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
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Jake closed his eyes and played dead. He knew he couldn’t take much more. But the man had a great deal of experience with torturing people, and he grabbed Jake’s crotch and twisted his testicles as if he were trying to wring out a wet towel.
Jake would have screamed, but his pain needle was already pegged on 10 and his body had only one response left.
He passed out again.
SIXTY-TWO
IT WAS MIDMORNING, the clinic’s busiest time of day, but it looked like dusk on the streets of Mogadishu. Days of strong winds had blown towering dark clouds over the eastern horizon, blocking the sun’s relentless rays and heightening anticipation of the rains to come.
The mood on the streets, even among the line of patients waiting outside the clinic, was one of yearning. Hopes had been dashed before, but after two unrelenting years of drought, cholera, and famine, even dreams had to be seized.
A woman in a tan hijab was next in line when the clinic’s director walked outside past the two security guards to do a preliminary evaluation. The director was kneeling, with a clipboard in her hand, when two white pickup trucks stopped out front.
Ten gunmen jumped out.
The director leapt to her feet and yelled for everyone to scatter, but the patients were sick and slow to move. One of the gunmen saw the director yelling and spotted the clipboard in her hands and identified her as an authority figure.
He raised his rifle.
But the clinic guards were unconstrained by cumbersome rules of engagement—or any rules of engagement, for that matter; it was Mogadishu after all, and ten men with rifles did not portend good news. The guards fired simultaneously into the cluster of gunmen. Neither man had any real training, but they did have automatic weapons, so the law of averages worked in their favor and they managed to hit a few of the attackers—including the man who’d been aiming at the director.
It bought her enough time to grab the woman in the tan hijab and push her inside the clinic, but it was the last of many selfless acts the director would perform in her lifetime. The gunmen counterattacked, and she was hit several times in her hip, back, and arm as she attempted to save the next person in line. She fell to the ground, just a few feet from the clinic that had saved so many but could not save her.
The gunmen continued firing into the crowd until everyone who’d been waiting had either escaped or been killed. The body count was already approaching twenty by the time the head gunman stepped over the director’s body and entered Badeed’s clinic.
It was Masaska.