Use of Force_A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  Harvath had learned it as a SEAL, and he liked it for two reasons. One, it didn’t risk breaking any bones in the hand the way a punch could. And two, it didn’t leave any marks—unless you struck the subject so hard that you ruptured the eardrum. Out of respect for Lovett, he was trying to be as measured as possible.

  He waited for the man to shake the stars from his head before continuing.

  Once he felt the Mafioso had recovered enough, he spoke very slowly and explained, “As a Sicilian, I know honor is important to you. So, if you do not cooperate with me, I’m going to make sure that your body is found right here with your Nigerian girlfriend. But that’s not all.

  “I’m going to make it look like you both overdosed on drugs. And I will stage a scene that leaves no doubt that in your relationship, Naya was the man and you, Carlo Ragusa, were the woman. Understand?”

  He understood all right. When Lovett finished translating, the mobster exploded. It was his angriest reaction yet. Harvath had found his button.

  “I will make sure that your wife and children know exactly how and where your body was discovered, and I’ll make sure all of your enemies know. And when word spreads, I’ll make sure that there are plenty of pictures, which will live forever, on the Internet. In fact, when people in Sicily hear the name Ragusa, I promise you that’s the only thing they’ll think of.”

  Yet again, the Sicilian went ballistic. But when Harvath raised his hand to slap him, he stopped.

  For a second, he wondered if they were making progress. Holding his phone back up and showing the mobster the photo of Mustapha Marzouk, he asked, “Where was he going? Where were you supposed to take him?”

  Shaking his head, Ragusa smiled and repeated his same stale line in Italian, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Harvath smiled back. “Do you like being in the smuggling business, Carlo? Do you like smuggling terrorists and being responsible for helping to drown countless people?”

  Lovett listened to him and then said to Harvath, “He says he’s not a smuggler. He owns a few nightclubs, but his real business is in growing lemons and tangerines.”

  Harvath looked at her and replied, “Tell him we’re done talking.”

  He then nodded at Barton, who stepped into the kitchen from behind and pulled a pillowcase over the Mafioso’s head. Tying it tight at the base of his skull, he tipped the man’s chair back onto its rear legs and dragged him into the bathroom.

  There, he set him down with his back to the half-filled tub. When Harvath nodded, Barton tipped the chair backward, so that it rested against the edge of the tub and Ragusa’s head was suspended over the water.

  Anticipating what was about to happen, the mobster began to struggle. Barton held the chair firm.

  “Drowning is a terrible way to die,” said Harvath. From the doorway, Lovett translated.

  Now, Harvath was really done talking and he signaled for Lovett that she could go. She shook her head. No. She intended to stay. That was fine by him.

  Grabbing the plastic pitcher sitting on the side of the tub, Harvath filled it with water and without any warning, began to slowly pour it over Ragusa’s nose and mouth.

  CHAPTER 61

  * * *

  * * *

  The mobster sputtered and coughed as he thrashed back and forth in his chair trying to escape the water. But there was no escape. Harvath kept slowly pouring. It took forty seconds, but it must have felt like a lifetime to Ragusa. When the pitcher was empty, Harvath refilled it.

  He paused to let the Mafioso just begin to catch his breath and then, as soon as he began to inhale, began the process all over again.

  It had been his experience that if he stopped right after the first round, subjects tried to hold out longer. But immediately going into a second round scrambled their brains. They became panicked.

  So Harvath poured from the pitcher once more. Halfway through, Ragusa began to vomit.

  Harvath untied the pillowcase and had Barton lean the chair forward, back onto all four legs.

  He let him get it all out of his system, and then nodded for Barton to lean him back against the tub.

  Right away, the mobster began to protest. Harvath refilled the pitcher and started again from full.

  Ragusa thrashed even more violently this time. Harvath decided to stretch his pour a few extra seconds. By the time he was done, the mobster had been broken.

  Harvath motioned Lovett all the way into the bathroom so that she could hear what Ragusa was saying. The CIA operative tried to step around the mess. The floor was disgusting and the smell was growing unbearable.

  She had Ragusa repeat what he had been mumbling and then translated for Harvath. “He says he knows the man in your picture.”

  “What’s his name?” Harvath replied.

  Lovett presented the question to him in Italian, and then said, “He doesn’t remember the name. Something Muslim. But he does remember the man’s face.”

  “Tell him he’s going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that.”

  She did, and then waited while Ragusa spoke. Finally, she replied, “He was important. A VIP.”

  “VIP to whom?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  Harvath looked at her. “What does he mean he doesn’t know? Who paid him?”

  Lovett repeated the question to the Mafioso and waited for him to answer. As he spoke, she translated. “This wasn’t a usual job. He did it as a favor.”

  “For whom?”

  “He says he can’t reveal the name. If he does, it will start a war.”

  Harvath rolled his eyes and, looking at Barton, said, “He obviously wants more. Tip him back over.”

  “No! No! No!” the man implored. The word was the same in English as it was in Italian.

  While he screamed, Harvath filled a new pitcher of water. Just as he began to pour, the man yelled out another detail.

  “Roma!”

  “Who the hell’s Roma?” Harvath asked, but Lovett held up her hand for him to be quiet.

  After a quick back-and-forth with Ragusa, she said, “It’s not a person. It’s the city. Rome. That’s where they were taking the chemist.”

  “What were they supposed to do once they got him there?”

  The CIA operative asked the mobster and then replied, “Apparently, he had his own people there who would get him the rest of the way into Europe.”

  “Bullshit,” said Harvath as he began pouring the water over Ragusa’s face.

  Again, the man cried out, pleading with him to stop. Harvath didn’t until his pitcher was empty. Then he filled it back up.

  “Per favore. No,” he begged.

  “Tell him I want to know who he did the favor for. Who asked him to smuggle Mustapha to Rome?”

  “Marzouk!” the Sicilian interjected, screaming the man’s name. “Mustapha Marzouk.”

  If he was hoping that was going to get him off the hook, he was sorely mistaken. Lovett explained as much to him.

  They went back and forth until Harvath once more lost his patience. Filling the pitcher, he told Lovett to stand back.

  Ragusa began to beg.

  “Give me a name.”

  “No. Per favore. Basta,” he insisted.

  Harvath let the water flow.

  “La Formícula!” the mobster cried as he choked. “La Formícula! Per favore, basta!”

  Harvath stopped and looked at Lovett, who began questioning Ragusa. Soon enough, he gave up a name.”

  “Antonio Vottari,” she said. “Also known as La Formícula or the Ant.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Mafia from Calabria. They’re called the N’drangheta.”

  Harvath knew Calabria. If Italy was a boot, it was the part that made up the toe and looked like it was kicking the island of Sicily.

  He was about to ask her another question when his phone vibrated. Pulling it from his pocket, he read the message. It was a text from Staelin.

  “What is it?”
Lovett asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, signaling Barton to keep an eye on Ragusa. “A whole bunch of cars just pulled up outside.”

  Walking to the front of the darkened apartment, Harvath moved the curtain only a matter of millimeters so he could look out.

  Down on the street, he saw a string of three black sedans, a black SUV, and a black, windowless van.

  As he watched, someone opened the front passenger door of the lead vehicle and stepped out. Were these Ragusa’s people?

  The man standing in the street took out a cell phone, pressed a button, and raised it to his ear.

  Seconds later, Harvath heard a ring coming from the kitchen where they had left the mobster’s cell phone.

  Instantly, Harvath’s mind began to turn, figuring out how they were going to get the hell out of there without getting in a gunfight.

  But then he heard Lovett answer the call, in English. Turning around, he saw her holding her own cell phone.

  “It’s the Carabinieri,” she stated. “They say they have men on the roof and the building is surrounded.”

  CHAPTER 62

  * * *

  * * *

  CIA HEADQUARTERS

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  In the aftermath of the Paris attack, it had been all hands on deck. People had been in and out of the Central Intelligence Agency all afternoon. Director McGee hadn’t been able to reach out to Lydia Ryan until after five o’clock. He had asked his assistant to summon her back and tell her to come “ready to travel.”

  When she arrived in the Director’s Conference Room, McGee was waiting for her. “Any problems?” he asked.

  “None,” she replied, as she set her rolling suitcase upright and unzipped it. “I appreciate you sending your team down to meet me at the car.”

  Extending her hand, she helped Nicholas climb out.

  He thanked her and then turned and shook hands with the Director.

  “I apologize for the subterfuge,” said McGee.

  “That’s the business you’re in,” Nicholas responded. “Besides, how many people can say they were smuggled into the CIA in a piece of luggage.”

  McGee smiled. “Hopefully, you’re the only one.”

  “And as we agreed,” Ryan reminded him, “this isn’t a story you’re ever going to tell.”

  “Agreed,” the little man conceded. “That is our arrangement.”

  Getting down to business, the Director asked, “How much time do you think you’re going to need?”

  “It depends on how the Malice source code is structured. I only need a piece of it, but we’ll have to test it and make sure it works.”

  “Is Jake good with all of this?” Ryan asked.

  McGee nodded. Jake Fleischer was a brilliant hacker and IT specialist. In the CIA’s Directorate of Digital Innovation, his expertise in cyber threats and cyber security were second to none.

  Fleischer could have been running the Agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence. He was eminently qualified. But he didn’t want the headache. Fleischer wanted to be on the cutting edge, pushing the boundaries of what the CIA could do when it came to cyber espionage.

  “Jake’s on board,” said the Director.

  “How much did you have to tell him?”

  “I told him this was important, that he needed to trust me, and that he’d be the only person in this room with a computer.”

  Nicholas looked from Ryan to McGee. “I don’t understand. How am I supposed to get what I need?”

  “You’re going to work with Jake,” the Director replied. “Every string of code you need, he’s going to get it for you.”

  “It would be a lot faster if—”

  McGee cut him off. “It’s not personal, Nicholas. It’s business. I’m not giving you unfettered, unsupervised access to the Agency’s cyber arsenal. This happens my way, or it doesn’t happen at all.”

  The little man nodded. He understood. While the Carlton Group was building an ark to save America’s intelligence capabilities, McGee had taken an oath to faithfully serve his country and execute his duties as the Director of the CIA.

  “How confident are we that what happens in this room will stay in this room?” asked Ryan. “Even as Deputy DCI, I don’t have any history with Fleischer.”

  “A large part of what I’ve been doing,” McGee replied, “is identifying core personnel who are mission critical as we move forward—people who believe in the Agency’s mission and are absolutely dedicated to it. Jake’s one of them.

  “He knows that something very serious is going on, but that the details of what he’s being asked to do cannot be fully explained. He also understands he isn’t allowed to talk to anyone about this.”

  Ryan smiled. “Real cloak and dagger. That’s what everybody here signs up for, right? And on top of that, it’s an assignment from the Director himself. What else could he have said, but yes?”

  “He’s a good man,” McGee added as he turned and looked at Nicholas. “He also understands that there are some unorthodox components associated with this.”

  “Meaning me,” the little man stated.

  The Director nodded as the phone in front of him rang.

  Picking it up, he listened to his assistant and said, “Okay. Thank you.” Turning to Ryan and Nicholas, he said, “Jake’s here.”

  CHAPTER 63

  * * *

  * * *

  PALERMO, SICILY

  “You lied to me, Paolo,” Lovett stated.

  They were in a safe house in Albergheria, the oldest of the four mandamenti, or historical districts, that made up the old city of Palermo.

  Paolo Argento stood in front of a table where his men had arrayed the weapons taken from the Americans. “You lied to me as well.”

  Argento was a handsome, fit man in his early fifties. He was tan, with spiked gray hair and a neatly trimmed gray beard. He wore black jeans, black boots, and an untucked, black button-down shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. On his left wrist was a black Panerai diver’s watch.

  The Carabinieri operated under the Italian Ministry of Defense and the Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale was the Carabinieri’s main investigative unit. The number-one goal of the ROS was taking down organized crime and terrorist networks.

  They conducted a tremendous amount of undercover work, as well as high-risk assault operations. They reported directly to the Carabinieri General Command.

  Of all the elite special units in Italy, theirs was given the most operational freedom. As a highly successful and highly respected commander, Argento was able to call most of his own shots. And this was one of those times.

  “You should have told me you had the bartender’s apartment wired,” Lovett insisted.

  Argento smiled. “If I had, you would have chosen someplace else to snatch Ragusa. This was the safest way. It was a contained environment. He didn’t have his bodyguards. No one got hurt.”

  They were standing in the safe house’s large living room. Peeling frescoes, hundreds of years old, covered the walls.

  Standing near one of the windows, Harvath asked, “So, now what?”

  Morrison, Barton, and Staelin were one floor below, being watched over by Argento’s men. They weren’t officially under arrest, but no one was free to leave.

  Ragusa, Naya, and Ragusa’s two bodyguards had been placed in restraints and were being held in a different part of the building. Under Italian law, Argento could hold them for seventy-two hours without charging them. Harvath had a feeling he could probably hold them a lot longer than that if he wanted to. Ragusa might not like it, but he knew the ROS had the upper hand and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Argento turned his attention to Harvath. He had a slow, confident voice, and spoke excellent English. “What would you do,” he asked, “if an Italian intelligence officer, along with four paramilitary operatives, entered the United States, held two people hostage, and tortured one of them?”

  “If they’d come to
interrogate an organized crime figure connected to terrorism? I’d probably hand them each a medal and ask what else I could do for them,” Harvath replied.

  “Your bosses might not like that.”

  “My bosses might not ever need to know.”

  “Ecco,” the Italian said with a grin. Fair enough.

  “I want you to understand,” Harvath explained, pointing to Lovett, “that she was acting on my instructions.”

  “So you are in charge then?”

  Harvath nodded.

  “None of you are carrying passports, credit cards, or any sort of identification. I assume you left everything at Sigonella?”

  Neither Harvath nor Lovett responded.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” Argento said, as he winked at Lovett. “I ran a trace on your cell phone. I know what towers it was pinging off of.”

  “Piove sul bagnato,” Lovett replied. When it rains, it pours.

  Argento’s grin spread into a smile. “Tanto va la gatta al lardo che ci lascia lo zampino,” he said. When the cat goes to steal the lard, it always leaves a footprint.

  Harvath didn’t speak Italian and had no idea what they were talking about.

  Argento noticed the look on his face. “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. No?”

  Harvath nodded. “If it can go wrong, it often does.”

  The Italian shifted gears and walked toward him. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  It was so abrupt that Harvath’s defenses immediately shot up. His mind went into overdrive trying to place how the two knew each other.

  “Relax,” the Italian said, aware that he had put him on guard. Raising his hands, he framed his eyes, blocking out the rest of his face. “It was a decade ago. But you were with another beautiful blonde American. My team and I picked you up in—”

  “A helicopter,” Harvath replied, as it all came back to him. “A fast one. An Augusta.”