114

DOHA, QATAR

It was late in the evening when they finally touched down at Al Udeid Air Base.

Home of the forward headquarters for the U.S. Central Command, the air base was run jointly by the U.S. Air Force and the Qataris but also housed forces from the RAF and various other NATO countries, all involved in counterterrorism operations throughout the region. The team’s cover story upon arriving was that they were American military advisors who had been wounded while assisting Egyptian forces combating al Qaeda, ISIS, and other insurgents operating in the northern Sinai. While they had been in the air, both the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department had issued brief statements to the media regarding a new terror attack near Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip resulting in a number of casualties. None of it was true, but it helped reinforce their cover in case the Qataris started asking questions. Fortunately, they did not.

When they left the air base in a black armor-plated Chevy Suburban, each member of the team had new passports and supporting documents with totally new identities and cover stories. All of them had been provided by the CIA’s station in Cairo with assistance from a CIA field office on the base. They knew the stories would not hold up well under close scrutiny, but the plan Marcus and Jenny had mapped out called for them to be in the country for only a few hours.

It was 1:23 in the morning when they reached the luxury high-rise building where Hamdi Yaşar owned an apartment. They found a place to park on the street out front, grabbed their backpacks and duffel bags of equipment, jimmied a lock to a side door, and headed inside. Fanning out to three different elevators, they rode up to the twenty-third floor, regrouped, checked their weapons, and moved quickly to apartment 2319. Noah picked the lock. Marcus then eased the door open and led the team inside.

The vestibule was pitch-black. So were the living room and dining room. The lights in the kitchen were off too except for a night-light over the stovetop. Each team member now moved to their preassigned positions. Noah closed and locked the door behind them and guarded it. No one was getting in or out except through him. As he waited for the others to creep forward, he also quietly removed a device from his pocket and activated it. This jammed the Wi-Fi and all phones and electronic devices in the flat so that no one could call in or out. No one in such a fancy VIP building used landlines anymore, so that was of no concern.

Marcus gave the signal. Geoff and Jenny quietly slipped into the children’s room, where a boy and a girl both under the age of six were sleeping soundly. Geoff stood over the boy, Jenny over the girl. On a silent count of three, they quickly put strips of duct tape over the children’s mouths, then bound their hands and feet with tape as well. Jenny told them in fluent Arabic that they needed to be quiet and assured them that everything was going to be over soon, and no one would hurt them. Then she left Geoff to keep watch over them, returned to the hallway, and closed the door behind her.

With Marcus in the lead, they burst into the master bedroom. Marcus and Callaghan moved for Hamdi. Jenny took care of the terrified wife. Within seconds, the wife had been drugged, her mouth covered with tape, and her hands and feet tied up. It took a few more seconds to subdue her husband, but though he struggled wildly, he was never able to make a sound. Then he, too, was drugged and fell silent.

As Callaghan bound the Turk’s hands and feet, Marcus searched the bedroom. He found a loaded pistol under a pillow and breathed a silent prayer of thanks that Yaşar had not been given the opportunity to grab and use it. A thorough search of the rest of the bedroom turned up nothing, so Marcus went hunting. A spare bedroom next door turned out to be Yaşar’s private office, and this proved a treasure trove. Marcus found three laptops, multiple satellite phones, two sets of file cabinets, and a wall safe.

After loading up as much as he could in the two duffel bags they had brought, Marcus relieved Noah and sent the young man to go crack the safe. Three minutes later, Noah returned with both duffel bags in hand. The job was done. The safe was open. All the contents had been removed. They were good to go.

Marcus returned to the master bedroom. He nodded to Jenny to go help Noah get everything down to the car and for Callaghan to do the same with Yaşar. The wife he left in her bed, sleeping soundly. Marcus checked her pulse before he left. She was fine. He saw the woman’s purse on the dresser. Inside, he found her mobile phone. He took it out and set it on the bed beside her. In a few hours, she would wake up. She would get the tape off her mouth and call the police. She would tell them she did not remember anything and she and her children were fine, but her husband was missing. By then they would be on a plane heading for a black site with their prisoner and two bags full of evidence.

As he headed down the hallway to leave, he stopped at the children’s room. Both were propped up in their beds, a look of terror in their eyes. Marcus felt a pang of compassion for them. But there was nothing he could do. Their father had put them in this situation, not him. He motioned for Geoff to catch up with the others. Then he noticed a television and DVD player on the side table. He turned it on, found a bootleg version of Toy Story in Arabic, put it on with the volume set low, and gestured for the kids to stay quiet and not to move. Then he closed the door and set a chair in front of it so they could not easily get out until their mother came for them. And with that, the team slipped away as quickly and quietly as they had come.