Unlike his frantic run earlier, this had been planned. He needed a way to enter his building, ensuring the clerk at the bottom saw him, then exit without being seen. He’d initiate the assault, letting his team do their deadly tango, then return without ever having exited the front. All the desk would know—and would provide the police, should that become necessary—was that he’d entered, then stayed in his room for the duration of the attack. Thus, he couldn’t be complicit.

That, coupled with his stall shopping a moment ago, should be enough to escape scrutiny. The name he’d used in this building wasn’t in a passport. All they knew was what he looked like, and the fact that he had entered, then never exited.

He walked inside the tiny anteroom, a thin piece of wood to the right making a counter, worn smooth by years of use. Behind it was the custodian. Ringo had no idea what he was paid for, because every request since he’d first rented the suite of rooms had fallen on deaf ears. He walked over and, speaking in Arabic, said, “Did you get the shower on the third floor to function?”

“No. Not yet. I’m working on it.”

“And the sink?”

“No.”

“And the toilet? Does it flush now?”

“No. No, no, no. I’m not a miracle worker.”

Ringo smiled and said, “You’re pretty much nothing at all, aren’t you?”

The clerk, a gnarled older gentleman, stood up and said, “This isn’t London, you little shit. I do what I can. If you don’t like it, leave. Find another place with running water. If you can.”

The man who’d met Ringo outside laughed at the slur against his English accent. Ringo bristled, and said, “Maybe I will. Maybe I will.”

He walked away, aggravated, but confident the clerk would remember the conversation. Remember him walking up the stairs.

40

Jennifer watched Shoshana enter the broken-down brick structure and wondered if she was just going to start slaying. She didn’t think so, but her opinion meant little in determining what the Israeli killer would do. Put bluntly, she was regretting her decision to allow the operation to continue. Regretting how she’d ceded control to Shoshana.

As soon as the men had entered the makeshift apartment building, Shoshana had said, “I’m going in. I’ll provide early warning if they leave from another exit.”

Jennifer had said, “No. You’re not. We have the building. Jeez. Do you want to pin his location to a bathroom or something? This is enough.”

“No, it’s not. All we know is they’ve entered. We don’t know if they’ll stay. We don’t know if this is the bed-down. Maybe they’re just getting explosives or weapons here, and they might exit out of another door.”

Shoshana had stood without another word, leaving Jennifer alone at the café table. And then Pike had called. He’d found her van, empty, and wasn’t just a little aggravated.

“What the hell is going on?”

“We’ve got the site. I’m at a café outside. You have my location?”

“Yeah, I see it. We can’t get there in a vehicle. We’ll have to go on foot, depending on how accurate this sat photo is.”

“It’s good. Where are you?”

“Next to your van. Where you’re supposed to fucking be.”

She ignored that little jab. “Continue up the street through the markets. You’ll see a narrow alley on the left. Really just a garbage lane. Bypass that one and take the next. It’s bigger, with some outdoor cafés. Take that to the north and you’ll get to me.”

He said, “Got it. Don’t move. You understand?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going nowhere. You have situational awareness of the Jordanians?”

“No. They should be rolling now, but I have no contact.”

“How will you pass the location?”

“Showboat. He’s talking to the Taskforce.”

“And they’ll feed it to the CIA, who will then feed it to the Jordanians? Seriously? That’ll take forever.”

She heard, “Best I can do. Don’t let Shoshana convince you to do anything stupid. Or anything more stupid.”

He hung up, and she waited, thinking of Hussein. Wondering if anyone would tell his father what had happened to him. Did the CIA do that sort of thing? Or would they let the Jordanians attempt to figure it out, not caring if they ever did?

Hussein’s last conversation replayed in her head. The panic in his voice, then the despair. Ending with quiet resignation at his own death. It made her queasy. Outside of his father, he probably had no family. His mother was more than likely dead from AIDs in prison, and he’d given no indication about brothers and sisters.

The thought of siblings made a piece of the conversation snap into her head, about friends he did have. Ringo had called Hussein a name. An innocuous one on the surface, but hiding a much greater danger below.

Hussein was a Lost Boy.

The realization made her head swim. It held such gross implications, on so many levels, she had trouble acknowledging the impact.

They’d been told that Hussein had killed a CIA source reporting on an insider threat involving Americans. Unknown, non-Arabic Americans, planning an attack against the White House, called the Lost Boys. Hussein was a CIA source himself, recruited, vetted, and inserted into Syria, and he’d just been called a Lost Boy.

Beyond the CIA web of lies or incompetence, there was one concrete fact: Her team had used Hussein to stop this attack in Jordan, but in so doing, they’d given up their ability to penetrate an attack by American citizens against her very own seat of government. The one reason the Taskforce had been created. They’d killed the only lead they had.

She felt sick.

She saw movement on the third-floor balcony of the target building and recognized al-Britani standing with another man. The sight of him crystallized the death of Hussein, and another, critical realization.

He knew Hussein was a Lost Boy. Which means he knows who the others are. Knows what they’re planning.

She saw al-Britani gazing across the rooftops to the north, pointing. She leaned forward, trying to determine what he was doing. She studied his building and saw that it was one story taller than the adjacent structure across from him. Only three stories tall, it was followed by two more buildings going up the side of the hill, each a story smaller than the one before, with the last one a single story in height and built right into the hillside. If al-Britani were to move across the roofs, he’d have an easy path to the hilltop. He’d be on foot, racing down the back side without ever having reached the street.

And she realized what he was going to do. How they were going to leave, but now she couldn’t let that happen. Facilitating the Jordanians to stop the attack had become a secondary consideration. Capturing al-Britani took precedence.

Torn, knowing she was making a call based on intuition alone, she clicked her earpiece.

“Pike, Pike, this is Koko, I have a Prairie Fire here. I need you to call off the Jordanians.”

Prairie Fire was the code word for a team about to be overrun. A call that would cease all operations to protect those who made it. She knew she was misusing the command, but also knew it would snap Pike into attention.

And it did. Pike came on immediately, “What’s your status? What’s going on? You have shots fired?”

She said, “No, no. I’m fine, but the mission has changed. You need to call off the Jords. We need to take down al-Britani. We need to conduct an Omega on him, and get him out like we were going to do with Hussein.”

“Why?”

She saw al-Britani come out on the roof again, this time with three people. All were carrying duffel bags. They stacked them against the balcony railing, then went back inside.

Prepping to move.