by Brad Thor
Supporting his neck, he was about to roll him over so he could drag him to safety when the Libyans opened up the .50 cal on them again.
Harvath grabbed hold of the left shoulder strap on Haney’s chest rig and pulled with all the strength he had.
The heavy rounds tore up the ground and carved a path right toward them. As the gunner adjusted his aim, they got closer and closer.
Harvath groaned as he doubled down and summoned every last ounce of energy he had. The wall looked like it was a mile away, but he refused to quit.
The earth shook around him and he prepared for the bullets that he knew were going to tear him up.
Suddenly there was a streak of orange in the sky. A fraction of a second later, there was an explosion, followed by another streak and another explosion.
He looked over his shoulder toward the road just as the team aboard the USS George H. W. Bush fired a third Hellfire missile.
The entire convoy was in flames. The Reaper had finally arrived back overhead. Their troubles, though, weren’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER 40
* * *
* * *
NORTHERN VIRGINIA
Every morning as Lydia Ryan drove to Reed Carlton’s home, she reflected on what an insidious disease Alzheimer’s was.
After a lifetime spent in the espionage business, Carlton had amassed a wealth of experience. Every shred of it had come at great personal risk to him, as well as to the nation. That experience was invaluable. He was invaluable.
It pissed Ryan off to see what was happening to him. It wasn’t fair, not with everything he had been through, all the scrapes and close calls. This wasn’t how a man like Reed Carlton should go out.
Yet it was happening. A little more each day. Ryan had to remind herself that life wasn’t fair.
Carlton had even told her to get over it. He was still in the fight and would be until the very end. In the meantime, he didn’t want her around if she was going to be morose. They had a tough slog in front of them. If she couldn’t be positive and optimistic, he told her, she could stay at the CIA and ride that sick pony into the ground.
He had a good sense of humor and she had grown to love and respect him dearly. She wished they had more time, but the clock was working against them.
As he was sharper and more focused first thing in the morning, she had adjusted her schedule to match.
Setting her alarm for 4:30, she was able to work out and get to his house by 7:00.
Always, the two dark SUVs of his security team were parked in the driveway. This morning, though, there was a third vehicle—a pearl-gray Mercedes van.
She rang the doorbell and was greeted by Carlton. He was always showered, shaved, and dressed before she got there. This morning he was wearing khakis, a green oxford shirt, and leather driving moccasins.
“Whose van is that outside?” she asked as they said their good mornings and he let her in.
Gesturing toward his study, he replied, “Nicholas is here.”
Nicholas was the Carlton Group’s IT wizard. He was a Soviet Georgian born with primordial dwarfism. As a result, he stood just under three feet tall.
He had been abandoned by his parents and raised in a brothel near the Black Sea. The things that had been done to him there were unspeakable.
Despite his small stature, his intelligence was off the charts. He had eventually turned snippets of pillow talk and the loose lips of brothel customers into a blackmail empire.
He had become known throughout the intelligence world as “The Troll.” He dealt exclusively in the black market purchase, sale, and theft of highly sensitive, often classified, information.
Entering the study, the first thing Ryan noticed were Nicholas’s giant dogs. Named Argos and Draco, the highly trained, fiercely loyal white Caucasian Ovcharkas were always at his side.
Upon seeing her, the dogs stood up and came over for some attention. She scratched them both behind their ears and ran her hands over their powerful shoulders.
“Me next,” said Nicholas with a smile, as he gave the command for the dogs to lie down.
“Good morning,” she replied with a laugh.
“Coffee?” Carlton asked her. Nicholas already had a cup.
“Yes, please.”
It was Harvath who had brought Nicholas into the organization—something that wasn’t an easy feat.
They had started out as bitter foes, and many in the Carlton Group, including Carlton himself, were highly suspicious of Nicholas. But over time, the little man had more than proven his loyalty and his worth.
He and Harvath had developed a deep friendship.
Though he had been happy for Harvath about his decision to pursue a life and family of his own in Boston, he had been profoundly saddened by his friend’s departure. He had been the one person at the Carlton Group whom Nicholas felt he could fully trust.
“I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” Ryan said to Nicholas.
“Something’s come up.”
Carlton handed her a cup of coffee, and after thanking him, she asked, “What’s going on?”
“Late last night,” he continued, “a job order was opened on the dark web.”
The dark web was a series of encrypted sites accessible only through networks using special software like the Tor Hidden Service Protocol. They allowed users to remain anonymous and beyond the reach of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
From the most abhorrent pornography to the hiring of hit men, if it was illegal, and especially if it was morally repugnant, it was on the dark web.
“What kind of order was it?”
“A hack,” said Nicholas.
“Okay,” replied Ryan. “Of who?”
“You.”
She laughed. As Deputy Director of the CIA, she was under constant threat of being hacked. In fact, she had stopped paying attention to the reports a while ago. The attacks and scams came daily. That’s why the CIA had such a robust IT team, and she trusted them to do their jobs.
“So someone offered a bounty to hack me. What’s new?”
“What’s new,” replied Nicholas, “is that it was a twofer. The contract was to hack you and Mr. Carlton.”
That was new. It also told her that someone suspected they were working together. That had not been announced publicly yet.
“What are they looking for?”
“Everything,” replied Nicholas. “Not only all of your previous correspondence, but they wanted code planted that would allow them to monitor everything going forward, undetected.”
“Do we know who’s behind it?”
“No,” said Carlton, “and that’s the problem. While state actors usually have their own hacking teams in-house, they also have been known to hire criminal hackers.”
“Whoever this is,” said Nicholas, “offered up a lot of money for the job.”
“How’d you find out about it?” she asked.
“A broker I used to know reached out to one of my old aliases.”
Ryan looked at Carlton. “Okay, so someone wants to hack us. It happens to companies every single day. It’s probably even going to increase once it gets announced that I’ve left the Agency to come to work for you.”
“True, but this one bothers me. I don’t like the timing. I also don’t like the amount of resources someone is willing to throw at this. The hack may only be a jumping-off point. I think we need to take this seriously.”
She didn’t disagree. “Okay. What do you suggest?”
“I think Nicholas should take the job.”
She didn’t disagree with that either, but the way he let the words hang in the air made her feel that there was another shoe still left to drop. Then it did.
“And I think we should let him actually carry out the hack.”
CHAPTER 41
* * *
* * *
OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN
TUESDAY EVENING
The ramp at the rear of the mas
sive Air Force C-17 Globemaster cracked open and the last of the setting sun could be seen on the horizon.
When a small parachute attached to the rigging on the first High Speed Assault Craft was released, it began to pull the sleek HSAC down a set of rails running the length of the cargo hold.
As the long, gray boat was sucked out the back, the SEALs and their boat teams cheered. It never got old throwing huge pieces of equipment out of an airplane thousands of feet in the air.
They had lined up single file on either side of the ramp, flippers strapped to their thighs. After the second HSAC was launched, they began leaping out.
The air at seven thousand feet was much cooler than it had been on the ground at U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella on the island of Sicily.
The SEALs and their boat teams were excited to get some action. From what they had heard, the Americans they were going into Libya to exfiltrate had seen some serious fighting.
It was the perfect night for a drop. The ocean was warm and calm. It was like landing in a bathtub.
As everyone climbed on board, the boat crews cleared the parachutes. Once everyone was accounted for and had taken their places, the crews fired up the powerful diesel engines and headed for the Libyan coast.
Back at the safe house, Harvath was on the roof when his satellite phone vibrated.
Reading the message, he turned to Barton and said, “Boats are on their way. Twenty minutes out.”
• • •
After the Reaper had destroyed the militia convoy, Harvath had loaded Haney into the technical and taken off.
They were close to the coast. With the help of the drone, they had found an old beach road, which had allowed them to get back to the safe house without being seen. The rest of the team was already there.
The moment he pulled in, they rushed to the truck to help carry Haney inside, where Staelin assessed his injury. Harvath was exhausted and would have killed for some sleep, but he still had work to do too.
Strike Force Two had dispatched a new, fully fueled, fully armed drone to have on station above their location. It seemed unlikely that the remaining militia members knew who, much less where, they were, but it was good to have the extra firepower available just in case.
When he stepped into the safe house, the first thing he started working on was how they were going to get out of the country. None of their contingency planning had accounted for taking on the entire Libya Liberation Front.
Because the militia controlled this portion of the country and had eyes and ears everywhere, crossing at the border checkpoint into Tunisia was out of the question. So was trying to get out by airplane. They had been lucky just to make it back to the safe house. Going back out on the road would push that luck, probably to the breaking point.
You could only kick Murphy in the nuts so many times before he kicked back. That left only one way out—via water.
A boat extraction was a possibility he and McGee had discussed. It was an expensive, high-risk last resort, but there were no other options. Things had gotten too hot.
Once again, he got on his satellite phone and went directly to the DCI. McGee got the ball rolling right away.
When the DCI called back with confirmation, it came with one caveat. Because Haney and Gage were both stable, the powers that be at AFRICOM and the Defense Department wanted to wait until dark. There was no use drawing undue attention by pulling up in broad daylight.
Harvath wasn’t crazy about waiting, but he understood the reasoning. It was better to wait until dark.
With the added peace of mind of having the drone overhead, he assigned a new guard rotation, then went into the kitchen and started some coffee. He wasn’t going to feel fully at ease until they had put Libya far behind them.
He prepared a quick bite and poured a cup of coffee, hoping it might improve his mood. It didn’t.
Walking back to the bedroom where Halim as well as the satellite phone salesman were being held, he put his game face on and stepped inside.
“Who dressed his wound?” he asked, pointing at the smuggler’s hand as he entered.
Morrison was in charge of watching the two prisoners. “Staelin did,” he replied.
“We’re not running a free clinic here,” said Harvath as he pulled out his knife.
Walking over to the chair Halim was tied to, he slipped the blade against the man’s wrist and drove it down and through his bandages.
Whether he had made contact with the injured area, he couldn’t tell. What was obvious was how uncomfortable Halim was. As soon as the knife began to move, he winced and perspiration broke out across his forehead.
“Has he been given any pain meds?”
“Hell no,” Morrison answered.
“Good,” said Harvath as he began to peel away the bandages. Staelin had done a professional job. In fact it was too professional. Frustrated, Harvath yanked at the remaining pieces and the smuggler went into a spasm of pain.
Finally, he exposed the severed finger. It looked even worse in the light of day than it had under his night vision goggles.
“Whether you keep this finger or not is up to you. Do you understand me?”
The smuggler nodded.
Harvath held up his phone and showed him a university picture of Mustapha Marzouk—the chemistry student who was the owner of the laptop of doom. “Do you recognize this man?”
The smuggler shook his head.
“Look again,” he ordered.
The man did.
“Well?” asked Harvath.
“I don’t know him,” the smuggler replied.
He was lying. Taking the tip of his knife, Harvath began poking at the exposed wound where his finger was barely attached.
Halim screamed in pain.
“Do you recognize this man?”
“Yes! Yes, I recognize him!” he yelled.
Harvath forced a smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
He began to bring the knife forward again.
“I don’t know his name!” the smuggler cried. “I never know the names.”
“But you recognize his face.”
The man nodded.
“I can’t hear you,” said Harvath.
“Yes, I recognize his face!”
Harvath set the photo down where Halim could still see it. “You must see hundreds of new people a year,” he said. “Maybe even thousands. Why would you remember this person?”
“Because he was a VIP.”
“Bullshit,” Harvath replied, going back in for the stump. “You’re lying.”
“No! No! No!” he cried. “Not lying. He was a VIP. His organization paid extra.”
“Paid extra for what? To send him out in a storm and make sure he drowned?”
The smuggler lowered his gaze, but Harvath didn’t buy his faux remorse for a second. “What did they pay extra for?”
“For first class.”
“First class?”
Halim looked up at him. “To sit on the top deck. To have food and water. To use the satellite phone if he wished.”
“But not to have a life jacket,” Harvath stated.
The man didn’t respond. He simply cast his eyes back down.
“Who paid you? What organization?”
The smuggler remained silent. Harvath grabbed his arm by the wrist and jammed his knife into the man’s stump.
Halim screamed and went rigid as the pain exploded throughout his entire body.
“Who paid you?” Harvath yelled.
“Daesh!” the man cried out, using the Arabic name for ISIS. “Daesh paid me.”
Withdrawing the knife, he wiped it on the smuggler’s shirt. Halim was on the verge of passing out. Harvath stepped away.
Leaning against the wall, he waited for the man to regain his composure. When he felt enough time had passed, he re-engaged.
“Why would you send a VIP into a storm like that?”
The man was slow
to reply, but eventually said, “We thought they could make it.”
“Bullshit. You sent them out like you always do, in a bad boat without enough fuel.”
“No,” the smuggler argued. “The boat wasn’t the best, but it had extra fuel. We thought they could beat the storm.”
“And then what? What was the VIP supposed to do then?”
Halim didn’t want to answer the question. He averted his eyes. Harvath came off the wall, knife in hand.
“The Italians would put all of them in a refugee camp,” he said, looking up, hoping to prevent any further pain.
The man was lying. He had a very distinct tell. “Bullshit,” Harvath repeated. “You weren’t paid so that he could end up in a refugee camp.”
“I was,” the man insisted, a little too quickly.
The tell was the icing on the cake. Harvath stepped forward and sliced the man’s finger the rest of the way off.
Halim rocked in his chair, screaming. Harvath went back and leaned against the wall.
Considering the horror the smuggler had visited upon his victims, Harvath didn’t feel a shred of remorse. Halim was evil incarnate. He deserved much worse.
When enough time had passed, Harvath once again re-engaged. For as big as he was, the man was a mess. He was shaking, his eyes were bloodshot, and perspiration and tears stained his face. He had lost a lot of his color.
“This is the last time I am going to ask this,” he said. “What was the VIP supposed to do when he reached Italy?”
The smuggler refused to answer.
Grabbing his other hand, Harvath pressed his knife down and began cutting into the same finger. “What was the VIP supposed to do when he reached Italy?”
“A fishing boat!” Halim shouted. “Off the coast of Lampedusa.”
“What about it?”
“It was supposed to pick him up and take him the rest of the way.”
“Whose fishing boat?”
“I don’t know.”
Harvath sliced deeper into his finger and blood began to spurt out.
“The Mafia!” Halim cried.
“Give me a name,” he demanded. “Or this is going to get a lot more painful.”