LITMIR.BIZ

      At that precise moment, Ryan Kealey was standing outside an abandoned, crumbling stone house three miles north of Amiriya, a small town situated on the northern banks of the Euphrates. It was a rural area; the closest house could be seen to the west, a gray smudge barely discernable in the dawn light. A rucksack containing a Raytheon AN/PSC-5 satellite radio rested on the ground a few feet away, next to a 20-liter can of kerosene. The radio was still packed away; he had not bothered to set up the collapsible dish, and the proper frequencies had not been loaded into the base unit. As a result, he was unaware of the decisions that had been made in Langley. He didn’t know that what he was about to do had already been cleared, but in truth, he wouldn’t have cared either way. In his mind, he had already decided that Arshad Kassem was going to die. The man had betrayed the Agency’s trust, which, in itself, was not surprising—Kealey would have called it inevitable—but more than that, he had actively worked to procure weapons for the insurgency. Kealey had learned this and a good deal more over the last eighteen hours.

      After his seemingly impromptu actions back in Fallujah, his return to the marine base east of the city had not been well received. Owen had vowed never to work with him again, and while Walland remained silent, the look on his face had said something similar. From there, things only got worse. On catching sight of the bound prisoner in the bed of the third Tacoma, the captain in charge of the guard had placed a hurried call to the office of Brigadier General Nathan Odom, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. The vehicles were stopped just inside the fence, and Odom, a stocky, barrel-chested black man, arrived soon thereafter. He proceeded to ask three pointed questions, each of which Kealey answered honestly. After his response to the third question, the general had stared at him hard, as if gauging his sincerity. When Odom saw that the younger man meant every word, his orders were swift, short, and definitive.

      Kealey did not try to argue with the general’s decision. He didn’t care if he couldn’t conduct the interrogation inside the fence. In fact, he didn’t care where it took place as long as he got the answers he needed. In the end, he simply asked permission to take his prisoner off-site, a request that was readily approved.

      None of this bothered him. If he had told Owen exactly what he was up to before they’d gone into the Jolan district, the other man would never have provided him with the firepower needed to get Kassem out of the city. Even now, with time to reflect, Kealey felt no compunction about misleading his former commanding officer. He had done what was necessary, and he now had the information to prove it.

      Kealey leaned back against the cool stone wall and rubbed his eyes, which were aching from lack of sleep. Seen from a distance, the marks on his hands might have been dirt stained red by the morning light. At this early hour, the pale orange sun was backed by a purple gold haze. The view was beautiful in a stark, desolate kind of way, but there was something strangely sinister in the sun’s slow upheaval. The steady rise in the east promised a new day, but carried with it the constant memories, the weight of things he couldn’t escape. The same old trials and tribulations, all that he had endured for the past ten months.

      Still, he couldn’t turn his eyes away; if he hadn’t known the time, if he hadn’t spent all night interrogating Kassem, he would have thought the sun was falling rather than rising. A sunset, at least to Kealey’s way of thinking, would have been far more appropriate. For a long time now, he’d felt that he was coming to the end of things. He had reached a strange accommodation with this prospect; after all, he had lost too much to start anew.

      He finally turned away from the scene. It was picture-perfect, too good for this place, and there was still work to be done.

      From a holster on his right hip, he pulled his Beretta 92FS. Pulling the slide back a few centimeters, Kealey checked the chamber and saw the brassy glint of a single round. Letting the slide snap forward, he thumbed the safety into the fire position and walked back into the building, the light on his back, nothing but darkness ahead.

      CHAPTER 11

      LATTAKIA

      They had been moving for two days. There had been no time to sleep off the endless stress, save for the three restless hours he’d caught on the cracked plastic seat of the bus to Lattakia. Now, as Kohl made his calls in the back of the squalid White Palace Café, Rashid al-Umari sat motionless at a corner table. He was hunched over the scratched aluminum, his head heaped on folded arms.

      He was exhausted. It was new for him, this constant movement, but the movement meant they were close, that the danger was now real.

      In the past there had always been warning. In the Iraqi capital, the streets leading into the Shia enclave were sealed with mounds of rotting garbage and the burnt-out, twisted remains of cars—the same cars that had once been loaded with explosives, then parked on one of the many roads patrolled by U.S. forces. When the raids came, the Americans were forced to endure the bitter task of moving these ruined vehicles before they could push into al-Sadr’s nest. The process took time, and a child, once told of his importance, once given a meaningless title, could be relied upon to make the call in the early hours when the Bradleys rolled forward.

      For this meeting, there would be no warning. If the Americans had advance knowledge of the time and location, and—more importantly—the guest list, they would respond from the air, and it would be over in the blink of an eye. It was this knowledge, al-Umari knew, that drove the German to such mind-numbing caution, but it was Rashid’s offering that would draw them despite the risks. If they were willing to make an appearance, the plan would go forward.

      It was all he wanted. He knew what would be asked of him, and he had come prepared.

      Rashid lifted his head and rubbed his bleary eyes. Kohl was walking back to the table, a chipped mug of strong Arab coffee in hand. The previous day he had changed his appearance again, and from the way the new colors complemented his features, Rashid would have guessed that he had reverted to his natural state. The German slid into the opposite seat and turned his gaze to the window, absently gazing past the colorful lettering affixed to the clamorous street beyond.

      A few minutes passed. The lunch crowd began filtering in. Soon animated conversations in Arabic and Farsi swirled around them, along with the harsh smell of cigarette smoke, flatulence, and the stench of unwashed bodies. The German’s cup was half-empty when Rashid finally ran out of patience. “Well? What did they say?”

      The other man did not reply and seemed unaware of Rashid’s hardest stare. Through the grime of the storefront window, a small child bounced into view, his tousled black hair glistening in the midday sun. His right hand gripped a plain brown envelope, the thick paper lumping over what might have been the keys to a vehicle, a cell phone, or both. The boy slowed outside the entrance and peered in through the open door, as though searching for someone. His gaze quickly settled on the blond-haired, green-eyed man at the corner table.

      Will Vanderveen turned to Rashid al-Umari and smiled.