A bloodstain blossomed across the warlord’s shirt. The hollow-point round had mushroomed inside his chest and nicked his heart. Even a trauma team couldn’t save him now.

But he wasn’t dead yet.

Yaxaas staggered backward, his strength leaving him rapidly. He grasped at the linen drapes as he fell onto the veranda floor. His gun tumbled into the courtyard.

The two men locked eyes as the life drained from the warlord’s body.

The world was a better place.

But Pickens wasn’t in Dujuma.

Jake could feel it.

Shadows flickered in the candlelight as his gaze moved from Yaxaas’s body on the veranda, to the weapons mounted on the walls, to the door on the side wall.

Jake holstered his pistol and drew his knife. He tested the door handle with his left hand.

It was unlocked.

He leaned forward, tightened his grip on the knife, and opened the door.

It was a bedroom, lit by another candle. To the left was another set of French doors, also open to the courtyard. To the right was a four-poster bed, with a bathroom in the far corner.

In the middle of the room, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and handcuffed to a chair, was Pickens.

EIGHTY-SIX

PICKENS WAS SLUMPED over, with a bandage wrapped around his head. A strip of duct tape covered his mouth.

Jake ripped it off.

“Sonofa—” Pickens said as he came to. The tape had nearly taken a layer of skin with it.

“They never taught you how to get out of handcuffs in the OSS?” said Jake.

“First thing I learned,” Pickens said with a smile. He raised his hands. Dangling from one wrist were the open cuffs. “But I didn’t know if it was going to be you or Yaxaas coming through that door.”

“I’ll bet.”

Jake glimpsed the roll of duct tape on the bedside table.

“You here alone?” said Pickens.

Jake glanced back to the office to make sure no one had entered behind him.

Pickens’s massive biceps glistened with sweat as he unlocked the other handcuff and rubbed his wrists.

“Lead the way,” Pickens said, gesturing toward the door.

He took a step forward.

The two men were an arm’s length apart.

Jake stepped back into the warlord’s office. Yaxaas’s body was just a few feet away.

“I thought you were dead,” said Jake.

“They brought me here after you left me at the checkpoint.”

“The ambush,” Jake said.

Pickens shrugged. “They had us boxed in.”

“You knew I’d be unarmed coming from the airport, but you forgot about the gun I kept in the glove compartment.”

“Are you all right, man? You know I’m the one who got shot in the head.”

“Seriously?” said Pickens. He took another step forward.

Jake moved to the side, putting the corner of the desk between them.

“It was all a big show, wasn’t it?” said Jake. “Just like this.”