He rolled down his window and poked his head out, looking up at the cloudy sky. Seconds later Adnan looked out the window again.

He had never been a careless man, and Adnan didn't like the Iranian's flippancy about serious matters. The big Afghan's breath smelled strongly of onions.Īdnan gripped the steering wheel tighter. He said something in Farsi and Khan laughed. Muhammad finished his phone call, wiped a smudge of dirt off one of his American-made cowboy boots, checked the time on his very expensive watch and lay back against the seat and smiled as he lit a cigarette. It was another difference between the two men that caused al-Rimi not to trust him.

Ethnically, Muhammad al-Zawahiri was Persian, not Arab, like al-Rimi. He fought for Iraq in the horrific war between the two countries, and his enmity toward Iran still ran very deep. Adnan had been born in Saudi Arabia but migrated to Iraq as a young boy. And neither was he overly trusting of the Iranian. He didn't like a man with a machine gun sitting behind him, fellow Muslim or not. The farmers just plow around them.' He paused and added with a deeply satisfied look, 'And some American carcasses too, we have.'Īdnan kept glancing in the rearview mirror. 'My country is filled with the metal carcasses of Soviet tanks. 'This is nice countryside,' Khan said in Pashto, a dialect Muhammad spoke but one Adnan had little familiarity with. A few drops of rain fell against the window, and Khan idly watched them trickle down. He clicked the mag back in place and put the firing switch on two-shot bursts. He wore a hunter's camouflage jacket and was checking his machine gun with nimble fingers. Khan was large and muscular with a shaved head. The man next to him was an Afghan named Gul Khan, who'd been in the States only a few months. The man talking animatedly in Farsi on a cell phone was Muhammad al-Zawahiri, an Iranian who had entered the country shortly before the terrorist attacks on 9/11. There were two passengers in the backseat. He suddenly glanced out the window as he heard the sound overhead. He lifted a gloved hand from the steering wheel and felt for the gun in the holster under his jacket a weapon was not just a comfort for Adnan, it was a necessity. Indeed, the man was tired of things attacking him. Deer were plentiful here, and Adnan had no desire to see the bloodied antlers of one slashing through the windshield. Forty-one-year-old Adnan al-Rimi was hunched over the wheel as he concentrated on the windy road coming up. T HE C HEVY S UBURBAN SPED DOWN the road, enveloped by the hushed darkness of the Virginia countryside.

The camel club book series in order