Bullets flew in both directions, sprayed aimlessly down the street. Neither side cared that the locals who were caught outside took more fire than the enemy. Innocent men, women, and children fell where they stood.

Bodies lay strewn about the block. The neighborhood children, numb from years of war and hungry from years of famine, quickly stripped the dead of anything of value: sandals, weapons, and whatever else they could scrounge. By the time the fighting was over, the road was lined with shattered windows, pockmarked walls, and puddles of blood.

More bystanders were killed than enemy combatants and, in a place where human life had no value, both sides considered it a victory.

SIXTY

HOT AIR BLEW through the SUV’s interior as the passengers rode with their gun barrels sticking out the open windows. Nacay was in the front passenger seat and regularly checking his side-view mirror while the driver hurtled down side streets and up alleyways. One of the gunmen riding in back had put a hood over Jake’s head and the SUV made dozens of turns until the men inside were sure they weren’t being followed.

Two men slid open the fifteen-foot-high doors to a warehouse as the black SUV approached. It sped inside and stopped in the back. Nacay took Jake and three henchmen and climbed into a white sedan with heavily tinted windows. Less than a minute later, the white sedan and two decoys drove out of the warehouse and fanned out in different directions to confuse any aerial surveillance the Americans might have deployed.

Jake was sandwiched in the back between two Darood gunmen while Nacay rode shotgun. The sedan’s driver had undergone a remarkable transformation—waiting patiently while a Bajaj in front of him blocked traffic to discharge a passenger, then slowly pulling around and driving down a side street. In stark contrast to his time behind the wheel of the black SUV, the driver was doing everything possible to avoid drawing attention to the sedan.

Probably 80 percent of the cars in Somalia were white sedans or hatchbacks, and as they headed northwest through the city, the vehicle with Jake inside had effectively disappeared. They were making no more than thirty miles per hour, simply going with the flow of the traffic around them—when the Toyota minivan in front of them slammed on its brakes.

Clap and two of his men stepped out of the van and raised their weapons. A second later, a gray SUV holding the rest of the Ground Branch team skidded to a halt behind the sedan and pressed hard against its rear bumper.

Though Jake had lost his earpiece, he still had the radio transceiver unit strapped to his waist. Clap and the Ground Branch team had been tracking him using a system known as ATAK, which, among other things, overlaid his position onto a moving map on their mobile phones.

Nacay’s driver revved his engine and shifted into reverse.