He was cold and wet. He hadn’t eaten in thirty-six hours and the only water he’d drunk in the past twelve was what he’d been able to collect in his upside-down hat. Cramps had seized his legs and his head pounded. But more than food, more than water or a comfortable bed, what Jake wanted was confirmation—some sort of evidence that the weapon was in camp and he wasn’t wasting time in Dujuma while Yaxaas was preparing to use it somewhere else.

Six hours later, Jake got his present.

Four men slid open the camp’s main gate and the warlord’s armored Range Rover pulled in, followed by a refrigerated delivery truck. Both vehicles were caked with mud. From the windshields, where the wipers had cleared just enough area for the drivers to see, to the doors and fenders, which looked as if they’d been dunked in quicksand, there wasn’t a speck of paint or glass showing. Jake realized that, in a land that had gone years without more than an inch of rain, the downpours of the last few days had washed out the roads. The rural camp had been cut off from the rest of Somalia.

Which was great news for the rest of Somalia.

The man with the bandoliers walked across camp to greet the warlord. Yaxaas stepped out wearing a pair of crocodile-skin cowboy boots.

Jake moved no faster than a caterpillar as he reached over the rifle and increased the scope’s magnification. Tucked into his shoulder and resting on a bipod, the rifle was as stable as a rock. The wind was calm and his holdover at this distance would be negligible. The .308 Winchester would do its job as long as he did his. He visualized the bullet leaving the rifle, its vapor trail arcing down toward Yaxaas, and the warlord collapsing on the ground with a terminal chest wound.

But it wasn’t time.

The bioweapon had to be destroyed first.

The Range Rover’s rear doors opened and two men with AK-47s stepped out, followed by a third man who’d been pinned in the back seat. He moved slowly, with a bandage covering most of his head. One of the gunmen motioned toward the western edge of camp and the three of them began walking with the prisoner in the middle.

The wounded man looked into the hills as he walked and Jake caught a glimpse of his face through the high-power rifle scope.

It was Pickens.

SEVENTY-SEVEN

THE THREE MEN disappeared from sight, blocked from Jake’s view by the hills, but a wide grin crept across his face as he raised his head from the scope.

Pickens was alive.

It was the first good news he’d had in days.

But it wrecked his plan.