“Yes. Fakhoury wanted to know if I’d kept any data.”
“Such as?”
“Domain names. Passwords. Graphics…”
“Like banner images?”
“Yes. Yes, he asked about those.”
Dominic looked at Brian and muttered, “Stego.”
“Yep.”
“What are you talking about?” Bari asked.
“So what’s the answer?” Dominic asked. “Did you keep any data? A little insurance, maybe?”
Bari opened his mouth to speak, but Brian cut him off: “You lie to us and we’re going to cut Fakhoury free and leave.”
“Yes, I kept data. It’s on an SD card-secure digital, like for a camera. It’s under a tile behind the toilet.”
Brian was already moving. “Got it.” He was back two minutes later with a thumbnail-sized card.
Dominic asked Bari, “Who gives Fakhoury his marching orders?”
“I’ve only heard rumors.”
“Fine.”
“A man named Almasi.”
“Local?”
“No, he’s got a house outside Zuwarah.”
Dominic looked at Brian. “About sixty miles west of here.”
“How high up is this guy? Could he have okayed al-Kariim’s execution?”
“It’s possible.”
They left Bari alone and walked out into the courtyard. “What’dya think?” Brian asked.
“Bari’s a good catch, but it’d be nice to grab a fish higher up the food chain. If this Almasi has enough juice to green-light one of their own, it might be worth a try.”
Brian checked his watch. “Almost ten now. Figure a half-hour to get back to the car, then two hours to Zuwarah. Hit him by two, then back on the road.”
“So we take Bari, grab Almasi if we can.”
“Which leaves Fakhoury.”
“Dead weight, bro.”
Dominic thought it over and sighed.
Brian said, “He’s a stone-cold murderer, Dom.”
“No shit. Having trouble throwing the switch in my head, you know?”
“You threw it once. The kiddie-raper thing.”
“That was a little different.”
“Not much different. Bad guy that wasn’t going to stop on his own. Same thing here.”
Dominic considered this, then nodded. “I’ll do it.”
“No, bro, this one’s mine. Go get Bari ready to move. I’m going to police up.”
Five minutes later Dominic and Bari were in the courtyard. Brian came out, dropped a canvas shopping tote at Dominic’s feet. “Half a dozen semiautos and ten magazines. Be right back.” Brian went back inside.
“What’s he doing?” Bari asked.
From inside came a dull clap, then a second.
“Fakhoury?” Bari said to Dominic. “You killed him.”
“Would you rather he be alive to come after you?”
“No, but who’s to say you won’t do the same to me when you’re done?”
“I am. Worst case, we’ll let you walk away.”
“And best case.”
“That depends on how helpful you are.”
Brian walked out ten minutes later. He and Dominic walked to the far wall, and Brian boosted Dominic onto the roof. He was back ten seconds later with their backpacks. The three of them moved to the courtyard door.
Brian turned to Bari. “Just so we’re clear: You run, or draw attention to us, we’ll put a bullet in your head.”
“Why would I do such a thing?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. You put us in a jackpot, you’ll be the first one to die.”
“I understand.”
Forty minutes later they emerged from the Medina on Sidi Omran and walked two blocks east toward the Corinthia, where they’d parked the Opel. Five minutes after that, they were on Umar al Mukhtar and heading west toward the outskirts of the city. Overhead the sky was clear, showing a quarter-moon and a diamond field of stars.
They drove in silence, with Bari lying flat on the backseat until they were past Sabratah, forty miles up the coast from Tripoli. “You can sit up,” Dominic told him from the passenger seat. “How’s the hand?”
“Very painful. What did you do with my fingers?”
“Flushed them down the toilet,” Brian replied.
This was the easiest of his tasks inside Bari’s home. In turn, he had checked Fakhoury and his men for tattoos and identification. He found none of the former but plenty of the latter; these he put in the tote bag. Next he fired three rounds into the back of each man’s head. The hollow-points did their job, turning each face into so much unrecognizable hamburger. The police would probably be able to eventually identify them, but by the time the URC realized it had lost one of its own, he, Dominic, and Bari would be out of the country.
“You flushed my fingers down the toilet?” Bari repeated. “Why?”
Dominic answered this one. “So there’s no trace of you. The more unknowns they have, the better. Where’s Almasi’s house?”
“East of the city. I’ll recognize the turnoff. It’s across from an old refinery.” Twenty minutes later, Bari said, “Slow down. This next road on the left.”
Brian slowed down and turned onto the dirt tract. Almost immediately the grade increased; ahead, the road wound its way in a series of low, scrub-covered hills. After five minutes the road turned sharply right. Bari, looking out the driver’s-side window, tapped the glass. “There. That house with the lights on. That’s Almasi’s.”
A quarter-mile away down an eroded slope, Brian and Dominic could make out the two-story adobe structure surrounded by a shoulder-high mud-brick wall. Fifty yards away to the west was a cluster of four adobe huts. Directly behind the house sat a barn.
“Old farm?” Dominic asked.
“Yes. Goats. Almasi bought it as a retreat home three years ago.”
Dominic said, “See the antennas on the roof, Bri?”
“Yeah. The guy’s wired for some serious comms.”
They continued on for another half-mile, losing sight of the farmhouse behind a hill, then slowed at a crossroads. On impulse, Brian turned left. The dirt road narrowed for fifty yards before opening into what looked like a gravel quarry.
“This ought to do,” Dominic said.
Brian doused the headlights, coasted to a stop, then killed the engine. They turned in their seats and looked at Bari. “What else do you know about this place?” Brian asked.
“Just where it is, that’s all.”
“Never been here?”
“Once. Just to drive by it.”
“How’d that happen? Just curiosity?”
Bari hesitated. “In my business, it pays to know who you’re dealing with. I knew Fakhoury answered to Almasi. I thought it might be smart someday to deal directly with him, so I made some inquiries.”
“Industrious,” Dominic remarked. “So you’ve never been there, never been in the house?”
