Roland nodded. “Fair enough. He’s a former special ops guy who worked for the CIA. You might have worked with him before, Alex. His name is John McGinn.”
Alex leaned back in her chair and interlocked her fingers behind her head. “McGinn? That’s your guy on the ground?”
“What do you know about him, Alex?” Hawk asked.
“He’s an interesting character,” Alex responded. “I find it hard to believe that the CIA would place him in a place like Somalia. What’s he doing there?”
“Nothing of too much consequence,” Roland said. “Just training some Somalian military personnel.”
Hawk watched Alex look up and bite her lip. He didn’t flinch, hoping she’d agree to go.
“I don’t like being on location, but I’ll do it,” she said.
“Excellent,” Roland said before standing up and handing her a pair of folders. “Everything you’ll need to know for the mission is in there. Good luck.”
CHAPTER 4
Tuesday
Berera, Somalia
HASSAN GARAAR TIGHTENED HIS MASK and carefully opened the fifty-five-gallon drum in front of him. He slid a small tube into the barrel and siphoned out some of the liquid. He placed a few drops onto a petri dish to examine the liquid.
Still good.
He closed the drum and used a dolly to move the container to another part of his warehouse. Returning to his work area, he stooped down to get eye level with the caged brown-and-white hamster treading on a wheel. He watched the small animal run tirelessly for half a minute.
Better run while you still can, Barbara.
Garaar never named the animals he tested his product on—almost. But he knew the hamster was going to die a gruesome death. As a result, he decided to name the hamster after a woman he dated at Caltech. Garaar caught Barbara cheating on him with a lab partner and employed restraint at the time.
You just keep right on doing what you’re doing, Barb.
Garaar adjusted his mask again and hovered over the device that would weaponize the sarin and make it far more potent. Every inch of the vaporizer was checked before he closed the small kit and latched it shut. He locked the main entrance to warehouse before carefully loading the case into his vehicle and climbing into the driver’s seat.
“See you soon, Barb,” he said before shoving his SUV into drive and kicking up enough sand to constitute a dust storm in certain parts of California.
While Garaar drove, he considered the path that led him to this moment, the point that he considered to be a crowning achievement in his fledgling career. The fact that he could mix his own sarin gas was reason enough for celebration. It was, after all, the primary purpose for his educational exploits in the United States. However, he was far from achieving his end game, which was to create massive quantities for Al-Shabaab. But his superiors needed a way to generate some funding for their next offensive after the U.S. and Europe conspired to freeze the organization’s bank accounts. Ultimately, Garaar knew Al Shabaab didn’t have the vehicle to deploy a weapon like this in an effective way. Yet, he didn’t complain, content to ply his trade until that moment arrived.
In his dream scenario, Garaar would’ve preferred to remain in Saudi Arabia and train for jihad in a much grittier way. At one time, pulling the trigger on a sniper rifle aimed at American soldiers seemed to be a much higher calling. But he came to understand his role in eradicating the infidels from the face of the planet, a role that was less barbaric in practice but far more barbaric when it came to results. At least, it appeared that way to him when he watched videos of what happened to test subjects when exposed to sarin gas.
The live test was the final hurdle he needed to clear in order to take his weapon to market. He’d already lined up a buyer and established a date for the sale. However, he realized that no one would pay the kind of money he was demanding for a chemical weapon unless it was proven to work. Garaar was also anxious to see for himself if he indeed implemented everything he learned while earning his chemical engineering degree. At this stage, failure would be disastrous and quite possibly could cost him his life. He needed to ensure the batch of sarin he mixed was every bit as potent as it could be.
Selecting a test subject wasn’t particularly difficult. He spoke with a doctor working in conjunction with the World Health Organization who told him about a small village thirty miles northwest of Berbera that had a viral outbreak of polio. Authorities placed the village under quarantine while epidemiologists attempted to isolate the source of the outbreak. In the meantime, the only people allowed in or out of the village were health personnel.
Garaar glanced down at the WHO credential hanging around his neck. The credential belonged to an Indian doctor Garaar had stabbed to death earlier in the week. He wasn’t proud of murdering the man, though technically he was still an infidel and deserved such a fate. When it came to Islam, all other religions stood at odds with it, even Buddhism. But it was tame compared to what he was about to do.
He flashed his credentials to the armed guards patrolling all the roads leading into the village. They waved him through. Garaar checked his notes and turned left at the first intersection and drove a quarter of a mile until he reached the designated home. He worked quickly to assemble his camera and carry it into the house along with the weapon. If any snoopy neighbors appeared, his cover would be blown, resulting in an even larger-scale test. For now, all he wanted to do was get a record to verify the effectiveness of the gas and escape the village without further incident.
The woman who greeted Garaar at the door begged him to hurry.
“My children need you,” she said. “Come,
