by Brad Thor
Harvath was about to say something, when another taxi pulled up and two more men exited the house.
“Are you getting all of this?” asked Harvath as he took still more photographs.
“Yes,” replied Nicholas.
The driver popped the trunk, the men placed their wheely bags inside, and after shutting the lid, slid into the backseat, and the vehicle pulled away.
“That makes three two-man teams in less than half an hour,” said Harvath, adding, “you still have nothing back on the photographs or the vehicles?”
“All of the vehicles check out. This cab, too.”
“Do we have any idea yet where the other two are headed?”
“No,” said Nicholas. “I’m starting to believe you may be right about the SDRs.”
“Whatever you do, don’t lose them,” replied Harvath.
Harvath glanced for the thousandth time at the dated picture of Tariq Sarhan he had been issued. All of the men who had left the house were too young to have been him. He still had to be inside, and at this point, there was no question that he was definitely up to something. Harvath decided he couldn’t wait any longer to find out what.
He grabbed several extra mags for his compact .45 caliber H&K USP Tactical pistol along with its suppressor. He tucked the pistol into a holster at the small of his back and the rest of the gear into the pockets of his coat.
“I’m going to zero comms,” he stated. “I want a closer look at the target.”
“A closer look?” replied Nicholas, “or are you going over to take him?”
“If the Old Man asks, tell him you can’t raise me. Understood?”
“I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”
“Lucky for me that—” Harvath cut himself off midsentence.
“Repeat, please,” said Nicholas.
“Hold on.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve now got a black Lincoln Town Car approaching,” said Harvath, who was at the camera as two more young Middle Eastern men exited the house with wheely bags. They were soon followed, though, by a third.
“Zoom in on the third man, please,” said Nicholas.
Harvath didn’t need to be told. He zoomed in and began snapping pictures of Tariq Sarhan. “That’s our guy,” he stated.
“Is he going to get in the car with them?”
“Negative,” replied Harvath as he watched Sarhan kiss both of the young men on the cheeks and remain in front of the house as they walked down to the curb.
“I’m running the plates on the Town Car, now.”
“Roger that,” said Harvath as he watched Sarhan through the camera. “I hope you saved a little cake for me, Tariq, because you and I are going to have a little party of our own.”
“The Town Car looks clean. It’s registered to a Los Angeles limousine company. Wow, that makes eight guys. He really did have a lot of people in there.”
“Now we’re going to find out exactly what the hell he’s up to,” said Harvath. “I’ll call you back.”
Harvath disconnected the call and stayed at the window. He watched as the Town Car pulled away and Sarhan turned and went back into his house.
After grabbing a roll of duct tape and his Taser, Harvath exited the little room and headed for the stairs. He had no idea if Sarhan was alone or not now, but he had a pretty good feeling that he was.
The man had aged a lot since his photograph had been taken. He was still very thin, but his face was drawn. His hair had gone gray and he wore glasses. He looked more like a university professor than a terrorist, but that didn’t mean anything. Harvath would know soon enough what the man’s game was.
Having disabled the perimeter security system, he was halfway to the back door when his cell phone vibrated. Unwinding the earbud and placing it in his ear, he activated the call and said, “I told you we were going to zero comms.”
“Sarhan’s on the move,” stated Nicholas.
“What?” replied Harvath. He stopped and thought about returning upstairs to see for himself.
“He just came back out wearing a jacket and opened his garage door.”
“Is he alone?”
“As far as I can tell.”
Harvath turned around and headed for the front door. “Tell me when you can see his car.”
“He’s backing out now,” said Nicholas. “It looks like a blue Nissan Sentra.” He read Harvath the license plate.
“Tell me which direction he goes when he pulls out of the driveway.”
“Roger that.”
Seconds ticked by. Finally, Nicholas said, “He’s coming south. He’s going to go right past you.”
With the tall hedges in front of the downstairs windows, Harvath knew he’d have a hard time seeing the street. “Let me know when he does.”
“Fifteen seconds.”
Harvath waited.
“He should be passing you now.”
Harvath unlocked and cracked the front door. Sure enough, he heard the sound of Sarhan’s car as it passed. He figured it would take him at least ten seconds to get to the end of the street.
Fishing the car keys from his pocket, he said to Nicholas, “You let the TOC handle the other cars. I want you personally tracking Sarhan for me. Got it?”
“I got it,” said the little man as he began clicking once again at his keyboard back in Virginia. “What are you going to do?”
There were only two things Harvath could do. He could break into Tariq Sarhan’s house, tear it apart, turn it upside down, and see what he found, or he could go after the man himself.
As far as Harvath was concerned, there was only one move that made any sense.
CHAPTER 51
“Come on, Nicholas,” Harvath said over his phone. “That car has to be somewhere. It didn’t just vanish.”
Harvath had stepped out of the house and looked down the street just as Tariq Sarhan had applied his turn indicator and made a right turn. As soon as the car had disappeared from sight, Harvath had taken off running. He reached his rental car about a minute and a half later.
Jumping inside, he started it up and pulled out into the street. At the end of the block, he came to a four-way stop. Nicholas had yet to pick up the blue Sentra on any of the traffic cams.
“I’m still searching,” said Nicholas.
Having grown up in Southern California, Harvath knew its freeway systems intimately. Right now, he was inside a sort of rectangle made up of four different freeways—the San Bernardino to his north, the Pomona to his south, the Long Beach Freeway to his west, and the San Gabriel River Freeway to the east. Sarhan could be headed toward any of them.
“How about the other four vehicles?” he asked, trying to figure out what was going on. “Do we know anything yet about where they’re headed?”
“Negative,” said Nicholas. “The TOC is tracking them, but they’re all headed in different directions.”
The longer Harvath sat at the stop sign, the more rapidly his heart began to beat. He tightened his hands around the steering wheel. “Come on, Nicholas,” he said again. “Where is he?”
There were several agonizing moments of silence before the little man responded, “Got him. He just made a left turn four blocks in front of you.”
“Good job,” said Harvath as he stepped on the gas. “Don’t lose him.”
Sarhan looped around, doubled back, and changed direction multiple times. He even stopped twice for gas. There was absolutely no question that he was trying to figure out if he was being followed. This went on for more than forty-five minutes before it appeared he had finally committed to wherever it was that he was going.
He followed the Pomona to the Santa Monica Freeway and continued west toward the ocean. As Harvath saw signs indicating the intersection for the 405, or the San Diego Freeway as it was known, he wondered if Sarhan would alter his course or keep going toward the ocean. He was staying as far behind the blue Sentra as possible and was forced to endure long stretches where he
couldn’t even see the vehicle. Fortunately, he hadn’t exited and Nicholas had been able to keep relatively good track of him.
The same couldn’t be said for the other vehicles. They had lost two out of the four and were scrambling to find them.
“He’s changing lanes,” Nicholas said over Harvath’s cell phone.
They were coming up on a series of choices. Sarhan could remain on the Santa Monica Freeway, or the 10 as it was known, or he could head north or south on the 405. The first ramp was for the 405 south toward San Diego.
“He’s in the far left-hand lane now. He’s not getting on the 405. At least not southbound.”
“Are you sure?” asked Harvath.
“So far. Stand by.”
Harvath watched as the exit for the 405 interchange got closer. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s still in the far left lane. No change. Stand by.”
“Standing by.”
“It looks like we can safely say—” began Nicholas, who then stopped midsentence and shouted, “South! He just swung across four lanes of traffic. He’s taking the 405 south.”
“Son of a—” Harvath cursed beneath his breath as he tried to maneuver. He was boxed in and had to slow down dramatically in order to find a gap and change lanes. The traffic was so tight that he almost missed the exit.
Once he had fully merged onto the 405, Sarhan parked himself in the far right-hand lane, and despite how fast the other cars were going, he kept his vehicle at fifty miles an hour.
Harvath was about to ask what the hell the guy was up to, when Nicholas reported that Sarhan was apparently preparing to exit for the Howard Hughes Parkway. Harvath continued to follow at a safe distance.
Moments later, Nicholas said, “The TOC has relocated the two missing vehicles.”
“Good,” replied Harvath. “Where?”
“Surface streets fifteen and twenty-two miles away, respectively.”
“What about the other two?”
“One of them is on the Century Freeway headed west and the other one looks set to join it. It’s merging onto the Century from the Harbor Freeway.”
Harvath could picture the entire map in his mind’s eye and he now knew where they were headed. “Get the Old Man on the line right now.”
It was only a matter of seconds, but it felt like minutes to Harvath. Finally Carlton clicked in and said, “What do you have?”
“I know where they’re headed.”
“Where?”
“LAX,” replied Harvath.
The Old Man snapped his fingers at someone, probably indicating he wanted a map of some sort, and said, “Los Angeles International? Are you sure?”
“Unless they’re all meeting up for a fishing charter out of Marina Del Rey, that’s where they’re headed. Sarhan has already gotten off the 405 and any moment is going to start doing his final SDRs on the surface streets that lead to the airport.”
“We’ve got vehicle descriptions, plates, even eyes on. Do you want to alert LAPD and have them stopped before they can get too close to the airport?”
It was a very tough call and one Harvath didn’t completely want the responsibility of making. If LAX was a target, the sooner they were stopped, the better. But if it wasn’t, if these men were doing nothing more than returning to their cities of operation, then pulling them over would ruin everything. They would know they’d been blown and the one and only lead Harvath and his team had would be lost.
“Scot,” the Old Man repeated. “It’s up to you. If you want to pull the trigger on these guys, I’ll make the call to the LAPD myself.”
Harvath knew what they had to do. “No,” he replied. “We need to let them go.”
“And if the airport is the target?”
“Then they need to be ready. Call DHS and tell them they need to conduct an immediate shift change.”
The Old Man understood what Harvath was calling for. When credible threats to U.S. airports were raised, the Department of Homeland Security swapped out regular TSA employees with specially trained, former military Special Operations personnel. They would be dressed exactly the same as the TSA agents, but that’s where any similarities ended.
Realizing that air marshals should only handle planes and not airports, a highly secretive and secure training facility had been established near Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. There, counterterrorism exercises were run against a host of realistic airport structures—terminals, baggage claim areas, even an airport hotel. In addition to operators posing as uniformed TSA agents, there was also a highly lethal plainclothes contingent dressed to look like passengers.
When the government wanted to be ready for a threat, but not to broadcast it to the public, and especially not to the bad guys, this was how it was handled. The only problem in this case, though, was the timing.
“There’s no way DHS can do a shift change in time,” said Carlton.
Harvath caught a glimpse of Sarhan’s car as it turned a block ahead of him and replied, “Tell them they don’t have a choice.”
CHAPTER 52
Harvath’s assumption that Sarhan was headed for LAX was confirmed when the man’s circuitous route ended with his pulling into the parking structure adjacent to Terminal One.
“Can you tap into any of the garage cameras?” asked Harvath as he sped up.
“It’ll take a few minutes,” said Nicholas.
“Hurry up,” replied Harvath as he swerved around the car in front of him and pinned the accelerator. “I need to know where he is and what he’s doing. For all we know, he’s going to switch vehicles.”
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
Instead of entering the parking structure on the upper-deck departures level like Sarhan, Harvath chose one of the arrival-level entrances. Snatching his ticket from the dispenser, he pulled in and began scanning for the blue Nissan.
“Where is he, Nicholas?”
“Stand by. Still waiting for access to the camera system.”
Human nature being what it was, most people wanted to park close to the terminal and have less distance to walk. Harvath easily found a parking space near the garage exit and parked there. If Sarhan was planning on driving out of the terminal, he’d have to drive right by Harvath’s vehicle.
No sooner had that thought entered Harvath’s mind than he realized that if Sarhan did have a backup vehicle, it didn’t necessarily have to be in this parking structure. He could easily walk out, hop on the shuttle, and head to the long-term lot, where he could have another car waiting. It seemed a bit far-fetched to Harvath, but anything was possible.
“We’ve got garage video,” Nicholas said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Do you see his car?”
“Negative. He may have already parked.”
“Are you scanning the parked cars or just the ones that are moving?” asked Harvath.
“Both, but there are only so many cameras. You can’t get a perfect view of every single vehicle.”
“Have DHS make sure Sarhan’s picture gets to all of the parking lot attendants at the airport. If anyone sees him, make sure they call it in. Tell them not to do anything else, but call it in.”
“Got it,” said Nicholas, whose voice trailed off for a moment as something caught his eye. “I’ve also got a blue Nissan Sentra.”
“Where?”
“Second floor.”
Harvath was already out of his car and heading for the nearest stairwell as Nicholas gave him the precise location of the car.
“Is the license plate a match?” he asked as he opened the stairwell door.
“I can’t see it. I can’t even get a partial.”
“Is he in the car or has he already gotten out?”
Nicholas took a moment and then replied. “Unless he’s taking a nap, the car appears to be empty.”
“Find him. Check all the other cameras. Roll back the footage. Do whatever you have to do.”
“We’re working on accessing the recorded footage no
w.”
“And make sure nobody moves in on Sarhan or any of his people unless I say so,” said Harvath.
“That may be a problem.”
Harvath was about to open the door to the second level. “What do you mean, that may be a problem?”
“DHS told Carlton that they appreciate the tip, but that this is their jurisdiction and we don’t have any authority.”
“Damn it,” he replied. “They’re going to mess this whole thing up. Do they know I’m the person in the field?”
“No. Carlton didn’t want to reveal that.”
Harvath didn’t know that it would make any difference. It had been over two years since he’d worked for DHS and there was a completely new secretary in place now. He wouldn’t care that some former DHS employee was tracking a team of would-be terrorists. If his people could pinch them before anything happened, he’d rack up truckloads of brownie points with the press, the public, and especially the White House. Harvath should have seen that coming. In the wake of so many successful attacks on U.S. soil, DHS needed a win. Though he wanted to believe they’d do the right thing, too often it was the political thing, the thing that would play well for public relations, that was chosen.
“Did they tell you where they were on the shift change?”
“Negative,” said Nicholas.
“Damn it,” Harvath repeated as he got ready to open the door. “Tell the Old Man that he needs to find a way to work this out. Somebody, somewhere, owes him a favor. If DHS jumps the gun, they could blow this entire operation.”
“I’m sure he’s doing everything he can.”
Harvath opened the door and stepped onto the second level. “Where are the other vehicles?” he said quietly.
“The first one is about two blocks away.”
“Okay, let’s keep chatter to a minimum until—”
“Got him,” interrupted Nicholas.
“Sarhan? Where?”
“He got out of his vehicle, all right, but he didn’t walk toward any of the exits. He walked to the northeast corner of the structure.”
“Did he get in another car?” asked Harvath.
“Negative.”