the goal of all three of his sons. Zayad, the oldest, became an army infantry colonel. Saed, the youngest, worked in the diplomatic corps for the nation in Yemen, and the middle child, Sultan, took over the operational wing of the nation’s intelligence services.
All three brothers were in Yemen during the UAE’s proxy war there. Saed, the diplomat, worked at the embassy in Sana, and had been killed in a rocket attack three years earlier. And then, just over a year ago, Colonel Zayad al-Habsi, Sultan’s older brother, was killed in combat near the town of Ataq, when sappers made their way into his command post and detonated suicide vests.
The two surviving Rashid men, father and son, knew without question that the Houthi rebels had not coordinated either of these two attacks on their own. It was obvious the work had been done by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, specifically their clandestine unit known as Quds Force.
Neither seventy-year-old Rashid nor forty-seven-year-old Sultan had needed any more incentive to despise Iran, but the deaths of Zayad and Saed only poured gas on the flames of their hatred.
As his helicopter landed on the sand-strewn helipad at Ataq airport, his mind was now keenly tuned to his objective this morning. He wanted to be in and out of here in an hour, no more, and then head directly back to Dubai. There was still much to plan, but Sultan knew the importance of strong leadership in cajoling the rank and file into sacrifice, so he’d made this trip in person.
He climbed off the aircraft, accompanied by four Signals Intelligence operatives, as well as Hades and three more of the American mercenaries he had working for him. The Emiratis climbed into one large armored SUV with a driver waiting behind the wheel, and the Americans folded into an identical model that trailed behind.
The Americans were here to serve as additional bodyguards for al-Habsi, although none of them knew exactly where they were heading this morning. But Sultan knew, and when they took off south from the airport, every fiber of his being tingled and itched, so ready was he to get on with it.
The drive was less than ten minutes. Just south of the N17 highway, on the far side of a hill that shielded it from the road three hundred meters distant, they turned down a gravel drive before cresting the hill and continuing down on the other side.
And then he saw it. Sultan’s destination was a clandestine prison, a black site run by the UAE’s Signals Intelligence Agency. He had never been here in person, but he’d read the names and histories of every one of the prisoners kept here, and they, not his SIA staff at the location, would be his audience this morning.
The SUVs ground to a halt on the gravel road near the low and nondescript, yet large, concrete building.
Sultan walked up to Hades and his men as soon as they climbed out of their vehicle. “You will remain here.”
Hades nodded, then cocked his head a little. “You gonna tell me where here is?”
“This is a holding facility for Iranian forces captured during the war. I am here on an intelligence collection mission. That’s all you need to know.”
If the American mercenary had any questions as to why the UAE’s intelligence chief would need to come in person to interrogate some prisoner in the middle of a war zone, he made no mention of it. He and his men fanned out, kept their hands resting on the rifles across their chests, and looked out to the distance for any threats.
The guards outside the front doors to the facility lowered their weapons, and Sultan and two of the SIA men headed through the building and out into the small asphalt courtyard in the center.
Here a group of prisoners had been assembled; they stood in a sloppy line, and many shielded their eyes from the sun, having only just moments ago been allowed out into the light this morning. They wore clean white jumpsuits, all had new sandals on their feet, and four armed guards ringed the perimeter with weapons.
Sultan looked at the men, walking up and down the line as if at a parade inspection. He was pleased. He knew they had all been given double rations, and exercised every day, for the past five weeks. They were still POWs, but they were all in fighting shape.
He had personally chosen every one of the men for his mission, wading through