Lana can’t see how any of the Delta Force operators could have possibly survived. First, both of those choppers were blasted into fireballs. Second, they crashed. Third, the jihadis would have been on them like hyenas.
Skirting the fire line, they spot the first helicopter’s roasting carcass and take cover behind a closely knit stand of trees. Lana guesses the second incinerated bird went down over the lake. She’s about to tell Ludmila and Will her three reasons for turning around when they spot a soldier with blackened skin, shirt all but burned off his back. He’s stumbling in their general direction, his eyes on the ground.
What Lana and her cohorts don’t see are the eyes looking down on the soldier, staring from a camouflaged deer blind in an ancient oak.
Tahir Hijazi commands the coalition of ISIS and Al Qaeda jihadis from the tree’s thick limbs. He ordered a small tactical squad to try to take back the house quickly. They failed. Now Tahir guides the rest methodically. He advances them with the cold calculating precision of a man deeply versed in killing, much as he’s orchestrated this entire operation, with help from Fayah, for many months now.
He watches the badly scorched American soldier stumble away. He’ll die, Tahir thinks, either from the burns or the bullets of the jihadis, and will never know the real nature of the historic ISIS and Al Qaeda reconciliation that will soon become known to everyone. Its shocking culmination will be on full display here in the heart of America. Undercover for more than twenty years, he’s been providing information and disinformation, depending on the time, place, and people. He’s been playing the perilous role of a double agent, always looking for threats from every conceivable direction. But also delivering deadly blows when others least expect them.
That was what he expected to do today, because Tahir has played the game consummately well. He’s carefully enticed the world’s top jihadi operatives into a grand ambush by the Americans. A deadly sting operation worthy of his long career.
A few years ago he accepted that he couldn’t keep playing the double agent forever. His CIA handler insisted he’d be killed if he didn’t relocate to the U.S. So precisely when the cyberwars began in earnest, Tahir arrived in Bethesda — a suburb home to so many spies and government officials. Both he and his handler believed having him in the town would play well with the men Tahir was duping in Al Qaeda and then ISIS. And it had.
Tahir hatched a plan to cripple the monstrous forces heaping shame on Islam with their ceaseless slaughter of innocents: He would lure them to America with the promise of chainsawing to death Lana Elkins, the U.S.’s most celebrated cyberwarrior, along with her daughter. They leapt at the opportunity, knowing Steel Fist’s execution would trigger a violent backlash against American Muslims that could drive many into the ranks of radical Islamists. Moreover, every move would be captured on camera to inspire jihadis worldwide.
How could they resist such powerful bait from a trusted confidante and proven killer?
He planned each step down to Emma’s abduction by Fayah, an old comrade.
But the Americans underestimated the firepower and skill of jihadists, as they had so many times before. As soon as the choppers were shot out of the sky, Tahir knew his own plans had also gone down in flames and that nothing could stop the jihadis he’d cultivated for so long. The forces that were to ambush his presumed allies were dead.
Now, against his every wish, he must command a military operation to murder the very people he wanted to save. The irony is as horrid as it is unavoidable — if he is to continue working as the U.S.’s most valuable agent in the radical Islamist underground. Only his CIA handler, the director of the agency, the President, and the very highest echelon of the intelligence community have ever been aware of the role he’s played, or how critically positioned he’s been for so many years. “Need to know” hasn’t been applied so strictly to anyone since the height of the Cold War.
He looks down from the deer blind in disgust, watching a fighter from Jordan level his rifle on the soldier. But the Jordanian lifts his eyes from his rifle sight. Tahir sees why: two women and a man are rushing to aid the wounded American. The jihadi is doing what Tahir has done many times: waiting until the four come together so he can gun them down all at once.
The smoke forces Tahir to use binoculars. A dark-haired woman is in the lead. She’s now less than twenty feet from the burned man. Tahir focuses on her. Lana Elkins… just as he suspected.
She’s a gutsy woman. He’s disappointed she’ll have to die. But he hasn’t survived by making decisions based on sentiment. He’ll have to remain a double agent until he can set up ISIS and Al Qaeda again. He has no choice, not if the U.S. is to prevail in the long run.
He watches as Lana’s death begins to play out. He thinks of Emma and Sufyan, knowing his nephew will suffer terribly for the killings. They’ll kill Emma as they planned, and at some point Sufyan will see her execution by chainsaw.
Tahir tells himself to be resolute. This is war.
But he has seen Sufyan’s love for Emma. The boy spoke of it in Lana’s living room. He remembers Emma’s tears when she professed her deep feelings for his nephew. And he remembers his own words to them: “If you are ready to die for love, then you must be ready to kill for it.”
The Jordanian is sighting Lana and the others that very second. Three more jihadis come up behind him. They raise their rifles, too. They are silent predators, as quiet as the death the four rescuers will soon know.
Elkins reaches for the soldier. Her companions step behind her. The four are now close together.
Four shots ring out in fast succession. The lethality is devastatingly effective. All the bodies crumple to the ground. Whatever they found noble in their mission dies as Tahir watches, cheek still pressed to the stock of his rifle.
He’s shot the Jordanian and the three jihadis by the man’s side. A fifth now appears, staring at Tahir, eyes wide at what his commander has done. He’s already on his phone, surely alerting the others. Tahir has known this Al Qaeda fighter since they fled Afghanistan together. As the man darts toward a tree, Tahir shoots him, too, declaring his ultimate allegiance.
Tahir has killed for Sufyan, for the boy’s future. He has killed for love.
He sees Lana staring at him. She looks shocked. She staggers, like she’s dizzy for a second or two. But maybe she also sees that the deaths he’s delivered will not be enough. At best Lana and her cohorts have only the slightest chance of succeeding, as Tahir judges it highly unlikely the jihadis can be defeated by two women, two men, and a soldier who looks like he’s dying.
But Tahir knows nothing of the veterans who’ve established a perimeter around the house. What he would recognize now, if he could see them in their ball caps and hunters’ camo, is a fierceness he knows welclass="underline" the strength that comes from making a firm and final decision to defend decency.
Lana watches Tahir race toward them, tells her companions to hold their fire as she kneels by the soldier, who’s collapsed to the ground.
“Pull him out of sight,” Tahir orders. “We can’t take him. We are outnumbered two to one.”
“No we’re not,” Will says. “I don’t know who you are—”
“He’s with us,” Lana interrupts.
“—but we’ve got six combat vets securing the house.”
“Not enough,” Tahir says. “It will be guerilla war in this forest.”