Free The Toymaker by Chuck Barrett Page A

few days, they’ll prove to be life altering.”
    With that statement hanging in the air, Wiley disappeared into his bunk.
     
     

CHAPTER 13
     
     
     
     
    K APLAN ROSE WITH the sun feeling refreshed. He’d slept for over six hours—now it was time to get down to business. The business of locating and rescuing Isabella Hunt.
    He found Chase and his team members at the table with a map weighted down on the corners by coffee mugs. In the light of dawn, they looked younger than they had the night before and they were all dressed alike. Jeans, t-shirts. Two in tennis shoes, three in hiking boots. And everyone had a backpack on the floor next to them. North Face, JanSport, Dakine—just what you’d expect from college students out exploring the world. Kaplan studied each one and noticed something odd, or maybe not so odd after all. They all had forgettable faces and features. No one stood out. No one had striking features. Perfect for covert ops.
    The team had been talking about someone when Kaplan walked in. He assumed the name he heard was the source.
    “Barakah? Is that our man?” Kaplan asked.
    Chase smiled. “The source is Baraka Binte Talibah. But yeah, she’s our source.”
    “A woman?” Kaplan showed his surprise. “How’d you manage that?”
    “Actually, she came to us—in a roundabout way,” Chase explained. “She approached one of us right after we arrived, something a local asset had arranged.”
    “When do I get to meet her?”
    “That could be a bit of a problem.” Chase said. “She doesn’t know about you, yet. We are to meet later this morning. But first we need to discuss ground rules.”
    “Ground rules?” Kaplan asked.
    “Yes. Her security is of upmost importance to us. She cannot be compromised. She will contact us when she can talk. She’ll tell us when and where.” Chase explained.
    “Do you trust her? Could she be setting us up?”
    “There is always that chance, but we are good at what we do. Besides, the circumstances that brought her to us pretty much assure us she’s on our side.” Chase explained how she came to them after her husband was blinded, had his tongue cut out, and her teenage daughters had been tortured and executed. Payback for her husband leaking information to a Yemeni police chief that led to the siege against al Qaeda militants in the small village of Hawta. Thousands of people fled as government forces moved into the village with tanks and armored vehicles. She was spared only because she wasn’t home at the time.
    “These people are brutal. Even more so with their own countrymen and women.” Chase said. “I offered her protection but she refused. She witnessed the abduction and thinks she knows where they took Ms Hunt. She’ll confirm it and get back to us.”
    “So we just wait?” Before Chase could answer, Kaplan’s own words reminded him of Jake’s impatience in Australia.
    “That’s right.” Chase said. “We wait.”
    An hour later Kaplan, Chase, and Baraka Binte Talibah met in an abandoned white-washed home on the south end of Sana’a. The bomb-blast-wrecked home had been left in shambles nearly a decade earlier when insurgents attempted a government takeover. She was reluctant to meet with Kaplan present but Chase convinced the woman that meeting with him was the only way to ensure the safety of the captured woman.
    “The woman is being held in…how you say…compound in Hajjah. Walls on all sides.” Baraka explained.
    “Where is this Hajjah?” Kaplan asked. “What’s the terrain like?”
    “All Hajjah is hill. Woman is in Old Hajjah Palace. One road in. One road out. Will not be easy.” Baraka looked at Kaplan. “I help you get in. Must go at night.”
    Chase interrupted. “No Baraka. You’ve done enough. We can’t ask you to put your life on the line. We can handle it from here.”
    “No. No.” Baraka gave Chase a glance then returned her stare to the older, wiser Kaplan. “I go first, make sure no one get in way. I