85

On the south side of the city, al-Masri told Zayan to take a right.

Then a left.

Then to pull into a public parking garage underneath a supermarket in Laylaki, a Shia community immediately adjacent to the Beirut airport.

The market, Zayan knew, was not far from where al-Masri had grown up. It was closed. There was no one out on the streets at this hour. And every level of the garage was empty. Except the last. Three floors down, al-Masri ordered Zayan to pull into a spot next to a rusty blue Dodge van. He did as he was told, then shut down the engine.

“We need to move fast,” the Egyptian instructed as he jumped out of the passenger side, pulled a set of keys from his pocket, and unlocked and opened the back doors of the van. “Help me get this guy into the van; then we’ll wipe down the taxi and move the rest of our bags over.”

Zayan complied. He got out of the driver’s side and came around the back of the van, then saw confusion on the commander’s face. Following al-Masri’s gaze, Zayan became confused as well. Both of the taillights were gone. Not broken. Not cracked. Gone. And the trunk lid was unlatched and slightly ajar.

“Open it,” al-Masri ordered.

Rattled by the sudden anger in the man’s voice, Zayan raised the trunk lid. But it was empty. Not only was their prisoner gone, so was all the fruit. All that was left were a few splinters of wood. Even the carpet that lined the trunk floor was gone, as was the spare tire. The two men just stared into the empty space. Zayan braced himself for the tirade that was coming. But it did not come. Al-Masri merely stood there, mouth open, unable to speak, unable even to move for what seemed like an eternity.

“It’s not possible,” the colonel finally said, more to himself than to Zayan.

Zayan knew better than to reply. He was scared. More than that, he was terrified at what al-Masri might do to him.

“We . . . no . . . we can’t . . . ,” al-Masri mumbled, though he was barely audible. “How can we go back?”

Zayan kept quiet.

Al-Masri tried to speak again but was struggling to form words. “I guess we . . .”

The words trailed off. Al-Masri turned and stared at the empty parking garage.

“But where? I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”

Again, the words trailed off.

And Zayan could only stand there, frozen in place.

It was if all the circuit breakers in al-Masri’s head had suddenly blown.

He simply could not process what his eyes were telling him.

The implications were unimaginable.

Until now, things had been going so well. Yes, the raid had been messy. And yes, he had lost his brother, probably forever. But those were costs he was willing to pay. The mission was still on track. And it was nearly complete. Al-Masri had spent the entire drive from the east side of Beirut praying that they would not be stopped by the local police or Hezbollah patrols. Those prayers had been answered. How, then, could Allah have allowed this to happen, especially when he was so close to achieving victory?

Interspersed between his prayers, al-Masri had also been making a mental checklist of all that he needed to do when they reached the safe house and the storage facility. And then, just moments ago, he had finally received the text from his Kairos contact, the text he had been waiting for. The new passport, credit cards, and other papers he had demanded had been produced. The route had been booked. The tickets had been purchased. They were taking Turkish Airlines flight 831. It was scheduled to depart Beirut at 9:10 in the morning and land in Istanbul just two hours later. From there, the exchange would be made. The prisoners would no longer be his concern. He would be rich. And he would be free to melt away into the crowds.

Now what? he asked himself. How in the world was he supposed to find Thomas Millner? The man must have escaped sometime after they had cleared the last checkpoint. That was back near Zalqa, eighteen kilometers away. At this hour, even with little or no traffic, it would take them thirty minutes to get back there. In theory, of course, he and Zayan could retrace their steps. But so what? How could they possibly find him? How long might it take? In a few hours, the sun would be up. The morning rush hour would begin. The roads would be gridlocked. And what then?