The Saudi’s eyes wandered around the dim room. “Your new president isn’t going to help me or my family. America has always sided with the royalty no matter what they do.”

“But I don’t work for him, remember? I work for Nick Ward.”

“You mean the man who is in the possession of Gideon Auma because of me?”

“If we get him back, I’ll put in a good word.”

Isa laughed. “One last adventure. Why not? I deserve at least that.”

The Range Rover was exactly on time. Rapp let Isa lead, watching the man feign interest in his phone to keep his face obscured from surveillance cameras. The street was quiet, still waiting for the working-class locals to begin arriving home.

They slipped in the back and the driver pulled away at an unhurried pace. Only one man, but unquestionably a rough customer. He likely slotted into the kidnapping or murder-for-hire part of Claudia’s list. She was a woman with friends in low places, thank God.

“We will drive through the city and then into the desert,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “The police have cameras on poles along the route, but there is a place where the topography has created a weakness in their coverage. We can block their field of view and make a transfer. But they will only be blind for a few seconds.” He thumbed toward the floorboard behind his seat. “Everything you need is in the bag.”

Rapp watched from the backseat as the driver made another call, speaking clearly and simply on speakerphone. Apparently, Claudia had indeed imparted how Rapp felt about betrayal and the man wanted to make sure he didn’t come under suspicion. There didn’t seem to be any reason to question his motivations. So far, all communications had been with spotters stationed along the sparsely traveled two-lane highway they were on.

There was still a dim glow on the western horizon, occasionally overpowered by oncoming headlights on the other side of a broad median. The moon was growing increasingly brilliant, revealing the flat desert around them in greater and greater detail. A light breeze was kicking some dust in the air, adding to the visual distortion of that time of evening. Overall, conditions for what they had to do were about as good as could be hoped for. Whether it would be enough, though, remained to be seen.

“Five minutes,” their driver said after disconnecting the call. “Our people will be in position as I described earlier. The cameras will only be blind for twenty seconds and if you exceed that I will drive away and leave you lying on the highway. Understood?”

“We’ll make it work,” Rapp said, winding a piece of tape around Isa’s right shirt cuff to secure the loose fabric. He pulled back and checked his handiwork before reexamining similarly taped areas on his own body. Everything looked smooth. Nothing to get hung up.