In the two trucks following his, the rest of the team made ready. After checking their weapons, they straightened the uniforms Omar-Hakim had provided and donned their Iraqi helmets.

Power outages were a common occurrence in Iraq. Per Harvath’s request, the power to this neighborhood had been cut earlier in the evening. The streets were completely dark. At this hour, even families with their own generators were sleeping.

“Remember what we discussed,” Harvath said to Omar-Hakim when the vehicles pulled up in front of the target.

“I remember,” said the man.

Harvath then motioned for him to get out.

In front of them was a house surrounded by a thick mud wall. Its entrance was a set of wide double doors fabricated from sheet metal and scrap wood. A fist-sized hole had been punched through each side. A heavy chain padlocked from the inside kept them securely closed.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard.

Omar-Hakim sucked in his gut and attempted to ignore the throbbing pain from his broken hand. Harvath had warned him to leave it by his side and not draw attention to it.

The commander walked up to the gate and whispering, so as not to awaken anyone, addressed the sentry inside. “Abdullah. Open up.”

“Who is it?” replied a voice in Arabic.

The Iraqi bent his face down to the hole and spoke over the chain. “Commander Hakim, you idiot.”

“What do you want?”

Omar-Hakim came from a large, powerful Fallujah family. He was accustomed to being respected. The insolence of the al-Qaeda sentry grated on him. “Open these doors right now or I’ll tell Assad you’re the one who betrayed him to the Americans.”

“The Americans?”

“Yes, you idiot. The Americans. They know you’re here. Now open up so I can speak with Assad before they arrive.”

The sentry bent down and looked through the hole. He studied the Iraqi National Guard vehicles.

“I’ve brought extra uniforms and men to help you,” added the Iraqi. “Hurry up.”

Slowly, the sentry removed a key from his pocket and placed it in the lock. As he removed the chain, Harvath toggled the transmit button of his radio and sent two distinct clicks.

When the al-Qaeda man designated as “Tango One” pulled back the gate, the snipers engaged their targets.

Muffled spits raced through the air. The sentry on the roof was killed instantly, as was the covert sentry positioned a block away. A burst of radio clicks over the team’s earpieces served as confirmation.

With his suppressed Russian Makarov, Harvath stepped from behind Omar-Hakim and placed two rounds into the gatekeeper’s head.

The corrupt Iraqi commander was no stranger to killing, but the suddenness and violence of the act froze him in place. He had no idea that this was part of the plan, though he should have expected a raid on an al-Qaeda safe house to result in a bit more than hurt feelings.

While Omar-Hakim was staring at the dead man, Harvath struck him in the head with the butt of his weapon. The overweight Iraqi collapsed to the ground as the rest of the team exited their trucks.

Two men from the lead vehicle bound the commander with zip ties, gagged him, and threw him in the back. They then took up lookout positions.

The rest of the team fanned out into the compound.

Based on their intelligence, there was only one obstacle remaining. He was inside the rear of the house near the back door.

Harvath had conducted raids like this so many times before that he could picture exactly what was going on inside.

All of the men, save the remaining sentry, would be gathered in the large room at the front of the house. They would be sleeping on heavy fleece blankets purchased at the local market. One or two might be up having tea. If the power had been on, a few more might have been watching jihadi videos. More than likely, a couple of them were having sex with each other. Homosexuality was so rampant among the jihadists that catching them in the act had stopped surprising Harvath a long time ago. As a matter of fact, very little surprised him anymore; even less shocked him.

A colleague of his in Fallujah named Mike Dent had told him the story of a six-year-old boy named Khidir. Khidir was the son of a local police officer. Two years ago while his father was at work, members of an Iraqi al-Qaeda cell had burst into his home and savagely torn him from where he was hiding behind his grandmother, desperately clinging to her skirt.

The kidnappers wanted Khidir’s father, Shafi, to help free several al-Qaeda members being held in his jail. Shafi knew how dangerous the prisoners were and refused to set them loose upon the citizens of Fallujah. He knew full well they would conduct more killings and put more families through the same horror he was experiencing. The kidnappers promised to slit his little boy’s throat if he didn’t comply, but Shafi refused to give in to their demands. Khidir had not been seen since.

Dent had been so moved by Khidir’s story that he had made it his goal to help find out what had happened to the little boy. As a civilian trainer for the Fallujah police, he spent a lot of time building a network of informants. After a while, he started to wonder if it had all been a waste of time when one day a contact passed along a rumor that a group of al-Qaeda members was holding several children hostage on a small farm outside the city. With no funds to pay for any more intelligence, Dent had reached out to Harvath. He knew how Harvath felt about children, and to cement his assistance had e-mailed him a picture of a bright-eyed, smiling Khidir taken before the little boy’s nightmare had begun.

Three days later, Harvath landed in Baghdad with his new boss’s blessing, an expense account, and permission to do whatever necessary to bring the al-Qaeda cell to justice.

It took Harvath, Dent, and the team of contractors they had assembled $20,000 in bribes and ten days to find the location of the terrorists.

Pure hate for what they had done fueled Harvath as he cobbled together the operation. Like Dent, since hearing the little boy’s story, he had been living for this very moment. Each of the men would be the first through his respective entry point.

They moved quickly and quietly across the cracked, brown earth of the courtyard. Harvath’s team went to the front door while Dent took the other half of the men to the back.

Harvath’s team put on their night vision goggles and when they all flashed him the thumbs-up, he signaled for the battering ram to come forward.

With his team in place, he “clicked” Dent’s team in back and gave them the go-ahead. Moments later, there was the sound of splintering wood as the rear door was battered open and the remaining sentry was taken out.

Harvath counted down from fifteen. He could hear the shouts of the al-Qaeda operatives in the front room as they leapt from their beds and scrambled into the hallway that led to the back door.

Harvath reached the end of his countdown and motioned for the assaulter with the ram to hit the front door.

The entry tool knocked the door completely off its hinges and Harvath charged through, followed by the rest of his team.

Bottlenecked in the hallway, the AQ operatives were mown down with bullets from both sides.

The air was thick with the smell of blood and gun smoke. When Harvath called cease fire, Dent’s team moved up from the back of the house to secure the hallway while Harvath and his team cleared the rest of the house.

They found the entrance to the “spider hole” beneath a stained rug in the main room. One of the men said it reminded him of the hole Delta Force operatives had pulled Saddam out of.

Harvath looked down into the pit. It smelled atrocious. Six sets of hollow, half-dead eyes stared up at him. “Everything is okay,” he said in Arabic as he removed his night vision goggles. “We’re Americans. We’re going to take you home to your families.”