Takedown

“Hands on top of your head,” said one of several black-clad figures armed with very nasty-looking assault rifles.

Mohammed was stunned. How could the house have been breached?

The man in black told him once more to put his hands on top of his head, this time in Arabic.

Ignoring the order, Mohammed lunged back into the bedroom toward the PowerBook. As he did, a pair of barbed probes from a TASER X26 ripped through his cotton robe and embedded themselves in the flesh of his back. When the electricity raced through his body, his muscles locked up and he fell like a dead tree trunk, face-first onto the stone floor.

His hands and feet were Flexicuffed, and the last thing he saw before being dragged from the room was two of the men going for his laptop.

Had they been paying attention, they might have seen Mohammed smile.

Seconds later an explosion rocked the small bedroom, and the hallway was showered with titanium shrapnel, chunks of plaster, and pieces of charred human flesh.

Five

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

MAY 29

Eileanaigas House was a twelve-bedroom estate located on the northern end of a private, wooded island in the middle of the River Beauly. In addition to its majestic silver birch, Douglas fir, spruce, and pine trees, the estate also boasted a dramatic gorge, a heated outdoor swimming pool, small formal gardens, an extensive wine cellar, and a security system that rivaled that of any leading head of state. The security was a very necessary precaution, as the man who lived on the island had many powerful enemies-many of whom were his clients.

Known simply as “the Troll,” the lord of Eileanaigas House lived by the motto that knowledge didn’t equal power, it was the proper application of knowledge that equaled power. And when applied in a very precise manner, knowledge could also equal incredible wealth.

It was in following this mantra that the Troll had made a substantial living for himself dealing in the purchase, sale, and trade of highly classified information. Both his cutthroat business acumen and his gluttonous appetite for the very best of everything stood in sharp contrast to his height. At just under three feet tall, he could barely reach anything in his home without some sort of assistance; normally in the form of miniature stepladders made from ornately carved exotic hardwoods. The house’s size was a reflection of how the Troll saw himself and only its most private areas had been retrofitted to accommodate his size.

Another reflection of how the Troll saw himself were the two enormous, snow-white Caucasian Ovcharkas, Argus and Drako, who never left his side. Weighing close to two hundred pounds each and standing over forty-one inches at the shoulder, these giants were the dogs of choice for the Russian military and the former East German border patrol. They were extremely athletic and absolutely vicious when it came to strangers intruding on their territory. They made perfect guardians for the Troll’s island domain. And most important for a man who made his livelihood dealing in the art of duplicity and blackmail, the dogs could never be turned against him. In fact, he’d always had an odd premonition that the dogs might one day save his life.

Tonight, Argus and Drako sat warily near the fire as a powerful summer storm raged outside. Despite the warmth and its siren’s call to sleep, their eyes were glued to the man who had just arrived at the castle.

“Whisky?” asked the Troll, offering his guest a drink.

“I don’t drink,” replied the man, his dark, narrow eyes bracketing a once prominent Bedouin nose. “I’m surprised. I thought you would have known more about me.”

The Troll smiled as he poured himself two fingers of Germain-Robin Brandy. “Abdul Ali, aka Ahmed Ali, Imad Hasan, and Ibrahim Rahman. Date of birth unknown. Place of birth also unknown, though Western intelligence speculates somewhere in North Africa, most likely Algeria or Morocco, hence the CIA’s cognomen of “the Berber.”

“Even though no Western intelligence agency has been able to obtain a photo of you, it is speculated that you have undergone multiple plastic surgeries to change your appearance. You speak more than five languages and are at home in at least a dozen countries worldwide, more than half of them in the West. For all intents and purposes, you’re a ghost-a man who travels wherever he wants, whenever he wants, with no one ever knowing if he was really there or not.

“It is believed you have both prior special operations and military intelligence training, though with whom no one can, or will, say. You have been suspected in more than thirty-six terrorist attacks on Western targets and have been directly implicated in eleven high-profile assassinations-two of which were MI-6 agents, three Mossad, and four more who were deep-cover operatives for the CIA.