The Seventh Pillar

CHAPTER ONE

Twelve stood motionless, invisible in a world of soundless gray. Thick London fog cloaked him like a whisper from the grave. The fog smelled of old, unpleasant things, of the polluted waters of the Thames not far away.

His body hummed with energy. Every bead of moisture on his skin was anticipation, every sound seemed amplified ten fold. He sensed footsteps coming. A man dressed in a dark topcoat and hat emerged wraith-like from the gray curtain, swinging an umbrella at his side. Two minders walked behind him, as always. This man was never alone.

The assassin drew an ancient dagger from his sleeve as the man passed by. He stepped from the mists and thrust the blade deep into the notch at the base of his target's skull, then turned with practiced ease and snapped the neck of the first guard. A quick blow to the throat sent the other to his knees, a dead man trying to breathe.

Twelve reached down and wiped the blood from his dagger on the dead man's expensive coat. He took a small object from his pocket and placed it on the body. It bore a curious design.

The sign pointed the way but led nowhere. It would confuse those who would come. Confusion was good.

The assassin melted back into the silent fog. His Teacher would be pleased.

CHAPTER TWO

If Nick Carter needed a reminder of how much things had changed in the past weeks he only had to look at his phone. It was black and shiny and had a lot of buttons. There were buttons for the White House, the Seventh Floor at Langley, the Director of National Intelligence, the Joint Chiefs, NSA, DIA and a half dozen more he hadn't figured out yet.

At least it isn't red, he thought.

The phone came with his new job as Co-Director of the Project, along with a new office. The office came with a big flat screen monitor on the wall, brown leather chairs and a thick carpet. There was an impressive desk with an encrypted computer linked to the Cray mainframes downstairs. There were two windows. One looked out at the hall. One let him see across a common work area into Stephanie Willits' office.

Stephanie ran the Project on a day to day basis. Nick ran field operations, in charge of tactics and strategy and getting in and out of places no sane person would ever want to go. Together the two of them reviewed intelligence briefs sent from the big three letter agencies to the President. Sometimes they pointed out that the Emperor wasn't wearing any clothes, which made them unpopular in the US intelligence community.

Carter got up and poured a cup of dark coffee from a gleaming chrome machine. He went back to the desk, where a manila packet waited patiently for his attention. Steph had handed it to him with raised eyebrows when he'd come in. Raised eyebrows meant his day was about to get complicated.

He sipped the coffee, opened the packet and took out the contents. Reports and pictures. The first picture showed a man lying on a wet sidewalk. His eyes were open and expressionless, blue. There was blood pooled under his head.

Carter set the photo aside and began reading. Scotland Yard, MI-5, CIA. The dead man was Sir Edward Hillary-Smythe, the British Foreign Secretary. A powerful man, a hawk, a strong advocate for harsh sanctions on Iran and military action against the Tehran regime if needed.

The only thing worse would have been the assassination of the Queen. Sir Edward had been a popular and controversial figure, a likely successor to the big job at No. 10.

Stephanie came into his office. "Ten to one we hear from Rice before noon."

James Rice, President of the United States. An election was coming up. Not even Christmas yet, and the political rhetoric had already turned brutal.

"No bet, Steph. But it's a British mess. MI-5 is pretty good."

"They weren't good enough to stop him from getting killed."

"What was he doing walking in the fog?"

"Sir Edward liked his evening constitutionals."

"Nobody heard anything?"

"Have you ever been in London in really heavy fog?" Stephanie sat down in one of the brown leather chairs. "You wouldn't hear a bomb go off two blocks away. Besides, the killer used a knife. No noise. He took out two MI-5 agents at the same time."

"A pro."

"Yes. In and out, terminate, no muss."

"Anyone have an idea who's behind it? Anyone claim responsibility?"

"No and no."

Steph was in her mid thirties. Her dark hair was cut half way to her shoulders. She favored long gold earrings and gold bracelets on her left wrist. She had full lips and wide cheekbones and dark shadows under dark eyes.

Looking at her, you might think of cocoa and cookies and a warm bed on a cold night. You might think she drove a van to the soccer field a few times a week. You would be wrong. Steph could place thirteen rounds in the black from a hundred feet in under thirty seconds. She was a genius with computers and could hack any firewall in the world. She'd been married and divorced. Now she lived alone in her Washington condo. Along with Nick, Stephanie ran one of the most secretive counter-terrorism units in the world. Carter had no idea what she did when she went home. He didn't need to know. He trusted her and that was enough.

Carter looked at the photo of the dead man and felt a headache starting. He picked up another picture from the packet, of an object inscribed with an odd design.

"What's this?"

"The killer left it on the body."

"A message?"

"Must be."

"It's some kind of writing. Let's get Selena to take a look."

"She's down in the computer room. I'll page her."

Selena's gift for languages was world class. If anyone could figure out the writing, it would be her.

A few minutes later Nick watched her come through the door. The way she moved reminded him of a cross between a ballet dancer and a sleek jungle cat, all grace and feral beauty. She was five-ten, shorter than Nick. She had high cheekbones and a natural beauty mark over her lip. Her eyes were an unusual violet color. Her hair was reddish blond.

She wore a tailored gray suit and a lavender blouse that picked up the color of her eyes. She had a slim gold watch on her left wrist and simple earrings. Not everyone could make a Glock .40 in a quick draw holster look like a fashion accessory, but Selena pulled it off.

When people saw them out on the town together it confused them. No one would ever call Nick handsome. Hard, perhaps. Rugged. Tense, with intense gray eyes that never stopped moving. Women might say not bad looking, maybe a little scary, someone to keep an eye on. Never handsome. Selena was another story. She came close to beautiful.

"What's up?" She sat down next to Stephanie.

"Someone killed the British Foreign Secretary this morning and left this. Can you make anything of it?"

Nick handed the picture across.

She studied the photo. "It says 'Muhammad and Ali'. The writing is Arabic. It's an ambigram, a calligraphic mirror image with multiple meanings."

"What's this one about?"

"This is a Shia ambigram. One meaning is that Ali is the rightful successor to Muhammad, the one appointed by Muhammad and God to lead the Muslim community."

"So?"

"Ali was Muhammad 's cousin. When Muhammad died, Ali claimed rightful succession by divine decree. Sunni Muslims say that Abu Bakr was the lawful successor. The Shias say Abu Bakr was an opportunist who seized power. Islam has been fighting about it ever since."

She frowned at the picture.

"I've seen this before, I just can't remember where. It'll come to me."

Carter tugged on his ear. "You think of Shia Islam and terrorism, you think of Tehran. Sir Edward was a firebrand when it came to Iran. Maybe the Iranians are behind this."

"That's jumping to conclusions." Selena smoothed a wrinkle on her skirt. "I wonder why he was killed?"

"We figure out who did it, we'll know why."

He changed the subject. "Steph, you hear from Ronnie and Lamont yet?"

"Two hours ago. So far there's only routine activity. They should update any time now."

CHAPTER THREE

Ronnie Peete and Lamont Cameron sat in a battered blue Toyota pickup under a relentless African sun. The temperature was over a hundred, the door handles hot enough to burn. The heat didn't seem to bother Ronnie. Sweat ran down Lamont's brown face, followed the ridge of scar tissue across his eye and nose, dropped onto his sand colored robe. He looked over at his partner.

"How come you don't sweat?"

"This isn't hot. You ought to try a sweat lodge sometime. That's hot."

Ronnie was Navajo, raised on the reservation before he'd joined the Corps. He'd been Recon, in the same unit as Nick.

"A sweat ceremony might last three days," he said. "Course we could go outside and cool off once in a while."

"You got a ceremony for shade?"

Ronnie smiled.

Lamont lifted his binoculars. "Something's happening."

He focused on a low cement structure two stories high, flat roofed, surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire. It was whitewashed and dirty and uninspired. Lamont passed the binoculars over.

"They're loading something onto the truck."

The truck had shown up yesterday, along with a man with a full white beard and a green turban surrounded by armed guards. Lamont had taken three quick photos and sent them on to Stephanie. The truck was like ten thousand other trucks in Africa, used for hauling everything from goats to troops. There were no markings on it. It had Sudanese plates. Since they were right outside Khartoum, that wasn't surprising.

Five bearded men with AK 47s stood by, looking tense. Two others lifted an olive drab metal container about the size of a footlocker up to someone inside the truck. Two white Toyota pickups mounted with belt fed Degtyaryov machine guns waited nearby. The Russian guns were popular in this part of the world.

The building was similar to a chemical factory bombed by the US a few years back. That one been had been making VX, a lethal nerve gas refined from pesticides. The bombed out ruins were now a prime tourist attraction in Khartoum.

Maybe someone was making VX again. It was why Ronnie and Lamont baked under the African sun. To find out if they were.

"They're being pretty careful with that box. Like it's made out of eggshells." Ronnie adjusted the binoculars. A gleam of sunlight reflected from the lenses and bounced against the windshield. Ronnie swore under his breath. Someone pointed their way. There was sudden activity by the pickups.

"Shit. We've been spotted. Time to boogie."

Lamont started the engine. He turned onto the road to Khartoum and floored it. Ronnie looked back and saw the armed pickups pull out after them.

The Toyota sped into the outskirts of Khartoum. The trucks behind closed and the gunners opened fire. At the sound of the guns people ran for cover and cleared the wide street. Everyone in Sudan knew that sound.

Lamont and Ronnie hunched down. The rear window exploded in a shower of glass. Bullets starred the windshield with holes, kicked up geysers of dirt around them, pocked the whitewashed walls of the houses. The rounds rang off the roof of the cab. Inside, it sounded like hammers hitting steel.

There was a grenade launcher in the bed of the truck under a canvas tarp. It didn't do them any good back there.

Ronnie flung open his door. "I'm going for the launcher."

He climbed outside and grabbed the frame where the rear window had been shot away. Broken shards of glass ripped his hand. He swore, got a leg over the edge and rolled down into the truck bed. He crawled to the launcher and flung off the tarp. It sailed away into the air and landed in the roadway behind. He opened the case, took out the long tube and loaded a round.

One of the gunners found the rear tires. They blew out in flat, loud explosions and turned into twisted steel and shredded rubber. Lamont fought for control of the bouncing truck. Ronnie steadied himself, got to one knee, fired, watched the trail of smoke head away. He felt the brief hot wind of rounds passing by before they struck the cab. Lamont cried out. The first of the pursuing trucks burst into an orange ball of flame.

The second vehicle came past the burning wreckage. The heavy, distinctive sound of the Russian gun echoed from the buildings lining the street. Ronnie's next round detonated as it went through the windshield. The truck lifted, flipped onto its side and exploded.

Their pickup drifted sideways into a building and ground along the wall until it stopped. Ronnie leapt from the bed, opened the door and pulled Lamont out from behind the wheel. Armor had stopped two rounds in his back. A third had hit his arm. Blood soaked his robe.

Lamont's brown face had turned the color of light coffee, blanched with pain. He held his wounded arm against his body.

A wisp of flame snaked out under the hood of their truck.

With the shooting over, people began to come out of the houses and shops. Lamont had Ethiopian coffee skin and blue eyes. Ronnie had his Navajo coloring and looks. They both wore skull caps and robes and realistic beards. They wouldn't pass as Sudanese, but no one would figure them for Americans. Ronnie had his pistol out to discourage anyone from asking questions. No one did.

They hurried down the street and into a maze of alleys and narrow paths running between the houses. Behind them their truck turned into a blazing torch, sending a column of black smoke into the cloudless sky.

Ronnie stopped in a deserted alley. A narrow beam of sunlight shone down between dust colored walls. He cut open Lamont's sleeve. Shattered bone showed above the elbow, where the bullet had tumbled through.

"How bad?" Lamont's voice was hoarse with pain.

"Not so good. I gotta stop the bleeding. This will hurt." Ronnie cut strips from his robe and bound the wound. He improvised a sling. Lamont gritted his teeth.

Ronnie watched the entrance to the alley and punched a button on his phone. The call could be intercepted, but no one could understand it without the right chip on the other end.

There was a brief delay as the call routed through the satellites. Stephanie answered. "Yes, Ronnie."

"We have a problem. Two trucks came after us. We took them out, but our vehicle is toast. Lamont took a bad hit. I'm cut up a little." He looked down at his bloody hand. "Get us out of here. Lamont needs a hospital, now."

"Go to the safe house. We'll get you out."

"They loaded something onto a deuce and a half. We put a bug on the truck last night."

"We'll track them. Call when you're safe."

"Roger that." Ronnie put the phone away.

CHAPTER FOUR

The following day Selena, Nick and Stephanie met in Steph's office. Ronnie and Lamont were on a US Navy carrier two hundred miles off shore. The cost of extraction from Khartoum was a bill owed to CIA. The Project didn't have assets on the ground all over the world. Langley did. To Nick's surprise, they'd cooperated. Carter was relieved his team was safe, but he knew Langley would call for payback.

There was a new, bad development.

Stephanie briefed them. "Senator Randolph has been murdered. There were three Secret Service agents with him. They're dead too. Also his wife and his dog. They found a disc on the body, like the one in London. The President called and he wants answers."

Randolph had been a lock to run against President Rice in the upcoming election. He had favored pre-emptive military intervention to stop Iran or anyone else from obtaining nuclear weapons. Someone had just assassinated the man who might have been the next President of the United States.

Nick said what they all knew. "Someone is bound to make the Shia connection with that symbol. Randolph wanted heavy sanctions against Tehran. Like the Brit Secretary. Everyone's going to think Iran is behind these murders."

"Maybe they are behind it." Stephanie tapped her fingers on her leg.

"It doesn't make sense, Steph. Why would the Iranians announce their involvement? It's not their style."

"Public perception is going to drive things. It's politics, you know that. Everyone looks for someone to blame. This could start a war if anyone finds a direct link."

"I don't think it's Tehran," Selena said. " She held up the picture of the disc. "I remembered where I'd seen this. It's hard to believe we're looking at it now."

"'What do you mean?" Carter waited.

"This was the sign of a secret order called the Hashishin. That's where the word 'assassin' comes from. They were a Shia sect that disappeared seven hundred years ago."

"Are those the guys who smoked hashish and thought they were in Paradise?"

"Yes."

"Don't tell me." Nick said. "They came out of Iran."

"That's right. Only it was Persia then. They had a fortress in northwestern Iran, at a place called Alamut. It's still there. It was conquered by the Mongols in the thirteenth century."

"What happened to them? You said they disappeared."

"They believed in a succession of hidden Imams and went into something called dissimulation. Into hiding, until their Imams would reveal them again. That's not supposed to happen until there's a divine sign."

"What kind of sign?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose they'll know it when they see it."

"Maybe the sign's turned up. Maybe they're back."

"You think this cult is still around?" Steph asked.

Selena shrugged. "It's their symbol. Their weapon of choice was a dagger, though they weren't above using poison or something else now and again. They were trained in every method of killing from an early age. Think of them as Muslim Ninjas, and you've got the picture. They were fanatics, an isolated, minority sect even among the Shia. They believed they were the only ones with a true interpretation of Muhammad's teachings."

"How many were there?"

"No one knows."

Carter massaged his throbbing temples. "They can't possibly still exist."

Stephanie said, "I'm thinking of Sherlock Holmes."

"This isn't a movie, Steph."

"Don't be an asshole, Nick. What I mean is Holmes said that if the possible is eliminated, only the impossible remains. Something like that. If it is the assassins, they exist in the modern world, even though everyone thinks it's impossible."

"If they still exist and have been hiding out for hundreds of years, they're pretty good at it. How do we get a handle on them?"

Selena frowned. "We need more information about them. I know where we might start."

"Where?"

"In Mali."

"Mali? What's in Mali?"

"The Ahmed Baba Institute. It's a library in Timbuktu with a collection of Arabic manuscripts and papers going back to the thirteenth century. You want to know something about Muslim history in the Middle Ages, that's the source."

Nick saw her excitement. Pure research on obscure texts, what she'd done for years. It had brought her world wide academic recognition.

"You want to go to Timbuktu?"

"If there's any contemporary historical reference to what really happened to the Hashishin, it's the best place to look for it. All you can find anywhere else is standard history. That won't help us."

Stephanie flicked away lint from her dark suit. Nick remembered when she'd shown up for work sporting bright colors. Now she was all business.

Selena continued. "Steph, I need a research permit. They're very protective of those manuscripts. It shouldn't be hard with my credentials. I gave a lecture two years ago to an international conference on Islamic history and language and I've been invited to speak again when the next one comes up. I could use my real identity and say I was doing research for that."

Stephanie made a note. "We can arrange that."

"She can't go alone, Steph. I'll go with her. We've got advisors in Mali, the government's friendly. We can send our pistols by diplomatic pouch."

"Damn it, Nick. You're a Director now. You're not supposed to go off somewhere where you could get shot at or captured. Besides, all the intelligence agencies in the world will be looking for these people. They can find them."

"The other agencies don't have Selena. This is a tactical decision and it's my call. She doesn't have enough field experience to go alone. Ronnie and Lamont are out of it. That leaves me."

Selena waved her hand. "Excuse me, I'm right here." Her face was flushed. "You don't think I can take care of myself?"

"That's not the point. You're a rookie. This will be your first time in Africa. Consider it part of your training."

Selena looked at him, nodded once. Carter knew he'd hear about it later.

"Nick…"

"I'm going, Steph."

Stephanie sighed. She knew it was hopeless when Nick made up his mind. She let it go.

"You're too well known in the Muslim world. You'll need a cover legend, a disguise."

It was true. After Jerusalem, he was a high priority target for the fanatics.

"We'll figure it out," he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

Carter and Selena left the Project and headed back into town. She'd gotten another Mercedes to replace the one shot up by the Chinese. A coupe. Fast, burgundy red, almost the color of blood. The inside of the car was leather comfortable and warm. Outside, it had begun snowing. The whisper of the wipers and the quiet background of the heater filled the car against the noise of Selena's silence. Nick kept his thoughts to himself. When she finally spoke, her voice was tight.

"Why do you think I can't take care of myself?"

"I don't think that."

"Yes you do. You called me a rookie back there."

"You are a rookie. Africa is a mess. Anything can happen there. You don't know yet what it's like to go in as an agent. You have to assume everyone wants to kill you."

"They tried pretty hard in Tibet."

"That was different. Ronnie and I are experienced in special ops and it was that kind of mission. So was Argentina. You did great, more than great. But covert field work isn't the same. You don't have any experience in that."

"You forget my research took me to a lot of dangerous places without getting hurt. Including Africa."

"Look, in the field you can't trust anyone. You can't believe things are what they appear to be. You have to develop constant awareness. You have to see everything with a different eye, looking for the false gesture, the wrong word, the concealed knife. You always assume someone is after you, even if they aren't."

"This is just a library."

"A library in the middle of a Muslim country full of terrorists, where you want to look for information on a bunch of terrorist assassins. If anything's there do you think they don't know about it? Do you think they aren't watching? You have to assume they are, because if you don't you could end up dead."

Selena was getting angry. Nick knew the signs. "Why do you assume I can't figure that out for myself?"

Carter felt his face get tight. Blood pressure going up. "God damn it, Selena, it's not about that. Like I said, this is the first time you've done something like this. You think you know what I mean but you don't."

"Just another dumb woman, huh?"

"God damn it…"

They were a few blocks from Nick's apartment in D.C. She braked hard and came to a stop.

"I think you can find your way home from here."

Nick got out and slammed the door. Selena pulled away in a fishtail spray of slush and snow.

The guard took one look as Nick came in and went back to his paper. Carter smoldered as he rode the elevator up to his floor. He let himself in and walked over to the bar. He poured a double Irish and drank most of it down. He stood at the window and watched the snow and waited for the whiskey to do its work.

What the hell was it with women, anyway? It was simple, wasn't it? He knew what he was doing and she didn't. Why couldn't she see that? He was trying to help her, not criticize her.

He'd have to get this straight with her before they went to Mali. It was hard to sort out what was personal and what wasn't. As her boss, he couldn't let her refuse to hear what he said. That could compromise the mission. As her lover, he was just plain pissed.

He poured another whiskey and sat down. He thought about food, but his stomach was in knots. He got up and put on some music. Miles Davis. He liked Davis and Coltrane and Horace Silver and John Desmond. Carter settled back in the chair again and sipped his whiskey.

Goddamn it, he'd never come close to understanding the women in his life. Except for Megan. Megan was different. But Megan was dead.

He glanced at a picture taken a few months ago of his mother and his sister, Shelley. His mother looked vague, his sister like she'd eaten something unpleasant. He thought about his mother. She was going downhill with Alzheimer's. A few weeks before, he'd had a blow out argument with Shelley and her asshole husband. They wanted to put her in a home and sell her house. Prime property in Palo Alto. They couldn't wait to get their hands on the money, but they couldn't do it without him. They'd had to agree to 24/7 live in help instead. Carter could afford it, now.

At least Shelley had stopped needling him about his work, now that she knew he wasn't just another Washington bureaucrat. After Jerusalem, there was no way to keep her in the dark. She didn't know exactly what he did, but she knew paper pushers didn't end up on CNN and carry guns and hang out with the President. Guns or not, she still defended their father. She still tried to bully Nick with the big sister act. She was a pain in the ass. He wished it were different.

Another woman problem. Carter was tired of thinking about it. He got up and opened the refrigerator, found some cold Chinese take out and ate it. He poured another whiskey, sat down in his chair and tried to read. The words kept blurring. To hell with it. He'd been up since three in the morning. He got undressed and went to bed.

He dreamed the dream.

The rotors echo from the sides of the valley. The village is there again, the same worthless, dust-blown cluster of crappy buildings. It bakes in bright Afghan sun, the light glinting from sharp brown hills that circle it. A single dirt street runs down the middle.

Like always, he drops from the chopper and hits the street running. Like always, his M4 is up by his cheek, his Marines behind him. Houses line both sides of the street. On the left is the market, ramshackle bins and hanging cloth walls. A cloud of flies swarm the butcher’s stall.

He's in the market. He can smell his own stink, the adrenaline sweat of fear. He keeps away from the walls. A baby cries somewhere. The street is deserted.

Men rise up on the rooftops and begin shooting at him. The market stalls turn into a firestorm of splinters and plaster and rock exploding from the sides of the buildings.

A young child runs toward him, screaming about Allah. He has a grenade. Carter hesitates. The boy cocks his arm back and throws as Nick shoots him. The boy's head erupts in a fountain of blood and bone. The grenade drifts through the air in slow motion…everything goes white…

Carter came awake, shouting, slick with sweat. The grenade had left ridges of scar tissue on his body. It had left his mind scarred in ways that couldn't be seen. The flashbacks didn't happen much anymore, except when he was asleep. He got up and walked naked into the bathroom. He showered, shaved, got dressed and made coffee.

He hated the dream. He hated that he'd killed that kid. It didn't do any good to tell himself it was self defense, or that bad things happened in war. It didn't do any good to tell himself there wasn't a choice.

Carter didn't believe in religion. He didn't think redemption for what he did in life could be found in the words of men, even if they were supposed to have the blessings of God. That was exactly what the Jihadists believed, and look what the results were. If there was such a thing as redemption he'd have to find it in himself. If it was in there, he hadn't found it yet. For now, he'd try and stop the people who sent children out with grenades from doing it again. One terrorist at a time. Maybe that was redemption.

He waited for the comfort of dawn.

The phone rang.

"Yes."

"It's me."

He wasn't sure what to say. "Where are you?"

"At the hotel." Selena kept a suite of rooms at the Mayflower. Neither of them were ready to live together full time. Maybe they never would.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she said. "I guess I'm a little stressed these days."

"I'm not trying to tell you how to run your life."

"I know."

"I worry about you. I don't want you getting killed. Maybe I ride you too hard."

"Is that an apology? We knew this would come up. It's not the first time. But I know what I signed up for. I know there are lots of things I have to learn. I'm not dumb."

"You're anything but dumb."

"Then give me credit for it."

"You have to…" He stopped, began again. "It's important you don't take it the wrong way if I tell you something. I've been doing this for a long time. I have to treat you the same as I would anyone new. I can't change that because we're lovers."

"What does that mean, Nick? We're lovers because we sleep together?"

"I thought so."

"Maybe there's more to it than that." She hung up.

CHAPTER SIX

They took commercial air to Mali's capitol at Bamako and a connecting flight to Timbuktu. Stephanie had made arrangements. Their pistols would be waiting for them at the hotel.

Carter wore jeans and a short sleeved plaid shirt, a baseball cap and Ray Bans. He had a thick black beard and mustache that made him look like pictures he'd seen of Civil War soldiers. No one would recognize him. According to his passport he was John Depp. Selena traveled under her own name.

Six hundred years ago Timbuktu had been the crossroads of the Western Sahara, the capitol of an empire. Now it was a fly-ridden shadow of its former glory, plagued by drought, poverty, heat and the encroaching desert. Except for adventurous tourists and Islamic scholars, it was a place the world ignored.

Every year the sands of the Sahara drew closer. In time the city would vanish under the dunes. From what he saw from the air, Carter didn't think it would be much of a loss. As they came in to land they flew over the burned out wreckage of a twin engine cargo plane near the end of the runway. It brought bad memories. He pushed them away.

They stepped through the gate. Two men in police uniform carrying M-16s blocked their way.

"Depp? Connor?"

"Yes."

"You will come with us."

Selena and Nick looked at each other.

"Where?" Carter said.

"Come with us. Someone wishes to speak with you."

The two policemen led them to a door marked Airport Security in bold white letters and knocked. A deep voice responded.

"Come."

The voice belonged to a large, powerful man the color of dark chocolate. He sat behind a large desk. He sweated. The sweat beaded on his round face and trickled under the soiled collar of his shirt.

The sweating man informed them with satisfaction that his name was Colonel Samake. He wore a loose, brown suit that strained over his massive frame. His hands were massive, broad and powerful. He gestured at two wooden chairs.

"Please. Sit." They sat.

Sand gritted on the floor under Carter's boots. A tiny fan stirred papers on Samake's desk. It did nothing for the oppressive heat. Carter figured him for a security watchdog from Bamako. The two policemen stood by the door. They seemed nervous, as if they might make a mistake standing there.

"I wish to welcome you to our country, Doctor Connor. You are here to pursue research at the Institute?" Samake's voice was resonant, deceptively soft for such a big man.

"Yes, Colonel. For a presentation at the Islamic International Conference in Istanbul."

"That conference is two years away."

"Preparation is always lengthy." Carter kept silent. Something was going on here besides a welcome wagon.

"How long do you intend to stay?" Samake smiled, showing blunt, powerful teeth.

"It's difficult to say. Perhaps a week. We'd also like to do a little sightseeing. I've never been to Mali before."

Small talk.

"And Mister Depp? He is your assistant?"

"Yes. He helps me organize my research and takes care of travel arrangements, lodging, those sorts of things." She turned to Nick. "Don't you, Johnny?"

Nick looked down at the floor. "That's right, Doctor."

She looked away from him before he'd finished speaking. Dismissive. Nick admired her act. A gopher under a woman's thumb. No threat to Samake or anyone else. Nick almost laughed.

"Colonel, it is so nice of you to welcome us."

Selena stroked the man's ego. Almost flirting with him. Samake folded his big hands in front of him and leaned forward. He had an earnest expression. A sincere friend, about to give advice.

Bullshit, Carter thought.

"I must advise you to avoid the northern part of our country, should you decide on venturing out of Timbuktu."

"Oh?"

"There are temporary difficulties with bandits in that area. It is not safe for foreigners. It would be a shame if anything happened to such a distinguished visitor."

Carter's ear burned. That had been a veiled threat. It would have sounded like friendly advice to a real tourist. The message was clear. Don't go to the north.

CHAPTER SEVEN

An hour later they'd checked into their hotel. Carter looked out at the dusty courtyard. Forty Euros a night for a room with two questionable narrow beds and a fan. Selena had the room next to his.

Timbuktu had a grand total of six hotels. None of them met a reasonable international standard, but this one wasn't bad. There was a pleasant outdoor terrace and a second floor balcony restaurant with a view. His room had a private bath and the fan worked. There was a fine dusting of sand everywhere, adding to the exotic ambience of being in one of the world’s legendary destinations.

Selena knocked on the door and came in.

"It's hard to get used to that beard. You look like a pirate."

"Johnny Depp, at your service. It itches." At least they'd decided skin dye wasn't necessary. Westerners weren't unusual in Mali. "Johnny?" he said.

"Well, it worked, didn't it? Colonel what's his name never gave you a glance after that."

"Samake. He doesn't want us out of his sight and he doesn't want us going north. It could just be advice to an important tourist, but I think there's more to it than that. He's right about the north being a bad place to go."

"Why?"

"That's AQIM country."

"AQIM?"

"It's a terrorist group. AQIM stands for Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. They're a bunch of thugs. That area is a major route for drugs from South America headed for Europe. AQIM finances their ops by protecting the shipments. They like to kidnap westerners stupid enough to go up there and hold them for ransom or kill them. If there aren't any tourists, they ambush border patrols to keep busy. There aren't many of those, now."

"How come no one has stopped them?"

"You can't find them. They hide out in the southern mountains of Algeria. The whole region is within something called the Arc of Instability, across all of North Africa from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea."

"Then maybe we shouldn't go there."

"We probably won't need to."

"Ready for the library?"

"As I'll ever be. How long will this take, you think?"

"It's research, Nick. There are around twenty thousand manuscripts. It could take days."

"We don't have days. Rice needs results."

"You can't hurry a search like this. I'm just saying it can take time. But I might get lucky. I'm told the manuscripts are well organized. The collection dates from the thirteenth century, right where we need to look."

They found a taxi in front of the hotel and headed for the Institute. A hot, dry wind carried the timeless scent of the Sahara. The great desert stretched away for thousands of miles to the east.

The cab drove past blocks of low houses and shops made from yellowish mud brick. The buildings had heavy wooden doors studded with metal decorations and decorative grillwork over the windows. The driver told them most of the houses were built around hidden courtyards and gardens.

The streets were unpaved sand. Sand was everywhere. They passed donkeys, cows, goats. An occasional mangy dog or cat. They passed bee hive shaped clay ovens that hadn't changed design in hundreds of years, where groups of women in bright colored head wrappings and long skirts baked bread and chattered to each other.

They pulled up in front of the library, on the edge of the desert. The building was new and modern, built to replace an older structure in another part of the city. They entered through a series of high barriers designed to minimize the blowing sand and found themselves in a large paved courtyard. Thick concrete and mud walls blocked the heat. A fountain trickled water into rectangular channels and small pools that cooled the air.

Inside, Selena introduced herself to the librarian. Carter followed her down a ramp to the lower level. The restricted reading area was glassed off and air conditioned. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Selena told the research assistant what she wanted. Carter took a seat. The assistant returned with a stack of manuscripts in colored binders. Selena settled in and began reading. It looked like a long day.

Carter looked around the room. Several people bent over articles and manuscripts. A man with a dark, pockmarked face studied a manuscript at a table across the room. Nick's ear tingled. Something about him didn't seem right, but Carter couldn't pin it down. As if reading his mind, the man looked up at him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Five looked up from the papers in front of him. He smiled at the man who'd come in with the woman. The man turned away, scanning the room. Five watched the woman take a manuscript from a red binder and begin reading. He could tell it was the one he'd been told to watch for. It was as they had suspected might happen. Someone else sought the journal.

The tip of her tongue showed between her lips as she made notes. He looked at her brazen clothing. Her legs were visible below her knees, her arms exposed. She wore a thin scarf over her hair to make her seem acceptable. She was an affront to all that was righteous.

Whore.

His instructions had been clear. Watch. If someone showed interest in the text, eliminate them. He had been waiting patiently for a week, pretending to study a fifteenth century mathematical discourse.

Five did not find it difficult to be patient. Five was never impatient. Patience was wired into his genes. His roots went back to the days when his ancestors served the Teacher at Alamut, as he served the Teacher today. The Brotherhood still guarded the pure flame of Shia Islam. They were the true followers, the uncorrupted, a tradition passed down though the centuries.

Hours passed. He watched the woman put away her pen and close her notebook. The time for the evening prayer approached. The librarians wanted people to leave.

Five could tell she wasn't finished. It meant she'd be back. He had time to assess, to stalk. Time to kill. Her companion would pose no problem.

He smiled to himself. A whore was a whore, after all. Good for something, before she died.

CHAPTER NINE

Stephanie fretted about the truck from Sudan. Earlier she'd tracked it with a DIA satellite that could read a license plate from twenty miles up. From Khartoum it had gone through Chad and Niger, then entered Mali. The tracker kept cutting in and out.

Nick and Selena had been in Mali for two days. She called Nick to brief him.

"We've got new info from the photos Lamont took. One of the men is Jibril al-Bausari. He’s Egyptian, a key figure in the Muslim Brotherhood and high in the terrorist network. It means something big is being planned."

"Is he the one who blew up that Israeli embassy in South America?"

"No. But he’s behind several assassinations, the murder of forty-two aid workers in Afghanistan and a plot that almost succeeded in destroying the Eiffel Tower."

"I never heard about that."

"We don’t want to discourage travel and tourism, do we?" She paused. "Bausari in charge means whatever's in that truck is important."

"Where is it now?"

"Near you, in Mali, heading north."

"You think it's going to Algeria?"

"Looks like it."

"Let's hand it off to Langley."

"I already talked with Lodge. He doesn't think it's worth the trouble."

"Why am I not surprised," Nick said. "Like trying to kill our guys because they saw something being loaded isn't a clue." He thought for a moment. "How about we just take it out with a Predator or a Reaper?"

"You know better, Nick. Without confirmation it's VX the Pentagon's not going to task a multi-million dollar asset."

"You're right. I always hope, though." He paused. "Selena thinks she's on to something about that cult. Once we've got that, we could go after the truck."

"That's what I was thinking. The roads are bad. They're not breaking any speed records."

"I'll think it over and come up with something."

For a moment Stephanie felt a flash of resentment. Nick was responsible for field ops. Still, she wasn't his assistant.

"You do that," she said. She ended the call.

Steph had often been in charge when she was Elizabeth Harker's deputy. She could do it, but she didn't have Elizabeth's fine sense of touch. Steph got along with Nick, she always had. But since Nick had taken on his new role he'd been uptight and short fused. It felt like she was walking a thin line with him. She didn't like it.

Elizabeth might recover and return to her old job. Steph wouldn't mind, and she didn't think Nick would either. They'd only taken this on because the President had asked them to do it. It wasn't easy, this two director thing. Neither one of them had Harker's genius, her uncanny understanding. Between the two of them, they just about covered it. So far they hadn't made any major blunders. But they hadn't been at it for very long.

It was a good team. Elizabeth had made it a great one.

Steph knew Nick's nightmares and headaches had come back. He hadn't mentioned it but Selena had let it slip. Girl talk, really, to relieve the tense energy of the work. Steph liked Selena. She wasn't pretentious. She did her job and worked hard at improving the skills she needed.

She'd turned out to have what it took. Steph didn't know if she would have done as well in Selena's shoes. It was one thing to blast holes in targets down in the basement range. Steph was good at that. It was another to blast holes in people who were trying to do the same to you.

She thought about Nick. He had family problems on top of everything else. His mom had Alzheimer's. He'd been out in California a few weeks before and ended up in a fight with his sister about it. Nick didn't talk about his family, but Steph knew he'd grown up with an alcoholic bully for a father. It had made him hard and defended.

Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. She was pretty good at it herself. In the Project, the only people you trusted were your own. In the Project, you spent a lot of time pretending life was normal. Like it was normal to be on the other side of the world looking for a group of assassins. Like it was normal to have no life beyond your work.

At least Nick and Selena had each other. Steph had no one. She wondered if she ever would. She wondered if she'd ever meet someone she could trust. She'd just turned thirty-six. If she was going to have another intimate relationship with someone, it would have to be soon.

She wasn't sure she wanted one. Not after the disaster of her marriage. That was in the days before Elizabeth recruited her and pulled her away from NSA.

Here she was, co-director at an unbelievably young age of a powerful secret agency that had the President's ear and his whole-hearted support. There were a lot of people in Washington who would do anything to have her job.

She wondered why it felt like something was missing.

CHAPTER TEN

Five watched the two foreigners leave the Institute. She'd found it, he was certain. The look of satisfaction on her face at the end of the day gave her away. He needed to act.

They got in a cab. Five was in no hurry. He knew they would go back to their hotel. They would eat somewhere, at the hotel or in town. Five thought they might go into town, since he'd watched them go into the hotel restaurant the night before. It made no difference. If they went into town after dark, his job would be easier. If they chose the hotel, he would wait until they were in their rooms. Either way, only a moderate challenge.

As it turned out, they decided on town. Five followed them from the hotel to a place patronized by foreigners and noted for it's spicy menu of local dishes. He watched from a doorway part way down the block. He felt the weight of the dagger under his robe. A comforting friend.

It was full dark when they emerged. There were no cabs. They began the walk back to the hotel.

The streets were deserted. A bright moon cast shadows across the pale sand. Doors and windows formed black rectangles in the mud walls of the buildings. The soft fragrance of water and flowers from a hidden garden drifted on the night air.

Five came up behind, silent as the sand. He focused on the man's neck, where the skull sat on top of the spine. He drew the dagger.

Then something happened that had never happened before. The dagger caught on his robe and made a small sound, a tiny sound, a soft rustle on the night wind.

Carter turned without thinking and brought his left arm up, knocking the thrust away. The dagger gleamed in the moonlight. Carter tried a hand strike. Five blocked and lashed out with a kick for the groin. Nick turned just enough so that it landed on his hip. The power of the blow threw him back against a wall. His left leg collapsed. He fell on his knees to the ground.

Five moved in for the kill but he made another mistake. He ignored the woman.

Selena landed a kick to his kidneys. Five arched backward in pain. He spun, shocked to find himself fighting a woman. Selena and Five moved back and forth in a violent martial dance, striking and parrying. The blade flashed in the moonlight. A fight to the death.

Carter struggled to his feet. Somewhere in his mind he could hear AKs firing, smell the hot dust of an Afghan street. He shook it off.

It looked like Selena was in trouble. He'd never seen martial arts like this. This was out of his league, but he had to try. Before he could intervene, Selena landed a kick to the chest. Five staggered back and dropped the dagger. She kicked out again, landed a blow on the thigh, then spun in a high kick that struck the neck. Nick heard the bones snap.

It was over.

Selena went down on one knee, drawing in deep breaths. Nick knelt beside her.

"Are you hurt? Are you all right?"

"I'm okay." She took another breath. "Winded. Need to work out more."

"Work out more? Jesus, Selena."

"I think I might have a cracked rib," she said.

"That was something. I thought he had you."

"Twenty years of practice and it was barely enough. Next time I see Master Kim I'll have to thank him."

Carter looked down at the dead man, sprawled in the sand.

"He's got a tattoo on his arm. It's Arabic."

Selena stood up, holding her side. She winced. She bent over the figure to look at the inked marking. The ink was old, the blue faded. The tattoo had been there for a while.

خمسة

"It says, 'Five'."

"That's all? Five?"

"Maybe it's a tribal tattoo of some sort."

Nick searched the body. On the other arm was another tattoo, the Shia ambigram.

"He's one of the assassins."

"Why come after us?"

Nick looked down at the pockmarked face. "I saw him in the library. He must have seen you reading that manuscript and we became targets."

"But someone could wait there forever and no one would ever see those papers."

"I guess that didn't matter. It could be recent, since they started killing people."

"Then what I found must be important."

"Yeah."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nick called Stephanie. "He had a tattoo of the ambigram."

"Anything else about him?"

"A tattoo that says 'Five' in Arabic. From his looks he could be from anywhere in the Middle east. No ID. No other marks. He had an antique dagger. I'm looking at it now. It's a nasty piece of work, looks like a stiletto, just a long, narrow V with a blood groove down the middle and a straight hilt. The ambigram is worked into the guard. It's sharp enough that I could shave with it. Nothing else."

"Why you and Selena? He couldn't have known you were coming."

"I think he was waiting in the library to spot anyone trying to find out more about this secret order. Not waiting for us in particular."

"What did Selena find?"

"I'll let her tell you." Carter handed the phone to Selena. Bruises darkened her arms and legs. She had to be careful taking a deep breath. It could have been worse. She could be dead. He could be dead, a dagger buried in his neck.

"Steph. I found something that indicates the cult may have survived."

"What makes you think that?"

"A manuscript from the fifteenth century, written by a Sunni about the corruption of Shia beliefs. It mentions a splinter group from the Hashishin who went underground. The author vilifies them. He repeats rumors of a hidden sanctuary or school in what is now Pakistan. He relates conversations with travelers of the period and gives a few landmarks."

"A school for assassins?"

"The narrator says they thought were the only true guardians of Islam. All of Islam, not just the Shia branch. They were loathed by the other Shi'ites. They were dedicated to restoration of the true belief, as they saw it."

"How were they supposed to do that?"

"When the time is right, Allah is supposed to lead them to victory against all of Islam's enemies, within and without. Holy war. Jihad."

"I suppose there's some idea about when the time will be right?"

"Not specific. Only that there will be a sign of some kind."

"What, like Revelations? The moon turning red? That kind of thing?"

Selena shifted the phone to her other ear. "It doesn't say."

"Let me talk to Nick again."

Selena handed the phone back to Nick.

"Nick, the bug quit on the truck."

He waited.

"The last time it worked they were north of you on the border between Mali and Algeria, not far from a place called Taoudenni."

"When was that?"

"This morning. It might still be there, but I can't find it on satellite. That terrain is very rugged. There are a lot of places to hide and they could head north or west. They're only moving at night."

Carter thought for a moment. "We can't let that truck get away. I think Selena and I have to go after it. Maybe a little recon is in order."

"You can't just drive up there. Not without an armed convoy."

"I'm thinking air. Rent a plane and pilot here. We spot the truck, we can track it again. We don't find it, we come back and think out our next move. We find it, we come back and figure how to take it out."

"I don't know, Nick…"

"You have a better idea?"

He heard her sigh. "No. I don't. You're on the scene. It's your call."

Right, he thought. "How are Ronnie and Lamont?"

"Lamont took a round right through the bone and he lost a lot of blood. His upper arm is smashed to bits. He's lucky to be alive. He almost lost the arm. They patched it back together with plates. Ronnie's got a bad hand where he cut himself. Might make it stiff when he heals up."

"Tell them I said some people will do anything to get off work."

Stephanie laughed.

Carter ended the call.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nick asked around at the airport and tracked down an American pilot named Harmon. Harmon set up a meet in a bar. According to him, the only bar in town that served cold beer. Mali practiced a tolerant Islam, the kind the fanatics wanted to consign to the flames. There weren’t many bars in this Muslim nation, but there were a few.

The place felt like a time warp from the 30s. It was half full with a mix of foreigners and locals. The bartender wore a white jacket that had seen better days. The back bar featured spotted mirrors, a dozen bottles and arched wooden grillwork. Wooden ceiling fans pretended to stir the stifling air. Scarred tables were scattered about the room. An old upright piano stood next to a small stage. A fat white man in a white suit and a panama hat sat draped over a stool at the bar.

The only thing missing was Humphrey Bogart and someone playing Cole Porter tunes. Behind the stage Nick saw a faded curtain. Carter half expected Marlene Dietrich, or maybe Amelia Earhart, to step through that curtain and give them a song.

Over in the corner four Americans in civvies with solid builds and buzz cuts talked among themselves. He knew the look. Special Ops, probably Army Rangers. The US had advisors here. Mali was another new front in the so-called war on terrorism.

French Euro Rock assaulted their ears from scratchy speakers in the ceiling. No one danced. The bar was colorful. It was loud. It was exotic. It was depressing. A waiter took their order.

The drinks came.

Carter took a swallow and looked at the label. Castel, self-proclaimed as the "Queen of Beers".

"Not bad."

"Want a sip of this?" Selena had an Amarula, African liquor that tasted like Bailey’s and Khalua mixed with chocolate. Like an alcoholic milkshake.

"No thanks. Here comes our pilot."

A man came through the doors of the bar, silhouetted against the glaring sunlight. He wasn't tall. He walked with confidence. He had black hair cropped close to his skull, the look of a military man not too long out of the service. He wore non-descript Khaki that could have come out of army surplus or L.L. Bean. His name was Joe Harmon. Carter had asked Stephanie to check him out.

He was a pilot without a plane. The burned out hulk they'd seen when they arrived at Timbuktu International had been his last aircraft. Harmon had been army, a chopper pilot, a WO-3 before he got out. Combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nick's kind of person.

Carter raised his hand and Harmon came over and sat down.

"Selena, Joe Harmon."

"My pleasure." Carter caught the quick once over Harmon gave her. He didn't mind. Any male who saw Selena and wasn't dead gave her the once over. He signaled the waiter and Harmon ordered a beer.

"Bad luck with your plane."

"Yeah. I ran right into a haboob. The engines ate sand and down she went."

"What's a haboob?" Selena asked.

"A bitch of a sandstorm. Worst one I'd ever seen. I'd come out of Burkina Faso with a load of welding supplies. I didn't have enough fuel to turn back. Almost made it."

He shrugged, as if it were no big deal. But Carter knew he was stranded here.

"Your insurance company won't pay. Must put you in a hard spot."

"How do you know that?"

"We had you checked out."

"You CIA?"

"No. But we have connections. We've got a proposition for you."

Harmon drank from his bottle. "Let's hear it."

"We need someone to fly us up north, toward Algeria. We just want to do a little recon, see if we can find a certain vehicle."

"That's AQIM country."

"This vehicle might be part of an Al-Qaeda op." Carter wanted to give Harmon enough information to get him interested. He had a good military record. Nick figured he cared about his country.

"You're Agency," Harmon said.

"No. Something different. It's important we find this truck. We don't need to do anything except try and spot it. We'll never find it on the ground. We need an aerial view. I don't want to use some local tour guide."

"They wouldn't take you anyway."

"Can you get a plane?"

"As a matter of fact, I can." He made rings on the table with the beer bottle, thinking. Carter waited. Selena watched the two men. This is like a male ritual, she thought. Two lions circling around one another. She kept quiet.

"There's an old French plane I heard about here in town. The man who’s got it is a mechanic. I haven't seen it yet. He says it’s in good shape, but he can’t fly. He’s blind from some kind of infection he got in the river years ago. He’ll rent me the plane. It seats four."

"A blind mechanic."

"That’s right."

"An old four-seater French plane."

He nodded.

Carter thought. An old plane and a blind mechanic. It appealed, somehow.

"What's the proposition?" Harmon waved at the waiter for a round.

"Five hundred a day, starting today. You fly us up there. We look around. We come back. That's it."

"Euros or dollars?"

"Dollars."

"What about the plane, fuel, supplies? That costs money."

"We'll pay for all of it."

Harmon toyed with the bottle. "Maybe you can help me with something. With your connections."

Carter waited.

"There's a cop named Samake. He's security, intelligence, out of Bamako."

"We met him."

"I had two hundred tanks of oxygen and acetylene in the cargo bay when I went down. The plane caught fire. I ran like hell and it blew up. Samake thinks I had something for the terrorists. Explosives, whatever. He's got my passport. Pending investigation, he says. You get it back, get me out of this shithole, we've got a deal."

"I think we can arrange that. We need to see the plane first."

"Fair enough. How about I meet you in front of the Hotel de Colombe tomorrow and we'll take a look at it. You know where the Colombe is?"

"That's where we're staying."

Harmon drained his beer. "Seven in the morning. Before it gets hot." He gestured at the empty bottles. "Your round."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They returned to the hotel and got something to eat. They were in Carter's room.

"I want to go back to the library tomorrow." Selena sat on one of the beds. She ran her fingers through her hair.

"You don't want to check out the plane?"

"You don't need me for that. There's a sixteenth century copy of a trader's journal written during the time of Muhammad at the Institute that I want to examine."

Selena poked at the thin mattress where she sat. "These beds are pretty narrow."

Nick stood near her. Her loins flooded with heat and moisture. "Maybe not too narrow." She grabbed him at the waistband and pulled him toward her. "Come over here," she said.

Selena unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down over his hips. No shorts. Nick never wore shorts.

She loved looking at him erect like this, close up. She loved the anticipation. She reached up and cupped him, squeezed, rolled him in her palms. He reached down. She batted his hand away. After a while she stood and unbuttoned her blouse and pulled off the rest of her clothes. He held her close and ran his hands over her. His hands were strong, hard. She felt her heart beat hard against his, his breath, the heat of him. She felt the ripples of scar tissue along his side, his hip, on his back.

She wanted him. "Watch the ribs," she whispered. They kissed, a hungry, devouring kiss. She bit his lip.

They moved to the bed.

"On your back, Johnny."

Selena pushed him down on his back and lowered herself onto him. She held him there, squeezing him, raised herself up and began working him. Then she threw back her head and thrust against him, faster until he shouted and let go, driving up inside her. She uttered a guttural cry and climaxed with him.

She rolled off him, slick with sweat. She lay against him, waiting for her pulse to stop pounding. Her mind shied away and began thinking about the library. She stirred.

"That manuscript I want to look at?"

Carter turned toward her on the pillow. "What about it?"

"The original was written in the seventh century. Muhammad gave one of his commanders a box. He told him to take it far away and hide it. The manuscript says it’s in a large cave up north. It could be where they've stashed that truck. Where AQIM has a base."

"What's in the box?"

"Nobody knows. But the Jihadists would want anything associated with Muhammad. A relic would lend them authority, credibility."

"They’d have to find it, first. If it exists."

"It might not exist. If it did, and if it were found, that could be seen as a sign. Maybe it's been found. Maybe that's what brought the assassins into the open."

"How are we supposed to locate this cave?"

"The manuscript gives landmarks. It talks about salt mines. That means it has to be near Taoudenni. Steph said that's where they lost the signal. If we can spot those landmarks, we might find the cave."

"That's good. Better than flying blind."

He reached over to her. She was ready for him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Carter waited for Harmon on the porch. The Hotel de Colombe fronted Timbuktu’s version of Times Square. Two wide boulevards of hard packed sand came together in a Y forming an unpaved plaza in front of the hotel. Several tall trees grew in the triangle between the streets. Flat roofed houses and shops of mud brick lined both sides. A scrawny cow stood motionless and head down in the road. A long row of wooden poles carried power in from the hazy distance. Tiny dust devils swirled in the heat. The sun beat on his head.

A tall, thin man in a dark brown robe and white skull cap stared mesmerized at a pile of mud bricks in the middle of the street. An old Mercedes car sagged on its springs down the way. The place was really jumping.

A dented white Peugeot bounced toward the hotel, churning clouds of dust behind. It pulled up where he stood. A young, dark skinned man got out of the car, smiling. He wore a long robe and a simple head covering.

Carter came down the steps as Harmon got out of the car. "Where's your friend?"

"She's not coming."

"This is Moussa." Harmon gestured at the driver. "Moussa, this is the man who wants to rent your uncle's plane."

"My uncle will be very happy." Moussa’s voice was rich and friendly. They squeezed into the car. Moussa threw it into gear. The smile became a grim, focused look, the look of a Kamikaze. They roared through town, past potholes and animals and a shouting policeman who threw his baton after them.

Twenty minutes later they pulled up in front of a large, three story mud brick structure on the edge of the desert. The bricks were stamped with a simple geometric pattern that repeated over and over. Carter uncurled his hands from a death grasp on the seat. The front door of the building was made of weathered wood and studded with intricate metal designs. An enormous, polished brass ring formed an impressive knocker.

Moussa knocked, opened the door and bowed them in. The interior was cool and dark. They were in an anteroom with low benches and cushions and a small wooden table. Heavy curtains of deep red cloth partitioned off the rear.

The curtains parted for a small, dark man. Carter guessed him to be in his seventies. His face looked as if it had been chiseled from a weathered tree. He had close-cropped gray hair under a white skull cap. His beard was neatly trimmed. His eyes were milky white.

Carter looked at his hands. Broad fingers and thick, square cut nails, the knuckles marked with white scars and gnarled with arthritis. The hands of an old mechanic.

"Salaam aleikum, Uncle."

"Aleikum salaam, Nephew. You have brought your new friends." He spoke English with a strong accent.

"Yes, Uncle." He introduced them.

"I'd like to see the plane," Carter said. Moussa’s uncle looked away for a moment and Moussa looked down at the floor.

"Of course. Please, follow me." Ibrahim disappeared through the curtain.

"You’re being rude," Harmon whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"No one begins a conversation with business here," he said. "First talk, tea or coffee. Then business." They went through the curtain.

They were in a small, open courtyard. Water trickled into a tiled basin bordered with red flowers. Doors opened off three sides. Moussa and Ibrahim waited. Carter walked over to the old man.

"Please excuse my poor manners," he said. "I don’t know your customs. Thank you for welcoming us into your home."

Ibrahim visibly relaxed. He touched his chest with his right hand. "There is no offense. My house is your house. Perhaps some tea before we look at the plane?"

Harmon gave Carter a warning look. "We would be honored," he said.

After a half hour of sweet mint tea and small talk they went through another door into a cavernous room at the back of the building. Two large doors stood open to the outside. The plane made a black silhouette against the glare of the sun.

Harmon looked at the distinctive shape of cantilevered wings. "God damn. It's a Mousquetaire."

"Mouseketeer? What’s that?" Carter asked.

"Mousquetaire. It means Musketeer in French. It’s a Jodel D-140, made out of wood. They were used as air ambulances back in the sixties and seventies. Short landing and take off. Seats four or five, with a decent cargo area. I knew a guy in the States that restored one of these. I flew it once. It's a good plane. Good for the desert."

Ibrahim nodded, pleased.

French military markings were just visible where they’d been painted over. The fixed landing gear had been modified for desert use by adding bigger tires and stripping away the nacelles that once surrounded the wheels. It would be possible to set down on sand.

They walked around the plane. The tires were old and weather checked and full of dry rot. They held pressure but it would be worth your life to take off or land on them. The big turtle canopy reflected tiny pits from the sand. Once the plane had been white, but now the paint was streaked and faded, starting to peel in places. Harmon opened the canopy and looked inside. The cabin looked clean and neat. The leather seats were cracked and dull. The cargo area contained a rolled up stretcher strapped above a rectangular metal box with a red cross marked on it. A medical kit, at least forty years old. Harmon opened it. Empty.

"Let’s look at the engine."

The old man said something in Arabic and Moussa went over to the side of the hanger and rolled a wooden platform toward the plane. Carter gave him a hand and they set it next to the plane. Harmon climbed up and opened the cowl.

The opposed four cylinder Lycoming engine had no oil leaks that he could see. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it that way. Ibrahim, the blind mechanic.

Ibrahim sighed. "It is an old plane but the engine is good. Perhaps a bit tired, but good. The controls are good, although I never flew the plane." There was a trace of sadness in the old man’s voice. "It belonged to a Frenchman who had a business here, years ago. I maintained it for him. We often traveled together over the desert. When he died this was his gift to me. No one has flown it in almost twenty years, but I have kept it ready."

Twenty years. A long time. Harmon thought about five hundred dollars a day.

"Let’s start her up," he said.

The old man climbed into the cockpit with the ease of long practice. He would never pilot a plane but he knew what he was doing. Nick heard the whine of fuel pumps. Thirty seconds later the engine cranked over and came to life. The wash from the wooden propeller blew eddies of dust around the room. A burst of black and white smoke and the engine settled down to a steady, throaty idle.

Ibrahim worked the pedals and the stick. Everything moved like it should.

Harmon spent the next half hour checking the plane over. The dry climate had done a good job of preservation. Except for the tires, the plane seemed airworthy. They wouldn’t know for sure until they took her up.

"So," Carter asked him, "What do you think?"

"The tires are no good. We need new ones. They'll have to come out of Bamako. It'll take a day or two. I'll need a thousand Euros, maybe more, maybe less."

Carter didn't have to think about it. "Go ahead and get them."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Late the next afternoon Harmon met Carter and Selena in the bar.

"We’ve got the tires. Ibrahim and Moussa will install them. Then I can check her out."

"Never thought I’d be flying in something called a Mouseketeer." Carter sipped his beer.

"Musketeer. Like D’Artagnan and the other guys."

Carter nodded at the door. "Here comes our friend from the airport."

Colonel Samake came through the entrance. He looked around the room and headed for their table. He rolled a little. The Colonel had been drinking.

"I will join you," he said. He smelled sour, of heat and sweat and too much alcohol. He pulled up a chair. The waiter appeared at his side before he could raise a hand.

"Whiskey." Samake belched.

The waiter scurried off and returned with a double shot of something amber. Samake looked at them through piggy, bloodshot eyes. Sweat rolled off his forehead. He drank off the whiskey in one gulp, gestured for another.

"You seem fortunate, Harmon," Samake said. "You have another plane, for the moment. Tell me, where do you plan to go?"

"We've hired Mister Harmon to take us up for a little sightseeing." Carter drank his beer. He remembered Samake's warning about the north. Fuck him. "We want to see what's happening up north."

The next whiskey came. Samake drank.

"I can tell you what is happening there." Samake put down his drink. His arm knocked a beer bottle off the table. "Poverty is happening there. Salt and heat is happening there. Terrorists and drugs are happening there. So why would you go?"

Selena spoke. "We want to visit the salt mines."

Samake turned a bloodshot stare on her. "I am not convinced your story is the reason you are here. How do you say to that?" His tone was hostile.

Carter didn't like his tone. "Wait a minute," he said. Samake turned. It reminded Carter of a snake.

"I was not talking to you. Do not interrupt me again."

Harmon laid a hand on Nick's arm. He shook his head, a small motion.

Samake saw the movement and smiled. There was no humor in it.

"Remember something. You are foreigners in my country. I make the rules here. You may leave the city during the day and return at night. You will not land in the desert. If you see vehicles on your flights, you will at once inform me of it. What type, where they were seen, where they were headed. Is that clear?"

"Very clear." Carter looked him in the eye. "You ever hear the expression about honey and flies?"

"Honey and flies?"

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Why don’t you think about that?"

"You provide some honey, then. We’ll see what kind of flies I catch."

He stood up, glared at them and left.

Harmon waved for the waiter. "Why is Samake suspicious of you? Me, I understand. But why you?"

"He told us to not to go north. Samake doesn't want us up there for some reason."

"So you told him that's where you wanted to go. Just to piss him off."

"Pretty much."

Harmon shook his head and looked at Selena. "He always like this?"

"Pretty much," she said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next afternoon the plane was ready. The new tires were shiny and black, stark contrast against the faded, peeling paint. Carter itched to get things moving. That truck could be far away by now.

Harmon rested his hand on the wing. "I'll take her up."

"I'll go with you." Carter gestured at the plane. "Think of me as test equipment."

He weighed two hundred pounds. He had a point.

Harmon shrugged. "Your funeral if it goes south. Don't touch the controls on your side."

They got in the plane. Ibrahim, Moussa and Selena stood out of the way. The engine coughed into life with a burst of blue smoke and settled to an even idle. Harmon looked at the gauges, tapped them. He always tapped gauges. He'd tapped them on his first car, a beat up Chevy. He'd been tapping gauges ever since. All functioning. Oil pressure, good. Fuel, half full, both tanks. He worked the stick and the pedals, getting a feel for the controls. He watched the flaps and rudder move. He held the brakes and increased revs, watched the tachometer. So far, so good.

Harmon released the brakes and taxied out of the hanger into the bright sun. He lined up on the flat plain behind the building, advanced the throttle and rolled. They lifted into the air.

An hour later they landed. He taxied back, shut down and climbed out of the cabin.

"Well?" Selena stood by the wing.

"She’s good. Like Ibrahim said, a little tired, not as much power as I’d like, but good. We just go a little slower, that’s all."

"So we can go north."

"I don’t see why not. It’s too late today. If we’re going to Taoudenni, we’d better leave at sunrise, give us all day."

"How long will it take?"

"It’s around four hundred and fifty miles. Probably three hours. We’ll need to top off the fuel there." He paused. "Where do you think this truck is?"

"A cave." Selena brushed hair from her forehead. "I came across a manuscript with some landmarks. We want to find it."

"Now we have tea," Moussa said, "before I drive you back to the hotel."

Carter thought about riding with Moussa and wished for something stronger than tea.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The sun exploded over the horizon, an angry red eye shimmering in a vermillion haze. Six in the morning and already over eighty degrees.

The Musketeer had an 800 mile range. They'd need extra fuel to get to Taoudenni and back. Fifty liters in cans went into the cargo area.

They loaded bottled water and dry rations. A large tarp. A tire pump and repair kit, in case one of the tires went bad. A few tools, a first aid kit, flashlights. A fire extinguisher. Sleeping bags, just in case. You didn't fly unprepared over the Sahara and it got cold at night. Harmon calculated the weight was within the plane's limit. They'd get lighter as they used fuel and flew north.

Ibrahim presented them with a rifle and a dozen rounds of ammunition, a bolt action 8mm German Mauser from the big war. The swastika and palm of Rommel’s Afrika Korps marked the receiver. A collector's item, clean and oiled and lethal.

Selena sat in back. Harmon started the engine and waited for everything to settle down. He taxied out of the hangar, wound up the revs and in a minute they were airborne, north to terrorist country.

They leveled off at three thousand. The big turtle canopy gave everyone a wide view of the earth below and cloudless, luminous blue sky above.

"What’s Taoudenni like?" Carter asked.

"It makes Timbuktu look like Miami. It’s where the salt comes from." Harmon glanced at the gauges.

"The miners dig it out of old lake beds with hand held axes. It gets too hot for work in the summer, a hundred and forty or more. This time of year it’s cooling down, but the miners won’t be working yet. All the water up there is contaminated with salt. No one can stay there more than six months if they want to keep living."

"The water kills them?"

"Their kidneys fail."

"How do they get the salt out to sell it?"

"Camels. Like hundreds of years ago. The route from Taoudenni is one of the last caravan routes still going. It's become a tourist attraction. Sometimes four wheel drive vehicles."

They flew over a group of seven or eight camels ridden by men in blue robes. The riders looked up as the plane flew over.

"Those are Tuareg tribesmen," Harmon said. "Tough bastards. You don't want to get on their bad side."

The landscape below was a barren wasteland of sand, stone plateaus and dry valleys. A long time ago it had been a green savannah alive with game. From up here it didn’t look like global warming was anything new.

After a while Harmon said, "If terrorists are using this cave how come no one’s spotted them on satellite, or from the air?"

Carter looked down at the panorama of sand and rock slipping by beneath them. "All Mali has for air patrols are a few old Mig 21s. They’re too fast and most of them don’t work. The whole area is a maze of ravines and escarpments leading into the mountains. The satellite photos are broad passes. Not very specific, unless you know exactly where to look and can target it in. It’s rugged terrain."

Harmon made a slight course correction. "What are the landmarks we're looking for?"

Selena answered. "Two hills that look like kneeling camels. That’s the key."

"Two hills out of what, two thousand?"

"The manuscript talks about salt mines a day’s journey from the cave. That means Taoudenni and the mines there. Those two hills are somewhere in that area. There’s another landmark, a pyramid shaped pillar of rock. If we find that, we could find the camel hills."

For a while they flew in silence.

"How'd you end up out here, Joe?" Carter asked.

"That's a long story. I didn't have much to go back to in the States." Harmon paused. "I was married. I came back from a year in Iraq and she was five months pregnant."

"Oh."

"Yeah, well, shit happens. No way we could save it. So I filed for divorce and signed up for another tour. I had a buddy who knew the African scene and he convinced me to go partners with him and come here. We got a chance at a plane and took it. I figured two, three years over here, make some money, go back and start a charter business. Maybe out west, the Rockies. He gave it up a year ago and I stayed. Another few months, I would have had enough."

"And now?"

"Now you get my passport back and I'm going home. I've had it up to here with Africa." He sliced his hand in front of his throat in a cutting motion.

Two and a half hours later they closed on Taoudenni. To the north, the unforgiving escarpments of the Algerian mountains rose in a rugged blue haze. To the west lay the great spread of the barren Taoudenni Basin.

They came in low over the village, a desolate huddle of small buildings and tents and open air storage for the salt, all set in the midst of a sea of reddish sand. Thousands of holes pitted the salt flats. Carter saw tiny box-like hovels made of salt, flat, ugly slabs fitted and tied together. They flew over a group of blue-robed men clustered next to camels.

They landed on the single paved airstrip. Harmon taxied to the end, turned around and cut the engine. He popped the canopy and the heat scorched them. There were no other planes, no vehicles, no hangers, no buildings. Just a stretch of black asphalt across the desert. LAX, it wasn't. Carter wondered why anyone had bothered to build it.

If Timbuktu was in the middle of nowhere, Taoudenni was at the end of it. Carter had never seen a place so remote and God-forsaken. A dirty, reddish brown desert extended in all directions. Not a tree, not a shrub, not a green thing as far as the eye could see, only sun blasted rock and drifted sand. It made the Mojave look like a golf resort.

Hell on earth.

They got out of the plane. "I don’t see any Dairy Queens," Selena said.

"Mars must look like this," Carter looked at the distant horizon. "Nice place."

"Here comes the welcoming committee." Harmon pointed at two tall figures swathed in blue robes, riding toward them on camels. Dark blue turbans wrapped their heads. A black veil of cloth covered the lower part of their faces. Each rider carried an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and a bandoleer across his chest.

Less than a hundred years ago downed aviators were tortured and murdered in this region. All infidels were fair game back then, but times had changed. At least Carter hoped they had.

He kept ready to reach for his pistol.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Tuareg riders towered over them on their camels. The camels stank. Carter didn’t like the way the beasts eyed him. The only camel he’d ever paid much attention to was the one on a cigarette pack. He thought about lighting one up. Not a camel, a cigarette. He hadn't smoked in four years, but he still missed it.

"Salaam Aleikum," Selena said.

The first rider looked surprised a woman would speak to him, but he returned the greeting and broke into a stream of Arabic. He addressed the men. Women’s lib wasn’t big out here.

Selena translated. "He asks why we’re here, if we came to buy salt. He says they have the finest salt, the ‘beautiful’ salt. That's the best they have, four levels down. He will offer you a very fair price. Or you would like to buy some jewelry? He’s being rude. Normally they offer tea. Tell him something."

Carter thought. He knew cave paintings had been found in the area, dating back thousands of years to when the desert had been green.

"Thank him and tell him we have heard about the Tuareg salt, the finest in the world, even across the ocean, but that is not why we have come. Tell him we heard there were paintings up here, in the caves in the mountains."

Selena translated. The rider grunted. Carter continued. "Tell him we will pay for information. We heard there might be caves near a tall pillar of rock."

The Tuareg's eyes were impenetrable, his face weathered and burned dark, unreadable behind his veil. He began speaking to his companion in the native dialect. They laughed. He turned back and spoke again in Arabic.

"He says he can tell you where the pillar is, but there are no caves. For 15,000 CFA he will tell you where it is. You cannot walk. You must take your plane, but there is no place to land."

15,000 CFA was about thirty dollars American. Cheap enough. Carter took out the money, careful not to show how much he had with him. He handed it over. The camel snorted and pulled its lips back from huge, yellow teeth. A trail of greenish spit drooled from its mouth.

"Ask him where."

The man pointed toward the mountains and let loose a stream of Arabic. "He says it’s a day’s ride. You go up a long valley. He says the pillar is very tall, as tall or taller than the Mosque in Timbuktu, and that it is shaped like the Mosque. He says Allah put it there to remind the Tuareg of His glory. But there are no caves."

"Ask him if he’s seen anyone who’s not from around here."

A rapid exchange between the men, then more Arabic.

Selena said, "Now that the heat is going, there will be foreigners. But we are the first to come since before the heat. There was a group with trucks then, but they did not come here and they did not buy salt. He says they went south. I think he’s lying."

"Thank him. We’re done here."

A few more words and the tribesmen abruptly wheeled their camels around and rode off.

Carter wiped sweat away. "Let’s top off the fuel and get back in the air in case our new friends decide to come back. Those AKs make them boss around here."

They got the gas out and emptied the cans into the tanks. Minutes later they were airborne.

A "day’s ride" on a camel meant fifteen or twenty miles. Harmon headed in the direction the rider had pointed out. Below, the plain rose to meet the mountains. The sands gave way to stretches of gravel and rock riven with barren ravines and gullies. He spotted a wide valley and banked left to follow it. A tall, pyramid shaped rock formation stuck out at the far end.

"That’s gotta be it," Carter said. "Dead ahead."

They flew past it and circled around.

"You see anything looks like two camels?"

"Follow that long slope." Selena pointed out the canopy. "It looks like the easiest path through the mountains."

The broad, rocky slope led deeper into the foothills. They were close to the Algerian border, maybe already in Algerian airspace. They followed the rise of the slope. Harmon kept five hundred feet above the ground. The slope crested and they came over the top.

"Look." Selena pointed again. Two steep hills rose up about a half mile ahead. Their shapes were distinctive. Two camels, head to head. They flew toward them.

"Someone down there," Carter said.

"Where…"

The canopy shattered. Something hit Carter hard. Harmon cried out and fell against the controls. Blood sprayed across the cockpit. The plane nosed down and began to turn.

Carter grabbed the stick in front of him and pulled back against Harmon's weight. The plane rose and leveled off. Bullets thudded into the wooden fuselage. A fine spray of oil streamed back from the engine.

He tried for altitude, but they were going down. He tried to keep the plane in the air. Hell, he wasn't a pilot. Just a few lessons, years ago. Carter squinted through the oil and blood coating the broken canopy. The wind tore at him. He looked for a place to set down.

Harmon was unconscious or dead. The engine made loud, hard noises. Black smoke streamed behind.

Ahead, a table top plateau rose from the valley floor, tall and isolated. The top was flat and strewn with boulders and rocks, big enough to set down if he could make it. The engine seized and died. With no power and no way to get higher, he might make the plateau. If he didn’t, they wouldn't have to worry about it.

The plane skimmed over the edge of the plateau. The wheels struck hard on the rocky ground. The shock slammed his teeth together. He stood on the brakes and watched the other side of the mesa coming up. One of the wheels hit a rock and snapped off. The wing dipped and dug into the ground. The plane corkscrewed away from the edge and came to a shuddering halt.

They were down.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"Selena."

"I’m all right."

Carter reached over to Harmon and felt his neck for a pulse. Unconscious. Still alive. His shirt was covered with blood, his lap soaked in it.

"We’ve got to get out," Carter unbuckled his seat belt. "Away from the plane."

He climbed out of the cabin and stood on the angle between the wing and the fuselage. He hauled Harmon out of his seat. Dead weight, but Nick got him up and out and lowered down to the ground. Selena came after him.

Fuel leaked from the wrecked aircraft.

"Get his feet." They hurried away toward the edge of the mesa.

They set Harmon down.

"Here." Selena handed him the first aid kit. She’d grabbed it on her way out of the plane.

Joe Harmon had taken two rounds. One bullet had missed the lung and exited out the front of his chest. A ragged, bloody hole marked where the second had come out through the front of his abdomen beneath the rib cage.

Carter tried not to think much as he worked on him. Compression bandages. Antibiotic powder for infection. If those rounds had nicked an artery, Harmon would die. If he was bleeding internally, he would die. The abdominal wound would kill him for sure if they didn’t get serious help soon. A field dressing wasn't going to cut it.

Harmon's eyes fluttered. Carter didn’t like his color.

"What…"

"Don’t talk. We’re down, I’ve stopped the bleeding."

"How bad?"

"Two. Both through and through. One high, missed the lung. One low in the side and abdomen." Harmon knew what that meant.

"Mother fuckers." His voice was weak, wet.

"Don’t talk."

"The plane?"

"It’s finished. But we’ll get out. Don’t worry about it. Joe, you gotta take it easy. I’ll get you out of here."

Harmon coughed. A bubble of blood formed on his lips. "Hurts a little." The pain hadn’t really set in yet, but it would in a few moments. There was morphine in the kit. Nick took a syrette and injected it into Harmon's thigh.

"Stay awake," Nick said. "Don’t go south on me."

He looked over at the plane. There was no fire. That was a break, whoever shot them down wouldn’t see smoke and come straight to the plateau. They were certain to come, sooner or later.

"Selena, come with me. We’ve got to salvage what we can."

They approached the plane. The smell of gas made him dizzy. He didn’t think it would go up, or it would already be in flames.

"No smoking, right?"

She laughed. Nervous.

"You stay outside. I’ll hand stuff out to you."

Daylight streamed through holes riddling the fuselage. Nick tossed out the tarp and sleeping bags. The flashlights were useless. His phone was shattered. Water soaked the floor of the compartment, but three of the liter bottles were still intact. The emergency rations were reduced to a few packages of chalk-like granola bars. The gas cans were full of holes. He took the old stretcher from its straps and handed it out.

He took the Mauser rifle and ammo and passed it out to Selena. He touched his holster, felt torn leather and took out the H-K. It was useless, the frame bent where it had stopped a round. He remembered the blow to his chest in the plane. That left them with Selena's pistol and an old bolt action rifle with twelve rounds against an unknown number of enemies with automatic weapons.

Bad odds.

They moved everything over to where Harmon lay on the ground. Carter thought about the situation. He didn’t like what he was thinking.

"How long before they find us?" Selena asked.

"I don’t know. We made maybe two or three miles from where they were. This plateau is safer than the valley floor. We’re a couple of hundred feet up. I don’t think anyone can spot us from below if we keep away from the edge."

"Then we’re safe for the moment." She wiped sweat from her forehead.

"Probably. I’m not sure anyone could get up here if they wanted to, or if we can get down. Harmon can’t be moved."

"I’m going to see if we can get help."

She took her satellite phone out of her bag.

"Shit." She held it up. A round had hit the phone. Useless.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jibril al-Bausari sat cross legged in the coolness of the shaded overhang at the entrance to the cave. Late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the seared landscape.

Bausari controlled his anger. Young men were impetuous. The plane had been too tempting a target. Three of his men were searching for wreckage and any survivors. The plane had been shot to pieces. It couldn’t have gone far.

But what if the pilot had radioed before it went down? And why, in Allah’s name, did it have to appear now? Now complicated plans might have to be changed.

His fighters were getting ready for departure. He would leave after dark. In two or three nights, God willing, he would reach the coast in Mauritania, where the next phase would get under way.

Bausari wasn’t worried about border patrols. They were few and he could avoid or destroy them. But the American satellites might still find the truck, even at night. Once he reached the coast that would all change.

Bausari knew time was running out. Every day, the illness ate away at him. Allah tested his servants, but soon the test would be over.

Years of poor food, prison, torture, extremes of heat and cold had taken their toll. His old wounds ached. Bausari massaged the contracted, rigid fingers of his crippled left hand, a souvenir of the Muktabharat, the Egyptian secret police.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria — he could no longer remember every cave, every battle, every stretch of desert sand or mountain valley. They blurred together in one endless chain of hardship and struggle. He had killed many infidels, but remembered few. Many he had never seen. God willing, there would be many more. God willing, this time he would strike such a blow that the unbelievers would tremble in fear before Allah’s righteous anger.

The cave made a perfect hiding place along the route to Mauritania. AQIM used it as a place to cache weapons and supplies, out of sight of the accursed American satellites..

AQIM hadn't known what was concealed in the cave, but Bausari had discovered the secret. He had no interest in the supplies AQIM stored there. He'd sent his men ahead to be sure the cave was secure. When he arrived he'd begun looking. The hidden chamber was found behind a heavy fall of rock. Inside had been an old, wooden box under a fragile green cloth.

Bausari had opened it and fallen to his knees in prayer and gratitude. It would be put to good use, in accordance with Allah's plan. Just as had been prophesied, it had come to light now as the end times approached. He had risked a transmission to Cairo, to tell them.

He didn't know his message had been intercepted by others.

Bausari rose painfully and stretched. Soon enough, the gates of Paradise would open and Allah would welcome his faithful servant.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The sun overwhelmed the western sky with fierce reddish light. The view from the mesa took in a vast, wind-swept space of sand and sharp rock that sloped away toward a glinting, far horizon. The light turned the landscape into a vista of stark and hostile beauty. It was still over a hundred degrees.

They rigged the tarp over two boulders, away from the edge of the plateau. Carter cut one of the sleeping bags so it could be opened up like a blanket. He put it on the stretcher. They lifted Harmon onto his makeshift bed and carried him to the improvised shade and huddled out of the sun. At least it was cooler here than on the valley floor.

"We have to ration the water," Selena said. "We need some now."

"Careful sips." Nick handed her the bottle.

She drank. He took the bottle and trickled a little into Harmon's mouth. Dangerous to give him any water, but he would die without it.

"Easy. Just a little." Harmon's forehead felt hot and dry. Carter took two sips for himself and set the bottle down.

"Depp." Harmon's voice was weak, not the voice that could shout across a crowded bar for service and get it. For a second Carter had to remember who he was supposed to be.

"Yeah, Joe."

"This sucks."

"Yeah."

"I’m not going to make it."

"Knock it off. You’ll be fine."

"Yeah, sure." He coughed. "Let my folks know."

"Come on, Joe."

"Promise. You gotta promise."

"Will you shut up if I promise?" He took Harmon's hand and squeezed it. "I promise. Now lie still." Harmon closed his eyes. His breathing was slow and shallow. Carter looked down at Harmon's gray face. Nick had seen that look before, too many times.

"I’m going to look around." He got up and approached the edge of the mesa, got down and crawled to the side. He peered over the edge. The rock dropped straight down, two hundred feet or more. No one would come that way, or leave, either.

He worked his way around the perimeter. Three sides were impassable. On the fourth, the rock sloped away in a narrow, steep incline covered with loose stones. It would be possible to get down here. It would also be possible to get up. Good news and bad news, depending on who did the climbing. At least he knew which way they’d come, if they came.

The light faded and the temperature dropped. The moon rose. Harmon's hand twitched and moved against the ground. Nick sat down next to Selena.

"I’m going to do a little recon. Now’s the best time. There’s almost a full moon. It'll give me enough light."

"Where are you going?"

He pointed. "Back the way we came. It can’t be more than a few miles. We need to find out what we’re up against. We have to do something right now. If we wait here they’ll find us, or the sun and lack of water will get us."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stand watch where that slope goes down. When I come back I’ll signal so you’ll know it’s me. Like this,"

He made a soft bird call he’d learned as a kid. "Don’t shoot the birdie, okay?"

"How long, you think?"

"Four hours, maybe five. It depends. It’s dark enough for me to go now."

"It’s getting cold."

"We can’t risk a fire. Eat a granola bar if you’re hungry."

"What about you?"

He patted his stomach. "Nah, I’m too fat anyway. I’ve done this before. Don’t worry about me."

She nodded. He went to the edge of the mesa and started down the slope.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Selena watched Nick disappear over the edge. She heard a few stones roll away, then nothing.

The night was clear, the moon rising, the sky an ocean of stars. For just a moment she could believe the violence of the day had been no more than a dream, an aberration of her mind. It was so peaceful here, so calm. Looking up at the stars, she wondered how anyone could justify so much hatred and violence in the name of God. Everyone lived under the same sky.

Selena shivered in the chill night air. How fast the heat of the day went away. Restless, she checked on Harmon. He was asleep or unconscious. His forehead burned. She wet a cloth with some of the precious water and draped it over his brow. She sat on the hard ground above the slope.

She thought about their situation. They were almost twenty miles from Taoudenni and the nearest thing resembling civilization, if you could call that miserable place civilized.

If the terrorists didn’t find them they could walk out. They had enough water. But Harmon would never survive an overland journey. He might not even survive a trip to the bottom of the mesa. She realized she thought he would die. She’d seen the same thought on Nick's face as she’d watched him work on Harmon. There had been concern, worry and something incredibly tender in his expression. Love, even.

He’d saved their lives today, made that landing. He’d just done what had to be done. That was his way, no matter what kind of insanity surrounded him. There was plenty of that working with the Project. It scared her, if she thought about it too much. There would be days, even weeks of calm. Then everything would dissolve into violence.

Nick had called her a rookie. It was true, she was a babe in the woods compared to him. Rookie or not, she'd saved his ass more than once already. The thought was comforting.

She gazed at the stars and thought about love. God was supposed to be about love. Why did people forget that and became hateful killers in the name of God? There had to be more to it than the reasons you always heard, like injustice and poverty and envy. Old Testament thinking carried over into modern times.

Maybe it was just fear, the need humans had for control in an uncontrollable world. The need for Rules. The need to know where you were in relation to the universe and other humans. Knowing what you were supposed to do, allowed to do, because someone told you God wanted it that way.

Selena didn't know if God was real, but she didn't believe in the self righteous strictures of dogmatic religion. No God worth the name would inflict such insanity on people. People did a damn good job of that themselves. It didn't need God to make it happen.

For the third time she made sure she had a round chambered in her Glock. It hadn’t changed.

A noise made her start. A loose stone? An animal? There weren’t many animals out here. The desert fox, she knew, the Fennec, a sly, small creature that could go without water for days and somehow survive in this terrible environment. She held the Glock in both hands and peered into the night. The moon cast soft, quiet light, enough to throw shadows and dark shapes everywhere. Was that a rock down there? Did it move?

She looked at the faint glow of her watch. Nick had been gone twenty minutes, a little longer, and it already felt like hours. Sitting in the dim moonlight, grasping the pistol, she let herself realize she was afraid.

Her thoughts drifted. What did she want from life? How had life brought her here, to a corner of earth that resembled hell?

As a little girl her parents had dazzled her with stories from the Arabian Nights. In her fantasies she'd been an exotic princess, surrounded by slaves and large men with swords to protect her, perfumes and mysterious foods, pearls and jewels. It was a good memory.

Then her parents died, and her brother. For a long time she didn't smile. The fantasies fell away for what they were, illusions. Her uncle had helped her heal, educated her. He'd taken her all over the world and showed her the beauty and culture that defined the good side of being human. He'd made her look at the poverty and suffering as well as the beauty. It had shaped her with the desire to understand. To somehow, some way, make a difference.

Her uncle had been murdered and she'd met Nick, only months ago. Since then she'd been caught up in a violent journey that had awakened a fierce desire for life. She was addicted to the adrenaline rush, the taste of fear, the challenge to survive. The challenge to do something that could actually make a difference.

Right now, shivering on a pile of rock in the heart of a deadly wasteland, a pistol in her hand, she was afraid. It wasn't fun.

Three hours later she heard Nick's soft bird call. A little piece of her fear dissolved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

They sat in the shadows of the boulders. A foul smell seeped from Harmon's improvised bandage. He'd be dead within a day if they didn't get help.

"I found them," Carter kept his voice low. "They’re holed up in a cave two miles from here. There’s a big overhang over the entrance. It's why we couldn’t see them from the air until too late."

"How many?"

"I don't know. I saw two, but there have to be more. I heard a truck start up and drive away, so there are fewer than before. It might have been the one we’re looking for."

"There’s not much we can do about it. We can’t call it in. We need a phone."

"Maybe there's a phone in that cave."

"Terrorists don't use phones. They figured that out in Afghanistan. Too easy to track."

"Not if it's something like ours. Satellite, encrypted, quick bursts, relays around the globe. It's easy enough to disable the GPS. These guys have to have some way to communicate except couriers. We have to get in that cave."

"You want to get a phone from the cave?"

"Yes."

"Are you out of your mind?" Selena looked at him. "How do we do that? Walk up and ask to borrow it?"

"Harmon will die if we don't get a chopper here tomorrow. We can’t carry him out."

"I know."

"If he’s still got a chance, it’s in that cave."

"We’re outgunned. We can’t win a firefight with them."

"We could take away the advantage their weapons give them if we get them out of the cave and into the open. Then we could ambush them."

"How do we get them out of the cave?" Selena wiped dirt from her forehead.

"You ever hear of a Japanese named Miyamoto Musashi?"

"The Samurai who wrote the Book of Five Rings?"

"Yes. He was the greatest swordsman in Japanese history. Five Rings is about self discipline and the art of combat. Musashi said that when you’re outnumbered, you get your enemies to come together in one place, because you can’t fight them when they’re spread out."

"Then what?"

"Then you kill them."

"They are in one place, in that cave."

"Yes, but we can’t get to them there."

Carter thought. Problem: How do you persuade a bunch of paranoid religious fanatics to come out of their lair? In a moment the solution came to him. Get God to do it.

"What time are the Muslim prayers," Nick asked. "Do you know?"

"Which one? There are five daily prayers."

"Something a few hours from now."

She looked at her watch. "Well, the sunrise prayer would be around six."

"Prayers are a big deal for the faithful, right?"

"A very big deal."

"Can you imitate a muzzein? You know, the guy who chants the call to prayer?"

"Me? Make the call to prayer? I was brought up a Christian."

"I don’t think God cares about that. You know the words?"

"Yes, but…"

"Hear me out. Let’s say you’re a Muslim terrorist sitting in your nice cozy cave. There isn't a mosque or minaret within hundreds of miles. You’re getting ready for the prayer and all of a sudden you hear the call coming from outside. What would you do?"

"I don't know what I'd do. I’d probably think it was the voice of Allah or something."

"What would you do?" He watched her run it through.

"I’d come out of the cave. I’d want to find out what was going on."

"What would you be thinking?"

"I’d be confused, wary. All my cultural conditioning would be operating but my suspicion would be running wild."

"There’s a wide ravine leading up to the cave. It slopes up to a ridge about fifty feet high along one edge. There are big boulders up there. Some of them didn’t look all that stable to me."

"You want to lure them out and roll rocks down on them?"

"Why not? I remember a western I saw where the Indians did that, right before they wiped out the cavalry patrol."

"But this isn’t a movie. You couldn’t get all of them."

"No, but they won’t know what’s happening. We start shooting when the boulders hit. They’ll be confused. We can do it."

"It’s crazy."

"You have a better idea?"

"What if they don’t all come out?"

"We’ll deal with that if we have to."

"What about Harmon?" She gestured at him. He pawed with his hand at the bag covering him, his face slack and gray in the moonlight.

"We have to leave him. We’ll come back and get him. If we can’t pull this off he’s finished."

"Well." She hummed a few bars under her breath. "My Dad once told me I had a voice that could break glass."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The moon had gone. The night shaded from dark to gray. The eastern sky glowed with reddish orange and deep blue behind the mountains. Selena stood between two slabs of jagged rock, thirty yards from the entrance of the cave. Nick crouched behind a massive, tottering boulder perched on the edge of the ravine. Large, loose rocks on the slope below were bound to follow it down. He was pretty sure Cochise and Geronimo would approve.

He laid Ibrahim’s rifle on the ground, cocked and loaded. He placed his hands against the hard stone and felt a hint of heat from the previous day. The sun was about to crest the ridge. It was showtime.

The unearthly sound of the call to prayer echoed off the rocky walls of the ravine. Even though Carter knew it was coming, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He tensed his muscles and set his feet, ready to push that rock down on whoever came out of the cave.

For a minute, nothing happened. Selena continued the wailing call. Maybe it wouldn’t work.

Five men slowly emerged from the darkness of the cave mouth. They wore skull caps and bushy beards, long shirts and loose, billowing pants. They carried AKs and moved their heads everywhere, trying to see where the voice came from. The leader signaled and they began walking up the ravine. Three were in front, two trailed behind. They cast nervous glances right and left. Carter waited until the first man passed before he pushed the boulder over.

The huge stone rolled down and brought a landslide of rocks behind. The boulder struck the two men behind the leader and crushed them. Their screams echoed from the rocks. A cloud of dust rose as the rumble of stone died away.

Carter picked up the rifle, drew a bead on the leader and fired as he turned and looked up. He fell backward. His AK flew out of his hands. Nick heard the rapid bark of Selena’s pistol, a flat, sharp sound. He worked the bolt and chambered another round.

The two left behind opened up with their rifles and stone chips flew off the rocks. They shot wide and high. They weren’t sure where the shots were coming from. Carter shot one in the chest, worked the bolt, took a fast point and shoot on the last man standing. His head shattered like a melon and he went down.

The echoes of gunfire faded away. Carter motioned to Selena to stay where she was. He waited to see if anyone else would come out of the cave. No one did, but that didn’t mean no one was in there. He waited five more minutes, then ran crouched to where Selena stood. She still held the Glock, the slide locked back.

"You’ve got a hell of a voice," he said. "Reload."

She was white faced. She ejected the empty magazine and inserted another, racked the slide.

"Just like Carnegie Hall." She tried a smile. Didn't quite make it.

"I’m going down there and grab two of those rifles. Once I have them, I’m heading for those rocks on the other side." He pointed at two good sized boulders on the floor of the ravine. "After I get there, I’ll signal and you follow. I’ll give you cover if it’s needed. We have to get off this ridge. Do you know how to use this?" He held up the Mauser.

"Yes."

He took rounds from his pocket and reloaded. He worked the bolt and handed her the rifle. "You cover me. Watch the entrance to the cave. Anyone shows himself, shoot at him. It doesn’t matter if you hit him or not, just keep him busy."

"Got it."

"I’m going."

Carter scrambled down the slope, reached the first man he’d shot and grabbed his rifle on the run. He ran to the second group, took another rifle and crossed the ravine to the rocks. No one fired from the cave.

He checked the AK, took aim at the cave mouth and signaled Selena. She half slid down the slope and sprinted across. He handed her an AK and she set the Mauser on the ground.

"Selector's on full auto. Aim and pull the trigger." Your basic AK instructions.

"I know how to use it."

He looked at her, nodded. "Follow me. Keep low and ready to fire." Carter stood and ran for the side of the cave. He heard Selena hard behind him. He caught his breath, ran to the entrance, turned the corner and hugged the wall, AK up against his cheek. He panned across, searching for movement.

The cave had a high, uneven ceiling and went far back into the mountain until daylight gave way to darkness. Boxes and crates were stacked along one side. Sleeping bags and a line of prayer rugs lay on the floor. A small camp stove sat on a large crate that served as a table. Boxes surrounded the crate like chairs.

If someone was still here, they would have been shooting by now. Carter started looking for a phone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The cave was an arsenal. The crates held ammunition and rifles. They found four RPG launchers. There were two brand new stingers in a box with US markings. They found food and water. They found two large pallets loaded with packets of white crystalline powder wrapped in plastic. Carter cut one open. He wet his finger and tasted. It numbed his tongue. He spat it out.

Cocaine, courtesy of the Cartels. Millions of dollars worth. Someone in Bogotá or wherever was going to be unhappy. Whatever else came out of this, they'd just put a dent in the drug route to Europe.

They didn’t find a phone.

Carter went back outside and searched the bodies of the men they'd killed. No phones. Nick fought off the feeling this had all been for nothing. He still couldn’t call for help. He picked up the weapons lying around in the ravine and went back to the cave.

He sat on one of the boxes and realized how tired he was and thought about Harmon, back on the mesa.

The sound of an approaching vehicle rumbled up the ravine. Carter looked out the entrance. A Toyota Land Cruiser painted in desert camouflage ground up the slope. It stopped when the driver spotted the bodies.

"It’s an army vehicle."

Selena studied the truck. "Border patrol? Out here? How would they know where this cave was?"

"They wouldn’t. Something’s not right."

After a moment a door opened. A familiar figure emerged from the passenger side, followed by two men in fatigues. Last time Carter saw them, they'd been fingering their batons in the airport security office.

"It’s Samake, with his two goons. If he knows about the cave he’s part of this. That's why he didn't want us up here. Grab your rifle and get out of sight behind that crate. Be ready to shoot if I open fire."

Selena started to say something, thought better of it and went to the crate. She rested her rifle, took aim and waited.

Samake looked around, barked an order. All three ran for cover. It was a mistake, because now he was away from his vehicle. He’d just cut off his escape route. Carter waited. It was Samake’s move.

Colonel Samake called up the ravine. "My brothers, what has happened here? It is I, Colonel Samake."

Nick kept his voice low. "I guess that clinches it," he said. Selena nodded. Her face was grim. She was angry.

"Come out, my brothers. Let me see you. I have come as we arranged."

Selena and Carter waited.

Samake and his men were behind the rocks. There was no clear shot. Samake didn’t know what to do. After a few moments he sent his men forward. They kept low, moving from boulder to boulder. They got closer to the mouth of the cave. Nick signaled Selena. Wait.

"I see no one," one called. "The cave is empty." He stood up, a sign of lousy training. A man with a rifle and a uniform, not a soldier. The second policeman stood.

Carter opened up. Selena began firing.

The AK 47 is a formidable weapon. The rounds ripped into the two men and shredded them. They jerked and spun like marionettes in the hands of a lunatic puppeteer and fell backwards.

"Hey Colonel," Carter called. "Why don’t you throw down your weapon and stand up."

"Depp?" Carter heard anger in his voice.

"Catch any flies lately, Samake? Stand up, you bastard. We can wait all day if we have to. But I don’t want to. We’ve got an RPG here. That rock won’t help you. You’ve got five minutes."

Nick let him think about it. "Selena, get one of those launchers."

She went over to a crate, took out a launcher, pulled several rounds out and brought everything over.

"Keep him covered."

"My pleasure." She took up her position. Carter set his rifle down, loaded the RPG.

Samake called out. "I am a Colonel in my country’s security services. I came to arrest these terrorists. You have killed two of my men. Perhaps you were frightened. Stop this foolishness and we will talk. It is not too late."

Carter took aim beyond Samake and fired. The rocket boosted grenade sailed over Samake's head and detonated thirty yards behind him.

"Next one is right on you, Samake. Stand up."

He stood, slowly.

"Throw down your weapon."

Samake tossed his submachine gun to the side. He had a holster on his belt.

"The pistol, too. Be careful."

Samake lifted the flap and took out the pistol and dropped it on the ground. His face was angry.

"Good boy. Now put your hands up and walk toward the cave."

Samake scowled, but did as he was told. When he was ten yards away, Carter stopped him.

"That’s far enough."

He set the launcher down, picked up the AK and stepped into the sunlight.

"Depp." Samake held his hands out. "You and your friend can be rich. Let me make you rich."

"How would you do that on your salary?"

Samake laughed, a deep, rolling laugh. "There is white gold in that cave, Mister Depp. Cocaine. Enough to make us both very rich. We can both retire to somewhere we enjoy."

"I have to think about that. You have a phone, Samake?"

"In my shirt pocket."

"Take it out and set it on the ground. Use your left hand."

Samake lowered his left hand and reached into his pocket. He took out the phone and bent over to set it on the ground. Then he moved, fast for a big man. He dropped his right arm and reached behind him.

Selena shot him. The bullets staggered Samake backwards. He fell.

She stood up, lowered her rifle. "He was going for a gun. Stupid, greedy man."

Samake lay sprawled on his side in the dirt, his mouth filled with blood. Nick walked over and rolled him onto his back. A pistol fell from his hand. Carter picked up the phone and handed it to Selena.

"Call Stephanie," he said.

Carter went back into the cave and found a flashlight. He walked past the pallets of cocaine. He kept walking, looking for anything that could lead him to the truck from Sudan. At the back of the cave he came to a pile of loose rocks scattered on the rough stone floor and a low opening. He stooped and entered.

He was in a natural rock chamber. On the floor were scattered pieces of crumbling fabric showing a faded green. A few bits of old wood, dark brown. Scrapes on the floor. Something was written on the dun colored rock.

He went back outside, back to the front.

"Stephanie is sending a chopper to the plateau," Selena said. "There's a Ranger detachment here, advisors."

"Come look at this." Nick led her back into the chamber. He pointed at the writing on the wall.

القيامة

"What does this say?"

Selena looked at the writing. "Judgement."

She picked up a piece of green cloth. It fell apart in her hands. "This cloth is old. See the bits of wood? That manuscript said there was a relic of Muhammad. It must have been here"

"Well it's not here now."

"It could be in that truck."

"Another reason to find it."

The made their way back to the front. "Look for anything useful. Papers, notes, anything that might give us information."

They searched the cave. Carter found a laptop computer and took it.

Selena called out. "I found something. Used pill bottles, prescriptions for Bausari. I think they're cancer drugs."

"Good, take them. We'll analyze it later. Anything else?"

"No."

He looked at the neat bundles of cocaine and stacks of arms and ammo. Selena watched him. Five large cans of gasoline were stacked on one side of the cave. Carter opened the cans one by one and poured gas on the cocaine, the crates of ammunition, the weapons.

"Time to go," he said. He backed out of the cave, trailing gasoline behind him from the last can, down the ravine. It made a dark trail against the yellow rock of the ravine.

"Get in the Toyota and start it up." Selena climbed into Samake's truck. The keys were in the ignition. She started it, backed up and turned so it faced down the slope.

Nick tossed a match at the trail of gas and watched it catch. He jumped into the truck.

"Go!" He slammed his hand on the dash. Selena threw it in gear and they bounced down the trail. They were around the corner when the cave blew. A series of thunderous detonations ripped the air as the munitions exploded. Rocks rained down on the truck.

They took Samake’s Toyota back to the foot of the mesa and scrambled to the top. Harmon had tossed off his cover. His bedding was soaked in blood. He was white, white as February snow, all the color gone from his skin. His breath came in long, harsh shudders. His eyelids twitched.

"Ah, shit," Nick said. "He's bleeding out." He raised his voice. "Joe. Look at me. Open your eyes. Come on, buddy. Chopper’s on the way. You gotta hold on."

Harmon's eyelids fluttered open. He turned his head and focused on Carter's face. It wasn't Nick he was seeing.

"Dad," he said. "You’re here."

"I’m here." Carter felt cold, cold fingers grip his chest. His throat closed up.

"Hey," Harmon whispered. "We had good times."

"Yeah, we did. We’ll have more. Hold on."

Harmon coughed. "Just when I thought I was out…," he said. Then he said, "Oh, fuck."

His fingers relaxed and his hand fell away.

A distant beat of rotors echoed across the brittle sky. Carter looked down at Harmon's body. What a waste, he thought. Another meaningless death in a fucked up war. It made him angry.

He wanted to be anywhere except here. He wanted to kill every fucking terrorist asshole who thought it was fine to murder everyone who didn’t believe in his shitty seventh century fantasy. He wanted to wipe every one of them off the face of the earth.

If he could find him, he'd start with Bausari.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A day later Nick and Selena had Stephanie on a secure speakerphone at the US embassy in Bamako. Carter had sent the computer from the cave on to Washington. New sat phones were coming in the next pouch.

"The truck went into Mauritania. We picked them up just over the border but lost them again. I want you to find it. They have to be heading for the coast."

Steph was in Director mode.

"What kind of truck is it?" Selena asked.

"Typical, two and a half tons, square cab, desert colors, like an army truck. Open bed with a canvas cover. There aren't any distinguishing marks on it. Sudanese plates, but they might have changed them. Do you have a map of the region?"

"Yes." Carter spread it out on a long table in front of him.

"From Mali they headed west into Mauritania. There’s nothing there but sand and rock. It's flat, they could drive it. It’s not that far to a town called Bir Moghrain. That’s the first place they could pick up what passes for a paved road. Once on the highway they wouldn’t stand out, like in the desert. They’d just be another truck in traffic."

Carter traced routes with his finger. Stephanie went on.

"They could leave the highway and go overland toward the ocean. Or they could go all the way to the capitol and drive north or south along the coast. A rendezvous with a ship off the coast is the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise they'd have gone up into Algeria. They could turn west at Bir Moghrain into the Western Sahara region, but I don't think they'll do that. The region is disputed and there are lots of border guards and armed patrols. My guess is they’ll opt for the long way."

Stephanie paused. "The country along the north coast is especially dangerous, so watch yourself if you go up there. It’s completely lawless, controlled by AQIM. There are frequent murders. No one's safe."

"Sounds like a wonderful place." Carter pulled on his ear.

"Most western countries have travel advisories against going to Mauritania at all. I think you should start at the Capitol, Nouakchott. You can go north or south from there."

"We need weapons. There's one pistol between us."

"I'm on top of that. Go to Nouakchott, check into a hotel. You'll be met. Then you'll have weapons and a vehicle."

"Why not send in those rangers?"

"Mauritania is going fundamentalist. They don’t like us. If we sent in our military it would create a huge international incident. Unacceptable."

"Unacceptable to whom?"

"The White House, for one. That’s enough."

"Anything else, Steph?"

"No. Be careful."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

They checked into separate rooms in a hotel in Nouakchott, the capitol of Mauritania. The clerk eyed them with more than a little suspicion. But money crossed all boundaries. Carter ached like he’d been mauled by a cement mixer, then run over by a truck. He lay down on the narrow bed in his room.

Repeated knocking at the door pulled him back from wherever he'd been. Not sleep, more like a black hole of unconsciousness. He looked at his watch. He’d been out for almost six hours. His back was stiff and sore. He got up and opened the door for Selena. She'd darkened her skin and changed into a long skirt and blouse of some dark material. She carried a cloth bag over her shoulder. A brown scarf covered her shoulders. She had a box and a steaming container of tea in her hands.

"You look like someone dragged you through an alley," she said.

"Good morning to you, too. Or is it evening?" He turned and went to a basin in the corner and splashed rusty water on his face and waited for his brain to start functioning. Selena handed him the tea and took the one chair in the room.

It was early morning. Sounds of vendors calling out on the street below filtered past the curtains on the windows. A fan rattled on the scarred dresser. He sat on the bed. The springs sagged. Hilton and Marriott didn’t need to worry about the competition here. He blew on the tea.

Selena put the cardboard box on the bed. She reached down and adjusted her skirt. "What do you think they're going to do? What would you do?"

"Get wherever I was going as fast as possible and out of sight."

"Would you drive all the way down here?"

"If the pickup point was somewhere nearby."

"If they're meeting a ship they could be anywhere on the coast." She ran her fingers through her hair. "We don’t know much, do we?"

"No. Guesses are all we've got unless Steph spots them again." He looked out the window. "These terrorists. They’re like a nest of vipers. The only thing that will stop them is killing them."

"That’s not a popular view in some circles."

"Yeah, well it may not be popular, but a viper’s a viper. You can make up compassionate excuses for why it wants to strike, or talk about how it wouldn’t hurt you if you didn’t provoke it, but if it threatens you, you kill it."

"I don’t think there’s a lot of time to find these particular vipers."

Nick stood and began pacing back and forth in the small room.

"I think they'll go as far as they can on improved roads. They'll avoid security checkpoints or roadblocks. They're well organized. They probably know where those are. On the roads they blend in. Staying anonymous is more important than speed."

Carter stopped pacing. "We can’t cover everything. Let’s make some assumptions."

"Assume away."

"Assumption number one is they're making for the coast to offload to a ship somewhere. Like Steph said. Number two is that it sounds like this operation has been planned for some time. So there’s some kind of timetable for pick up and delivery of whatever they've got. If I were planning something like that, I’d factor in extra time to make sure delays didn’t throw off my schedule."

She nodded. "Makes sense. What’s assumption number three? You have a three?"

"Number three follows on two; if they left extra time, we still have time to intercept that shipment."

"If we can find it."

He paced. "If I’m them, how do I stay out of sight until it’s time for the transfer to a ship off the coast?"

Selena picked it up. "Avoid populated areas and places where there’s a military presence."

"Like borders and big cities."

Selena nodded. "Yes. I’d head overland before I got to the capitol. Steph said there’s increased security here and random roadblocks on the paved roads. The coastal road is the only route north and south and one of the few that’s paved."

"Which way would you go?"

She thought about it. "North. Senegal isn’t far to the south. That means border patrols, check points. Definitely north."

"Let's look at the map."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a road map of Mauritania. She spread it out on the bed. It wasn’t much of a map. There were only a few roads in the whole country.

"How far north?" he asked. Standing next to her, he felt her heat. Her scent was strong, sweat and a hint of something darker. He stifled the urge to pull her to him. This wasn't the time for that.

"I wouldn't go all the way," she said. "Same reasons not to go south. Heavy patrols and army the closer you get to Western Sahara. Relations between Mauritania and Morocco are bad up there."

"If I wanted to sneak out to a freighter off shore, I’d keep out of sight until it was time to make the transfer. Look at these islands past this spur of land, here." He put his finger on them. "This looks like a good spot. Places to hide. Access to the ocean. The rest of the coast seems wide open, exposed."

"We’re only going to get one shot at finding them, Nick."

"We have to make a choice. I say we head there."

Selena considered the map. "Let's get Steph to task surveillance on the area. Maybe we’ll get lucky."

Carter called Stephanie and filled her in.

"I think you're right," she said. "Up north. I can get you up there fast."

"How so?"

"I've made some arrangements. We're getting cooperation from Langley. I don't know why, but I'll take it. I think they know more about that shipment than they're letting on. Anyway, you'll fly up there. You'll be met with a vehicle and weapons. You'll be picked up after you signal for extraction."

"That's outstanding, Steph."

"I'm beginning to see how Elizabeth worked these things out. Watch your ass out there, Nick." She signed off.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It was late afternoon the same day. The plane set them down in the desert a good distance north of Nouakchott, three kilometers from the coast. Carter's false beard itched. His back was sore and stiff. He wore a loose, sand colored shirt that fell to his knees, baggy pants and a skull cap that felt tight on his head. Selena had cut his hair and dyed his skin a light brown. As long as he kept his mouth shut, he'd pass.

They were met by a black man with a Toyota pickup. He didn't give his name. Carter didn't ask for it.

"There's a security roadblock, ten kilometers north," the man told them. "Before you get there drive west to the beach and follow it north. That will get you past the checkpoint. The tide's out, you can go a long way."

They dropped him at the road, where he climbed into a waiting car and went south. They headed north five kilometers, then turned west toward the coast.

At the Atlantic they turned north again and drove along the beach. The sun sparkled off the golden expanse of the ocean. A few ships were visible on the horizon. A constant roll of long swells broke on a deserted beach that looked like a brochure of unspoiled paradise.

In almost any other part of the world, a beach like this would be lined with tourists and hotels. But not here. Here it was worth your life to sunbathe.

Carter drove and thought about Africa. The colonial governments hadn’t left much behind when they pulled out. Mostly they'd left a legacy of exploitation and deep resentment, ripe soil for the seeds of radical Islam to take root.

Selena wore her scarf over her head. She'd put on sunglasses that hid her violet eyes. Carter longed for his Ray-Bans.

There was no sign of any government or army presence. There were no people on the beach. In spite of the natural beauty, the landscape felt hostile and suspicious, as if it were waiting for something to happen. Nick figured that was what the psych doctors called projection, but it didn’t change the feeling. He put his hand on the AK stashed next to the door.

They were in Indian Country. John Wayne wasn’t coming with the U.S. Cavalry to bail them out if they were attacked.

They came to a headland jutting out into the ocean like the prow of a great liner and followed a track to the top. They stopped, got out and stretched. No one was in sight. The sun formed an orb of reddish gold descending into a bank of black cloud on the horizon. Soon the light would be gone, but for the moment the view was breathtaking.

Nick lifted binoculars and scanned the area. From where they stood he could see far up the coast. The islands and coves they thought might hide the terrorists shimmered in a twilight haze. Fishing boats dotted the waters. Shacks stood in isolated clusters along the shore. Farther along, the rusting hulks of two freighters lay half submerged in the water, a reminder that the Atlantic wasn’t always so peaceful.

"We’re close," Selena said.

"They wouldn’t choose someplace with neighbors. Our best bet is a single building, a fisherman’s shack. They need a place to park the truck. We can eliminate anything that can’t be reached easily. No steep footpaths. Take a look."

He handed her the binoculars. She looked.

"Nothing stands out." She handed them back. "We start asking questions, we’ll stir up trouble. There are a lot of shacks along there."

"Maybe Stephanie's got something."

Carter took out his phone and punched in the code. He activated the speaker.

"Nick, where are you? Wait a minute, I’ll call up your GPS." They waited. "Okay, I’ve got you. I think I know where they are."

"You do?"

"We picked up heat signatures last night, just north of you. Six bodies, one truck, a secondary source, probably a cooking fire. You should be able to see a bay from where you’re standing. The land hooks around and comes back below you in a narrow stretch that leaves a channel out to the ocean. You’re right on top of it."

He lifted the binoculars. "I see it."

"There's a track out onto that stretch of land and a shack almost all the way to the end. It sits by itself, down near the water."

Nick scanned the bay. "I see it, Steph."

"There are no other vehicles in the immediate area. At night nothing moves there. It’s too dangerous. At the least it's a terrorist hangout. It could be them."

"Steph, we need to get out fast if there’s shooting. It will alert everyone."

"I can get the plane to you at first light, east of you. I’ll send you the coordinates. There’s nothing I can do before then. You have to get in, find out what’s in the truck and destroy it, if you think that’s right. Try and protect whatever was in the back of that cave."

"You want us to leap tall buildings too?" Carter said.

"If you need to." Stephanie's voice echoed from the other side of the ocean. "Whatever is necessary."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Al-Bausari finished the evening prayer and got to his feet. A sudden stab of pain made him gasp and clutch his side. He staggered.

"Teacher, are you all right?" One of his men scrambled to his feet and steadied him.

"I am fine, Aban. Just dizziness from standing too quickly."

Aban helped him over to a chair. Bausari gazed out the glassless window at the ocean and listened to the surf wash up on the beach. The sun was gone, the heat of the day fading. An ominous red afterglow lit the sky. A gentle breeze off the ocean brought with it the smell of salt and rotting fish.

Ghalib came into the room. "Teacher, the boat is ready."

"Good. The package? And the box from the cave?"

"Already on board."

"And the ship?"

"It is off shore. The ocean is calm. It will be an easy journey, Teacher."

"All journeys are easy with Allah’s blessing."

Al-Bausari rubbed his crippled hand. His men gathered in front of him. Aban and Ghalib would go with him. The other three would rejoin their brothers at the cave.

"Allah watches over us," Bausari said. "God willing, soon all the world will know of His Glory." He looked at the men who would stay behind. Faithful men, warriors for the Truth.

"I will not see you again in this life. But we will meet in Paradise."

"Ín'sh'allah," Aban said. Then he said, "Teacher, the tide."

Bausari rose. He laid his good hand on each man in blessing. He left the shack and walked to the shore without looking back.

The boat bobbed in the swell, a gray shape against the deeper dark of the ocean. Two crewmen from the freighter waited in the boat. The package sat low in the middle, a boxy, vague shape. Bausari waded through the shallow water, holding his white robe above the surf. Aban helped him into the small craft. The light was all but gone.

The boat disappeared into the gathering darkness.

CHAPTER THIRTY

It was full dark. The moon was rising, a vast orange globe on the horizon. Carter let the truck coast to a silent stop behind a cluster of rock outcroppings. The shack lay below, a hundred yards away. A weak light shone through a window. A truck with a canvas top was parked a little way from the side of the building. There was no movement about, but the light meant someone was there.

"You ready?" Carter slipped the safety on his AK.

Selena picked up her AK and tapped the magazine to make sure it was seated.

"How do you want to do it?" she said.

"Let’s get to the truck. That gives us cover and it's right next to the shack. I’ll scope out the inside through that window. If someone comes out and sees me, shoot him. That shack is made of dry wood. If we have to shoot from outside, spray the walls at waist height. These AKs will cut right through. Give them the whole magazine, reload, and we go in through the door."

"And if no one comes out?"

"Then I see what I can through the window, I come back to the truck and we think it through."

They approached through the darkness. Carter's body buzzed with adrenaline. He heard the muffled sounds of their feet on the hard ground, the surf hissing against the shore, the breeze rustling over the ocean. The faint sound of Arab music came from the shack. Overhead, stars filled the sky. If one had fallen, he would have heard it.

They made it to the side of the truck and crouched by the rear bumper.

"Sudanese license plate," she whispered. "It’s the right truck."

"Cover me." He crept to the window and risked a glance over the edge.

There was only one room. Three men sat at a table playing a board game and talking. The music came from a small battery powered radio. One man smoked a cigarette. A bottle of fruit juice stood by the radio. Assault rifles were close by each man. A kerosene lantern provided light. Beyond, an open door revealed the shore and water.

He went back to Selena, squatted down beside her.

"Three men with AKs. They’re sitting at a table. We can take them through the window."

"Bausari?"

"He’s not there. No box or containers, either."

"What if this isn’t the right place?"

"Do you believe that?"

"Not really, but we’re not certain. We can’t kill them."

"Why not? They’re sure as hell not fishermen. You said yourself it’s the right truck. Sudanese plates? That’s too much of a coincidence. What do you think we should do?"

"If Bausari was here, they know where he went. We should interrogate them, find out what they know."

"There are three of them and two of us. They have AKs in reach. What makes you think you can get them to cooperate?"

"Something I've learned from you is that looking at the wrong end of a rifle does wonders for attitude."

"I don’t like it. We go through the door, it gives them a chance to grab those weapons."

They might have talked it out some more but the decision was made for them. One of the men stepped outside. He walked a little way from the shack, set his rifle down and urinated. As he turned back he saw them. He shouted and lunged for his weapon.

Carter shot him. Shouts came from the shack. A long burst of fire came through the window and ripped through the canvas of the truck that shielded them. Rounds hammered the body, sending bits of metal and glass flying. Carter and Selena's rifles danced in their hands as the magazines emptied.

The walls of the shack splintered. Rays of light streamed out through holes made by the rounds. Carter heard screams. He shoved in another magazine and kept firing. When that one was gone, he reloaded and waited. Selena had stopped shooting.

The bullets had shattered the lamp on the table and blown flaming kerosene around the room. A broad tongue of yellow fire licked up the inside of the shack.

"That will bring everyone here in a hurry. Time to haul ass, Selena."

She hurried to the back of the truck, lifted the canvas. "Nothing there. Okay, let’s go."

They ran to the Toyota and jumped in. He started the engine, threw it in reverse, turned the wheel, hit first gear and bumped over the track leading away from the burning shack. Dark figures ran toward them and dove out of the way. Someone fired at them. Nick reached the highway, took a hard right and sailed past a pickup truck filled with armed men going the other way. In the glare of headlights he saw them staring as they went by. In the rear view mirror he saw their brake lights come on.

"They're stopping." Nick looked in the mirror. "Turning around."

"Go east. Get off the highway." Selena pointed.

Along this stretch it was flat and level and there wasn’t much difference between the road and the desert. He spun the wheel and turned into the empty land.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Carter cut his lights. The moon threw cold, beautiful light over the desert. The random rock outcroppings looked like alien creatures surfacing from a silver, shadowy sea. The headlights behind had turned off the highway, coming after them.

The wheels whined over the hard packed sand. The ground dipped. They drove into a depression, toward an outcropping of rocks thrust up from the desert floor. For a moment they were out of sight.

"We have to make a stand." Carter shouted over the noise of the engine. "If they catch us in the open we’re finished."

Selena inserted fresh magazines into the AKs. Tip to the front, catch the edge. Rock back, lock in place. It felt like it was getting to be second nature.

Carter slewed to a stop at the rocks. A sudden glare of headlights bounced over the edge of the depression and caught them. He threw open the door and hit the ground.

Selena emptied a magazine at the truck. It kept coming. Wild bursts of fire came from the back of the pickup. Bullets whined from the rocks and sent sprays of stinging sand into the air. Something cut Nick's cheek. He fired quick bursts at the truck, trying to pick out targets.

The windshield of the truck shattered. It veered, then straightened and kept coming. Two men fell from the back. The passenger door opened and a man leaned out with a rifle. Selena shot him. Carter jammed in another magazine and concentrated on the truck.

There was a bright, orange flash and a loud explosion. The truck lifted into the air in a cloud of fire, tossing bodies like a dog shaking fleas. The wreckage came down in pieces on the moonlit sands.

The crackling sound of flames from the burning vehicle broke the silence of the desert night. They stood up.

A trickle of blood ran down his cheek. He dabbed at it with his sleeve.

"They weren’t very smart, were they?" she said.

"No. Lucky for us." He watched her, calm as if she were at a Sunday outing in the park. She's changing, he thought. She's not the same woman who walked into Harker's office a few months ago. He wasn't sure what to make of it.

Selena took out her phone, punched buttons and looked at the display. "We’re about eight miles from the pickup point. We need to head south east." She nodded in the general direction.

They went over to their truck. Two of the tires were flat, the glass was shattered and oil pooled on the ground underneath. Bullet holes riddled the cab. The Toyota was finished.

"Well," he said. "Let’s hope nobody else comes looking."

"We’d better start." Selena slung her AK.

They walked in silence under the moonlight, under the stars.

After a while she broke the silence. "I was thinking about what you said, about vipers."

"What about them?"

"Vipers are instinctive. They don’t think. Terrorists think."

Carter said nothing.

"You don’t think there’s any justification for their actions? Like poverty and injustice? Anything that excuses their behavior?"

"There are billions of people in the world who live in poverty under unjust and corrupt regimes. A whole lot of them are Muslims who don’t blow up busses and schools and markets because they’re pissed off."

"No excuses? To the British, George Washington was a terrorist."

"That’s different. That’s revolution, organized rebellion against a regime. Armies fighting armies, soldiers against soldiers. Washington didn’t bomb markets to make a point. He didn’t target civilians, even the loyalists who didn’t agree with him, unless they picked up a rifle. Then they were fair game."

"But it’s different now. Take the Palestinians. They don’t have armies and planes and tanks. How are they supposed to get what they want?"

"It doesn't matter what they want. Nothing justifies the murder of innocents."

"We kill innocents, too. Except we call it ‘collateral damage’, as if that makes it okay. War kills plenty of innocents, civilians, non-combatants. It’s immoral."

"There’s no morality in war. People are always trying to impose moral values on something essentially immoral. It’s a contradiction in terms."

"So the end justifies the means?" She hiked the AK up on her shoulder.

"That’s the question, isn’t it?" Nick said. "In the end, it comes down to survival. Then all bets are off. Morality doesn’t stop bullets and bombs."

"It could," she said, "if there was enough of it."

The soft lines of her face were a moonlit contrast to the harsh angles of the AK on her shoulder. They walked on across the desert.

They reached the rendezvous point two hours before dawn. Carter eased himself onto the hard ground. Selena unslung her rifle and sat down.

"Jesus, I’m tired," she said. "It's cold." She leaned against him.

He put his arm around her. "Just a couple of hours to sunrise. We’ll be out of here."

She turned her face toward him. "Did you know your eyes shine in the moonlight?"

The kiss was electric. She said, "Take off that stupid beard."

He pulled off the beard. The next kiss was deep and long, her hands on his head, pulling him to her. His hand moved to her breast and she sighed. She reached for him.

Her breasts were pale in the moonlight, the nipples standing out in the chill night air. He kissed and nuzzled them. He kissed her belly, tongued her navel. He moved down and spread her legs. She smelled of sweat and sex. He buried himself in her. They made love on the rumpled clothes and the sand. For a while there were no terrorists in the world.

The sky started to change color.

Selena pulled away. "We’d better get dressed. It’s almost dawn." They got their clothes on. Picked up the rifles.

She was pensive. "Ever notice we kick it up a notch after someone's tried to kill us?"

Nick looked at her. "Yeah. I think it's about life. About being alive, feeling that."

"Feeling. Sometimes I feel like we're characters in a Quentin Tarentino movie."

"Selena…"

"I think I hear the plane," she said.