AFTER
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The concrete and brick houses appeared greenish white through my night-vision goggles. The five single-story units were all clumped together at the end of a dirt street. Each had a flat roof, small windows, and a single wooden door. To the left, near a narrow alley, two vehicles were parked side by side. They looked like British Land Rovers, modified with armor and additional running lights.
From time to time, I watched the ghostly images of two armed guards appear as they paced back and forth. However, I considered this somewhat ordinary for the town of Abu Kamal, a grimy little place located across Iraq’s western border. It was infected with ragtag smugglers, Iraqi military deserters, and corrupt political refugees. But on this quiet June night, I reasoned that everything would appear normal to a passerby. I had worked this part of the world for the last three months and, if everything went as planned, in the next fifteen minutes we would capture Samir Khalil, one of the top generals in the Hamas noun militant wing. More importantly, we would be one step closer to their leader, Habil Abbas, who in the CIA’s world of fighting terrorism was the most wanted man on the planet.
Everyone needed a refuge, a haven, a safe place where they could crawl into a cave and pull the cave in after them. For Samantha, that refuge used to be a treehouse her father built for her, a fortress against reality, perched high in the embrace of a North Carolina sycamore tree. God, what would Dad think of the mess I’ve gotten myself into? Now Samantha was grown and the treehouse had become a cramped duplex in the Gainesville suburbs, a shoebox woefully lacking. She longed for the sanctuary of her treehouse.
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