There was no response at first, and the agent had begun to worry when he heard a click followed by a whir as the door swiveled open. That released a rush of air laden with the faint odor of incense. He stepped through the portal, and was about to turn and close the door when a sensor took care of that task for him. Pleased with his progress so far, Agent 47 paused to remove his shoes before climbing a flight of narrow wooden stairs to the floor above.

Ali bin Ahmed bin Saleh Al-Fulani was seated behind his desk, with his back to three arched windows, as Marla stood in front of him.

“There’s no doubt about it,” the Puissance Treize agent said earnestly. “The Otero brothers were sent to kill you. Not one of the other VIPs who occupied the stage.”

“Yet they failed because this Agent 47 person managed to stop them,” the businessman mused. “Why would he want to do that?”

Six intricately carved Moorish screens served to partition off the east end of the office. Beyond them, in the alcove where Al-Fulani took his naps, one of the richly polished antique doors that decorated the back wall opened on silent hinges as Agent 47 entered the room. The assassin’s feet were silent as he padded over to the screens and peered through one of them onto the scene that lay beyond.

Damn it! Al-Fulani was present, all right, but so was Marla, and the clock was ticking. Still, there was always the possibility that she would leave, so it made sense for the operative to wait.

“There’s no way to know for sure,” Marla replied gravely. “But it’s my opinion that he wants to capture you, perhaps to interrogate you. And that would be difficult if you were dead.”

“Yes,” the Moroccan agreed bleakly. “It would. But I have news for you. Good news. We’re about to leave Fez, which will make your job much easier!”

Marla wasn’t sure whether leaving Fez would make her job easier, but she could hope. So she forced a smile.

“Really?” she responded. “Where are we going? Somewhere cool, I hope.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Al-Fulani answered sympathetically. “It’s pretty warm in N’Djamena this time of year. But the desert in Chad has its own kind of beauty—and Agent 47 will have no idea where I am.”

Having said that, the Moroccan businessman rose and circled the desk.

“Come, my dear,” Al-Fulani said playfully, as he offered his arm. “My limousine awaits!”

“But I don’t have the appropriate clothes!” Marla objected.

“Ah, but you will,” Al-Fulani assured her soothingly. “We’ll stop by your apartment on the way to the airport.”

There were other things to worry about, including her team’s readiness for such a journey, but Marla knew her sponsor well, and he wouldn’t want to wait, so she’d have to make arrangements on the fly.

The twosome were gone a few seconds later, which left 47 with no choice but to retrace his steps, and escape the mansion as quickly as he could. Fortunately the stir caused by Al-Fulani’s sudden departure was such that the assassin was able to exit the basement undetected, and make his way to the south side of the property where Abadati was normally stationed. What could have been a tricky moment was eased by the fact that the other guard was tired, and eager to go home. He said something in Arabic, then laughed at his own joke, as he turned to leave.

The assassin waited for a full minute before he slipped out through the very gate he was supposed to guard, and faded into the foot traffic beyond.

He had been forced to abandon the Jammer identity in the wake of the truck explosion. His new base of operations, which consisted of a room in a seedy hotel, was about a mile away.

The real Waleed Abadati called in shortly after 47’s departure, which triggered a full-scale search of the property. But having found nothing amiss, the way in which Abadati had been waylaid was ascribed to thieves, and the hapless guard was ordered to pay for both the uniform and the stolen weapon.

It was a significant setback that meant the car would have to wait. But Abadati was a good man, a righteous man, who knew that Allah promised those with patience a reward without measure.

A reward that, with the passage of time, would eventually be his.

EAST OF N’DJAMENA, CHAD

There was no direct air service to the city of N’Djamena—not from Fez—so unlike Al-Fulani, who had a private plane to call upon, Agent 47 had been forced to travel via a number of commercial connections, thereby losing quite a bit of time in the process. But thanks to some assistance from The Agency, a driver and a vehicle were there waiting when he landed.

And now, some six spine-jarring hours later, the operative and his paid companions were closing in on the spot where Al-Fulani and his party had probably spent the previous night. Would the Moroccan still be there? That seemed unlikely, but 47 hoped to confirm that he was on the right trail. Especially since the desert was a big place, and The Agency’s spy sats had lost Al-Fulani’s convoy during a dust storm.

The sub-Saharan landscape was divided between the bright, almost searing blue of the sky and the khaki colored landscape that lay sprawled below. The growl of the Unimog’s engine dropped a full octave as Pierre Gazeau shifted down, released the clutch, and guided the truck up the sand-drifted track toward the next rise.

The Libyan freelancer had thick black hair, a hooked nose, and a three-day growth of beard. He wore wraparound sunglasses, a sleeveless khaki shirt, and a pair of matching slacks. Black hair crawled down his arms and darkly tanned legs to a pair of beat-up desert boots. Though born in Tripoli to an ex-legionnaire and a Tuareg mother, Gazeau had been educated in France, and spoke English with only a slight accent.

“There are tracks, my friend. Someone else has passed through the area, and recently, too.”

The snub-nosed U90 Mercedes Unimog lurched as the right front tire mounted a large chunk of rock, the vehicle tilted to the left, and an avalanche of junk slid across the dashboard, ran out of room, and tumbled into Gazeau’s lap. Only the statue of St. Francis remained where it was, his feet anchored by a dollop of glue, his eyes firmly on the track ahead.

The Libyan rescued one of his many pairs of sunglasses from his lap, placed them on the center console, and brushed the rest of the mess onto the already littered floor.

Agent 47 held on to a grab bar, and waited for the right tire to pass over the obstacle, before making his reply.

“I’m glad to hear it. That’s a good sign.”

“So,” Gazeau said out of the side of his mouth, “how close are we?”

Agent 47 consulted the Garmin eTrex Vista GPS receiver, checked the readout against a map, and eyed the dry, rocky landscape ahead.

“The village should be about half a kilometer away.”

Gazeau took his foot off the accelerator, engaged the clutch, and stepped on the brake. The truck came to an abrupt stop. Dust swirled up and drifted to the east.

The Mog was equipped with a crew cab. The assassin heard one of the rear doors close and turned to discover that Gazeau’s assistant was no longer in the vehicle.

“Where did he go?”

Gazeau shook his head and laughed.

“You’ve seen him…Numo goes wherever he wants to go.” And with that, the Libyan let out the clutch, fed fuel to the 5-cylinder diesel, and guided the big 4X4 up past the skeletal remains of an ancient VW bus. The path rose, turned toward the right, and disappeared over a rise.

Mahmoud heard the chatter of the big diesel engine and spotted the plume of blue-black exhaust long before he actually saw the blocky-looking Mercedes truck lurch up out of the ravine. It was white with a chromed star over the radiator, a tow rope that was looped back and forth across the front bumper, and the usual roof rack loaded with gear.