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?
Up and back.
Up and back.
Even after the melee in Dujuma, it was a monotonous routine, and Jake crouched in the shadows until the nearest guard passed by, his senses dulled by the endless repetition.
Jake walked silently across the alley and shimmied up one of the larger palm trees until he could see over the wall into the compound. He counted three more guards, all armed, including one barely fifty feet away. The main building was a square mass of cinder blocks and steel doors. Against the far wall were four pickup trucks.
And the battle-scarred Range Rover.
Jake settled in, concealed in darkness, with his feet propped against the compound wall and his back against the tree. The western guard passed by underneath him at least a dozen times without ever looking up.
It was midnight when the mobile phone vibrated in Jake’s pocket. He checked the camera feed from the security system and saw a man standing outside the safe house.
Jake buzzed him in.
Five minutes later, a second man arrived.
But instead of buzzing him in, Jake dialed another number and punched a four-digit code into the phone.
The sky over central Mogadishu turned orange and a rumble like a thousand claps of thunder rolled across the ground.
Yaxaas’s men assumed the massive explosion was another al-Shabaab IED targeting Villa Somalia.
But they were wrong.
EIGHTY-FOUR
IT WAS THE CIA safe house.
Jake pressed the radio firing device on his vest, detonating the plastic explosives he’d planted a hundred feet away at the base of the palm tree. The big tree snapped in two and fell to the ground—taking the overhead power lines with it.
The neighborhood plunged into darkness.
Jake moved quickly. The element of surprise was his greatest tactical advantage—and it wouldn’t last long. He flipped his night vision goggles into place and activated the infrared laser on his pistol.
Inside the compound, a metal door burst open and four men with flashlights ran from the main building. They started the pickup trucks and sped through the gate to block the intersections around Yaxaas’s compound with the vehicles. The guards who’d been patrolling the exterior linked up with the trucks, weapons at the ready, while two more guards slid the gate shut and took up station inside the compound.
The warlord’s men were sealing the perimeter—focused on external threats—just as Jake had hoped.
With one hand on his NVGs and one hand holding his weapon, he dropped over the wall and rolled onto his side to absorb the impact. He came up on one knee with the pistol in both hands, scanning the interior of the darkened compound.
Another man ran out of the building with a submachine gun in his hands. Jake recognized him as one of the guards who’d been shadowing Pickens in Dujuma.