could pop his shoulder back in place. But he needed Gaffan to understand. “You still don’t get it. Nobody but us was going near that camp. DoD or the agency wouldn’t send men in unless they were sure of finding an active cell on the other end. Too risky. Too many lawyers saying no. And in a couple days, a week at most, there wasn’t gonna be any place to raid. They were moving out.”
Gaffan didn’t answer. Wells didn’t know whether he’d accepted the truth or was just tired of arguing.
Three minutes later, they reached the Jeep. High on the ridge to the northwest, Wells saw a low fire. The SUV had crashed. The militia would have found it was empty by now and would be figuring out where to go next. No doubt they would reach the logical conclusion: south. Wells and Gaffan had a decent head start, but they would probably radio ahead to their units in Baalbek. They wouldn’t know exactly what they were looking for, but they would block the main valley road anyway.
Wells and Gaffan had to get out of the valley before daybreak, back to the coast. Fortunately, the mountain checkpoints were manned by the Lebanese army, which ran independently of Hezbollah. Or so Wells hoped.
Gaffan stopped beside the Jeep, but Wells put a hand on his arm. “No.” Switching cars would take time they didn’t have, and they were better off leaving the jihadi in the trunk.
They left the Jeep behind, headed east on a low gravel road that was shielded from the mountains. “Where to?” Gaffan said.
“South, then west, when you can. We’ll take the road that runs up high on the ridge.”
“Then south again?”
“North.”
“Back toward the camp.”
“Yeah, but west and above it. There’s a pass that cuts through the mountains north of here. We’ll get to the other side, close to the coast, ditch the car.” Wells left the next question unspoken:
“Then what?” Gaffan said.
Wells wanted to find a place to hide, talk to the kid and then to Shafer about what they’d found. But the militia wouldn’t need long to trace the Jeep. Wells was on a fake passport, but Gaffan wasn’t. By sunrise, every militiaman in Lebanon would be after them. Maybe the cops, too, if Hezbollah decided it wanted the government to be in on the search. If the militia captured them, it might execute them on the spot. Being arrested wouldn’t be much better. Wells wasn’t eager to spend the rest of his life in a Lebanese jail. And they wouldn’t get any help from the agency, not without firm evidence that connected these jihadis to the earlier attacks. Which they didn’t have.
“Back to the coast. The boat. Unless you want to stay in Lebanon.”
“I’ll pass.” Gaffan turned right along a narrow gravel road and right again at a silent village that was no more than a few concrete shacks at a four-way intersection. They were on pavement now. They rose through three switchbacks and intersected a narrow two-lane road that ran north-south along the flanks of the range. Gaffan made a right, taking them north. Wells saw headlights along the valley floor to the east, but the escape plan had worked for now. The road through the village was quiet. It was possible that no one was after them because the militia were trying to figure out what had happened at the camp.
The ridge road had no guardrails, not even a white line to mark the edge of the pavement. It simply broke into gravel and fell away. Gaffan had no choice but to flip on his headlights and slow down. Wells checked his watch again. Two fifty-eight a.m. A long night behind, a long night ahead. And six more bodies to add to his inventory.
“You bust your shoulder again?” Gaffan had been in Afghanistan when Wells dislocated the joint the first time.
Wells didn’t want to think about his shoulder. “You get anything from the kid?”
“His name. Meshaal. Other than that… He’s scared out of his mind. You saw him. Not exactly the first team. I don’t think he knows much.”
“We’ll see.”
SOON AFTER THEY CRESTED the pass at Qammouaa, Wells saw houses to the west. Farmers and tribesmen had lived in the valleys between the Lebanon range and the coast for thousands of years. Fortunately, the road stayed empty as it swept northwest, curving around a hillside. Beneath them, villages glowed in the dark all the way to the Mediterranean. To the right, a gravel road led to an unfinished mansion, rebar poking from its second floor. Three forty-five a.m. Even the most dedicated fishermen wouldn’t be up for at least another hour. Wells tapped Gaffan.
“Up there.”
Gaffan swept the wheel right and bounced them up the road, which circled behind the mansion to a half-built garage. “Nice and quiet. First smart move tonight.”
“Chain-of-command, please. No backtalk.”
Outside, the air was cool and dry. Wells relaxed enough to feel just how exhausted he was. And how dirty. Sweat curdled on his skin. Dried blood covered his forehead. A steady fire burned from his biceps to his fingertips. If he didn’t fix his shoulder soon, the nerves would be permanently damaged.
“Help me,” he said to Gaffan.
Gaffan looked doubtful.
“I’ll show you.” Wells put Gaffan’s left hand on the outer edge of his shoulder, the right on the meat of his biceps. He put his own left hand between them.
“On three, you push up and forward. I’ll guide it.”
“Don’t I need an M.D. for this? At least a nursing degree?”
“Hard. On three. One. Two. Three—”
Gaffan pushed. Wells closed his eyes, and the world was nothing but pain — and he guided his arm up, up, and—
Into the socket and relief. He leaned against the Toyota, tears flaring from his eyes.
“Didn’t hurt a bit,” Gaffan said.
A thump from the trunk spared Wells from having to reply. They popped the trunk and tugged the jihadi — Meshaal — out. He started to crumple, but Gaffan put a shoulder under him. Wells pulled off the hood, and Meshaal blinked in the moonlight, his lips blubbering. Wells wondered how the jihadis had planned to use Meshaal. Maybe as a suicide bomber. He wouldn’t be much of a soldier. But he wasn’t screaming, and he hadn’t tried to take off. He might be manageable.
“Can you stand, Meshaal?”
The kid nodded, not asking how Wells knew his name.
“Stand, then.” Meshaal firmed his knees.
“How old are you, Meshaal?”
“Twenty.”
“Really, how old?”
“Eighteen.”
Nobody senior would have told him anything, not intentionally. But he’d surely picked up information. Wells needed to shake it out — without hurting him. Torture was off the table. Lie, steal, kill, no problem. But no torture. Not after what had happened in Jamaica. And especially not after the Midnight House.
Then he had an idea, a way to use the fact that they spoke Arabic and had come in without helicopters or fancy equipment or uniforms. The lie would work only if the kid wanted to believe. But Wells thought he might.
“Take off Meshaal’s handcuffs. We can tell him now.”
“Tell him.” But Gaffan made the words a statement, not a question, and uncuffed Meshaal.
“Meshaal, do you know who we are? We’re from”—Wells pointed over the mountain, east—“Pakistan. Do you understand?”
Meshaal shook his head.
“Sheikh bin Laden sent us to find you.”
“Sheikh bin Laden.”
“These men you trained with, they’re not part of his plan. You are.”
“Those were my brothers.”
