“I wouldn’t tell anyone about this conversation,” Jake said. “Yaxaas won’t look kindly on someone sharing his entire operation with a foreign intelligence service.”

TWENTY-NINE

IT’S YAXAAS,” JAKE said upon returning to the safe house.

“The banker confirmed it?” Pickens said.

Jake nodded.

“What about Badeed?”

“Not involved,” Jake said. He pulled out a small notebook and dropped it on the kitchen table. He had an excellent memory, but he’d recorded the entire exchange with Zakaria and summarized it in the notebook after the two men had parted.

Pickens was reading it intently when Jake’s laptop began to trill.

“That’s probably Graves,” Jake said. “I left him a message.”

Jake opened the secure videoconferencing software on his computer.

“What do you have?” said Graves. He was in a nondescript office building in suburban Virginia.

“We’ve validated the target.” Jake said. “It’s Yaxaas.”

“Confidence level?”

“Ninety-five percent,” Jake said. He typed on the computer as he spoke. “I just sent you our files. We’ve got communications intel and now multiple-source human intel confirming it.”

Graves scratched his chin.

“What’s your assessment of this banker?”

“Highly credible. It was a cold approach we developed through the Romanos family—there’s no way he invented those details on the spot and under pressure.”

“All right,” Graves said. He spent a few seconds staring at the monitor before he spoke again. “I’ve got a few special-mission teams deployed in-country. I’ll reassign one to you. They should be in Mogadishu in a couple of days. You’re going to need some support for the next phase of the operation.”

For years, the Central Intelligence Agency had been funding and training Somali intelligence operatives, intent on helping the country develop its own counterterrorism capability against al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda, and Daesh. The Agency also conducted joint, direct-action raids with U.S. and African military forces, and CIA’s manpower contribution was from a paramilitary organization within the Special Activities Center known as Ground Branch. The special-mission team that Graves was sending to Mogadishu was composed of hardened combat veterans, handpicked from elite military special-operations units.

Trigger-pullers.

“What’s the plan for Yaxaas?”

Graves sat back in his seat and crossed his thick forearms in front of his chest. Then he smiled.

Jake knew Ted’s body language, and while he didn’t know what was coming next, he knew he wasn’t going to like it.

“What’s the plan for Yaxaas, Ted?”

“I want you to talk to him,” Graves said. “Convince him to work for us.”

“You want him to work for the government of the United States?”

“He’s not going on the payroll, Jake.”

“He tried to kill me with an IED.”

“Fortunately we don’t need him for his bomb-making skills.”

“Is this about al-Shabaab?”

“Anybody can fight al-Shabaab. We need Yaxaas to keep doing what he’s doing.”