by Brad Thor
Harvath did. In fact he’d just helped MI5 and Scotland Yard take down a large terror cell in London and prevent a massive attack. “I’ve got a guy I can ask. What’s the name of this MI5 operative you think was behind the attack?”
When McBride said the name Harvath couldn’t believe his ears.
There was such a long pause, the old SEAL thought they might have gotten cut off. “Are you still there?”
“I’m still here,” replied Harvath.
“Can you help with this Robert Ashford character or what?”
“This is a very serious accusation. You’re going to need proof. Lots of it.”
“We’ve got proof,” said Hank. “You sound different all of a sudden. Why?”
Harvath ignored the question. “I want to see the proof you have.”
“You’re welcome to it. But it’s not something I can just put in the mail.”
“You don’t need to. I’ll come to you.”
“You’re here?” said McBride. “California?”
“I’m on the 405 right now. I don’t have my regular cell with me, so give me your address again.”
Hank did, and after Harvath told him to sit tight, not to move, and not to talk to anyone else, he ended the call and picked up his speed once more.
He thought about calling the Old Man. Carlton, after all, was the one who had introduced him to Ashford. But as quickly as the idea had materialized in Harvath’s mind, he dismissed it.
Robert Ashford had been read into their operational plans in Yemen. The Old Man had done it as a courtesy. Aazim Aleem was a British citizen and Ashford had been especially helpful to the Carlton Group in London.
Harvath was beginning to wonder, though, if Ashford could have been the reason the Yemen op had gone sideways. And until he had a firm handle on what the hell was going on, he wasn’t going to be making any phone calls.
CHAPTER 57
Harvath backed into Hank McBride’s driveway and parked underneath the carport near the kitchen door.
“Thanks for coming,” said the old SEAL, giving him a hug.
“No problem,” replied Harvath. “You look good.”
“Must be all my healthy habits.”
Harvath knew what a hard drinker and terrible eater Hank was known to be and he smiled.
“C’mon inside,” said McBride. “Luke and Salomon are looking forward to meeting you.”
“I need your help getting something out of the trunk first.”
Hank looked at him. “Something or someone?”
Harvath directed him to the rear of the car and popped the lid.
“Who the hell is he?” the old SEAL asked.
“He was never here. You never saw him.”
“Did he have something to do with what just happened at LAX?”
“I don’t want to get into it,” said Harvath.
“Son of a—” said McBride. He pulled back his fist and punched Tariq Sarhan in the head before Harvath could stop him.
“For fuck’s sake, Hank. Knock it off.”
“So what? Tell them he slipped getting out of the car.”
“Are you going to help me or not?” asked Harvath.
“Just leave him in there,” said the old SEAL. “What do you need to bring him into the house for?”
“Ever heard of sudden in-custody death syndrome?”
“As in you’ve got some wiseass and you decide to throw him off a bridge?”
“If you leave a suspect duct-taped in a confined space for too long he can die,” said Harvath.
“The whole country’s going soft,” replied McBride. “We used to leave shitbags like this in trunks for days at a time. I always found it made them a lot more cooperative.”
Harvath ignored him. “I need a pole. Something that’ll support a lot of weight and won’t break. A sheet, too.”
McBride shook his head, walked into the house, and reappeared a couple of minutes later.
After making sure there was nobody who could see them from the street, they pulled Sarhan from the trunk and laid him down on the concrete apron on his stomach. They slid the pole under his duct-taped ankles and then beneath his FlexCuff’d wrists, which Harvath had reinforced with more tape. Throwing the sheet over the pole, they lifted him like a couple of Bushmen returning to their village with a fresh hog and moved him inside.
Once safely into the kitchen, Hank let go of his side of the pole. “Woops,” he said.
Harvath lowered his end, withdrew the pole, and pulled off the sheet.
“Where do you want to put him?” asked McBride.
“We can leave him right there.”
“You don’t care who he sees or what he hears?”
Normally, Harvath wouldn’t have cared, but he had no idea where Sarhan was going to end up. The less he knew about everything, the better.
“Do you have someplace we can put him?” asked Harvath.
Hank shook his head. “I should start charging rent,” he said as he motioned for Harvath to follow him.
Harvath grabbed Sarhan by the back of his shirt and dragged him across the linoleum floor and down a short hallway to McBride’s laundry cum hobby room. He knocked and the door was opened by another man, who Harvath assumed was Ralston. Sitting next to the old SEAL’s workbench was Larry Salomon. Harvath had seen his picture many times before.
On the floor, and also restrained with duct tape, was a man about Hank’s age with greasy black hair and a pug face.
“Sorry we’re late,” said Harvath as he let go of Sarhan.
“Another piñata,” replied Ralston. “Now things are getting interesting.”
“If you gentlemen want to use the kitchen to talk,” said Hank, “I’ll keep an eye on these two.”
Harvath thanked him and followed Ralston and Salomon out. As he was leaving, he reminded the old SEAL not to abuse his prisoner. Hank picked up a ball-peen hammer from the workbench and told him he wouldn’t dream of it. Shaking his head, Harvath joined the other men in the kitchen.
Ralston introduced himself and then Salomon.
“I’m a big fan,” Harvath said to the producer.
“Thank you. We appreciate your coming.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” said Harvath as he motioned at the kitchen table for the men to sit. He saw that Hank had a pot of coffee made and helped himself. He offered to pour for the other two men, but they politely refused.
Sitting down at the table he listened as Luke laid out what had happened and Salomon filled in some of the details.
Twenty minutes and an additional cup of coffee later, Ralston finished by saying, “That’s when Hank called you and here we are.”
It was an amazing story. Harvath leaned back in his chair, processing what he had heard. “For what it’s worth, you were smart not to kill Yatsko.”
“I gave my word,” replied Ralston. “That said, I probably ruptured his eardrum, discharging the weapon so close to his head.”
“He deserves to pay,” said Salomon.
Harvath nodded in agreement. “You both did the right thing, though.” Changing gears, he asked, “What happened to the homeless guy in his trunk?”
“After I dumped Yatsko here, I drove the car back up to L.A., wiped all of my prints off it, and left it in his garage.”
“Where’s the hard drive?”
Ralston reached under the table where it had been taped, removed it, and handed it across to Harvath. He then gave him the code the Russian had revealed out in the desert.
“You haven’t tried to open it, have you?”
Ralston shook his head. “He was bargaining for his life, so I think he was being straight with me. But I’ve dealt with this stuff enough to know that he could have given me a kill code. I didn’t want to type in that password only to have it fry the entire drive.”
“Smart,” replied Harvath. “We’ve got somebody back east that should be able to get into it and see what’s there. What about Project Green Ramp? You
said it was a plan to weaken the United States and then collapse it via a black swan event? Do you have any idea what kind of black swan? Could that be what’s behind all of these terrorist attacks?”
“You probably shouldn’t rule anything out,” Ralston replied with a shrug, “but I don’t see Standing as the terrorism type. He’s a financial guy who buys influence and messes with currencies and economies.”
“Who may have used an active MI5 operative as a cutout to hire a Russian wet work team to kill Mr. Salomon.”
“I guess when you put it that way, anything is possible.”
It was definitely possible. In fact, having the unrestricted warfare piece of the puzzle, Harvath now saw Standing as highly likely to be behind the entire thing. He had the financial means. He also, from what Harvath knew, had the ideology and hadn’t been shy in his public calls for the American system to be replaced with something else.
“If Ashford is dirty,” asked Salomon, “will you be able to link him to Standing?”
“We’ll definitely try. But it would be helpful to have copies of the material you were working on. Did you back it up offsite or does the LAPD have all of it now as part of their investigation?”
“Everything was in my home office at the time of the attack.”
“So, no backup, then.”
“No,” said Salomon. “There’s a backup. I just don’t know how you can get to it.”
“Let me worry about that,” replied Harvath, figuring the Old Man could put together a team to take care of the job. “Where is it?”
“Back at the house. I have a stack of high-capacity portable drives in a locked cage hidden in the basement. My entire life is backed up on those things, including the rough cut, or at least as far as we had gotten on it, of the Well Endowed documentary. If you can get someone past the police and into the house, I can tell them how to find the cage and access the drives.”
As Ralston and Salomon began to sketch out a map of the house and the surrounding property in Coldwater Canyon, Harvath stepped outside to make a phone call.
He needed to bring the Old Man up to speed on what he had learned, but more important, he needed to lay the groundwork for what they had to do next. Reed wasn’t going to like it, but they were going to have to go after Robert Ashford.
CHAPTER 58
A civilian Lockheed L-100 Hercules was waiting for Harvath at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Center, forty-five minutes south of Hank McBride’s home in Hermosa Beach.
Also waiting was a SEAL team contingent who had been choppered up from Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. As Harvath was transferring both Sarhan and Yatsko back to the East Coast, the Old Man wanted to make sure he had all the additional manpower he might need.
The guards at the base gate were expecting Harvath and waved him through. The L-100 was parked on the tarmac outside Hangar Three with its rear cargo ramp down.
Upon seeing Harvath, one of the young SEALs at the base of the ramp shouted into the plane. Moments later, Harvath and his vehicle were guided right up into the belly of the enormous aircraft.
As this was a black flight with no records, the SEALs were dressed in civilian clothes. Only first names were used. Harvath introduced himself as Bob. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. On the contrary, these were his brothers. He knew that it was better for them if they knew zero about him.
Once his vehicle was secured, the cargo ramp was closed and the crew instructed everyone to prepare for takeoff. The men took their seats as the four massive turboprop engines were started.
Slowly, the enormous bird began to roll forward and taxi out to the runway. Harvath was exhausted and allowed himself a few minutes to lean back and close his eyes. This was not going to be a relaxing flight. There were still dots all over Nicholas’s map in Reston representing further terrorist attacks. Back at LAX he had wanted Sarhan to tell him what he knew about that immediate attack. Now, he wanted to know about everything else. He figured the man wasn’t going to be any more cooperative than he had been at LAX.
When the plane leveled out, Harvath opened his eyes and nodded to the SEAL in charge. He in turn signaled his men, who all produced black balaclavas and rolled them down over their faces.
Harvath opened the trunk and three of the SEALs shined bright flashlights into the faces of the two captives. Two other SEALs reached down and yanked out Tariq Sarhan, after which Harvath slammed the lid back down. Yatsko would get his turn, but for the time being, Harvath wanted him as disoriented and as frightened as possible.
A heavy steel cable, complete with a metal hook, had been thrown over one of the cargo area’s upper supports. It ran to a winch covered with chipped yellow paint.
The two SEALs held Sarhan upright under his arms as Harvath removed his knife and cut through the tape and FlexCuffs binding his wrists. The sense of relief the terrorist felt at having his hands cut free was short-lived as one of the other SEALs forced his wrists together in front of his body and resecured them again with tape.
The hook was then slipped beneath the tape, and the SEAL manning the winch was instructed to take up the slack. The cable grew taut and Sarhan’s arms were lifted above his head. The winch kept cranking until the terrorist was forced to stand on tiptoe and Harvath signaled for it to stop.
Reaching up for the piece of duct tape he had placed across Sarhan’s mouth, Harvath ripped it away along with the crust of dried blood that had formed around his badly burned and blistered upper lip. His scream was so loud it could be heard well above the roar of the aircraft noise.
The man was cursing in Arabic, and Harvath gave him an open-handed slap to the side of the face to get him to shut up.
“Tariq, you’re in a lot of trouble, my friend,” said Harvath. “Do you know where we’re going?”
Sarhan didn’t answer, and Harvath hadn’t expected him to.
“We’re on our way to visit some friends of mine in Cairo,” he told his prisoner. “The Mukhabarat are very interested in your visit.”
The terrorist looked at him with contempt. “You lie,” he hissed. “There is no more Mukhabarat. The Egyptian secret police were thrown out after the revolution.”
“Unfortunately for you, that isn’t the case. You see, the new government needs the Mukhabarat even more than the old government. And let’s face it, what would Egypt be without its secret police?
“Maybe the name will change, but their methods will still be the same. By the way, they wanted me to ask you if you had any family members you’d like them to contact for you. Actually, don’t bother answering that. I’m sure they’re already busy tracking them down.”
If Sarhan was troubled by the threat, he didn’t show it.
“Here’s the thing, though, Tariq. I don’t want to go to Cairo. That’s too long for me to wait to get the answers I need. Too many Americans have died for me to risk a single life more. So you and I are going to have a very intimate conversation. Right here. And you’re going to tell me every single thing, no matter how small or unimportant you think it may be, and you’re going to tell me right now.”
Tariq Sarhan had his answer ready. Once again he attempted to spit at Harvath and missed.
“Bad choice,” said Harvath as he nodded to the SEAL operating the winch to tighten the cable up even further.
For the next three hours, Harvath worked on Sarhan. After the third time the terrorist passed out, Harvath had him taken down. Sarhan knew very little beyond his own operation. There were bits and pieces that Harvath would include with his debrief, but he doubted they’d be of much help. This network had been very careful to keep things as compartmentalized as possible. Sarhan had no idea how many other attacks were planned, who was involved, when they would happen, or how to stop them.
Harvath was beginning to believe that it would take a major mistake by the terrorists before they could be completely taken down. He hoped that mistake, though, had already been made and that it was Robert Ashford.
No sooner had Ha
rvath gotten Yaroslav Yatsko out of the trunk and prepped for his interrogation than one of the Marines informed him that the crew, who, per orders, had remained in the cockpit for the duration of the flight, was ready to make their approach into Dulles.
Harvath and the SEALs quickly outfitted the two prisoners with black goggles, sensory deprivation headsets, surgical masks to prevent them from picking up olfactory cues, and blackout hoods, then shackled their wrists and ankles and covered their hands with heavy canvas mittens.
They were then laid back in the trunk of Harvath’s car on their stomachs and had their ankle shackles connected to their wrist shackles via a short chain.
When the L-100 landed it taxied to the cargo services area of the airport, where Reed Carlton had two teams waiting.
When the cargo ramp was lowered, one of the teams boarded the plane and traded keys with Harvath. The car with the two trunked prisoners was backed down the ramp and was met on the tarmac by a heavily armored black Suburban. The Carlton Group kept a fortified safe house in Maryland. As the two vehicles disappeared from the airport, Harvath figured that was where they were most likely headed.
After thanking the SEALs, he walked down the ramp and disappeared himself. He found the car that had been left for him and climbed in. He wanted to get Yatsko’s hard drive to the office as quickly as possible so the IT team could get to work on it. He also wanted to go over his plans with the Old Man in person. Carlton had been friends with Robert Ashford for many years, but Harvath had to know if Ashford had been the one who had compromised the Yemen operation. He needed to look the Old Man in the face and see for himself that he was all in and willing to do whatever needed to be done.
Starting the car, he rolled down the windows and shifted into drive. America was reeling from yet another attack. People across the nation were mad as hell, but they were also terrified. They had no idea where or when the next attack would come. All they knew was that they wanted it stopped.
After it was stopped, they would want revenge. Harvath was already one step ahead.