“All three of you are going to be wearing GPS units,” Mark Swann said. “The car you ride in will have a strobing transponder embedded on the roof—it’ll be visible from the sky by our guys, but not on the ground by Parr’s guys.”

“Unless he has command of a satellite or a drone,” Newsam said.

Swann shook his head. “I highly doubt it. The guy has gone all the way outlaw. The US military controls those skies. Parr is trying to stay invisible. He’s not flying anything.”

“Two Black Hawks with Ranger squads on each are going to be trailing you,” Trudy continued. “Also, if need be, there will be an Apache gunship on call. You can call in reinforcements or a heavy airstrike at any time.”

“So the whole game…” Luke began.

She nodded. “Yes. You’re following the informant down the rabbit hole, and confirming that he has led you to Parr. Once in Parr’s presence, you make the positive ID on him. At that point, Parr can surrender to you or he can die. The choice will be his to make.”

“And we’re dangled there in front of him like fresh meat,” Newsam said.

“Well, not in so many words,” Trudy said. “But…”

“Yes,” Mark Swann said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

May 6

11:05 a.m. Arabian Standard Time (4:05 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)

The Embassy of the United States in Iraq (aka the Republican Palace)

The International Zone (aka the Green Zone)

Karkh District

Baghdad, Iraq

“How was the trip in from the airport?” Big Daddy Bill Cronin said.

He was a bear of a man. Tall, with a thick body, big shoulders and arms, and a bushy red beard maybe softening now and going a bit gray. Luke had known Big Daddy for a few years. Two years ago, Big Daddy had been his CIA handler when Luke went deep undercover here in Iraq.

“Fine,” Luke said.

And it had been fine. If fine meant riding at high speed in a convoy of armored Humvees, each one with passengers packed in like sardines, heavily armed soldiers hanging out the windows, aiming their guns at anything and everything every inch of the way, and screaming curses in Arabic at any and all human beings they passed.

The convoy didn’t take any enemy fire on the trip, and that was fine.

“And the landing? How was that?”

“The pilots stuck the landing, to coin a phrase,” Luke said. “A few people puked, but we came in safe and sound.” The second leg of their trip had been a flight from Germany aboard a medium-sized passenger jet. The plane had come down to the Baghdad airport in corkscrew fashion, banking hard left and dropping fast the entire way, to thwart any rocket attacks from the ground. When the plane hit the runway, the pilots braked hard, bringing the plane to an abrupt stop.