He called her name and fought to push through the mob. Adad looked about him for her little body. The men wailed as one in fresh terror causing Adad to look up.

  Billowing in through the shattered window frames above was a cloud of white smoke. There was something unusual about it. Smoke always rose but this cloud fell as though seeking the fleeing crowd. Adad reached the edge of a table and clambered atop it to better look for his sister. The table was piled with trays of cheep jewelry that crunched under his sandals. He scanned the pack of people rushing for the exit doors but could not see Sabeen. She was so small. What if she lay trampled under that howling mob? He could not think of that. God would not allow that after all these cruelties.

  He turned to look back into the gymnasium for her. The cloud had fallen like a heavy fog and was reaching across the barn-like room like a translucent tide. Where it touched men and women they stumbled then fell. They did not fall as though stricken. They fell lifeless. All strain and movement melted from them in an instant and they struck the floor where they had stood like sacks of rice.

  Gas.

  Adad tamped down the fear within him and leapt from the table to fight his way through the throng. He fought like an animal, like some feral savage, not to save his own life but to find his sister and, somehow, carry her far away from this horror.

  Men punched and kicked. Women shrieked and clawed. The white cloud, carried on the draft from doors open to the street, followed them as unerringly as a pack of wolves and soon covered them all. Within seconds their struggles were over. They collapsed atop one another with mouths open and eyes as dead as the fish resting in the ice tubs atop the market tables.

  He did not strangle. He did not choke. Within a heartbeat, Adad’s ability to take another breath was simply cut off. He could not draw in another breath though, within his mind, he screamed for life-giving air. He lay on the floor with others atop him as his vision blurred at the edges and blackness closed off the world forever in a shadowy, final iris. His last thought in the world was an apology to his father, his mother, his god and to Sabeen who he could not save.

  Within seconds the white fog fell like dew upon the still bodies heaped against the doorways like leaves. Within moments the dew evaporated and surrendered its deadly composition to the air leaving behind a benign tang of citrus.

  Then the mujahideen did enter the market place. But this time with cameras rather than guns.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ARLINGTON

  Fall had come to northern Virginia. The mugginess of summer was gone and the day was cool and the air crisp. A breeze off the Potomac sighed between the rows of white crosses and stirred the miniature flags standing at the graves.

  The flag-draped caisson sat on the drive below a gravesite on a gentle slope. The freshly dug hole, surrounded by a green tarp, was only large enough to hold an urn of cremated remains that once were a true hero. Clear ground was scarce in this hallowed place. It was filled to near capacity with the fallen heroes of a century and a half of war. But room was made for Master Chief Petty Officer Emmanuel Levitz, known to his unit as Manny and known to the rest of the teams as the legendary Kung-Fu Jew.

  The two groups standing to either side of the grave could not have appeared more different. To one side a tight clutch of black clad civilians looking like a timorous flock of birds huddled for warmth. To the other stood a double rank of men and women in immaculate Navy blue. A few other observers stood apart and watched the ceremony from a proper distance.

  The color guard was here: a mix of sailors and Marines. They would fire the ceremonial shots in the air. A bugler recruited from the barracks at Norfolk was on hand to blow taps. A rabbi delivered an invocation. A cantor sang a mournful prayer that called forth the millennia of sorrows suffered by the Chosen people, but still seemed to touch upon the despair and loss of this one precious life.

  Warrant Officer Nathan Brandeis Heath stood at ease in the back rank of his brothers and sisters in blue. He kept his eyes forward and on the family gathered at the other side of the grave. The marble urn, decorated on all four faces with the ferocious SEAL eagle, was lowered into a concrete sarcophagus set within a hole in the earth by a pair of crusty old salts bejeweled with layers of ribbons and medals. They were Daneker and Davies, vets from NSW Group 11 and longtime members of SEAL Team 17.

  Heath kept his eyes focused beyond the dozen or so mourners. He could not meet their eyes. He could share their loss but not bear to witness it. During the rabbi’s singsong prayers Heath noticed Manny’s father searching the faces of the uniformed men before him. For security reasons, the family was not allowed to meet the men of their loved one’s unit. These were the SEALs with no name. These were Uncle Sam’s most talented killers and badasses. They could not be known to anyone outside of a handful of people with the highest security clearance. The Levitz family could not know the men who were with their son, their brother, their cousin, their nephew when he died. That did not stop a father from studying the faces of the men standing stiffly with arms at their backs in immaculate blue uniforms devoid of any sign of rank or unit or decoration. Perhaps he hoped to see something in their eyes to let him know that the men who shared his son’s last moments were here with him at the ceremony.

  And they were here. Angel Bravos, known as Pig within the unit, stood at the end of the front rank. Two men down from Pig was Willard Repp, known as Chili, who was fresh out of the Navy Med Center at Portsmouth after receiving wounds on the same op that killed Manny. Doug Bannion, Priest, the old man of the team, stood next to Heath. At the end of the back row stood Jason Billings, nicknamed Woody, a new member of the team after proving himself in the fire of their last call-out. They stood, with stoic faces, mixed in with other SEALs over from the base at Dam Neck.

  They would all miss their comrade: his humor, his courage and his skills. Any loss hurt. But these men worked past hurt, survived through pain, thrived despite the horrors they witnessed. There was a job to be done and no time for weeping. That had to be packed away somewhere to be opened down the road when all the worst of their lives as hunter/killers would return to visit them as shrieking nightmares and unfocused anxiety. No man escapes combat untouched. There are wounds that cannot be seen. The sacrifice of death and bodily injury are obvious to anyone. But there are other costs to the minds and the souls of good men whose mission is to do bad things in bad places against the worst that humanity has to offer. They made that sacrifice willingly, even eagerly, so that their fellow countrymen could be safe and the future secure.

  Manny’s death was something Heath could not compartmentalize, could not pack away for another time. The two were close, closer than brothers. They’d come up through BUD/S and SEAL training together. They’d fucked with the SERE instructors as a team. They’d seen lethal action on top-secret ops in nearly every corner of the world. When Heath was in a bad place after an uber-classified deal in Mexico, it was Manny who went off the books with him to set things right. They’d give their lives for one another. Heath would have given all that he was and all he would ever be to change places with his friend right this very moment. He loved his friend and would die himself to have Manny back here with his family.

  The agony of the loss was heightened by guilt. In a cave in Afghanistan, Heath had promised his brother that he would bring them both out of it alive. But time was not with them that night. Manny bled to death, drowned in his own blood, from an invisible wound. No SEAL wants to die in the fight but they all accept the possibility. They also realize, once they’ve witnessed the death of others, that the end may not come in a glorious samurai way. Death could simply be a misadventure or a misstep. An IED along a roadway. A single bullet from an unseen rifle. A chopper crash. A drowning accident in training. They didn’t all get to die like a gladiator or knight errant. So often death was a petty bitch who took them in a banal fashion; just another swipe of the scythe.

  It was the nature of Manny’s passing that galled Heath more than anything else. He was taken by some jihadi whore during a sweep of the cave where he died. Two lucky shots that caught the SEAL before he could react. Two shots that caused a wound that could have been simply dealt with by corpsmen if they’d been able to get a medevac to Manny in time. But time was the killer. By the time they had gotten clear of the subterranean maze, Manny was gone.

  And Heath would spend the rest of his life reliving those hours searching for something, anything, he might have done that would have kept his brother SEAL alive.

  You lucky bastard, Heath swore to himself, it’s all over for you.

  The rifles fired. The bugle blared. The SEALs saluted. Then the gathering made their way down the hill to the waiting cars. The uniformed personnel spoke softly to one another and waited by the grave to allow the family to depart. Manny’s father, flag tri-folded under his arm, stopped mid-step. He took a last look back as though meaning to turn. Then the man, at the gentle urging of a pair of his relatives, continued on to the cars parked along the drive.

  Heath let out a breath, relieved that no one from the Levitz family tried to speak to them, or worse, ask questions that none of the SEALs could answer.

  “Nathan Heath?”

  He turned to see a petite woman in a tailored black dress stepping toward him over the lawn. She had cornflower blue eyes and naturally blonde hair that was almost white in the autumn sunlight.

  “Dana Morton,” she said and offered a hand.

  “Company?” he said taking her hand reluctantly.

  “Former. Former NSA too. I was an analyst for Borneo and Benghazi.”

  “More like handler. Sinaloa too, right? Blair Freeman says you saved our asses and he’s not one to share credit.” Heath took her hand more firmly.

  “I didn’t mean to intrude,” she said. “I heard through the grapevine that Levitz was being laid to rest and…”

  “Would that grapevine be Admiral Dorrance?” he said.

  “It would. I wanted to be here. He made up my mind for me.”

  “Admirals are like that,” Heath said. She smiled.

  The cars pulled away along the drive and into the trees and the uniformed men and women, led by the honor guard, made their own way to vans waiting to take them away.

  “Well, I just wanted to meet you,” Dana said stepping away. “Put a face to the codename. Mission accomplished, right?”

  “You should meet the rest of the team. Hell, you’re practically one of us,” he said walking beside her.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  “Okay. Maybe not. We’re still on leave. We’re going from here to Bryant’s in Georgetown. You know it?”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “I know it.”

  “Up to you then, Ms. Morton,” Heath said and left her to join his four brothers in the limo waiting for them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  UNITED STATES EMBASSY, LONDON

  Carter Chamblis, deputy assistant CIA section chief United Kingdom, was deep into his fantasy football selections when the phone on his desk rumbled.

  “Chamblis.”

  “We have someone at reception asking to see you, sir.” It was that cute African-American chick who worked the desk. Kayisha?

  “Me specifically?”

  “Well, someone from your agency.”

  “And you told him that there are no agency officers in situ at any American Embassy.”

  “I did, sir. The visitor said that he strongly doubted that.”

  “He did.”

  “In fact, sir, the visitor requested I not give him any ‘American bullshit,’ sir.”

  “Hold on. He’s at the main desk?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is he seeking asylum?”

  “No, sir. He assures me that he just wants to talk.”

  “Okayyyyy,” Carter drawled while exiting his football program and accessing the lobby cameras.

  The angle from a camera over the desk gave him a shot past Kayala, that was it, to a man in a very expensive wool coat standing and speaking to her. His face was hidden by a leather ball cap.

  “Kayala? Can you have him remove his cap?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see.” He could hear Kayala’s voice muffled through her fingers covering the wire mike that came off of her headset.

  The man on the monitor complied and removed his cap. He was bald except for a short-cropped fringe of gray hair around his scalp. The visitor intuited that he was on camera and raised his face to look into Carter’s eyes. Carter dialed in on the face with the ball mouse set in his keyboard.

  The crystal clear HD image revealed every detail. The man was gaunt. His skin clung to his skull like paper. The whites of his eyes were yellowish but that did not take anything away from their intensity. There was no mistaking who it was returning Carter’s gaze.

  Mateen Al Nazir, former colonel in the Iraqi Republican Guard, known throughout that regime as Saddam’s brother from another mother.

  “Ask the Marines to escort him to the dead room,” Carter said and hung up to call Langley.

  ****

  The sun wasn’t up yet in Virginia but that was hardly relevant in the windowless confines of the CTU section of CIA headquarters.

  A team of analysts crowded a conference room watch and listened as, up on an eighty-inch monitor, Carter Chamblis spoke with a shriveled, shrunken man calmly chain smoking Gitanes across the table. He was barely recognizable as Colonel Nazir, a notorious war criminal who only escaped being in the infamous deck of cards the coalition forces used to hunt down fugitive Ba’thists because the deck was limited to fifty-two.

  The analysts were joined by a deputy director and later by an NSA deputy over from Fort Meade.

  The room shared a speakerphone console at the center of the table that communicated directly, via a secure satellite feed, with an earbud secured in Carter Chamblis’ right lobe. Through this they directed Carter’s interrogation as closely as a puppeteer pulling on strings. Normally they would have black-bagged Nazir by now and hustled him away to one of those black sites that every agency swore up and down they were no longer using. But this was an unusual situation; a unique set of circumstances. They’d never had a world-class terror suspect just walk in to give himself up before.

  They felt it safest to assume that whatever Nazir was here to convey was of the white-hot, right-now brand of intelligence. So, most of the room agreed to question the subject sooner rather than later and get a general grasp on what Nazir had and what he wanted for it and then work out any further interrogations based on an appraisal of the early questioning. It was in their shared experience dealing with Muslim fanatics that there was a long song and dance from even willing subjects and that it would take time to peel away the layers to the core and any actionable intelligence.

  The analysts in the room swiftly worked out a list of questions on a legal pad. The questions were designed from an established psychological protocol in common use for dealing with terror suspects. They assigned the most experienced among them, a female officer of a certain age with hundreds of hours of room time with some of the worst of the worst killers from the underground world of jihad, to ask the questions so as to not confuse poor Chamblis with a Babel of learned responses from the pack of experts crowded about the long table.

  But they did not reckon with the colonel’s no-nonsense approach to such matters.

  “I have a cancer,” Nazir said before Carter Chamblis could finish the first question fed to him through his earpiece. He sounded tired. His English was accented with Arabic but also a trace of Cambridge, where he had attended school in the 1970s.

  “The doctors say I have some months. But doctors lie. My family is in Paris under the false name I have been using. I have information to share. First I need assurances that I will continue to receive treatment until the end of my life and that my family will not be prosecuted.”

  “Anything else?” the female analyst, a grandmother of three lovely children she spoiled like Venetian princes, said in Langley. Chamblis parroted it seconds later.

  “Ten million Euros,” Nazir said without hesitation or change in expression.

  “What do you have that is worth that much money and that level of trust?” the female analyst said followed by Chamblis four thousand miles away.

  “Have you heard of Black Scythe?” Nazir said and lit a Gitane with the butt of another.

  Everyone in the packed room had.

  “Holy fuck,” grandma said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE GEORGETOWN MARRIOTT

  Heath woke to a gentle knocking at a door. A voice that sounded like it was coming down a tunnel reached him.

  “Housekeeping.”

  The knocking resumed.

  He raised his head from the mattress and instantly regretted it. His eyes felt like a pair of toasted marshmallows. His head was pounding in rhythm with his pulse. The hotel room went into a half spin.

  “Housekeeping.” And the knocking again.

  “Get. The Fuck. Out!” He boomed.

  The knocking stopped as if a switch had been thrown.

  Heath lay back again and pressed his eyes shut. Like the man said, you’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without hanging on. The covers of the bed were clutched tight in his fists. He was in that terrible twilight place between drunk and hung over.

  “Fuck it,” he growled and staggered into the bathroom to throw up long and hard into the tub.

  He returned to the room after running cold water on the back of his neck. The only sign of occupation showing on the bed was the impression his big black ass made on the covers. He must have passed out, still in his blues, as soon as his head hit the bed. He stripped out of his dress uniform, hosed the residue of a hard night’s drinking from the tub and took an epic needle shower of first steaming and then cold water. Naked, he walked to the mini bar and emptied an orange juice, a Snapple and a half bottle of Fiji. Rehydrated and with some protein and caffeine in his system, he felt almost like returning to the human race.