Secret Soldier by Dana Marton

through the papers on the desk. Bills, invoices, business correspondence. Nothing suspicious. He picked the lock on the drawers, but didn’t come up with anything usable there, either. Maybe the other desk. He walked over and turned the laptop on, more for the light its screen would provide than because he thought he would be able to access it. He merely nodded when the password protection window came on.
    He went through the drawers and the small filing cabinet. More business documents, maps, a handgun—9 mm Smith & Wesson—shoved far in the back. Loaded. He hesitated for a moment, wanting to take it, hating that he’d been without his SIG since he had entered the country—part of his cover. But if he took the gun, chances were it would be missed. He couldn’t risk discovery. For now it would have to be enough that he knew where it was.
    He searched through the bookcases, looking for hidden compartments, and came up empty. He made sure he locked every drawer and cabinet the way he had found it, then turned off the screens. When he heard no sound out in the hallway, he opened the door inch by inch. All clear. He stepped outside and locked the door behind him.
    He glanced at his watch. Just after midnight. Plenty of time to look around some more. He had seen the outside entry to the cellar when they got out of the car Jamal had sent for them. He hoped there was a way to get down there from the inside, as well. He moved forward as silently as a shadow, determined to find it.
    He stumbled onto it an hour later in the kitchen. The jars of honey on the top of the trapdoor indicated that it wasn’t used regularly. He moved everything aside, neatly tucked next to the wall, so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that they were out of place if somebody happened to walk into the kitchen for a midnight snack.
    He swiped a box of matches from one of the tables, lifted the wood panel and then descended into the darkness one careful step after the other. Once he closed the door behind him, he lit a match.
    Crates of guns, ammunition and hand grenades towered to the ceiling. The CIA had been right. El Jafar did keep in touch with his family. More than in touch. From the looks of it, they were helping him. It would be only a matter of time before the bugs would pick up something. Hopefully sooner than later. He would stick a few bugs in the cellar, then call it quits for the night-do the rest tomorrow. He wanted to be back in the room before Abigail woke up and came looking for him.
    The match burned to the tip of his fingers; he pinched the flame out and lit another. He put a bug inside one of the crates and another under a low table by the wall. A muffled noise came from above. He put out the match. Somebody was in the kitchen.
    Voices sounded from outside, too. He stepped behind a stack of crates just in time before the cellar door opened and light flooded the room.
    “You’ve been a busy man, Mr. Thornton.” Jamal’s voice rang out.
    Spike kept his cover and moved toward the open crate of rifles in the back, hoping he would have the time to load one.
    “Maybe if you told me what you were looking for, I could help you find it?” Jamal continued. “Come on out now. No sense of hiding. You’ve tripped every silent alarm in your wake. I was just waiting until you got somewhere I could trap you without waking the whole house.”
    Jamal was definitely in with his brother. Deeper than they had thought. He was a successful, American-educated businessman, the most progressive person in his family, pro-reform. As the oldest son and the family’s patriarch since their father’s death, he had been questioned about his brother’s whereabouts, had claimed Suhaib had been kicked out of the family by their father years ago and had been out of contact since then.
    The CIA had been skeptical about that. In this part of the world, family ties were everything. But although they had suspected tacit support, they didn’t think Jamal was in