Now it was Harvath’s turn to post a smiley face.:) With Finney’s help, he had stripped the Troll of everything and had knocked him completely off-balance.

A few minutes later, as he finished his instructions to the newly acquiescent Troll, Harvath left the man with one final warning, You are not to leave the island. If you do, I will hunt you down and kill you myself.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

The call from Philippe Roussard’s handler came in the middle of the night. “Do you have everything in place?” Roussard sat up in bed and propped a thin pillow between his head and the cheap stucco wall. “Yes,” he responded, sliding a Gitanes from the pack on the nightstand and lighting it up.

“Those things will kill you,” warned his handler as he heard Roussard’s Zippo clank shut and the operative took a deep drag.

Philippe swept his dark hair back from his face and replied, “Your concern for my well-being is quite touching.”

The caller refused to rise to the bait. Their relationship had been much too contentious of late. They needed to work together if they were going to succeed. Taking a deep breath, the handler said, “When you are finished, the boat will be waiting. Make sure no one sees you get on it.”

Roussard snorted in response. No one was going to see him. No one ever did. He was like a phantom, a shadow. In fact, he was so elusive that many people didn’t even believe he existed. The U. S. government, though, was a different matter.

Until his capture, no one had ever seen him. No one knew his name or nationality. The American soldiers in Iraq called him Juba and had lived in abject terror of being his next victim.

All of his shots came from at least two hundred meters and as far away as thirteen hundred. Almost every one was perfect. He had an intimate understanding of body armor and knew right where to place his shots-the lower spine, the ribs, or just above the chest.

Sometimes, as in the case of the four-strong Marine scout sniper team in Ramadi, he dispatched his targets with absolutely pristine shots to the head. With well over a hundred kills to his credit, Roussard was a hero to those Iraqis who resented the American occupation and an avenging angel to his brethren among the insurgency.

The Americans had hunted him relentlessly and eventually they caught him. He was shipped to Guantanamo where he endured months of torture. Then, just over six months ago, he had been miraculously delivered out of captivity. He and four other prisoners had been loaded aboard a plane and flown back to their homes. Only Roussard knew why it had happened or who their benefactor was.

Now, as he slipped his powerful, six-foot frame into a pair of Servpro coveralls, the irony of his situation wasn’t lost on him. America had secretly agreed to his release along with the four others in order to protect its citizens against further terrorism. Yet here he was, inside America itself, ready to carry out his next attack.

Regardless of the distasteful habits Roussard had cultivated in order to blend into Western society, he was still a true mujahideen at heart. His nature ran quite contrary to that of his handler, who was all too comfortable with Western excesses, especially rich food and expensive spirits.

The French boarding school in which Roussard had been raised had had little influence on him beyond teaching him how to comfortably blend in among his Western enemies. His true education had come from years spent at a nearby mosque and then later at several secret camps throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It was there that he learned that “Al Qaeda” didn’t translate to “the base,” as most Western media outlets had so ignorantly reported, but rather, “the database.” It referred to the original computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with the help of the CIA to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan.

To this file, said to be one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Al Qaeda leadership, had been added thousands upon thousands of more names since the 1990s. These mujahideen were from all walks of life and were drawn from more ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds than any Western government would ever admit. They had been recruited, indoctrinated, trained, and dispersed around the world to wait until they were called to battle.

As Roussard drove his van across the San Diego-Coronado Bridge he reflected on what might happen to him if he was apprehended. This was America, after all, and it had already done its worst to him in Guantanamo. Catching him here on their own soil, they would do even less. That’s how easy they were to exploit. They passed convoluted laws that served to protect their enemies better than their own people.

When America caught its so-called terrorist enemies, it lacked the courage to put them to death. Zacarias Moussaoui, the blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and even Ramzi Yousef were all given life sentences. They were a testament to America ’s cowardice and weakness, and the fact that it would inevitably fall to the true followers of Islam.

Merging onto Third Street, Roussard made several turns and doubled back twice to make sure he wasn’t being followed. When he got to the address on Encino Lane, he parked the van at the base of the driveway and placed an orange cone both in front of and behind the vehicle. While he doubted anyone was going to notice anything at this time of night, a home disaster restoration truck might pique a neighbor’s interest, but it wouldn’t warrant a call to police.

As he approached the front door, Roussard removed a lockpick gun from his pocket and hid it beneath his box-style metal notebook. As he reached the door, he pretended to ring the bell. Quietly, he worked the lock, knowing the woman inside did not have a home alarm system.

When the lock released, he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Roussard paused in the entryway until his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. The house smelled like furniture polish, mixed with the scent of the nearby sea.

Once his night vision was established, he moved quietly down the hallway toward the master bedroom. The hall was lined with family photographs, most of them from many years ago.

At the bedroom, Roussard found the door wide open and his victim fast asleep upon her bed. Crossing over to her, he tucked the metal folder beneath his left arm and unzipped his coveralls.

For a moment, he thought he might have dropped it, but then his hand closed around the object he was searching for.

When he looked back down at his victim, he received the shock of his life. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring up at him. Her bedroom windows were open, and if she screamed, he could be done for.

Roussard’s instincts took over. He grabbed his notebook with both hands and swung-hard. He hit the woman across the left side of her head.

Her mouth opened as if to scream and Roussard hit her again. The woman’s eyes closed and she lay motionless atop her bed.

Blood ran from her nose and her ear. It matted her long gray hair and stained her nightgown. She was unconscious, but still very much alive, which was how he wanted her.

Dropping his notebook on the bed, Roussard scooped the woman up into his arms and carried her into the bathroom. There he placed her in the tub, stripped off her nightgown, and covered her body with a moist paste. Next he sealed all the bathroom vents with duct tape.

He walked back outside to the van and retrieved two sealed plastic buckets and a tool belt.

Back in the bathroom, Roussard set the buckets down next to the tub and removed an atomizer from inside his coveralls.