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Ramadi, Anbar Province

Every time Hunter entered Ramadi, he felt like a black man in the Deep South during Jim Crow; there were no friendly faces, only hateful stares and the lynch mob was never far away. The people of Ramadi carried their disdain for the Americans as civic pride. Hunter had been shot at on at least three occasions by the American-trained municipal police force and he couldn't begin to count the number of times civilians had lit him up. He had personally helped rid the city of scores of insurgents, one bullet at a time, but even after years of campaigns, the main roads were more hazardous than ever for Americans.

Hunter was counting on it.

He took a left into a neighborhood where he had once gone door-to-door trick-or-treating and found enough candy to keep the bomb disposal guys happy for a week. It had taken his Marine unit four days to clear a particularly nasty five square block area and about the same amount of time for the insurgents to return once the Marines had pulled back from the area. The neighborhood had been a real fixer-upper even by Iraqi standards and that was before the Marines had trashed the place searching for insurgent nests. While some parts of Ramadi had pallets of bricks on the sidewalks and residents busy repairing the crumbling walls, mortar holes and twisted metal gates, in this part of town the new occupants hadn't bothered to cover broken windows. Whoever was living here now was not putting down roots.

The two Rubicon SUVs followed him down the narrow street. His own men were now chasing him. It was time to see if they had learned anything from him. He doubted it.

Time to party in haji-land
.

He honked the horn, rolled down his bullet-resistant window and stuck his head outside. The black checkered cloth of his headdress flapped in the wind as he yelled in Arabic, “Help! Americans!”

The language he had once delighted in learning back when he was part of the Marine security detachment at the Cairo embassy now made him cringe. He hated the sound of his voice speaking Arabic; the language of poets and scholars had been reduced to his language of combat. He honked again and repeated himself as he drove circling the block.

Halfway into the second circle, he heard the rapid pop of an AK, then several long bursts of gunfire. He hit the brakes and the Navigator skidded to a halt sideways in the middle of the street, blocking traffic. Hunter jumped from the Navigator shouting, “
Allahu akbar.
”

The flip-flops were at least two sizes too big, but his toes gripped them as tightly as they could as he ran through the back alleys in search of Khalid the tailor.

He could hear the bullets pelting his pursuers' armored vehicles and hoped for their sake they had been smart enough to immediately call for reinforcements—it would be their only chance.

Camp Tornado Point, Anbar Province

Camille stood in Saddam's former bedroom before the Marine base commander, ignoring CIA case officer Chronister and staring at a point just behind the colonel at one of Saddam's murals depicting a serpent constricting around a pin-up girl. Camille was thinking about how much she hated herself for once again protecting Hunter. Using the sidearm she had left him with would've been loud and Hunter was the quiet type. She had little doubt he had broken Kyle's neck shortly before he surprised her in her motor pool. She wasn't about to take the rap for him, but then again she also had no desire to help Chronister nail him. She may have wanted to hurt Hunter for how he had repeatedly betrayed her, but she was loyal in the face of an outside threat and Chronister had long ago proven himself to be just that.

“Colonel Lukson, may I borrow your office for a few moments?” Chronister said as he shooed away a fly. “I need to discuss some things with Ms. Black in private. I might be able to clear this up so you don't have to hand the investigation over to the Army's Criminal Investigation Division.”

“After how they screwed us at Haditha, I'm happy to keep those CID turds from nosing around my base.” Lukson nodded once, stood and walked away.

Camille and the CIA case officer listened to the squeak of his footsteps across the marble floor. As soon as Lukson had left the room, Camille sat down.

“Really, Camille. I didn't expect you to protect Hunter Stone.”

“You're a piece of shit, Joe.”

“You just made yourself a murder suspect. We now have reason to detain you. And detention in Iraq can last a very long time.”

“Fuck you. You're desperate. You can kill anyone you want in this Allah-forsaken country and, unless you're a grunt fragging an officer, no one gives a damn.” She reached into a cargo pocket of her 5.11s, pulled out a half-pound bag of peanut M&Ms and threw a handful into her mouth.

“But you handed me a little more leverage to persuade you to come back to work for me,” Chronister said as a pigeon flew near them. Both turned their heads and watched as it landed on a headless statue covered in bird droppings. Chronister continued, “And yeah, I'm getting desperate. As soon as I get some loose ends of a project squared away, I finally get to retire.”

“Work for you again? Go to hell.”

“You've done well for yourself since leaving the Agency. You're a rich lady now. Looks to me like you should be thanking me.”

“I got out because I saw an opportunity to do what I've always wanted—something I never had at the CIA—despite your promises.” She held the M&Ms in her sweaty hand so long the color was rubbing off them.

“You're a damn good operator, but you never would've survived in the Special Activities Division—no woman ever has. Come on, Camille, you know those operators. They're all Delta and SEALs. They don't play with girls. They're the Agency's military—they never would've let you go out on a mission with them no matter how desperate they got. If I hadn't stepped in, you'd still be at the Agency making coffee for the boys.”

“Right. And if I were still working for you, I'd be servicing dead drops, sticking messages under things and marking the spots with chalk—takes real skill. You know, I found out that Iggy had actually approved my transfer over to them. I certified in all the Black Book standards—the exact same standards all the Delta operators train to.”

“Camille, honey, no one doubts you're every bit as good as they are.” He held his hand out and pointed at the M&M bag. “Gimme.”

She hesitated, then poured him a handful, took more for herself and dropped the bag onto the desk. Joe was the one who had gotten her hooked on them back when he had taken her to Algiers on her first undercover mission for the Agency.

“I trained all my life for that kind of action.” Camille wiped her green and red stained palm on her pants. “You lied to me that I'd get it in the Agency.”

“I told the truth. I thought it would be different.”

“It would've been if you hadn't sabotaged me.”

“You're like a daughter to me. I was protecting you,” Joe said. “They would've fucked you good, left you alone, hanging in the cold on some mission, expecting an extraction that would never come. I've seen them do it to others.”

He picked up the bag of M&Ms and held it out to her. Camille stared at him, studying him as she took the candy. He was an expert at deception and manipulation, but he actually seemed sincere. She wanted him to be sincere. “Quit shitting me.”

“You were the best student I ever had. I got a real kick out of mentoring you. I didn't want to lose you. You know what they say, ‘all's fair in love, war and the Agency.'”

She held up her index finger and bowed her head slightly while she finished chewing, then she swallowed. “What do you want?”

“A job done right.”

“I have contracts for anything the Agency wants. Have someone else contact one of my ops officers, give him a target and my boys will take care of it.”

“I want you to do it personally.” Chronister paused, looked her in the eyes and appeared for a second as if he was going to crack a smile. Then he said, “I want you to kill Hunter Stone.”

Ramadi, Anbar Province

Ramadi was an unending stretch of bombed-out houses, neglected alleyways and decaying two-story concrete tenements. Garbage heaps and twisted car frames cluttered even the best neighborhoods. Roosters crowed from behind walled courtyards and dirty, skinny children were everywhere, playing in the streets and on rooftops. Hunter walked along an open ditch that smelled of sewage as he headed toward his contact's tailor shop in the downtown
souk
. With his white dress and checkered headscarf, he looked like an Iraqi, but he walked like an American and he knew it. He continually forced himself to slow down and amble along, reminding himself he was in no rush. Rubicon didn't have a chance at finding him. At that moment his biggest threats were the blister on his left foot and his growing thirst. He could live with that.

After a few hours of walking, he entered the market district. Sticky bodies, hawkers' cries, stale urine, diesel fumes, grilled lamb, smoke—the
souk
was a sensory explosion and lack of sleep and high levels of adrenaline made the assault worse. And everyone but him seemed to be carrying an assault rifle.

The tiny shops spilled out onto the streets, blocking already crowded sidewalks. Vendors carrying their entire inventory in small crates clogged the throng of people, thrusting watches, chewing gum and CDs into the faces of anyone careless enough to glance their way. He even spotted two vendors selling automatic weapons and grenades. Car horns competed for attention with the latest pop divas from Egypt. Hunter shoved his way through the sweaty masses, searching for Khalid's tailor shop among the many small stores selling satellite dishes, pirated DVDs and small appliances.

In the middle of a busy street corner, an old woman was hunched over a metal tub filled with large chunks of ice and plastic bottles of desalinated water imported from Kuwait. She wore head-to-toe black. Her hair was gray, her teeth rotten—Hunter guessed she was in her forties. Poor women did not age well in this part of the world.

Hunter fished a water bottle from the tub and checked to make sure the seal was intact.
Saddam's revenge
because of some unscrupulous vendor selling rebottled Euphrates water was the last thing he needed. He pulled the carjacker's money from his pocket. The crisp bills were pressed together in tight folds. He peeled off a pink 25,000 dinar note, the biggest they had printed and the smallest the guy had. On the black market, it was worth about twenty-five bucks in real money. The woman wrinkled her nose and said something he couldn't hear and he shrugged his shoulders. She stood, told him to wait, then disappeared into the crowd. He gulped down a bottle, then a second one. Even though he was thirsty, the desalinated seawater tasted flat. A few minutes later, the woman reappeared and handed him a wad of purple, brown and blue bills and some coins. He shoved them into his pocket without counting and walked on.

Merchant stalls sold baskets of pomegranates, mounds of spices and stacks of melons. A seller held out a handful of pistachios and Hunter took a sample. He broke it open and ate it, but the first nut was bad and the aftertaste bitter. He had once loved exploring exotic Third World markets, but his three combat tours in Iraq had drained away the joy. Now every car concealed explosives, every merchant harbored an AK, each sleeve cloaked a knife and a crowd was only one incitement away from a mob. He loathed this place for what it had taken away from him.

He strolled past a bakery with a display window stuffed with honey-drenched sweets. His mouth watered. Promising himself that someday after the war he would return with Stella to enjoy it, he kept walking, but he couldn't get over the pleasures the place had taken away from him. He stopped. Iraq was not going to defeat Hunter Stone. Hell, it wasn't even going to get to him today. He returned to the shop and bought a bag full of treats. Standing on the street corner taking in the bustle of the market, he shooed away the flies as he downed a half-dozen gooey, nut-filled pastries. The day had definitely taken a turn for the better.

Camp Tornado Point, Anbar Province

“Kill Hunter Stone?” Camille laughed. “I don't know who you're talking about. Who's Hunter Stone?” Camille wasn't sure how deep the Agency had nosed around into her relationship with Hunter. Out of fear for each other's safety, they each had gone to extreme efforts to protect their privacy, but they apparently hadn't gone far enough.

“Come on, Stella.”

“Camille Black, please.”

“We've known each other too long to fuck around with games like this. And quit hogging those M&Ms.”

“Help yourself, but you've got to be kidding if you think I'm going to eliminate Hunter for you.” She held out the bag while he fished out a handful. “What the hell did he do?”

“He's put this Agency in a very difficult position, but I think the same can be said about what he's done to you.”

“I try to stay out of CIA politics, especially since 9/11 when the Pentagon started trying to short-sheet you guys at Langley.”

“Short-sheet us, hell. They've been out for blood and they're not going to be happy until they're standing over the Agency's lifeless corpse. But this isn't about Washington politics. Stone's gone over to the other side.”

“Bullshit.” Camille leaned back in the chair and left the bag of candy on the Marine colonel's desk.

Chronister reached into a worn leather attaché on the floor and removed a stack of papers. He passed Camille a photo of Hunter handing over a crate to someone on a loading dock. She glanced at it and immediately handed it back to Chronister.

“This shows nothing.”

Chronister passed Camille a stack of photos depicting Hunter at the same warehouse with the same man. He also included other shots of Hunter with a dark beard and in Iraqi dress meeting with the same figure in a crowded bazaar. Chronister continued speaking. “The man he's turning the weapons over to is a lieutenant of al-Zahrani. It doesn't get much more serious than supplying weapons to one of the two men scrambling to become bin Laden's successor.”

“OBL's successor. I've been hearing a lot about that lately. So did some al Qaeda lieutenants finally catch on you've been holding the fucker for years and seize the opportunity to take over the network? Did they figure out that you've been running him, stringing them along, releasing just enough messages to make them think he's in charge from some rathole in Pakistan?”

“I don't have a clue what you're talking about.” Chronister grinned.

Camille knew Hunter was part of the team that, less than a year after 9/11, had caught bin Laden, barely alive, hiding in a cave in a northern Pakistan. Of course, Hunter would never come right out and tell her, but instead had spun a wild yarn about a successful hunting trip for the world's rarest animal, his excitement betraying the thinly disguised metaphor. “Don't patronize me. You've had bin Laden on ice in Afghanistan for years. I've heard so many specifics from so many different units, I could take you to the cell block where you're holding him. Hell, I even know the names of the kidney specialists you've got keeping him alive—if he's still alive.”

“Al Qaeda sure has been an organizational disaster for years, hasn't it?” Chronister laughed.

“Looks to me that might be changing with al-Zahrani and Abdullah fighting to pick up the pieces.”

“It's not going to happen, unless, of course, they enlist a lot of traitors like Hunter Stone to help them out.”

“Hunter is not a traitor. No way.”

“Not knowingly. My guess is that he believes he's selling stuff to run-of-the-mill insurgents. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to betraying his country. You, my dear, are a different matter. Do you know how Stone got those arms caches—by staying one step ahead of Black Management. You really have to hand it to the guy. He's got balls—crossing not only us, but Rubicon and you. He didn't go after Triple Canopy, Blackwater or any of the others. Think about it. He chose to mess with Camille Black's very own Black Management. Think anything personal went into that decision to fuck Black Management? I think he wanted to screw you, Stella—screw the great Camille Black.”

“Anything personal between myself and Mr. Stone is none of your goddamn business.” Camille struggled to keep her voice steady, not wanting to show Chronister how furious she felt. Part of her couldn't believe that Hunter would do anything to intentionally hurt her, but she had suffered so much over his fictional death, it was getting easier and easier to believe. She grabbed the bag of M&Ms and chomped down as many as she could shove into her mouth. Her anger grew with each bite as she studied the photographs. Chronister sat back and waited.

“Am I supposed to believe that he was working for you at the Agency when he infiltrated Rubicon?”

“He
was
ours.”

“Word on the street is that he was hooked up with Task Force Zulu.” Camille tossed the photos onto the desk.

“He did try to go to the Pentagon black units first, but they all turned him down. You know how strict certain units are about the operators having their lives in order so they're not vulnerable to blackmail. His was a fucking mess. I assume you might know something about this.”

“You're talking about financial hangovers from his ex-wife?”

“Ex-wives. According to his file, he's still paying on two separate boob jobs for those gals. Didn't he knock up that last one—the crazy one—when you and I were undercover after those suitcase nukes in Turkmenistan?”

“We were both seeing other people—sort of.”

“Sort of.”

“As a good Southern boy, he felt he had to do right by her and marry her.” Camille wiped her hands on her pants.

“I'm from Brooklyn. The South doesn't make a fucking bit of sense to me. But seems like he screwed you big time.”

Camille stood. “Look, I've got to go.”

“Stone approached the Agency a couple of years ago when things got a little too confusing for him. We helped him simplify his life by faking his death.”

“A couple of years ago. When exactly?”

“A little over two years ago—it was early March.”

“You mean a month before he was supposed to marry me?”

“I mean a month before he was supposed to marry you
and
Julia Lewis.”