his kneecaps. Samir felt the tearing effect of the slugs as they shredded flesh and shattered bone, bursting out in glistening spurts of red. Before he had time to fall, more auto-fire exploded, the bursts from multiple weapons coring through his body, sending him twisting forward in agony. He was hit again as his ravaged body tumbled, the bloody spray trailing behind as he went down. He hit the ground, crying out in pain, and felt the continuous, raking fire that hammered his flesh. As his body rolled he caught a glimpse of his attackers, advancing as they emptied their weapons into him.
One of them was Ariq Taj, his face wreathed in a cruel smile.
There was a brief pause as they reloaded and then the brutal assault continued, the relentless chatter of the SMGs as they pumped bullet after bullet into the blood-soaked form on the ground. The firing only died away as the weapons exhausted their magazines, leaving a body so riddled from groin to head it would be hard to make identification visually. Samir’s Beretta lay on the ground beside him, having slipped from his grasp. It was unfired.
The shooters returned to the SUV. As they climbed into the vehicle the man called Taj spoke.
“Now Lang,” he said, “and then Jahir… .”
* * *
LANG HEARD THE FIRST shots over the phone, then silence as Samir’s cell hit the ground and shattered.
He considered the implications. Taking it to the worst conclusion, he saw his cover blown, too. Which left him with a single option. He needed to get out before they came for him. That was a given. If Samir had been taken down Lang would be next.
Taj?
Hand of Allah.
So Ariq Taj was a cop in the Yemeni police force. Lang experienced momentary surprise. Being a local cop would give Taj access to intelligence files and the ability to send information to Hand of Allah. Lang might have been surprised at the revelation, but he had been too long in the CIA to be shocked.
Lang had never divulged his real reason for being in Yemen. His cover as a dealer in local antiquities had hidden his CIA affiliation. The same with Samir. They were dealer and assistant. And that had lasted for Lang’s entire time in the region. So where had it gone wrong? What had given Taj his connection? He admitted Samir, or even himself, might have made a slip. Enough for Taj to draw his own conclusions.
Lang and Samir had been trying to track down Hand of Allah and their training camp. Perhaps their covert investigations had been exposed. Perhaps through Jahir inadvertently. Now it seemed the roles had been reversed and Hand of Allah had tracked him.
Son of a bitch.
He considered his options.
There were no options.
No options at all.
He had to get clear. He was one man. With no backup. If Samir was dead there was nothing Lang could do. Not now. He needed to place himself on some safe ground, with the Agency behind him. Then they could put out feelers. Try to find out what had happened to Samir. If he was still alive, Hand of Allah would use him as leverage in some kind of propaganda exercise. The radical Muslim groups never wasted an opportunity. They would parade Samir in front of their cameras. Put on a show painting themselves as beleaguered freedom fighters and threatening to publicly execute Samir as a puppet of the Great Satan. The Islamic terrorists were nothing if not relentlessly predictable.
So Lang needed to get out of Yemen and take it from there, because Hand of Allah would want him for the same reasons they would want Samir.
To show him off. A CIA agent would be one hell of a prize exhibit.
He took a breath. He didn’t panic. It wasn’t in his makeup.
He made his way to the small, dusty office in back. There was an old iron safe where he kept his briefcase. The case held his passport and identity papers. There was also a substantial amount of U.S. dollars. He took the case and placed it on his desk. Next to it was his CIA-issue laptop, a powerful machine. Lang powered it up and logged on the local internet. He tapped in the code that would link him to Langley through a series of remote servers that fed into a satellite system. Once he had his connection, Lang downloaded the hard drive’s content to the CIA master databank. The data listed his latest reports and observations. When the download was complete Lang sent an email to his department chief, letting him know what had happened and requesting a retrieval operation. The email was answered within a couple of minutes. There was also a link to a CIA procedure that would, when initiated, strip out the laptop’s contents. It would wipe the hard drive and then enter a virus to virtually kill the machine. Lang hit the key and saw the program start to work.
He took out his phone, deleted all call logs and numbers. He opened the phone and took out the chip card, snapping it in two and crushing it under foot. He had a clean cell phone in his desk. He kept it charged, though he had never used it. It was single-use burn phone. Untraceable. Right now it was his connection to Langley if he tapped in the number carried in his head.
He wasn’t sure what made him pause, turning his head to pick up the noise from the yard at the rear of the warehouse.
Then it hit him.
There was no noise.
It had been the absence of sound that had drawn his attention.
Lang made his way through the shadowed warehouse and out the rickety rear door.
When Lang stepped outside, the utter silence struck him as odd. There should have been a labor crew noisily filling the rear yard.
But the yard was deserted. Only a faint misting of dust hung in the air, showing where the crew had hastily departed. To his right was the crude metal brazier where the crew hung their large tea kettles. Lang could smell the brewing tea. Saw the enamel mugs scattered across the dusty ground, spilled liquid soaking into the parched earth.
He slid his right hand under his jacket, reaching for his holstered pistol. It was then he heard a faint whisper of sound behind him and felt the undeniable pressure of a weapon’s muzzle grind against his spine.
“Not a wise thing to do, Mr. Lang.”
Lang took his hand away from his pistol. He held both hands away from his body, offering no resistance.
“I know you.”
“Yes. Ariq Taj, Mr. Lang. To be precise, Inspector Ariq Taj, Yemeni police.”
Taj moved around to face Lang. As he did another weapon was pressed against the American’s spine.
“What has happened to Samir?” Lang asked.
Taj shifted from one foot to the other, shrugging his skinny shoulders. He was overly thin, his clothes hanging loosely from his bony frame.
“He has joined all the other traitors who betray our cause,” he said.
“Son of a bitch,” Lang said. “You call him a traitor.”
Taj actually smirked, like a schoolboy in on a joke.
“Of course. He worked for you, Mr. Lang of the CIA.” He saw the recognition in the American’s eyes. “Oh, yes, we knew. Do you think we of Hand of Allah are just ignorant Muslims? That
