Besides, the soldiers were more interested in bribes than checking for contraband. Their army salary, low to begin with, was routinely siphoned off by higher-ups, leaving the privates and corporals in the field to supplement it or starve. Amara knew this from his older cousin, who had been conscripted at twelve and gone on to a varied career in the service until dying in a shoot-out with the Brothers at sixteen. By then his cousin was a sergeant, battle-tested and the most cynical man Amara knew, a hollow-eyed killer who hated the army and admired the Brothers, though eventually they would be the death of him. He had urged Amara to avoid the army, and warned him twice when bands were coming to “recruit” boys from his village—“recruit” being the government word for kidnap.

His cousin’s influence had led him to the Brothers. Amara lacked the deep religious conviction many of the Brothers and especially their leaders held. He joined for survival, and during his first action against a rival group, found he liked the adventure. His intelligence had been recognized and he was sent to a number of schools, not just for fighting, but for math and languages as well.

He liked math, geometry especially. His teachers told how it had been invented by followers of the one true God as a method of appreciating God’s handiwork in the world. To Amara, the beauty was in the interlocking theorems and proofs, the way one formula fed to another and then another, lines and angles connecting in a grid work that explained the entire world. He sensed that computer language held some of the same attractions, and his one regret in killing Li Han was that the Asian had not taught him more about how it worked before he died.

Amara’s promise was so great that he had won the ultimate prize: an education in America. Handed documents, he was sent to a U.S. college in the Midwest to study engineering. He was in well over his head, simply unprepared for the culture shock of the Western country. He was not a failure—with effort and struggle he had managed C’s in most of his classes, after dropping those he knew he would fail. But within two years the Brothers recalled him, saying they had other jobs. Someday, he told himself, he would return, only this time better prepared.

The black finger of an oil-drilling rig poked over the horizon, telling Amara he was nearing his destination. He slowed, scanning both sides of the road. Here the checkpoints had to be taken more seriously; they would be manned by the Brothers rather than soldiers, and anyone who didn’t stop would be targeted by an RPG.

He found the turnoff to the hills, then lowered his speed to a crawl as he went up the twisted road. Moving too fast was an invitation to be shot: the guards had standing orders to fire on anything suspicious, and they were far more likely to be praised for caution than scolded for killing a Brother who had imprudently alarmed them.

Amara spotted a man moving by the side of the trail. He slowed to a stop, and shouted, “As-Salamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.”

The shadow moved toward him. Two others appeared on the other side of the trail. Then two more behind him. Amara was surrounded by sentries, all of them four or five years younger than himself. They were jumpy and nervous; he put both his hands on the open window of the car, trying with his body language to put them at ease.

“I am Amara of Yujst,” he said in Arabic, naming the town he had taken as his battle name. “I have completed my mission.”

“What mission was that?” snapped the tall man he’d first seen. He was not necessarily the oldest of the group—he had only the outlines of a beard—but he was clearly in charge.

“The mission that I have been appointed. It is of no concern to you.”

“You will tell me or you will not pass.”

“Are you ready for Paradise, Brother?” said Amara.

The question caught the tall one by surprise, and he was silent for a moment.

“One of you will ride with me,” Amara continued. “You will come into camp. The rest will stay here and guard the pass.”

“What gives you the right to make orders?” said the tall one, finding his voice.

“I told you who I am, and why I am here. I need nothing else.”

“Two of us will come,” said the tall one, trying to save face with the others.

Amara might have challenged this, but decided he didn’t want to waste time. “Move, then.”

The tall one got into the cab; another man climbed into the truck bed, squatting on the tarp. They drove through two more switchbacks, watched by guards crouching near the rocks. As Amara turned the corner of the last curve, he spotted a small fire flickering in a barrel ahead. Men were gathered around it, warming themselves. The stripped shell of a bus stood behind them, crossway across the path. Amara slowed even further, easing toward the roadblock in an almost dead crawl.

The man in the back of the truck yelled at the sentries near the fire, telling them to move quickly because an important Brother had arrived on a mission. Even so, they moved in slow motion over to the bus. The vehicle had been stripped of its engine and much of its interior, its only function now to slow a determined enemy. The men put their shoulders and backs to the front and pushed, working the bus backward into a slot in the rocks. They held it there as Amara went past, then slowly eased it back in place.

Amara pulled the truck to the side of a small parking area just inside the perimeter. Vehicles were not allowed any farther; the way was blocked by large boulders, protection against vehicle bombs. He took the laptop from beneath the seat and got out of the truck.

“You will guard the contents below the canvas with your life,” he told the two men who’d accompanied him. “If they are even touched, you will be hanged, then fed to the jackals.”

Even the tall sentry had no answer for that.

Amara turned and held his hands out.

“You will search me, then take me to Brother Assad,” he told the approaching guards. “And be quick.”

Chapter 8

Duka

Less than three minutes after Melissa ran back inside the clinic, bullets crashed through the windows. By then she and Bloom had barricaded themselves inside one of the examining rooms with the patients who’d been inside.

Melissa hunkered down behind the desk they’d pushed against the door as a truck drove past outside. There were shouts and a fresh hail of bullets. She reached down and rolled up her pant leg, retrieving her 9mm Glock from its holster.

“That’s not going to do much,” said Bloom, a few feet away. Two patients, a mother and four-year-old daughter, were huddled next to her. The other patients, both teenage women, both pregnant, were at the far end of the room, crouched down behind the overturned examining table.

“It’s better than nothing,” said Melissa.

She took out her sat phone, forgotten in the rush for cover. There were two missed calls. Before she could page into the directory, the phone rang. She answered quickly.

“What the hell are you doing in that building?” demanded Danny. “Why wasn’t your phone on?”

“It was on,” she told him. “The volume on the ringer was down. I couldn’t hear.”

A round of bullets blew through the building. Two or three whipped overhead. One of the women screamed. Another was crying.

“What’s your situation?” asked Danny.

“We have four patients in here, three women and a child. What’s going on outside?”

“They’re shooting up the town,” said Danny. “Where in the building are you? I can’t get a good read.”