Chapters (96)
- Cover
- Berkley titles by David Ricciardi
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- CHARACTER LIST
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EIGHTY-FIVE
- EIGHTY-SIX
- EIGHTY-SEVEN
- Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Clap nodded. The real number was probably closer to a thousand times, but at least Jake knew what he didn’t know. That awareness would improve their odds of coming out of this thing alive.
“Well,” said Clap, “the first thing we’ll need to do is get him out in the open.”
FIFTY-SIX
THE BAKAARA MARKET looked like an enormous maze that had been packed with people. Men in long pants and dress shirts and women in brightly colored hijabs walked haphazardly across the dusty ground and between the densely packed collection of outdoor stalls. Nearly everything that was for sale in Mogadishu was available within its borders, and all of it would be taken home in the back of a three-wheeled Bajaj.
Many stalls were little more than an umbrella, a man in a plastic chair, and a few ceramic pots or maybe a box of vegetables that had escaped the drought. The more established storefronts had sun-bleached tarps strung across wooden frames. One vendor served nothing but clay bowls filled with rice while the butcher next to him left rare and expensive slabs of raw beef hanging from a tree branch in the afternoon heat and swarming with flies.
Yaxaas had agreed to meet at the market, but only in the Abdalla Shideeye section. It was a black market within the Bakaara—a place to acquire counterfeit items such as identity cards and passports, or stolen items, such as rifles and RPGs.
Clap and the rest of the Ground Branch team arrived early to conduct pre-mission reconnaissance and run a communications check. Everyone including Jake was wearing a covert microphone and earpiece. The team had two vehicles parked nearby and all the gear they’d need for the snatch: a fast-acting sedative, weapons, flash-bangs, restraints, and even a disguise for Yaxaas if it became necessary to get him through a checkpoint.
The Bakaara Market was a central fixture of Mogadishu life and had attracted several IED attacks over the years. Bombs had been hidden in everything from fire extinguishers, toolboxes, and flashlights to cars and trucks. The Ground Branch team quickly identified several men as potential threats, but it was impossible to know if they were terrorists, undercover guards employed by the market, or Yaxaas’s goons.
It was midday, and the heat was oppressive in the congested bazaar. A pregnant woman walked by, sweating profusely under her hijab and dragging her purchases behind her in a canvas sack. A skinny old man passed by in the opposite direction, leading an even skinnier mule to what could only be its grave.