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Shoshana opened the passenger door, stood up, and began yelling in Hebrew across the top of the cab. He backed up, drew his weapon, and I said, “Shoshana, that’s not helping anything.”

She said, “It’ll get someone here besides this monkey in a uniform.”

I turned to him, and saw his eyes focused on the parking lot, his gun out, now pointed away from me.

I turned and saw an SUV racing straight toward us, like it was going to ram us head-on. I slammed our vehicle in reverse, hit thegas, and spun into the grass on the side of the road, Shoshana barely hanging on. The SUV kept coming. The guard jumped aside and it hammered the wooden drop bar, shattering it, and screamed away. I got a quick glimpse at the driver as he sped by and couldn’t believe it.

I looked at Shoshana, wanting to make sure I wasn’t projecting. I said, “Did you see the man behind the wheel?”

I had my answer in her expression before she even spoke. She said, “It’s theRamsad’s killer.”

I put the car in drive and went back to the gate, finding the guard completely confused, shouting in the radio and waving his pistol at me. I saw a platoon of men rushing to us and said, “This isn’t going to end well.”

Shoshana said, “Let me handle this.”

I said, “Do you have some secret Israeli code word for badass to stop the beat-down we’re about to get? Because I’ve been trying to get one for the United States, and have failed to do so.”

She smiled, and the men coalesced around our vehicle, with her shouting in Hebrew. They shouted back, and she pointed to the direction the SUV had gone, screaming at them. At that moment, I knew we were done. They didn’t believe her, and had no inclination to stop the event on the top of the hill, thinking the threat had just left.

I slapped my hands on the wheel in front of me and the man outside my window waved his pistol about, which did nothing but aggravate the hell out of me.

I said, “Do you hear what she’s saying?” I had no idea what Shoshsana was shouting, but was pretty sure it was along the lines of, “Get everyone out, or they’re going to get killed.”

He brought his pistol up, pointing it at my head, and I raised my hands, saying, “We’re all about to be dead, you dumb fuck.”

At that moment, an enormous explosion split the sky to the south,at the edge of the mountain, loud enough to shake the vehicle. Everyone turned to the noise, seeing a fireball in the air, bits and parts of machinery falling to the ground, and an Israeli F-16 screaming straight up over the top of Mount Megiddo.

I looked at Shoshana and said, “Points given here. You aren’t that dysfunctional.”

She smiled and said, “Let’s go get Garrett. There’s still one more on the loose.”

I nodded, turned to the man with the weapon at my head, and said, “We no longer want to enter. Sorry for being pushy.”

I put the SUV in reverse, and he shouted something. I hit the gas, flying backward at a high rate of speed. I did a J-turn, the front of the vehicle whipping around, and was headed back down the road away from the checkpoint, seeing a lot of men waving their arms in the air behind me.

We reached the main highway and I said, “Which way? North or south?”

Garrett headed north on Highway 4, wanting to put distance between him and the predators, wondering how on earth they’d managed to track him and his team, not only here in Israel, but also in Syria. There had to be something connecting them together, and his eyes fell on the Thuraya phone next to him, the antennae still out and transmitting.

He snarled, pulled over to the side of the road, and threw it in the footwell, crushing it with his boot. Breathing heavily, he went back onto the highway, planning his escape. There was no way he could travel back to Tel Aviv or any other port of entry. He needed to get to Lebanon, and the closest border crossing was at the tip of Israel. There was the Rosh Hanikra crossing, but it was reserved for UN members and official Israeli personnel. He couldn’t use that, sure he’dbe arrested if he tried, but he knew another way. An old railroad built through a tunnel that once connected the land of Israel with Lebanon, right under that crossing point.

It was now a tourist site, closed to all traffic but visitors, but it was the border. If he could get there, he could get under the wall. If he could cross into Lebanon, he could escape, leaving behind the predators chasing him.

And then he remembered the secondary mission with Michelangelo. Maybe all wasn’t lost. Maybe they could still create the final crusade. He pulled out his cell phone, held it up, and saw he had no service. He glanced at the shell of his sat phone and beat the wheel in frustration.

My Inmarsat phone connected with Taskforce headquarters, and I heard the usual statement about Blaisdell Consulting, along with who I’d like to talk with. When using the VPN, I had a direct encrypted video chat to the heart of the Taskforce, but when using the Inmarsat telephone, I did not. It was unencrypted, and prey to a multitude of different penetrations. And so I had to dance around the issue.

I said, “George Wolffe, please.”

I heard, “Sir, there’s no George Wolffe that works here. You might have the wrong number.” The voice was from the same woman who’d worked the cover of the Taskforce since it was created. A sweet old lady named Margaret, she’d given my daughter birthday cards year after year.

Sitting on the side of the road, Shoshana looking at me like I was crazy, I said, “Marge, it’s Pike Logan. I understand what you’re doing, but I’m in a little bit of an emergency. Please, put him on the line. Skip the subterfuge on this one. Anyone listening will not be worse than the threat I’m trying to stop.”

“Sir, I’m sorry, but no one here works by that name.”

I thought,Okay, pull the trigger. I said, “I have a Prairie Fire emergency. I say again, Prairie Fire.”

Prairie Fire was the code name for a team about to be overrun and in dire need of help. It could be called on any channel available—VPN, email, chat, telephone, smoke signals, whatever—and when it came in, the Taskforce stopped everything to refocus.