There had been stories in the news about Shahim. Stories about the FBI locating him and his terrorist cell in DC. According to the news they had not apprehended Shahim himself, which was lucky for the FBI agents involved, of course, but since those initial frenzied reports, there had been nothing. If all was going according to plan the notorious killer should be back in Pakistan by now and they would have to hope the man was true to his word. True to his word, and indeed able to do all he had promised. Because now that they had him on their side so much depended on him being every bit as fearsome as his terrible reputation suggested.

An unsettling feeling rumbled in Jack’s stomach, part hunger, and part discomfort at having to rely on unknowns. Jack did not like variables, he liked known entities and detailed intelligence. He liked his plans to be layers of redundancy upon redundancy, and his brow furrowed at the thought of leaving so much to the efforts of one man, let alone this particular man. But John had been insistent that the Agent that they knew as Shahim Al Khazar was both extremely reliable and amply resourceful. No, his abilities were not in question, thought Jack, they had seen plenty of evidence of what he could do. And despite concerns on the parts of Jack and Barrett, Neal and Ayala had mirrored John’s opinion that Shahim could be relied upon, and had even expressed cautious optimism about the new plan.

Jack had wrestled with it all for months but had failed to come up with a better solution, or a way to mitigate the risks he saw in their current course, so, like he had numerous times before, Jack set his doubts aside and returned his focus to the sky, contemplating the satellites which his friends and he were quietly plotting against. A mental image of the earth rotated in his mind with a caricaturishly large version of himself standing on the Hawaiian isles as the planet revolved.