“Don’t you dare,” she snapped.

“Don’t what?” he barked back.

“Act like your father.” She gave his shoulder a shove. “I’m not going to watch you die of a heart attack before you reach fifty because you’re too macho to talk about your problems!”

“You need to relax.”

“I’m not the one who has a hard time relaxing.” She turned and started for the other side of the kitchen. “You proved that last night.” As she yanked open the cupboard in search of a mug, she began her sermon on Nash’s father.

He’d heard it many times. Maggie had loved him. Thought he was a great man, but it sure did suck that his grandkids never got to know him. Nash was debating whether to sit there and take it or fight back, when Maggie yanked the coffeepot out of its cradle a little too forcefully, catching the filter basket, and swinging it into the open position. Since the machine was not done brewing, the basket was brimming with hot, muddy coffee. The sludge sloshed over the edge onto the white marble counter, the floor, and Maggie’s white robe.

Maggie jumped back, held out her arms, and said, “Fuck!”

Nash glanced sideways at Charlie and saw the recognition in his son’s eyes as he stared in wonderment at his mother. Silently, Nash urged him on. He watched the baby-food-covered lips open and a split second later the dreaded word flew out of Charlie’s mouth with more gusto than he could have ever hoped to coax from him.

With a look of sheer horror on her face, Maggie turned and looked at her little angel. Charlie smiled and belted out the word one more time for good measure.

Nash stood, handed his wife the jar of baby food, and said, “Nice work, honey.”

CHAPTER 22

TRIPLE FRONTIER

KARIM held the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the airstrip from one end to the other. It had been a good, hard march the day before. The men had practiced excellent discipline. As the crow flies, the narrow valley was only three miles from their camp. As with most things in the jungle, though, the most direct route was also the most dangerous. They’d learned the hard way that it was foolish to fight the jungle, so they took the footpath that followed a dry stream west and around the steepest, most treacherous part of the ridge that separated their valley from the next.

Karim had known about the airstrip from the start. The Lebanese man he had bought the land from had warned him to stay away from the neighbors. The strip was used by a drug cartel as a collection and distribution point for their cocaine trafficking. That knowledge alone had got Karim thinking.

For the first month Karim stayed away from the place, but as his men became more proficient in their maneuvering and concealment, he decided to have a closer look at the airstrip. He had a security concern. He didn’t like not knowing what was going on such a short distance from his camp. He also saw an opportunity. A chance to shake up what was becoming a monotonous routine for the men. It was a training tool, an actual facility, manned by real people who carried guns.

They kept their distance for some time. The top of the ridge offered them a clear view of the dirt runway and the ramshackle buildings down at the one end. Karim used the Navy SEAL philosophy of two-man teams to collect his information. He’d send the pairs out early in the morning and tell them they would be relieved at noon the following day. He ran them like this for sixteen days, each two-man team pulling four shifts. It was a great training exercise, and the men reacted well to the challenge. Anything to break the daily monotony of the obstacle course was a good thing.

The men took meticulous notes as ordered and soon Karim had a detailed idea of how the place worked. At first it seemed there was no structure to the set-up, but out of the chaos a pattern emerged. None of the men appeared to be older than thirty and most of them looked to be teenagers. Rarely did anyone rise before ten in the morning, and when they eventually did venture outside they were lethargic, cranky, and most likely extremely hungover. Every night the men would stay up late gambling, drinking, and watching porn movies. Twice, prostitutes had been flown in. It was not unusual to see a man stumble from the bunkhouse well after sunrise and vomit.

The guns were always present, though, and they carried a myriad of weapons, from AK-47s, to MP-5s, to all different kinds of pistols, and as far as he could tell, less than twenty percent of them used the same ammunition, another sign that it was a sloppy operation. They would hold their own impromptu shooting practice, firing at the previous evening’s beer and liquor bottles. Never had he seen them get through a session without one of the weapons jamming. Invariably, the others found this to be hilarious. Karim used it as an opportunity to show his men how not to act.

One evening Karim had executed a mock attack. He split the team into two groups and then led them to within a few feet of the barracks where the men were drinking and gambling. The exercise was a great confidence builder, but for Karim there was no feeling of accomplishment that they had crept to within a few feet of a bunch of drunk and coked-up men. These idiots were not a worthy test for them and he took great care to point out to the men that the Americans would be far more vigilant.

As he peered through his binoculars Karim thought of that first day, when he crested the ridge and looked down at the ramshackle operation. Within seconds he asked himself, How would I assault this place? How would I deploy my men? What were the odds of total success? What were the chances of failure? What would he do if he lost one or more of his men?

This was how the military mind worked, he thought to himself. It is a gift. We look at a target in the same way a sculptor looks at a block of stone or a carpenter a hunk of wood. Except his job was much harder. His subject was not static. It would fight back if given the chance. That was why he had to surprise them. Karim had seen in Afghanistan what could happen when the bullets started flying. Tactics, maneuvering, concealment, and marksmanship would carry the day, but there was always the chance that a stray bullet could bounce around until it hit a piece of flesh. He could not afford to lose a single man. Not until he arrived in America and the real battle began.

Farid slithered up next to him and looked down at the empty strip of dirt and grass. “Your orders, Amir?”

“We’ll move out in thirty minutes. Send two men to sweep the trail in front of us and have them radio back.”

“May I ask what you have planned?”

Karim continued looking through the binoculars. “A plane will arrive at approximately nine. We’re going to secure the airfield before it lands.”

“So the plane is ours?”

“Yes.”

“You have had this planned for months.”

Karim lowered the binoculars, allowed himself a grin and said, “Why would I do something like that?”

“Because you don’t trust Zawahiri?”

“That is part of it.”

Farid stared down at the landing strip for a long time.

“You have something on your mind?” Karim asked.

Without looking, he asked, “Do you trust us?”

“Of course.”

“Then why do you keep so much from us?”

“Security. Too many people know too many details. The first two teams have failed. We are the only hope.”

Farid watched the wind sweep down and bend the tops of the trees. “You have trained us like the American Special Forces, but you do not command like one of them.”

The honest words were a slap to the face. “How do you mean?”

“At your urging, we have all done much reading these last few months. I think you’ve read too much about the great American generals.”