“Yes. He knows exactly who they were. They belong to a religious school and jihad training camp about twenty miles north of here, straight along the river. His grandfather the imam knew the school, and the teachers there, well. The boy himself has visited there with family members. His grandfather and father told him it would never be, but he imagined going there to train one day when he was older. Now he says he would never join them. Their betrayal is too terrible.”

“Trudy?” Luke said into the telephone.

Her voice was there. “Yes.”

“We need another quick meeting with Don, Big Daddy, and Monty. I want permission to go in there. We’ve got a dozen guys, although we’re going to send two back with the kids. The boy believes the camp the killers came from is just up the river here. If we’re going to hit them and get a prisoner who can give us some intel, we should do it before the trail goes cold. I think we can probably do okay with ten guys.”

“When do you want to do it?” Trudy said.

Luke almost couldn’t believe what he was about to say. Don had already given him the green light home. He wanted to go home, more than anything. He wanted to see Becca. He wanted to be there when their boy was born.

But he also wanted to finish what they had started here. He didn’t like that these militia guys had come down and killed al-Barak and his entire clan. It wasn’t right, no matter what al-Barak had done. If you had a problem with the man, then kill the man. Not the family.

“Now,” Luke said.

* * *

Green light.

Three Black Hawk helicopters raced across the pale blue morning sky.

Big Daddy and Don Morris had been in agreement—move forward with an assault on the camp. Montgomery had been called away on some other business and had not been available for the meeting. But Luke had kept his SAS guys anyway.

Luke had Mark Swann patched through on his helmet radio. Swann had pored over the available satellite imagery, and seemed to have pinpointed a militia camp whose location agreed with what the child had described.

“What does it look like?” Luke said.

“It looks like a big piece of nothing,” Swann said.

“Give me more than that, Swann.”