Khatar. It is the Arabic word for "dangerous," and it is one that Colonel Michael Parson has heard all too often on his present mission. His friend Sophia Gold has talked him into taking his month"s leave from the military and using it to fly relief supplies into Somalia in an antique DC-3 cargo plane. Somalis is a country filled with armed clans, pirates, poverty, and, increasingly, terrorism, and Parson and Gold are about to find out about all of them firsthand. An al-Shabaab leader called The Hyena has declared all aid to be a sin against God, and is launching attacks against planes and convoys to stop it. If that isn"t bad enough, a Hollywood actress and activist has flown into Somalia to make a documentary, and she might as well just be painting targets on all of their backs. In this, Parson is correct. But even he does not know just how khatar it will turn out to be.