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Shit,” mumbled Reynolds as the Crown Prince and several other men entered the reception hall.

Based on the pictures Reynolds had pulled from the hidden flash memory drive back at his house, Harvath had been busy studying the face of every SANG soldier in the room and hadn’t paid much attention to the other men on their way in. “What is it?”

“Second guy from the end. That’s Prince Aziz, minister of state intelligence.”

“Faruq’s boss?”

Reynolds nodded his head and was silent until the men approached. “Your Highness, “He said, with a slight bow, reaching out to shake Abdullah’s hand once it was offered. “Thank you for taking time out of your very important schedule to see us on such short notice.”

A courteous smile appeared on the prince’s face and he politely tipped his head.

“With your permission, Your Highness,” continued Reynolds. “I would like to introduce Mr. Scot Harvath and Dr. Jillian Alcott.”

The prince nodded politely at Jillian and then as he extended his hand toward Harvath, said, “You look very familiar to me. Have we met before?”

“Your Highness has a very good memory. I used to be part of President Rutledge’s security detail.”

Abdullah smiled and grasped Harvath’s hand warmly. “I knew it. I never forget a face. Now, “He said as he turned toward Reynolds, “what is this all about?”

“Your Highness,” interrupted Harvath, “you’ll forgive me, but I think we should do this in a private setting with the least amount of people as possible.”

“Understood,” replied Abdullah, who then issued a string of orders to the men standing behind him.

Accompanied only by his defense minister and the minister of intelligence, the Crown Prince showed his visitors into a wood-paneled study.

In customary desert tradition, he asked them if they cared for any refreshments before getting down to business. All three politely declined. “Okay, then,” said Abdullah as he fixed his gaze on Reynolds. “Let’s talk about this plot against my life.”

Once again, Harvath interrupted. “There is no attempt on your life, Your Highness, at least not directly.”

“But Mr. Reynolds said-”

“Exactly what I told him to say.”

The defense minister reached for his radio and said in Arabic, “This is preposterous. This meeting is over.”

“Not so fast,” replied Harvath in perfect Arabic, before switching back to English. “Your Highness, there is a plot to remove you from power, and that is why we’re here. Mr. Reynolds cooperated because he believed he was acting in your best interest.”

Abdullah raised his hand and motioned for his defense minister to stand down. “I’m listening.”

When Harvath had finished explaining, the Crown Prince asked, “Do you have evidence that would support this?”

“Yes we do, Your Highness,” said Jillian as she handed Harvath a manila envelope to give to Abdullah. “Tests are ongoing, but this is a summary of what we’ve been able to gather so far.”

“Which is nothing more than sheer conjecture, from what I have heard,” replied the minister of state intelligence. “I’ll admit, I am not very fond of Faruq, but he has been an unquestionable asset to our organization.”

“And the meeting I witnessed with soldiers of the Royal Land Forces, the National Guard, and known militants?” replied Reynolds.

“For all we know,” said the defense minister, “they were informants. America isn’t the only country that pays for information, you know.”

Reynolds conceded the point. “That’s true, but what about the faked surveillance reports?”

Now it was the intelligence minister’s turn to jump back in. “To tell you the truth, I am more concerned with how you were able to get your hands on classified state information.”

“If that’s what you are more concerned with, then maybe I should be looking for a new minister of intelligence,” interjected Abdullah. “Are you or are you not familiar with the militants Mr. Reynolds is referring to?”

“Of course I am, Your Highness.”

“And is there any truth to what he’s saying about their surveillance reports being falsified?”

“I couldn’t say,” stammered the minister. “I do not personally review such matters.”

“That’s not the answer I expected to hear, Nawaf.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, I-”

Abdullah held up his hand for the man to be silent. “Where is Faruq now?”

“Your Highness, I do not think it is prudent to discuss state intelliegnece matters in front of-”

“Answer the question,” demanded the Crown Prince.

“Sa’dah.”

“ Yemen? With everything that is going on in our country, all the trouble in Riyadh, what is your deputy minister doing in Sa’dah?”

“The trip was planned some time ago, Your Highness.”

“I’m sure it was,” said Abdullah, and he looked at his visitors. “Do you have any further questions for either of these men?”

“Just one,” replied Harvath as he removed the pictures Reynolds had printed at his house. “We have reason to believe these men are going to try to or may have already infiltrated the ranks of your National Guard here at the palace. Their goal is to kill the Wahhabi leadership and make it look like the Royal Family was responsible. Have any of you seen these men since you’ve been here?”

Both the defense and intelligence ministers looked at the photos and then shook their heads.

“I would like to circulate these and have every National Guard member at the palace accounted for,” said Harvath.

“But the meeting is almost over. If things continue going well, we should have a consensus within a matter of hours and the Wahhabi leadership will be on its way home. Don’t you think if these men were going to try something, they would have already done so?” asked the intelligence minister, pressing his luck.

“Do what he asks,” commanded Abdullah as he handed the photos to his ministers and then dismissed them from the room.

After taking a minute to collect his thoughts, the Crown Prince turned back to Harvath and said, “Now that we’re alone, we must discuss the involvement in all of this by Prince Hamal.”

“We know that will be difficult, Your Highness,” said Harvath.

“More difficult than you can imagine,” replied Abdullah wearily. “Prince Hamal is my son.”

Hamal is your son?” repeated Harvath.

“The result of an indiscretion in my youth of which I certainly am not proud,” said Abdullah, looking away.

“While I have been largely successful in keeping his lineage quiet, the boy has been nothing but a source of constant distress for me.”

“You’ll forgive me for asking, Your Highness, but why have you let him live here? Why not banish him? Send him to Europe or America, anywhere but here where he has been making so much trouble for you?” said Reynolds.

“You don’t have children, do you, Mr. Reynolds?” replied the Crown Prince.

Reynolds shook his head.

Abdullah smiled the smile not of an all-powerful ruler but of a father. “If you did, you would understand that I would rather cut off my own arm than to see my son forced from the land of his birth. That’s not to say that I didn’t try. I thought that if he had someone to travel with, another worldly young man, a young man of Arab birth, but of a second cultural influence, he might open up and decide life outside this kingdom was more to his liking.”

Harvath didn’t know why, but suddenly there was that ping from a remote corner of his mind as connection of some sort was made. “Who was this traveling companion you selected for your son, Your Highness?”

“His family was from Abha, a small city in the southern province of Asir. The family’s name was-”

“Alomari,” said Harvath, putting it all together and finishing Abdullah’s sentence for him. “You entrusted your son to the companionship of Khalid Sheik Alomari.”

It was the first time Harvath had ever seen a major head of state lose his composure. “I didn’t know how evil he was. How could I?”

“You are the ruler of the Saudi Arabian Kingdom,” replied Harvath. “You have amazing resources at your disposal. Why didn’t you use them?”

“I did!” he asserted. “I was too embarrassed to air my dirty laundry to my minister, so I asked his second in command to do the checking for me.”

“You asked Faruq,” said Harvath.

Abdullah, his head hung low, responded, “Yes. It was Faruq, and along with the Wahhabis, they succeeded in turning my son against me.”

There was still a piece of the puzzle Harvath felt he was missing-a piece that was the key to helping all of the others floating around in his mind to fall into place. “I know this is a delicate question, and please forgive me, Your Highness, but it is something I have to ask.”

“What is your question?”

“From you, your son can claim direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad.”

“This is correct.”

“Hamal’s mother. You said she was a foreigner. What country was she from?”

For a moment, the Crown Prince seemed to be at peace, as if he was reliving happier memories from long ago. “We met in Cyprus. A man who had been involved in selling weapons to my brother, King Fahad, for our army introduced me to her. I was a young man filled with the world and forgetful of my responsibilities. She was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I was completely captivated by her.”

“Her nationality, Your Highness,” repeated Harvath. “What was it?”

“Turkish. She was of Ottoman descent.”

“And the man who introduced you? The man who had been involved in selling weapons to your brother?”

“Ozan Kalachka.”

And with that, Harvath knew who the new caliph was going to be.

Crown Prince Abdullah agreed to Harvath’s next request on two conditions. The first condition was that he promise not to kill his son. The second was that Harvath, Reynolds, and Alcott convert to Islam before being allowed to enter the holy city of Mecca.

While the second condition came as a surprise to Jillian, Harvath and Reynolds both knew it was not the first time the Royal Family had made such a demand. When the French GIGN team had gone in to help liberate the holy city from radical fundamentalists in the 1970s, they had done so not as French Catholics, but as newly converted followers of Islam.

Once the trio’s temporary conversion, which had been conducted on the tarmac of the King Fahad Air Base, was complete, they climbed aboard a Royal Air Force UH60 Blackhawk helicopter with a team of National Guard Special Warfare soldiers. Dressed in urban camouflage, the Special Warfare team was as serious a group of men as Harvath had ever seen. Outfitted with 5.56mm M4 automatic rifles, 9mm H amp;K MP5 sub-machineguns and two M700 sniper rifles, it was obvious the Crown Prince’s handpicked team had come to play.

A half mile out, the chopper’s pilot radioed to make sure the local security forces were in place and, upon confirmation, swooped in low and fast on their approach.

As they neared the gates of Prince Hamal’s sprawling compound in an industrial neighborhood on the dusty outskirts of Mecca, the two AH64 Apache attack helicopters escorting them opened up with a barrage of Hydra 70 rockets and an onslaught of heavy lead from their 30mm cannons.

Hamal’s security force was taken completely by surprise, but they soon regrouped and mounted their response. Battle-hardened mujahadeen who had fought in Afghanistan against both the Soviets and the Americans, the men responded instantly.

Before anyone in the Blackhawk knew what was happening, the early morning sky was filled with the contrails of rocket-propelled grenades. Though their pilot did his best to avoid being struck, one of the rockets found its mark, shearing off the rear tail rotor. The pilot yelled for everyone to hold on as the helicopter was launched into a violent spin.

The bird whipped around in circles as it lost altitude and the packed earth of Hamal’s main courtyard rushed up to meet it. Harvath could hear gunfire, but with the enormous force created by their spin, it was all he could do to hold onto his breakfast, much less figure out where any of the shots were coming from.

The Blackhawk slammed into the ground, its spring-loaded safety seats barely breaking their fall or, in Reynolds’s case, not breaking his fall at all as his leg snapped on impact.

To the Special Warfare unit’s credit, they were out the door, weapons hot, before Harvath even had his seatbelt unfastened. Rushing over to Reynolds, he tried to assess the man’s injuries, but Reynolds waved him away.

With Jillian’s help, he pulled Reynolds as gently as possible from the wreckage of the helicopter and propped him against the mud wall of a large cistern.

Jacking a round into Reynolds’s twelve-gauge, Harvath handed it to her and told Jillian to keep her head down as he took off after the Special Warfare team.

Ten feet away he heard the roar of Reynolds’s Remington and turned in time to see one of Hamal’s security people fall facedown into the dirt. Behind a cloud of blue gunsmoke, Alcott flashed Harvath the thumbs-up. Obviously she had learned something from shooting rabbits in Cornwall. That was the second time she had saved his life.

Getting his head back in the game, Harvath raised the MP5 provided to him by the Special Warfare unit and slipped into the main building. By the time he reached the team members inside, he had three tangos to his credit, and with every man he dropped, he quickly searched each face for any resemblance to the two militants they were still looking for.

Inside, Harvath followed the unit as they plowed through wave after wave of gun-toting jihadis intent on defending whatever or whoever lay at the center of the compound.

By the time they reached the center, the team was faced with a set of stairs going up to the second story, as well as a door that led somewhere down belowground. Knowing Arab terrorists’ penchant for using tunnels, especially when under siege, Harvath chose to accompany the part of the team that was going below grade.

When several rounds into the lock and hinges of the reinforced door failed to open it, the unit’s demolition officer placed a shape charge on the door and backed the rest of the men up. Turning away from the blast, he hit a button and blew the door right out of its frame. Another team member then threw two flashbang grenades down the narrow stone staircase.

The flashbangs detonated in quick succession, and the men poured down the narrow opening with the demo officer and Harvath bringing up the rear.

The stairway was incredibly tight, so tight in fact that men had to twist sideways at points just to squeeze through.

Five more feet, and the earsplitting echo of new weapons’ fire filled the confined space along with the thick smell of cordite. With no way to see what was happening, Harvath had no choice but to follow the man in front of him.

Suddenly, though, there was a reverse surge as the men turned and tried to run back up the steps. Before Harvath could move, he heard a series of horrible screams as an explosion detonated and a searing orange wave of fire consumed the stairwell.

He dropped to the ground as the flames roared overhead and tried to protect his already burned face.

After the flames dissipated, Harvath checked himself to make sure he hadn’t been injured. Deciding everything was okay, he stood and then noticed that the rest of the team hadn’t been so lucky. Based on the condition of the demo officer in front of him, he could see that they all had been riddled with shrapnel. Either someone had tossed a grenade into the stairwell or the Special Warfare unit had triggered some sort of antipersonnel device. Either way, somebody was trying very hard not to be followed.

After grabbing the demo officer’s bag of charges and flashbangs, Harvath carefully picked his way over the other bodies and down the rest of the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he found himself in a tight subterranean chamber. Haphazardly placed beams supported the low ceiling and a string of bare lightbulbs lit a long passageway stretching out in front of him. Just as Harvath had suspected, Hamal’s complex was indeed attached to a tunnel system.

With the ringing in his ears somewhat subsided, Harvath could make out the sound of one or more people moving somewhere up ahead. His MP5 up and at the ready, he crept cautiously forward, mindful of the potential for further booby traps.

The height of the tunnel rose and fell over a distance of what felt like two or three city blocks. It finally dead-ended at a wooden ladder that stretched upward toward some sort of trapdoor. If someone had been in the tunnel, this was the only way they could have gone. Readying his weapon, Harvath used his free hand to steady himself as he climbed the ladder. He gently applied pressure to the trapdoor, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried once again, harder this time, but still it refused to move.

Searching through the demo bag he had taken, he found another shape charge. Affixing it to the bottom of the trapdoor, he attached the necessary amount of det cord, climbed back down into the tunnel, and got as far away as possible. Plugging his ears and opening his mouth to equalize the pressure change that was about to take place, Harvath counted to three and blew an enormous hole right through the middle of the door.

He removed two flashbangs from the bag, scrambled up the ladder, and pitched them up and into the room above him.

Immediately after their detonation, Harvath sprang off the top rung of the ladder and into what could only be described as some sort of bottling plant.

Terrified by the explosions and the heavily armed man who had just crawled out from beneath the floor, workers ran in all directions. They scurried around and beneath rows of automated conveyor belts carrying bottles just like the ones Jillian had recovered from the warehouse in Riyadh.

Heavy stainless steel machines filled the plastic bottles with water and some other compound which Harvath assumed had to be the antidote. They were then sent in orderly rows to be capped, labeled, shrink-wrapped, and stacked on enormous pallets, where they were picked up by a forklift operator and moved to a loading area.

As he was studying the operation, all of a sudden everything around him erupted in a hail of gunfire. Hitting the deck, he saw Ozan Kalachka and the man who would be caliph-Prince Hamal-flanked by two of the meanest-looking, long-bearded, turban-wearing men Harvath had ever seen. With their earth-tone robes and huge machineguns, the bodyguards appeared more suited to the Wild West-style streets of Kabul than a holy city like Mecca.

Harvath rolled beneath one of the conveyor belts and fired his MP5, sending a shower of sparks along the metal platform where the men were standing. Immediately, they returned fire, and Harvath felt water pouring down on him as the bottles up above were sawn in half.

Rolling back out into the open, Harvath applied pressure to the trigger of his MP5 and dropped one of the two Taliban twins bracketing Hamal and Kalachka.

The remaining bodyguard once again returned fire, but this time capped it off with a special twist-a live grenade. As the grenade hit the concrete floor only feet away, Harvath scrambled further beneath the machinery. He crawled in the other direction as fast as his hands and knees would carry him. And then the unthinkable happened-he got stuck.