latch that would open the exit, nodded to the others, and they all doused their lights.
Jake opened the door, and Chris and Gil hurried through, followed by Laney and finally Jake. A short burst from the MP5 signaled the death of the lone guard. As Jake had predicted, no one else was around.
“Let them know,” Jake said. “You can keep watch here, and Gil can go back and direct them over.”
Jake motioned to Laney. “This way,” he said.
“Where are we going?” Laney asked. “You don’t want to wait for the others? There might be more than the two of us can handle, especially the way you shoot.”
“Not this way,” Jake replied. “Most of the defenders are up on the upper level. This hallway leads to the imam’s office. Can’t you smell the smoke?”
Laney hadn’t realized that was what it was until Jake mentioned it.
“What’s going on?” Laney asked.
“Burning records and other documents,” Jake said. “I smelled it last time I came up from the tunnel.”
Moving as a team for the first time, Jake and Laney headed down the hallway. Once they reached a pair of closed double doors made out of solid wood, Jake set the M4 against the wall and withdrew his Sig.
“One guard,” he said. “He’s armed with an AK-47 and positioned off to the right on the far side of the room. The other two people inside are unarmed. I’ll go first since I recall the layout. You cover me.”
Laney nodded, no longer as surprised about Jake’s advance knowledge of everything. Despite his inherent doubts, he was starting to understand that Jake was capable of doing what he claimed.
The door was locked, but a sharp kick adjacent to the lock was all that was required to break through. The double doors weren’t supported as they should have been and worked against each other making the arrangement less than secure. Jake followed in as the doors opened, catching the startled guard by surprise. He tried to cover by raising the lethal automatic weapon, but Jake had done this before, and feeling a little like a movie rerun, he quickly placed a pair of rounds in the man’s chest.
As the man was collapsing to the floor, Jake pointed his handgun at the two remaining occupants in the room, ordering them away from the fire that had built on the concrete floor. They backed away, dropping what they had in their hands, especially when Laney charged in afterwards and leveled the large bore of the shotgun at them. Their situation stable, Jake could hear the rapid clatter of automatic weapons in the building. The SWAT team had arrived and was clearing the building. One of the SWAT team appeared at the door checking on the sound of the shot.
“Take them,” Jake ordered, and the man motioned for the two to leave the room and head down the hallway.
Jake walked over and pulled a piece of paper that was starting to burn out of the flames of the fire. He handed it to Laney.
“We’ll want that. It has a couple of names on it that will be useful.”
Laney looked at the scrawl of characters that covered the sheet.
“You can read Arabic or whatever this shit is?” he asked.
“No, but they could,” Jake responded, indicating the two Muslims the guard had just taken away. “I had a chat with them last time. It won’t be required this time around.”
“Wouldn’t that have revealed your interest?” he asked.
“I looped back around after they told me what I needed. That way I had the information, but they had no memory of the discussion.”
Laney shook his head. This was clearly another example of what Carlson had told him.
“The real name of importance is Abdul-Khabir ibn Barir,” Jake said.
“And who is that?”
“Someone who will help us resolve this,” was all Jake would reveal. “Come on. Our guys should be wrapping this up by now.”
Back in the hallway, Jake found the SWAT team leader talking to Chris Holland.
“I don’t know how you knew about that tunnel, but it certainly made a difference,” the leader said. “We have the place secure. There were a couple of surprises,” he added.
He waved to one of his men, who pushed a young man toward them. He was in his early twenties, clean-shaven and looking like a college kid. He was, however, dirty and wounded, and clearly American.
“He was helping out,” the SWAT team leader said. “I’d read about some of these misfits joining these jihadists. I wasn’t sure I believed them.”
He waved