by Brad Thor
10
Harvath exited Thames & Cherwell Antiques, turned left, and was making his way back toward the Jaffa Road when he heard the squeal of tires.
Just as he turned to look for the source of the noise, three men jumped out of a parked car right in front of him. They were solid, with muscles bulging beneath their suit coats. Their fashionable clothing seemed oddly out of place. Each pair of eyes was set in a cold, hard stare as they closed in on him.
“What is this all about?” Harvath asked, but the men didn’t respond.
At that moment, Harvath heard the squeal of tires again, this time as a white baker’s van pulled into the street next to them and stopped. When the side door began to slide open, he knew their little party was about to get bigger. Harvath didn’t wait for additional men to climb out of the van.
With a swift chop, he popped the man opposite him in the windpipe and watched him crumple to the pavement like a flimsy paper doll. The other two men were on him in an instant. The first man made the mistake of lunging for Harvath’s collar. Harvath grabbed his hand and bent it back over his forearm in a move known in the Japanese art of aikido as kotegaeshi. The man landed smack on his back on the pavement. When the second man came for him, Harvath reversed the energy of his attack and threw him with a move known as irimi nage. The man’s head hit the fender of a nearby car, tearing a large, bleeding gash above his right eye.
The first attacker Harvath had put down had righted himself and now sprang from the pavement. Harvath met him halfway with a well swung elbow, catching the man full force in the mouth. He howled in pain as he spat blood and teeth into the street.
Before Harvath could make another move, a second group of men jumped from the van and pinned him down. Someone produced a hypo-gun and jabbed the sharp tip into his shoulder. The drug worked immediately. Harvath’s vision started to dim, but not before he saw a face that he thought he recognized.
11
As Harvath came to, he could make out the sound of jet engines and knew he was in some kind of airplane. He tried to move his arms, but as his eyes began to focus, he saw that he was cuffed to his seat. The man whose head he had bounced off the car fender earlier was taking his blood pressure.
“It looks like he’s coming around,” said the man, sporting two butterfly bandages above his eye.
As a figure appeared from the cockpit, Harvath looked around and realized the small private jet was filled with several other passengers, all more or less of the same build and don’t fuck with me look. Before Harvath could say anything, the man who had emerged from the cockpit drew alongside him and said, “It looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake.”
Harvath had been right. He had indeed recognized one of the men who had jumped him in Jerusalem. “Well, well. If it isn’t Rick, the Prick, Morrell. It’s been a long time,” he said.
“Not long enough,” replied the man.
“Let’s see here,” continued Harvath: “substandard help, a private jet, ability to get me out of the country, and someone foolish enough to bankroll all of this and put you in charge. Still working for the CIA, Ricky?”
“Aren’t you clever. You still don’t know how to keep your ass out of a sling, though, do you? You’ve ruffled some pretty serious feathers, Harvath.”
“I know. It was very un-Christian of me not to give you that loan for your sex change operation. I still believe you’ll regret it, but if you’ve thought it through and it’s what you really want, then I’m behind you one hundred percent. Untie me and I’ll write you a check.”
Three seats back, someone snickered.
“Zip it!” snapped Morrell, who then turned back to Harvath. “You know, I never thought much of your sense of humor.”
“Actually, Ricky, you never thought much of anything—not honor, not integrity, not character…and that’s why you washed out as a SEAL. But until places like the CIA raise their hiring standards, I guess guys like you will always have a job.”
Morrell moved in and smiled at Harvath, but it wasn’t with goodwill. “I had full license to bring you in by any means necessary; alive or otherwise. I could have easily overlooked an air bubble in the hypo and left you for dead on the street back in Jerusalem, so don’t talk to me about integrity and character. We are exactly alike, you and me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Morrell. You and I are nothing alike. We never were. I don’t like your politics, and I don’t like the way you do business.”
“I’ll remember that next time I’m asked to use my discretion in bringing you in. Now, it’s a long flight back to Virginia. Can I get you anything?”
“Sure. First, I want a cocktail and then I want some answers. Who the fuck authorized you to pick me up, and what’s this all about? And while we’re at it, take these cuffs off me.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think I’d prefer to have you stay right where you are. As far as your answers are concerned, you’ll have plenty of time to ask questions when we get home. In the meantime, as I am still within the purview of my discretion, I think I may be able to accommodate you on that cocktail. It won’t be exactly what you had in mind, but I think it will make for a very peaceful flight for the rest of us.”
Morrell snapped his fingers, and the man with the butterfly bandages handed over a syringe, as well as a moist cotton ball.
Morrell rolled up Harvath’s sleeve and swabbed his muscular forearm with antiseptic as he readied the needle.
“You’re already looking at a very serious ass-kicking as it is, Ricky,” said Scot. “Knock me out again and I’m going to pack a lunch and make it an all-day affair.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” said Morrell as he plunged the needle into Harvath’s arm and watched his eyes roll back up into his head.
12
In the cozy Hemingway Bar of the Paris Ritz, the assassin sat eating one of the hotel’s famous club sandwiches, delighted by the lead story in the paper. The attacks on the mosques in Medina and Jerusalem were officially being called the worst ever against Muslims and two of the worst terrorist attacks in history. Combined, they were projected to exceed the death toll of September 11.
The article also included the full letter sent to The Jerusalem Post by the Hand of God Organization claiming credit.
Arab and Muslim countries around the world were calling for sanctions against Israel, while many Israeli citizens supported the organization and claimed that the Muslim world had brought this suffering upon itself. The Israeli government emphatically denied any knowledge of or support for the Hand of God Organization. They also stated that they had no idea how the terrorists got their hands on the Israeli weaponry used in the Medina attack, how equipment for the second attack was smuggled onto the Temple Mount, or how the terrorists knew restoration workers would not be in that area on the day in question.
The assassin smiled. With enough money, anything was possible.
The article went on to detail the bitter outrage felt throughout the Arab world. Legions of Islamic voices called for the blood of the Jews and a true holy war to decimate the nation of Israel and her American supporters once and for all. Let them come, the terrorist thought. Let them come.
At midnight, the assassin sat in the shadow of the Notre Dame at the Petit Pont Café reading another newspaper and drinking a coffee. A small duffel bag sat beneath the table. Ten minutes later, a blue Renault truck pulled up and double-parked outside. A man in a cap and tan coveralls with the name of his company, Premiere Piscine & Spa, embroidered across the back, entered and ordered a drink at the bar. The assassin watched him. He was right on time.
The man smoked a cigarette and made small talk with the bartender. Ten minutes later, he paid his bill and went downstairs to use the toilet. He had more than enough time to get to his job at the Ritz and they never let him use their toilet. The Ritz demanded that all deliveries, repairs to common areas, and the cleaning of the pool happen in the dead of night, as if by magic, so that guests would never be
troubled by the appearance of any stray workmen.
The man stood on the dirty footrests of the Turkish toilet and began to relieve himself. When his steady stream of relief could be heard outside, the assassin emerged from the adjacent cabine, jerked open the pool cleaner’s door, and put two bullets into the back of his head with a silenced French nine-millimeter MAS pistol. The assassin dragged the lifeless body out, careful not to get any blood on the floor, and crammed it into an adjoining storage closet, where it wouldn’t be found until, at the earliest, the next afternoon.
Quickly, the assassin pulled on an identical cap and pair of tan coveralls with Premiere Piscine & Spa embroidered across the back and then threw the duffel into the storage closet and closed the door. With the dangling cigarette and lowered head, no one suspected the figure leaving the café was anyone other than the pool man.
The assassin drove to a narrow, dimly lit street in Paris’s thirteenth arrondissement. A large key was fitted into a rusting lock, which opened a set of aging double doors, and the truck was backed into a filthy rented garage. It took the assassin only a matter of moments to load the required materials and be back on the road.
At the service entrance of the Ritz, the assassin parked the blue Renault and off-loaded a host of pool-cleaning supplies onto a handcart, including three large plastic barrels labeled “Chlorine.”
The security at the hotel was the absolute best in Paris. With the wide array of celebrities and dignitaries the hotel hosted, it had to be. The guard at the service entrance was paid to be vigilant, and he knew all of the regular service providers, including the pool cleaner.
“Where is Jacques tonight?” he asked, trying to get a good look beneath the cap at the pool cleaner’s unusual eyes.
“Migraine,” responded the assassin with a disinterested, blue-collar Parisian accent.
“I’ve never seen you before.”
“Jacques keeps all the important jobs for himself. I get the shitty pools out in the suburbs. But, at least I don’t have to do them in the middle of the night. Do you have a copy of the fax?”
The man looked through the stack of paperwork he had been handed at the beginning of his shift, and sure enough, it included a fax from Premiere Piscine & Spa, which stated that Jacques would not be able to make it tonight and that his coworker would be doing the pool cleaning. Faking it had been easy. The assassin had contacted Premiere weeks before and had asked to be sent a quote for pool cleaning. With that in hand, all that needed to be done was to copy their cover sheet and program a new fax machine with the correct number, so that when it arrived at the Ritz, everything would appear to be in order.
The guard recognized the blue Renault, the fax was in keeping with hotel service policy, the replacement was wearing the company uniform, and the entire pool area—the entire hotel, for that matter—was monitored with video cameras, so he could see no reason not to let the worker pass. He did, though, have one more question.
“Why all the supplies?”
“Bacteria.”
“Bacteria?”
“The last time Jacques was here, he noticed a slight buildup. He didn’t have enough chemicals with him to do a proper shock treatment, so it was on the schedule for tonight. If you don’t want the pool cleaned…”
That was all the guard needed to hear. He buzzed the door and explained where the freight elevator was and how to find the pool. The assassin made sure to use the baseball-style cap as a shield from the surveillance cameras while pushing the handcart deep into the bowels of the hotel.
It was not the first time the assassin had been in the Ritz pool area, nonetheless it was still awe-inspiring. It was the largest pool in Paris and looked like a Roman bath. The walls and ceilings were painted with beautiful frescoes. An elevated, dome-covered bar and dining area looked out over the pool, where guests could swim above the mosaics of mermaids with golden hair playing golden harps. As an added extravagance, the Ritz had installed underwater speakers, which funneled soothing music beneath the water.
Ever mindful of the cameras, the assassin put on a pair of rubber gloves and set to work. First it was necessary to go through the motions of actually cleaning the pool—taking levels, skimming, scrubbing the sides and the bottom, then disabling the filters. Next came the chemical science.
The assassin opened the barrels marked “Chlorine” and, with a large plastic measuring cup, started pouring the powder into different areas around the pool. It was a chlorine hybrid that would continue to allow the water to smell chlorinated, but would create the perfect passive host for what was to come next.
Contained within the final barrel was a deadly toxic chemical named Sadim. The toxin took its name, in reverse, from the famous king whose touch turned everything to gold. In the case of Sadim, everything it touched turned to death. Victims experienced an agonizing and rapid demise. All that was necessary was that the toxin come into contact with bare skin. It was colorless, odorless, and extremely difficult to detect postmortem unless a pathologist or forensic toxicologist knew exactly what he or she was looking for.
After carefully removing the lid, the assassin scooped out the tiny time-release gel caps and began dropping them in the pool, focusing heavily on the deep end. The assassin looked at the wall clock. It was 2:30 A.M. Within three hours the toxin would be dissolved and have circulated throughout the entire pool.
The assassin left the building via the service entrance with the tan baseball cap still pulled down tight. Three blocks away from the Ritz, the truck and coveralls were exchanged for racing leathers and a black Triumph motorcycle. The assassin rode back to the Place Vendôme and waited for the service-entry security guard to finish his shift and make his way home.
When the man left the hotel in his gray, two-door Peugeot, the motorcycle was right behind. Ten minutes later at a stoplight in Pigalle, the assassin pulled alongside the car, withdrew the silenced nine-millimeter MAS, and delivered two perfect shots—one just between the eyes and another clean through the heart. The security guard had been the only one who could have positively identified the assassin, and now he lay slumped over his steering wheel, bathed in the neon lights of the Moulin Rouge. Satisfied with the evening’s work, the assassin gunned the motorcycle and disappeared into the night.
13
At precisely 5:29 A.M. Prince Khalil of the Saudi royal family climbed into the small elevator with his two bodyguards and descended to the spa. He enjoyed his visits to Paris and especially the Ritz, where his every whim was catered to. Like many wealthy Arabs from the desert, he had developed an obsession with swimming. It was the one thing he did religiously every morning. He loved the Ritz’s swimming pool with its underwater speakers. In fact, he had been toying with the idea of having some installed in his pool at home.
When the elevator opened onto the spa level, the manager was already waiting for the royal party. The spa would not open for regular guests for another hour. Having the pool all to himself was a Ritz perk that the prince distinctly enjoyed. One of the bodyguards handed the manager a Moby CD and the tuxedoed man quickly rushed off to prep the underwater sound system. The royal party proceeded on through the men’s changing area and trod through the cold-water footbath before arriving poolside.
The prince was helped out of his plush Ritz bathrobe while he removed his matching slippers. Everything was neatly folded and placed on a nearby chaise lounge. The prince wore a blue Speedo bathing suit, and tinted goggles dangled from around his neck. He swung his arms back and forth to get the blood flowing and then raised the goggles and placed them over his eyes. After several squat thrusts, he moved to the edge of the pool. The manager reappeared and gave the bodyguards a discreet nod, indicating that the prince’s music was playing, before disappearing back upstairs to his office.
Track number one on the Moby CD was “Honey,” although the “Bodyrock” track might have been more appropriate for what happened when Prince Khalil hit the water. Within seconds he began bleeding from his eyes, hi
s nose, ears, and rectum. At first his bodyguards thought that the prince had cut himself diving into the pool, but they quickly realized it was much more serious. The Prince’s blood fanned out through the water like hundreds of crimson ribbons as he began to violently writhe beneath the surface.
Immediately, the royal bodyguards jumped into the pool to save their charge. Though they were fully clothed, the toxin worked its evil magic just as quickly, and soon the largest swimming pool in Paris was tinted bloodred, with three dead bodies floating in it.
Later that morning, the hotel’s general manager received a letter containing an explanation of how to properly disinfect the pool and an apology for any inconvenience loss of the pool facilities may have caused hotel guests. It was signed, “The Hand of God.”
14
When Scot awoke to sunlight streaming through a nearby window, the first thing he noticed was that he was no longer flexi-cuffed. There was an IV in his left arm, but other than that, he could move freely. He was lying down and had been covered with a blanket. A figure hovered at the foot of his bed.
“What the hell is going on? Where am I?” he asked as the figure began to take the shape of a middle-aged man in a dark, pin-striped suit.
“You were oversedated and have been out for quite some time,” said the man. “I believe we owe you an apology, Agent Harvath.”
“This has gone far beyond an apology. You can get in line behind Morrell and I’ll deal with you next. I want some answers, now. Who are you and where am I?” Scot said groggily as he struggled to sit upright. His head was pounding and he was none too happy about it.