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* * *

  The jailbreak was spectacular, and Namir couldn’t help smirking when his name lit up TV screens around the world.

  He strutted when he heard that he was the most-wanted man on the planet.

  He sneered and smiled all the way to America. He chuckled when he crossed immigration control at the airport with ease. For all its boasts, America’s border control was surprisingly easy to fool.

  It helped that ISIS had come up with a master plan.

  The passports and the papers he and his men were carrying identified them as Saudi businessmen. They were coming to America, bringing their oil money to invest in businesses.

  Namir’s chuckle turned to a grin when the burly officer stamped his passport and waved him inside the country.

  The Americans had no idea they had just admitted their most dangerous enemy.

  Chapter Nine

  Present Day

  * * *

  Zeb wasn’t sure he heard the name right. He listened carefully to the girl mumble.

  She said Namir. No doubt about it.

  He knew that name well. Hell, the whole world knew. TV and newspapers had milked the terrorist’s escape for days.

  Every law enforcement agency was on the lookout for the dreaded terrorist, but he seemed to have dropped off the Earth.

  He observed the girl closely as he wiped her face with a soft towel dipped in warm water. He cleaned the cuts on her hands.

  None was severe. Youth and nature would heal the wounds.

  She had brown eyes. Brown hair. Standard teenage attire of hoodie and T-shirt.

  Nails short and unlacquered. Jeans, socks and sneakers completed her attire.

  The bleeding on her face appeared to be from scratches, not from an assault, as he had initially feared.

  There were traces of leaves and branches in her hair, and he removed them as best he could.

  He attempted to rouse her but gave up when she didn’t respond.

  He zipped her up in his sleeping bag to ease her shivering and went back to his screen.

  Werner replied promptly at his commands.

  No mention or sighting of Namir in the United States. The terrorist was still at large. Law enforcement agencies the world over were watchful.

  If she’s right, how did he get into the country?

  He discarded the thought immediately. There were several ways to get past immigration officers in any country.

  I should know. I use fake documents all the time.

  He looked at his sat phone and thought about making a call to Clare, his boss.

  Nope. She too has taken a rare vacation. Let her enjoy it.

  Broker and Sarah Burke, his girlfriend, were in the Bahamas. Bwana, Roger, and their girlfriends were in France. Bear and Chloe were in India, while the Petersens were in Switzerland.

  Every one of them would cancel their holidays without a second thought if they thought he needed them.

  Hell, they’ll come running, locked and loaded, ready for a fight, if they even suspect I am in a jam.

  He wasn’t going to call them. He would deal with the girl by himself.

  She’s in shock. She might have misheard that name.

  He dimmed the lamps and went outside the hut, listening carefully.

  Nothing came to his ears.

  He did a perimeter check. All good.

  He went inside and looked at the girl. She had stopped her muttering, and her eyes were closed.

  He went closer and heard her soft breathing. Sleeping.

  That should help her.

  He couldn’t forget what she’d said, however.

  She might have got Namir’s name wrong, but what about her dad’s killing? No child will say that.

  He turned on the small gas stove and heated water for tea, as his mind raced through possibilities.

  He was pouring the drink into two plastic cups when a voice spoke from behind him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Chapter Ten

  He filled the cups before turning around. She was sitting up now, propped up by her left hand.

  Her eyes were suspicious, her body tense, but it was what she was gripping in her right hand that drew his attention.

  His spare Glock.

  He slept with two of them underneath his sleeping bag. One gun was on him; the other was now with her.

  He was struck by the easy familiarity with which she held the gun. Her palm curved around its butt firmly, its barrel unwavering as it pointed towards him.

  ‘I am Zeb Carter. I am a hiker,’ he replied calmly.

  Defuse the situation first.

  Her eyes moved around the hut. They rested for a moment on his backpacks, lingered on the screen and sat phone on top of his smaller bag, and returned to him when she had finished her survey.

  ‘You made this yourself?’ she pointed the gun at the roof.

  ‘This hut? Yeah.’

  ‘Cool.’

  He frowned inwardly. Cool wasn’t the word a girl would have used. Not if her father had been killed. Not if she was hunted by Namir, or anyone else.

  ‘How did you find me?’ she interrupted his thinking.

  ‘You found me. You came to my hut.’

  And then her memory seemed to return.

  Her eyes widened. The Glock dropped. Her lips trembled.

  ‘My God,’ she whispered. ‘He killed Dad … Dad.’ She bent double, retching, dry heaves that wracked her small body.

  He dropped the tea cups and rushed forward to hold her.

  ‘No, no,’ she screamed, her fists pounding against his chest. ‘You are one of them. You killed my father. You are Namir’s man.’

  ‘No. I am not one of them.’ He held her closer, smothering her fight till he felt her shudder and start sobbing, her tears dampening his T-shirt.

  ‘Let me go,’ she screamed and bit his shoulder hard.

  He winced but didn’t release her.

  ‘Listen,’ he told her, blinking to ward off the pain. ‘If I was one of them, you would already be dead.’

  She didn’t respond, but her wriggling lessened, and then stopped.

  She stiffened suddenly.

  ‘They are coming.’ Her face went white, her head bobbing wildly as she searched the room in panic.

  ‘No one is here,’ he comforted her. ‘No one is outside. I checked. What do you mean, Namir killed your father? How do you know Namir?’

  She wrenched out of his grasp, ‘We have no time for this,’ she shouted, fear and rage lacing her voice. ‘His men were chasing me. They are not far behind. Dad … what they did to him …’

  She bolted for the door and fled into the night.

  Chapter Eleven

  Zeb stood stock-still for a moment, taken aback by her sudden move.

  There was a time I was good with children.

  He buried the thought, grabbed his jacket, armored vest, his sat phone, the spare Glock and the mags underneath the sleeping bag, and hurried outside.

  No sign of her.

  ‘You there?’ he called out softly.

  ‘They are coming,’ he heard her sob from the forest. ‘They will kill me. Like they killed Dad.’

  Her voice helped him get her bearings. She was behind the hut, running away.

  She was heading toward the canyon half a mile away.

  Canyon!

  He set off at a run, cursing himself.

  The canyon was some distance away, but closer to his camp was a deep fissure in the ground, twenty feet wide and several feet deep.

  Following long-practiced habit, he had deliberately set his camp near it, to reduce the chance of a surprise attack from the rear.

  Now, it played against him. An opening of that size would easily swallow the girl.

  He had posted signs on trees to warn other hikers.

  But she won’t see them. She is frightened. Terrified.

  He upped his pace, ignoring branches and boughs slapping at his face.

  She had just a few minutes on him, b
ut it felt like hours.

  He heard her at last, above the sound of his own breathing, as she thrashed, crying loudly, praying.

  Praying.

  His heart clenched. He swerved past a giant ponderosa and spotted her shadow.

  She heard him approaching and turned a fear-stricken face toward him.

  ‘Nooo, don’t stop me,’ she cried and ran faster

  She is beyond reasoning. I can’t convince her.

  He saw one of his signs flash past, on a tree. She’s not far from that crack.

  Zeb dove headlong, his hands outspread.

  They curled around her and grabbed her as he landed, rolled on his shoulder, and came to rest just a few feet away from the void in the ground.

  ‘Stop,’ he spoke, above her muffled screams as she kicked and punched him. ‘Look over my shoulder. There’s a hole in the ground. You would have fallen in it.’

  Her struggling ebbed. She turned her face up to peer over him and shuddered when she saw the chasm, dark against the moonlit earth, running behind them in a jagged line.

  ‘It is so deep that you would have injured yourself. Maybe gotten killed. I had to stop you.’

  He could feel her heart thumping against his chest. Her rapid breathing fanned his ears.

  A memory stirred and came to the surface.

  His arms hugging a small body.

  His hands tightened a fraction around the girl.

  And a shot rang out.

  Chapter Twelve

  He snapped his head up.

  That wasn’t aimed at us. No round striking anywhere near us.

  He shushed her as she started trembling, and strained to hear over her breathing.

  ‘It’s them,’ she gulped, ‘I told you they would come.’

  He raised a finger to silence her and listened carefully. He thought he heard the distant sounds of men but couldn’t be sure. The report had come from beyond his hut, but in the same direction.

  He rose smoothly, caught her left hand in his, his Glock in his right.

  ‘Follow me,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

  He started back to his camp, but she tugged back.

  ‘They’ll be there.’ Her lip quivered, but her eyes were fierce. ‘They want me.’

  ‘My gear is back there. We have to get it.’

  ‘You don’t know them.’ A tear rolled down her face. ‘I saw what they did to Dad. They made me watch.’

  I know many men like that. It’s my job to exterminate them.

  ‘We will be careful,’ he promised.

  ‘Why should I trust you?’

  He regarded her for a long moment. For such a teenager, she displayed a surprising maturity. Her language, her diction, even her composure, despite what she had witnessed, was that of an adult.

  ‘Because they will kill me, too.’

  ‘Why do you have two Glocks?’

  ‘Later. We need to go back quickly.’

  He walked fast, hastily but not recklessly. He let his chi spread out and act like a radar.

  He ghosted around trees and slid through head-high bushes.

  She followed without complaint, grabbing his hand tightly.

  He counted the distance in his mind, alert for any shadows in the darkness. Any unusual movement.

  He slowed and then came to a stop when they neared his camp, approaching the hut from the side.

  He stopped behind a thicket and, using it as cover, watched.

  There was a lightening in the darkness ahead of them. Probably a hundred yards away. Close to where his camp was.

  The forest blocked any view, but they could hear voices. Several of them.

  She threw a wide-eyed look at him. He nodded in as reassuring a manner as he could and dropped to his knees.

  It was time to crawl.

  They made their way slowly until they came within sighting distance of his hut.

  He swallowed bitterly at the scene in front of him.

  Several men were crowded in front of the house, too far away to make out their individual details. But he recognized the angular shapes in their hands.

  Every one of them was armed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  One of them probably fired at the house. Which was what we heard.

  A shout came from inside the house as they watched. A man came running out, holding something in his hand.

  He headed to a tall man in the center of the group. Zeb could make out a beard on the central man’s face. There was something about his stance, the way the other men spread out around him.

  The leader? Namir?

  Tall Man inspected what his shooter was holding and rapped out orders.

  What is it? She didn’t leave anything behind. Her hoodie is on her. Her sneakers, too.

  His heart sank when he remembered.

  He had snipped away a few strands of her long hair as he had cleaned her up.

  Those hairs were next to the sleeping bag. She escaped before I could clean up. Before I could do anything.

  Another man came out of the house, his arms full.

  Zeb’s fingers tightened when he recognized his screens, his spare phone, and the battery packs.

  A bow-legged shooter exited the hut, carrying Zeb’s backpacks, and dumped them at Tall Man’s feet.

  The leader rapped out questions as he kicked at the bags.

  His men shook their heads.

  One of them handed a screen over to him. He pressed buttons, fiddled with it, and threw it to the ground.

  Zeb couldn’t help smiling.

  His screens and his phones had biometric protection. They wiped themselves clean the moment they were handled by strangers.

  His backpacks had no identification on them.

  They won’t know who I am.

  But my problem is bigger. I have nothing on me other than my Glocks and some ammo. And the sat phone.

  * * *

  That reminded him. He withdrew his phone and snapped several photographs of the men.

  He counted twenty-one. He took as many pictures as he could, of each one.

  He then turned on the phone’s recorder and pointed it in the direction of the men.

  Maybe it could pick up what they were saying. There were software programs that could eliminate noise and enhance the voice quality.

  Tall Man went inside the hut, two men accompanying him. Returning, he placed his hands on his hips and rotated slowly, looking at the forest around him.

  Zeb felt the girl shrink instinctively when the leader looked their way.

  Tall Man then made an unmistakable sign. A circling motion with his hand that meant, search the forest.

  ‘What do we do now?’ the girl asked him despairingly.

  ‘We run.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Earlier

  * * *

  The first thing Namir felt needed to happen on arriving in America was getting his men to shave. Not totally, however. Going hairless wasn’t the plan.

  Namir got them to trim their beards and get neat haircuts. He insisted on their wearing clean, Western clothes, to look as if they belonged.

  Appearances mattered.

  The second item on the agenda was weaponing up. ISIS helped him in that.

  He received a single text message on the throwaway phone he’d bought.

  The message consisted of a name, Asif Iqbal, and an address in Texas.

  Namir knew ISIS was also sending a covert message through that text: that they could find him wherever he was.

  He wasn’t bothered. He would carry out the killing spree his masters desired.

  After executing Kenton Ashland.

  * * *

  He rented four vehicles, and the group set off for Texas from New York. None had driven in America, and the interstate highways took some getting used to.

  A couple of his men couldn’t help staring at American women in their short skirts. Namir tore a strip off their butts with his tongue, and from then on, they behaved.<
br />
  No Arabic: that was another rule he insisted on. Everyone would speak in English, however broken it was. He was fluent enough in English, and in any case, their cover as Saudis would explain their lack of proficiency.

  * * *

  Asif Iqbal’s address turned out to be a rundown trucking warehouse in an industrial park outside Houston, in a corner all by itself.

  Metal was peeling off its shutters. The few trucks in the lot were old.

  Namir watched the warehouse for a full day. He scattered the group’s vehicles behind several trucks and rotated his men on surveillance duty.

  He personally inspected all the parked vehicles on the street.

  There were no police cruisers. No vehicles with antennae sticking out.

  The industrial park looked like it had business-as-usual traffic. One building was occupied by an office supplies company; another, a bathroom fittings manufacturer.

  Normal businesses, with normal-looking staff. Some pudgy, some lean, women, men, black, white. A mix that reflected the country’s melting pot.

  Once he was sure there was no trap set, no cops in waiting, he approached the warehouse.

  * * *

  Iqbal looked to be in his thirties. He had a scrawny neck, a straggly beard that fell over a soiled T-shirt. His dirty jeans stank.

  His brown eyes flicked over Namir’s men and then to the cellphone the terrorist presented to him.

  ‘No names,’ he snapped after reading the text message. ‘I don’t want to know who you are. Or what you intend to do.’

  His attitude grated on Namir. He thought of snapping Iqbal’s neck.

  ‘I plan to kill you.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Namir smiled mirthlessly when Iqbal sprang back in alarm.

  ‘If you don’t give me weapons,’ Namir clarified and displayed his teeth when the trucker swore.

  Iqbal had plenty of weapons.

  Namir’s eyes popped in disbelief when he saw the array of guns in the warehouse the cell owned.