“Are you ever going to trust me, Patrick?” Susan asked.

“Would it upset you if I said ‘no’?”

“Yes, it would,” Susan replied. It was obvious to her that he didn’t care if it upset her or not. She paused for a moment, then said, “Going in to either Damah or Tobruk even in normal day-to-day circumstances would be very, very dangerous. Both bases are massively armed fortresses, especially for Anglos but even for Arabs. But our intelligence information tells us both bases are at the absolute highest readiness stages, just short of all-out wartime conditions. I strongly advise you not to plan to go in there unless you have your target—I’m sorry, I should say, your wife—located first. Or unless you have some massive firepower lining up behind you to support a soft probe that could turn hot in a matter of moments.”

Her inquisitive eyes told Patrick she was still fishing for information—he was glad for the rest, because he needed to stay sharp to avoid giving this beautiful, captivating, disarming woman any good intelligence data. “I know that, Susan,” Patrick said. “But I’m counting on the combat operations to help screen our movements in a soft probe. You know as well as I do that security measures sometimes get curtailed when moving men and equipment is the most important thing.”

“It’s risky.”

“She’s worth the risk.”

“I didn’t mean to imply she wasn’t,” Susan said. “But if you’re discovered, even if you can fight your way out, your entire operation is finished—they will kill your wife and erect an impenetrable wall around every military and government base, building, or office. All you will have left... is retribution. Will that be enough for you?”

“I don’t intend to let that happen.”

“With all due respect, Patrick, that’s a pretty bad attitude,” Susan said directly. “Think about it for a moment. What if you did nothing? What if you did no probe at all, so your team never risked discovery? Your wife is probably in a Libyan medical facility badly injured, probably unconscious and unable to speak, so they will wait until she regains consciousness, which means you still have time to plan, locate her precisely, and wait for the perfect opportunity.

“If she is conscious, they may try to interrogate her. That could take days, perhaps weeks. If she talks, they will keep her alive to extract every bit of information from her. That still gives you time.”

For the first time, Patrick reconsidered his plan. Susan was absolutely correct: There was nothing to be gained by going in now. War could break out any moment between Libya and Egypt, or just about anywhere in northern Africa, and Patrick and his team would be right in the middle of it.

But holding back and waiting would put him no closer to rescuing Wendy. It didn’t matter what Libya was planning against Egypt, or if war would break out any time— for him, the most important thing was finding and rescuing Wendy.