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?
The Darood thugs yanked Jake from the car and threw him to the ground.
“He has a tracking device,” screamed the warlord’s son. “Find it!”
The goons stripped Jake to his underwear and found the radio transceiver.
Nacay drew his pistol and pointed it at Jake’s head, but he lowered the weapon when he heard a car engine being pushed to its redline and closing in fast.
“We’ll finish this later,” Nacay said to Jake. “I promise you.”
The men threw Jake back into the sedan and the car did a U-turn in the sandy lot. Nacay lowered his window as they approached the exit and, with the skill of an NBA all-star, lobbed the radio beacon into the garbage truck’s hopper.
Ten minutes later, the white sedan pulled back inside the Darood warehouse. The black SUV was gone, the doors slid shut, and the sunlight vanished. Overhead fluorescent lights struggled to light the cavernous room. All around, the high walls were lined with metal racks filled with boxes of ammunition, crates of weapons, and sundry items acquired by Yaxaas’s men from around the Horn of Africa.
The goons hauled Jake from the back seat, threw him to the floor, and struck him roughly.
A man with a disfigured face approached from a dark corner.
“What do we do with this one?” he said.
“Soften him up,” said Nacay.
“How soft?”
“Liquefied.”
Nacay and his men left in the white Nissan, wholly unconcerned about driving around Mogadishu in a car scarred with dozens of bullet holes.
The man wasted no time carrying out his instructions.
Two of his cohorts manhandled Jake to the back of the warehouse and tied him spread-eagle to one of the metal racks. They were thugs, wholly untrained in the art of extracting information through pain, but information wasn’t their objective. Their goal was pain itself.
And at that they excelled.
—
THE BUILDING WAS a hive of activity when Jake regained consciousness. Two white pickup trucks were parked in the center of the warehouse floor. Behind them, four men were busy sliding rectangular plywood benches into the beds—it gave the passengers the option of riding with their legs inside or dangling them over the fenders. More men stood throughout the warehouse, speaking a mixture of Arabic and Somali and loading their chest rigs with AK-47 magazines and hand grenades. Whatever they were suiting up for was going to be bloody, and Jake hoped it wasn’t going be another assault on the Ground Branch team. He’d seen the technical open fire on his friends and knew they’d taken casualties. In their current condition, there was no way they could survive a second assault by a force this size.
Jake spotted the man with the disfigured cheek walking toward him in the dim light. He had a pistol in his hand.