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  Hamza met his gaze. “What if I told you that the command-and-control module we have obtained is the Chinese export model and that the interface is in English?”

  Qasim slowly nodded. “I would say that greatly improves the likelihood of success and should reduce the time required to make the conversion. But if the back end is all programmed with Chinese notations, then it will still be a challenge.”

  “But not an insurmountable challenge?’

  “No.”

  Hamza smiled broadly. “So it is agreed? You will help us?”

  Qasim’s stomach went to knots. He looked at Eshan, who gave him an encouraging nod. “Okay . . . I’ll help you.”

  “Excellent,” Hamza said, then turned to Eshan. “Why don’t you take Qasim out for something to eat, and when you’re ready, come back and we can get started.”

  Bacha escorted them to the door and saw them out.

  Once back inside the sedan, Qasim said, “I’ve never seen you so quiet as you were around Hamza.” He looked sideways at his friend. “Who is he?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Eshan said, meeting his gaze. “You don’t know?”

  “No . . . should I?”

  “That was Hamza al-Saud.”

  “Dear God,” Qasim said, his hands suddenly trembling in his lap as the car pulled away. “You’re working with al-Qaeda?”

  “Not exactly. Hamza has split from al-Qaeda and formed a new, more enlightened faction. We call ourselves al Qadar—Power and Destiny.”

  “We?” Qasim said, astounded.

  “Yes, I am a member.”

  “Oh my God,” Qasim said, revulsion creeping over his entire body like ants crawling across his skin.

  “Listen to me, Qasim. Hamza is not like the others. While ISIS and al-Qaeda are busy perfecting the art of savagery, we are building a different kind of organization. As you can see, Hamza has charisma and vision. He is not like the old guard. He’s like us—young, smart, educated. He understands geopolitics and technology. More importantly, he understands that tomorrow’s jihad is not strapping suicide vests onto desperate souls and sending them into some market to blow themselves up. Jihad is not about savage brutality and murdering our fellow Muslims. Jihad is about inspiration. It is about tapping into the minds and skills of the younger generation. It is about sustainable Islamic values and building a movement that Muslims the world over can rally around.”

  “Are those your words or his?”

  “I’m not a spiritual leader, but I recognize wisdom when I hear it,” Eshan said simply.

  Qasim’s mind was a whirlwind of contradictory thoughts and emotions. On the one hand, he’d just agreed to help Hamza al-Saud. Technically, that made him a terrorist. A terrorist, he thought, shaking his head, I’m a bloody terrorist thanks to Eshan. And yet on the other hand, he felt a catharsis, the likes of which he’d never experienced. The invisible yoke of cowardice and shame he’d been carrying on his back since that wedding five years ago suddenly felt lighter. The Americans had assassinated his family, and he’d done nothing. Nothing! Worse than nothing—he’d gone to work for America’s greatest ally, helping them further cement their iron grip on his homeland.

  All this time he’d thought of his tenure at British Aero as a twisted penance, born of weakness and psychopathy. But what if he had it all wrong?

  What if there was such a thing as destiny?

  CHAPTER 9

  sawyer home

  hyde park neighborhood

  tampa, florida

  1845 local time

  Surveying the smiling faces around him, Chunk tipped back his bottle of Corona and took a long gratifying pull. Tonight’s cookout was as much a celebration as it was a team-building event. The selection process was over. They’d passed the final exercise, completed Green Team evaluations, and were now, officially, Tier One SEALs. The enthusiasm was palpable. They’d reached the pinnacle of Naval Special Warfare, and Chunk felt like a kid in a candy store with a hundred-dollar bill.

  Across the counter, Ellie Sawyer, wife of Navy Senior Chief Nicholas “Saw” Sawyer, held a two-year-old on her hip while she added hot dogs and bratwursts to a platter of seasoned burger patties ready for the grill. “You’re gonna keep them from burning down our new house, right, Chunk?” she said with a wary glance toward the back patio, where grilling preparations were underway. The handsome Craftsman-style home—located in a historic neighborhood in South Tampa—had been a financial stretch for the couple. But to Chunk, its purchase was a statement of commitment: We made our decision, and we’re here to stay.

  Chunk smiled and was just about to give her his rock-solid assurance that the Tampa Fire Department’s services would definitely not be necessary, when a flash of light and a whoosh from the pool deck made him wince.

  “Fire in the hole!” Trip hollered, followed by a howling laugh from Georgie.

  “Chuuunk, please,” Ellie said, her tone insistent now.

  “I’m on it,” he said, double-timing out the back and onto the patio.

  “Dude, you’re going to burn down Ellie’s dream house,” Saw growled, swiping the bottle of lighter fluid from Trip’s hand.

  “Don’t worry, bro, I got this,” Riker said. Imitating the sound of a fire truck siren, he capped his longneck Budweiser with his thumb, shook it, then sprayed down the three-foot inferno engulfing the charcoal grill.

  “Dude, you’re making it worse!” Saw snapped, swatting at Riker to stop. “Just let it burn out. You’re getting beer everywhere.”

  “Now, look fellas,” Chunk said with a paternal grin. “I’ve been sent by CINC-Home to contain this escalating situation . . .”

  “Don’t look at me, boss. My ass has been planted over here the entire time,” Georgie said from where he sat on the deck railing, watching the chaos.

  Riker responded by hooking his arm around Trip’s neck and fashioning a friendly headlock. “Papa One, Two—I put out the fire and apprehended the insurgent. What do you want me to do with him?”

  “Throw him in the pool so he can cool off.” But when Riker started dragging Trip toward the water for real, Chunk stopped him. “Kidding . . . I’m just kidding.”

  Saw leaned in to whisper in Chunk’s ear, “Is Ellie pissed off?”

  “Nah. When I left, she was still smiling.”

  “Thank God,” he said and took a swig of his beer. “She loves this house. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy.”

  With the lighter fluid burned off and the fire back under control, Saw visibly relaxed. Riker gave the top of Trip’s head a playful noogie, then released his headlock. Trip apologized by means of a two-finger salute to Saw, then sauntered toward the back of the patio, where his date was sitting in a deck chair. The girl was pretty, young, and clearly enamored with Trip. On his arrival, he kissed her on the cheek. Then they swapped places. He took her seat, and she got comfortable on his lap.

  “I see Trip has found time in the training schedule to make a new lady friend,” Chunk said to Riker with a grin.

  “He always does,” Riker said and chuckled.

  While they talked, Chunk surveyed the scene. Half the SEALs were chatting around the pool deck in twos and threes, and the rest were in the backyard, tossing Nerf balls around while toddlers tugged at their legs. The wives and significant others loitered in the kitchen, chatting over appetizers. Only Trip’s new girlfriend, Val, was outside, too uncomfortable in this unfamiliar setting to venture inside with the spouses.

  Chunk turned to Riker and caught a glimpse of something in the frogman’s eyes.

  “So what’s the deal with Michelle, bro?” he asked. Riker’s girlfriend of two years had moved in with him before the last deployment, and Chunk had heard rumblings of a proposal . . . but apparently it hadn’t happened. “Is she coming to Tampa or what?”

  Riker shrugged. “Not sure. She’s got a great job in Virginia Beach. She offered to come, but with the Green Team pace and then not knowing how our deployments would unfold, it seemed unfair to have her leave her job, come here, and be alone for six months. We’re gonna see how things shake out and decide later. Too many unknowns for now.”

  Chunk nodded, watching Riker’s face carefully. The man seemed content with the decision, but he could see there was more.

  “Best for the team,” Riker said without prompting. “So long as she’s cool up in Virginia, I can focus on Gold Squadron. She’s strong and tough, which is why we’re together. We talked about her making a trip down to Tampa for a visit, you know, when the time is right.”

  “Cool,” Chunk said. “Tell her hi for me. I’m excited to see her.”

  “Will do, bro.”

  He gave Riker’s shoulder a squeeze and headed back into the house, pretty sure he would never see Michelle again.

  “Situation contained, ma’am,” Chunk said, reporting to Ellie in the kitchen. She was laughing about something with Spence’s wife, Olivia, whose burgeoning belly was undeniable proof she was just weeks away from giving birth to their first.

  “Thank you, Chunk,” she replied with a genuine smile. “I’m—”

  “Mommy, where’s Daddy?” Saw’s young son asked, pulling at her arm.

  “He’s out back, buddy,” she said, “but he’s with his team, okay?”

  Chunk set his beer down on the counter and took a knee beside the boy. “Hey, Connor, your dad said you’re part of the team and he needs your help. Do you wanna help him get some food on the grill?”

  “Yay!” Connor said.

  “Thank you,” Ellie mouthed silently.

  Chunk winked and was about to grab the
platter of burgers and dogs from Ellie when the doorbell rang. Conner, redirected by this new development, sprinted toward the front door.

  Ellie rolled her eyes and moved to set down the platter to answer it.

  “I got this,” Chunk said, stopping her. “Grab your minute of peace.”

  He found Connor fumbling with the doorknob. “Need my help, buddy?”

  “I can do it,” the little guy said and then somehow managed to get it unlatched. With a kiddie grunt, he swung the door open wide.

  “Well, hello there,” said a surprised, but smiling Whitney Watts as she glanced down at the little doorman.

  Conner crossed his arms and looked up at her. “I’m Connor Sawyer, and this is my house. Who are you?”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sawyer,” she said, crouching down. “I’m Whitney, and I’m here for the party.”

  Connor looked up at Chunk, who nodded his approval, and then back at Whitney. “Okay,” he said, stepping aside to let her in. “But I’m just Connor, not mister anything.” Then he turned on a heel and marched away. “I gotta go . . . The team needs my help outside.”

  “Hi,” Chunk said, turning back to Watts. “C’mon on in.”

  “Now that was pretty adorable,” she said, stepping inside as he closed the door behind her.

  “Saw’s wife, Ellie, is in the kitchen.” He glanced at the bottle of wine in her hand, then at the fleeing toddler, “I think you misjudged your team by bringing wine—we’re more of a beer crowd here. Let me chase down the little guy. Back in a sec . . .”

  He hustled after Connor, scooping the youngster up just before he ran into the screen door leading to the patio. Behind him, he heard Ellie say, “Oh, you must be Whitney . . . and you brought wine! Thank God. These guys only bring beer.”

  “Hey, bro,” Chunk said, walking up to Saw, holding Conner’s hand. “You got a swim buddy here who wants to help out.”

  Saw took a knee and wrapped the little man in a bear hug. “I was just coming to get you, buddy. These clowns don’t know how to help me on the grill like you do.”

  As Chunk watched father and son bond, a silent prayer took shape in his mind: Lord, help me keep these guys safe and bring them back to their families every time. He scanned the patio and backyard for any new figurative fires to put out. Seeing nothing urgent, he remembered his abandoned beer and headed back into the house.

  “’Sup, Heels?” he said, grinning his best school-boy smile as he joined Watts at the island, where his half-drunk bottle of Corona remained untouched, the glass beaded with condensation.

  Watts wore a strained smile on her face, reinforcing the vibe he’d gotten from her on her first day. Not particularly adept at new social situations, he decided. Now, at the mention of her nickname, she sighed heavily and shook her head.

  “Heels?” Ellie asked with a chuckle, sipping at her wine. “That’s gotta be a fun story.”

  “For the guys,” Watts said with a good-natured laugh. “Not for me.”

  “Sounds like this crew,” Ellie said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of ammunition I can give you to even the score.”

  After a few minutes of small talk with everyone, Chunk gestured with his head, and Watts followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room, where two groups of young kids were playing and giggling on the floor. He took a seat in a large, worn easy chair, gesturing for her to have a seat on the sofa facing him.

  “So how are you doing?” he asked, leaning back in the comfortable chair. “Getting settled in yet—pictures hung and boxes unpacked?”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not much of a decorator,” she said with an easy smile and seemed to relax a touch. “I found an apartment not far from here, actually. It’s in Hyde Park Village, so I have access to restaurants and stuff. Takeout is kinda my thing since, you know, long hours and all.”

  “So,” he said, shifting gears, “Whitney Watts from Northern Virginia. What made you want to be a spook?”

  “Analyst, not spook,” she said, arching an eyebrow and sipping her wine.

  “Same thing, isn’t it?” he teased, then watched as she seemed to consider the comment.

  “Not really. But you know that.”

  “Yeah, I’m just messing with ya,” he said. “But seriously. I know a little about your background—political science major at GW. But intelligence analyst is quite a detour from policy work. How did you make the pivot?”

  “Hmm. Well, becoming an analyst certainly wasn’t my dream job. What most people don’t understand, much less appreciate, is that it’s policy decisions made by elected officials that govern their daily lives. Health care, public safety, education, personal liberties, employment standards, and on and on—all policy matters. Which means that the heart of every debate, every movement, every conflict, every war . . . it all boils down to one thing: policy. I wanted to understand it. I wanted to untangle it. All the violence in the world, all the inequity—solving those puzzles starts with—” She stopped abruptly and stared at her glass. “Anyway, that’s the direction I was headed until, one day, this guy approaches me on campus and says he’s a recruiter for the CIA and would I like to put my special skills to work for the country.” She looked at him as if she’d just shared a joke.

  “What did you say?” Chunk asked, fully drawn into her story now.

  She laughed. “I told him to piss off. I thought he was full of shit,” she continued. “He was young and good looking, and I thought, ‘There’s no way this guy is with the frigging CIA. He just wants to get in my pants.’ But he gave me a card with his contact information and a link to a recruiting website. Later, I checked it out, and it was for real, so I gave him a call.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I told him no thanks, I was interested in helping to create policy, not finding ways to circumvent it.”

  “Nice.”

  “Well, you want to know what he said?”

  Chunk nodded and took a pull from his beer.

  “He said, ‘The CIA is not in the business of circumventing policy, it’s in the business of safeguarding it.’ And then he proceeded to make the most compelling damn argument and recruitment pitch imaginable. He concluded by telling me that if unraveling puzzles was truly my gig, the intelligence world was the place I needed to be.”

  “And?”

  She shrugged. “I bought it hook, line, and sinker, and now . . . here I am.”

  “Here you are,” he agreed. Then a thought occurred to him. “So who was right? You or the recruiter?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is the CIA in the business of safeguarding policy or circumventing it?”

  She gave him a tight, noncommittal smile, and he couldn’t help but feel something beneath haunting her.

  “Both,” she said finally. “With a bias toward the former.”

  “Well, if safeguarding American policy is what gets you up in the morning, then you definitely ended up at the right place. Because this unit is the government’s policy-enforcing tool of choice—stopping evil twenty-four seven, three hundred sixty-five days a year.”

  “To stopping evil,” she said, raising her glass.

  “To stopping evil,” he echoed and clinked bottle to glass.

  “What about you, Lieutenant Commander Keith Redman?” she said, turning the tables. “What makes a college-educated, Texas redneck want to be a Navy SEAL?”

  Chunk laughed. Her description of him was one he used frequently, and he wondered if he’d already said it to her, if she was psychic, or if she was just that good at reading people.

  “You read my personnel jacket, so you already know all about me,” he answered, shrugging off her attempt.

  “No, no,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “You read mine too, and you still asked. And anyway, our files only answer the what, not the why.”

  “Okay, that’s fair,” he conceded. “Mine’s not a particularly inspiring journey, I suppose,” he said as he tried to articulate the answer to a question he’d never fully answered for himself. “I come from a very patriotic family. We love America and Texas—which we love more is the topic of many Christmas gathering debates,” he said with a chuckle. “But seriously, everyone in my family has served, most for just a single tour. Give back to the home and community we love. I know that sounds trite, but it’s who we are. I suppose I never imagined being career military. My dad served in the Navy JAG Corps after law school, before going into private practice. My grandfather was a Marine in Vietnam, then started his own business. So from the time I was a kid, there was really no question about whether I would serve.”