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each member
of the team wore, it appeared as a bright, wavering point on the supine man’s forehead.
    The sleeper stirred and opened his eyes.
    Adams froze in mid-step. Below the brilliant
spot of the laser, a pair of white dots appeared—the man’s pupils, fully
dilated and reflecting only the infrared spectrum of light—staring right back
at Parker.
    Then the man rolled over onto his side,
facing the wall.
    Parker didn’t exhale the breath he was
holding. Maybe the man was still asleep, maybe he was just playing possum;
either way, in another three seconds he would either be bound and gagged, or
bagged and tagged. Parker activated his own PAQ4, aiming at the back of the
man’s head, as Adams moved in for the capture. Before the man could even begin
to wake up, he was flipped onto his stomach. The flexi-cuffs were pulled tight
around his wrists and a strip of olive drab ‘100 mile an hour’ tape was slapped
over his mouth, to preemptively silence his uncomprehending protests and cries
of alarm.
    Adams gave a thumbs-up signal, indicating
that the captive was under control, after which Sigler’s
voice whispered across the net: “Room secure.”
    “Roger,” Rainer answered. “Cipher Seven, we
are ready for pick-up. Over.”
    Cipher Seven, Doug Pettit, who presently sat
behind the wheel of an up-armored M1151 HMMWV—a Humvee to the rest of the
world—idling quietly with no lights showing, half a mile away, replied immediately.
“Roger, Six. We’re on our way.”
    “All right, boys,” Rainer said. “Clean up
time.”
    A falsetto voice cooed in Parker’s earpiece:
“Knock, knock. Housekeeping.”
    It was probably Jesse Strickland, who styled
himself the team’s court jester. Someone groaned in response, but that was the
end of it. The team went to work. Parker lowered his assault rifle, leaving Adams
to look after the prisoner. He took a large green nylon pouch—a standard
military-use body bag—from a pocket. He held it open so that Sigler could begin
dropping stuff in. Everything but the furniture went into the bag: loose papers,
books, articles of clothing and even a collection of empty soda bottles. There
was no telling what might be worthwhile, and this was not the time or place to
make such judgments. There would be plenty of time to sort through it all later,
when they were back safely behind the wire.
    Thirty seconds later, the eight men, along
with two captives and three bags full of what might or might not be important
evidence, hustled from the door of the house to a row of waiting Humvees.
Parker heaved his burden through the rear door of the fourth vehicle in line
and then climbed inside, slamming the heavy door shut and engaging the combat
locks. Sigler settled into the front passenger seat and secured his door.
    There was another round of radio check-ins,
with each driver reporting their readiness, and then the convoy pulled away.
Despite being in armored vehicles, the team remained vigilant. The mission had
gone flawlessly to this point, but the last thing any of them wanted to do was
jinx things with a premature round of self-congratulation. It took only a
single roadside IED to ruin an otherwise perfect outing. They avoided the known
patrol routes, where insurgents most often targeted occupation forces, and
instead risked a course that led them through neighborhoods that were known to
be sympathetic to the opposition, reasoning—or rather hoping—that Hajji would be less likely to blow
things up on his own doorstep. Nevertheless, every man in the team knew that no
amount of preparation and planning could guarantee success; luck always played
a part.
    This time, their luck held. Twenty minutes
later, they rolled under the arch that guarded the entrance to Camp Blue
Diamond. The mission had gone flawlessly. They had captured both of the al-Awda
couriers and gathered a ton of evidence, without firing a single shot…or being
fired at.
    It was a great way to end their four-month
deployment