Jake turned off the road, dropped a satchel in the tall grass, and headed into the hills, riding up increasingly steep slopes. Several times he threaded his way through narrow ravines or cut switchbacks across the hills until he’d reached his destination. He shut down the bike and hiked the last hundred yards to a location he’d noted on the map.

He crawled up the side of the hill with his rifle laid across his forearms. The land smelled of dirt and grass and wildflowers that were already blooming from the rains.

Still prone at the summit, Jake raised the rifle, switched on the night scope, and scanned the area. Off to the left, hidden behind a hill, lay the machine gun nest and the camp. To his right, obstructed by other hills, lay Dujuma.

But Jake hadn’t come for the view.

What he wanted was right in front of him.

He took his pack and climbed down the hillside. Dawn was two hours away—and he had work to do.

SEVENTY-NINE

THE SUN HAD just risen above the horizon when Jake climbed back to the hilltop. His work in the valley had been productive but taken longer than expected. He applied fresh camo to his face, tucked fresh grass into his hat, and settled in behind the gun. The road was sixty feet beneath him and shaped like a giant letter V. To his left was a straightaway, directly under him was a sharp corner, and to his right was another straightaway.

There wasn’t much left for him to do, but wait.

With the rainstorm gone and the skies clear, the temperature soared quickly into the high nineties, along with the humidity. Jake lay prone in the grass under a majestic old leadwood tree, whose barren branches would break up his form on the ground. Aside from the buzzing of insects and the occasional screech of a distant monkey, the scene was quiet.

Nearly twenty-four hours later, it was just as quiet.

It was just before daybreak when a familiar sound woke him from a catnap. It was the helicopter’s turbine engine spooling up.

A shot of adrenaline coursed through Jake’s veins and he was instantly hyper-alert. As before, the success of the mission would hinge on the events of the next few minutes—it was the nature of being a solo operator. There was no second line of defense if Jake were to die. The helicopter was the single greatest threat he faced and he had no control over it.

Not directly, anyway.

He switched on his NVGs and watched the helo lift into the air above camp. It flew slowly, making no more than five or ten knots. It meant that Yaxaas wasn’t moving the biowarfare agent by air—otherwise the helicopter would have flown directly to Mogadishu—which was good news.