The Secret Soldier

CHAPTER 10

FROM A DISTANCE, THE TWO HUNDRED WOMEN IN THE CONFERENCE center in Jeddah’s InterContinental Hotel appeared identical, a dozen rows of black-robed ghosts. Up close, their uniforms varied subtly. Some dressed in full burqa, covering their faces with veils and their hands with gloves. Others, less conservative, wore niqabs that allowed their mascaraed eyes to be seen, or raised the hems of their gowns to reveal polished black boots that seemed more appropriate for Paris than Jeddah.

And a few trendsetting women had rejected burqas entirely in favor of abayas, neck-length black gowns. In place of veils, they wore shayla—scarves that draped over their hair but left their faces uncovered. In this room, where the only men were bodyguards, a few had even allowed their scarves to slip, revealing tangles of lustrous black hair. Technically, by uncovering their hair, they risked the anger of the religious police.

But no one in this room expected to be harassed. Not today, anyway. These women were the elite of Jeddah, the most cosmopolitan city in the Kingdom. Traders and tourists had visited Jeddah for thousands of years, and until 1925, when Abdul-Aziz took over, its rulers were moderate Muslims comfortable with the West.

Jeddah’s liberal tilt could be overstated. The city was part of Saudi Arabia, after all. The House of Saud monitored it closely, especially because it served as the gateway to Mecca, which lay forty miles east. Still, Jeddah’s tradition of openness had not disappeared entirely. Religious police were less visible here than in Riyadh. Public discussions were freer. Unmarried women and men could discreetly charter boats and meet on the Red Sea. So Jeddah was the most fitting place in Saudi Arabia for a speech on women’s rights from Princess Alia, King Abdullah’s oldest granddaughter.

THE QURAN COMMANDED RULERS to seek advice from their subjects. Princes and government officials held meetings where any Saudi citizen could complain or ask for help. Even Abdullah followed the tradition, though his assemblies were largely ceremonial, lasting only minutes.

But the women of the House of Saud were seen rarely, heard even less. And so an air of expectation filled the conference room at the InterContinental as the women inside waited for Alia to appear.

Security for the speech had been planned for months, well before the invitations were sent. After the bombings in Bahrain and Riyadh, the National Guard colonel who managed protection for Alia asked that the princess move the speech to Abdullah’s palace on the Red Sea, a fortress that no terrorist could enter. Alia turned him down. She was speaking not just for herself and the elite but for every Saudi woman. Moving the speech into the palace would undercut her message.

“Anyway, you’ll protect me, won’t you, colonel?”

So the speech stayed, and the colonel did his best to turn the hotel into a fortress. Only registered guests and the women invited to hear the princess were allowed into the InterContinental on the day of the speech. Their names were checked at the hotel’s front gate, while bomb-sniffing dogs from the National Guard searched their vehicles. Everyone had to pass through metal detectors. Purses and luggage were x-rayed. Security agents patted down anyone who set off an alarm, their searches thorough and careful. The Interior Ministry checked the names and passports of all 142 hotel guests against national and international watch lists.

A second layer of security protected the conference room. Bomb-sniffing dogs checked the room before anyone was allowed inside. The women had to pass through another metal detector before they entered. Six security agents watched the crowd, two behind the lectern, two on the sides, and two beside the door at the back. They formed a hexagon that covered the room. Another five officers handled the dogs and metal detectors, and three women patted down any women who set off the detectors. All this to watch a handpicked audience of one hundred fifty women. The colonel knew he was being overly cautious, but better safe than sorry.

The princess had arrived at the hotel in her armored limousine an hour before the speech was scheduled to begin. The InterContinental’s manager escorted her to a suite overlooking the Red Sea. As women slowly filed into the conference room seven floors below, Alia sipped a bottle of water and reread her speech. She wore a black abaya and a gray head scarf loose enough to allow tendrils of her hair to swing free. By Western standards, she was a few pounds too heavy to be beautiful. But her eyes were deep and black, her mouth soft and wide. She was twenty-five and had gone to high school in Geneva and spoke Arabic and French and English.

The National Guard colonel who served as her personal bodyguard watched her wordlessly. The colonel was married, but after three years of watching over Alia, he was half in love with her. He’d have cut out his tongue sooner than admit that truth.

The hour passed, and then another twenty minutes. The colonel was just about to ask Alia if she wanted him to call downstairs when his phone rang. He listened for a moment. “They’re ready.”

Alia flashed the smile he’d grown to adore. “Then let’s go.”

Before the hour was over, they would both be dead.

“MY SISTERS, MY SISTERS.”

Alia looked at the crowd. “Our enemies say we want a revolution. But I don’t see any revolutionaries in this room. What about me? Do I look like a revolutionary to you? In my hijab? Did I drive a tank to get here? Is that what happened? Did you see my tank outside?”

A few women tittered. Most were silent, too aware of the importance of the occasion even to laugh.

“A year ago, I read a sermon by a famous cleric — I won’t say his name — who says what we want is un-Islamic. But we can read the Quran, too. And I ask you, does the Quran say that women can’t drive? Hardly, my sisters. The wife of the Prophet — peace be upon Him — we know that she rode a horse with him. The very wife of Muhammad. Why, then, can’t we drive? We don’t ask for anything that the Quran forbids. In other Muslim nations, we drive freely. And this law, forbidding driving, it’s foolish. Male servants must drive us. Does that make sense? I tell you it doesn’t. If we could drive ourselves, there would be no need for this.

“I’m proud to be Muslim. I know that Islam doesn’t fear women’s rights. We should wear our burqas by our own choice. Not because the muttawa force us. If we choose to wear an abaya and show our faces, the police shouldn’t interfere. As to whether we work or stay home, we and our husbands can decide.”

The princess paused, looked out at the crowd. “I know you don’t mistake what I’m saying, my sisters. I don’t want to live immodestly. But let’s not confuse what is haram”—forbidden—“with what is allowed. Drinking alcohol is haram. Eating pork is haram. Eating during the fast, that’s haram. But driving and working, those are allowed. I know some of our brothers and fathers don’t agree”—a few in the audience laughed—“but they’re allowed.”

Alia went on for another twenty minutes. Her arguments weren’t new. But she spoke with a regal authority. And slowly the crowd warmed, lost its fear. The women leaned forward, interrupted her with applause and laughter. She came to her last page knowing she’d won.

“My sisters, this won’t be a short fight. In fact, I shouldn’t even use the word fight to describe it. We’re all believers. Let’s call it a conversation. It won’t be a short conversation. It’s going to happen in bedrooms and living rooms and even bathrooms”—more laughter—“all over our kingdom. It will happen one husband at a time, one brother at a time, one father at a time. But it will happen. One day we will drive and work and sit with men in public. I believe with all my heart, as a woman and as a Muslim, that day will come in my lifetime.”

THE ASSASSIN SAT IN the third row of the audience, no more than seven meters from the princess. He wore a black burqa with a full veil that covered his face. His hands — small and hairless, with manicured pink fingers — rested lightly in his lap.

The assassin was a short man with sloped shoulders, narrow hips, light brown skin. He had a valid Jordanian passport that didn’t show up on watch lists. On his Saudi visa application, he called himself a religious tourist coming to the Kingdom for an umrah—a pilgrimage to Mecca that occurred outside the annual hajj period.

He arrived in Jeddah eight days before the princess was due to speak and booked a room at the InterContinental, a junior suite that looked east toward Mecca. He left after two days. He’d used a debit card from a Lebanese bank to guarantee his stay, but he settled his bill in cash. No surprise. Arabs liked paying cash. Tax collectors couldn’t trace it.

“I hope you enjoyed your visit,” the clerk said.

“Jeddah’s very pleasant.”

“This time of year, yes.”

“I may be back as early as next week.” The assassin handed a fiftyriyal note to the concierge — almost fifteen dollars, enough to be remembered favorably without really being remembered.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

Sure enough, the assassin returned four days later. Two nights before the princess was due to speak. Again he booked a junior suite. Nineteen hundred Saudi riyals a night, about five hundred dollars. He traveled with two roller suitcases, small enough to fit in an overhead cabin compartment, the kind that experienced travelers everywhere used. The first held men’s clothes, Western and Arab. A long gray robe. Khaki slacks.

The second case would have been of greater interest to the security agents downstairs, if they’d seen it. Its top compartment held a burqa, a modest dark blue dress, a full-face veil, a padded bra, pink nail polish, and a cell phone that looked ordinary but wasn’t. Beneath the clothes, a second compartment contained what looked like a thick, stiff piece of cardboard in a plastic bag. The cardboard was actually made of two kilograms of RDX, military-grade plastic explosive.

The assassin had spent nearly a year practicing for this day. Long before he learned of the princess’s speech, Ahmad Bakr realized the value of having a suicide bomber who could convincingly pass as female. Saudi society was so sexist that women weren’t viewed as threats. And though security officers knew that men could hide themselves in a burqa, they had never addressed the threat. The police hesitated even to speak to a woman in full burqa. They would make her remove it only in extreme circumstances.

Bakr had found a man perfect for the task. The Jordanian was skinny, high-voiced, with thin arms. He might have been one of those. Bakr didn’t care, as long as he passed as a woman. And surely they had an easier time passing.

STAYING AT THE HOTEL allowed the assassin to penetrate the outer cordon of Alia’s security. Still, he faced additional defenses, including the second metal detector and a potential pat-down, a disaster he had to avoid. He had learned that the breasts and the hips were the key. Breasts couldn’t be too large. A padded 34B bra worked best, with small silicone pads taped to his chest to fill out the cups. For his hips, he favored black spandex stockings that pushed his behind up and out.

While the princess prepared for her speech, the assassin was preparing, too, following a routine he’d practiced a dozen times in hotels in Lebanon and Jordan. He didn’t have a heavy beard or body hair, but he shaved himself smooth anyway. After he put on his bra and stockings, he sprayed eau de toilette on himself, Dior, just a few drops, enough to cover him in a light citrus scent.

The next part was the trickiest. He took the explosive plate from its plastic bag, taped it to his stomach, pulled its straps tight around his body. The plate was large, a rectangle fifteen centimeters long, ten centimeters wide, and two centimeters thick at the center. It tapered at the sides, so that its silhouette wouldn’t be obvious under the dress. Even so, the assassin would have preferred a smaller plate. But because of the metal detectors, the explosive couldn’t be covered with buckshot to create shrapnel. The explosion itself had to be powerful enough to be lethal in a ten-meter radius. Bakr had insisted on two kilograms of explosive.

The assassin made sure the plate was tightly bound and that the holes for the detonators were where he wanted them. Then he pulled the blue dress over his skinny body, making sure the holes he’d cut into it matched the holes in the explosive plate. He strolled around the suite, adjusting his stockings and bra. He stopped in front of the mirror, studied himself. He smoothed the dress over the plate, turned sideways. His hair was too short, and his Adam’s apple protruded. The explosive wrinkled the belly of the dress. But his burqa would hide those flaws. He knew it would. He had walked through Baalbek and West Beirut dressed this way without being noticed.

The burqa’s veil was made of a thick fabric that looked like black mosquito netting. The veil smudged his features but didn’t completely hide them. The outlines of his eyes and nose and cheeks were visible. He needed to be sure nothing about them was masculine. He stroked his cheeks with foundation, plucked his eyebrows until they were pencil-thin. He plumped his eyelashes with mascara, smoothed the circles under his eyes, painted his nails.

He was ready.

He pulled on the burqa, hid himself in its rich, black folds. The fabric was a wool-cotton blend, heavier than usual, the better to hide any trace of his body. He leaned close to the mirror, studied his face. The makeup had done the job. He was a woman now.

The assassin was not a reflective man. He didn’t question why he liked dressing this way, didn’t question why he felt such hatred for this princess. When Bakr had told him about the mission, he had accepted immediately. Alia couldn’t be allowed to spread her lies. She wasn’t Muslim at all. He knew that she had lived for years in Europe. No doubt she had behaved shamefully there. Now she would pay for her sins.

He unrolled his prayer rug, faced Mecca. The holy city. Just over the horizon. He’d had the chance to visit it three days earlier, to circle the Kaaba seven times and spend the day praying. A blessing. A vision of the Kaaba filled his mind, and he knew that he’d succeed today.

Dressed as a woman, coated in Dior perfume, more than four pounds of explosive strapped to his stomach, the assassin knelt on his rug and asked Allah for success.

TWO OFFICERS MONITORED THE metal detector outside the conference room. The assassin handed his purse to one and walked through the detector. It stayed quiet. The detonators and wires, which would have set it off, were in his purse.

The guard picked out the cell phone from the purse, a black leather satchel from Chanel. A very close observer might have noticed that the phone’s handset cord looked thicker than normal, or that the headset’s earbuds were oddly shaped. The guard didn’t. Nor did he see the two metal cylinders that looked like AA batteries at the bottom of the purse. He held up the phone. “Does this take photos?”

“Yes.” The assassin’s voice was light and breathy, not falsetto, as he’d practiced.

“Photos aren’t allowed.” The guard handed back the phone and purse. “And once the princess comes, you’ll have to turn it off. Go on.”

Inside the room, the assassin moved quickly. He’d come early. The room was barely one-quarter full. He chose a seat three rows from the podium, on the right. He’d scouted the conference room the day before, noted the door on the front-right side of the room. She would probably enter there.

No one else was in the row. The assassin sat down and unzipped his purse. He reached inside for the phone and the AA batteries, which in reality were RDX detonators. He kept his hands inside the purse. He uncoiled the cord wrapped around the phone and screwed the earbuds, which were actually electrically initiated blasting caps, into the detonators. He had drilled this move hundreds of times, with his eyes closed, in the dark, with his right hand and his left. Many nights he found himself dreaming the motions.

He armed the detonators in four seconds.

He lifted the detonators into his burqa. The awkwardness of the motion couldn’t be avoided, but no one noticed. He leaned forward in his chair and pulled his right arm up his sleeve to his chest. He slid the detonators though the holes in the dress and slotted them into the explosive plate. For a moment, he couldn’t find the second hole. He didn’t panic. He found it.

And he was done.

He pulled his arm out of the burqa. He’d finished the tricky part. The cord hung loosely down his right sleeve. When he was ready, he would plug it in. Pushing any button on the phone would fire the blasting caps, setting off the detonators and the explosive.

He sat up in his seat and waited for the princess.

“I BELIEVE WITH ALL my heart, as a woman and as a Muslim, that day will come in my lifetime.”

The assassin reached in his purse, plugged the cord into the cell phone.

On the podium, Princess Alia smiled. “Thank you, my sisters. Thank you.” The assassin turned on the phone. Around him, women applauded. Scattered cries of “Inshallah!”—God willing — came from the rows. “Inshallah,” the princess said. She stepped away from the lectern, walked to her left, crossing in front of the assassin.

He stood. “Princess.” She turned toward him. The crowd stirred. The officers on the podium looked at one another. The colonel, Alia’s bodyguard, who had watched the speech from the edge of the podium, stepped forward. They were all too late.

“Inshallah,” the assassin said. He squeezed the phone’s call button—

ABDULLAH AND MITEB SAT in wicker chairs in the sunroom of Abdullah’s villa in Cap d’Antibes. Beneath them were the homes of lesser royalty. Beneath those homes, the sea. A chessboard lay on the table between them.

Abdullah was playing white, but he had lost interest. Early on he had moved his knight diagonally, like a bishop, to see if his brother would stop him. Miteb hadn’t. Finally, Abdullah looked at Miteb and said, “Are we playing Arabian rules, my brother?”

“‘Arabian rules’?”

“Where the king does what he wants and no one stops him?”

“Aren’t those always the rules, Abdullah?”

The sun broke through the high white clouds. Under the room’s bulletproof glass, orchids and ferns rose to greet the rays. The heat baked the pain from Abdullah’s bones, and for a few seconds he imagined himself young.

“What did the American say?” Abdullah said. “Will he help us?”

“As if you don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“My brother. You made your point with the chess. Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Didn’t you meet him this morning?”

Miteb cleared his throat. “I met him yesterday, not this morning. And I told you about it yesterday.” Quietly, now: “You really don’t remember.”

Abdullah didn’t. Not a word. Yesterday had disappeared. Yesterday was today, and today was never. Is this what happens? I know I lose the future, but must I give up the past, too? He grabbed Miteb’s arm. “I know. Of course I know. But pretend I don’t. Repeat it, then. What did he say?”

“He’s suspicious, but I think he’ll help us.”

The conversation came to Abdullah in pieces, a book with half the pages torn out.

“He said… something about a credit card? And numbers on money?”

“That’s right. You remember.”

The pity in Miteb’s voice infuriated Abdullah. “What do you mean he’s suspicious? He dares judge me? He’s insolent. I don’t want him.”

“We need him.”

“Did he ask for money?”

“No.”

The answer surprised Abdullah. Everyone asked for money. Some asked slyly, some directly. But they all asked sooner or later. “He will.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain.”

“It would be best. ”

Abdullah trailed off. Miteb waited. Abdullah pushed back the hem of his thobe, shook his arm, scowled at his pruny, withered skin. “I wish it was five hundred years ago. Back then you would have left me in the desert.” Abdullah coughed, spat a glob of phlegm flecked with blood onto the sunroom’s red tile floor. “No doctors. You would have left me behind, and I would have walked until I died. It wouldn’t have taken long. Only a few days. There’d be none of this.”

“Abdullah—”

“Tell me that this is better.”

A knock on the sunroom door stopped Miteb from answering. Hamoud, Abdullah’s servant, entered. “Your Highness—”

“Out. Now!”

“Sir.” Hamoud tried to hand the king a cell phone. Abdullah ignored him, and he gave it instead to Miteb, who listened silently. “You’re sure. In Jeddah. Yes. I’ll tell him.” Miteb’s face hollowed like an empty house. “We need to go back. It’s Alia.”

“What’s happened?”

Miteb told him. Twenty-three women were confirmed dead at the InterContinental. Including the princess.

Abdullah grabbed the phone, threw it down. It shattered on the tiles, and Hamoud hurried to collect the pieces. The king ignored him. The king looked through the glass and into the sun until his eyes burned and he couldn’t see anything at all.

“Saeed will burn for this.” A terrible new thought raged through his ravaged mind. “You wanted me to come here. To distract me. You’re part of it, too.”

“Abdullah. Never again accuse me of betraying you. Never again.”

Apologizing was beyond Abdullah. But he nodded.

“As for Saeed and Mansour—”

“I know.”

“Even if you’re right, this is what he wants, Abdullah. Don’t fall for this. Leave it to the American.”

“All right. For now. But if he can’t help us—”

“I understand, my king.”

“If you don’t, you’ll learn.” Abdullah pushed himself up, knocking over the chessboard. He stumbled toward the door that would take him to the car and then to the plane and then home. His home. His Kingdom. All he knew.

CHAPTER 11

SHAFER HADN’T BEEN HAPPY TO HEAR FROM WELLS.

“Tell me again why I’m helping you?”

“This isn’t like the Robinson thing.”

“You don’t work for us anymore. You can’t come running every time you have a problem. Not how it works. Even for you. Even with me.”

Wells had no answer.

“I need to know who’s paying you. Especially on this. This is no such business and they like knowing their clients.” By no such, Shafer meant the National Security Agency. The nickname dated from the Cold War, when the United States denied the NSA’s very existence.

“I can’t.”

“Give me something, John.”

“It goes back to the attacks two weeks ago.”

“Who hired you?”

Wells was silent. Shafer was silent. A transatlantic pissing contest.

“All right,” Shafer said finally. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Faster would be better.”

“Give me more and it’ll be faster.”

SHAFER WAS RIGHT. WELLS had asked for a favor he didn’t deserve. He didn’t like being in this position. But only the NSA had a chance of tracking the phones and credit card.

The card was a better bet than the phones. Before an online purchase could be completed, retailers had to get approval from the bank that had issued the card. Banks stored that data in “server farms,” windowless, high-security warehouses stacked with neat metal rows of computers and hard drives. The farms themselves were impregnable, but the NSA tapped the Internet connections into them to copy credit card numbers and purchase orders.

In the United States, the taps were legally questionable. The Constitution required warrants for searches. The Bush Administration had decided that the taps were legal, as long as NSA made its “best efforts” to discard purchases made by American citizens. The rule had a massive loophole. “Best efforts” had never been defined. No one outside the NSA knew exactly how much data the government had collected on American citizens. Yet the program hadn’t ended on January 20, 2009. The new president had found it, like Guantánamo, too useful to give up. Expanding national security programs was always easier than scaling them back.

Even so, the card monitoring wasn’t foolproof. The NSA couldn’t always get access to data lines, especially in China and Russia. It estimated that it caught fewer than half of all credit card purchases worldwide. And the feeds were encrypted, so after it stole the data, the NSA had to decode it.

Nor were credit cards the only concern. The NSA monitored phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, Facebook updates, a digital tidal wave. Tens of billions of messages, open and encrypted, were sent every day. The NSA spent massive energy just figuring out which ones to try to crack. At any time, one-third of its computers were deciding what the other two-thirds should do. Inevitably, credit card transactions didn’t get much attention. The vast majority were routine purchases.

But they couldn’t be entirely ignored, because both the NSA and CIA believed that terrorists now had to have credit cards to pull off major attacks on American soil. Since September 11, living a cashonly existence had gotten tricky. Paying cash to fly set off automatic red flags in airline and Homeland Security databases. Car-rental agencies wouldn’t rent to drivers who didn’t have cards. Trying to buy industrial chemicals or lab equipment with cash raised even louder alarms.

So NSA hadn’t given up on credit cards, especially from banks based in places like Egypt and Pakistan. The CIA’s analysts believed that jihadis would avoid multinationals like Citibank. Local banks would be more willing to open accounts and issue cards, and fervent Muslims might stay away from Western banks on principle.

So if the credit card number Wells had found came from a bank in Lebanon or Turkey or Pakistan. and if the NSA had tapped the connection to that bank’s servers. and if its software algorithms had decided that the feed was worth trying to crack. and if the bank hadn’t installed the most advanced 256-bit security on its feed.

Then maybe the NSA would have a card in its database that matched the number Wells had found. Complete with name, address, and purchase data. The name and address could be faked, but the purchase information couldn’t. If Wells was supremely lucky, the NSA might even be able to link the card with others still in use. All this from nineteen digits on five Saudi one-riyal notes.

So Wells knew he had no choice but to ask Shafer’s help. But he didn’t like it.

AFTER SHAFER, WELLS CALLED Anne, asked her to FedEx an envelope from their bedside table. The envelope held two passports, one American, one Canadian, both with his photo, neither with his name. Both should work anywhere in the world. Unless the CIA had shut them down. Which was unlikely. Duto and Shafer probably wanted him to use passports they could track. Even if the agency hadn’t been paying attention to him before, he’d put himself on its radar by asking for help. He seemed to be playing under Hotel California rules. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

“What’s in the envelope?”

“See for yourself.”

The envelope rustled open. “Are these real?”

“Depends on what you mean by reality.”

“Cool.”

“Never admitted that before, but yeah. I guess they are.”

“I guess this means you’re not coming home anytime soon.”

“Looking that way. Listen. Will you do something else for me?”

“Depends.”

“An honest answer.”

“I’m an honest girl.”

“Buy a disposable cell phone. Pay cash. Set up a new e-mail account. Not from the house. I’ll set one up, too. Mine will be the name of the mountain where we met, followed by the name of the bar we went that first night, followed by the drink you bought for me. No underscores. Got it?”

“Mountain, bar, drink. Got it.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Like Rainier-redlion-cosmo.”

“You have me drinking cosmopolitans?”

“You can be a little bit girly, John. I like that about you.”

“How’s that again?”

“Tell you next time I see you.”

“Something to look forward to. When you’re done buying the phone, e-mail me your number. I’ll call you when I can.”

“You don’t seriously think someone’s monitoring my phone.”

“Possible. And getting more possible.”

“Anyone else, I’d be calling a shrink about now.” She paused. “I’ll get the phone. Tell me you miss me.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” Click.

THE DAY PASSED WITH no call from Shafer. Wells wanted to move but had no place to go. He fought the urge to book a flight for Karachi or Cairo, motion for motion’s sake.

He prayed that night, properly, for the first time in weeks. Perhaps if this mission went off, he’d have the chance to see the Kaaba. The thought cheered him more than he would have expected. When he closed his eyes, he could see the great black cube, imagine walking around it. He supposed talking to Miteb had stirred him. The old man’s acceptance of Allah’s judgment and death’s inevitability felt like wisdom.

In the morning, he sent the concierge for more clothes and a bag. Wherever he went, he’d be well dressed. The passports arrived, courtesy of FedEx. And just before noon, the phone trilled.

“Ellis?”

“Hold for Prince Miteb,” a man said. A moment later: “Princess Alia is dead. A suicide bomb in Jeddah.”

“Slow down, Prince—”

“This is Abdullah’s granddaughter. His favorite. If the others are involved—”

Miteb fell silent. But Wells understood. Suicide bombers had gone after the royal family before. But if Miteb and Abdullah were right, this wasn’t just another suicide bombing. The king’s own brother might have ordered this attack.

Wells wondered how Abdullah would respond. Under normal circumstances, Saeed and Mansour had the edge. They had the secret police. But in a war, Abdullah’s National Guard could reduce the muk to rubble. Except that open war would be desperately risky for both sides. The regular army would get involved, pick a side. Or its midlevel officers might try to overthrow the royal family entirely, take the country’s oil for themselves. Saeed and Mansour couldn’t take that chance. They had to believe that Abdullah wouldn’t order the Guard into action, or that if he tried, the order would backfire because it would make him look unhinged. In other words, they had to believe their conspiracy was airtight.

Assuming they were involved at all, and that Wells hadn’t simply fallen for the ramblings of two old men.

“What happened?” Wells said.

“She was speaking. An audience of women. At a hotel in Jeddah. It was a man dressed as a woman.”

“How many dead?”

“Too many.” Miteb’s voice was steady but weak, his age showing.

“I’m sorry, Prince.”

“I must go. Our jet—”

“Before you do. I need money.”

“A fee? Of course, of course—”

Wells was embarrassed. “Not a fee. For things I need to buy.” Plane tickets. Kevlar. Sniper scopes.

“How much?”

“More is better. And one other thing—” Wells explained.

“I think that’s possible. Have you found anything yet, Mr. Wells?”

“I’m still working.”

“Please try. My brother, you understand, he’s very angry.”

“When I get something, how can I reach you?”

“Call Pierre. He can pass along the message, even if Saeed’s men are listening.”

“All right. Please tell your brother I’m sorry.”

“Your sorrow won’t help him. Only revenge.”

And not even that, Wells thought. As Miteb no doubt knew. “Safe journeys, Prince.”

“Safe journeys. Inshallah.”

THE KNOCK CAME THIRTY minutes later. A valet handed over a black leather briefcase. When Wells popped the latches he found it stuffed with one-hundred- and five-hundred-euro notes and hundred-dollar bills, new and crisp and held in pale blue paper bands that read “Banque Privat — Credit Suisse.” Wells didn’t bother counting them. Miteb had sent over millions of dollars. In a briefcase that he hadn’t even locked. A reminder of the men Wells was dealing with. As if he needed one.

Atop the money, a pistol in a clear plastic bag. Wells’s second request. A Beretta 9-millimeter, from one of Miteb’s bodyguards. Given the choice, Wells would have preferred a Glock. But he knew that the guys who worried the most about muzzle velocity and trigger pressure were the guys who’d never shot to kill. Up close, a pistol was a pistol. Past forty feet, the Glock was superior. But if he was shooting from that far away, he was already in trouble.

Wells popped the clip, racked the slide to be certain the chamber was empty, squeezed the trigger. The Beretta’s previous owner had taken good care of it. It was freshly oiled, its action smooth. It would do. He reloaded it, slipped it into the briefcase.

The phone trilled again. “Mr. Wells?” A woman with a rich Irish brogue. “I’m Sandra McCord. With the American Express private client division. Mr. Azari asked me to call you.”

“I don’t know that name.”

“He works for the prince.” Her voice fell to a whisper, as if even saying the title was blasphemy. “He said you would need a credit card.”

“Then I’d better get one.”

Sandra agreed to messenger over two cards, one in Wells’s name, the other under the pseudonym Tom Ellison, matching his Canadian passport. Both would be basic AmEx green cards, less likely to attract attention than fancier varieties.

“How soon can you get them to me?”

“Two hours. We have an office in Nice.”

“Of course you do.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Tell you what. I’ll pick them up in an hour. And what’s the limit?”

“A half-million euros. That’s our standing agreement with Mr. Azari. I hope it’s acceptable.”

Miteb had supplied two of the four essential tools of the trade, money and a weapon. Wells still needed a clean passport and an untraceable phone, but those could wait. He had to move. He took the briefcase and folded his expensive new clothes in his expensive new bag and left. No reason to check out. Let the front desk believe he was staying another day.

AT THE TRAIN STATION, Wells bought a disposable cell and a handful of SIM cards and a first-class ticket for a Eurostar to Milan. He wanted to head east. And to avoid airports as long as he could. Train passengers could pay cash, and passports weren’t checked within the European Union’s borders.

He arrived in Milan five hours later, just as the evening rush was starting. The station had opened in 1931 and was a creature of its era, enormous stone blocks and vaulted arches. Mussolini had no doubt been proud. Near the entrance, Wells glimpsed an Italian news channel reporting on the bombing in Jeddah: “Terrorismo nell’Arabia Saudita.” He stopped to watch, but the report lasted only a few seconds. Just another bombing in the Middle East. It had killed a member of the Saudi royal family, but Alia wasn’t exactly Princess Di.

Outside the station, Wells found a grimy two-star pensione and slipped a hundred-euro note to the clerk for a room, no passport or registration needed. He flipped on the television for background noise and called Shafer. “Tell me something.”

“You’re lucky. The card hit. Where are you?”

“Milan.”

“Who’d you meet in Nice?”

“Friend of a friend. This thing in Jeddah—”

“It’s bad.”

“Incisive analysis, Ellis.”

“Thank you.”

“What happened over there?”

“Nobody knows. We offered to send a forensics team, but they turned us down. They’re not in a caring and sharing mood. But they had real security at the hotel. Metal detectors, bomb dogs. They’re saying the bomber was dressed as a woman. Which would make it easier, but still.”

“AQ?”

“I don’t know, and I couldn’t tell you over this phone if I did. But we think no. Who gave you that credit card, John?”

“It’s from a guy the Saudis picked up last month in Riyadh.” An explanation that wasn’t quite true and evaded rather than answered the question, in any case.

“He’s connected to this?”

“They think so.”

“They still have him?”

“He’s dead now. They found a body, no ID. They wanted help in making him.”

“And came to you?”

“Some people think I’m helpful. What’s on that card, Ellis?”

“Tell me again how you got involved in this.”

Wells had no choice but to lift his skirt. A little. “The Saudis are worried about their security and thought I could help. They wanted somebody who isn’t connected to them.”

“Who?”

“Can’t say.”

“Inside the family or out?”

“Inside.”

Shafer was silent. Then: “The card was activated four months ago. First used at an electronics store in Beirut. Based on the size of the purchase, probably for cell phones. Then for flights from Beirut. On Middle East Airlines. The Lebanese carrier. One to Jeddah, two to Riyadh. Only one was round-trip. Then hotels in Riyadh. A rental car. Restaurants. Nothing exciting.”

“What’s the name on the card and the plane tickets?”

“Not until you give me more and not on this line. But I have a bonus for you. We think there’s a connected card. Used in the same store for more phones. Still active. Somebody’s been buying gasoline with it. Something from a gas station, anyway.”

“In Beirut.”

“No. A town called Qaa. In the northern Bekaa Valley. The plane tickets were bought on an Internet connection from the same place.”

The Bekaa. Hezbollah country. Wells didn’t get it. Miteb and Abdullah seemed certain that Saeed was behind the bombings. But what if Iranians were orchestrating all these attacks, trying to destabilize the Saudi monarchy?

“You should find an embassy so we can talk on a secure line.”

“Not now.”

“John. Who’d you meet in Nice?”

“I’m getting a feeling you already know. Who’s having this conversation, Ellis? You and me? Or is Vinny on speaker?”

“I’ll help you, but you’ve got to play, John. It can’t go one way.”

“Answer one question. You guys have anybody on me?”

“Truth. I’m not sure. But I don’t think so. You popped up too fast for that. Can I give you some advice?”

“Can I stop you?”

“Leave this one alone. Let us handle it. These Saudis, they’ll use you and toss you.”

“Lucky I can count on you, then.” Wells hung up, pulled the SIM card out of the phone, and flushed it away. A roach dropped from the showerhead, crawled along the tub. As if it knew it was in Milan, the creature was strangely stylish, black with brown stripes. Even so, Wells decided to move on.

HE SAT AT A coffee bar just inside the train station’s center entrance and considered his next move. The conversation had gone too easily. Shafer hadn’t just given him a tip. He’d answered every question Wells had asked and demanded next to nothing in return.

Wells wanted to believe he’d outsmarted Shafer. Or that Shafer was helping him from respect for their history. But he knew better. Leave this one alone. Let us handle it. The truth was the opposite. Shafer and the agency wanted Wells to chase this lead. Because the CIA didn’t have sources it could trust in Saudi Arabia, certainly not at the top of the royal family. And it couldn’t commit operatives to the Bekaa without knowing more about what was on the other end. Vinny Duto couldn’t risk losing a team to Hezbollah. Duto wanted Wells to run recon until he decided what to do. He figured the agency could track Wells, and that even if Wells lost the watchers, he’d have to ask for help when he got in trouble.

The ugly part was that Duto was probably right. Even worse, Wells couldn’t be sure Duto would come through if he asked for help. After all, Wells didn’t work for the CIA anymore. He was on private business. Getting used by two countries at once.

So be it. At least he understood the game. And he was fairly sure that Shafer had wanted him to see how he was being played. Which was a minor comfort.

WELLS DIDN’T THINK THE agency had put anyone on him in the last twenty-four hours. But he needed to be certain. Even on MATO — monitor and track only — orders, watchers would make trouble.

No need for fancy moves tonight, Wells thought. He had enough money and alternate routes to Lebanon to make tracing him a chore. He bought a first-class sleeper ticket for the train from Milan to Bari, on Italy’s southeastern coast, the back heel of the boot. The train left at 8:20 p.m. At 8:17, he headed for the platform, shouldering through the dwindling crowds of Milanese commuters on their way home to the suburbs. He didn’t run. Anyone or no one could have been trailing him.

At these moments, Wells always remembered Guy Raviv, the CIA operative who’d trained him in countersurveillance at the Farm. Near the end of training, Raviv brought Wells to the Washington Monument. An agency team was watching them, Raviv said. Wells had thirty minutes to lose them and report back. He had to stay within one block of the Mall.

“These are the pros,” Raviv said. “Not the schlubs we use down in Virginia. I had to beg them to waste an hour on you. Told them you were the class stud. Every class has a stud, you know. Most of you make damn poor ops. You fall in love with the moves and forget the rhythm.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“If you’re lucky, one day you will. Now go.”

Wells wandered east, toward the Capitol. The day was sunny, warm, not too humid, a treat for D.C. in July. Thousands of families and students and twentysomethings hung out, playing Frisbee on the lush, green lawn and picnicking under the trees. Wells couldn’t figure who was on him. The heavy woman in a too-tight T-shirt and a red Cardinals hat? The two Asian students kicking a soccer ball past each other?

Wells bought a ticket to the National Air and Space Museum, took the big escalator upstairs, jogged down. The soccer players drifted in his direction. He walked east, found himself standing at the foot of the Capitol, looking up at its great white dome. Two joggers were making suspiciously slow loops. Or maybe they were just slow. The woman in the Cardinals hat huffed toward him. Any of them could have been watching, or all of them. He had no idea how he could lose this team under these conditions. The mission was impossible. Maybe that was the point. Raviv was always making a point.

Raviv was sitting near the base of the monument when Wells trotted back. “I saw you coming two blocks away. Very subtle.”

“It was an impossible assignment.”

“Don’t whine.”

“Sorry.”

“And don’t apologize. Did you lose them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who were they?”

Wells nodded at the soccer players. “Maybe these guys.”

“Anyone else?”

“A couple joggers looked good to me, but they’re gone now. I get it, Guy. Real CS is a lot tougher than training.”

“There was no one. No team. This idea that any of us have a sixth sense that lets us take three steps in a crowd and know who’s watching, there’s a word for that. Paranoia. You can’t make a team in a place like this unless you have more than thirty minutes. And space to disappear. Or unless they’re completely amateur. Or unless they want you to know. The lesson today is sometimes there’s nobody to lose. Sometimes you’re running from something that doesn’t exist.”

Sometimes you’re running from something that doesn’t exist. Later, Wells understood that Raviv wasn’t just talking about countersurveillance.

WELLS’S COMPARTMENT HAD A single narrow bunk, barely long enough to fit him but cool and clean and comfortable, its white sheets softer than he expected. Italy. He locked the door and napped fitfully as the train chugged through tunnels carved into the northern Italian mountains. It arrived in Bologna at 11:20 for a three-minute stop.

Wells waited two minutes and thirty seconds, grabbed his bag and briefcase, and trotted off. The station was low-ceilinged and tired, nothing like the grand hall in Milan. At the taxi stand, a half-dozen white sedans waited. Wells walked around to the driver’s window of the first taxi. “You speak English?”

The driver was small and round and stank of cigarettes. “Pretty much.”

“How much to go to Rome?”

“This is Bologna.”

“I know it’s Bologna. I want to go to Rome. The airport.”

“Fiumicino. Three hundred kilometers. Three hours each way. At this time of night, a thousand euros.”

Extortion, but Wells didn’t care, thanks to the magic briefcase. “Done.” He opened the front door. “What’s your name?”

The driver raised a hand. “Before you come in, I like to smoke, okay?” He nodded at a packet of Marlboros on the dash.

“All right.”

“And you pay now.”

Wells peeled two five-hundred-euro notes from his wallet. The driver inspected them, nodded. Wells could read his mind: Should have asked for more. Wells slipped in and shut the door, and they headed out.

“I am Sylvie.”

“Sylvie. My pleasure.” Wells closed his eyes. If Sylvie didn’t smoke too much, he might even sleep a little.

THEN HE HEARD THE engine behind them. He looked in the passengerside mirror to see another taxi, this one a Mercedes minivan, following them from the station. It matched them turn for turn through the city’s winding streets. The driver looked over his shoulder. “Signore.”

“I know.”

“I don’t agree to this.”

Wells handed him another five hundred euros. “Drive.”

So they’d tracked him from Milan, probably all the way from Nice. But he’d bumped them with a simple trick, forced them to chase him in a taxi. Which meant they weren’t pros — not A-level pros, anyway. And they probably didn’t plan to hurt him, or at least had no orders either way. If they did, the train would have been the logical spot. Still. Wells reached into the briefcase, pulled the Beretta.

Sylvie spewed a torrent of Italian. Wells could understand only one word: polizia. The Fiat slowed. Wells grabbed Sylvie’s shoulder, squeezed.

“You stop when I say. Not before.” He pulled another five hundred euros from his wallet, put them on the dash. “That’s two thousand euros already for three hours’ work. Get me to the airport and you get two thousand more. No police.”

“All right, all right.”

The ramp to the A1 was a few hundred yards ahead. “Get on.” Sylvie hesitated, then spun the wheel hard left, onto the ramp. The Fiat’s tires squealed. The second taxi followed.

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

In response, Sylvie reached for a Marlboro and lit up. He smoked daintily, twin chimneys streaming from his nostrils. For an hour, he drove in silence, sticking to the center lane and the speed limit of one hundred thirty kilometers — about eighty miles — an hour. The lights behind them neither closed nor faded. An oddly restful chase. But Wells intended to lose his pursuers before Rome.

“How far to the next rest stop?”

“Maybe fifteen kilos.”

“Pull over there.”

“You want a cappuccino? Gelato?”

“Witty.” Still, Wells couldn’t help but like this roly-poly driver.

Ten miles later, a blue sign announced the Montepulciano rest stop. A wide, brightly lit building rested on a platform that spanned the highway. Atop it, a sign proclaimed “Autogrill” in white letters ten feet tall.

“Here?”

“Here. Go to the end of the parking lot.”

They pulled off the highway, drove past rows of gas pumps, bright and yellow in the night, past a parking area where big rigs dozed, toward a run-down building that might have been the original rest stop. The other taxi pulled off, too, keeping well behind them. “Stop here. Turn off the engine.”

As soon as the engine was off, Wells grabbed the key, ignoring Sylvie’s complaints. He stuck the Beretta into the back of his pants, flared out his shirt to hide it. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said.

He hopped out of the car, popped its trunk. Amid empty bottles of antifreeze and crumpled cigarette cartons, he saw what he’d hoped for — a tire iron. He grabbed it, strode toward the second taxi, his feet crackling on the asphalt, his hands high and visible in the headlights. The minivan churned ahead a few yards, then stopped.

When he was fifteen yards from the taxi, its back door opened. A man stepped out. He was Arab, with a neatly trimmed mustache. His hands were empty, and Wells didn’t see a holster. Wells set the tire iron on the asphalt. “Let’s talk peacefully,” he said in Arabic. He walked closer to the guy, confidently, his hands high and empty, making clear he didn’t have a weapon. He stopped ten feet away.

“All right.” The man’s Arabic was as smooth as Abdullah’s. Saudi, almost certainly.

“Who sent you?”

“You’re John Wells?”

“I don’t know that name.”

The Arab shook his head. “I tell you, stay out of this business. It doesn’t concern you.”

“I understand,” Wells said, his voice low and soothing. “That makes sense.” He turned as if to walk away, and in one fluid motion reached behind his shirt and pulled the Beretta. On the autostrada the eighteen-wheelers rumbled by heedlessly. “Kneel.”

The man went to his knees unwillingly, an inch at a time.

“Who do you work for?” Wells said.

“The DGSE”—the French intelligence service.

“The French don’t like Arabs. Who?”

“I tell you, the DGSE.”

“If you work for the DGSE, then so do I. Lie down.”

“Don’t do this.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, but I don’t want you following me. Lie down, face on the pavement, hands over your head.”

The man lowered his face to the asphalt, extended his arms. Wells patted him down, pulled a wallet from his back pocket. He’d check it later.

“You’ll regret this,” the man murmured.

“I’ll consider myself warned,” Wells said. He walked over to the Mercedes.

“I swear I didn’t know,” the driver said. “He hired me, told me to follow.”

“Turn off your engine, give me the key.”

The driver did as Wells said. Wells wound up and flung it onto the roof of the abandoned building at the edge of the lot. He grabbed the tire iron, walked back to the Fiat. Sylvie leaned against the sedan. He tossed his cigarette and whistled quietly as Wells approached. “Che stile.”

“Say again?” Wells threw the tire iron in the trunk.

“It means ‘What style.’”

Wells flipped him the Fiat key. “Let’s go.”

“That’s it?”

“What else were you hoping to see?”

AS THEY LEFT THE rest stop behind, Wells relaxed. He was off the grid for now. He flipped through the wallet he’d taken and found eight hundred euros, a credit card, and a Saudi driver’s license, both in the name of Ahmad Maktoum. He’d ask Shafer if the name showed up anywhere. He pocketed the card and license and handed the money to Sylvie.

“A bonus.”

“Grazie.”

Sylvie dropped him at Fiumicino at three a.m. A few travelers, unlucky or too cheap to book a hotel room before an early-morning flight, waited outside the locked terminals. Inside, janitors swept the floors halfheartedly. At this hour, the airport was asleep in an almost human way, alive but hardly moving.

Wells took advantage of the quiet to dump his pistol in a trash bin. He’d have to get a new one in Lebanon, but for what he was facing, he would need more than a pistol. He had to assume that he was looking at more than one or two jihadis. A training camp seemed likely. And even with surprise on his side, he needed help. Preferably an Arabic speaker who could pass for local.

He reached for his cell. The East Coast was six hours behind. “How do you feel about another vacation?”

Gaffan didn’t answer.

“This one isn’t personal. I promise.”

“You don’t do partners very well, John.”

“It’s gonna be interesting. And it’s not volunteer this time. Quite the opposite.”

“We have a sponsor? Anyone I know?”

“Yes and no.”

“I need more.”

“Tell you when I see you. Get the first flight you can to Larnaca tomorrow morning. Rent a room at the Hilton in Nicosia.”

“Where?”

“Cyprus.”

“Another island. Is this going to be wet?” Wet, in this case, referring to blood, not water.

“Eight ball says yes.”

Silence. Then: “I don’t think I can get there before tomorrow night. And I reserve the right to back out.” Gaffan sounded like nothing so much as a teenage girl who had theoretically agreed only to coffee with her ex-boyfriend while knowing she had committed to much more.

“Tomorrow night works.”

THE COUNTERS AT FIUMICINO lit up at 5:30 a.m. The workers appeared out of nowhere, as if they’d slept in the belly of the airport. Wells found the Cyprus Airways counter and bought a ticket — firstclass, of course — to Larnaca. He used his Canadian passport, hoping it might take a little bit longer to pop in the CIA’s database.

Nicosia, the Cyprus capital, was a boxy city stuffed with low-rise white apartment buildings and banks, shiny five- to ten-story glassand-steel towers that were designed to project honesty and rectitude but somehow sent the opposite signal. Eastern European and Russian money took vacations on Cyprus. Like its owners, it didn’t plan to stay forever, but it was happy enough to stop for a couple weeks and get a tan.

Wells found a Citibank and rented two safe-deposit boxes. He took $200,000 and 200,000 euros, all he could comfortably carry, from the briefcase. He left a million dollars loose in one box, and the briefcase, which had another million or so in euros, in the second. He FedExed the key to the second box to Anne and called her to explain.

“So this briefcase, what’s in it?”

“Money.”

“I don’t need money, John. And I definitely don’t need your money.”

“It’s not my money.”

“I still don’t need it.”

“Give it away, then. Start a no-kill shelter or something.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Anne said finally. “But you know what I’d rather have? I’d rather have you start that shelter yourself.”

“I’m not very good at no-kill.”

She didn’t laugh. “This is going to get messy, isn’t it?”

“It could.”

“Just be sure you’re on the right side, then.”

“I’m trying.”

A MESSAGE FROM GAFFAN: Plane late. Missed connection in London. Expect me in a.m. Two full days after the bombing in Jeddah. Wells hated to wait, but he didn’t see an alternative. He took a room at a hostel and rented a Fiat and drove south toward the coast. Cyprus was a jumble of poverty and wealth, run-down cottages and new mansions. Wells puttered slowly along the south coast road, looking for a fishing village that would suit his needs.

Gaffan arrived as promised the next morning. Wells picked him up at the airport, and on the way to the coast explained everything that had happened in France and Italy. Gaffan listened, didn’t ask questions. When Wells was done, he handed Gaffan the key to the first safe-deposit box.

“This is yours. A million dollars.”

“And if I say no?”

“Either way.”

“You trust these men, John?”

“I think so.”

“Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

“They beat the alternative. And if these guys in Lebanon are connected to those bombings, we’ll be doing everyone a favor by getting rid of them. No matter who’s behind them.”

“All right.” Gaffan tucked the key into his pocket. “I’m in.”

Near Zygi, in the center of the south coast, Wells stopped at a fishing village that hadn’t gentrified, probably because of the cement factory on the hill above town. Two hundred run-down houses with red-tiled roofs clustered around a narrow harbor. The ships were small, their hulls rusty. Except for one, a sleek white cruiser, seventy feet long, at the end of the pier in the center of the harbor.

Wells parked next to a man scraping barnacles from the hull of a trawler that looked barely seaworthy. “Speak English?”

“A little.”

Wells nodded at the cruiser. “Whose is that?”

The man went back to scraping. They walked up the pier, slimy with fish guts, kelp, and jellyfish. Up close, the ship was impressive, low and fast, with big twin engines. A shirtless, burly man, early forties, shoulders covered by dull green tattoos, sat in a folding chair by the gangplank. A knife dangled from a leather scabbard on his hip. He looked at Wells and yawned. Wells couldn’t remember the last time someone had yawned at him. The gesture seemed particularly disrespectful.

“We want to talk to your captain.”

“I am captain.”

“No, you’re not.”

“He’s busy. No tourists on this boat.”

“We’re not tourists.”

The guy shooed them away, closed his eyes. Wells stepped forward and, before the guy could reach for the knife, grabbed his arms and tugged him out of the chair and onto the deck. Gaffan grabbed his legs.

“On three—”

They swung him sideways and pitched him into the oily water behind the cruiser. He came up sputtering and shouting in Greek—

And then Wells heard the unmistakable ch-chock of a shotgun being pumped. He turned slowly, hands raised, to see a small man with curly black hair standing at the back of the cruiser, pointing a sawed-off at them. “You are looking for the captain?”

WELLS AND GAFFAN FOLLOWED the man into a spotless café and up a narrow set of stairs to a terrace overlooking the harbor. In the corner, a gray-haired man drank coffee and studied what looked like People magazine. As Wells got closer, he saw that the magazine was, in fact, People.

“Sit, please,” the gray-haired man said. They sat. “Is this your first time in Cyprus?” His English was excellent. Wells nodded. “And you’re American. What’s your name?”

“Jim.”

“Jim. I’m Nicholas. It’s a beautiful day here,” the man said. “Why would you disturb it? Throw my friend in the harbor.”

“I need a ride to Lebanon. I look at your boat, I see a man who does business.”

“MEA flies nonstop.”

“Flying makes me nervous.”

“Strangers make me nervous.”

“I need to carry some supplies. The kind that don’t fly well.”

“Most of the time, those supplies leave Lebanon. Not the other way.”

“I mean the kind that go boom.”

“What, specifically?”

“Two pistols. Two silencers. Two AKs. Four hundred rounds. Two grenades. Two pairs of handcuffs.”

“That’s a lot of supplies.”

“I have a lot of money.”

“Stand up, both of you.”

They did. Nicholas carefully patted down Wells and Gaffan. “Who do you work for?”

“Does it matter?”

“This is a very stupid request. Yet you don’t look like stupid men.”

Wells took the People and jotted down a cell number on Céline Dion’s face. Then pulled ten one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket. He laid the money on the magazine like an open-faced sandwich and slid it to Nicholas. “Thanks for listening,” he said. “You want to do business, let me know. But decide soon.”

“How much will you pay?”

“You tell me.”

NICHOLAS CALLED THE NEXT afternoon. He would provide the weapons and carry Wells to Lebanon. Gaffan wouldn’t be on the boat. He would fly into Beirut instead, insurance against Nicholas changing his mind halfway across and dumping Wells overboard.

“How much?”

“A hundred twenty thousand.”

His greed impressed Wells. The trip would take less than eight hours each way. And one hundred twenty thousand dollars was probably more than the boat was worth. Wells had to haggle a little bit, if only to prove that he wasn’t a complete sucker. “For that I can buy my own boat and ditch it.”

“You told me name the price.”

“Make it eighty thousand.”

“One hundred. Last offer.”

Wells couldn’t waste more time. “Done. But it has to be tonight.”

“Then tonight it will be. Nine p.m. Be sure to wear black. Shoes, gloves, jacket, pants.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

WHEN WELLS ARRIVED AT 8:55, Nicholas stood waiting beside his ship. Wells walked up the pier, picking his way through the fish guts and trash, and saluted Nicholas. Nicholas saluted back. And without a word, Wells stepped on board.

CHAPTER 12

IN THE DAYS AFTER PRINCESS ALIA’S ASSASSINATION, LIFE BEHIND the walls of the U.S. embassy seemed unchanged. The consular officers rejected visa requests. The cultural affairs secretary moved ahead with his long-shot plan for a visit to Riyadh by four lesser-known American Idol finalists. Barbara Kurland played tennis with Roberto, whose shorts were as short as ever.

But the façade of normality went only so far. A permanent scowl twisted the lips of Dwayne Maggs, the embassy’s head of security. And Graham Kurland, the ambassador, understood why. Kurland had grown only too familiar with the acronyms in the CIA’s internal cables.

The OPFOR, opposing force, was probably not AQAP — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. No, the OPFOR was UNK, unknown. But it appeared HT/HC, highly trained and capable. The SIM, Saudi Interior Ministry, had not asked for TECH/LOG, technical or logistical help. The CIA and NSA judged that the SIM was not close to catching the OPFOR.

The reports made Kurland’s HH, head hurt. But no acronym was needed for the last bit of bad news, which landed two days after Alia’s death. “MORE ATTACKS JUDGED HIGHLY LIKELY. RECOMMEND MAX SECURITY POSTURE.”

“Thought we were at max posture already,” Kurland said.

“We are.”

“They want us to put up a force field?”

Maggs didn’t smile. “The women who visit your wife are going to have to take off their burqas before the marines go near them.”

“We’ll get them a tent or something.”

Along with the warnings, the State Department, CIA, and White House kept asking the same questions: What’s happening? Why these targets? Is Abdullah still in charge? Kurland was short on answers. Abdullah and Saeed responded to his condolence messages with brief thank-yous sent through their offices. Even Prince Turki, a thirdgeneration royal who was pro-reform and friendly to the United States, had stopped returning Kurland’s calls.

At least the folks in Washington were too polite to ask What’s the mood on the ground? What’s the average Saudi thinking? They knew full well that Kurland didn’t have a clue. On the fourth night after the bombing, Kurland found himself venting to his wife. They were watching television in bed, a day game at Wrigley, nine hours behind. Barbara was snuggled in the crook of his arm, eyes closed, her face covered in the white wrinkle cream that he’d learned not to joke about.

“You know, for all the good we’re doing, we might as well be there.”

“Where?”

“There. Chicago.”

Her eyes blinked open. “I told you, I’m not going home.”

“I don’t mean you. I mean us. Useless as tits on a bull.”

“You know I hate that expression.”

“Sorry. But we’re stuck in this cage, pretending we have some idea what’s happening here. When we go home, everybody asks, ‘What’s it like? What are they really like?’ I hope those ladies are giving you some idea, Barb. I know they’re not a representative sample, but they’re something. ’Cause I don’t have a clue.”

“You’re doing the best you can, Graham. Not like you can drive through Riyadh in the back of a convertible, dressed like Uncle Sam and waving the flag.”

Kurland had to smile. “Wouldn’t that be great? Bring in a Sting Ray and a fire truck and some cheerleaders and have a real parade. Wave our pom-poms on the way through Justice Square”—also known as Chop-Chop Square, the courtyard in downtown Riyadh where public executions were carried out.

“That’s a wonderful idea.” She closed her eyes, nestled into the gray hair that covered his chest. “Good night, sweetheart.”

“Good night.”

That night Kurland imagined his Memorial Day parade. But the dream turned into a nightmare. Instead of a convertible, he stood on an old tanker that leaked Saudi crude into the desert. The cheerleaders and firefighters disappeared, and he was alone. Except for Barbara. She was driving. But when he called out to her, she didn’t answer.

He woke tired, ready to dress down his staff just to clear his throat. As he was showering, his phone rang. It was Clint Rana, Kurland’s personal aide. “Mr. Ambassador. Prince Saeed’s office called. He’d like a meeting.”

“When?”

“Today. Didn’t say why.”

Even so, the call lightened Kurland’s mood. At least he’d have something to tell D.C.

THE MEETING WAS SET for 12:30 at the prince’s offices in the Defense Ministry, in the center of Riyadh, two miles from the embassy. A fiveminute drive. Even so, Maggs insisted on a “hard armored” convoy — two vans and three Suburbans, all retrofitted to survive ambushes. Their doors had been replaced with inch-thick steel plate, their windows swapped for smoked Plexiglas that could stop a.50-caliber sniper round. To protect them from roadside bombs, their chassis had been reinforced and raised three inches. Not all the modifications were defensive. The welders had cut narrow ports in the skin of their armor to allow the marines inside to fire out without opening windows or doors.

Four Marine guards traveled in each van, three in each Suburban. In all, the convoy had seventeen marines, locked and loaded with enough firepower to level a village. Kurland, Maggs, and Rana rode in the lead Suburban, while the convoy’s communications officer and the marine captain in charge of the squad followed in the second.

At 12:15, the convoy cleared the north exit gate from the Diplomatic Quarter. Two Saudi police cars and an unmarked Mercedes waited just outside. Lights flashing, the eight vehicles rolled south, then made a quick left onto a six-lane divided highway that ran through the center of Riyadh.

Outside, the muezzins were calling midday prayers. Riyadh had thousands of mosques, ranging from one-room boxes to giant shrines. It needed even more. Through the Suburban’s smoked-glass windows, Kurland glimpsed men bowing to the west, toward Mecca, in a parking lot. They looked African, with dark black skin. “Why are they praying outside?”

Rana glanced over. “Immigrants. Probably don’t have a mosque.”

Immigrants in Saudi Arabia couldn’t become citizens and were generally considered disposable. Employers often confiscated their passports and travel documents, and the police jailed them for being in the country illegally if they complained. If they were caught selling or using drugs, they faced the death penalty. Saudi Arabia chopped off an average of one hundred heads a year, and more than half of the executed were noncitizens. American and European workers avoided the worst harassment, but even they were monitored. If they failed to renew their visas, they found their ATM cards blocked, a good way to ensure that they didn’t overstay their welcome.

“Nasty place, isn’t it?” Kurland said. It wasn’t a question.

“Like they say in West Texas, there’s no oil in paradise.”

THE DEFENSE MINISTRY WAS housed inside Riyadh’s strangest building, an oval office tower, widest at its midsection with a relatively narrow base and roof. At night, the building was lit a faint yellow. Saudis and foreigners alike called it the egg.

Kurland had visited the egg once before, for his welcome-to-Saudi round of introductions. He’d listened to Saeed mouth platitudes about the importance of the Saudi relationship with the United States. Saeed was a small man with heavy jowls, bulging eyes, and a trim mustache that looked to Kurland like it belonged on a Colombian cartel chief. Though, to be fair, many Saudis favored mustaches.

Unlike King Abdullah, Saeed had been distinctly cool to Kurland. Despite his age and infirmities, Abdullah had talked for hours and invited Kurland and his wife to see his stable of camels and his prize falcons. Saeed had stayed precisely thirty minutes and then checked his watch. “I must go, Mr. Ambassador,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

Back at the compound, Kurland asked Rana if he’d somehow offended the prince. “That’s just how he is,” Rana said. “Plays it close.” And makes sure we know who’s a child of Allah and who’s an infidel visitor, Kurland thought.

Now, as the high steel gates to the ministry compound opened and the upside-down building loomed, Kurland wondered why Saeed had asked for him — and whether the king knew of the meeting.

Saeed’s top-floor office looked north and west to the two skyscrapers that dominated downtown Riyadh, the Kingdom Tower and the Faisalia Tower. He and his son Mansour, the head of the mukhabarat, stood at the window as Kurland and Rana walked in.

Saeed wore a crisp white ghutra and a smooth golden thobe. He smiled at Kurland as though they were best friends. They settled themselves, and after greetings and offers of tea, Saeed leaned in and grasped Kurland’s arm. “These are difficult times for our kingdom, Ambassador. These terrorists have dealt us a great blow.”

“America is prepared to provide whatever assistance you need,” Kurland said in English, as Rana translated.

“And we thank you. But our security forces are capable of handling the situation. We have a photo of the assassin, as you know. He was traveling under a Jordanian passport. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his real name. But the Jordanian GID”—General Intelligence Directorate—“is working with us to trace him.”

“Is your assumption that he was Jordanian? Or Saudi?”

“We don’t believe any Saudi would commit such a vile act. Of course, we’re examining our files, comparing the photograph with known terrorists and criminals, to be certain. But we haven’t found anything yet. And if such treason occurred, we’re certain that the evildoer’s family would come forward.”

“That’s reassuring.” Kurland wondered if Saeed and Mansour would pick up the irony in his voice. If they did, they ignored it.

“Meanwhile, we’ve sent a dozen agents to Amman,” Mansour said. “And I’ve told Prince Nayef that if he needs help, he’s not to hesitate to ask.”

“That’s a great relief. And when you speak to Abdullah, please tell him I’m sorry I haven’t been able to express my condolences to him personally.”

“Of course you know he hasn’t been well.”

Kurland wondered why Saeed had brought up the king’s health, a taboo subject in Saudi Arabia.

“It may be nothing to worry about. Abdullah is a lion. But what happened to Alia upset him terribly. She was his favorite.”

“She sounds like she was a wonderful woman.”

“Certainly,” Saeed said indifferently. “Though not everyone agreed with her views.”

Sounds like you’d care more if your favorite pet camel died, Kurland wanted to say. He settled for: “The United States did. And does. We believe that Saudi Arabia needs a full dialogue on women’s rights.”

“Unfortunately, what you believe is irrelevant. The laws pertaining to women, what they can and can’t do, Allah has given those to us. Our kingdom is guided by the Quran.”

“The Quran has many verses. And even your brother doesn’t necessarily agree with the strictest interpretations.”

Rana looked at Kurland, silently cautioning him against arguing about Islam with Saeed. Kurland didn’t appreciate the warning. He would have to remind Rana that Rana’s job was to translate. Not to second-guess him in front of the other side. But the lesson would wait until the ride back to the embassy.

After an awkward few seconds, Rana went ahead. When he was done, Saeed waved a hand dismissively, as much as saying: Save your opinions about women’s rights for Hillary Clinton. I couldn’t care less. “Abdullah has his views, you have yours, I have mine,” Saeed said. “These issues, let’s not let them sidetrack us. I won’t say they aren’t important. But I hope you remember that our kingdom has always been a partner to America.”

“And vice versa.”

“We do everything we can to keep oil at a reasonable price. We know what that means to your economy.”

Kurland hid his irritation at this lecture. “Of course, Prince.”

“Abdullah and I want you to know that our family will always be a friend.”

“You and Abdullah.”

“And those who will follow us. Just as Abdullah followed Fahad, and Fahad followed Khalid. All along, the oil flowed. One day, my brother won’t be here. It’s foolish to pretend otherwise. One day I won’t be, either. But whoever’s king, the House of Saud will always be loyal to America. And the oil will still flow.”

At least now I know why I’m here, Kurland thought. “I wish I didn’t have to be so blunt, Prince, but is Abdullah seriously ill?”

“There are many kinds of illness. Some more obvious than others.”

Was Saeed saying that his brother was losing his mind and could no longer govern? Abdullah hadn’t struck Kurland as demented when they’d last met. Kurland didn’t see how he could ask, and anyway, he wasn’t sure he could trust Saeed’s answer. Instead he stalled. “Abdullah’s been a great friend to the United States. As you say.”

“Of course. But whatever happens, I want to reassure you that our oil will always be our gift to the world.”

Ambassadors were supposed to be diplomats. Even so, Kurland couldn’t let that last sentence pass. “Not exactly a gift, though, is it, Prince?”

WHEN THEY’D LEFT, SAEED looked at Mansour.

“Do you think they understood?”

“Yes.”

“They’ll reach out to Abdullah.”

“They already have,” Mansour said. “We’ve logged the calls. But he’s not talking to them right now. Or anyone. He’s too angry.”

Or he’s planning a counterattack, Saeed thought. “Sooner or later, he’ll talk.”

“If he raises his suspicions without any evidence, the Americans will think him a rambling old fool. Especially after the hints you’ve given them. There’s no need to worry, father.”

Mansour’s reassurances grated on Saeed. His son increasingly treated him as a nervous old man who needed to be managed rather than obeyed. In truth, Saeed was already Abdullah’s equal. Besides the Defense Ministry, he oversaw the Ministry of Transport, which distributed tens of billions of dollars in contracts every year, and headed the Supreme Hajj Committee, a job that kept him close to the Kingdom’s senior clerics. Only Abdullah’s control of the National Guard kept Saeed from dominating Saudi Arabia. The Guard, and the genuine affection that tribal chiefs and ordinary Saudis felt for Abdullah. Saeed knew that he and Mansour would never generate such feelings. He didn’t care. Better to be feared than loved.

But still he wanted the throne, for the power and the title both. When Abdullah took power in 2005, Saeed knew he was next in line. He imagined his brother would last only a couple years. Age and time had visibly worn on Abdullah. Saeed didn’t like waiting, but he was a decade younger than Abdullah, and orderly successions were the Saudi way.

But Abdullah had proven stronger than Saeed expected. And last year he had told the senior princes that he wanted his own son, Khalid, to be the next king. Foolish old man. Saeed and Abdullah rarely spoke anymore, but when he learned of the plan, Saeed called Abdullah himself. The conversation was short and blunt.

“You can’t do this.”

“You think our family wants you in power, my brother? Now that they see an alternative? You know what they call you? A scorpion.”

In the weeks that followed, Saeed waited for his brothers and nephews to tell him that they were against the plan. Some had. But not enough. Most, including Nayef, the third most powerful prince, had remained silent. They were canny, too cautious to choose a side until they knew the winner, Saeed thought. But he was realistic enough to admit other possibilities. Maybe the other princes disliked him too much to give him more power. Maybe they believed that as king he would install his sons as heirs. Maybe they simply were showing their love for Abdullah.

Saeed knew that he shouldn’t have cared. All his life, his ability to control his emotions had served him. But age seemed to have softened his iron will. An unceasing rage overtook him when he realized that his brother might keep him from his prize. The sun boiled his blood. I will be king. By right and custom. And even more elementally: Mine. Mine. Mine. A bell rang in his head morning until night. Even his ultimate relaxation, swimming laps in the Olympic-sized pool in his palace, failed to calm him.

Saeed believed he’d hidden his anger. But Mansour knew. A few weeks after Abdullah revealed his plan, Mansour arrived at Saeed’s palace. “This won’t stand, father.”

“Nothing’s certain yet.”

“I can stop him.”

“How?”

Mansour explained. For a moment, Saeed was almost frightened of his son. Of the vision that had led Mansour to create this private squad of killers. And then Saeed realized: This is how the world sees me.

“You’ve been building this for years, and you never said?”

“Putting the pieces in place. I wasn’t sure I’d ever use it.”

“What if the Americans found it?”

“I could roll up these men tomorrow. And no one can connect them to me.”

“The funding—”

“Goes through a dozen different places. It’s airtight. I hid it from you, didn’t I?”

“And how do you propose to use these men?”

Then Mansour had sketched his plan, the step-by-step process of provoking Abdullah, of ratcheting up the Kingdom’s instability until Abdullah would have no choice but to overreact.

Five years before, or even one, Saeed would have stopped his son. This is madness, he would have said. There’s no need. But his patience was exhausted. And the bell rang: Mine. Mine. Mine.

NOW THE ATTACKS HAD begun.

On at least one level, they had succeeded. Abdullah was furious. At Princess Alia’s funeral, he hardly spoke. He sat beside Saeed, fists clenched, his legs twitching under his robe. Saeed didn’t believe Abdullah would be able to control himself much longer. Already, he’d nearly accused Mansour of treason. And when he exploded to the other princes, his accusations would rebound against him. Without evidence, he would sound insane. The family would have to rally around Saeed.

And yet. Saeed wished he hadn’t chosen this path. Mainly because of Mansour. When he’d agreed to rely on his son, the balance between them had shifted. The irony was not lost on him. In his quest for absolute control, he’d given power to his son. And overconfidence was Mansour’s great weakness. He was nearly fifty but had a young man’s arrogance. He had grown up in a world of supreme luxury and privilege, protected by Saeed’s power. He didn’t realize that even perfect plans could come apart.

A thought that reminded Saeed of another potential complication.

“What about the American? Wells?”

“We’ve lost him for now. Abdullah and Miteb can’t possibly have told him anything. And he doesn’t even work for the CIA anymore.”

Saeed knew about John Wells. Years before, Wells had stopped a nuclear bomb from going off in America. The incident was never publicly disclosed, but Saeed had heard of it because a jihadist Saudi princeling had financed the operation. Afterward, the CIA had given the Saudis proof of the prince’s involvement. To quiet the Americans, Mansour’s men had killed him in a staged car accident. But it was Wells who had found the bomb and killed the men who’d built it. Wells spoke Arabic, and he’d fought in Afghanistan. Saeed didn’t want him within one thousand kilometers of this operation.

“You need to find him,” Saeed said now.

“All right, father. We will.”

FIVE MILES SOUTH, AHMAD Bakr sat against the wall of a mosque that was really nothing more than a one-room box with suras stenciled on the walls. Midday prayers had just ended.

Day by day, he was closing his camp in Lebanon and bringing his men to Saudi Arabia. Some flew from Beirut. Others drove overland through Syria and Jordan. In a few days, he’d have everything he needed for the third operation. This time he didn’t expect any congratulations from the general. No, this operation would come as a surprise to Ibrahim — and whoever was behind him.

Bakr’s phone buzzed. A blocked number.

He stepped onto a crowded street that stank of baked sewage and week-old meat. The buildings around him were only a few years old and already crumbling, rusty rebar poking from their concrete. This was Suwaidi, a gigantic slum in southern Riyadh, home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants and unlucky Saudis. The Riyadh police rarely ventured into Suwaidi, never at night.

Bakr flipped open his phone. “One hour. The gold souk.”

The gold souk sounded glamorous. It wasn’t. Wealthy Saudis shopped for jewelry in Dubai or London. The souk was a run-down warren of shops selling gold-plated necklaces and silver earrings. Bakr arrived early and wandered the stalls, making sure no one had followed him. The sergeant showed up five minutes late. He wore a plain white thobe and a nervous smile. Bakr put an arm around him and steered him to an empty café two streets from the souk’s rear entrance. They sat in a corner at a bruised Formica table. The room smelled of burnt coffee, and flies buzzed over the sugar bowls.

“Show me,” Bakr said.

The sergeant passed over a palm-sized digital camera. He worked on the north entry gate at the Diplomatic Quarter. “These are from today.”

“No one saw you take them?”

The sergeant shook his head.

“Tell me again how it works.”

“We get a call ten minutes before. Maybe fifteen. Telling us to be ready for a special convoy.”

“Always the same gate?”

“Not always. But mostly they prefer my gate. There’s less traffic. Then they give us another call a minute in advance. They’re so arrogant. Like it’s our only job. We clear the cars, make sure they have a path, and they come through. Fast. They’re very concerned about getting hit on the way out.”

“Then?”

“Police cars wait outside, and the convoy picks them up and then they go.”

“And how can you be sure it’s him?”

“If he’s involved, it’s five vehicles at least. Big ones, thick armor. Today it was a van at the front and the back and three Suburbans. You’ll see in the pictures. And like you told me, I made sure I was on the gate when they came through. And I saw him. You can’t see it in the pictures, not through the glass. But I did.”

Bakr waited, but the sergeant didn’t give him the last, vital piece of information. So, finally, he asked: “Which car?” Mentally adding, You fool.

“Sorry. Second vehicle. The first Suburban. Middle row, left side.”

“You’re sure.”

“A thousand percent.”

CHAPTER 13

THE BEKAA WAS REALLY TWO VALLEYS.

The southern half, nearer Beirut, was densely populated and fertile. A half-dozen rivers supported farms and light industry. On day trips, tourists visited vineyards and the ruins at Baalbek. In Zahlé, which had eighty thousand people and was the largest town in the valley, Muslims and Christians lived together, their churches and mosques practically side by side.

North of Baalbek, the valley looked different. Water was scarce and precious. The people were entirely Shia, and mostly poor. The twin mountain ranges, the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, pulled away from each other. The land between grew dry and wild. Herds of sheep wandered across rocky hummocks. Roads turned to gravel without warning.

In the north, Wells felt very much at home.

HIS RIDE FROM CYPRUS had gone smoothly. Wells sat on the deck as Nicholas and his men smoked in the cabin and argued in Greek. At one a.m. Wells called Gaffan on Nicholas’s satellite phone, confirming that Gaffan had arrived and passing along the GPS coordinates for the landing.

Two hours later, five miles off the Lebanese coast, Nicholas cut the cruiser’s lights. “You’re captain the rest of the way.” Nicholas nodded at the rubber raft tied loosely to the deck.

The raft was six feet long, five feet wide, with a rusted outboard engine at its back. It was made of black rubber, with a yellow patch sewn onto its right tube. Someone had drawn a smiley face on the patch. The smiley face failed to reassure. Wells felt a flutter in his stomach. He wasn’t a great swimmer. He hadn’t had much chance to learn, growing up in Montana. Was it possible he was… scared?

But nothing scared him. Not bullets or grenades or nuclear bombs. And since nothing scared him, he couldn’t be scared now. So, good, he wasn’t scared. He was irritated. Because drowning would be an irritating way to die after everything he’d survived, and if this raft sank, he’d probably drown. Not scared. Irritated.

Wells was glad to sort that question out.

“Don’t be frightened,” Nicholas said. “If I wasn’t sure you’d make it, I wouldn’t let you go. You think I want you to drown, your boyfriend bothering me? It’s simple. We drop it in. You get in, push the red button, the engine starts.” Nicholas handed Wells a plastic yellow Garmin GPS, the landing position flashing a black X. “Aim at that.”

“Simple.”

“And one more piece of advice.” Nicholas pointed at the dim lights along the coast. “See that red light? On the left? That’s Syria. Stay away from the Syrians. They’re not nice. Otherwise, no problem. Smooth water. A big bathtub. It takes about an hour. Very flat coast, low draft, you ride right to the beach.”

“And when I get there I leave the raft?”

“For a hundred thousand dollars, I can buy a new one.”

Wells spent the five-mile ride promising himself he would take swimming lessons when this mission was done. But Nicholas was right. The trip was easy. The eastern Mediterranean was as dull as a lake, the waves no more than two feet. The raft rocked lightly as Wells navigated toward the X, keeping a hand on the wooden box where his weapons were packed.

An hour later, he was a half-mile from shore, close enough to hear the occasional hum of engines on the coast road. The beach ahead was empty and unlit. Even so, Wells was exposed. The moon was low in the sky, but starlight shone off the water. The shore was flat and ran straight north-south, no nooks or crags to hide behind.

No wonder Nicholas had insisted on staying out to sea. Three hundred yards out, Wells revved the outboard, trying to close quickly. He needed a muffler. Fortunately, this stretch of coast was lightly developed, probably because of its nearness to Syria, which had a habit of invading Lebanon.

Fifty yards from shore, Wells cut the engine to just above idle, let the waves carry him in. He didn’t see Gaffan. But as he reached the beach, a Jeep pulled off the road and flashed its headlights. Gaffan stepped out. Wells hefted the crate from the raft. “I brought you a present.”

THEY LOADED UP, HEADED south. After a mile, Gaffan turned left, inland, passing between citrus groves. “Hit a checkpoint on the way up,” he said.

“Army or police?”

“Couldn’t tell. Either way, we should ditch that crate.” Gaffan parked beside a building that looked like a garage for farm equipment and cut the headlights. Wells stepped out, listened for dogs or traffic, heard neither. He popped the trunk, pried open the crate, pulled out their arsenal: AKs, pistols, grenades, ammunition, silencers.

“Nice.”

“I checked it on the boat. It’ll do.” Wells transferred the weapons to a canvas bag, stowed the bag in the Jeep’s spare tire compartment, tossed the tire and crate in a ditch behind the garage.

He checked his watch. Five a.m. Another night gone. Working for the agency had downsides, but it meant quick access to vehicles, safe houses, and identification. Wells would have gotten from France to Lebanon on a fresh passport in hours instead of days and had a pistol and sat phone waiting.

“It’s a lot slower when you’re on your own,” Gaffan said, as if reading his mind.

“Yes and no. On a government ticket, we’d have to check in with the head of station, get an in-country brief—”

“I know you’re supposed to do those things. But did you ever actually, John?”

“I didn’t always.”

“Ever?”

“I can’t remember.”

“I’m picking up some bad habits from you.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

They headed south toward Beirut on the coast road. The checkpoint was south of Tripoli. The paramilitary police looked them over, waved them through. “If they ever stop us, play the stupid American,” Wells said. “Touristico. They are always ready to believe it. Definitely don’t let on you know Arabic.”

“Roger that. So when we get to the Bekaa, what are we looking for?”

Wells had spent the ride from Cyprus mulling that question. “We know it’s a big operation, a bunch of guys. It’s been going a while. That credit card’s four months old. And it’s got to be more than just a crash pad. The logistics don’t work. These ops are happening two countries away.”

“So a full-on training camp? A base?”

“At least a house where they plan missions. Maybe just a few guys, maybe a couple dozen.”

“All Saudi.”

“Hezbollah run the Bekaa. They’re Shia, and Iran’s behind them. Maybe Abdullah and Miteb have it wrong and this is an Iranian operation to destabilize the Saudi government.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“Abdullah, he’s old, angry, but he’s smart. His brother, too. If they think this is coming from inside their family, then I believe them. And the guy I saw in Italy, he was Saudi, not Iranian.”

“Anyway, what would the Iranians get out of it?” Gaffan said. “They’ve got their own problems.”

“True. Figure it’s Saudi-run. Even so, they can’t operate here without Hezbollah. They must be paying for protection. Which means if we make too much fuss, we’ll have a problem.”

“Will your friends help?”

“Don’t count on it.” Wells recounted his last conversation with Shafer. “Duto probably wants to see what we find before he decides to bail us out.”

“He’d do that?”

“He’d enjoy it. Any case, we’d best find them quick, before Hezbollah figures out we’re looking.”

“Then hit them?”

“Depends on the target. If it’s fortified, no. But if we can get in and out without waking the neighbors, maybe.”

“So how do we find them?”

“That’s a very good question.”

BEIRUT LOOKED LIKE A cross between Miami, San Francisco, and Baghdad, a hilly, densely packed city with a waterfront promenade — and every so often a bombed-out building as a reminder of the civil war that had raged from 1975 to 1990. Wells and Gaffan rented two rooms in a Sofitel in East Beirut, the Christian quarter, to shower, shave, and nap.

By noon they were up, following a highway that rose into the mountains. The Bekaa’s farms and vineyards were closer than they seemed. Lebanon was a bite-sized country, one hundred fifty miles from tip to tail but less than fifty wide.

At the crest of the highway, uniformed soldiers manned a checkpoint, backed by an armored personnel carrier under camouflage netting. A soldier waved the Jeep over. “Identification,” he said in Arabic.

“Excuse me?” Gaffan said in English.

“Identification. Passports.”

Gaffan handed over his passport, Wells his driver’s license.

“Your passport, please,” the soldier said in English.

The passport was a problem. Specifically, the lack of a border entry stamp in the passport was a problem. The agency specialized in handling these details.

Wells tried to look sheepish. “I’m sorry, captain, I left it at the hotel.”

“Which hotel?”

“The Sofitel. In East Beirut.”

“And why do you come to Lebanon?”

“Tourists. We’re headed for Baalbek.”

“You should—”

“The ruins—”

“Shh! I know. You should have your passport.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t thinking.”

The officer flipped through Gaffan’s passport again, held Wells’s driver’s license close to his face. “Next time make sure you bring it,” he said. “You’re not in America. This doesn’t mean anything here.” He handed back the passport and license, waved them on.

They were halfway down the mountain before Gaffan spoke. “Captain was a nice touch.”

“Yes, but. This is going to be a problem, these checkpoints. Best travel separately, so if I get taken out, you don’t.”

IN ZAHLÉ, WELLS BOUGHT the first motorcycle he saw, an air-cooled Honda CB650, old but in good shape, worth maybe one thousand five hundred dollars. Wells paid twice that without blinking, another two hundred dollars for a helmet. Then he and Gaffan rolled north-west, toward Baalbek.

Hezbollah territory started east of Zahlé. Yellow and green flags hung from streetlights and telephone poles, proclaiming the group’s slogan: “Then surely the party of God are they that shall be triumphant.” Ten-foot-tall posters displayed larger-than-life photographs of Hezbollah’s leaders, heavy, scowling men wearing long black robes. On billboards, a pale white horse danced across an oddly lunar landscape. The horse symbolized the twelfth imam, and the billboards called the Shia to the festival of Ashura, which commemorated the death of Hussein Ali, the grandson of Muhammad and the third Shia imam. In the Bekaa, party, state, and religion were one.

Baalbek lay almost halfway up the valley. The town had grown around the remains of the Temple of Jupiter, built by the Romans about two hundred years after the birth of Christ. Its size was actually a sign of weakness, a futile effort to stop the new religion: Look at this shrine and know that our gods are stronger than your Messiah. But the majesty of a single God had overwhelmed the Roman pantheon. Wells wondered why Hezbollah had based itself here. Probably the group’s clerics viewed the temple as a simple tourist attraction, acres of meaningless stones.

North of Baalbek, traffic on the road thinned. The vineyards disappeared, replaced by scruffy farms of tomatoes and lemons. Here and there, Wells saw concrete mansions, set hundreds of yards off the road and protected by high brick walls. The homes were three and four stories high and garishly painted in yellow and green. McMansions, Lebanese-style. Wells assumed they belonged to hash farmers and Hezbollah leaders. Any of them could have served as the safe house he and Gaffan were looking for.

Farther north, the farms vanished. To the east, gray-brown hills rose toward the Syrian border. To the west, the Lebanon Mountains disappeared beneath low clouds. Qaa, the last village before Syria, was really just a mosque, a few houses, a small grocery store, and the gas station that had shown up on the credit card that the NSA had traced. Wells rode until a blue sign announced, “Syria 1 KM,” then made a U-turn and waited for Gaffan to follow.

At the gas station, Gaffan filled up the Jeep. “What are we doing, John?”

“They don’t teach recon in the army anymore?”

“This is Jamaica all over again. Worse. This valley is fifty or sixty miles long, twenty wide. A thousand square miles. We’re looking for one house. No way do we find these guys without comint”—communications intelligence—“or imagery. Even with a helicopter we might miss them.”

“Wrong. First. The camp’s around here. Not in the south.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because the credit card was used here. If you’re in Zahlé, you wouldn’t drive up here. And if they have a camp, they need space.”

“What if it’s just a house?”

“Then why did somebody put five hundred gallons of diesel on a credit card? For the miles?”

“Even if you’re right, we’re talking hundreds of square miles.”

“Wherever it is, once we get close enough, anybody within a couple miles will know.”

“You can’t be sure.”

Wells controlled his frustration. After the near disaster in Jamaica, Gaffan had the right to be gun-shy. “Think it through. Everybody’s everybody’s cousin here. You think they don’t notice if a bunch of Saudis come in? At least the neighbors would have called the paramilitaries, made sure it’s okay.”

“So. Assuming your instinct is right, and they’re somewhere close, and the locals know where, how do we find them?”

“We ask.”

The gas station was a concrete shed with a tin roof and a plywood counter. A middle-aged man in a dirty red shirt sat by the register. He barely looked up as Wells entered. He was focused on the television blaring out a call-in advice show from Beirut. The Lebanese loved these shows. They loved to give one another advice.

“Salaam aleikum.”

“Aleikum salaam.”

On screen, a woman in a head scarf and a pound of makeup listened to a man complain that his brother had borrowed his car, dented the bumper, and refused to fix it. “First of all… are you sure it wasn’t your wife who dented the bumper?” the woman said. The audience chortled.

“Good show,” Wells said.

“Very funny.”

“Yes. I need another delivery. More diesel.”

The man shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“For the camp.”

“What camp?”

Wells couldn’t tell if the guy was hiding what he knew, had no idea what Wells was talking about, or was just slow. The third seemed likely. He couldn’t push too hard, risk rattling the guy, but he thought he could get away with one more try. “The one in the hills.”

“You want it, come with your truck and pick it up. Like before.”

“Of course. Like before.” He’d hoped to catch a break, trail a tanker truck to the camp, but that would have been too easy. Still, he had confirmed that the camp was somewhere close. Within ten miles, twenty at most.

“What’s your name?”

“Jalal.” Wells had used the name for a decade in Afghanistan and Pakistan. By the end, he had known it as well as his own. Maybe better. “I’ll come back tomorrow. For the diesel.”

“As you wish.” The man turned back to the show.

WELLS RODE WEST, ONTO a road barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Over a rise, he stopped to make way for hundreds of sheep picking their way across the pavement. Two boys on donkeys and a single mangy collie herded the flock.

The older boy, maybe ten, shouted, “Vroom, vroom,” and grinned and waved the stick he was using to prod the sheep along. He wore a tunic and a freshly laundered red-and-white kaffiyeh that contrasted sharply with his dark skin.

Wells hopped off the bike. “What’s your name?”

“Hamid,” the boy said shyly. The sheep marched around them, as slow and implacable as time itself.

“I’m Jalal. These are your family’s sheep?”

“My father’s.”

“How many?”

“Two hundred and eighty-one.” His pride was obvious.

“That’s a lot of sheep.”

“Next year we’ll have even more, my father says. Is that your motorcycle?”

“I just bought it.”

“Do you ride fast?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you ride in the dark?”

“Yes. Do you study the Quran, Hamid?”

“Of course.”

“And are you Shia?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know what Sunnis are?”

“Muslim, but not like me.”

“That’s right. I’m Sunni.”

Hamid pinched his nose, apparently uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken.

“Do you know if there are other Sunnis around here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where they live?”

“That way.” Hamid pointed west with his stick, toward the mountains.

“Do you know how far?”

“Closer to the mountains. My father says to stay away from them. They make noise sometimes.” The last of the sheep had dribbled past them. Hamid kicked a donkey’s flank. The animal grumbled and trudged forward. “Good-bye, mister.”

Wells waved good-bye. Gaffan pulled up, lowered his window. “What was that?”

Wells explained. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Gaffan said.

“Don’t you know by now that sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good?”

THEY PASSED A ONE-LANE bridge over a dry streambed. Until now the land had been open and unfenced. Ahead, both sides of the road were fenced with strings of rusting wire that hung between wooden posts. Wells was a child again, on a road trip with his dad, east through Montana and Wyoming, on the way to Kansas City. His first bigleague baseball game. He was six.

He rarely got to spend much time with his father, who spent most waking hours in the operating room at the hospital in Hamilton. More than once along the way, he’d told himself to remember, remember the diners where they ate and the gas stations where they stopped, as though he could make the trip last forever if he burned it deep enough into his brain. Of course, now the details had vanished. Wells remembered only being obscurely disappointed that his father didn’t seem more excited to be with him. But this landscape, so unexpected and so familiar, stirred an emotion stronger and purer than nostalgia.

He slowed. Gaffan stopped beside him, ending his reverie. “See something?”

“Nothing at all.” They moved on, approaching the flanks of the Lebanon range. The hills rose and the land crumpled and the road turned to gravel. Wells imagined lines tightening on a topographic map. He rode slowly, his legs spread wide for balance, feet off the pegs. The road turned along the base of a ravine and was blocked by a gate topped with thick strands of razor wire. Behind the gate, the road swung left and disappeared behind a hill. Wells clicked on the GPS in his pocket to save the location, then turned to Gaffan and twirled a finger: Let’s get out of here.

For the rest of the afternoon, they repeated the drill. Wells saved three more possible locations, fenced areas or walled houses that looked suspicious.

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains by the time they rented rooms at the Palmyra Hotel in Baalbek. Directly across from the temple ruins, the Palmyra had a long and glorious history. The Germans had occupied it during World War I, the British in World War II. The hotel still had a certain faded glamour, with stained-glass windows and overgrown trees in its yard. But its rugs were threadbare and its showers offered only cold water.

Wells and Gaffan cleaned up and sat in the back garden, drinking lukewarm, too-sweet coffee. As far as Wells could tell, they were the hotel’s only guests.

“You think we found it?”

“Could have. I already called Ellis. Asked for fresh day and night overheads”—satellite photographs. “For all four locations, but especially the first.”

Wells had also asked whether the agency had any new information on the Jeddah bombing or the earlier attacks. The answer was a predictable and dispiriting no. The agency was so focused on Al Qaeda that this new group had caught it wrong-footed. Wells had kept Abdullah’s suspicions about Saeed to himself. Wells trusted Shafer, but it was always possible that Duto or someone even higher up would decide that the United States would gain by leaking information about Abdullah’s problems to MI6 or the Mossad. Wells preferred not to take that chance.

“So will they help?”

“He wouldn’t promise, but I think so. It’s in their interest. Waiting will hold us up for at least one night, maybe two, but I don’t care. I want to know what’s on the other side before we go over that fence.”

“Then how do they get the overheads to us?”

“Gmail.”

“You really think they’re going to send Keyhole imagery to you on Gmail.” The Keyhole was the National Reconnaissance Office’s finest toy, able to read license plates from space.

“They may degrade them, but yes.”

“Because they want us to go in, even though Shafer told you not to.”

“Correct.”

“Hell of a game.”

“The best,” Wells said. “And the worst.”

CHAPTER 14

THE SATELLITE SHOTS FILLED THE WALL-SIZED FLAT-PANEL SCREEN in Shafer’s office, as clear as life. Maybe clearer. Thanks to mirrors and lenses machined to ten-millionths of a meter, the fifth-generation Keyholes could take daylight photos from low earth orbit at five-centimeter resolution — about two inches.

With five-centimeter resolution, the photos revealed not just the number of men in a unit but also fine tactical details, such as the weapons they carried and whether they wore beards. The NRO promised that the next generation of satellites would reach one-centimeter resolution, enough to distinguish individual features. “Face from space,” the program was called.

Shafer remembered when one meter had been state-of-the-art. And he remembered when the overheads had been couriered around Washington in armored vans. These days the process was digital, start to finish. Data and imagery moved between the CIA and other three-letter agencies at the speed of light on an encrypted fiber-optic trunk line that circled Washington.

Shafer felt he’d made the transition pretty well. Technology didn’t scare him. He’d watched the agency go from analog to digital, watched it suffer through Aldrich Ames and Wen Ho Lee, watched its top targets move from walled palaces in Moscow and Beijing to nameless caves in Pakistan. He didn’t count himself as overly nostalgic. In truth, the CIA was probably more effective now than it had been during the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union had left it without a mission. The chaotic years after September 11 had been worse. George Tenet, the director at the time, proved to be the ultimate kiss-up and kick-down manager, never letting the facts get in the way of what the White House wanted to hear.

But since Tenet’s resignation in 2004, the agency had slowly rebuilt itself to face the new threat. The clandestine service hired as many Arabic speakers as it could find and pushed toward the front lines in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. At home, the intelligence directorate encouraged debates, fighting the groupthink that submerged unpopular positions.

Yet the CIA’s new vigor had come at a price. In the short term, drone strikes and coercive interrogations disrupted Al Qaeda and contained attacks. But as long as average Egyptians and Pakistanis believed that the United States was their enemy, Muslim extremism would thrive. “The guerrillas are the fish, and the people are the water,” Mao had said. Drone attacks that killed civilians were fish food. So was support for repressive and undemocratic governments. The agency was doing a good job tactically. Strategically, not so much.

But then the agency didn’t set strategy, despite what the conspiracy theorists thought. The ultimate decision-maker lived five miles away on the other side of the Potomac. And whichever party he represented, he could never plan too far ahead. Not with elections every two years. So the strategy became: Stop the jihadis today, and let tomorrow take care of itself.

Though Shafer didn’t have too many tomorrows left, either. His mandatory retirement was fast approaching. The clichés were true, too. Time did fly. The days were long, but the years were short. Shafer still remembered the wonder he’d felt on his first morning as he drove onto the campus in his Oldsmobile, a brand now extinct.

More and more, Shafer found himself thinking of bonds made and broken. He and Jennifer Exley and Wells had known one another for fifteen years. Shafer would trust either of them with his life. And he knew the other two felt the same way, even if Wells was angry about what had happened on their last mission.

Yet the three of them had splintered. Wells and Exley had quit the agency. Wells had an uncontrollable thirst for action — a rage, really. Exley had left him because she was sure he would eventually get himself killed. And she was probably right. Wells was both lucky and good. But luck couldn’t last forever, and skills inevitably eroded. Yet Shafer couldn’t imagine reining in Wells. He belonged in the field like no one Shafer had ever met. After everything he’d done, he had earned the right to die with his boots on.

But not this time. Not this mission.

WITH THAT THOUGHT, SHAFER focused on the satellite shots, resolving to glean every detail he could. He would send the overheads to Wells, of course, but they wouldn’t be nearly this sharp when they arrived. The agency would have no choice but to degrade them, in part because the file sizes were far too large for a civilian Internet account. And Wells wouldn’t have a display panel as good as his, either.

Shafer knocked out two locations quickly. They were nothing more than well-guarded hash farms, complete with tractors and pesticide sprayers. The third, in the northern foothills of the Lebanon range, was trickier. Mysterious tarp-covered mounds and half-buried concrete sheds were scattered across it. Still, Shafer thought he was looking at a Hezbollah arms depot, not a jihadi camp. Only two cars and three unarmed men were visible. The mounds and sheds most likely held howitzers and missile launchers — or possibly decoys to siphon Israeli air attacks from Hezbollah’s real depots.

Which left the fourth farm, the first that Wells and Gaffan had spotted, the one Wells believed was correct. Two different Keyholes had taken overhead passes, one just before noon and the second at about two a.m. the next day. Noon was the ideal time for satellite shots. Direct overhead sunlight minimized shadows and shined brightly off metal. The reflections helped the image-processing software that searched for half-hidden bits of steel and aluminum, pipes that might be bunker vents or coin-shaped disks that could be mines. Shafer was looking for more obvious features. From what Wells said, this camp would have been recently built and only semipermanent, with privacy and size as its main considerations.

Wells’s instincts looked on target. A one-story barracks sat in a rocky valley a mile south of the gate that seemed to mark the property line. Shafer judged it would be invisible from anywhere outside the property. Its concrete was white and new, but the construction was shoddy. A small generator at the back of the barracks powered a string of bulbs. Three SUVs and a ten-wheel panel truck were parked in front. A blue tarp covered the truck, though Shafer could faintly make out Arabic letters in the back corner, where the tarp had come loose.

Just past the barracks, the road turned west, toward the mountains. It dead-ended a quarter-mile up at a two-story concrete house, cheap and gaudy in hash-farmer style, with balconies and filigrees. But the house’s yellow paint was faded, its concrete cracked. Shafer guessed that it had been abandoned a few years back, long before the barracks was built. Two satellite television receivers sat on the roof. One was old, its wires disconnected, the other new. No transmission equipment, though. A new diesel generator and a half-dozen barrels sat beside the house, presumably fuel from the gas station in Qaa. Next to them was a small shack.

The road between the barracks and the house was well-trod. Shafer guessed they slept in the barracks, trained and ate in the house. A couple other details struck him. A deep pit had been dug near the barracks. Given the hardness of the Bekaa’s soil, excavating the pit would have required backhoes. It would have been dug only for a good reason. Maybe live explosives training.

Behind the house, he spotted what might have been a makeshift helicopter pad, flat ground with a small white X painted at its center. He might have been wrong. No helicopter was visible, and he didn’t see anywhere to hide one. Still. A helicopter pad. Ambitious. Shafer clicked back to the first image, the barracks, to take another look—

His phone interrupted him. Vinny Duto. The DCI.

“Can you come up?”

“Love to,” Shafer lied.

Duto’s office was on the seventh floor of the Original Headquarters Building. The view was nice, but the company wasn’t. Duto had tightened his control over the intelligence community in the last year, thanks in part to Wells and Shafer. In their last mission, they had unwittingly helped him topple his biggest rival, the director of national intelligence, a job created after September 11 to serve as a check on the CIA.

But Duto might have regained control on his own. Technically, the director of central intelligence reported to the DNI. But the DNI didn’t have any clandestine operatives of his own, only analysts. Analysis was nice, but power came from the operational side. And operations belonged to Duto. With the DNI neutered, Duto had no real rivals for control. But power hadn’t mellowed him. Not even close. Wall Street bankers never had enough money, and men like Duto never had enough power. Shafer knew that Duto found him — and especially Wells, who couldn’t be controlled and who lived by a set of principles that Duto would never understand — deeply irritating.

Though Duto had certainly outsmarted them both last year.

Shafer walked into Duto’s office to find it nearly dark, the electrically controlled shades down, as Duto examined the Lebanese overheads on his own flat-panel. Shafer sat. Duto ignored him for a couple minutes, flicking through the images. When he turned off the screen, the shades rose automatically. “Pretty pictures. What’s Wells going to do with them?”

“Hi, Vinny. Good to see you. You too. How’s the wife? The kids?”

“Yeah, yeah. What about the overheads?”

“Wells hasn’t told me, but I imagine he’s going to raid that camp. As you know.”

“And you signed off on sending satellite shots over the Internet?”

“Is there some plausible deniability thing happening here? Aren’t we past that? It’s just overheads. You can find them on Google Earth.”

“Not at five-centimeter resolution.”

“We’ll degrade them. Anyway, if we’re gonna use him, we should help him.”

Duto nodded, conceding the point. He’d given in way too easily. Shafer wondered why he’d bothered with this meeting at all. The next sentence provided the answer.

“Is Wells talking to Abdullah, Ellis?”

Shafer couldn’t see the percentage in lying. “Not sure, but I think so. The jet that picked him up in New York belonged to the Saudi government. And the DGSE”—the French intelligence service—“say that Abdullah and Miteb were in Nice when he was there. So probably yes.”

“So Abdullah is actively involved here. The king of Saudi Arabia. What’s Wells doing that his security services can’t?”

“Maybe Abdullah doesn’t trust the muk anymore. Or maybe Wells is working with them to get inside this camp.”

“Maybe you should ask your boy for a straight answer.”

“My boy doesn’t work for us anymore. In case you haven’t noticed.”

“We’re helping him.”

“And he’s helping us. And if I push any harder, he’ll go dark.”

“All right. But you need to understand something, Ellis. Across the river they’re pulling a strat rev on the KSA”—a strategic review on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. “Us, State, NSC”—the National Security Council. “Joint Chiefs sitting in but don’t have a brief. They’re focusing on our relationship with the House of Saud.”

“I love it when you lift your skirt and show me your access.”

Once, Duto would have snapped at Shafer’s bait. Now he wore handmade suits and pressed white shirts and pants that stretched his legs and smoothed out his rooster walk. Powerful men walked differently than other people did. They flowed. Or maybe Shafer was projecting. Or jealous. He didn’t flow. He never would. He wondered if Duto dreamed of higher office. Possibly. The senior George Bush had been CIA director, after all.

“Want to know what they’re going to decide?”

“Tomorrow’s news today. Inform me, wise one.”

Again, Duto didn’t bite. “They’re going to decide that the stability of the Kingdom is paramount. That Abdullah is expendable, in other words. Because when it comes to Saudi Arabia, we only care about one thing, Ellis. And it’s not whether they’re making women wear blankets. I’ll spell it out for you. Starts with O, ends with L—”

“You love these realpolitik lectures. Like you’re the only one who gets it. Having Abdullah standing up to the clerics is what we need long-term. Strategy, not tactics.”

“You still don’t get it, Ellis. Abdullah isn’t going to be standing up for anything much longer. Prince Saeed called in our ambassador to tell him that.”

“Saeed’s no friend.”

“As long as the oil keeps coming, he is. And the betting across the river is that he can manage that place better than Abdullah. The clerics like him. They think he’s on their team. The smart money says the attacks will stop quick once he takes over. And if they don’t, he’ll chop necks until they do. If there are any downstream effects, we’ll manage those.”

“Downstream effects. Like planes hitting buildings. Tell me something. Why are we pretending to be so sure we know what’s happening here when we have no idea? We don’t know who’s behind these attacks, or what they want, or whether Saeed is speaking for Abdullah or not.”

“We want a calm, orderly succession; Saeed gives it to us. Everybody wins.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“That’s what the review’s going to say. Everyone’s on board. It’s nice.”

As if the words on a paper in Washington would change the reality in Riyadh. “Tell me again what this has to do with John,” Shafer said. “Who last I checked was in Lebanon, trying to figure out who’s behind four terrorist attacks.”

“As long as that’s all he’s doing. But it’s in nobody’s interest for him to get involved in Saudi politics. Especially not his own. He gets sucked down in this, we’re not sending a lifeguard.”

“You think he’ll care?”

“Just make sure he knows, Ellis.”

Shafer saluted and walked out. He had only one consolation as he stepped into the elevator that would take him away from the seventh floor. Wells wouldn’t need to be warned he was on his own. He already knew.

CHAPTER 15

GRAVEL KICKED UP UNDER THE HONDA’S TIRES AS WELLS RODE west, keeping the bike in third gear at twenty miles an hour, risking a stall to minimize engine noise. He wore dirty green cargo pants and a thick black windbreaker and cheap gray sneakers and four days of beard, camouflage that had gotten him past a checkpoint north of Baalbek. His heart was slow and steady. His hands were loose and relaxed.

He hadn’t killed anyone in two years. But he expected to kill tonight.

Under other circumstances, Wells would have preferred to carry out this mission under thick clouds, or even better, rain. But the Bekaa’s dry season was starting. And he and Gaffan risked attracting attention if they stayed much longer. Already the desk clerk at the Palmyra had shown an unwelcome interest in their plans. This morning he’d asked how many more days they expected to stay. Wells worried that Hezbollah would mistake them for Israeli intelligence officers.

They had another reason to move. Shafer had sent them four sets of photographs of the property that was their top target. Between the second and third, the panel truck had vanished. A week had passed since the bombing in Jeddah. The jihadis seemed to be leaving Lebanon, readying another attack.

So he and Gaffan were going in, despite the half-moon and cloudless sky. Wells wondered now if they’d miscalculated. The low hills hid him from the barracks and farmhouse. But if the jihadis had posted a sentry higher up, on the flanks of the mountain to the west, Wells’s approach would be obvious. He could only hope they hadn’t bothered. He didn’t like having to hope.

TWO DAYS BEFORE, AS Wells prowled around the northern Bekaa to look for other potential targets, Gaffan had driven to Beirut and bought a laptop and a satellite dish that would free them from local Internet connections. By midnight they’d received the first batch of overheads from Shafer, along with a message to call on a secure line. Which Wells didn’t have. He called anyway.

“I have good news and bad news,” Shafer said. “Which first?”

“The good. And FYI, you’re on Skype. Which may not be your definition of secure.”

“Fair enough. You got the pictures?”

“Yes.”

“Still thinking the most likely candidate is the first place you found?”

“Yes.”

“The good news is that our friends from the No Such”—the NSA again—“agree. They found text messages to one of the phone numbers you gave them sent from a cell tower a couple miles from the camp.”

“What’d the messages say?”

“Our friends don’t know. The texts are a month old. The database shows they exist, not what they said.”

“How can they do that?”

“Don’t know. But the key is, you seem to be looking in the right place.”

“That is good news. Since we’re going in soon.”

“Before you do. The bad news.” Shafer paused. “We’re hearing your friend is done. That there’s gonna be a new sheriff in town.”

“My friend who asked me to take this trip, you mean?” If Shafer wanted to keep Abdullah’s name off the air, Wells wouldn’t argue.

“Yes. And what you need to know, even more important, people over here aren’t crying over it. They think all those sheriffs are pretty much the same. Long as the gas station stays open. ’Cause you know we like our gas cheap.”

“What if the new sheriff blew up the old sheriff’s granddaughter?”

“You’d need good evidence. The kind that would be embarrassing if it went public.”

“Still looking for that.”

“There’s your answer.”

“This is coming from your boss?”

“His bosses, too. The ones across the river. So if you feel otherwise, if you want to take a position on this, get involved, you’re on your own. Not nudge-and-wink on your own. Really on your own.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger—”

Wells pushed the red “end call” button on the virtual keypad. The down-the-drain electronic chime of a Skype hang-up didn’t offer the same satisfaction as slamming down a phone, but it was the best he could do.

After what had happened with the Midnight House, Wells knew he should be immune to the stench of Washington cynicism. And maybe they were right, Duto and the national security adviser and whoever else was making this decision. Maybe Wells was a sucker for thinking Abdullah was different from Saeed. Maybe a stable oil supply was all the United States could expect out of Saudi Arabia.

Even so, Wells hated the fact that the mandarins in Washington could walk away from a man who had just lost his granddaughter to a terrorist bombing. Abdullah wasn’t Lech Walesa or Nelson Mandela. His top concern was passing power to his son. But at least he was trying to make his nation freer, more tolerant. The United States theoretically wanted him to succeed. But not at the risk of a single barrel of oil.

The same attitude had led America to leave Saddam Hussein in power in 1990. Once Saddam had been evicted from Kuwait’s oil fields, he was no longer a threat to the United States, whatever his crimes against Iraq’s Shia and Kurds.

Even after everything he’d seen and done, Wells believed that the United States was generally a force for good. But the truth was that when oil was involved, American principles got fuzzy. So be it. Wells didn’t need Duto to authorize this mission. At least Shafer had given him the courtesy of letting him know where he stood.

“What’d he say?” Gaffan said. Wells explained.

“So if we go in, we’re on our own,” Gaffan said.

“That’s it.”

“What if Duto, somebody back home, knows something we don’t?”

“They know plenty we don’t. But none of it’s got anything to do with this.”

“You’re so sure of yourself, John. It’s not that easy for me. These guys get paid to make the tough calls. Chain of command. I look at you, I think of that line from that television show The People’s Court. Remember it? Judge Wapner. ‘Don’t take the law into your own hands. You take ’em to court.’”

“The tough calls? Let me tell you Vinny Duto’s priorities, in order. First, more power for Vinny Duto—”

“Power meaning what?”

“Meaning face time with the president. Operational control in Afghanistan and everywhere else. A bigger budget. Bigger voice on strategy. Bigger payday when he finally quits to run Lockheed Martin or whatever. Second, keep the lid on the disaster of the day — and if the lid comes off, make it SEP, somebody else’s problem. Third, and this is a long way back, do the right thing.”

“You’re pretty cynical, John.”

“I guess so. Arrogant, too. Duto says the same. The saddest part is he might even be right in the short run,” Wells said. “The United States might be better off for a year or two with Saeed running Saudi Arabia. But in the long run, the jihadis will be happy to have him. And Duto knows it, but he doesn’t care.”

Gaffan rubbed his forehead. Wells thought he was about to back out.

“I won’t hold it against you, you want to go home. Money’s yours either way.”

“No. I gave you my word, and I’m in.”

“A two-man chain of command.”

“Never been this close to the top.”

SO GAFFAN WAS STILL on board. But Wells had another problem: Should he caution the king that the United States no longer supported his reign? Even under normal circumstances, telling a foreign government about a secret American policy decision was illegal at best, treason at worst. This situation was even trickier. Abdullah was old and angry. What if he reacted to the warning by going public, denouncing the White House, cutting off Saudi oil? What if he arrested Saeed and gave the throne to Khalid? Plus, Abdullah and Miteb had given Wells millions of dollars. Wells was sure the money hadn’t affected his judgment, but others would surely disagree. Vinny Duto, for example.

On the other hand, Abdullah deserved to know that someone — almost certainly Saeed — had told the American government that he wouldn’t be king much longer. Wells decided to pass along that part of the message and to advise that Abdullah see the American ambassador in person to prove he wasn’t on his deathbed. Nothing more. With any luck, Abdullah would be smart enough to ask at the meeting if the United States planned to support him. He could judge the ambassador’s response for himself.

A reasonable compromise, Wells thought. He reached for his handset to call Kowalski, get a message to Miteb.

ON THE THIRD DAY, Wells stayed in the Palmyra, examining the overheads and planning the attack. Gaffan made another run to Beirut. For seventy-six thousand dollars in cash, he bought a used thirtyone-foot Cranchi from the friendly folks at Chehab Marine. The Cranchi was a speedboat disguised as a pleasure cruiser, with a sharp prow, a narrow white hull, and a spiffy racing stripe. Its cockpit sat four. Belowdecks, it had a cabin where two people could sleep as long as they didn’t mind getting to know each other. Its twin engines had been upgraded to put out two hundred thirty horsepower, enough to get the boat to forty knots on full throttle. Equally important, it had a one-hundred-forty-gallon fuel tank, for a range of three hundred miles, easily enough for Cyprus. The boat would be valuable insurance if they had to leave Lebanon fast. Better safe than sorry, especially since they were spending money that came out of the ground. Wells had gotten into the habit of thinking about prices in terms of oil. The Cranchi ran one thousand barrels, give or take.

The dealer at Chehab didn’t ask why an American had showed up at his showroom to buy a speedboat with wads of cash in rubber bands. He didn’t ask what Gaffan planned to do with the Cranchi. And he was more than happy to recommend a quiet harbor south of Tripoli where Gaffan could dock the Cranchi, no questions asked. He even sent a driver to pick Gaffan up from the harbor and bring him back to Beirut after Gaffan piloted the Cranchi there. The Lebanese were known for their friendliness, especially to anyone who paid list price.

Gaffan came back to Baalbek at around ten p.m. An hour later, Shafer sent the overheads with the truck missing. The next morning, the desk clerk got nosy, and Wells realized they needed to move.

AT NIGHT THE BEKAA showed its teeth. The tourists went back to Beirut and the hash farmers got to work. Hashish was marijuana’s more potent cousin, made from the resin of cannabis plants, nearly pure THC — the active ingredient in marijuana. To make hash, farmers threshed cannabis leaves and stems through wire screens, separating a sticky resin. They dried it into a moist powder and pressed the powder into sweet-smelling bricks and wrapped the bricks in thick blue plastic to keep them fresh.

During the Lebanese civil war, the Bekaa became the world’s top hash supplier. Lebanese Red was famous in Amsterdam cafés. The government cracked down during the 1990s, but the trade never disappeared entirely. It had surged since 2006, when the Israeli invasion strengthened Hezbollah. Publicly, the group claimed that it didn’t support hash farming, but that it couldn’t stop poor farmers from growing cannabis to survive. In reality, hash was second only to payments from Iran as a source of income for the Party of God.

Under the watchful eyes of Hezbollah militiamen, the trade ran smoothly. Farmers brought bricks to warehouses in Baalbek and Hermel, receiving three hundred to five hundred dollars per pound. Black-clad soldiers guarded the depots and monitored loads. Growing hash in the valley without Hezbollah’s approval was a crime punishable by death. The hash was hidden in crates of tomatoes and hauled to the coast for shipping to Europe — or flown to Turkey and Cyprus on eight-seat prop planes from the bumpy airfield at Rayak. Some even went south to Israel. The Israeli army and police hated the fact that their stoners enriched Hezbollah. They ran television ads showing the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, popping out of a bong, an evil genie made of smoke. Still, the trafficking continued.

The hash trade complicated Wells’s plans. A late-night firefight would make the local farmers twitchy. They’d call Hezbollah’s militia or show up on their own, locked and loaded. To keep the raid quiet, Wells and Gaffan would have to use their silenced pistols on anyone they came across. They couldn’t offer warnings, so they ran a real risk of killing civilians if Wells and the NSA had made a mistake and this farm turned out to be the Lebanese equivalent of a Boy Scout camp.

A HALF-MILE FROM THE front gate, Wells left the Honda in a ditch and grabbed his gear from the cardboard box on the back of the bike. He slung the AK over his shoulder and tucked a spare magazine and flashlight into a long pocket inside his windbreaker. He threaded the silencer onto the pistol and slipped it into his belt. With the silencer attached, the pistol would be a slow draw, but Wells had no other way to carry it. He tucked wire clippers and plastic handcuffs and a butterfly knife into the top pockets of his cargo pants. The bottom pockets were already stuffed with clothesline and electrical tape. A trainer at the Farm — his name lost to Wells now — had made a mantra of clothesline and electrical tape. They’re civilian items, you can buy and carry them easily, and you can use them one thousand different ways. Make that one thousand and one. The trainer’s nickname, inevitably, had been “one thousand and one.”

Finally, Wells pulled off his sneakers and replaced them with steeltipped boots Gaffan had picked up in Beirut. Close-quarters fighting was called hand-to-hand, but aside from a knife, a solid pair of boots was the most important weapon within three feet. He walked west along the road, his boots crunching gravel.

Gaffan was coming in from the south side of the farm, two miles away. The satellite maps revealed a gravel road that ended in a dry streambed. Gaffan should be able to bring the Jeep in most of the way.

Their cell phones were no good here, and they didn’t have sat phones. Gaffan did have a flare gun in the Jeep, and they’d agreed he would fire it if he hit trouble. But if Gaffan ran into Hezbollah, he’d have bigger worries than warning Wells.

If this had been an agency-sponsored op, they would have had real communications gear. Bulletproof vests. Gas grenades. Most important, a ride out. Wells had e-mailed Shafer that they were going in and received a simple “Okay” in response. Especially after what had happened a year before, Shafer knew better than to make promises he couldn’t keep.

Even so, part of Wells enjoyed running this way, simple and low-tech. American soldiers hated roadside bombs, called them cowardly because they didn’t offer a target for return fire. But whenever possible, the United States used higher-tech versions of the same tactic, killing its enemies at a distance with helicopter gunships and drone-fired missiles. Rightly so. War wasn’t meant to be fair. But Wells knew that a whites-of-the-eyes fight like this offered a psychic release that killing at a distance did not. One of us is going to die. Better you than me.

The road narrowed into the ravine, the gate just ahead. Wells stopped, listened to the night. He heard only the faint grinding of a truck on the central valley road behind him. The gate was made of heavy metal bars topped by razor wire and was kept shut with a steel padlock and chain. It had been placed at the narrowest point in the ravine and stretched to the steep slopes on either side. It had no signs warning against trespassing. It didn’t need them. It was ominous enough.

Wells flipped on his flashlight, shined the beam low through the bars. He saw nothing metallic, no trip wires or mines, just a shiny piece of plastic. Wells looked hard at it before it resolved into a water bottle. Trash. He stepped onto the bottom bar of the gate and pulled his clippers. He trimmed at the razor wire as carefully as an apprentice at a fancy hair salon. After the first couple cuts, the tension in the wire relaxed. Wells pulled on the ends of the wire gently with one gloved hand and took bigger cuts with the other.

Sixty seconds later, he was through. He looked at his handiwork. In daylight the hole in the wire would be obvious, but if they were still here in daylight, they’d have bigger problems. He tucked away his flashlight and pulled his pistol and walked along the road as it curved left. According to the overheads, the barracks was a mile down. The road here was hardpack dirt and stone, and Wells moved quickly. It was 1:49 a.m. He’d split from Gaffan twenty-four minutes before.

Then he heard the engine.

IT WASN’T A GENERATOR. It was quieter, smoother. A car or truck. Wells trotted south toward the barracks, still invisible. The top of the farmhouse appeared over the ridge to his right, the west. He heard a man on the far side of the ridge walking up to the farmhouse. Why weren’t they sleeping? Had they spotted him? Or Gaffan?

To his left, the ravine was nearly a cliff, too steep to climb. To his right, the slope was flatter and treeless. No place to hide there, either. Wells moved faster. He needed to close quickly. The road angled again. Finally Wells saw the barracks, its lights flickering. He was maybe three hundred yards away. Two black Suburbans were parked nose to tail twenty yards from the building. A third car, a beige Toyota sedan, was farther back. Three men stood around the front Suburban. They had black hair and light brown skin. Probably Saudi. The tallest one wore a long brown gown and looked to be in charge. The other two were dressed Western-style, in jeans and long-sleeved shirts. The tall man pointed toward the farmhouse, then back at the barracks. The other two nodded. Wells was too far away to hear what they were saying.

Wells unslung the AK, threw himself down, crawled ahead. A few scrubby bushes lay between him and the barracks, a few rocks. Not enough. Before he became a spy, Wells had been a soldier. A Ranger. Cover means life, he’d learned. But the land around him was miserly with cover. If he moved too fast, they’d spot him. If he didn’t move at all, they’d still spot him eventually. Two hundred yards was theoretically close enough to use the AK, but in reality he had about as much chance of hitting a home run at Fenway.

To say he was in a tactical hole would be an understatement.

The two jihadis in Western dress disappeared, leaving the tall one. He popped the back of the Suburban, pulled out a plastic bottle, took a long drink. Wells used the distraction to pop up and scramble eighty yards closer. He ducked behind a low rock and scraped his left leg hard as he went down, tearing open his sweats, bruising his knee and calf. Getting too old for this. But that was a problem for tomorrow.

He steadied his breath, sighted through the AK’s hashes. This close, he guessed he had a fifty-fifty shot to take out the tall guy. Then what? The rest would scatter and get under cover. He had to get closer. Another forty yards, at least. He tucked the rifle behind the rock and got as low as he could and waited.

Four men walked out of the barracks and hoisted a duffel bag into the back of the Suburban. Wells heard the clanking of metal as the edge of the bag caught the sill of the truck. Wells wondered why they were moving now. Over the car’s engine, Wells caught a snippet of Arabic.

“He wants us there tomorrow night. twelve hundred kilometers…” Twelve hundred kilometers. Wells would map possible routes in the morning. Assuming he got through tonight. The men turned away, and Wells lost the conversation. If the Suburban came this way, he would have to open up. They would see him as they passed. He was facing at least seven guys, plus one or more up at the house. And Gaffan was still missing in action.

A walkie-talkie hissed. The tall man pulled an old-school handheld radio from his pocket, listened. “Are you sure? All right. Stay up there, then, and watch.” He turned to the man beside him, squareshouldered and stubby. If Wells had to tag them using American army ranks, he’d make the tall one a lieutenant and the short one an E-6, a staff sergeant.

“Bandar says someone is coming toward us.” He pointed south. “That way. He thinks the man has a rifle. You three go and see about it. Remember, don’t shoot him unless you’re sure. We don’t need trouble with the al-Naqbis.”

“Why would one of them come here at this hour?”

“I don’t know, but go.”

The overheads hadn’t shown any sentry posts, one reason that Wells had believed they’d be able to pull this off. It was plain bad luck that the jihadis were moving out tonight, more bad luck that one had gone to the house and seen Gaffan. Not one-in-a-thousand bad luck. These things happened. Maybe one in ten. But bad luck nonetheless. On a mission like this, outnumbered and outgunned, bad luck was lethal. They needed absolute surprise. Instead they were about to start a firefight against a larger force on its home territory.

In happier news, they’d found the right camp for sure. No Boy Scouts here tonight.

THE JIHADIS HAD THEIR backs to him. They were looking at the hill to the south, where the danger seemed to be. Wells dropped the firing selector on the AK to semiauto. He popped up and ran. Sixty yards from the Suburban, he ducked behind a beach ball-sized boulder, the last decent cover between him and the barracks. He could do real damage with the AK from this range. He might even have a chance with the pistol.

At first the barracks blocked Wells from seeing the three jihadis who were going after Gaffan. A few seconds later, he spotted them jogging up the rise behind the barracks in a V formation about ten feet wide. The V spelled trouble. Amateurs would have moved in a row. Trained soldiers created space.

Wells decided he had only one play. He tugged the silenced pistol from his belt, dropped the safety. He breathed deep, sighted at the center of the lieutenant’s back. No head shots. He couldn’t afford to miss. He waited for the jihadis who were going after Gaffan to top the ridge. He counted to three. He squeezed the trigger.

The silencer wasn’t as good as the ones the agency used, but it was good enough. The pistol burped. A hundred seventy-five feet away, a neat hole appeared in the tall man’s gown, halfway up his back, left of the spine. A 9-millimeter round didn’t have tremendous muzzle velocity. The silencer cut it further. Even so, the slug pierced the lieutenant’s skin, dug through his lats, broke two ribs as it spun sideways into the fat lower lobe of his left lung. It stopped there, not an immediately lethal wound but disabling and agonizing.

The lieutenant put his hands to his chest, scratching at the sudden fire inside him. He dropped to a knee and heaved for air in desperate shallow breaths. The three men beside him hadn’t heard the shot and didn’t realize the reason for his distress. They turned to him, leaned in, forming a nice tight target for Wells. One grabbed the lieutenant’s arm, tried to pull him up. “Talib—”

Wells stood and fired, moving the AK left to right across the men. No speeches, no warning, just cutting down unarmed men. Murder. He pulled the trigger six times, two shots on each man. The first two went down hard. The third dove away and ducked between the Suburbans and ran along the outside of the front one. He pulled open the driver’s door and flung himself into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. The wheels spun, then grabbed. The big truck surged forward.

Wells ran into the road and then stopped and raised his rifle as the Suburban accelerated at him, the guy not swerving, risking his own life to run Wells over. Better you than me. Wells focused, squeezed the trigger twice, dove into the ditch on the side of the road. The Suburban careened past him, nearly clipping his ankle. He landed awkwardly, gashing his forehead.

Wells thought he’d missed. But he turned his head and, through the blood trickling into his eyes, watched the truck accelerate, its V-8 engine roaring, the man behind the wheel as insensate as the steel that cocooned him. The truck skidded off the road and crumpled sideways into the ravine.

Wells stood, mopped his forehead. Over the ridge to the south, he heard shooting and shouting. Both Gaffan and the jihadis had AKs, so he couldn’t guess who had the advantage. He ran for the second Suburban, to put it between him and the barracks. Then he heard footsteps pounding down the ridge—

The farmhouse; he’d forgotten the farmhouse—

He looked over his shoulder to see a man running down the hill, a rifle cradled in both hands. Wells spun, trying to get his own rifle up, but he was too late, the guy had him and was just waiting to get close enough to be sure—

Shots burst from the left. The man screamed and stumbled, dead before he hit the ground, the rifle sliding from his hands and clattering on the hill—

Wells looked left, saw Gaffan. Who said nothing, didn’t give Wells a wave or a salute or even a thumbs-up. Just the briefest nod. Which was enough. They both knew that Gaffan had saved his life.

IN FRONT OF WELLS, the lieutenant crawled toward the barracks, coughing wetly, the red-black stain on his gown spreading down his back. “Talib?” a man shouted from the barracks. A rifle poked out of the doorway and fired wildly, blindly into the night.

Gaffan angled down the hill, slid in beside Wells. “Thank you,” Wells murmured.

“You’re welcome. What happened?”

Wells wiped the blood off his forehead. “I tripped. Looks worse than it is. You got the other three?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s do the barracks. The guy in the gown, don’t shoot him. I think he’s in charge. I want to talk to him.”

“He keeps bleeding like that, gonna be a short conversation.” Gaffan nodded at a window at the far end of the barracks. “I’ll get them moving.”

Wells hid himself behind the high hood of the Suburban, twenty-five yards from the front of the barracks. He fired two shots in the air to distract whoever was inside as Gaffan ran for the barracks. Gaffan smashed the back window with his elbow, tossed in a grenade.

From behind the truck’s front tire, Wells waited. The grenade exploded, its blast echoing through the night, blowing out the square front windows of the barracks. Two men ran from the front door, AKs on full automatic, panicked, firing at everything and nothing. Rounds poured into the Suburban, tearing open its windows, splattering its doors with bullet holes.

When the jihadis ran out of ammo, Wells popped up and tore open their chests with twin three-shot bursts. One man died drowning in his own blood from a burst aorta. He frothed at the mouth and muttered incoherently before Wells put him out of his misery with two bullets in his brain. The other was fortunate enough to die immediately and in silence. Wells had no time to comfort them, apologize to them, or pray for their souls. Or his own.

THE LIEUTENANT HAD SLIPPED onto his chest, as though he could breathe through the hole in his back. Gaffan was right. He didn’t have long. His skin was ashen, his gown soaked with blood. Wells turned him on his side, pulled up his chin. He was still conscious, barely. Watery hate filled his eyes when he looked at Wells.

“Stay with me,” Wells said. “Stay awake. Where were you going?”

“Jerusalem.”

“You’re lying. Help us and we can help you. You need a doctor.”

The man spat weakly, drool settling on his chin. Wells tried again. “Twelve hundred kilometers. That’s a long way from here.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“Yes, I heard you. I heard you say Riyadh. You’re going to Riyadh.”

The man smiled. Wells wasn’t sure if the reaction meant he’d guessed right or wrong.

“We’ll find out. We’ll stop you.”

Death clotted the man’s eyes but not his smile. Wells leaned close to hear his last words: “You won’t. It’s too late.”

CHAPTER 16

WELLS REACHED INTO THE POCKETS OF THE DEAD MAN’S GOWN, came out with sticky, bloody fingers and a ring that held two dull metal keys. A tap on his shoulder pulled him up. Gaffan pointed to the barracks, raised a finger: One. Inside.

Wells stepped to the left side of the open barracks doorway. He heard a nervous scuffling, the slow breathing of a man trying too hard to be quiet. Gaffan stood across the doorway. Wells tapped his chest, pointed inside, indicating he’d go in first. He lowered his AK, pulled his pistol and flashlight.

Gaffan nodded: When you’re ready. Wells stepped inside and—

Dove sideways as a half-dozen rounds studded the concrete above him. He cut the flashlight, crawled beneath a cot, fired twice blindly into the corner. He didn’t have much chance, but with the silencer he didn’t have to worry about giving away his position. Gaffan tilted his rifle into the doorway and fired three shots.

“Surrender,” Wells said. The jihadi fired again, banging shots over Wells’s head. “Surrender. Save yourself.”

Wells wanted to keep at least one jihadi alive. With the lieutenant dying, this guy looked like their only chance. But they were short on time. The militia was probably already coming. “Grenade,” Wells called to Gaffan.

“Grenade?” the jihadi said. He sounded young. And spooked.

“Three seconds. One — two—”

“I surrender.” A man stood.

Wells caught him in the flashlight beam. He looked unhurt, aside from minor cuts on his legs. “Raise your hands.” Gaffan covered as the man came forward, hands high. Halfway to the door, the man reached up—

And turned on a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling.

The room was simple and spare, with thirty cots, fifteen against each long wall. Each cot had a wooden peg pounded into the wall above it. Most were empty, but AKs hung from four. Wooden shelves at the back held a mix of Western and Arab clothes, along with several pairs of the heavy leather sandals that Saudis favored. One shelf held a half-dozen copies of the Quran and other books that might have been infantry manuals in Arabic. Four photos of the Grand Mosque and the Kaaba were taped up, no other decoration.

“Lie down. Face-first.”

He did. Gaffan threw handcuffs on him, and Wells pulled him up and tugged him out. Up close, the guy was young and pitiful, with tiny acne scars, a flat, wide nose, and a scraggly beard. He wore plain white underwear and a dirty gray T-shirt. His arms were scrawny and his legs nearly hairless. The runt of the litter. Probably the reason he’d stayed in the barracks.

Outside, he licked his lips nervously as he saw the lieutenant’s body. Wells dragged him away from the carnage, pushed him down, waved Gaffan over. “Guard him,” Wells whispered. “See if he’ll talk. And we only use Arabic when he’s around.”

“What are you doing?”

Wells nodded up the hill at the farmhouse.

“John — listen.”

Wells heard a diesel engine, distant but growing stronger. He nodded. And ran.

HE FOUND THE FRONT half of the farmhouse turned into a makeshift classroom, a dozen desks arranged before twin whiteboards. Wells turned them over, but they were blank on both sides. He imagined lessons about weapons, basic infantry tactics.

A door at the back led to the kitchen. Inside, two refrigerators hummed. The counters were spotless, and so were the glasses and plates that filled the rough wooden shelves. These guys handled KP duty themselves, no need for Halliburton. So far, Wells had found nothing but proof of a well-run camp. The person who’d created this place had been through advanced infantry training and served in a real army for years.

Upstairs, three doors came off the landing. The first led to an empty bedroom. The ubiquitous poster of the shrine at Mecca filled one wall. Shirts and jeans and two thobes hung in the closet. But the room smelled faintly musty, as if it hadn’t been used for weeks.

The second door was locked. Wells tried the larger of the two keys he’d found in the lieutenant’s pockets. It slid in smoothly, and he stepped inside. The bedroom was smaller than the first. A thin black blanket was piled at the foot of the bed, the only sign of mess Wells had seen in the house. A green duffel sat on the floor. Wells reached in and found a dark blue uniform. The uni didn’t have name tags or rank insignia. But on its right biceps, it had a black patch with the words “Special Forces” stitched in Arabic in gold. And on the left, a triangular version of the Saudi flag.

He flipped over the duffel bag. Shiny black leather boots clattered to the floor, followed by a black leather belt, elbow and knee pads, goggles, heavy plastic gloves, and an open-face ski mask. Wells wasn’t sure if he was looking at a real Saudi Special Forces uniform or just a very good copy.

The rest of the room was unremarkable. The closet held more gowns, two shirts, two pairs of pants. A wooden desk was empty except for a Quran, a pocket-sized green notebook, and a Saudi passport in the name of Talib al-Majood. Wells stuffed the notebook and passport in his windbreaker.

He checked his watch. Two-twelve. He’d been up here five minutes already. He peeked out the bedroom’s narrow window, which looked east toward the center of the valley. The diesel engine was closer now, though he couldn’t see any lights. He was putting a lot of faith in the gate. Too much, probably.

He hustled for the third door. It was locked. Neither key worked.

Wells pulled his pistol, fired two shots at the doorjamb. He raised a leg and kicked through the door, tearing it from the lock. He twisted against the wall of the corridor, away from the door, in case someone was inside, though he hadn’t heard anything, and anyone in the house would probably have joined the firefight long ago.

Inside, a simple office. Two steel desks sat back-to-back. A black Ethernet cable was coiled on the floor, but Wells didn’t see a computer. A black-painted supply cabinet sat beside the door. Wells pulled the handle. Locked. He tried the second, smaller key. After a moment’s hesitation, it fit.

The cabinet had four steel shelves. Weapons and boxes of ammunition cluttered the top two: AKs and two partially disassembled M-16s. On the third shelf, two shoe boxes. The first held credit cards, cell phones, and two car keys, one Chevy and one Toyota. The second was filled with wads of one-hundred-dollar and twenty-dollar bills held with tatty rubber bands, along with a dozen passports — all Saudi, except for one Jordanian. Wells took the car keys but left everything else.

A nasty-looking short-barrel assault rifle with a wide, angular stock lay on the bottom shelf. Wells thought the rifle was a Heckler & Koch. Gun nuts loved H&K. So did Deltas. Which meant that the Saudi Special Forces units probably used them. These men had gone to great lengths to impersonate Saudi soldiers. Or else, even worse, they really were Saudi soldiers.

In the desks, he found an engineering textbook in Arabic, a copy of a helicopter operations manual, detailed maps of Mecca and Medina and Riyadh, uniform name tags and patches, and what looked like day passes for a Saudi military base. He scanned the place once more, hoping for a laptop, but it was gone or hidden too well for him to find.

He grabbed the duffel bag from the second bedroom and threw the shoe boxes and the junk from the desk inside it. He took a last look around the office. If he had another hour, or even more a few minutes. But he didn’t. He heard faint shouts, men’s voices cutting through the dry night air.

The militia must be at the gate.

Time to go.

AS HE LOPED DOWN the ridge toward Gaffan, Wells remembered how he’d once thought that a firefight in Afghanistan belonged in a Goya painting, a vision of hell on earth. The scene below him was less obviously violent but more surreal. Gaffan stood next to the Suburban, holding the arm of the jihadi they’d captured. His touch might have seemed almost friendly, brothers getting ready for a road trip — if not for the thick black hood that Gaffan had pulled over the kid’s head. Five bodies were sprawled behind them. To the north, the crashed Suburban lay on its side, an elephant felled by an unseen dart. Norman Rockwell, as commissioned by the Devil.

Around the corner, metal tore at metal, a heavy groaning sound.

Wells reached the Suburban, handed Gaffan the duffel bag and the key to the Toyota. “See if it’ll start. Take the bag and him with you.” He grabbed an AK from one of the dead jihadis, then unlocked the Suburban and slipped the key in the ignition. Despite the bullet holes in the engine block, it started smoothly.

Wells turned on the Suburban’s lights, put the truck in gear, angled it so it faced up the rocky ridge that led to the farmhouse. The ridge stretched at least two miles past the house, ending only at the flanks of the Lebanon range. He grabbed the clothesline from his pants, ran it through the steering wheel, behind the driver’s headrest, back through the wheel. He knotted it tight to minimize the play of the wheel.

On the other side of the hill, another collision. Then an orchestral crash that could only be the gate going over. The militia wouldn’t need long to move it out of the road. Wells checked that the AK’s safety was on. He jammed the butt of the rifle against the gas pedal and shoved the muzzle against the front of the seat. The pedal flexed down and the truck took off, heading up the hill.

Wells dove out of the truck, landing hard on his right shoulder, which had taken more than its share of abuse over the years. A bolt of lightning exploded down his arm. He guessed he’d dislocated his shoulder again. He ran for the Toyota, pulled open the front passenger door, slid inside, his arm loose at his side.

THE JIHADI THEY’D CAPTURED wasn’t in the car. Wells heard a faint banging coming from the trunk. Gaffan drove silently, heading over the ridge south of the barracks, the same way he’d approached. Wells peeked back at the Suburban. The truck was headed up the hill. The militia would naturally chase it first.

They topped the ridge, and the Toyota thumped over one of the men that Gaffan had killed a few minutes before. Wells banged his shoulder against the passenger door. Another bolt of lightning down his arm. Wells gritted his teeth.

“You think that’ll work, buy us extra time?”

“Let’s hope.”

“You think we left intel back there?”

“Probably.”

“This turned into a real shitshow. A Delta crew would have done it right. Or your guys.”

Wells didn’t want to argue. He wanted to sit in the dark with his eyes closed and count the seconds until he could pop his shoulder back in place. But he needed Gaffan to understand. “You still don’t get it. Nobody but us was going near that camp. DoD or the agency wouldn’t send men in unless they were sure of finding an active cell on the other end. Too risky. Too many lawyers saying no. And in a couple days, a week at most, there wasn’t gonna be any place to raid. They were moving out.”

Gaffan didn’t answer. Wells didn’t know whether he’d accepted the truth or was just tired of arguing.

Three minutes later, they reached the Jeep. High on the ridge to the northwest, Wells saw a low fire. The SUV had crashed. The militia would have found it was empty by now and would be figuring out where to go next. No doubt they would reach the logical conclusion: south. Wells and Gaffan had a decent head start, but they would probably radio ahead to their units in Baalbek. They wouldn’t know exactly what they were looking for, but they would block the main valley road anyway.

Wells and Gaffan had to get out of the valley before daybreak, back to the coast. Fortunately, the mountain checkpoints were manned by the Lebanese army, which ran independently of Hezbollah. Or so Wells hoped.

Gaffan stopped beside the Jeep, but Wells put a hand on his arm. “No.” Switching cars would take time they didn’t have, and they were better off leaving the jihadi in the trunk.

They left the Jeep behind, headed east on a low gravel road that was shielded from the mountains. “Where to?” Gaffan said.

“South, then west, when you can. We’ll take the road that runs up high on the ridge.”

“Then south again?”

“North.”

“Back toward the camp.”

“Yeah, but west and above it. There’s a pass that cuts through the mountains north of here. We’ll get to the other side, close to the coast, ditch the car.” Wells left the next question unspoken: Then what?

“Then what?” Gaffan said.

Wells wanted to find a place to hide, talk to the kid and then to Shafer about what they’d found. But the militia wouldn’t need long to trace the Jeep. Wells was on a fake passport, but Gaffan wasn’t. By sunrise, every militiaman in Lebanon would be after them. Maybe the cops, too, if Hezbollah decided it wanted the government to be in on the search. If the militia captured them, it might execute them on the spot. Being arrested wouldn’t be much better. Wells wasn’t eager to spend the rest of his life in a Lebanese jail. And they wouldn’t get any help from the agency, not without firm evidence that connected these jihadis to the earlier attacks. Which they didn’t have.

“Back to the coast. The boat. Unless you want to stay in Lebanon.”

“I’ll pass.” Gaffan turned right along a narrow gravel road and right again at a silent village that was no more than a few concrete shacks at a four-way intersection. They were on pavement now. They rose through three switchbacks and intersected a narrow two-lane road that ran north-south along the flanks of the range. Gaffan made a right, taking them north. Wells saw headlights along the valley floor to the east, but the escape plan had worked for now. The road through the village was quiet. It was possible that no one was after them because the militia were trying to figure out what had happened at the camp.

The ridge road had no guardrails, not even a white line to mark the edge of the pavement. It simply broke into gravel and fell away. Gaffan had no choice but to flip on his headlights and slow down. Wells checked his watch again. Two fifty-eight a.m. A long night behind, a long night ahead. And six more bodies to add to his inventory.

“You bust your shoulder again?” Gaffan had been in Afghanistan when Wells dislocated the joint the first time.

Wells didn’t want to think about his shoulder. “You get anything from the kid?”

“His name. Meshaal. Other than that… He’s scared out of his mind. You saw him. Not exactly the first team. I don’t think he knows much.”

“We’ll see.”

SOON AFTER THEY CRESTED the pass at Qammouaa, Wells saw houses to the west. Farmers and tribesmen had lived in the valleys between the Lebanon range and the coast for thousands of years. Fortunately, the road stayed empty as it swept northwest, curving around a hillside. Beneath them, villages glowed in the dark all the way to the Mediterranean. To the right, a gravel road led to an unfinished mansion, rebar poking from its second floor. Three forty-five a.m. Even the most dedicated fishermen wouldn’t be up for at least another hour. Wells tapped Gaffan.

“Up there.”

Gaffan swept the wheel right and bounced them up the road, which circled behind the mansion to a half-built garage. “Nice and quiet. First smart move tonight.”

“Chain-of-command, please. No backtalk.”

Outside, the air was cool and dry. Wells relaxed enough to feel just how exhausted he was. And how dirty. Sweat curdled on his skin. Dried blood covered his forehead. A steady fire burned from his biceps to his fingertips. If he didn’t fix his shoulder soon, the nerves would be permanently damaged.

“Help me,” he said to Gaffan.

Gaffan looked doubtful.

“I’ll show you.” Wells put Gaffan’s left hand on the outer edge of his shoulder, the right on the meat of his biceps. He put his own left hand between them.

“On three, you push up and forward. I’ll guide it.”

“Don’t I need an M.D. for this? At least a nursing degree?”

“Hard. On three. One. Two. Three—”

Gaffan pushed. Wells closed his eyes, and the world was nothing but pain — and he guided his arm up, up, and—

Into the socket and relief. He leaned against the Toyota, tears flaring from his eyes.

“Didn’t hurt a bit,” Gaffan said.

A thump from the trunk spared Wells from having to reply. They popped the trunk and tugged the jihadi — Meshaal — out. He started to crumple, but Gaffan put a shoulder under him. Wells pulled off the hood, and Meshaal blinked in the moonlight, his lips blubbering. Wells wondered how the jihadis had planned to use Meshaal. Maybe as a suicide bomber. He wouldn’t be much of a soldier. But he wasn’t screaming, and he hadn’t tried to take off. He might be manageable.

“Can you stand, Meshaal?”

The kid nodded, not asking how Wells knew his name.

“Stand, then.” Meshaal firmed his knees.

“How old are you, Meshaal?”

“Twenty.”

“Really, how old?”

“Eighteen.”

Nobody senior would have told him anything, not intentionally. But he’d surely picked up information. Wells needed to shake it out — without hurting him. Torture was off the table. Lie, steal, kill, no problem. But no torture. Not after what had happened in Jamaica. And especially not after the Midnight House.

Then he had an idea, a way to use the fact that they spoke Arabic and had come in without helicopters or fancy equipment or uniforms. The lie would work only if the kid wanted to believe. But Wells thought he might.

“Take off Meshaal’s handcuffs. We can tell him now.”

“Tell him.” But Gaffan made the words a statement, not a question, and uncuffed Meshaal.

“Meshaal, do you know who we are? We’re from”—Wells pointed over the mountain, east—“Pakistan. Do you understand?”

Meshaal shook his head.

“Sheikh bin Laden sent us to find you.”

“Sheikh bin Laden.”

“These men you trained with, they’re not part of his plan. You are.”

“Those were my brothers.”

“They said they were your brothers, but they were traitors to the cause. That’s why they treated you so badly.”

Meshaal stepped back. “You know about that?”

“Of course. We’ve been watching.”

A unit this size had to have an outcast. Put twenty men together — whether at a frat house or a training camp — and group dynamics demanded a pariah. A zeta male. Meshaal fit the role perfectly.

“But you killed them.”

“We had to. We talked to them, but they wouldn’t listen. And this mission that they’re on, the sheikh doesn’t want it. Do you understand?”

Meshaal bobbed his head slowly.

“But you put me in the trunk. You put a hood on me!”

“There wasn’t time to explain then. We did this to free you. All of it. Now we have to go. And you’re coming. So you need to put on the pants and shoes we have for you”—the blue uniform pants and boots, which Wells hoped would fit—“and then you sit with us in the car. We’re going to the coast, and we have a ship to take us away. After that we’re going to have a lot of questions for you.”

“Then where are we going?” Meshaal was suddenly enthusiastic. He could choose to believe he was with two men who had killed everyone he trained with and were going to kill him, too — or two men who had rescued him from his misery at the orders of Osama bin Laden, the ultimate jihadi hero. Soon enough, the holes in the story would become too obvious for him to ignore. But for now he was rolling with it, and Wells wanted to encourage him.

“I’m not supposed to tell you that. But can I trust you?”

Meshaal nodded.

“Swear to Allah that I can trust you.”

“I swear to Allah. You can trust me.”

“We’re going to Gaza. A special mission.”

“Gaza.”

“Yes. Let’s go. But no more questions until we get out to sea. No talking at all.”

Without another word, Meshaal pulled on the boots and the pants, which were a size small and made him look even sillier than before. He slid in next to Gaffan. Between the three of them the Toyota smelled so bad that Wells could hardly breathe. But no matter. They lowered its windows and rolled down the hill toward the coast. Toward the sea. And escape.

CHAPTER 17

THE SUN GLOWED RED AND BELLY FLOPPED INTO THE SEA, FADING with a flourish that the drinkers seven thousand miles away at Margaritaville would have appreciated. Wells didn’t mind seeing it go. Gaffan had stocked the Cranchi with extra fuel and water, and even a few bags of dates. He’d forgotten sunscreen, and the motor for the Cranchi’s cockpit cover wasn’t working, a detail that the dealer in Beirut hadn’t mentioned. The glare off the water had burned Wells’s eyes and basted his brain.

But they’d had to stay off Cyprus until darkness came. Without a sat phone or Internet link, they couldn’t know if the Lebanese police had connected them to the camp. Wells was assuming the worst, that they were wanted from Beirut to Gibraltar. They needed to make contact with the agency before the Cyprus police found them. Their best bet was a night landing. Fortunately, their time at sea hadn’t been wasted. Thanks to Meshaal, Wells had plenty to tell Shafer.

FIFTEEN HOURS EARLIER, THE sky hinting at dawn, Wells sat beside Meshaal and offered him a handful of dates. Meshaal shook his head almost shyly. Wells reminded himself that the kid was only eighteen. If he pictured this trip as an adventure rather than an ordeal, he’d be more likely to talk. “Can you swim?”

“I’ve never even seen the ocean until now.”

“One day you’ll learn. Where did you grow up?”

“The Najd”—the high desert in the center of Saudi Arabia. “A village called Qusaibah. Maybe three hundred kilometers from Riyadh.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Not too much. Where are you from?”

“I grew up in Lebanon, but I trained in Afghanistan.”

“You don’t sound like you’re from Lebanon.” Meshaal looked sidelong at Wells and then at the bubbly white wake behind the boat as though he wondered whether he could walk to shore. He was exhausted and scared, but he wasn’t going anywhere, and Wells figured that threats would shut him down.

“If my accent sounds funny, it’s because I spent a few years in Germany.”

“Where in Germany?”

“Hamburg.”

“My cousin went to Hamburg to study. He said the Germans drink too much alcohol and the women are immodest. But still he liked it. But he said the weather is bad.”

“It never gets hot like the Najd. But in the winter it snows. Have you ever seen snow, Meshaal?”

“No.”

They were silent for a few minutes as the sky lightened around them.

“Are you ready to tell me about the camp?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you should. The sheikh wants to know.” Wells still couldn’t believe he was using bin Laden’s name.

“Have you met him?”

“A long time ago,” Wells said truthfully. “He has to hide now. Because of the Americans, the drones. But he’s in charge. And he wants to know about the mission you were training for. He’s worried it will interfere with his plans.”

“I don’t believe you, but even if it’s true, you’re wasting your time, because I don’t know anything.” Meshaal let out a world-weary sigh, a sound that teenagers from London to Los Angeles would have recognized.

“You know more than you think. Start with something easy. How many men were at the camp?”

“It changed.”

“At the most.”

Meshaal counted slowly on his fingers, his lips moving. No wonder his fellow jihadis had picked on him. “Thirty-four,” he said finally. “Or thirty-five.”

“There were only thirty cots. Don’t lie, Meshaal. I won’t get mad at you, but you have to tell me the truth.”

“I am. Some slept at the house.”

“And how many men in all passed through?” The finger counting began. Wells quickly added, “You don’t have to tell me exactly — just guess.”

“Fifty-five, maybe.”

“Who was in charge?”

“You don’t know? You told me you watched us.”

“But not all the time. So tell me.”

Meshaal seemed to realize that whatever his reservations, he had no choice but to talk. “He called himself Aziz. I don’t think that was his real name.”

“He was in the Saudi military.” Wells guessing now.

“I think so. He liked to be called Major.”

I think so. Meshaal was drawing distinctions between what he’d seen firsthand and what other people had told him. Whatever his tics, he might be a good witness. “But Aziz wasn’t there all the time.” Wells guessing again, trying to move the conversation forward.

“He came every few weeks.”

“From where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Riyadh? Jeddah?”

“I don’t know.”

“How old was he?”

“Old. Maybe your age.”

Ouch. “If you saw his photo, would you recognize him?”

“Of course. I saw him lots of times. He lived in the house upstairs.”

“In the front room?”

“Yes. Mostly he stayed there or in the office at the back. A few times he spoke to us in class. He said the men against us were strong soldiers, and if we weren’t careful they’d kill us. Sometimes he prayed with us. He knew the whole Quran by heart. He never made a mistake.”

“Did he say the soldiers would be American?”

“Yes. Sometimes he watched us train. He yelled at me once for holding my AK the wrong way. He told me to respect it.”

“He was right. Did he tell you the mission?”

“No. I thought maybe it would be attacking a place where the Americans live, but he never said.”

“You mean a housing compound. Like in Riyadh or Dhahran.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you think that?”

“We practiced with car bombs. How to make them. Twice we blew them up. What do you need such a big bomb for? Only to attack a place that’s very well guarded.”

“But he never said the target?”

“I told you. He never talked to me. Only yelled at me for the AK. And one time when I made a mistake at dinner and spilled date juice. He said to me, ‘This camp is expensive, and the people who are paying, they don’t want to waste money, so be careful.’ You could see he wasn’t nice. And that was even before—”

Meshaal broke off.

“Before what?”

“Nothing.” But Meshaal wouldn’t meet Wells’s eyes.

Wells decided to let the question go for now. “That time in the kitchen, Aziz didn’t say who those people were, the ones paying for the training?”

“No. But one of the men — his name was Talib, he was one of the ones you killed — he said something like, ‘Even though they might not like what you learn.’ I didn’t know what he meant, but Aziz didn’t like him saying that. He looked at Talib like he wanted to slit his throat.”

Wells pulled out the Saudi passport he’d taken from the upstairs bedroom at the farmhouse. “This was Talib?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ask Aziz why he was mad?”

“Of course not. I was just happy that he wasn’t mad at me anymore.”

“Did he ever say anything about King Abdullah?”

“He hated Abdullah. He told us Abdullah makes peace with the Jews and lets the infidels into Mecca.”

“Do you hate Abdullah?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Aziz say he was planning a revolt against Abdullah?”

“Not really. No.”

“Besides Aziz, were there other Saudi soldiers in camp?”

“Yes. Plus one from Iraq. I didn’t like him. He was crazy. He punched me when I couldn’t do enough push-ups. It wasn’t my fault.”

“How many push-ups can you do?”

“One time I did twenty-eight. How about you?”

“A few more,” Wells said. “And how did you get to the camp?”

“I drove through Jordan—”

“I mean, how did you find out about it?”

“My cleric at home asked me if I wanted to fight in the jihad. I said yes, and he said he would help.”

So Aziz — whoever he was — had recruiters who reached into the Saudi heartland and plucked off teenagers in ones and twos. Between the passports Wells had found, the paper trail that the camp must have produced, and Meshaal’s testimony, the Saudi mukhabarat should be able to roll up the network. But if Abdullah and Miteb were right, the muk—or at least Mansour and Saeed — already knew about the camp.

On the other hand, Duto and the CIA would have to pay attention now that Meshaal had confirmed that the jihadis were targeting American soldiers. The United States couldn’t ignore that warning, no matter how much it wanted to stay out of the fight between Abdullah and Saeed.

Which led to the obvious question: If Saeed and Mansour were focused on Abdullah and succession, why would they target the United States? Why wake the dragon? Maybe Talib had blurted out the answer that day in the kitchen. Maybe Aziz — whoever he was — had grander plans than his paymasters knew.

FOR HOURS, WELLS ASKED Meshaal about his recruitment and training, what weapons he’d used, what tactics he’d practiced, the other jihadis. The biggest surprise came when Wells asked about Princess Alia’s bombing. He didn’t expect Meshaal would know anything, but Meshaal told him that one jihadi had frequently dressed in a burqa.

“He slept in a little room behind the farmhouse, because no one liked him. They hated him even more than me. But Talib told us to be nice to him. He left a while ago, and when we heard that Alia blew up, we all knew it had to be him.”

Eventually Meshaal’s energy flagged, and he went below and lay in the narrow bunk where Wells had stowed the duffel bag from the farmhouse. He lay beside the bag and closed his eyes and fell asleep almost immediately. He looked very young.

Wells came back up, sat beside Gaffan at the helm. The sun was strong now, the glare high off the water. Gaffan had run them westsouthwest to get away from the main shipping lane between Lebanon and Cyprus. Still, the waters were busy with diesel-belching trawlers from Beirut and container ships that ran between Tel Aviv and Istanbul.

“You were talking to him awhile.”

“He knows a lot. He was there five months, and he’s not stupid. And because they didn’t care about him, they talked in front of him. He already told me he’s sure that someone from the camp assassinated Alia. And he says the commander talked about targeting American soldiers.”

“I still wish there’d been another way to do it.”

“There wasn’t.”

“This is the place where the numbers don’t add up.”

“You think chain of command makes it easier. The last thing I was involved with, some good soldiers, they did some things I’ll bet they wish they could take back. But they had a colonel in charge, and authorization. They told themselves it was okay. Just following orders.”

“And what happened to them?”

“They died. Most of them.”

“You saying what I think?” Gaffan said.

“No. It wasn’t me. It’s complicated. But what I’m trying to say, you operate the way we do, you can never lay it on somebody else. You answer to yourself.”

“And if you answer wrong?”

“Then you pay. One way or another.”

Gaffan was silent for a while.

“John.”

“Yeah.”

“You mind if I ask you about religion? Islam?”

“Ask away.” Though Wells didn’t like talking about his faith. Too often, Muslims saw him as an impostor, and non-Muslims a curiosity.

“I just don’t understand how you say you’re Muslim when all the guys we go after — it’s not like they’re Buddhists.”

“World War Two. We and the Germans were both Christian.”

“Yeah, but the Germans weren’t quoting the Bible when they attacked us. This is a religious war. That’s the way they see it, anyway. I don’t have to tell you. You know the Quran better than me. Jihad, killing unbelievers. It’s all in there.”

“Brett. You’re Christian.”

“Sure.”

“You pray.”

“I’m kind of a Christmas and Easter guy, but yes.”

“Do you really, truly believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?”

Gaffan looked away from Wells and onto the Mediterranean, as if the water might have the answer. “I don’t know. I’d like to.”

“There’s plenty in the Quran that I don’t believe. But all those years in Afghanistan, I accepted the brotherhood of Islam. I learned the words, and at some point I started to hear the music. Maybe because there was nothing else for me over there, maybe for my cover, but I did. And I believe in one God. As far as I’m concerned, putting those two things together makes me a Muslim. And most Muslims don’t want suicide bombs and jihad. They want to live their lives like everybody else.”

“They have a funny way of showing it.”

“You know better than that. Back to World War Two, the Japanese and their kamikaze pilots. Suicide for the emperor. We killed them, and they killed us. Now Japan’s one of our closest allies. It’s situational.”

“I hope you’re right, John. But I don’t think either of us is going to be out of work for a long time.”

“Then we better get to it.”

WELLS SPENT THE NEXT three hours examining the notebook and helicopter manual and engineering textbook and other papers and passports he’d taken from the farmhouse. Nothing jumped at him, but he did notice a few subtle points. The passports had been recently issued and looked genuine. The men in them were in their teens and twenties, from Saudi towns Wells didn’t know, presumably similar to the village where Meshaal had grown up. The passports had hardly been used. The only entry stamps Wells found were from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Dubai. He saw no visas from Europe or the United States — or from Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iran. The lack of travel to those countries was more proof that this group operated independently of Al Qaeda and the Iranian government.

Wells’s Arabic wasn’t good enough to let him fully understand the engineering textbook. But it seemed to focus on building infrastructure, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems. Inside, Wells found two folded-up pages that held detailed schematics for truck bombs. The third was covered with what looked like a hand-drawn map of a highway. A section near the top was circled. But the map lacked any description or heading, and Wells couldn’t figure out where it was.

As for the name tags and patches, they were either genuine Saudi military badges or very good replicas. If the jihadis were as well trained as they seemed, they had a real chance of successfully breaching security at a Saudi military base, maybe even one of Abdullah’s palaces. Again, though, Wells found no evidence of a specific target.

Finally, he looked at the notebook he’d found in Talib’s room. It was filled with neat Arabic script, to-do lists that appeared routine. Buy three hundred gallons diesel… Liban Telecom mobile phones… send F for B at airport 17 March. Toward the back the phrase “42 Aziz 3” was circled in Arabic. Aziz. That was what the man who’d run the camp had called himself. A code, Wells imagined, but for what? With any luck, the NSA or the analysts at Langley would find a connection that he had missed.

DOWNSTAIRS, THE CRANCHI’S AIR-CONDITIONING had given out. The cabin was as stifling as Bourbon Street in July. Wells hoped the engines were more reliable than the boat’s other mechanicals. Meshaal’s face was slick with sweat. When Wells walked in, he jerked awake, lifting his hands protectively. He lowered them as he realized where he was. “How much longer before we get to Gaza?”

“A while.”

“How come we haven’t prayed yet today? At camp we prayed five times a day.”

Wells didn’t want to pray now, with a dead man’s blood under his fingernails and Gaffan wondering about his faith. “There’s a special rule about being at sea. You don’t have to.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“We’re not praying, Meshaal. Come on, let’s go up. It’s too hot here.”

The interrogation continued topside.

“Did you ever see the office in the farmhouse? The room with the computers?”

“A few times,” Meshaal said. “I brought food to the pilot.”

Meshaal hadn’t mentioned anything about a pilot before. “How do you know he was a pilot?”

“It was my job to take lunch to him. Once I came in and he was playing a flying game on his computer, turning the plane upside down. I asked him if I could play. He said, ‘No, you have to be a real pilot to play.’ I asked him if he was a real pilot, and he said yes, a helicopter pilot. Then Aziz came in and told me to get lost. I didn’t talk to him again.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. And he left — I don’t know when, exactly — maybe a month ago. After he left, other people started to leave. Before that, if someone left, someone else usually came, but not anymore.”

“The people who left, did they say they were leaving for good?”

“They didn’t say, but yes. They didn’t leave any of their clothes behind. They left in twos and threes. They were going to Riyadh, and some to Jeddah and even a few to Mecca.”

“They told you?”

“No, but I heard.”

“Did they take weapons?”

“Some did. The ones who were flying didn’t.”

“Did Aziz ever say anything about Mecca? Attacking the Grand Mosque?”

“I told you a bunch of times. He never said anything to me.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Ten days ago. He told us the mission was coming soon.”

“Do you know what he wanted, why he came back?”

“It had to do with the special room.”

The kid was full of surprises.

“Meshaal. You never said anything about a special room.”

“You never asked. It was next to the little cabin behind the house. It was dug into the ground, made of concrete. Maybe three meters square, four meters deep.”

“A cell.”

“Yes. We dug it and put a metal roof on it and covered it with dirt, so it was hard to see. It had a special pipe with an engine to blow air inside so it wouldn’t get too hot and someone in it could breathe. The night Aziz came back, he made me and some others dig up the pipe and the engine and put it in a truck. Then two men drove it away.”

“Did they hold anyone in the cell?”

“One time they put someone in for four days.” Meshaal shook his head as if trying to rid his mind of the image. “His name was Ayman.”

“This is what you didn’t want to talk about before.”

“Yes.”

“He was a friend of yours?”

“Not a friend, not really. But we looked out for each other. People thought he was stupid. Like me. They said he was a traitor. He wasn’t a traitor. He asked if he could leave, and they said no, and he left anyway. They caught him the next day and brought him back.”

“And put him in the cell.”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t give him any food.”

“No food, okay. He had no water. On the third day, Aziz made us watch. This is what I didn’t want to say before. We lifted the lid, and Ayman was begging for water. Begging and promising he would tell. Whatever Aziz wanted. His face. His lips. They were black. And his eyes—” Meshaal stopped. “And Aziz told us, this is what happens to traitors. Then we put the lid back on.”

AZIZ HAD BEEN TESTING the ventilation equipment. Wells was certain. He needed to make sure the cell wouldn’t suffocate the captives he planned to hold. By running away, deserting, Ayman had made himself the test case. But Aziz hadn’t needed to kill him. He could have provisioned the cell, plucked Ayman out a week later, lesson learned. Death from dehydration was pure cruelty, a dark fire far worse than the slow twilight of starvation.

Wells wondered if Aziz had prayed the night he’d put the lid back on. Probably. Probably with special fervor. Like the Bible, the Quran was filled with tales of man’s cruelty to man. And yet Wells couldn’t believe that Allah wanted the prayers of a psychopath.

Wells had never met Aziz, never seen the man, didn’t even know his real name. But for the first time in years, a righteous fury burned his blood. He wanted to strike down this man who had amused himself by torturing one of his own soldiers. The word was smite. He wanted to cast lightning upon Aziz.

“Stop the boat,” he said to Gaffan.

Gaffan brought the engines to idle. They were about fifty miles south of Cyprus, out of the main shipping lanes, no other ships within five miles. Wells stripped down and dove into the sea. The water was cool and dark and briny, almost medicinal, and Wells scissors-kicked and then dove as deep he could. With the boat beside him, he was a fearless swimmer.

Far below the surface, he rubbed his fingertips together until the last scarlet traces disappeared in the murky water. He’d find blood enough in the days to come.

Meshaal went below again, curled up, slept. Wells let him. Eventually the interrogators in Guantánamo would take another pop at him, but Wells didn’t think they would hear much more. He’d gotten what the kid had to give.

For now he tried to think through the questions the kid’s story raised. The answers were disturbing. Why did Aziz need to move the ventilation equipment? Because he’d built another cell in Saudi Arabia, and he didn’t want to buy more gear because he feared it could be traced. Why did he need an underground cell? For a captive. For a kidnapping. The obvious target was a Saudi royal. But Aziz had told his men that they’d be fighting American soldiers. Maybe he’d said that to motivate them. Maybe he was aiming at a Western housing compound, as Meshaal thought. The compounds had private American security forces along with official Saudi protection.

Or maybe… maybe Aziz thought he could get at the ambassador. But Wells couldn’t see how. The ambassador rarely left the American embassy, and when he did, a small army protected him. But Aziz had close to sixty men, a small army of his own. Their training wasn’t up to American standards. But their willingness to use suicide attacks was a huge tactical advantage.

Now the United States had to send a team to search what was left of the camp — and quickly, before Hezbollah decided to demolish it and the evidence it held. Raiding the camp now would be easy. Even so, a raid might not happen quickly. Before it could, the most powerful officials in Washington — Duto and the secretary of state and the national security adviser — would have to admit that they should have hit the camp already instead of leaving the attack to Wells. Then they would have to reach the obvious conclusion: The United States needed to go in now. And if Hezbollah and the Lebanese government didn’t agree, Langley would have to commit a CIA team with enough backup firepower from the Deltas to convince the militia to stand down.

Wells hoped Duto and the other big names — they liked to call themselves “principals”—would move quickly. Even so, Wells couldn’t see how a raid could happen in under forty-eight or seventy-two hours, which was already too long. If Aziz had been dismantling the camp for a month, he had to be close to striking. And the Saudis weren’t going to stop him, though they might be surprised when they saw his target.

Wells wished for a sat phone. But wishing was useless. They simply had to wait for darkness and then ease their way into the coast. The Cranchi could run in very shallow water, more proof of its speedboat roots. They didn’t need a harbor, just a quiet beach far enough from a village that they could ditch the boat and wade in. They’d sleep on the ground, and in the morning buy a phone or an Internet connection and get to Nicosia.

They could even leave Meshaal if he slowed them down. They’d get him back. He didn’t speak Greek and didn’t have a passport. He wasn’t getting off Cyprus on his own. Their first priority had to be making contact and getting to a safe house before the Cyprus cops found them and started asking unpleasant questions.

AFTER SUNSET, THE SEA glowed, streaks of white and black mating with every wave. They were ten miles south of the southwestern tip of Cyprus. The island glowed faintly through the night’s humid haze. “Land ho,” Gaffan said.

“Bring us in, then.”

“Aye-aye, cap’n.” Gaffan was trying for an English accent, not very well. “We’ll drink a pint o’ grog, have our pick of the lassies.”

Suddenly, Wells realized that they weren’t speaking Arabic. Hunger and heat and fatigue were making them sloppy.

“What are you saying?” Meshaal yelled.

Wells grabbed Meshaal’s skinny biceps, dug his fingers in tightly enough to feel the tendons flex. “Quiet.”

Cyprus wasn’t quite the cradle of civilization, but it was close. People had lived on the island for at least five thousand years. In other words, the coast didn’t have a lot of empty beachfront left for a landing. Hotels and villages speckled the shoreline, their lights glimmering. A mile out, Gaffan cut the engines. They floated silently, listening to cars on the coast road and a party at a hotel that sat behind a wide beach.

“Now what?” Gaffan said.

“Maybe we ought to find a slip, a real harbor, and dock there and walk away. Dare somebody to stop us.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But if they see us wade in like we’re crossing the Rio Grande to pick peppers, how’s that gonna look?”

“They didn’t teach this at the Farm?”

“They did, but I forgot.”

“Too bad. Would have come in handy.”

At least Gaffan got the cosmic absurdity. They’d successfully raided a terrorist training camp. Now they couldn’t figure out how to ditch a speedboat without getting caught. Wells pictured stepping off the Cranchi, walking through a sleepy village. If they were dressed better or spoke Greek or didn’t have the kid, maybe they could pull it off. But not this way.

“Find a stretch where the houses look empty, and we’ll just have to go for it.”

Gaffan chugged slowly east. Then they caught a break. The lights disappeared as the coast road swung behind a hilly ridge covered with scrub and cypress. The ridge sharpened into low bluffs too steep for houses. A wide white sand beach lay between the bluffs and the sea.

“We’re not going to do better than this,” Gaffan said. “Protected, no houses, smooth water.”

Wells looked at Meshaal. “We’re going to land there, and then we’re all getting out. You’re going to have to walk through the water.”

“Is this Gaza?”

“You’ve got Gaza on the brain. Forget Gaza. This is Cyprus.”

“You said—”

“We’re stopping here first. Then Gaza. Quiet, now.”

GAFFAN CUT THE ENGINES to just above idle and swung the ship toward the shore. The sea slopped against the hull, and the inboards grumbled. They closed to five hundred yards, four hundred—

And then heard the unmistakable sound of a woman in full cry, moaning as if all the world couldn’t contain her pleasure.

“We’re not the only ones looking for a romantic hideway,” Gaffan said.

Now Wells saw them — or to be more accurate, him — a few hundred feet west, where the beach was narrower and the bluffs made a sort of natural amphitheater. They must have had a blanket or an air mattress. A battered Kia 4x4 was parked on a narrow track along the side of the hill. The Kia gave Wells an idea. The idea wasn’t very nice. But it shouldn’t hurt anyone, and it might give him a chance to talk to Shafer before the end of the workday in Washington, six hours behind.

“Go. Get as close as you can. Fast.”

“That’s what she said.” Gaffan pushed the throttle, and the boat surged ahead.

Wells ran below and pulled the shoe box out of the duffel bag, left everything else. He emerged to see that they were about one hundred yards from the shore. The guy was still pumping away, but now he wagged a finger at them in warning. The water was nearly still, and the bottom rose smoothly and steadily, just fifteen feet deep, ten—

The moans stopped. The guy stood, his erection obvious. The woman sat up, her breasts full, nipples visible even from the boat. The guy said something to her, and she pulled on her top. The guy pulled on his shorts and shouted at them in Greek. Wells didn’t understand a word, but the meaning was clear enough. The guy was short, swarthy, muscular, late twenties, more hair on his chest than on his head. He was swimming in enough testosterone to fight rather than run. A mistake.

Wells grabbed the siderail as the boat scraped bottom and dug itself in. He jumped off the side. The water was only four feet deep and the sand firm. He ran for shore, pushing himself through the low waves. Gaffan followed him over. The Cypriot looked at them in shock. Wells came out of the water and dropped the shoe box and ran toward him. Suddenly, the guy seemed to realize that Wells might be dangerous. He said something to the woman. She stood and pulled on her panties and reached for her skirt. Before she could pick it up, he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the Kia.

But though Wells wouldn’t see forty again, he still moved like the linebacker he’d once been, eating ground with powerful strides. The woman screamed, and Wells knew what he had to do. “Take him down,” he yelled back to Gaffan.

The guy tried to cut him off, but Wells spun around him and went for the woman instead. He wrapped her up and covered her mouth with his arm, muting her screams. She bucked and kicked, but Wells held her tight. Her boyfriend punched wildly, but Wells swung the woman around to put her between them. No points for chivalry. He just wanted to get through this without getting any more seriously hurt. Gaffan reached them and punched the guy low in the stomach with a solid right and doubled him over and hit him again in the jaw. The guy went down hard, and Gaffan jumped him and rolled him over and sat on him.

Wells pulled the electrical tape from his cargo pants and wiped it dry and tore a foot-long piece and slapped it over the woman’s mouth. He flex-cuffed her wrists and pushed her down. Then he and Gaffan repeated the process with the guy. Their eyes were wide and terrified.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” Wells said. “Just your car.” They shook their heads in bewilderment. Wells reached into the guy’s pants and found a cheap black leather wallet and two condoms and the keys to the Kia. Somehow the condoms made Wells feel worse than anything else. He’d ruined their fun tonight.

Meshaal stood at the edge of the water, his mouth open. He’d surely never seen a naked woman before, much less anything like this. Wells waved him over. He picked up the shoe box and walked to them with his feet dragging like a dog on its way to the vet.

Wells dropped two wet stacks of hundred-euro notes on the sand. When they dried, they’d be worth more than the Kia. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We have to go.”

“THEY’LL BE ALL RIGHT,” Wells said fifteen minutes later. They were on the A6, heading east to Nicosia, the Kia’s heater on high to dry them out.

“Best night of their lives. They’ll tell the grandkids.”

“They’ll be fine.”

“You’re always so sure. Must be nice.”

They reached Nicosia an hour later, ditched the Kia, and walked though the town’s quiet streets to the hostel where Wells had stayed a week before. Then Wells found an Internet café and called Shafer, who got Wells into the American embassy so they could talk on a secure line.

“It’s gonna be messy,” Shafer said, when Wells was done explaining. “And you’re right. It may take a couple days to sort out.”

“Not too long.”

“If the cops get close, call me back. I’ll do my best to get you out.”

“That’s not it, Ellis. You didn’t see the camp. These guys have big plans.”