“Yaxaas’s compound is heavily guarded. We’ll need to begin pattern-of-life surveillance to locate a spot outside the area where we can make contact, but—”

“He eats lunch a couple of times a week at the Liido Seafood restaurant,” Clap said. He tapped a spot on the map. “We’ll set up there in the morning.”

—

THE FIRST TWO Ground Branch men left just before sunrise, when most of Mogadishu was still asleep, and they made it to Liido Beach in under twenty minutes.

The restaurant was directly on the beach, open on three sides with only a thatched roof overhead and a kitchen in the rear. The beautiful white sand beach would have been filled with families before war and famine had devastated the country.

Today it was empty.

The Ground Branch men parked their unfortunately named Toyota Isis minivan on a side street and headed out on foot in opposite directions. Both were African American and trained to remain inconspicuous. They checked in over their communication sets from discreet observation posts flanking the restaurant, casually conducting countersurveillance sweeps on each other every half hour or so. There was little activity on the waterfront aside from the ever-present fishermen who were dragging their nets ashore and the feral cats that were scavenging through them.

The team had no idea if Yaxaas would visit the restaurant today, but at the very minimum it would be an opportunity to set up surveillance, assess security, determine ingress and egress routes, and note any CCTV cameras, private security, or government forces that could potentially interfere with their mission.

An hour later, two different Ground Branch officers rolled up in a tiny Toyota Starlet to a curbside fruit and vegetable stand. They purchased a pineapple and a few bananas while the original two rotated back to the safe house. And so it went for the next five hours, with the men constantly changing vehicles, disguises, clothing, and locations so that no one in the area would realize the intense surveillance that was being conducted.

It was nearly two p.m. when Jake got the call. Yaxaas’s armored Range Rover had just arrived, along with two pickup trucks filled with gunmen. Jake, Pickens, and the rest of the Ground Branch team loaded into the remaining vehicles and executed a plan they’d devised based on the lax posture of Yaxaas’s security, who seemed to be relying on their sheer presence to deter any threat as opposed to any tactical deployment. Most were hanging around their pickups with their weapons slung, with only two guards inside the restaurant with the principal.

The Ground Branch men converged on the location from three directions and, in a matter of seconds, had surrounded the restaurant—unnoticed by Yaxaas’s goons.

But that was about to change.

THIRTY-SIX