On the north side of the courtyard were three orange phosphorescent blobs, two leaning toward each other—a sudden white flare emerging between their spectral forms. Janson depowered the scope before lowering it to view the scene with his naked eyes. Even from twenty yards away, he could clearly see the flickering flame. A match had been struck—an old-fashioned fireplace match, it appeared—and two of the guards were lighting their cigarettes with it.

Amateurs, Janson thought. A guard on duty should never provide incidental illumination and should never encumber his most important weapon, his hands.

But then who were these people? There was a vast gap between the Caliph with his top strategists, trained by terror cells in the Middle East, and their followers, typically recruited from villages filled with illiterate peasants.

There would be highly trained sentinels and soldiers in place. But their attention would be directed toward the outside world. They would be at the battlements and in the watchtowers. The ones stationed along the inner courtyard would be charged with the relatively trivial chores of internal discipline, making sure that no ganja-fueled carousing disturbed the sleep of the Caliph or the members of his command.

Though they stood only a few feet away from each other, Katsaris whispered into his filament microphone, his voice amplified in Janson’s earpiece: “One sentry. Southeast corner. Seated.” A beat. “Probably half asleep.”

Janson replied in a sub-whisper, “Three sentries. The north veranda. Very much awake.”

In a hostage exfiltration, as neither had to be reminded, one went where the guards were. Unless an ambush had been laid: the visible guards in one place, the valuables in another, and a further set of guards in wait. Yet there was no room for doubt in this case. The blueprints made it clear that the dungeon was located beneath the northern face of the courtyard.

Janson moved slowly to his left, along the wall, and then beneath the overhang of the western veranda, walking half-crouched beneath the parapet. They could not be overreliant on the darkness: a rod in the human retina could be activated by a single photon. Even in the blackest night, there were shadows. Janson and Katsaris would stay in those shadows as long as possible: they would move along the sides of the courtyard, avoiding the center.