For several minutes, he stared down at that word. His breath seemed to have caught in his throat. Was it even possible?

I don’t believe it. When?

An eternity passed before Rita wrote him again.

Believe it or not. Tomorrow night.

Ahmet felt his heart beating in his chest. Tomorrow night was very soon. His handlers had long ago become skeptical of his ability to carry out this operation. Now they would have to overcome their skepticism.

They needed to act fast. Men needed to be brought into the city from far-flung places. Of course, there was a plan. There had always been a plan. But the plan had to be set in motion immediately, practically this instant.

He knocked back the last of his coffee and threw some money on the table. Then he was up and moving through the square toward his flat. He had to get a coded message out, and hope that they could act in time. He also had to hope against hope that Rita was correct, and beautiful Elizabeth really was planning to make her escape.

He typed into his phone as he walked.

I’m very excited.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

May 7

5:35 a.m. Arabian Standard Time

Al-Arabi Palace

Tikrit

Saladin Governorate, Iraq

“You gotta get that guy off my back,” Davis Cole said. “He wants to kill me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him,” Luke said.

It was just before sunrise. They drove quickly through the dusty, early morning streets of Tikrit, passing block after block of low stone buildings, many of them damaged, even half-destroyed, from combat.

Few people were out. Here and there, they passed the silhouettes of skinny people moving through the darkness. They could be ghosts.

This was Saddam Hussein country. Saddam had been born and raised here. The people were loyal to him, and many of his highest-ranking officials had been Tikritis. Earlier in the year, Saddam himself had been captured hiding in a hole in the ground on a farm not far outside town. The Americans still considered this hostile territory.

Cole was driving the car, a beat-up black Mercedes. It was draped in after-market armor, and had smoked bulletproof glass. It wouldn’t stop a rocket attack, but garden-variety gunshots would bounce off it. Luke rode in the front passenger seat, MP5 submachine gun on his lap. Ed Newsam rode in the back, armed with another MP5 and an M-79 grenade launcher.

Luke wasn’t sure about that grenade launcher, but the man had insisted on it, so…