoved her foot off his hip bone and pushed hard into her. She was as dry as the Kyzyl Kum and it hurt like hell. The fucker had her pinned down like a pro wrestler.

She turned her head to the side and waited.

In less than two minutes, he pulled out and called for the guards and the interpreter. They were inside his tent within seconds. Al-Zahrani said something to her as he stroked her hair. She jerked her head away from him and turned her back to him and she pushed down the jilbab. The interpreter said it meant that she pleased him and they would stay married for the next three days.

At least they weren’t going to kill her tonight, though the way she felt, it would’ve been welcome. She would have at least two more chances to take him out and thoroughly disgust herself in the process.

She could do just about anything, but not this again. She had to find a way to take out the fucker tonight.

Two of the guards escorted her from al-Zahrani’s quarters. She forced herself to focus on situational awareness and not how utterly miserable she was feeling because she had to remain in control of her emotions if she was going to succeed.

They passed two huge tents with men sleeping on the ground inside. Nearly as many bedded down on mats outside to get away from the heat. She had seen another barracks on the other side of al-Zahrani’s tent and estimated that the camp held three to four hundred tangos.

The last tent before the dark void between her shack and the compound was more of a canopy like the ones used in big weddings back home. Weddings-she couldn’t let herself think about weddings. And they were not married.

Under the canopy, three dozen men sat on oriental carpets in four different groups. Each of them had an AK within arm’s length and several wore belts with short daggers hanging off them. Some had Korans open in front of them, though she couldn’t imagine that they could see to read from the few kerosene lamps scattered about. They stopped their debates long enough to watch her march by. She could feel their hate.

It was mutual.

One guard walked ahead of her, the other behind. Even after she had passed the last tent, she found no openings to escape.

They arrived at the shed and shoved her inside without tying her feet back up-her first lucky break of the day, she consoled herself, even though all she wanted to do was collapse on the ground and cry.

The shed was pitch black, but gradually she sensed someone else in with her.

Chapter Eighty-Two

42° 09' 25.95 N, 62° 56' 52.31 E (Uzbekistan)

Hunter was feeling queasy when the Pave Hawk deposited him, GENGHIS and Ashland at the release point on the other side of the rock ridge from the tango camp. Expecting to feel amped since he was only a three and a half kilometer hike from Stella, instead he fought away a nagging concern for her. He had done scores of extractions and he always went into them convinced that they could handle whatever came at them, but this one worried him. These stakes were too personal. As he humped the three kilometers around the ridge to the camp, he fought to get Stella off his mind and think of her only as their mission objective, codename GRACKLE. It didn’t do much good. However he reframed it, he was still on his way to rescue the woman he loved.

The passage between the two open pits was a mound of soft sand that slowed them down. As they rounded the base of the ridge, Hunter could see the compound in the distance through the night vision device. It was a new moon and Hunter was happy he didn’t have too much ambient light messing with the night vision goggles. The PVS-14 helmet-mounted monocle was far superior to the old PVS-7 head-mounted goggles that Rubicon had supplied him with. Camille didn’t cut corners with her equipment. Tonight he hoped her investment would pay off.

Hunter carried a rucksack with a half-dozen Claymores. Despite his injuries, GENGHIS wore a pack with the blasting cap assemblies. The spools were light, but the hundreds of feet of wire made them bulky. Ashland was traveling light, looking like a tango with a knock-off Adidas duffle bag. They were two kilometers from the far edge of the camp and Ashland had fallen behind. At least it was easy running. The ground was hard and level, packed down by tons of earthmoving equipment.

“How you doing?” Hunter ran alongside GENGHIS. He didn’t show any signs that his earlier injuries were affecting him, but he was the type who would never show it until he keeled over.

“Better than Ashland,” GENGHIS said. “You trust him?”

Hunter laughed. “He’s the fucker who started this mess. Burned me bad. Was afraid I’d blow his cover because I recognized him.”

“You think there’s a chance he’s working with the tangos?”

“Even with what you did back at the crash site, you’re still the one I want watching my back.” Hunter jogged past him.

The Pave Hawk flew out of the crater and dropped Iggy off on the desert floor, upwind and a kilometer from the start of the ridge above the compound. He was relieved that the desert floor there was hard like in Iraq and he supposed that had to do with the way the winds whipped up from the crater, sweeping the rim clean. Whatever the reason, he was grateful. The M240G medium machine gun weighed enough on its own and the ammo cans were like carrying car batteries: dense, concentrated weight that didn’t help the blisters on his stump. But Iggy knew it wasn’t really the heavy, awkward gear that was irritating him as he jogged to his position. He had lost seven men in a stupid accident that had cut his team in half. The team was smaller than he knew he should be working with, but for Camille, he was willing to take the risk. He hoped to god those bastards hadn’t messed her up too much yet, but he knew what they did to women-and to men.

Several minutes later, Iggy set down his gear and looked over the ridge at the terrorist camp. Through his night vision monocle, he found the reflection of the square inch of glint tape attached to the top of Hunter and GENGHIS’ helmets. It would be invisible to the tangos without night vision equipment, which he hoped they wouldn’t be using. He could see they were approaching the training grounds on the edge of the camp.

Aside from the drop-off one hundred meters behind him, the spot was ideal: He was in range and sight of the entire compound. The tangos seemed to be slumbering away or at least they weren’t loitering about. He took out his binoculars for a quick scan of the perimeter. Their only sentry post with four men was set up at the entry to the pit, but that was over a kilometer away from the camp.

The tangos were a trusting bunch.

Working as fast as he could, he set up the 240-Golf’s tripod and bore-sighted the AN/PVS-17 night vision scope so that the crosshairs were aligned with the barrel. He fed the first rounds of the ammo belt into the machine gun.

“CHALK ONE this is TIN MAN. In position and standing by,” he said over the encrypted radio.

“Copy that,” Stone said.

With everything ready, he took out his thermal binoculars to confirm that they were targeting the right tents with the Claymores. The desert landscape held onto the summer heat as if it remembered the chill of the Uzbek winter and it made most things look shades of yellow and orange, but the dark red of body heat couldn’t be mistaken. He guessed he was looking at three to four hundred tangos, snoozing away in three tents.

Now Iggy could start searching for Camille. Prisoners tended to be kept separated from others and he hoped to find a structure with only a few heat signatures inside. A terrorist training facility was not the type of place that usually held prisoners, so that made it even more likely they’d lock her up somewhere alone-if they hadn’t already killed her. He shoved that thought from his mind as fast as he could.

He started with the structures closest to the entrance of the mine and worked his way toward the raiding party. In each structure he picked up several bodies and assumed they were tangos sleeping wherever they could find a good spot. The body density was far greater than he was looking for, so he kept scanning.

In the middle of the camp, he found something. The pattern appeared to be a single individual with two others positioned less than three meters away. He swapped the thermal imaging binoculars for standard night vision ones. The structure appeared to be a small tent, but it was difficult to see much more because of the camouflage netting blowing in the wind. The pattern was consistent with a prisoner being held by two guards, but he couldn’t imagine anyone stupid enough to hold a prisoner in a tent. It was more likely the camp’s head honcho. He radioed Stone instructions for one of them to check it out after they had infiltrated the camp. Switching back to the thermal binoculars, he kept searching.

Please be alive.

Chapter Eighty-Three

The CIA program’s original scope was to hide and interrogate the two dozen or so al Qaeda leaders believed to be directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, or who posed an imminent threat, or had knowledge of the larger al Qaeda network. But as the volume of leads pouring into the CTC from abroad increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former officials.

The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored, they said. “They’ve got many, many more who don’t reach any threshold,” one intelligence official said.

– The Washington Post, November 2, 2005, as reported by Dana Priest

Shangri-la

“Hunter?” Camille said in an intentionally weak voice, just in case it wasn’t him. Then fell to the ground, pretending to whimper as she moved toward her cache of buried nails. No one answered, but she heard breathing and kept herself turned toward it while she ran her fingers along the exposed wooden frame, searching until she found the knot that marked where she had buried the nails.

“Cut the bullshit, Camille.”

Joe Chronister.

“Joe? Thank god you’re here.” She lied. She had no illusion that he was there to rescue her. If he was in the heart of the terrorist camp, it could only mean that he was somehow working with the tangos. The only question was, was he working on his own or with the CIA? At that moment, it didn’t matter much. All she really cared about was surviving to wreak revenge on al-Zahrani. Her fingers sifted through the sand until she found the nail. “He raped me.”

“Stay where you are. I’ve got a Glock trained on you in case you can’t see it.”

He shined a flashlight on her. She squatted, so he couldn’t easily see that her legs weren’t tied and she contorted her face before she looked up. He had a false beard and was dressed like a muj in a dishdashah. As a smart operative, it was a safe assumption that he was wearing a bulletproof vest. She would have to plan her attack accordingly. She shielded her eyes with her forearm, holding up her bound hands to help paint the picture of a distraught female prisoner. It wouldn’t take much acting.

“You shouldn’t have come here, Camille. You fucked things really good. I set you up for a nice little excursion to Ukraine. You would’ve kept your pretty ass safe.”

“He violated me, Joe.” Her voice cracked and she whimpered. She forced herself to flashback to al-Zahrani rooting around on top of her and let herself feel the pain until she started crying.

“Pretty impressive operation, we’ve got here, isn’t it? You’re one of the few people who can really appreciate the brilliance of what I’ve got going on here. Everything you see here-Rubicon is pulling the strings.”

Camille cried harder, then started sobbing. She fell into the part far too easily. She knew she was in danger of believing herself a victim and losing her edge. She pulled herself back and began moaning, breathing through her mouth as if she couldn’t stop crying.

“Enough of the fucking theatrics. You listening to me?” Joe stepped closer.

Camille rocked herself as she whimpered. Joe Chronister was not someone she had ever thought of as needy, but she realized then that he had a strong need for her to appreciate his work. The more she ignored him, the more he talked.

“I told al-Zahrani he could keep you a couple of nights so it didn’t look bad in front of the boys, then you’re coming over to us at BALI HAI. It’s our duck blind that we use to keep an eye on this goddamn place. It’s also a prison-and a well built one I might add, thank you KGB. It’s a hundred feet down inside an old gold mine that dates back to tsarist times. BALI HAI is the jewel in our newly privatized little gulag chain. With Congress and that Post reporter Dana Priest breathing down our neck about Agency-run black sites, we’re putting them under new management-privately-run prisons, just like stateside. You don’t even need presidential approval when the other motherfucker is the one who’s doing it. That’s the beauty of outsourcing-plausible deniability. Gotta love it.”

She looked up, counting on her puffy eyes. “He raped me. They had AKs. They pinned me down and held me,” Camille said in a near-whisper. “They held me while he…” She gasped for air and then continued “raped me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Is this for real? You’re sniveling like my goddamn wife, for christssake. Pull it together, Camille. What the hell happened to fuck you up like this so fast?”

“Al-Zahrani,” she whispered as quietly as she could. “He, he…raped me.”

“I can’t hear you. What’d you say?”

Chronister bent down toward her and Camille sprang.

She shoved the nail deep into his left eye as she twisted her body at a forty-five-degree angle so she would be clear in case he managed to discharge the weapon. He screamed and the flashlight fell to the ground as he raised his hands up to his eye. Camille put her hands over the hand that was holding the gun. She guided his right hand across his chest underneath his left armpit to avoid any bulletproof vest, then she twisted his wrist into a downward angle. She pulled the trigger, sending a round through his heart and lung.

“That’s for Jackie and the others, you asshole,” Camille whispered before letting him drop.

Chapter Eighty-Four

Shangri-la

Hunter was a kilometer away from the camp’s perimeter when he heard a single gunshot from somewhere directly between him and the compound. He stopped and held his closed fist in the air and GENGHIS halted. Neither man could see anything, so Hunter radioed Iggy.

“TIN MAN this is SABER TOOTH. Request IR recon. One click, my twelve o’clock.”

“SABER TOOTH, TIN MAN. Two heat signatures inside a small fixed structure at your twelve o’clock.”

Hunter started running as fast as he could toward the shack. If Stella was wounded, he might still be able to save her.

Camille didn’t want to touch Chronister, but forced herself to run her hands over his body in search of a knife or other weapons. He was traveling light with only a smashed roll of Mentos in his pocket. She devoured them. Al-Zahrani’s tennis-shoe taste wouldn’t leave her mouth.

Using the water bucket as a bidet, she washed herself although she knew it would take a while until she felt clean again. She took longer than she should have, but less time than she wanted. The polyester jilbab made a lousy towel and she hated wearing it, but her pants were left in al-Zahrani’s tent. The bastard probably kept her panties under his pillow. She spat, but it didn’t help.

She stripped Chronister of his Glock and Kevlar vest, put it on, then pulled up the jilbab so she could run. Lying on her back near a wall, she kicked as hard as she could with both bare feet. The plywood splintered.

The cooler night air felt good as she sprinted toward the camp and al-Zahrani’s tent.

Iggy’s voice came over Hunter’s earpiece. “SABER TOOTH this is TIN MAN. I’m tracking a runner three hundred meters and twelve o’clock from your position, leaving the structure.”

Hunter scanned the area, but was too far away. The lights of the tango camp extended his NVG’s range, but he couldn’t see out more than two hundred meters. The thought of Stella, lying only a few hundred meters from him, bleeding out, made him push harder.

Fifteen seconds later, he could see a shack. He ordered GENGHIS to continue into the camp and take out the generators. If the runner really was Stella at the edge of the compound, he could always call GENGHIS back, but if it wasn’t, he wanted the advantage of total darkness as soon as he could get it.

GENGHIS sprinted ahead past the concrete pillars of the construction site while Hunter circled to the front of the shed. Tools were thrown into a pile just outside the door as if someone had hastily emptied it. His experience told him that’s where they had held Stella. He slipped inside, fanning his weapon from side to side in case someone was there. Then he saw the body and dropped to his knees.

“Oh, my god. Stella.”

Then he saw a bearded face and an under-the-arm gunshot wound, angled to avoid body armor and pierce vital organs. A dead tango and an operator’s signature.

Stella’s alive.

Hunter heard Ashland’s voice over the earpiece. The guy sounded out of breath. “SABER TOOTH. Ashland here. Don’t shoot me. Can I come in?”

“Cleared to enter,” Hunter said, then keyed his mike. “SABER TOOTH to CHALK ONE. Confirmed one dead tango. Suspect GRACKLE is the runner. GENGHIS, attempt intercept.”

GENGHIS confirmed the order as Ashland came into the shed and bent down beside the corpse. “Jesus. That’s Joe Chronister.”

Hunter looked more closely at the tango, then he recognized him. He’d seen the man before, clean-cut and dressed as a Westerner-the interrogator he knew as Zorro. “Who the hell is Joe Chronister?”

“The CIA SOB who put both of us on that flight to hell.” Ashland tried to catch his breath.

“What the hell is the CIA doing working with Rubicon? Oh, forget it. Until we get the lights out, you’re the only one of us who can walk into that place after her without alerting them. You better haul ass right now or I’m shooting you right here.”

It was a new moon and Camille could barely see where she was going. At least her feet were untied so she could run, but her bound hands threw her off balance. She could see the flicker of the lamps of the debating circles in the mess hall.

She moved into the deeper shadows along the base of the cliff rising above the compound, but the ground was a giant mound of loose debris that had fallen from the rock face. The study groups’ lamps were dim, but bright enough to reach the rubble. Rather than double back and move along the edge between the tent and the drop-off to the next lower level of the mine, she lay flat on her belly and crept like a sniper. Even though the jilbab was partially tied around her waist, her knees kept catching on the cloth, tripping her and pulling it loose.

A minute earlier, GENGHIS had been able to see someone running ahead of him at the edge of his sight, then the figure disappeared. The closer he got to the first tent, the more the light from the tangos’ lamps increased the range of his night vision, but he still couldn’t see her. That girl was sure slippery and if he wasn’t running toward a few hundred tangos, he would’ve enjoyed the chase a lot more. He keyed his mike, “SABER TOOTH, GENGHIS here. Contact with the runner has been broken. Proceeding on to generators.”

There was a rock pile blocking Hunter’s passage between the tent and the ridge. He didn’t like to risk sky-lining by walking along the drop-off on the other side, but it was so dark, only a stargazer would notice someone moving between the camp and Orion’s belt. He decided to veer around the tent and hug the edge of the cliff that dropped to the lower level.

He tapped Ashland on the arm and whispered. “This way.”

Ashland pulled off his NVGs and his comm set and stuck them into his duffle bag. Then he walked straight ahead into the light of the camp.

Hunter ran as far as he dared, then dropped to his knees to lower his profile and crawled along the edge. He heard Ashland speak to the men in Arabic as he walked on into the heart of the camp.

Camille was shocked at the tangos’ lack of internal security, but she wasn’t about to complain. They were sleeping everywhere and they all had AKs at their fingertips, but there were no lookouts, no sentries anywhere. As she crawled past the second row of barracks, she was starting to think she might be able to escape or at least die trying. Al-Zahrani was in a tent, not a fortress. If she took him out quietly, she might be able to steal one of their trucks and get away. She just needed a knife to free her hands and slit his throat.

The half-dozen electric lights hanging outside were dim, but enough for her to see and be seen. Camille searched for one of the snoozing terrorists who was separated from the herd. Along the outside of the group, a teenager wearing a knife attached to his belt was curled up on his right side on a rug that was too small for him. She crept over to him and held her breath while she slowly slipped his knife from its sheath.

Suddenly he rolled over on his back and opened his eyes. Stella shoved her right forearm down on his mouth to mute any screams. The knife was in her right hand, positioned behind his left ear. She raked her forearm across his mouth, thrusting the knife into the soft spot behind his left ear. She kept her arm pressed against his mouth for a few seconds in case he used his dying breath to scream.

Back in the shadows, she cut off the rope and rubbed her sore wrists, then moved them in a luxurious range of motion. But if she was going to pull this off, she needed full movement and not only in her wrists. She crept back to the dead tango, grabbed his ankles and dragged him into the darkness where she undressed him.

His stinky clothes were liberating, even if they weren’t the best fit. She rolled up the pant legs and tried on his sandals. They were several sizes too big. The hard sandy ground wasn’t too punishing and her bare feet were quieter anyway, so she pushed them aside. Slinking back to his sleeping mat, she kept her body out of the light and stretched her arm as far as she could as she reached for his AK. Violating every safety rule she knew about firearms, she grabbed it by the barrel and pulled it toward her.

Careful to stay away from light, she worked her way over to al-Zahrani’s tent. For the home of the leader of the world’s most sophisticated and most wanted terrorist organization, al-Zahrani’s tent was modest. It was also poorly guarded like everything else. Earlier in the evening she had noticed the two guards at its entrance, but security on the other sides seemed to have been ignored, aside from one small light illuminating the back. She followed the shadows as far as they would conceal her and she was about to dash into the lit area when she noticed the adjacent plywood structure with the satellite dishes and antennae-the al Qaeda home office. A few meters away from her was enough intelligence to roll up the organization’s entire network-or at least severely damage al-Zahrani’s faction.

She couldn’t live with herself if she managed to escape from the tangos and didn’t take a few extra minutes to pull off an intelligence coup-one that would make her a legend. Since they were on generator, they had to be using laptops. It wouldn’t take her that long to grab a computer or two.

Ashland wasn’t about to waste his time looking for the girl when he was so close to the mother lode of intelligence on SHANGRI-LA and al Qaeda. Since he looked like one of them, he was able to move quickly past the tents toward the fixed structure with the satellite dishes that they had seen in blow-ups of his photos.

If Paris only knew their agent that the CIA captured yesterday was now walking through the front door of al Qaeda’s central administration. Soon enough the president of the republic himself would be hanging the National Order of Merit around his neck, Ashland was certain. He went inside, pulled on his night vision goggles and switched them on. The office was empty and he speculated that the terrorists were prohibited from sleeping in the headquarters, all the better for him.

He ignored the outer office since those areas were usually confined to low-level support staff and he ducked into the first private office he found to begin his collection. Binders filled one wall and he wished he could haul away a truckload, but instead he settled for yanking out every hard drive he could find. He flipped over a laptop and realized that even with a small screwdriver, he was looking at several minutes to remove the drive. He ripped the computer from its power cable and shoved it into his duffle bag along with his communications headset, then he went on to the next office.

In the al Qaeda offices Camille was reaching under a desk for a bag in which to carry the laptops when she heard the door open. Rolling under the desk, she aimed the Glock at the intruder. If he turned the lights on, she would have little choice but to shoot him, then run over to al-Zahrani’s tent and give the bastard what he deserved before the whole camp swarmed her. She should’ve stuck with her primary mission objective like her father had tried so often to drum into her.

A rectangular hole was cut into the plywood wall, a makeshift window for ventilation. Enough light from al-Zahrani’s security lamp came through it so that she could see the silhouette of a bearded male figure carrying a bulky bag. The interloper made little noise, moved over to the desk and set his bag on the floor beside her, but didn’t seem to notice her. She heard him pull a binder from a shelf and flip it open. He could take hours studying the damn thing and she had to move on to her primary target. Camille shoved the Glock into her waistband and slid the knife from its sheath, preferring to eliminate him silently. Just as she reached out to slice his Achilles tendon, she heard Iggy’s voice coming from the guy’s bag. She had never heard such a welcome sound. She stopped and reached into the duffle bag. Her hand bumped into the headset’s mouthpiece. In less than a second, her fingers oriented themselves and she put her thumb over the ear speaker in case there was more comm traffic while she was removing it. The intruder was probably part of a rescue team, but he could also be a tango who had killed an operator and stolen the comm set. He grabbed for the bag just as she jerked her hand back along with her prize. He stuck a laptop and some papers inside and hurried from the room, shutting the door behind him.

The moment she donned the headset, the compound went black. Camille smiled. She knew what the blackout meant:

Black Management has arrived.

Hunter hugged the shadows, searching the areas between the buildings for anyone moving quickly as he worked his way to the second generator. GENGHIS had already knocked out lights to the south portion of the camp. As he cut the generator’s fuel intake line, he heard Iggy trying to get a response from Ashland, who was refusing to answer. The goddamn French spook had gone feral. He had known better than to trust the fucker. Within seconds of cutting the line, the generator fell silent and the lights went out.

Then Hunter heard over his comm set. “TIN MAN this is LIGHTNING SIX. Reporting for duty, sir.”

Hunter’s eyes teared up.

“Copy that, LIGHTNING SIX. Good to hear your voice,” Iggy said smoothly. The man was a true professional. “What is your status and position?”

“Acquired comm from someone who appeared to be a tango. Is he yours?”

“One asset confirmed. Not responding to comm,” Iggy said. “Repeat, what is your status and position?”

“Good. I’m in the office building. Fixed structure in the center of the compound with the satellite dishes.”

Upon hearing that, Hunter spun around and rushed toward the building, all the while continuing to monitor the radio traffic.

“LIGHTNING SIX, egress building and proceed to your twelve o’clock to the edge. CHALK ONE will link up with you and escort to the LZ.”

“Negative on the escort. Will link up with CHALK ONE, then proceed to neutralize HVT.”

Hunter wondered what High Value Target Stella had discovered.

“Request identity HVT and location,” Iggy said.

“JOURNEYMAN.”

JOURNEYMAN-al-Zahrani’s code name. Hunter was nearly as excited as he was that they had found Stella. They’d finally located the terror mastermind.

“Location, small tent in center of compound,” Stella said.

“CHALK ONE this is TIN MAN. Link up with LIGHTNING SIX twenty meters to the twelve o’clock of the office structure. Proceed with LIGHTNING SIX to extract JOURNEYMAN.”

“CHALK ONE this is LIGHTNING SIX. Belay that order. Link up, then proceed to neutralize JOURNEYMAN.”

“CHALK ONE, this is TIN MAN. Order stands.”

“TIN MAN, sorry, but I’m taking him out with or without help,” Stella said.

“CHALK ONE, this is TIN MAN. Intercept LIGHTNING SIX and extract HVT. Dammit, LIGHTNING SIX. Standing orders are to take him alive. He’s got invaluable intel. What’s gotten into you?”

Hunter ran up to the building and raced inside, but didn’t immediately see Stella. He kicked open an office door and Ashland whirled around, pointing a pistol at him; his other hand held a computer.

“Where is she?” Hunter said.

“Who?”

“GRACKLE-Camille Black, you idiot.”

“How would I know?” Ashland said, shoving a laptop into his bag.

“She’s using your comm.”

“Impossible. It’s here.” Ashland reached into bag stuffed with laptops and rooted around.

Hunter looked around to check out his surroundings, and through a hole cut out for a window, he saw Stella. She was moving toward the smaller tent, the one she had described as al-Zahrani’s. Without thinking, he vaulted the desk and sprung through the hole toward her. He landed hard because of the weight from the Claymore mines in his rucksack.

Camille thought she heard someone and jerked her head around, but it was so dark she could barely see. She had always been clear with Iggy whenever she was along on a mission, he was the commander. Technically, she wasn’t on the mission, so she excused her insubordination as she moved ahead, treading lightly, trying not to step on a sleeping tango. Iggy was right that they should capture al-Zahrani, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to feel that knife pushing into his throat and ripping through the cartilage.

She heard footsteps, stopped and aimed the AK in that direction. Suddenly someone slapped his hand across her mouth. Reaching for her knife, she heard Hunter whisper into her ear.

“I love you. Walk with me.”

He took her arm and led her away from the tent, toward the rim where the bench dropped off to the next one. She didn’t resist. Tears of relief and joy rolled down her face. Hunter whispered into his mouthpiece. “TIN MAN, SABER TOOTH here. LIGHTNING SIX intercepted. Falling back to regroup.”

Hunter said in a low voice, “Did you hear me? I said, I love you.”

“Someone’s behind us,” Camille whispered back. “And I love you, too.”

Hunter glanced around. “It’s Ashland.”

“Who?”

“A French spy. Long story.”

Hunter stopped sixty meters away from the nearest structure and squatted down. He held her with one hand and kept the other on his XM8. She wanted to kiss him more than anything, but she knew they couldn’t let their guard down even for a moment. The French piece of merde had already proven he couldn’t be trusted for security.

“You know we have to take al-Zahrani alive if we can. It’s been a standing order with Force Zulu. Iggy’s right.”

“I know. I want the fucker dead anyway.”

“What’d he do to you?”

Camille turned her head away while she fought back tears.

Hunter squeezed her close. “If he did anything to hurt you, I promise you, he’ll suffer more if we take him back. Guaranteed. Slitting his throat is giving him the easy way out.”

GENGHIS jogged up to them. Hunter continued to focus on her. “Are you with us or do I have to zip-tie you?”

Camille laughed.

“GENGHIS, stand guard for a minute,” Hunter said, then he pushed up his NVG and rotated the mike away from his mouth. He pulled her to his lips.

For the brief moment while they kissed, she really did feel like she was in Shangri-la.

Iggy was going crazy, waiting. Even though they had Camille and the tangos hadn’t yet figured out they had visitors, the op was taking too damn long. The helicopters were in holding positions and burning up several pounds of fuel every minute and now he was watching Stone and Camille lip-lock. Too much. He gave them five seconds, then keyed his radio. “CHALK ONE this is TIN MAN. Nautical twilight isn’t far off. Get a move on.”

Hunter heard Iggy’s voice, but wanted to stretch the kiss, aware it might be their last. He forced himself to stop and pull away, unhooking from his belt webbing the extra NVGs he’d carried. Without losing a moment, he pressed the NVGs into her hands.

“What’s this?” Stella said, then laughed softly. “NVGs? You always knew how to give a girl what she needs.” She pulled them on over her head.

“GENGHIS, Ashland. Get over here,” Hunter said, just loud enough for them to hear.

They came over and squatted down.

“Approximately thirty to forty minutes ago, al-Zahrani was in that tent,” Stella said. She pointed to where Hunter had grabbed her. “I have every reason to believe that he was getting ready to go to sleep there.”

Stella spoke before Hunter could say anything. It was his team and she wasn’t briefed on their capabilities. He was going to have a hard time keeping her from taking over. The woman loved to be on top.

“Any other intel we need to know before I distribute the orders?” Hunter said in his most professional voice.

“He had two guards in front of the tent. I saw no patrol. However, he has three barracks within thirty meters-two to the south at our two o’clock, one north at our ten o’clock. Everyone here is carrying an AK and tangos are sleeping on the ground everywhere.”

“Thanks, Stella. Snake the tent.” He removed a PAQ-4C infrared laser pointer from his belt and handed it to her. Hunter keyed his mike. “TIN MAN this is SABER TOOTH. Snaking the HVT’s suspected location. Confirm IR signature of a single individual inside.”

Stella turned on the infrared beam and shined it on al-Zahrani’s tent, moving it in a figure eight. It was very bright to anyone wearing night vision equipment, but invisible to everyone else.

“SABER TOOTH this is TIN MAN. I see it. Steady.”

She quit moving the pointer and held a constant beam on the target.

“SABER TOOTH, TIN MAN. Terminate snake.”

She turned off the pointer.

A few seconds later, Iggy continued, “Confirmed. One body inside. Two outside at your twelve o’clock.”

Taking off his pack, Hunter turned toward the group and said, “It’s a go, then. GENGHIS, set up a line of Claymores in front of the barracks here, as planned.” Hunter ran his finger through the sand, sketching a rough diagram of the camp so Stella could visualize it. “I figure GENGHIS will have two to three minutes while Stella and I grab al-Zahrani. Make certain that range fan is pointing south to the camp’s six o’clock, our current three o’clock.” The last thing they needed was for the danger zone to be inadvertently pointed toward them. “If there’s noise and some unhappy campers come running out, I want to be ready to even the odds as fast as we can with the Claymores. If things go hot, Iggy will call in close air support and use his 240-Golf.”

Hunter outlined how he and Stella would take out the guards, then snatch al-Zahrani and meet up. “If we use the Claymores, we’ll go south through the weakened force to LZ-two. If everything stays quiet, it’s LZ-one.” He drew Xs in the sand to indicate the pick-up zones.

“What do you need me to do?” Ashland said.

“Find a weapon and if we start firing, don’t hit us,” Hunter said in a low voice. “And you better hang close and not go off on any more of your own missions if you want out of here. I won’t leave a man behind, but you’ve made it clear you’re not one of my men.”

“Tell me what you need and I’ll do it,” Ashland said.

“Baby-sit al-Zahrani after we get him.”

“Head’s up,” GENGHIS whispered. “Company.”

A tango was walking toward them. He called out something. Before Hunter could do anything, Ashland responded in Arabic. “My brother’s lost his wedding band. Come help us.”

GENGHIS rose slowly and circled around behind the man, who didn’t have their night-vision advantage. Hunter called out in Arabic. “I must find it, insh’allah. Izdihar will never forgive me.”

GENGHIS flanked the tango. Stone and Ashland kept the man talking while he moved into position, slinking up behind him with his knife drawn. Placing his left hand on one side of the tango’s head, he struck his temple with the grip of his knife as hard as he could, shocking the temporal artery into a quick death. The body fell limp in his hands and he let it drop to the ground.

One tango down, four hundred ninety-nine to go.

Against his better judgment, GENGHIS picked up the man’s AK to give to Ashland.

A few minutes later, Camille crept up behind the guard she was assigned to neutralize. He was squatting on the ground, chewing something, probably qat to keep himself awake. She jabbed the knife in between the occipital bone and the first vertebrae, turned it, then pulled it out. Just as she was sticking it back into the sheath, she heard an AK fire, then another and another.

She heard GENGHIS say over the radio, “Taking fire.”

GENGHIS didn’t want to fire off and give away his position to the whole goddamn camp, but the shooters were getting close. Bullets were crackling on all sides of him. It was hard to hit someone on the ground, so he lay on his belly while he twisted the wires to the detonators, then inserted them into the Claymore and hooked up the firing device. Reaching around the mine, he ran his fingers across the metal face plate to make sure he could feel the raised letters, FRONT TOWARD ENEMY. His arm was starting to throb from the morning’s bullet wound as he crawled on to the next position, dragging the combat packs with him and stringing wire to daisy chain as many mines together as he could.

More shooters joined in.

One more mine and he was out of there.

The gunfire was picking up and it was now coming from two sides. Hunter signaled Stella that he was going into the tent with a flash-bang grenade and he rolled it into the tent. He looked away until he heard the loud clap and saw the reflection of the bright burst, designed to stun and blind anyone inside. Then they rushed inside.

Al-Zahrani was on the ground in his bed reaching for a gun, but Stella knocked it away with her bare foot, then kicked him in the face. He shrieked like a girl.

Hunter rolled him over, shouting at him in Arabic as he smacked his combat boot down onto his back, pinning him down. He handed her a plastic tie and pulled al-Zahrani’s arms together. She zip-tied his wrists as tightly as she could and restrained herself from breaking a thumb.

Bullets were ripping through the tent. They had to get out of there fast. Hunter took out a swath of duct tape and slapped it over al-Zahrani’s mouth and pulled him to his feet. He didn’t resist as they led him away. He thought it was strange not to offer resistance, but bin Laden had been the same way.

Ashland was waiting outside, lying on the ground. Hunter transferred al-Zahrani to his custody. Ashland pulled him down to the ground and gave him orders in Arabic.

Through the night vision equipment, Hunter could see dozens of tangos running toward their leader’s tent, holding AKs at their sides. Their muzzle bursts flashed white and green tracers crisscrossed the raiding party. The morons were firing into the dark, risking friendly fire hitting al-Zahrani. They hit the ground and began firing in opposite directions.

Hundreds of tangos were swarming toward their position and GENGHIS was split off from them.

“TIN MAN this is SABER TOOTH. Request suppressive fire, your two o’clock. GENGHIS, SABER TOOTH. Fire whatever’s ready and move to link up. Now!”

GENGHIS twisted the last wires together and crawled as fast as he could to the north, toward Stone’s last known position. As soon as he felt resistance from the wires attached to the firing devices he was carrying, he stopped and keyed his mike. “CHALK ONE, GENGHIS. Fire in the hole.”

Scores of tangos were about to overrun the Claymore line. GENGHIS dropped to his belly and pumped the firing device several times for good measure. The C-4 in the mines flashed, then sent fireballs into the air and a thousand steel balls hurtling toward the tangos. His ears were still ringing, but he could hear a crossfire of screams. He took his XM8 and pelted the tangos who’d overrun his line. Staying low, he searched for his teammates.

God, I love this job.

Through the machine gun’s night vision scope Iggy could see tangos pouring from the barracks on all sides of his chalk’s last known position, but he couldn’t see them now that they needed him to take out the tangos. He had to get them to signal their location. “SABER TOOTH this is TIN MAN. Rope your position.”

The tangos were coming as fast as Hunter could shoot. They’d be overrun if he paused to signal his position. “SABER TOOTH to TIN MAN. Busy here. Stand by.”

“I got it. Slowing down on my side,” Camille said as she removed the IR laser pointer from the soft case on Hunter’s belt. Pointing it into the air, she turned it on and moved it in circles, until the lasso formed a cone of invisible light.

“SABER TOOTH this is TIN MAN. Contact. Terminate rope.” Iggy aimed the machine gun and it roared. His NVGs refocused so fast that the glare of the muzzle burst hardly bothered him. He took out the tangos nearest his chalk, then moved his line away from them, sweeping toward the north. But the area was too wide and some were getting through.

GENGHIS heard the rapid chatter of the machine gun just as he spotted the cone of light and started to run toward it. The Claymores had knocked out dozens of tangos, but more were coming at them, shouting something about Allah as they ran and fired.

Crazy Mofos.

The rope stopped, but he could see the team. “CHALK ONE, GENGHIS. Approaching from your six o’clock. Hold fire.”

GENGHIS slid in beside the boss lady and began firing. He yelled at Stone. “SABER TOOTH, they’re pouring in from our six o’clock. You better call in the CAS.”

“TIN MAN, SABER TOOTH here. Request CAS, our six o’clock. Stand by for position rope.” Then Stone shouted. “Stella, rope, now!”

Iggy would’ve given anything for someone to work the machine gun. They were all stretched too thin. No commander should be gunning, playing forward air controller for close air support all the while commanding the battle. He had pushed ahead with no intel and with too few of resources because it was Camille and now the situation was going to hell fast. He keyed his mike as he continued to shoot, stopping only to speak.

“DRAGON ONE, TIN MAN. Cleared hot.” Iggy approved the helo to come in with guns blazing. He reached for his commander’s pointer, turned it on and moved it in a figure eight on the target area. “Snaking target now.”

“TIN MAN this is DRAGON ONE. CAS on station. Contact the mark. Steady. Coming in hot, fangs out.”

“DRAGON ONE, TIN MAN here. Caution CHALK ONE roping on deck.”

“Roger that.”

Camille heard the whop, whop of the Cobra and saw it rise from the pit, its guns spitting fire. Hundreds of small explosions flashed and it sounded as if an entire minefield were exploding at once.

High Explosive Rounds.

The machine gun fire started up again north of their position. She knew she should cover her head with her arms, but she couldn’t resist watching. Then she saw a large figure run toward the firestorm.

Al-Zahrani. He’d escaped from Ashland.

Camille leapt up and dashed after him, keying her mike. “DRAGON ONE, LIGHTNING SIX. Break, break, break.”

The Cobras continued firing, not recognizing her orders since she wasn’t officially attached to the mission. Al-Zahrani was almost in their line of fire, which was moving toward them.

“DRAGON ONE, TIN MAN here. Break, break, break.” Iggy’s voice was as rapid-fire as the rounds coming at them.

She tackled al-Zahrani just as the explosions stopped, only meters away.

In seconds, her teammates joined her. “I’m not sure we can punch through to the pick-up zone,” Camille said as she sat on al-Zahrani. Every time he started to wiggle, she pulled his head up by his hair and smacked it down into the sand.

Green and red tracers were flying everywhere in search of targets. Some of the tents were starting to burn from the Cobra attack, throwing off deadly light, leveling the playing field in the tangos’ favor.

“We’ll never make it,” Camille said, shaking her head. “The tangos keep coming and they’re going to see us any moment. It’s too bright. Who’s your pilot?”

“A Night Stalker named Beach Dog,” Hunter said.

“You made my day.” Camille keyed her radio. “BEACH DOG this is LIGHTNING SIX. Request extraction. Dude, come straight up the Pali and meet us at the top. Stand by for rope.”

“LIGHTNING SIX, Beach Dog. Coming up the Pali, warp nine. I’ve got an extra package with me.”

“What the hell was that?” Hunter said.

“A Hawaii thing. I’ll take you there if we make it out of here.” Camille rolled off al-Zahrani and jerked him to his feet. “Move out. Head to the edge.”

They ran to the drop-off at the next level of the mine with GENGHIS and Hunter leapfrogging one another’s positions, firing back at the tangos. The burning tents exposed their position and Camille hoped the IR pointer would be bright enough against the flames as she roped the beam.

The chop of rotors came from the pit in front of her and the Hawk rose from the depths, then hung directly off the ledge, nearly flush with the bench floor, but with a three foot cleft between the crew door and the edge. Running toward the open door as fast as she could force al-Zahrani to move, she wasn’t sure how she was going to get him to jump the gap. She kept running and leaped, giving him a fast choice: jump or plummet.

He jumped.

They landed on the metal floor. She immediately smacked him on the back of the head, knocking him out.

The Hawk’s gunner mowed down the approaching tangos. Green tracers hit the fuel tank and sparks flew. She hoped the damn thing really was self-sealing. Ashland came out of nowhere and sprang aboard next, but Hunter and GENGHIS were still twenty meters away, providing cover for one another.

“TIN MAN this is LIGHTNING SIX. Recommend take the Cobra in hot after we egress.”

“Copy that. Call it in at your discretion. Got that DRAGON ONE?”

“DRAGON ONE here. That’s affirmative and welcome back LIGHTNING SIX.”

Hunter reached the helicopter first and jumped inside, landing on al-Zahrani. He got up, reached out his hand and helped GENGHIS aboard.

“Beach Dog, pick up Iggy and get us the hell out of here.” Camille keyed the mike. “DRAGON ONE, LIGHTNING SIX. Light up the fuckers.”

Chapter Eighty-Five

In the United States, for instance, the executive branch hires contractors. Although the U.S. Congress approves the military budget, its access to information about contracts is often limited. The president can use this advantage to evade restrictions on U.S. actions, effectively limiting congressional checks on foreign policy… Furthermore, contractors can facilitate foreign policy by proxy, allowing the government (or parts of it) to change events on the ground, but at a distance that allows for plausible deniability.

– Foreign Policy, July/August 2004, as contributed by Professor Deborah Avant

41° 34' 34.96 N, 63° 07' 25.32 E (Uzbekistan)

Camille had heard the detailed account of the harrowing basket separation and she held her breath along with everyone else while Beach Dog pulled the Pave Hawk straight back, away from the MC-130. The basket released. She let out a sigh of relief and held onto Hunter while Beach Dog hot-dogged, surfing the wake, tossing the Hawk in sharp turns that knocked the passengers into one another. They were wedged in tightly, but Camille didn’t mind sitting on Hunter’s lap even though she knew she really shouldn’t in front of GENGHIS, Beach Dog and Iggy. They would just have to deal with it. She wanted the safety and reassurance of the closeness. Her body was still revved from the constant adrenaline bombardment and as exhausted as she felt, she still couldn’t relax. The happiness and relief of being with Hunter kept getting interrupted with flashbacks to the horror of al-Zahrani each time he groaned from the back row.

Al-Zahrani was lying on his side with his arms bound behind his back and shackled to his feet. Part of her wanted to take a blade to him, but she was so repulsed by him, she didn’t want close contact. A couple of bullets through his forehead would have been cleaner. And she still felt dirty. She could hardly wait to get his smell and touch off her. Whenever they touched down in the Uzbek desert to refuel the Cobra, she planned on taking a dirt bath in the sand.

Memory of the rape smoldered inside. But she knew she couldn’t tell Hunter. Iggy, maybe, but not Hunter. It would absolutely kill him to know what al-Zahrani had done to her. It would be even worse because he had gotten there only an hour too late to save her from him.

Packed in with everything else was a creeping sense of guilt from having killed her former mentor Joe Chronister. At the same time, part of her was glad she’d done it because of what he had done to Jackie and because of how he had sabotaged her dream.

Al-Zahrani cleared his throat loudly and everyone looked around. He and Ashland were crammed together onto the stretched nylon bench with no leg room due to the internal fuel tanks. Ashland looked miserable, hugging the door to put as much space as possible between them.

“That was quite the cluster fuck,” al-Zahrani said with a perfect American accent.

Camille was shocked to hear him speaking English, let alone American English. He had given no indication of it earlier and the intel reports she had read on both him and Abdullah had been clear that neither of them spoke English.

“Depends on whose side you’re on,” Iggy said.

“I meant for our side. For the US,” al-Zahrani said, craning his neck.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You have to have a secure satellite uplink onboard, don’t you? Contact the DDO or the Director. Inform him you have NOC BARKER in your custody and you just compromised GOLD DRIFT.”

“Holy mother of god,” Iggy said, unbuckling his harness so he could turn around completely and get a good look at the guy.

“You can’t believe this piece of shit,” Camille said as she felt the helicopter descending to land and refuel.

Al-Zahrani smiled. “Maybe you know it as SHANGRI-LA. That’s only the designation for the Rubicon op running us. The Agency program is called GOLD DRIFT.”

“No one’s calling anyone. We’re handing him over to Force Zulu,” Camille said. As far as she was concerned, he was Hunter’s trophy. He had already been on the team that captured bin Laden and taking in al-Zahrani would make him a legend in the spec ops community. She could really get into the idea of dating a legend, almost as much as creating one.

“You can’t do that,” al-Zahrani said, his voice becoming alarmed. “The Pentagon will fuck it up even more than they already have.”

“Ashland, shut the fucker up,” Camille said, turning back toward the front of the helicopter.

“You do it. I’m not touching him.”

“I got it,” Iggy said as he took out his knife and sliced off the lower part of his 5.11s that covered up his dumb leg. Camille watched as he squeezed into the back and had to lean part of his weight on Ashland’s lap.

Al-Zahrani jerked his head away as Iggy tried to gag him. “You dumb fucks. You destroyed the CIA’s most successful counterterrorism operation against al Qaeda.” Iggy stopped. “We might be able to salvage some of it, but not if you give it over to the wannabe spies at the Pentagon. They have the finesse of a rhino.”

“Ah, I understand now. You’re an agent provocateur,” Ashland said with the arrogance of a professor. “Don’t you see? It’s not only Rubicon ensuring that the War-on-Terror industry doesn’t extinguish itself by mopping up all the terrorists. The CIA’s in with them, just like I suspected.”

Al-Zahrani laughed. “You sound like some dumb-ass conspiracy theorist, like that Frenchman who claimed the US was behind 9/11. How in the world did bozos like you find us and manage to do so much damage?” Al-Zahrani shifted his weight and tried to get upright again. “We’re running a false-flag op. Rubicon is the contractor running SHANGRI-LA. By outsourcing it, the president didn’t have to inform Congress. There’s also plausible deniability. A greedy company running a terrorist training camp would be a huge scandal, but not a White House scandal.”

“Clever, but the Americans didn’t invent that tactic,” Ashland said, sounding more and more to her like a Frenchman. “The tsarist secret police used to set up fake Russian dissident groups among the émigrés in Paris.”

Al-Zahrani cleared his throat. “We’ve succeeded in splitting al Qaeda between my faction and Abdullah’s. I’ve recreated the succession problem after Mohammad’s death that split Islam between the Shi’a and Sunni. I keep my followers focused on purity of the movement and that means the foremost duty of the faithful is wiping out Abdullah’s heretics.”

“Can someone please shut him up?” Camille said.

“Cam, I think he’s got something,” Iggy said as he moved back to his seat.

Al-Zahrani continued. “Training the tangos also allows us to keep tabs on who’s who, where everyone is and to preempt any serious plots against the West. Not to mention the lousy training we gave them. Any time the Agency wants to send another mole into al Qaeda, all it has to do is have Rubicon drop them off at our doorstep and we take care of the rest. And then there are all the homegrown al Qaeda-wannabe groups who turn to us for official endorsement and support.”

“You’ve turned al Qaeda on itself. That’s genius. It sure beats the Whack-A-Mole game we’ve been playing, taking out individual terrorists when they pop up,” Iggy said, taking a deep breath.

Hunter chimed in. “I’ve seen it in action. Some of your followers in Iraq were trying to truck bomb a wedding of Abdullah’s followers. Crazy SOBs, eating their young.”

“It’s working brilliantly-or it was until you fucked it up,” al-Zahrani said.

“What was Chronister’s role?” Iggy said.

“Joe? He’s my inside officer and he was the project case officer for SHANGRI-LA and BALI HAI. He’s also the contracting officer’s technical rep for both contracts.”

“What the hell’s all that?” Hunter said.

Iggy turned toward Hunter. “It means he was this SOB’s main contact and he ran the shows and controlled the purse strings on behalf of The Agency. Then Joe wasn’t selling out the Agency for a retirement package with Rubicon?” Iggy said. “That was a hard one for me to believe.”

“Are you kidding? The man’s incorruptible-prickly, but clean. He kept Rubicon in line. Those bastards were cutting costs every chance they got. Joe was the only one who could break their balls and even then they got caught shipping us arms they seized from al Qaeda in Iraq. Stupid, greedy bastards.”

“Oh my god,” Camille whispered. Camille suddenly felt alarmed. She remembered her father telling her about the old Cold War days when the CIA used to run its own Marxist organizations so it would know which activists to keep an eye on. The Agency also kept the left constantly infighting this way. The FBI used to do it to anti-Vietnam groups and she vaguely recalled the British doing something similar in Kenya when they couldn’t defeat the Mau Mau tribesmen through conventional means. If the CIA were really running the al Qaeda faction and they had just destroyed the operation, Black Management was finished. They all were. It couldn’t be the truth. “Are we really supposed to believe you would give your life to do this? This is bullshit, I tell you. This is bullshit.”

“I was with the Bureau, getting ready to go undercover with a fundamentalist Islamic group in New Jersey because I was one of their few native Arabic speakers. My wife and kid had just flown in from Dearborn and we were celebrating my kid’s birthday with brunch at the Windows on the World restaurant that day at the top of the Twin Towers. I got delayed.”

“That’s no excuse.” Camille swung around and shouted, surprising herself.

“For what I did back there?” Al-Zahrani licked his lips. “Honey, you were the best lay I’ve had in years.”

“You son of a bitch,” Hunter shouted and nearly knocked Camille off his lap as he tried to get up.

“Later, Top.” Iggy grabbed his arm as he blocked him. “GENGHIS, Cam, help me out.”

Hunter pulled away from Iggy and swung around to get to al-Zahrani the other way. Fucking middle seat. He couldn’t wait to tear into the bastard. GENGHIS jumped into his way and Stella grabbed his arm.

“Sit down. Now.” The force in Stella’s voice caught him off guard. “He’s mine.”

Hunter stood there for a moment, then without saying a word, sat back down and strapped in.

As he waited for the helicopter to land, all he could think about was what he had done to Jackie Nelson.

The Pave Hawk bounced slightly as it landed and the Cobra came in beside them, kicking up more desert. They waited in silence for the rotors to die down and for the sandstorm to settle. Camille sat there, trying to decide what to do. Everything she had worked for was collapsing in on itself. She wanted to pop al-Zahrani and leave the body in the desert for vermin to devour, but she knew if what he was claiming was true, he was too important to national security for that. With the Agency running an al Qaeda faction, she wasn’t even so sure what national security meant anymore.

She wanted the fucker dead.

GENGHIS slid the door open. He held his hand out to help Camille from the bird.

They stood beside the Hawk stretching while the flight engineer ran a hose between the two helicopters for the fuel transfer.

“Stone, GENGHIS, I’ve got to make a call to the seventh floor at Langley and confirm that motherfucker’s story,” Iggy said as he punched a number into a satellite phone. “The refueling is going to take about ten minutes. Why don’t you two take our passenger for a walk? Be careful. I want him alive and I don’t want to get any hospitals involved; doctors, but not hospitals.”

“No.” Camille moved in front of Hunter, grabbing his sidearm and pointing it at al-Zahrani’s head. “I said he’s mine.”

“Cam, don’t do it. The boys will take care of him,” Iggy said, as he lowered the phone. “He’s too valuable. And you’ve got too much to lose.”

“Not anymore.” She flicked off the safety.

Hunter grabbed for the gun just as she fired.

Al-Zahrani dropped to the ground. Hunter put his hand on the gun and guided it so that it pointed away from them as he drew her close. She released it without resistance and collapsed into his arms.

GENGHIS walked over to al-Zahrani and kicked him in the kidneys. “You pantywaist. It hardly grazed you. On your feet. We’re going for a walk.”

Several minutes later, GENGHIS and Hunter dragged al-Zahrani back, bloody and moaning. Camille wasn’t surprised he was still conscious because they probably had wanted him to be aware of his pain. “Boys, why don’t we let him relax his hands a bit?” Camille picked up a pair of bolt cutters from the engineer’s toolbox.

She approached al-Zahrani from behind and moved the bolt cutters close to the zip-cuff binding his wrists. Then she whispered into al-Zahrani’s ear. “An eye for an eye, you piece of shit.” She shifted the bolt cutters and snapped off his right thumb. It snapped off with much less pressure than she had expected.

Al-Zahrani shrieked.

Without a word, she walked back to the toolbox, wiped off the blood with a rag and dropped the bolt cutters back inside the engineer’s toolbox. “Thanks, chief.”

They shoved al-Zahrani back into the helo, this time stuffing a gag over his mouth and a duffle bag over his head.

Everyone stood around while they waited for the engineer to finish the fuel transfer. Ashland smoked a cigarette closer to the aircraft than he should have.

“I made the call to Langley, said the magic words and they couldn’t patch me through to the Director fast enough.” Iggy shook his head. “The story checks out. The fucker’s who he says he is. He’s CIA. We just screwed the pooch. Black Management’s going to be history. We had a good run, guys. It was fun.”

“Hold on.” Camille held up her hand. “I was thinking while they were on that walk. The camp’s gone, but if the world believes al-Zahrani escaped, that would only add to his legend. I’ve got plenty to work with to save us. Black Management will come out on top. Trust me.”

“I love it,” Ashland said, holding the glowing cigarette at his side. “The Americans are running al Qaeda for a profit. Let me guess, now you’re going to try to get a piece of the action. Wait until Paris learns about this.”

“GENGHIS,” Iggy said, inching closer to Ashland. “Why don’t you take Monsieur Ashland for a walk?”

Ashland reached for his gun, but Iggy’s artificial hand grabbed his forearm. Ashland yelped in pain. Camille knew his hydraulics could squeeze harder than his other hand ever could.

Chapter Eighty-Six

“The CIA has the right to break any law, just not American…”

– Die Zeit [HAMBURG], December 29, 2005, interview with Michael Scheuer, former CIA intelligence analyst

To Mr. Clarridge [a 33 year CIA operations veteran], “intelligence ethics” is “an oxymoron,” he said. “It’s not an issue. It never was and never will be, not if you want a real spy service.” Spies operate under false names, lie about their jobs, and bribe or blackmail foreigners to betray their countries, he said. “If you don’t want to do that,” he added, “just have a State Department.”

– The New York Times, January 28, 2006, as reported by Scott Shane

Black Management World Headquarters, McLean, Virginia

One Day Later

Camille had considered going to CIA headquarters in Langley for the meeting, but she preferred the subtle message it sent for the CIA’s Director to come onto her turf, to the headquarters of Black Management. After a brief stopover at Black Management’s Camp Obsidian in Afghanistan, Hunter had flown her and Iggy back to the States aboard the Rubicon Gulfstream, now outfitted with new livery and a fake registration number, the handiwork of Black Management mechanics. GENGHIS had stayed behind at Camp Obsidian to look after al-Zahrani. They had arrived only an hour ago and Camille was dying to be alone with Hunter, but circumstances had yet to permit it. Time was critical if she was going to save her company from the wrath of the Agency. After what felt like over seventy-two hours of constant motion, they sat at the black glass conference table with the panther design etched into it, waiting on CIA Director Doherty. Iggy was squarely on board with the plan, but Hunter had reservations. She knew he wouldn’t cross her intentionally, but she doubted he would contribute much.

Her executive assistant showed Director Doherty in and Iggy started to introduce everyone when Doherty interrupted.

“Black, I’m shutting you down.” He pointed at her, wagging his finger. The Irishman’s face turned redder with each word. “This is the biggest setback in the War on Terror since the Pentagon botched our intel on Tora Bora. Maybe bigger.”

“A lot of us have a very different take on Tora Bora, but we won’t go there.” Camille held her hand up, nervous as hell because so much was at stake, but appearing the cool and calm operator that she was. “It seems to me that without a presidential finding authorizing GOLD DRIFT, it’s an illegal op. No way do I believe that you guys played by the book on this one and ran a presidential finding by Congressional leaders.”

“Don’t quote the Bible to me.”

“What would happen if Congressional leaders found out the Agency’s running an al Qaeda training camp? Or the media?” Camille said as she watched his face.

“You mean what would happen if they found out a subsidiary of Rubicon was running the camp. Don’t you think we’ve already war-gamed media plans? Try this headline: HALLIBURTON’S EVIL TWIN RUNS TERROR, INC.”

“We have a full confession from al-Zahrani. He seems to think the whole thing was hatched in the Vice President’s office,” Camille said, bluffing. The last time she had talked to GENGHIS, al-Zahrani was only semiconscious from a bad concussion.

“Al-Zahrani’s confession is so easy to spin, we won’t even need Fox News for that one. It would go something like, ‘al-Zahrani’s last desperate move against the US, trying to turn the American people against its government.’ We’ve got them chasing their tails and killing each other off. Al-Zahrani is the ultimate counterterrorist weapon.”

“And he’s mine now,” Camille said, pushing to the edge as she relied on instinct. She was too tired to think several steps ahead, as she usually did, and had to rely on the plan she and Iggy had come up with beforehand.

“Look, Black, this is the single most successful program we’ve ever had against al Qaeda. It’s stopped dozens of attacks. How do you think we caught those London bombers who wanted to take out the planes over the Atlantic? They were a homegrown group of British Muslims, but eventually they reached out for al Qaeda’s blessings-they all do. That’s when we give them a little money, a slap on the back and take over operational control until we can be sure we’ve got everyone, then we roll it up. Christ, we’re not fighting an organization anymore. Al Qaeda’s a social movement and this is just about the only weapon we’ve got. We’re all on the same side on this one. We’ve got to figure out how to pick up the pieces. Turn him over to us.”

“Right, then you shut me down like you threatened. No deal.”

Iggy smiled and leaned back in his chair as they had planned. “You know, Cam, I know you’d never run to the media or Congress. But what I was thinking, we hand al-Zahrani over to General Smillie at the Pentagon’s SSB-you know, home of the super-spies of Force Zulu.” Iggy chuckled. “I’m sure Smillie will know what to do with him. Like Director Doherty said, ‘we’re all on the same side.’”

Camille would never endanger a successful ongoing antiterrorist operation, but she also had to save herself and Black Management. She smiled as she sensed the shift in dynamics and felt their plan working. “The CIA’s been battling the Pentagon for its very existence and the military’s winning. My guess is that first thing he’d do is run to the President.” She paused for a moment to let the implications sink in. “Mr. Doherty, how fast do you think you can close up shop at the CIA and fold your operations and resources into the Pentagon?”

“Could never happen.” The Director fidgeted in his chair.

“Oh, yeah?” Iggy said. “What happened to the last two CIA directors that crossed the Pentagon? Seems like there’s a word for those guys-former directors. Hate to say it, but in the War on Terror, the Pentagon’s the eight-hundred-pound gorilla and at best you guys at Langley are Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp.”

Director Doherty rubbed his fingers together, swiveled his seat around and stared out the window. Camille knew she needed to keep cool, but it drove her crazy to wait on a response. The man’s face was impossible to read. The back of his bald head was even worse.

Then Hunter opened his mouth to speak and Camille cringed inside. Hunter was a warrior who liked to remain above politics and he had made it clear that he didn’t approve of playing one part of the government off against another. “Sir.” The Director kept looking out the window. “You should know that I’m a member of the SSB’s Force Zulu-”

“I know.”

“Sir, part of my orders when Zulu sent me to infiltrate Rubicon were to report back any signs of CIA involvement with them. And you should also know, sir, we have standing orders to report back any intel on any OGA black ops we come across. Zulu is definitely keeping an eye on the Agency.”

“Keeping it in its crosshairs is more like it,” Iggy said with a grin.

“I’m aware of the SSB’s unilateral operations.” Director Doherty swiveled his chair back toward the conference table. Camille was almost trembling from fatigue and nerves. The Director cleared his throat and said, “I think we would all like to see this successful program continue. It seems our current contractor, Rubicon Solutions, has had some recent security lapses. Everyone at the Agency thinks very highly of Black Management. Is there any chance you would be interested in assuming Rubicon’s training and recruitment contract?”

“It better be a sole source contract-I don’t want to write another RFP ever again in my life,” Camille said as she exchanged triumphant glances with Iggy. The outcome was looking better than they had imagined.

“We can run it through an existing Black Management training contract,” Director Doherty said. “Seems you’ve got secret contracts channeled throughout several government agencies. I think Department of Education would be a fitting cover for this one.”

Iggy scribbled figures on a legal pad, then looked up at the Director. “So what do you guys pay Rubicon to run the al-Zahrani organization? My back-of-the-napkin math says al-Zahrani’s whole global operation probably has an annual operating budget of $70-80 million.”

“Half that. Al Qaeda is a shoestring operation run out of caves and websites. And keep in mind thirty to forty percent of its operating budget is subsided through Sunni Islamic charities. The Rubicon budget is only $10-15 million.”

“Sweet,” Iggy said. “Forty million dollars of influence for a $10 mil investment. I bet that keeps your budget guys happy. Though I have one question: would we be responsible for fundraising and what happens if we raise surplus funds? Do we get to keep them?”

“A percentage. We can make it worth your while to divert anything you can from the real bad guys. Islamic charities throw around $200 million every year at terrorist groups. You won’t have to run any telethons, that’s for sure.”

Camille turned her head and stifled a yawn before she spoke. “We’ll need additional start-up costs budgeted for the first year. And those numbers seem too low. I’m not sure you’re factoring in the risk of not having a presidential finding. She felt the addictive rush of success waking her up. “I also want that prison contract-BALI HAI.”

“That’s a little more complicated.”

“I’ll develop the expertise. We’ll buy up a corrections company stateside and cherry-pick their executives to run it.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Good, I’ll get with my fiscal people to cost everything out and we can meet again tomorrow.” Camille nodded, secretly hoping she hadn’t overreached. She hated prisons, but she loved taking business away from Rubicon.

Hunter made eye contact with Camille. “Ms. Black, I need a word with you-in private.” His voice was forceful, but not enough so to embarrass her in front of the Director. “Now.”

“Gentlemen, I’ll be back in a moment. In the meantime, you two can sketch out an understanding so we can get something worked out as fast as we can before anyone realizes al-Zahrani’s AWOL. Contract transitions can be rough and I don’t expect any assistance from your previous contractor.” Camille followed Hunter outside the conference room and shut the door.

“Have you lost your mind? You can’t run an al Qaeda terrorist camp,” Hunter said, his voice tense, controlling anger she sensed underneath.

“It’s all about hiring the right staff to pull it off. I have some old East German Stasi contacts who’ve run tango camps in Yemen. I’ll bring them in for technical assist.”

“That’s not what I was talking about. We’re becoming the terrorists in order to save ourselves from terrorism. That’s not right. It wasn’t right when Rubicon did it, it’s not right if you do it.”

“Maybe not, but so far it’s effective. I love my country and I want to keep it safe.”

“So do I. But not by becoming like them.”

“Give me a break. We already torture, kidnap and kill in the name of national security and you know as well as I do, a lot of innocent civilians have been caught up in that system-because it is a system, it has to be fed and sometimes there aren’t enough really bad guys to keep it going. And you know, I think it’s worth it. It’s kept the Homeland safe.” She watched the tension in his face grow and his gaze become more distant. That scared her.

“You know, it’s all starting to sound like one big, sick scam.”

She slipped her arm around his waist. “Why don’t you come help me? I need someone I can trust who’s fluent in Arabic and who can keep an eye on things on the ground. We’ve got the Agency by the balls right now. I’ll broker a deal that forces them to straighten things out for you with Force Zulu. They wouldn’t like it, but they could do it. We could throw in an honorable discharge or maybe even another staged death. You could become Mr. White to my Ms. Black and we could-”

“I love you, but I can’t. I live to track down and kill the bad guys, not train them.”

“Are you sure you can still do that with the same gusto? From now on, every time you’ve got a tango in your sights, you’ll be wondering if he’s one of ours, if he’s the guy who’s going to take out the next set of hijackers because he’s convinced they’re al Qaeda dissidents.” She could see the trouble in his face. She pulled him close and kissed him, taking her time, playing with his lower lip. “Join me.”

Hunter pushed her away. “For god’s sake, al-Zahrani raped you. How can you suddenly forget everything and become his puppet-master?”

“Believe me, I’ll take him out and replace him as soon as we can. Doherty is low-balling me, but even so, with the prison contract thrown in, we’re looking at over $100 million a year by the time I get through with it. That would sure pay for a lot of victim therapy, if that’s what it takes to keep me sane until we can pop him. I can live with that. And I love it that we can skim off the top from Islamic charity terror tithes. That could really expand the margins.”

“I love you. I really do.”

“Honey, understand I have to start positioning the company for post-Iraq. We’ve been trying to break into serious Agency contracting, but so far we’ve only gotten scraps. Cofer is pulling in everything to Blackwater. Finally, I’m getting a plum.”

“You’re selling your soul. I can’t,” Hunter said as he turned and walked away.

“Wait! We’ve still got Rubicon’s Gulfstream. What do you say we fly to the Ozarks for a few days together while you think about it?”

“There’s nothing to think about,” Hunter said and kept walking.

“That Gulfstream’s got the range to take us to Hawaii. I did promise you. We could go swimming with sharks.”

“You already are,” he said without stopping.

“Stop! Please.” She ran up to him and blocked him from getting on the elevator. “I love you. More than anyone or anything. I can’t lose you now after all we’ve been through.”

“Well, maybe you ought to get your priorities straight.” His voice was cold and it hurt.

They looked each other in the eyes for several seconds without speaking. The worst part was that she knew he was right about the immorality of the contract. And deep down she also knew she couldn’t lose him. Not again.

Camille blinked.

“I’ve boxed myself into a corner,” Camille said, reaching out to his hand. “I guess I could sell my part of the company to Iggy.”

“You can’t do that. Just walk away from the deal.”

“I can’t screw Iggy over. Without some kind of an understanding with the Agency, Black Management is finished.”

The elevator arrived with three men inside. They stared at them in silence as they waited for it to leave. It gave Camille a chance to try to figure out a solution. Several seconds later the elevator doors closed.

“You know, I just thought of something,” Camille said as she let go of Hunter’s hand and started to move back toward the conference room to see if he would follow. “There might be a problem with that contract.”

“There are a lot of problems.”

“Yeah, but this one could be a deal-breaker, one that could let me save face if I back out.” She flashed him a conspiratorial smile. “I know you were one of the guys who caught bin Laden. I need you to tell me what you know about the joint CIA-Pentagon operation running him.”

He took a deep breath and pursed his lips. “Stella.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not read into the project, so you wouldn’t be divulging any secrets you were officially entrusted with. Just tell me rumors.”

“I don’t believe the rumors. It’s just wrong. The Agency bastards would kiss the devil’s balls if that’s what it took, but I can’t imagine soldiers, stroking that fucker’s ass, even if it meant neutralizing al Qaeda. You know it’s the civilians in the Pentagon that brought us to this. Just watch. Some operator is going to blow him away; it’s the only honorable thing to do. Hell, if I’d known what they were going to do with OBL, I would’ve taken him out myself when I had the chance.”

“The rumors.” Camille tugged his arm.

A few minutes later, Hunter returned to the conference room with Stella. He felt like a war was raging inside him; the casualties were serious and the outcome still undetermined. Part of him wanted to get the hell out of there before things got more screwed up between them, but he was a warrior. And this time with Stella, he had to fight to the end.

Stella sat down with Hunter on her right side, Iggy on her left. Director Doherty was directly across from them. She looked him in the eyes and said, “I have one condition before I commit to the project.”

Come on, Stella. Stick to the plan. Don’t get greedy.

She continued, “Now I know that the Agency and the Pentagon have been holding bin Laden for years, running a joint covert op that put you two in control of al Qaeda, keeping its followers busy, constantly sending them on fool’s errands-”

The Director raised his hand and interrupted. “Ms. Black, do you want the contract or not?”

Iggy shot her a quizzical look. She gave him a quick reassuring nod, then turned back to the CIA Director. “Hear me out. Al-Zahrani and Abdullah popped onto the scene a little over two years ago, fighting each other for control of al Qaeda. I can’t help but notice that’s around the same time that things really started heating up between the CIA and the Pentagon.”

“Jesus,” Iggy muttered under his breath. Hunter sat there, proud of her.

Stella took a deep breath and paused for an agonizing moment. “Before I take on the contract, I need to know that your joint bin Laden operation didn’t break down. I want absolute assurance that Abdullah isn’t the Pentagon’s man.”

The Director’s face suddenly turned ashen and his jaw clenched. He paused for a few moments, then said, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Hunter smiled as he listened to her and thought of swimming together in Hawaii. Then she glanced at him with a familiar twinkle in her eye that made his gut clench.

“Don’t misunderstand me.” She continued speaking to Director Doherty, calculating inflated costs in her head. “The prison contract is a totally separate issue. I’m ready to move forward on that immediately. Just a rough estimate, but I figure you’re running a surge capacity of one hundred, so with a three to one staffing ratio, each detainee will cost around fourteen-hundred dollars a day, plus transportation and-what’s your term for the cost of bribing the local officials?”

“Host country fees,” Iggy said. “A simple cost plus fixed-fee work order contract.”

“And without start-up costs, we’re realistically looking at around ninety-five million for a firm fixed-price contract. Interrogation costs would be extra, of course, unless you want to provide the service yourselves.”

“Stella, what are you doing?” Hunter whispered.

She turned to him, her eyes glistening with excitement. He really did love watching her in action.

“You didn’t say a word about secret prisons,” she said. “And besides, we’ve got to have some way to pay for our Hawaii trip and your tooth implant. Not to mention your new Gulfstream.”