Winters’s bandaged right hand opened the warehouse door of the garage near the World Trade Center Apartments in Erbil. It was full of rugs, brass lanterns, and other junk.
“Ain’t that a sorry sight,” said the AO team leader.
“Get in there and find me that key,” Winters ordered. The five-man team started kicking things over, ransacking the loot house.
God damn you, Locke, Winters thought.
The team overturned rugs and kicked open chests. They were a Tier Two team, a far cry from Campbell’s men. Normally they would be defending oil refineries in the Emirates, but they were the best Winters could muster on short notice. Campbell’s team had left Iraq shortly after Winters took Locke.
Six stories up, in an adjacent half-built building, Boon had Winters’s head in the crosshairs of his Dragunov sniper rifle. It was a clear 450-meter shot. He knew Winters would come back for the key, and he wanted to finish this. Not just for Kylah, but for the world. He was a mercenary. He didn’t need permission from headquarters to do the right thing.
He flipped the safety to off and steadied his breathing for the shot.
“Find anything yet?” Winters asked.
“Negative.”
“Keep looking.”
“No need,” an accented voice said. The men dropped what they were doing, red laser dots dancing across their chests. They raised their hands in surrender.
“Abdulaziz,” Winters said flatly. A Saudi black-ops team stood behind the prince. There was no escape.
“Did you really think you were going to steal from me, Mr. Winters? From me!” Abdulaziz struck Winters hard across the face. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Winters spat blood. “I am working for you, my prince. I am here on your behalf.”
“My son called me.”
Winters didn’t flinch, although it was a devastating blow. Locke. That damn Locke. He was good. “Impossible,” he said smoothly. “I saw him dead.”
“I recognize my own son’s voice, Mr. Winters. All fathers do.” It was pointed. Abdulaziz looked down on men, like Winters, with no heirs. “He knew things only my son would know.”
“Then it was a recording. It was made before—”
“He told me you would say that. He also said you would have this,” the prince said, pointing to the wound on Winters’s hand. “You didn’t have that two days ago.”
For once, Winters was at a loss for words.
“He had a daughter, my former friend. Philomena. In a London hospital. He and his . . . wife flew there, I understand, on a private jet.”
Winters thought about running, but four laser sights danced across his torso. He wouldn’t make it two steps. He held out his wrists, and one of the black-ops operators flex-cuffed him.
“The first smart thing you have done since we met,” Abdulaziz said. “Take them away.”
The black-ops team marched Winters and his security detail out of the storage bunker.
“What now?” Winters said, as they shoved him into the back of a minivan.
Abdulaziz grinned. “I traded my son for this information. My son will call me every year to assure me he is alive, but otherwise we will have no contact. This is a grave sacrifice. I’m glad you aren’t going to make this harder on any of us.”
A hood went over Winters’s head. Blackness. And for the first time in his life, doubt.
Boon watched the ambush. He saw them corner the Apollo team, and the shock on Winters’s face. He could have killed Winters anyway, but he thought better of it. The Saudis knew what to do.
He stood up as the vehicles pulled away and yanked a chain out from around his neck. It was the key. He dropped it on the concrete floor, crushed it under his boot, then kicked the pieces into the wind.