He barely noticed the people he went past as he pulled off his apron and folded it in his hands. Walking in the shadow of the Citadel, he placed the cloth reverently in his backpack, then laid his badge on top of it. The sight of his newly earned credentials brought him crashing back to earth, the badge reminding him why he was really in Jordan. What his real work would entail.

He sat heavily on a stone park bench and squeezed his eyes shut. There has to be a way out of this. Something to prevent the killing.

He cursed the CIA for bringing him into this cauldron. Cursed his mother for never having told him about his father. He could have avoided the boys’ school. He would never have met Jacob, and the CIA would never have come calling. He could have had the life he’d dreamed about late at night, after his visits to the white house. When the pain ceased to control his mind.

He rubbed his face, staring at the ground, struggling for a solution.

He could tell Ringo that they hadn’t given him a key. That he hadn’t been entrusted with a badge. But Ringo will only tell you to force someone to open the door. Failure isn’t an excuse.

He could disappear, taking the badge with him. Move in with his father and hide. But Ringo will still execute the mission, and he’ll kill father in the process.

Maybe he should go to the US embassy. Throw himself at the damn CIA and tell them everything. Turn himself in. But you killed a man. You carved his head off. And you brought in Jacob. You recruited and turned loose the Lost Boys.

How could he tell them that? They’d torture him in a secret prison for the rest of his life. And Ringo would still kill his father.

The flopping of the Kurd he’d slaughtered flashed in his mind. The body bucking underneath him, the knife handle becoming slippery in his hands from the fountain of blood.

He curled up on the bench and began to cry.

*   *   *

“He’s doing what?”

“Crying. Shoshana said he’s sitting on a bench bawling his head off.”

What the hell?

We’d tracked Hussein since leaving work, and he’d taken the same path he had since we’d started chasing him. Humans are naturally creatures of habit, and Hussein was no different. I had half the team waiting on him at the end of a narrow alley, a route he always took when heading back to his apartment, a trash-strewn footpath not unlike the one I’d met Jennifer in earlier. They would block his escape. Shoshana, having the ability to blend in better than anyone on my team, had been given the mission for a loose follow. The other half of the team was with me. The endgame for the traitorous bastard.

“Crying about what? Did something happen?”

Jennifer, who’d acted as the trigger for the surveillance but was now in my vehicle, said, “Not that I saw. He was smiling and almost skipping when he left the hotel.”

“Well, maybe we ought to just pull up to him and throw him in the van while he’s still blubbering.”

Aaron spoke into his phone, then said, “Too many people around.”

“That was a joke. We stick with the plan.”

Aaron smiled. “Good. I won’t have to tell you what Shoshana actually said.”

I grimaced and said, “What, did that little empath decide he’s a nice guy now?”

Shoshana marched to her own drummer, relying on some primordial instinct she could sense in front of her instead of reams of paper handed to her from some intel analyst. And more often than not, she was proven right. Seeing Hussein cry may have altered her calculus.

“No, no. She could care less about him if it leads to our target. She wants al-Britani planted in the ground. Your man means nothing to her.”

Then again, like a vampire craving a feeding, she was also a little bloodthirsty.

Aaron looked at me, phone to his ear. He nodded and said, “Hipster’s moving. Same line of march as predicted.”

*   *   *

Hussein wiped his eyes, the last of the hitches subsiding, and wearily stood. He trudged forward, his emotional state as raw as skin scraped on concrete. He mindlessly continued moving, blotting out the persistent image of the Kurd. Blotting out all thoughts of where his path was leading even as he continued walking it.

There was one solution left.

He could kill himself.

It would be nothing less than he deserved, and would free him from all of the pain. But that murdering sociopath Ringo would still kill his father.

For the first time in his pointless existence, he cared about something other than his own skin, and if killing himself would solve the problem, he would have gladly done so.

But it would not.

He continued walking robotically, head down, lost in his despair. He turned into the shortcut alley next to his apartment, barely two arms wide, knowing his fortune was upon him, but not realizing the route it would take.

Kicking cans and plodding forward, he didn’t hear the van block the entrance he’d just used. Didn’t hear the footsteps behind him. Didn’t even register anyone was in the alley with him until he felt a caress on his shoulder. He turned, seeing a woman wearing a hijab. Her eyes were cold steel, looking into his soul and seeing the damage he’d wrought. He stumbled back a step, confused, trying to assimilate how she knew, when a man appeared behind her. A big man, with a wicked scar tracking through his razor stubble and hard eyes expressing the same knowledge. No mercy. No sympathy for his plight.

And he was holding a gun.

31

Omar leaned into the window as the aircraft crested the mountains, the low clouds finally breaking to show the valley below. They began to lower into the bowl and Omar saw the concrete of Tirana spilling out, threading into the fingers and ridges in the distance. The international airport grew larger and larger, and he recognized a string of old Soviet fighters on the tarmac, rusting and stoic. Proud defenders of a system that no longer existed.

His plane hit the runway fairly roughly, jarring open two overhead bins far past their service prime on the Alitalia 737. The pilot applied the brakes, the engines reversing with a whine, and Omar wondered if they were going to drive off the edge. He began squeezing his armrest, exposing his anxiety as he stared out the window at the land racing by.

Truth be told, he didn’t like flying. Actually hated the idea, but it might have been because the only aircraft he’d ever been on were ones that allowed goats in the aisles. Flights where the passengers clapped at the landing, amazed they were alive.

As they did now.

Omar didn’t join them, but he wanted to. They taxied to the terminal, and his thoughts turned to his bigger worry: getting into Albania.

He had no idea how strict the immigration process was, or even if his cursory Internet search would be proven true. Unlike the Lost Boys, he had no United States citizenship to hide behind. His passport was Russian, albeit with a Schengen visa.

Created for the travel of citizens within twenty-six countries in Europe—the so-called Schengen zone—it allowed them to cross borders hassle-free. Albania was not a member, but in the strange world of international diplomacy, they recognized the visa for entry into the country. At least the Internet said they did.

He hoped it was true, as this city had been chosen for a reason.

A majority Muslim country, Albania had been part of the mammoth Soviet Union, and, like all countries behind the Iron Curtain, had banished religion when the communist overlords secured control. After the wall fell, and the country gained independence, the Islamic faith once again flourished, and, like just about anywhere with a sizable Muslim population, sympathizers could be found.