“We don’t know. Only that it will be big. After our members were martyred, Adnan reached out, saying that he had an attack against the West, and could succeed.”

“Yes, yes. I know all of that. I’m the one that agreed. When it was Adnan.”

At a loss, the emir settled for “It’s still Adnan. The mission was already put in motion, with some Amriki that are without scrutiny. Completely clean. This man is the one who is leading them.”

“Amriki. Americans. It sounds tempting, but I’m not so sure.” He said it offhand, hiding his true feelings. Hiding his hatred. He needed to be convincing.

“Adnan called them the Lost Boys. They are undetectable. In fact, one is in Jordan right this minute. He’s planning an attack there, with some of our members.”

That picked up Rashid’s interest. “What members?”

“Remember al-Britani? The one who relishes being in the propaganda? Delivering justice?”

“Yes. I do. I used to lead him. He’s not that impressive. He fought when he had to, but spent more time in front of the camera after the fact. He has half the world chasing him because of it.”

The emir said, “Not this time. He’s in Jordan right now, and he has one of the Lost Boys with him. They’re planning a synchronized attack with the man you just heard. A significant blow that we can claim with the Islamic State. It will be our joining. Showing the world that our fight from the past is done.”

“Really? And why wasn’t I told about this?”

Rashid saw the pique in the emir’s face, and knew to back off. If only to get what he wanted.

“Because you were with the Khorasan group. Tasked with the very attacks they are conducting. Yet you failed.”

Rashid heard the words and felt the sting. He wanted to lash out, but he was too close. Too close to getting his hands on the man who had humiliated him.

Two years before, in response to al Qaida siding with Jabhat al-Nusra over a question of legitimacy, the Islamic State had declared them an enemy, slaughtering al-Nusra as easily as the regime’s soldiers in a vicious bloodletting that rivaled the civil war itself. Al-Nusra should have mopped up the Islamic State in short order. Would have beheaded all of them for their treachery, as they had the better men and skill, except for one soldier: Omar al-Khatami. The Chechen. Fighting for the Islamic State, he had proven to hold a battlefield prowess like none other—even the Syrian army—and had laid waste to huge swaths of al-Nusra terrain. The culminating point for Rashid was a battle in a village outside of Aleppo.

Terrain cut off, no supplies coming in, men beheaded or shot on sight, al-Nusra had collapsed, and Rashid had fled, escaping dressed as a woman, his face hidden by a niqab veil, his body cloaked in black. He’d been stopped at a checkpoint, and had known he was dead. The only question was how slow it would be.

Omar had interrogated him, searing his voice into Rashid’s brain. Omar had punctuated each statement with the blade of a knife, then, inexplicably, had left the room without killing him.

Lying in a pool of spit and blood, Rashid had feigned weakness, lulling his captors. When he’d seen a fleeting opportunity, he’d seized it. Using his skills and a healthy dose of luck, Rashid had slaughtered the guards holding him with a steel spring torn from a mattress, fleeing into the dark still dressed as a woman.

A shameful woman.

The rage that memory brought could never be calculated, and now he had the means to deliver retribution.

If only he worked this right.

He said, “Okay. Let’s give him the contact in Albania, but tell him the meeting is twenty-four hours later. Tell him we’ve had issues.”

“Why?”

“I want to vet him. I want to be sure he’s who he says he is. I know Adnan, but I don’t know this man. I’m going to Albania personally.”

The emir smiled and said, “That’s not necessary.”

“It is to me. I’m going. And I’m taking my men with me. I need support assets. I need passports and clean money. Credit cards and cash.”

The emir considered him, seeing the conviction, and said, “The fight is here. Now. If they succeed, they succeed. If they don’t, nothing has been harmed. Let them continue.”

Rashid nodded and said, “I have the skill to blend into the population. The intelligence training to evade the crusader net. I want to help him, and this is the best way.”

The emir pursed his lips and sat back. “You feel this is necessary for success?”

Rashid smiled, saying, “Yes.”

But he failed to articulate what he meant by success.

24

I felt the heat start to rise inside the car and wondered why the hell I’d decided to control the operation. I could have put Knuckles in charge and been inside with Jennifer.

Dumbass.

Truthfully, after the last operation, I wasn’t looking forward to another follow-and-catch mission. I wanted some high adventure, not the boring slog of building a pattern of life, then a single takedown. Yeah, the final endgame had been a little fun, but the damn buildup was murder. But apparently, this guy was somewhat important, made more unique because he was American.

Kurt had called, redirecting us just as we were headed to Hyrax Hill in Kenya, the famed cradle of civilization discovered by the Leakeys back in the 1920s, and the reason we had supposedly come to the country. Which aggravated the hell out of Jennifer.

She could live with the guns and blood, but she did so primarily because we always got to do some digging around old pottery shards to maintain our cover—although I secretly believed she was beginning to like the Jason Bourne stuff. This time, her expected trip was cut short.

We were redirected to Jordan under some flimsy excuse of checking out the deterioration of Umm el-Jimal, some Byzantine relic full of archaic bricks. Ostensibly we were under contract for UNESCO, the UN organization charged with preserving culturally significant sites around the world. Before Jennifer got to drag me to that place, though, she had to build a pattern of life on our target, and this one had some peculiarities.

Kurt had given us a complete data dump, and the history of this guy really made me wonder what the hell we were doing in the grand ol’ US of A. The target was an asset recruited, trained, and inserted into Syria by the CIA only to end up killing other CIA assets. Made me shake my head. The second head-scratcher was why we were chosen for the mission. When we were used, it was precisely to evade the prying eyes of the host nation, which sort of defeated the whole “coalition of the willing” thing. But then again, given the sensitivities with Jordanian politics, I could at least buy that.

Anyway, it was going to be an in and out. The detail we’d gotten from the CIA was spot-on, with potential locations, current photographs, and biodata. We’d deployed with Omega authority in hand and had found the guy yesterday right where they said he’d be—at his father’s hotel—and now we were doing the necessary boring work of developing his habits so we could pick a kill zone.

Easy stuff. Except for the heat in my car.

My earpiece crackled and I heard, “Trigger. Got Hipster. He’s headed out. This time with a uniform in hand.”

Looks like he got the job.

His name was Hussein, but we didn’t use that on the radio. He had a wispy mustache thing, and was skinny, wearing tight jeans and looking like some twentysomething that frequented Brooklyn coffee shops arguing sections of Proust, which is where Retro had come up with the code name “Hipster.”

From what we could tell, he’d been interviewing for a position inside the hotel. I guess trying to build a new life for himself. I hated to crush that aspiration, but it was my job. Okay, I didn’t at all. Seeing an asshole cut off someone’s head does that to me.