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?
Yaxaas picked at his red snapper, but he’d lost his appetite.
Nacay’s phone pinged. He held it up and showed two photos to his father.
“These were taken several days ago at Aden Adde.”
The first picture was of Jake walking across the tarmac. The second image of was of him climbing into the CIA jet.
“That’s him,” Yaxaas said. “What of the plane?”
“A Gulfstream. I have someone looking into it.”
The men speculated about the Americans’ intent for several minutes until Nacay’s phone rang. He asked a few questions but mostly listened before hanging up.
“The jet is owned by a holding company and the man entered the country on a nonofficial American passport. It’s probably a false identity.”
Yaxaas shooed the flies away from his cold fish.
“Send that picture to our Albanian friends and find out if it’s the same man they encountered in Athens.”
“I could get a bomb aboard the plane and stop this nonsense before it gets out of hand.”
Yaxaas turned to face the sea. Except for a few light clouds on the eastern horizon, the sun was continuing its relentless attack on Somalia.
“No,” said the warlord. “We cannot afford another enemy right now.”
“So what do we do?”
“We wait. The United States has never understood Africa. It is only a matter of time until they make a strategic mistake, and once they do, we will use them to finish off Badeed once and for all.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
YOU’VE GOT YOUR first mission,” said Graves via videoconference. It had been just two days since Jake’s meeting with Yaxaas. “There’s a Saudi tanker leaving for North Korea that needs to disappear.”
“Why is the Agency handling this? This is as black and white as it gets.”
“Jake, you’re a talented operative, but you still have a lot to learn about politics. Relations with Saudi are still tense after the drone strike on Mecca.”
“I thought I resolved that.”
“At the end of the day, it was still an American aircraft. Now the Saudis are testing us, seeing how much slack we’ll cut them because of any latent guilt we might have.”
“Sinking their ship should clear that up.”
“That’s why we’re using Yaxaas. If the U.S. Navy stopped the ship, the Saudis would say that it wasn’t going to North Korea and the ship would turn around. They’d sell the oil somewhere else and blame us for not trusting them.”
“It’s like dealing with a manipulative child.”
Graves nodded. “Welcome to international relations.”
“So we sink the ship, the Saudis never know exactly what happened, and they lose twenty million dollars’ worth of oil.”
“Now you’re catching on,” said Graves.
“Except a Somali warlord gets the twenty million and the entire crew has to die—all because the president doesn’t want to call the Saudi king and tell him to knock it off?”