“I LOVE THE OCEAN,” JIDDO SAID. “AS CLOSE TO A VIEW OF HOME AS we have here, yes?”
Hala and Tariq stood with him at the edge of the beach, looking toward the water. The air was cold, but the sky was a brilliant blue with just a few wisps of cloud floating near the horizon. Seagulls rode the breeze over their heads.
“I’ve never seen the Atlantic before,” she said.
“Ah. Well, now you have,” he said, in a way that told Hala the topic was about to turn back to business. Tariq took hold of her hand and stayed quiet. It was unusual for him to take the lead, but that’s what he did now, signaling for her not to talk anymore.
“Our Washington operations are over,” the old man said. “Rather, I should say they’ve been suspended for the time being.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hala said honestly. “We would have liked to have gone much deeper.”
“Don’t be sorry. You are invaluable, an impressive soldier. We trained you quite well, it seems.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“The jihad is not over. America is only just beginning to kneel. While they lick their wounds on one side, we will attack them from another. It will be like that until they are defeated.”
Hala smiled again. It excited her to hear him speak this way. “I hope there will be a role for us,” she said.
“Of course,” he said right away. “In fact it begins right here.”
Hala turned to see the younger man pulling a familiar case from the trunk of Jiddo’s Mercedes. It was the laptop computer she and Tariq had brought from Saudi Arabia. The one she’d been forced to leave behind at the Four Seasons.
She stared. “How did you—”
“Psh!” Jiddo said again. “Please don’t be surprised. That would disappoint me.”
The assistant carried the computer over and opened it on the hood of the car.
“We created a very secure system for ourselves,” Jiddo told them. “Perhaps too secure. With the man you know as Uncle out of circulation, our access to certain information has been… somewhat restricted.”
Hala understood immediately. “You need for me to open my files,” she said, to an approving smile. She stepped over to the laptop, where a flashing cursor waited on the blank screen. It took only a moment to still her racing mind. Then the sixteen characters she needed flowed out of her fingers as if by muscle memory: 23EE4XYQ9R21WV0W.
The screen blinked once, then repopulated itself with a familiar series of icons. Hala scanned through them quickly, making sure everything was as she’d left it—target names, home addresses, public schedules, maps, security contacts.
“I believe it’s all here,” she said.
“Very good,” Jiddo said. “And now—”
Tariq spoke up all at once, in a voice that was oddly grave. “Hala!”
She turned around and saw the other couple standing behind them. The man had his hand out. In his palm were the two cyanide capsules that had been removed from her pocket earlier.
The woman stayed to the side, covering them with her Sig from the opposite angle.
“And now,” Jiddo said again, “we must ask for one last act of dedication to The Family.”