“For Pete’s sake, Your Majesty, a phone call would’ve been better,” Patrick said. He couldn’t help but smile at Sanusi’s wry grin.

“I apologize, my friend,” Sanusi said, “but my men went about their task too enthusiastically, and you reacted most unexpectedly. But I need to speak with you. It is very important.”

“How did you get on base?” Patrick asked. “The security on this base has never been tighter. How . . . ?”

“It is about your wife, Wendy McLanahan,” Sanusi said.

Patrick’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Bradley stopped whimpering and broke out in a wide, teary-eyed smile. “Mommy . .. ?”

“Fifteen minutes. Silver Strand State Park, east side, near the boat rental shop.”

“I know where it is.”

“Then be there in ten minutes,” Patrick said. Sanusi disappeared—Patrick had no idea how he expected to get out of the gym after the commotion they started, but somehow he knew he would. “Let’s go, Bradley.”

“Are we going to see Mommy?” he asked excitedly. Patrick did not—could not—answer.

It took longer than ten minutes for Patrick to explain to Fred Jackson and his security police units what all the yelling and screaming was about. But Patrick explained everything to Jackson, including where and when he was going to meet with Sanusi. Jackson offered to have a few of his men tag along, but Patrick declined.

He already had someone on the way prepared to do that.

It was thirty minutes later when Patrick arrived at the rendezvous point, a small glass-and-concrete white building between the base and the Loews Coronado Resort where folks could rent sailboats during the summer. Sanusi and his men didn’t arrive for another twenty minutes. Patrick was somewhat dismayed to see them—he had thought security at the naval base was tighter than that.

Patrick’s concern was assuaged after he met up with Sanusi and greeted him. “I am sorry to be late, my friend— the naval security forces detained us momentarily,” the king said. “I am grateful you explained who we were. They agreed to release us under your supervision—after they took away our ID cards.”

“You had false ID cards?”

“Real ID cards with false photos on them,” Sanusi said. “It is laughably easy to take IDs from lockers in your recreation facilities. We had no trouble crossing the Mexican border with false Israeli passports, and getting on base was simplicity itself—does no one patrol the shores at your seaside bases?”

“What about my wife, Your Highness?” Patrick asked.

“Ah yes—enough of the security lecture,” Sanusi said. “I believe your wife is alive, my friend. She and several Americans are still held by the pretender Zuwayy in Tripoli, in one of his underground bunkers south of the city.”