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“Acquired comm from someone who appeared to be a tango. Is he yours?”

“One asset confirmed. Not responding to comm,” Iggy said. “Repeat, what is your status and position?”

“Good. I'm in the office building. Fixed structure in the center of the compound with the satellite dishes.”

Upon hearing that, Hunter spun around and rushed toward the building, all the while continuing to monitor the radio traffic.

“L
IGHTNING
S
IX
, egress building and proceed to your twelve o'clock to the edge. C
HALK
O
NE
will link up with you and escort to the LZ.”

“Negative on the escort. Will link up with C
HALK
O
NE
, then proceed to neutralize HVT.”

Hunter wondered what
High Value Target
Stella had discovered.

“Request identity HVT and location,” Iggy said.

“J
OURNEYMAN
.”

J
OURNEYMAN
—al-Zahrani's code name. Hunter was nearly as excited as he was that they had found Stella. They'd finally located the terror mastermind.

“Location, small tent in center of compound,” Stella said.

“C
HALK
O
NE
this is T
IN
M
AN
. Link up with L
IGHTNING
S
IX
twenty meters to the twelve o'clock of the office structure. Proceed with L
IGHTNING
S
IX
to extract J
OURNEYMAN
.”

“C
HALK
O
NE
this is L
IGHTNING
S
IX
. Belay that order. Link up, then proceed to neutralize J
OURNEYMAN
.”

“C
HALK
O
NE,
this is T
IN
M
AN
. Order stands.”

“T
IN
M
AN
, sorry, but I'm taking him out with or without help,” Stella said.

“C
HALK
O
NE,
this is T
IN
M
AN
. Intercept L
IGHTNING
S
IX
and extract HVT. Dammit, L
IGHTNING
S
IX
. Standing orders are to take him alive. He's got invaluable intel. What's gotten into you?”

Hunter ran up to the building and raced inside, but didn't immediately see Stella. He kicked open an office door and Ashland whirled around, pointing a pistol at him; his other hand held a computer.

“Where is she?” Hunter said.

“Who?”

“G
RACKLE—
Camille Black, you idiot.”

“How would I know?” Ashland said, shoving a laptop into his bag.

“She's using your comm.”

“Impossible. It's here.” Ashland reached into bag stuffed with laptops and rooted around.

Hunter looked around to check out his surroundings, and through a hole cut out for a window, he saw Stella. She was moving toward the smaller tent, the one she had described as al-Zahrani's. Without thinking, he vaulted the desk and sprung through the hole toward her. He landed hard because of the weight from the Claymore mines in his rucksack.

 

Camille thought she heard someone and jerked her head around, but it was so dark she could barely see. She had always been clear with Iggy whenever she was along on a mission, he was the commander. Technically, she wasn't on the mission, so she excused her insubordination as she moved ahead, treading lightly, trying not to step on a sleeping tango. Iggy was right that they should capture al-Zahrani, but she didn't care. All she wanted was to feel that knife pushing into his throat and ripping through the cartilage.

She heard footsteps, stopped and aimed the AK in that direction. Suddenly someone slapped his hand across her mouth. Reaching for her knife, she heard Hunter whisper into her ear.

“I love you. Walk with me.”

He took her arm and led her away from the tent, toward the rim where the bench dropped off to the next one. She didn't resist. Tears of relief and joy rolled down her face. Hunter whispered into his mouthpiece. “T
IN
M
AN
, S
ABER
T
OOTH
here. L
IGHTNING
S
IX
intercepted. Falling back to regroup.”

Hunter said in a low voice, “Did you hear me? I said, I love you.”

“Someone's behind us,” Camille whispered back. “And I love you, too.”

Hunter glanced around. “It's Ashland.”

“Who?”

“A French spy. Long story.”

Hunter stopped sixty meters away from the nearest structure and squatted down. He held her with one hand and kept the other on his XM8. She wanted to kiss him more than anything, but she knew they couldn't let their guard down even for a moment. The French piece of
merde
had already proven he couldn't be trusted for security.

“You know we have to take al-Zahrani alive if we can. It's been a standing order with Force Zulu. Iggy's right.”

“I know. I want the fucker dead anyway.”

“What'd he do to you?”

Camille turned her head away while she fought back tears.

Hunter squeezed her close. “If he did anything to hurt you, I promise you, he'll suffer more if we take him back. Guaranteed. Slitting his throat is giving him the easy way out.”

G
ENGHIS
jogged up to them. Hunter continued to focus on her. “Are you with us or do I have to zip-tie you?”

Camille laughed.

“G
ENGHIS
, stand guard for a minute,” Hunter said, then he pushed up his NVG and rotated the mike away from his mouth. He pulled her to his lips.

For the brief moment while they kissed, she really did feel like she was in Shangri-la.

 

Iggy was going crazy, waiting. Even though they had Camille and the tangos hadn't yet figured out they had visitors, the op was taking too damn long. The helicopters were in holding positions and burning up several pounds of fuel every minute and now he was watching Stone and Camille lip-lock. Too much. He gave them five seconds, then keyed his radio. “C
HALK
O
NE
this is T
IN
M
AN
. Nautical twilight isn't far off. Get a move on.”

 

Hunter heard Iggy's voice, but wanted to stretch the kiss, aware it might be their last. He forced himself to stop and pull away, unhooking from his belt webbing the extra NVGs he'd carried. Without losing a moment, he pressed the NVGs into her hands.

“What's this?” Stella said, then laughed softly. “NVGs? You always knew how to give a girl what she needs.” She pulled them on over her head.

“G
ENGHIS
, Ashland. Get over here,” Hunter said, just loud enough for them to hear.

They came over and squatted down.

“Approximately thirty to forty minutes ago, al-Zahrani was in that tent,” Stella said. She pointed to where Hunter had grabbed her. “I have every reason to believe that he was getting ready to go to sleep there.”

Stella spoke before Hunter could say anything. It was his team and she wasn't briefed on their capabilities. He was going to have a hard time keeping her from taking over. The woman loved to be on top.

“Any other intel we need to know before I distribute the orders?” Hunter said in his most professional voice.

“He had two guards in front of the tent. I saw no patrol. However, he has three barracks within thirty meters—two to the south at our two o'clock, one north at our ten o'clock. Everyone here is carrying an AK and tangos are sleeping on the ground everywhere.”

“Thanks, Stella. Snake the tent.” He removed a PAQ-4C infrared laser pointer from his belt and handed it to her. Hunter keyed his mike. “T
IN
M
AN
this is S
ABER
T
OOTH
. Snaking the HVT's suspected location. Confirm IR signature of a single individual inside.”

Stella turned on the infrared beam and shined it on al-Zahrani's tent, moving it in a figure eight. It was very bright to anyone wearing night vision equipment, but invisible to everyone else.

“S
ABER
T
OOTH
this is T
IN
M
AN
. I see it. Steady.”

She quit moving the pointer and held a constant beam on the target.

“S
ABER
T
OOTH
, T
IN
M
AN
. Terminate snake.”

She turned off the pointer.

A few seconds later, Iggy continued, “Confirmed. One body inside. Two outside at your twelve o'clock.”

Taking off his pack, Hunter turned toward the group and said, “It's a go, then. G
ENGHIS
, set up a line of Claymores in front of the barracks here, as planned.” Hunter ran his finger through the sand, sketching a rough diagram of the camp so Stella could visualize it. “I figure G
ENGHIS
will have two to three minutes while Stella and I grab al-Zahrani. Make certain that range fan is pointing south to the camp's six o'clock, our current three o'clock.” The last thing they needed was for the danger zone to be inadvertently pointed toward them. “If there's noise and some unhappy campers come running out, I want to be ready to even the odds as fast as we can with the Claymores. If things go hot, Iggy will call in close air support and use his 240-Golf.”

 

Hunter outlined how he and Stella would take out the guards, then snatch al-Zahrani and meet up. “If we use the Claymores, we'll go south through the weakened force to LZ-two. If everything stays quiet, it's LZ-one.” He drew Xs in the sand to indicate the pick-up zones.

“What do you need me to do?” Ashland said.

“Find a weapon and if we start firing, don't hit us,” Hunter said in a low voice. “And you better hang close and not go off on any more of your own missions if you want out of here. I won't leave a man behind, but you've made it clear you're not one of my men.”

“Tell me what you need and I'll do it,” Ashland said.

“Baby-sit al-Zahrani after we get him.”

“Head's up,” G
ENGHIS
whispered. “Company.”

A tango was walking toward them. He called out something. Before Hunter could do anything, Ashland responded in Arabic. “My brother's lost his wedding band. Come help us.”

G
ENGHIS
rose slowly and circled around behind the man, who didn't have their night-vision advantage. Hunter called out in Arabic. “I must find it, insh'allah. Izdihar will never forgive me.”

 

G
ENGHIS
flanked the tango. Stone and Ashland kept the man talking while he moved into position, slinking up behind him with his knife drawn. Placing his left hand on one side of the tango's head, he struck his temple with the grip of his knife as hard as he could, shocking the temporal artery into a quick death. The body fell limp in his hands and he let it drop to the ground.

One tango down, four hundred ninety-nine to go
.

Against his better judgment, G
ENGHIS
picked up the man's AK to give to Ashland.

 

A few minutes later, Camille crept up behind the guard she was assigned to neutralize. He was squatting on the ground, chewing something, probably qat to keep himself awake. She jabbed the knife in between the occipital bone and the first vertebrae, turned it, then pulled it out. Just as she was sticking it back into the sheath, she heard an AK fire, then another and another.

She heard G
ENGHIS
say over the radio, “Taking fire.”

 

G
ENGHIS
didn't want to fire off and give away his position to the whole goddamn camp, but the shooters were getting close. Bullets were crackling on all sides of him. It was hard to hit someone on the ground, so he lay on his belly while he twisted the wires to the detonators, then inserted them into the Claymore and hooked up the firing device. Reaching around the mine, he ran his fingers across the metal face plate to make sure he could feel the raised letters,
FRONT TOWARD ENEMY
. His arm was starting to throb from the morning's bullet wound as he crawled on to the next position, dragging the combat packs with him and stringing wire to daisy chain as many mines together as he could.

More shooters joined in.

One more mine and he was out of there.

 

The gunfire was picking up and it was now coming from two sides. Hunter signaled Stella that he was going into the tent with a flash-bang grenade and he rolled it into the tent. He looked away until he heard the loud clap and saw the reflection of the bright burst, designed to stun and blind anyone inside. Then they rushed inside.

Al-Zahrani was on the ground in his bed reaching for a gun, but Stella knocked it away with her bare foot, then kicked him in the face. He shrieked like a girl.

Hunter rolled him over, shouting at him in Arabic as he smacked his combat boot down onto his back, pinning him down. He handed her a plastic tie and pulled al-Zahrani's arms together. She zip-tied his wrists as tightly as she could and restrained herself from breaking a thumb.

Bullets were ripping through the tent. They had to get out of there fast. Hunter took out a swath of duct tape and slapped it over al-Zahrani's mouth and pulled him to his feet. He didn't resist as they led him away. He thought it was strange not to offer resistance, but bin Laden had been the same way.

Ashland was waiting outside, lying on the ground. Hunter transferred al-Zahrani to his custody. Ashland pulled him down to the ground and gave him orders in Arabic.

Through the night vision equipment, Hunter could see dozens of tangos running toward their leader's tent, holding AKs at their sides. Their muzzle bursts flashed white and green tracers crisscrossed the raiding party. The morons were firing into the dark, risking friendly fire hitting al-Zahrani. They hit the ground and began firing in opposite directions.