Brad Thor Collectors' Edition #3

by Brad Thor

  Rashid smiled. “Have you ever heard of the Red Mullah, Mr. Harvath?”

  Harvath shook his head.

  “Mullah Sorkh Naqaib, or as he is more commonly known, the Red Mullah,” continued the inspector, “is a high-ranking Taliban commander from Helmand Province who specializes in attacks on British troops. Over the last three years, he has been arrested and released three times. Each time he purchased his release through bribery.

  “The last time was just this past summer when he was being held in NDS custody at Policharki prison. He had a visitor smuggle in fifteen thousand dollars and a half hour later he was free. An investigation wasn’t begun until Naqaib bragged to the British press about how easy it is to get out of jail in Afghanistan.”

  “So what you are saying,” stated Harvath, “is that with money all things are possible.”

  Rashid clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “No. What I am saying is that the Afghan government is tired of being embarrassed. These are not stupid men who run our country. Many of them are corrupt, but they realize that they must at least appear to be trying to do their jobs if Afghanistan hopes to enjoy continued international support. These men fatten their bank accounts from the aid money that flows into the country, and rivers run downhill not up.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, prison guards are not sending a portion of the bribes they receive back to Kabul. The men in power don’t profit when prisoners escape. In fact, it jeopardizes their positions, so they have taken measures to crack down on it. This is why Mustafa Khan was moved.”

  “Do you know where he was moved to?”

  Rashid nodded, but remained silent.

  Gallagher looked at Harvath and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Harvath slid his hand beneath his patoo and discreetly withdrew an envelope filled with cash. He was well aware that no senior Afghan liked to be passed money directly, so he tucked the envelope beneath one of the cushions between him and Rashid. “Dr. Gallo’s family and I appreciate any support you can give us,” Harvath said as he reached for his tea and took another sip.

  The inspector scooped up some rice with his nan and looked at it as he chose his next words. “There are many men like me who still believe in Afghanistan’s future, but only a foolish man would ignore the possibility that our future may not be that bright. The Taliban might return to power, and we have our families to think of. As you may know, mine is not very popular with the Taliban. There is much bad blood between us.”

  Once, Harvath had been put in a position of having to choose between protecting his family or his country. It was a decision he never should have been asked to make, but he hadn’t hesitated. He had chosen his family. In that respect, part of him understood where Ahmad Rashid was coming from. There was also part of him that didn’t. The man was apparently willing to undermine his own government in order to finance his personal escape plan.

  Maybe if Harvath had experienced everything Rashid had experienced over the last thirty-some-odd years he would see things differently. He honestly couldn’t say. Nevertheless, he replied, “I understand.”

  Looking at Baba G, Rashid asked, “Do you know the abandoned Soviet military base on the Darulaman Road?”

  Gallagher nodded.

  “Beneath the barracks, there is an old detention facility. After the current government was installed, our president reopened the facility. It’s his own private prison. That’s where they’ve moved Mustafa Khan.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  The inspector nodded.

  “What’s the security like?” asked Gallagher.

  “Afghan Special Forces. All handpicked by the defense minister, all Pashtuns loyal to the president.”

  “How many?” asked Harvath.

  “I don’t know, but I may be able to find out,” said Rashid.

  Harvath’s mind moved in multiple directions as he made a list of the specific intelligence they’d need to mount their operation. “We’ll also need schematics, drawings.”

  “I’m not sure if any professional drawings exist.”

  “I’d prefer professional drawings, but I’ll settle for unprofessional as long as they’re accurate.”

  “The Soviet base is directly across the Darulaman Road from the CARE hospital,” said Gallagher.

  “Correct,” replied Rashid.

  It took Harvath a second to realize the irony. “Isn’t that where Julia Gallo’s NGO, CARE International, is based?”

  “Yes.”

  They had been keeping their voices low, but Gallagher lowered his even more as he said, “This might work to our advantage.”

  “How?” asked Harvath.

  “Way before CARE International came along, it was a Soviet hospital. In fact, the Soviets built it.”

  “So?”

  “So, the Soviets did a lot of construction in that area, including the building of their embassy. Many of the structures are rumored to be connected to the base by underground tunnels. The hospital was one of the closest buildings to the base. If they were going to build an escape tunnel that would have been one of the easiest places to do it.”

  Harvath turned to Rashid. “Do you know anything about these tunnels?”

  “I’ve heard about them, yes,” he replied.

  “But have you ever seen them yourself?”

  “No, but I may know someone who has. If there’s a tunnel between the hospital and the base, he’ll know about it.”

  “How soon can you get hold of him?” asked Harvath.

  The inspector looked at his watch. “I will call you in two hours.”

  Harvath wrote down the number for the prepaid mobile phone Flower had purchased for him and then made a list of gear he would need Rashid to procure. “Can you get these things for me?”

  As the inspector read the items on the list, he raised his eyebrows. “This is quite an unusual list.”

  “This is going to be quite an unusual job. Can you get them?”

  “I’ll make some calls.”

  “Okay,” said Harvath, anxious to get back to Baba G’s and make some calls of his own. “We’ll talk again in two hours.”

  Inspector Rashid stood and offered Harvath his hand. “If you need anything else in the meantime, Mr. Gallagher knows how to get hold of me.”

  As Harvath and Baba G turned to leave, the police officer added, “Please be careful. Kabul is a very dangerous place.”

  CHAPTER 15

  There was gunfire on the way back to the ISS compound, but it wasn’t directed at Baba G’s Land Cruiser. It was small-arms fire, referred to in military parlance as saf, and as best they could tell it had come from a block or two away. Too close for comfort and even more unsettling when Gallagher explained that saf, RPG, and suicide bombing attacks were on the upswing in the Afghan capital.

  Back at the compound, Harvath grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen and then commandeered Baba G’s room so that he could send secure emails and make a few phone calls. As he waited for his laptop to power up, he noticed that Gallagher’s trash can had been emptied and that the bottles from the night before had been removed.

  While his browser connected with the Internet, Harvath took a long slug of water, glanced at his watch, and did the math. It was nearing 5:00 P.M. in Kabul, which meant it was almost 8:30 A.M. back in D.C. He forced the jet lag from his mind and focused on the work he needed to get done.

  Pulling out his encrypted BlackBerry, he texted a colleague based in D.C. with the message “Need help. Can u talk?”

  Three minutes later he received a response. “Life/death? In a meeting.”

  Harvath shook his head. CIA was obsessed with meetings. If their management showed even half as much interest in supporting the excellent people it had in the field and green-lighting operations to nail bad guys, America would be a much safer place. Harvath texted back a one-word response—“Yes.” He was fairly certain the free world would continue to survive if his contact stepped out of a meeting
for a few minutes.

  Less than sixty seconds later, his BlackBerry rang. Activating the call, Harvath raised the phone to his ear and said, “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  “I think the CIA is trying to kill me,” replied a voice from Northern Virginia.

  Harvath laughed. “Death by PowerPoint?”

  “Worse,” said the voice. “Mandatory sensitivity training. They’re killing us with kindness.”

  Only CIA, thought Harvath, would waste time and money putting its paramilitary operatives through sensitivity training. If it wasn’t so sad, it might actually have been funny. “My tax dollars at work.”

  “Look at it this way,” the voice stated. “When I eventually kill bin Laden, I’ll be able to do it while embracing all of the differences between our cultures that make us both unique and special.”

  “Not if I get to him first.”

  This time, it was Aydin Ozbek’s turn to laugh. Harvath’s CIA contact was a part of the Agency’s Special Activities Division, which was responsible for counterterrorism activities. He and Harvath had gotten to know each other the previous summer when cases they were working on intersected.

  Harvath had a lot of respect for Ozbek, who refused to let the CIA tie him up in bureaucratic knots. If management wouldn’t cooperate, the man wasn’t afraid to do what needed to be done, even if it meant coloring outside the lines. Ozbek represented not only what was right about the CIA, but what direction it needed to take to go from being a Cold War–era relic that many referred to as the “Failure Factory” to a modern terrorism-fighting machine.

  It went without saying that Ozbek’s style didn’t exactly endear him to his superiors. The only reason he still had a job at the CIA after breaking multiple laws in pursuit of a nest of Islamic radicals operating on American soil last summer was that Harvath had asked the president to intervene on his behalf. Now that the CIA had a bean counter with no intelligence experience in charge and a president in the Oval Office who knew even less about the intel community, Ozbek needed to tread carefully.

  Harvath and Ozbek were similar in many ways, in particular the love they held for their country and the animosity they possessed toward its enemies, especially Islamic fundamentalists.

  Even if Harvath hadn’t saved Ozbek’s job, the two would have been good friends. The job-saving part of the relationship did, however, mean that Harvath had a lot of bonus points on his side of the board.

  “There’s a bit of a delay on the line,” said Ozbek. “Where are you?”

  “Kabul,” replied Harvath. “How’d you get out of your sensitivity training so fast?”

  “I told my supervisor you were a North Korean arms source I was developing and that I needed to take your call. You should have seen the look on the guy’s face.”

  “Knowing you, his BS detector was probably pegging into the red.”

  “On the contrary,” said Ozbek. “I could hear the gears grinding away in his mind as he tried to figure out how to work it into his next report and take credit for it. So what are you doing in Kabul, or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “I’m looking for something.”

  “Something or someone?”

  “Both,” said Harvath, “but I need the something before I can get my hands on the someone.”

  Ozbek understood Harvath’s need to watch what he said over the phone and didn’t press him any further. “How can I help?”

  “How deep is the talent on your Afghan desk?”

  “Pretty deep.”

  “Any people there from the Soviet days?” asked Harvath.

  Ozbek thought about it a moment. “I think they’ve hired one or two of the retired guys back as private contractors.”

  “Can you get to a computer in the next few minutes?”

  “I’m going to miss out on the trust fall, but if I have to, I have to.”

  “I’ll drop something in the box,” said Harvath.

  “Roger that. How soon to do you need a reply?”

  “ASAP.”

  “All right,” said Ozbek. “I’m on it.”

  Harvath thanked him and disconnected the call. He then opened the web-based email account he and Oz used to communicate and left a note for him in the draft folder.

  What he wanted to know was what kind of intel the CIA had developed on the old Soviet military base where Mustafa Khan was being held, as well as the hospital across the road. Hopefully the CIA had turned the Soviet embassy inside out as the last of the Russians were rolling out of Kabul and maybe, just maybe, they had come up with something that he could use.

  The next thing Harvath had to do was prepare a report for Stephanie Gallo. She had no background in intelligence or national security and Harvath had to assume that no matter how badly she wanted her daughter back, any correspondence he exchanged with her could end up being compromised.

  Before leaving, he had explained that his communications would be purposefully vague and that there would be periods when he would not be able to send her any reports at all. He wasn’t in Afghanistan to trade emails with her, he was there to rescue her daughter.

  Harvath knew, though, that despite her tough exterior, Stephanie Gallo was still a mother, and like any parent, she was undoubtedly agonizing over her daughter’s situation. When Harvath thought of Stephanie Gallo, it was her role as parent that he tried to picture.

  Drawing from the code words they had developed, he dashed off a quick message.

  Have arrived. Rug dealer has moved. Working on new location. Will be in touch when I know more.

  He debated adding an assurance that he felt good about the prospects of getting Gallo’s daughter back alive, but he decided against it. He hadn’t been hired to hold her hand. He had been hired to get results. In the end, that’s all anyone would care about.

  Logging out of that email account, Harvath switched over to gmail and found a message waiting from Tracy. In it was a picture she had taken of Bullet lying by the front door of the cottage.

  Who needs a deadbolt? Hope you had a good flight. Stay safe. See you when you get back.

  Harvath smiled. Tracy was a wonderful woman. He sent her a reply, logged out of the account, and opened Google Earth to see what kind of open-source imagery was available for their target locations.

  The imagery was somewhere between one to three years old yet fairly detailed. All the same, Harvath wasn’t happy with what it showed him. At least three of the buildings, and possibly more, had brand-new roofs and displayed other signs of having been upgraded. It was very possible that the base was being used as more than just the Afghan president’s private detention complex.

  Before they did anything, they were going to need to get a look at those facilities. And the closer, the better.

  CHAPTER 16

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Thirty-two-year-old Elise Campbell lived in a tiny apartment on Massachusetts Avenue between Sixth and Seventh. It was a “junior” one-bedroom with an efficiency kitchen, a narrow bathroom, and a living/sleeping space separated by a sleek divider that only went three-quarters of the way to the ceiling.

  Lining the walls were black and white reprints of famous French photographs. Stainless-steel shelving held an assortment of hip periodicals, as well as a commemorative coffee-table book about the New York Yankees, and a small entertainment center housed a flatscreen TV, a DVD player, and an iPod docking station.

  All told, the apartment looked more like a trendy hotel suite than a space someone actually called home. It was obvious that Elise Campbell didn’t spend much time there. The only personal touch was a collection of framed photos of friends and family along the windowsill.

  She had grown up in the eastern portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia often referred to as the Tidewater region. Her father had been a Virginia Beach police officer and had risen through the ranks to become a detective, as had his father, and his grandfather. Even Elise’s great-great grandfather had been a law enforcement officer in the Tidewater area. She w
as the fifth generation of Campbells to continue the tradition, which was significant not only because she was the first Campbell woman to join the VBPD, but because both of her brothers had chosen careers in the corporate world. One had become a banker and the other a stockbroker.

  Many believed Elise had followed the distinguished Campbell tradition to please her father and grandfather, but the answer was more simple than that. For Elise, as it had been for the Campbells who had come before her, law enforcement was a calling. She believed in justice and fair play. She believed in protecting those who were too weak to protect themselves, and she also knew that no matter how hard the police worked, they would never rid the world completely of evil. There would always be a need for cops because evil would always need to be kept at bay.

  Elise also believed that she would touch more lives, and affect them for the better, than either of her brothers would in their chosen fields. She didn’t see that as a knock on them and what they had chosen to do. Their careers were their callings and she respected them for having the guts to break with what the family had expected them to do.

  Though she would never make the kind of money her brothers did, her compensation wasn’t measured by a paycheck. It was measured by the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment she got from performing her job well and from the distinguished men and women she served alongside.

  Her decision to switch to the Secret Service hadn’t been easy, but it was one of the smartest career moves she had ever made. While she loved her colleagues and her job with the Virginia Beach PD, she never felt she’d make a good detective like the Campbells before her, and the pressure from her father and grandfather to follow their career track was just too intense.

  Though she didn’t see herself as a detective and wanted to get away from the pressure from Dad and “Pop” to be one, she also didn’t want to entirely give up a career in law enforcement. Simply put, she loved being a cop. Oddly enough, it was her chief, Jack Jarett, who had encouraged her to consider a career in federal law enforcement.