Jake pushed the small car to its limit, racing the wrong direction up one-way roads, careening onto cross streets through oncoming traffic, and dodging pedestrians while speeding down narrow alleys. Maintaining cover was a thing of the past. Jake now cared only about arriving without a tail.

He entered the Yaaqshiid district of eastern Mogadishu and approached Yaxaas’s neighborhood from the south. Trash blew across the roads, abandoned buildings outnumbered those that were occupied, and emaciated residents wandered aimlessly through the streets.

The warlord’s compound filled an entire block. The satellite images had shown a square building in the middle, with a courtyard and what looked like a pond in its center, but all Jake could see from the street was a high wall. The roads on three sides of the block were wide and exposed, and would be dangerous for Jake to cross, but the street on the western edge was no more than a narrow alley bordered by a cluster of shanties.

Jake turned down the alley. Though there were thousands of similar cars in Mogadishu, the little white Suzuki with the tinted windows attracted hard stares from the warlord’s guards. Jake counted four of them stationed outside the compound’s walls—all carrying Kalashnikovs and wearing radios strapped to their belts. There were sure to be more men inside.

On his left were the shanties, dozens of palm trees, and the wall to Yaxaas’s compound. It was twelve-foot-high poured concrete, topped with barbed wire. Jake drove slowly and studied the layout through the heavily tinted windows. The canopy of palm trees had hidden the alley and the shanties from the satellite images—and given Jake his infiltration point.

He drove out of the district and spent hours winding his way through the city streets, killing time, until it was time to kill.

He returned two hours after dark.

Jake parked four blocks away and infiltrated on foot. The night air was hot and dry, and he wore an open shirt over his tactical vest and a small pack on his back. A gentle breeze rattled the overhead palm fronds while candlelight and the occasional kerosene lamp flickered inside the shanties. Despite the rats’ nest of power lines directly above, none of the makeshift homes had electricity.

He moved silently between the shacks, catching snippets of unintelligible conversations and seeing occasional shadows. He paused only once, when a growling dog blocked his path, but Jake knelt on one knee, drew his pistol with his right hand, and slowly extended his other one. The mutt lowered its head, sniffed Jake’s hand, and licked it once. Jake scratched the mongrel behind the ears and holstered his weapon.

He continued on to a single palm tree that towered above the others and duct-taped a block of plastic explosives and a radio detonator to its trunk.

Across the alley was Yaxaas’s compound, bordered by more trees. The same four guards were patrolling the walls.