The kicker for Jacob had been the total control over his own destiny. He knew life would be brutal, and possibly short, but it would be his choice. No more dealing with authority. No more trips to the white house. When he died it would be on his terms, for a cause. Not for some sadistic guard’s pleasure.

Jacob had faked the interest in Islam well enough, and all three decided to make the trek. They’d set a plan in motion for escape.

The reform school was, at its base, a prison, but it was privately run by a supposedly Christian institution, and as such, it fell outside of any federal oversight. A contract money mill that served the state as a dumping ground for malcontents who weren’t worthy of flooding the real prison system, it wasn’t very secure. Fear of the guards kept everyone in line, the white brick building in the center of the courtyard a daily reminder of the beatings and molestation administered for any breach of protocol.

When that fear ceased to exist, though, it was easy enough to escape. Especially if, like Jacob, you were willing to kill to do so. He only wished the hated captain of the guards was on duty the night they had fled. He would have enjoyed beating him to death with the pipe-legs he’d pulled from the dormitory bunk bed. As it was, he had to settle for a lesser guard. One who’d been somewhat kind, and had never taken him to the white house.

As he slammed the pipe into his head over and over, the skull splitting open and the brain matter staining the concrete floor, he reflected on how the smallest bit of scheduling had defined the guard’s fate. And the fact that the guard had done nothing to stop the others from using the white house.

They’d fled into the woods and met Hussein, waiting with a pickup. He’d taken them to an abandoned hovel in the slums of Miami, and they’d waited for the door to be kicked in. It had not. The closest thing had been their names and faces spread across the news for a day and a half. After that, they were forgotten, at least by the slavering twenty-four-hour cable channels.

Even so, they lived like hermits, not daring to venture out except for the one risk they needed to attempt to leave: applying for passports. A scary prospect, they’d ventured to three separate post offices and made the applications, the bored postal employees dutifully taking their information for a trip to the Cayman Islands.

They’d lived in the dark, eating junk food delivered by Hussein, for four weeks. Miraculously, the passports had arrived without the police delivering them in a SWAT van, and they’d purchased tickets to Turkey, fleeing with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Hussein had said that IS was paying for the flights, and Jacob had believed him, but now, due to Hussein’s behavior, he was having doubts. The three of them from the school had flown together, connecting through JFK in New York. Hussein had flown separately, going through Dulles airport in Washington, DC. He’d stated at the time that he’d already purchased his ticket, and it seemed to make sense, as they linked up just fine in Istanbul, but watching Hussein tremble gave Jacob questions.

He said, “Hussein, you all right?”

“Yes. Just tired.”

“Tired? Or scared?”

Hussein huddled against the wind and said, “A little of both.”

“Why is it different to you now? Syria seems exactly what the news reports said it would be. What’s changed from when you were here before?”

Hussein said, “Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Did you come here before? Did you really travel here?”

Hussein’s eyes slid to the desert for a moment, then came back. He started to say something, then thought better of it. He said, “Yes, of course. How do you think I got the money to pay your way here?”

“Hussein, I don’t know, but we’re tighter than the Islamic State. We lived through the white house. There is nothing stronger than our brotherhood.”

Hussein said, “The Islamic State sent me. That’s what happened.”

Jacob said, “Okay. Okay. But if you want to run, I’ll help you. We’ll stay.”

Jacob glanced at the pair in the back of the pickup, the wind preventing them from hearing. He said, “Carlos and Devon have found a home. A reason to exist. And so have I, but I haven’t forgotten what you did for me inside.”

Hussein said, “I can’t run. I wouldn’t make it back to Turkey. Have you seen what they do to anyone who turns their back on them? They’ll torture me. Kill me.”

Jacob looked out at the setting sun, the red rays scorching the desert sand. He said, “We’re all going to die sometime. Better to do it on our feet.”

Hussein put his head into his hands and began to weep.

12

They’d continued on the dirt road, seemingly driving straight into the desert, until Jacob could see the training camp in the distance. A collection of tents and crumbling buildings, it was some type of abandoned industrial facility. Maybe for oil. Maybe for something else. It reminded Jacob of a scene out of The Road Warrior. Whatever it was, the compound provided the necessary infrastructure to house up to two hundred men, and ample buildings to learn the art of urban fighting.

The lone HiLux drove straight through the center, Jacob seeing armed men dressed in black scurrying about and hearing shouted commands filling the air. But the triumphant black flags of the Islamic State were nowhere to be found. When Jacob had first arrived on the battlefield, it was all the rage to wave them about for Internet videos and pure intimidation. Now they were hidden. An indication of the fear the leadership felt from American surveillance, and the devastating air strikes that followed.

None of the men gave them a second glance. They drove past the collection of tents used as a barracks to house the fighters, an area that Jacob knew well, and continued on to a two-story concrete building on the outskirts of the compound. A much more hospitable residence than the tents, it was where the instructors stayed. And where the Lost Boys’ motivation had been tested.

Jacob tightened his grip on his AK-47, feeling his pulse increase. The driver, a thin Arab with a sharp nose and a spotty, mangelike beard, stopped the truck and waved them forward.

They jumped out of the back, following him single file inside the building. They were led to the second floor, walking down a hallway of broken brick and buckled windows. The Arab stopped outside the one room with a functioning door and knocked. Something was shouted in Arabic, and he opened it.

Jacob saw a dilapidated couch, two metal chairs, and a desk. Behind it was an imposing man with a ginger beard and a face made of cracked granite. Creases like veins running through stone and faded blue eyes that had seen more than enough to eradicate any notion of mercy.

He said, “I am Omar al-Khatami.”

Jacob heard the name and wondered what was going on. Omar had been his upper-echelon commander in the fight for Mosul. A Chechen with a myth of invincibility surrounding him like a black shroud because of his battlefield prowess and his unrelenting cruelty. Something learned long before the Islamic State, in the bloodbath known as Grozny.

“Take a seat. We have some things to discuss.”

The Lost Boys looked at one another for support and he barked, “Sit down. Now.”

They did so without further encouragement, cramming themselves into the broken couch.

He went face-to-face, searing them with the absolute power he held over their fate. He settled on Jacob last.

“Jacob, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You came to us from the United States, swearing bay’ah to the caliphate. To the Islamic State, yet you still bear the name of the infidel. Why?”

Jacob saw the heat coming from the Chechen’s eyes, and met it with his own. “That’s the name I was given at birth. It’s my identity. It is who I am.”