Hakeem was surprised to find tears in his eyes. This was the first time he had cried for his mother since the week after she had been taken from him. He quickly brought out his handkerchief and blew his nose, then laughed to those around him, wafting his hands toward his face to indicate that it was the pungent aroma of the cooking making his eyes water.
Everyone laughed with him.
The people here were still a little unsure what to make of Hakeem Qasim and his Westernized manners. But they knew one thing was true: this man was a hero. And they were going to do whatever it took to show their respect and admiration for him.
Hakeem had been picked up at the airport last night by some new friends and driven to the home where he was now staying. The house and surrounding neighborhood reminded him very much of an upscale part of Baghdad not far from his childhood home.
Whenever an expatriate community plants itself in a new country without taking on any of the host country’s culture, the neighborhood quickly develops the characteristics of the homeland. This was certainly the case in this little European enclave.
Hakeem had slept through the night, the morning, and into the afternoon. When he had finally awakened, it was to the sweet smell of cardamom tea with its generous dose of sugar at the bottom and a large piece of freshly baked um ali-a wonderful pastry dessert with pistachios, almonds, and cinnamon. These had been placed on the nightstand next to his bed. That was six hours ago, two hours prior to the beginning of this feast-a feast that showed no signs of abating anytime soon.
There were at least thirty people spread throughout the home. Everyone was congratulating him and giving him gifts. He hadn’t realized how rusty his Arabic had become over the years, but all were willing to accommodate him by speaking slowly and repeating phrases when needed. His welcome home was everything he had dreamed it would be.
He was speaking with an older man and his son, who was around Hakeem’s age, when a sudden hush fell over the house. All eyes turned toward the front door, where a man stood in the entryway. Hakeem thought the man looked vaguely familiar, but he didn’t recognize the burn scars that covered the right half of the man’s face and the patch that covered his right eye.
The man scanned the room, and his eye fell on Hakeem. He walked slowly across the floor and stood before the honored guest. Then he spoke. “Hakeem.”
At the sound of the man’s voice, recognition flooded Hakeem, and he dropped to his knees in front of the man. Next to his father and his uncle Ali, this was the man most responsible for the warrior that Hakeem had become. He had taught Hakeem, trained Hakeem, disciplined Hakeem, prepared Hakeem, and sent Hakeem out into the world as a warrior for honor. This was the man who had created his cherished brass medallion so many years ago. If there was one man still alive whose approval Hakeem craved, it was this man. The Scorpion.
Hakeem bowed his head and said with deep reverence, “Al-’Aqran.”
Thursday, January 8
Chièvres Air Base
Belgium
A sixteen-foot-long moving truck with French lettering on its side pulled up next to the plane moments after the C-37A Gulfstream V touched its wheels down at Chièvres Air Base in Belgium. Quickly, the men of the U.S. Air Force’s 309th Airlift Squadron helped Jim Hicks and his team transfer their equipment through the cold, steady rain.
Ten minutes later, the truck was on its way.
Hicks and his number-two man, Jay Kruse, sat up front, while the other six members of the team rode back in the box.
“Predator team, stay sharp,” Hicks radioed to the men in back. As a show of respect and as a nod to Riley Covington’s participation, Hicks had named the two ops teams after the PFL teams affected by the Platte River Stadium bombings. Hicks’s team was designated Predator team, while the team Scott Ross and Covington led was Mustang team.
Hicks had instructed the men in the rear to set up a mobile surveillance suite as they traveled. By the time they had completed the two-and-a-half-hour trek to Paris, they would be ready to go.
On the drive down, Hicks thought through the past week. He had continued to be impressed by Scott Ross’s abilities and even-though he hated to admit-by Riley Covington’s.
What was it about Covington that he didn’t like? Was it simply the fear that his relative inexperience would get people killed? If it were truly that, Hicks knew he wouldn’t have gone along with Scott’s plan from the beginning. He wouldn’t risk American lives for anyone’s feelings. Was it a personality thing? Maybe, but the man seemed like a genuinely decent guy-not the stuck-on-himself football prima donna Hicks had expected.
Am I jealous of the guy? Jim wondered. Do I want what he’s got? But what is it he’s got? I don’t want his lifestyle. I’ve got all the junk I need, and as for the spotlight, I much prefer life in the shadows.
Am I jealous of him and Khadi? I saw the way she was looking at him during our training week-ways I once hoped she’d look at me. But that was a long time ago. She’s much more like a daughter than a love interest now. What about Scott? C’mon, how could I be jealous of Riley Covington’s relationship with Scott?
A feeling in the pit of his stomach told Hicks that this last possibility might be truer than he had hoped. Okay, jealous of one guy’s relationship with another guy-that’s a realm I certainly don’t want to delve into.
But as he drove, he realized that despite their age difference and relatively short acquaintance, he had begun to see Scott as a true friend-something that he had rarely had in his life.
Hicks shook himself out of his introspection as the truck approached the northeastern Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, located a little more than eight miles outside of the city center. The revelation that the explosives used in the Platte River Stadium attack had been French had come as no surprise to Hicks. The Parisian suburbs had been a hotbed for disgruntled Arab youth for a generation, and the region’s influence and importance in the world of terrorism were rapidly increasing. CIA sources within the Islamic youth movement had indicated with a strong certainty that the base for the Cause in France was in the neighboring communities of Aulnay-sous-Bois, Livry-Gargan, and Clichy-sous-Bois.
The truck turned off Boulevard Charles Floquet and parked at the top of Rue du Commandant Brasseur. The team’s target house was on the left side of the street, two from the bottom of the block. Their intelligence indicated that this house was a gathering place for an insurgent group that included two key leaders of the Cause. According to the report, the group was currently meeting in the house along with several soldiers. The strike team’s goal was to neutralize the soldiers and remove the leaders to a safe house where they could be held and interrogated.
A week’s worth of tension filled each man in the truck; this was the beginning of what they had been called together for.
At Hicks’s go-ahead, Jay Kruse slipped in the earbuds of an iPod nano and jumped out of the cab while Hicks joined the rest of the team in back by slipping through a door that had been cut between the back of the driver’s cab and the container box. Hicks watched on a monitor as Kruse waved his hand in front of the mini camera that had been hidden in his left earbud, and he banged the side of the truck once as acknowledgment that they were picking up the signal.
Kruse began walking toward the house. The whole team watched his progress on the monitor.
Suddenly the picture was completely obscured by something that as quickly disappeared. Ted Hummel, the team’s tech guru, burst out laughing.
“What was that?” Hicks demanded.
“That was the nano, sir,” Hummel replied. “Apparently old Kruser just discovered that I loaded the thing with nothing but Jerry Lewis.”