by Brad Thor
“Can’t what?”
“I can’t climb any higher.”
“Stay right there,” he whispered. “I’m coming back down.”
Beneath them in the street, they could hear the hum of a motor scooter approaching.
Harvath waited for it to pass and then climbed down to her. Slowly, he helped her descend to the last set of boards she had been on.
“Wait here,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”
And with that, he began climbing upward again.
Standing on the wobbly boards, she gripped the metal pipes of the scaffolding as hard as she could and pressed her face against the cool stone of the building’s facade.
She stood there for what felt like forever before she heard a noise to her right. It sounded like a bolt being pulled, followed by the grating of metal on metal.
Opening her eyes, she saw a shutter had been opened. Standing on the other side of the window was Harvath.
“Give me your hand,” he said, as he reached out for her.
She took his hand and he helped her climb inside the musty old building.
CHAPTER 57
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Once they were safely inside, Harvath took out his phone and texted Barton. A couple of seconds later, he received a response. Barton was on his way.
Lovett sat on a stack of tiles and tried to catch her breath.
“You going to be okay?” Harvath asked.
She nodded.
“Good. I’m going to take a look at the courtyard in back. Wait here.”
She nodded and watched as he exited the room and disappeared into the darkness out in the hallway.
Using the low beam of his flashlight so as not to give away his presence in the building, he navigated to the rear stairwell. On the second floor, he came to a steel fire door and, first making sure it wasn’t actively alarmed, inched it open and stepped outside.
He was on the flat roof at the north end of the complex. An eight-foot-high wall ran along it, separating it from the building next door. Hopping up onto one of two hot water tanks, he peered over the edge. It was a straight drop, two stories down. They were going to have to go to the end of the flat roof and then scramble up and over another roof system to get to Naya’s apartment atop the Black Cat.
Climbing down from the hot water tank, he retraced his steps back inside and rejoined Lovett. Seconds later, Barton appeared at the window.
“Knock, knock,” he whispered.
Harvath offered him a hand and helped him climb through.
Once the SEAL was in, Harvath looked at Lovett. “Ready to move?”
Her mouth was dry and her stomach was still in knots, but the dizziness had passed and her heart rate had come down. Nodding, she stood up and followed Harvath out of the room. Barton brought up the rear.
The trio proceeded to the staircase and down to the second floor. When they reached the steel door, Harvath texted Staelin for a final SITREP before they exited.
“Naya is still behind the bar,” he texted back. “Music is plenty loud. You’re good to go.”
Harvath shared the message with Barton and Lovett, opened the door, and led them outside.
At the end of the flat roof, they squeezed past a set of solar panels and reached another pair of hot water tanks.
Turning to Lovett, he said, “I’m going to go first and you’re going to come right behind me, okay? Keep your eyes on me the entire time. Don’t look at anything else. You’re going to be great.”
She forced a smile, and when Barton flashed him the thumbs-up, he began his climb.
Leaping onto the hot water tanks, he then pulled himself up onto the roof of the building next to the Black Cat.
It wasn’t terribly steep, but it was covered with curved, terra-cotta tiles. They were very hard to walk on. Now, slick from the rain, they were even more difficult.
Harvath waited for Lovett to climb up onto a water tank and then held out his hand to help her onto the roof. As soon as Barton had joined them, Harvath began walking.
He chose his steps very carefully. They were three stories above the street. One wrong move and it would all be over. Once you started sliding, there wasn’t anything to stop you from going over the edge.
He walked near the roof’s seam, testing each tile with only part of his weight before fully committing. Every couple of steps, he looked over his shoulder to see how Lovett was doing. Though the fear was etched across her face, she kept moving. So did Harvath.
He was only fifteen feet away from the end of the roof when he heard a tile crack and break away behind him.
He turned just in time to see not Lovett, but Barton lose his footing and go down.
Before he could get even two steps, Lovett had dropped to her stomach, reached out her hand, and grabbed him.
Her rescue, though, was short-lived as he began sliding toward the edge and pulling her with him. Barton was just too heavy and the roof too wet to stop it from happening.
Harvath moved as fast as he could. He could hear Lovett grunting under the strain of trying to hold on to him.
“Don’t let go!” Harvath ordered her.
“I can’t hold him!”
Harvath picked up his pace and as he did, he slipped and almost went down.
“I’m losing him!”
Feet away, Harvath lunged just as Lovett lost her grip. He came down hard on the tiles and there was a slap as his hand wrapped around the SEAL’s wrist.
Slowly, he helped pull Barton back up.
Had Lovett not done what she had, Barton would have gone over the edge. She had saved his life.
“Thank you,” he said to her. And then turning to Harvath, he also offered his thanks.
“You’re welcome. We’ll talk about starting you on a diet tomorrow. Right now, we’ve got to get to that apartment.”
“Roger that,” he said, as he raised himself onto his feet.
Lovett did the same and flashed Harvath the thumbs-up. The fear he had seen in her face moments ago was gone. In its place was a determination to finish this task and get off the rooftops.
Taking up the lead, Harvath began walking again and gave them the signal to follow.
Cautiously, they fell into step behind him.
CHAPTER 58
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At the end of the roof was another wall. Scaling it, they were able to get onto the roof of Naya’s apartment.
The bartender lived on the fourth and very top floor of the building. The challenge now was getting inside.
She had a small balcony off the back, but an awning obscured most of it. With a much steeper roof, and drop-offs on both sides, only as an absolute last resort would they try to jump down onto it. And even then, trying to do it in the dark would only up the risk. That’s why Harvath had wanted to use the skylight.
“It’s locked,” Barton said when they finally reached it.
Harvath wasn’t surprised. There was a lot of crime in Palermo. “Let me take a look,” he responded, pulling out his flashlight.
The skylight was over the bathroom and it was a piece of junk. Whoever had constructed it had used wired glass. One of the biggest myths on the planet was that the wire made it stronger, and therefore better for security purposes. In fact, the opposite was true. The inclusion of wire actually weakened the glass. It was good in fire situations, but that was it.
The skylight was old and in lousy shape. Pushing on it, he could feel it give. The wood around it was soft and rotten. Pulling out his knife, he tried to wedge it underneath without any luck. They desperately needed to get off the rooftop and into the apartment.
Motioning Barton and Lovett to move back, he put his knife back in his pocket and took out his pistol. Turning it in his hand, he drew his arm back and smashed the weapon into the skylight.
The entire pane of wired glass not only shattered, but fell out of the fram
e and crashed into the bathroom below.
Harvath raked the moldy edges of the skylight opening to make sure no glass or pieces of wire had been left behind and then got into position to cover Barton as he made the entry.
It was an easy drop—only about five feet. Barton had aimed to land on the toilet. He hit his target, but there was just one problem. The lid was as cheap as the skylight. One of his boots ended up punching right through and into the bowl.
Harvath had never seen the SEAL move so fast. His foot had barely touched the water before he leapt up, almost straight out of the skylight.
“Fuck,” Barton whispered, as he simultaneously pulled his pistol and tried to shake the water off his boot. Stepping over to the bathroom door, he peered into the apartment and then signaled for Lovett and Harvath to come down.
Even on the top floor, they could hear the dance music throbbing from the club downstairs. The apartment smelled like cigarettes and cheap perfume.
Quickly, they cleared the rest of the rooms, and, confident no one was home, they cleaned up the glass in the bathroom and began to get everything they needed pulled together.
Forty-five minutes later, Harvath’s phone vibrated with a message from Staelin. Naya had received a text and was now divvying up tips with the other bartender. When she handed her register drawer to one of the managers, Staelin pinged him again and told Harvath to expect company.
Because of the music, they couldn’t hear any movement coming up the stairs. But soon enough, there was the unmistakable sound of a key in the lock.
When the door opened, Naya stepped inside. She was very tall and very pretty.
She closed and locked the door behind her, then pulled off her boots and tossed them in the corner.
Next, she pulled off her top and threw it through her open bedroom door onto the bed. She did the same with her skirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra or panties.
Walking naked into her bathroom, she reached behind the curtain and started the shower. At the sink, she squeezed some toothpaste onto her toothbrush and began brushing her teeth.
It was then, as she looked in the mirror, that she noticed the hole in the roof above the toilet behind her.
Instantly, she spun around, and when she did, she saw the woman at her bathroom door with a gun pointed at her.
“Be calm,” Lovett told her in Italian. “We’re not here for you. Do everything we say and nothing bad will happen.”
CHAPTER 59
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Securing Naya in the bedroom, they dimmed the lights and got ready. Lovett had read the text on the bartender’s phone and knew that Ragusa would be there shortly.
Half an hour later, Harvath received a message from Staelin. “He just pulled up. Two bodyguards with him. Get ready.”
Harvath relayed the information to his team and everyone got into position.
Naya had informed Lovett that Ragusa always came upstairs alone. His men would either wait in the car, have a drink in the bar, or stand at the front door and chat with the bouncer until it was time to leave.
It sounded plausible, but all the same, Harvath didn’t trust her. Yet whether the mobster came to the door by himself or with his two goons didn’t matter. The team would be ready.
According to the bartender, Ragusa had his own key to her apartment. He expected her to be in bed, naked, and waiting for him when he arrived. So that’s where they had put her. And though Harvath was glad to have the cover of the loud music from downstairs, he hated not being able to judge how many people were headed toward them by noise from the staircase.
The seconds dragged into minutes.
Finally, Harvath’s phone vibrated again. “Goon One just sat down at the bar,” Staelin texted. “Goon Two is talking with the bouncer. Target is unaccompanied. All yours.”
Harvath passed it along. Moments later they heard Ragusa’s key in the lock.
They had no idea how many times the Mafioso had been to the apartment to see the young Nigerian bartender, but enough that he had a routine. And if he had a routine, especially one that involved leaving his security downstairs, he hadn’t arrived expecting trouble—anything but, in fact.
Ragusa had come expecting a good time with his mistress. After this visit, he was going to take his security very seriously. That was if Harvath let him live.
He had been racking his brain, trying to come up with a way so that there’d be no blowback for Lovett. But so far, he hadn’t been able to come up with anything.
Depending on what information they got out of the mobster, they might not be able to let him go. The last thing Harvath wanted was for him to report back to ISIS that he’d been interrogated by an American team. Even worse—that the team was interested in knowing the destination of a Tunisian chemistry student who had drowned while being smuggled across the Mediterranean Sea.
The only way to keep him quiet would be to kill him or ghost him to a black site facility like the Solarium back on Malta. Either way, once he went missing, Lovett was going to be on the short list of suspects. Her antiterror contact at the Carabinieri would be all over her.
That wasn’t Harvath’s problem, though. Working at the CIA meant you had to be willing to take risks. It wasn’t about covering your ass and hanging on for twenty years until you could collect a pension. The closer you got to the tip of America’s spear, the more dangerous things became. As far as Harvath was concerned, the only measure that mattered was whether you did everything within your power to achieve the mission you had been sent to perform.
Right now, everything revolved around Ragusa and his interrogation. How cooperative or uncooperative he was, and what kind of information they got out of him, would dictate what they would do next.
As he watched the knob turn, Harvath’s whole body tensed. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on Ragusa.
The only other group he hated as much as terrorists were mobsters. This was one interrogation he was going to take extreme pleasure in.
The door began to open, and as it did, he could feel Ragusa on the other side. A thick, menacing energy radiated from him.
Harvath was so preoccupied with it that he almost didn’t notice how slowly the Mafioso was opening the door. Had he sensed Harvath as well?
His question was answered as soon as he saw the muzzle of the man’s pistol.
Sliding his foot forward, so that Ragusa couldn’t slam the door into his face, Harvath grabbed the barrel of the weapon and yelled, “Gun!” as he wrenched the weapon sideways out of his grasp.
Barton leapt from where he had been hiding, grabbed Ragusa by his jacket, and wrestled him into the apartment. The two men landed in a tangled pile on the floor.
Though he was taller and much heavier, the Mafioso was no match for the younger and stronger SEAL. A fan of mixed martial arts, Barton liked nothing more than going to the ground. In no time flat, he had Ragusa in a submission hold, and, demoralized, the man gave up.
Getting him to his feet, they marched him into the kitchen where they duct-taped him to a chair.
Harvath had already unloaded the man’s Beretta pistol and had placed it on top of the refrigerator. Emptying his pockets, he placed his keys, wallet, cash, and cell phone on the counter.
Pulling up a chair, he swung a leg over and sat on it backward. He rested his arms on the back of the chair as he studied Ragusa. Anger simmered all over the Sicilian’s face.
As soon as Harvath asked him if he spoke English, the Mafioso began cursing at him in Italian.
Spittle collected in the corners of his mouth. He went on and on, no doubt unpacking everything he was going to do to his captors once this was all over. Harvath let him get it out of his system.
Then, giving him one last chance to admit whether he spoke English, he called in Lovett.
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Even though Harvath was addressing Lovett, he looked directly at Ragusa as he spoke. “Who is this?” he asked, hol
ding up his phone with a picture of Mustapha Marzouk, the deceased chemistry student.
“He says he doesn’t know,” she replied.
“Tell him to look harder.”
“Same answer. He claims he doesn’t recognize the man.”
“Ask him about Festus Aghaku, the water taxi driver for the Black Axe.”
Lovett did and waited for his reply. It came back the same. Ragusa claimed he had no idea who they were talking about.
Harvath was losing his patience.
Holding the picture back up, he said, “Six weeks ago, you sent Festus Aghaku and his crew out into a storm to meet a boat from Libya. On it was the man in the picture. Who is he and who told you to pick him up?”
He burned holes into the man’s eyes with his own as Lovett spoke. When the man responded, Harvath didn’t need a translation. It was the same answer he had been giving since the beginning.
“Tell him I know everything about him. I know about his wife. I know about his five children. I know where he lives. And tell him that I know all about the men and the dogs he uses to protect his house and his family. None of which will stop me from getting to them.”
As Lovett translated, Harvath watched as the anger and rage returned to the man’s face. She hadn’t even finished speaking before he went off on another tirade of curses and threats.
When Lovett began to translate, Harvath shook his head. He had gotten the gist of it.
“Let me be perfectly clear,” he stated, once the man had finished. “You will tell me everything I want to know. The only question is how much pain you want to experience in the process.”
This time when the man started cursing at him, Harvath didn’t let it go. Cupping his hand, he hit Ragusa on the left side of his head.
It was the same technique he had used on the satellite phone salesman in Libya. It forced a painful stream of pressurized air into the ear canal, which could cause dizziness and even nausea.