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“Or was it,” Jack said slowly, “a plan to force consolidation of Libya’s factions? There was a message about that, wasn’t there?”
Arfaoui’s fists clenched at his sides.
“Ah, here it is.” Jack swiped through the messages, pulling one up. “Chemical weapons, used under the flag of Dawn of Islam, which would inspire a crackdown against all other factions, and then a humanitarian outpouring from Sons of Libya’s Future using the aid given by the West, yes? A manufactured surge of support for you and your murdering partners?” Jack gazed at Arfaoui. “You know, I have a special interest in Hassan Kissami and his Sons of Libya’s Future. Former General Madigan recruited heavily from his ranks. Kissami helped Madigan. Gave him men. Arms. Protection.”
Arfaoui’s security team shifted forward. Pete’s weapon tracked between their heads, holding them back.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Mr. Arfaoui. You’re going to turn over all your intelligence. All of it. On the Dawn of Islam, on all the foreign fighters, and on the Sons of Libya’s Future and Hassan Kissami. You’re going to turn over all your chemical weapons. The ones you bought from Syria and the ones you bought from North Korea. Everything you’ve stockpiled for decades. And then you’re going to turn over Hassan Kissami himself.”
Arfaoui laughed. “Or I’ll kill you here and bury your bodies in the desert. No one knows where you are, Mr. President,” he said, voice full of mocking malice. “No one would wonder where a disgraced failure disappeared to—”
Ethan heard thezipandzingof his shot over Jack’s radio, thewhizof his bullet approaching and then thecrackas it slammed into the pool deck between Arfaoui’s feet. Concrete dust sprayed up over Arfaoui’s suit pants, clouded the air between his thighs. A piece of debris slammed into the fleshy paunch above his testicles. His security team scattered, taking cover, their weapons scanning in every direction as they searched for Ethan.
Jack slowly peeled his sunglasses off. “This entire meeting is being recorded, Mr. Arfaoui. I have gunships on station at the USSGeorge Washingtonin the Med, and they will be here before you can scramble your men in an evac. You bend a hair on my head, or my team’s heads, and this entire desert will be nothing but a smudge on a satellite flyover in minutes.”
Arfaoui hunched over, grimacing.
“You tried to play the United States intelligence community, Mr. Arfaoui, and you lost. You tried to backdoor a deal. You tried to play both sides. But we have everything, and if you do not renounce your support for the Sons of Libya’s Future, the Dawn of Islam, turn over your intel and your WMDs, we’ll take all our evidence to the United States Congress and then to the UN. You think you’re under sanctions now? Libya won’t even be on the maps once they’re done with you.”
It took Arfaoui three deep breaths, three frustrated twists of his bulldog face. Finally, he nodded.
“You’re also going to pay reparations to the families of the victims of the airliners Hassan Kissami shot down. Every dollar you’ve made on the black market, you’re going to turn around and give to the families of the people you murdered.”
“Ah, now I see what this is,” Arfaoui spat. “What will your cut be, Mr. President? You’re no different than any of us when it comes down to it, are you? Where’s your villa? Your compound?”
“My cut?” Jack smiled. “It’s the look in your eyes right now. And it will be seeing Hassan Kissami shackled in a New York courtroom, facing trial for his actions.”
And it would be when Hamza Arfaoui was referred to the International Criminal Court, too, for crimes against his people and state-sponsored terrorism. But Jack kept that part to himself. Ethan watched the satisfaction glimmer in Jack’s gaze.
A helicopter shimmered in the heat haze, rising over the horizon and the sand dunes, silhouetted against the setting Saharan sun. “My men and I will be leaving now. I have a drone over this compound, and if any of your team makes the slightest move toward me and mine, every one of you will be wiped away. Understand?”
Arfaoui snapped something in Arabic, orders to his men. Ethan’s tablet translated for him, the words appearing on the bottom of the display.Stand down. Let them leave. Weapons lowered, slightly.
Jack grinned and slid his sunglasses back on.
A minute later, the sleek black helo touched down on Arfaoui’s golf course, beyond the pool deck inside the compound. Jack, Blake, and Pete stepped around Arfaoui, Blake bringing up the rear, and Pete jogged ahead to the helo, sliding open the armored side door and hopping in. He helped Jack and then Blake in before slapping the pilot on the back. Eight seconds after landing, they took off again, banking to the south toward the open, empty desert.
Ethan broke out of his blind as Arfaoui’s men jumped into gear, screaming into cell phones and radios and racing for their vehicles. Arfaoui raged, bellowing at the top of his lungs. Everything was captured on the drone’s video feed as Ethan broke down his sniper rifle and packed up his survival kit. He shimmied into a harness, clipping the webbing tight around his hips and thighs.
“Blind, we’re on our way.” Jack’s warm voice poured into Ethan’s ear. The helo slowed on its approach, rotors spinning slowly over the loose sand.
“I’m ready when you are.”
A rope and harness dropped from the helo. Ethan slung his pack onto his shoulders, grabbed his rifle, and jogged for the drop point. He clipped into the lift and gave the all-clear signal in one move. A moment later, the helo lifted again, and Ethan soared upward, gliding over the sand dunes and into the watercolor sky.
Behind him, Arfaoui’s compound was a flurry of shouts and revving engines, sand spitting behind tires and fires being ignited in fifty-gallon drums. Computers and tablets and files were dumped into the flames. No doubt Arfaoui was going to try to make a break for the border. In his panic, Arfaoui would call Hassan Kissami, and that phone call would light up the boards at the NSA. Satellites and drones would zero in on the call, triangulate the location, and CIA teams based in Egypt and Tripoli would launch simultaneously, moving on both Kissami and Arfaoui.
In Tripoli, a CIA-backed democratic resistance group was preparing to seize control as soon as word was sent that Arfaoui and Kissami were detained. A majority of the Libyan military was on board, exhausted by the endless fight against propped-up terrorist networks and hungry for a country of their own again. Most of the youth couldn’t remember a time when Libya had been free, between Qaddafi and before the civil wars. But the generals did, and they wanted stability again. Freedom. Hope.
Ethan turned his gaze up to the belly of the chopper. His backward ball cap dug into his aching neck, and his shoulders burned, three days of inactivity turning his body into a too-taut bowstring. He stank, bad enough that he could smell his own funk. It was a good thing he was flying below the helo. He’d take out anyone who got too close.
Jack poked his head out the cargo door, looking down at Ethan. His blond hair whipped in the wind, seeming to burn in the sun’s setting glow. He beamed, the same smile that had first captured Ethan three years ago still making his knees weak every single time.
From the White House to the African Sahara. From overt politics to covert. When President Wall had first asked them to consider a covert security and operational intelligence role, Ethan had balked. After Madigan and the end of the world and nearly sacrificing everything, they deserved to disappear to some tropical island, didn’t they? Spend the rest of their days in solitude, in decadence. In each other. Let the world spin on without them. They’d done their part for the good of the country, and the world.
But that wasn’t really their style.
Ethan smiled back.
