Path of the Assassin

by Brad Thor

  “Rick,” said Harvath, “can I get a word?”

  Morrell typed in a few more keystrokes and then closed the lid of his encrypted laptop. “What do you want?”

  “I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

  “I’m not in the mood for games, Harvath.”

  “Neither am I, so let’s cut to the chase. Where are we going and why are we dressed in desert camo? I can tell from the plane’s eastward flight path that we’re not going toward Indonesia, unless we’re taking the long way around.”

  “No, we’re not. We’re going to Libya.”

  “Libya?” repeated Harvath quietly.

  “Yeah. We’ve received new intelligence that Nidal is going to be there.”

  “What kind of intelligence?”

  Morrell gestured to the empty seat across the table from him and Harvath sat down. “You want some coffee?” asked Morrell as he removed a thermos from a bag on the seat next to him.

  “Sure. Thanks,” said Harvath as Morrell poured some into a small, Styrofoam cup and handed it across the table.

  Morrell tightened the lid on the thermos and set it back down next to him before speaking again. “You’re familiar with the fact that the U.S. government has been monitoring several suspected Abu Nidal Organization bank accounts around the world?”

  “I was under the impression that we had frozen them all,” said Harvath as he took a sip of coffee.

  “For the most part, we have, but we left a couple semifrozen.”

  “What do you mean by semifrozen?”

  “We had assets at certain banks, human assets, and we quietly leaked word in ways that were sure to get out to Hashim Nidal’s people that these assets could be had for a price.”

  “And in exchange, the assets would provide access to the frozen funds?”

  “Exactly. Knowing that the FRC was desperate for money, we thought we could smoke out a couple big fish.”

  “And?”

  “We got a hit. Two days ago in Helsinki.”

  “What happened?”

  “An FRC operative contacted our agent at the Bank of Finland and arranged an immediate meeting. It happened so fast we almost didn’t have time to organize the grab.”

  “But you got him. Can he ID Nidal?”

  “No,” said Morrell, shaking his head and taking a sip of coffee. “Unfortunately he can’t.”

  “Did he have any useful information?”

  “Big time. This guy was involved with organizing an upcoming meeting between Nidal and a wealthy Saudi. He gave us the time, place…everything except what they’ll be serving for dinner.”

  “How credible do you think the information is?” asked Harvath.

  “Very.”

  “Based on what?”

  “The man was extremely uncooperative. The information was extracted under duress,” said Morrell.

  “Would this be of the physical or chemical variety?”

  “I’m not at liberty to answer that. Suffice it to say that my superiors believe the intelligence is quite reliable.”

  “And you think the meeting is still a go, even though this guy has been pulled out of action? Don’t you think his superiors might be a little suspicious when he goes missing?”

  “Technically, he’s not out of action. He’s in a hospital in Helsinki, the victim of a horrible car crash. Among his many injuries is a broken jaw that needed to be wired shut, and he’s pumped so full of sedatives, nobody could get anything coherent out of him even if they wanted to. His room is being kept under surveillance, but other than that, his friends and associates are free to come and visit. There was even a write-up in several of the local papers about the crash. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no reason for his superiors to suspect anything other than an unfortunate accident.”

  “And he’s going to remain incommunicado until the meeting with Nidal and the Saudi is finished?”

  “Yup, at which point the Finns will take him into custody for a host of immigration violations. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Let me guess,” said Harvath, setting down his empty cup, “we’re on our way to crash Hashim Nidal’s rendezvous with the Saudi.”

  “Correct.”

  “What do we know about the Saudi?”

  “Not much, unfortunately. Our guess is that he is a potential investor in the organization.”

  “Where in Libya is the meet taking place?”

  Morrell took his laptop off the table, removed a large map from a cardboard tube, and unrolled it in front of them. He made a circle on the map with a blue pencil and said, “Here, on the western edge of the country. About a hundred and seventy-five miles south of an abandoned Libyan city called Ghadames.”

  “In the Ubari Sand Sea?” asked Harvath, leaning in to get a better look at the map. “There’s nothing there but—”

  “Sand?” said Morrell, smiling.

  “Nothing but.”

  “Well, it would seem that Abu Nidal’s son is a bit of an entrepreneur cum philanthropist.”

  “How so?” asked Harvath, playing with his empty Styrofoam cup.

  Morrell opened up his thermos and poured them both more coffee. “There seems to be a growing trend with wealthy Muslims in Libya. They foot the bill for creating oasis towns in outlying areas of the country. The town is usually named after the family and a large mosque is built, a school, gas stations, a meeting hall, maybe a hotel, tract housing for the workers who cultivate the land—”

  “Yeah, but you first need water. That’s the basic building block of life in the desert.”

  “Get this. The families pay for extensive government surveys to locate potential stores of water beneath the earth. When they have found one and all necessary arrangements have been made with the government, they bring in massive drilling equipment and go to work.”

  “What’s in it for them?” asked Harvath, searching for a catch.

  “On the surface, they claim their small oasis towns provide a better life for their poor Libyan brothers and sisters who have crowded into the country’s bigger cities looking for work. Little is mentioned of the fact that as they own the entire town, the revenue from everything from fast-food restaurants to pharmacies is quite lucrative.”

  “What if they find oil while looking for water?”

  “It’s a windfall for the family and the government.”

  “Why haven’t the oil companies jumped all over this?”

  “The Tham Oil Company has been involved in some of the joint Libyan-Egyptian oasis projects, but by and large, the chances of finding oil in a lot of the locations is a long shot at best.”

  “But it’s one hell of a goodwill maneuver, especially if the Nidal family needs a place to hide. It’s not easy to harbor terrorists these days, even for an international pariah like Gadhafi.”

  “You’re right, it isn’t. But he still does it. Especially when the terrorists make themselves useful to him.”

  “What happened to the Indonesia angle?”

  “That’s why Nidal has been so hard to track. With all of his terrorist affiliations, it’s been difficult to nail down exactly where he is. We still believe he has his hands in some goings on over there, but we now believe that he constructed this oasis town as a cover for his training camp and base of operations,” replied Morrell as he pulled out a large manila envelope.

  “But how could you guys have missed that?” asked Harvath, though he was actually somewhat reluctant to rub the CIA’s nose in another screwup.

  “The oasis development project is something Gadhafi has been very high profile about. We kept tabs on it, but since he wasn’t hiding anything, we figured there was nothing to hide. You can look at these yourself,” said Morrell as he spread several labeled satellite photos across the table. “It all looks exactly like what it is supposed to be—the construction of small towns in the desert.”

  “What about this one? Do they all have airstrips?” said Harvath as he tapped one of t
he photos in front of him.

  “The ones that were developed with private money from individual families had the occasional idiosyncrasies: disgustingly large houses, enormous swimming pools, luxury multistoried bungalows for guests…Our analysts got used to seeing stuff like that.”

  “Yeah, but airstrips?”

  “Harvath, you know as well as I do that having your own plane is a status symbol, no matter where in the world you live. It’s the ultimate representation of freedom.”

  “But out of all these pictures, Nidal’s is the only oasis town with an airstrip this big. And look at all of these support buildings.”

  “Unfortunately, we didn’t pick up on it until recently. We had no idea he was involved with this oasis town.”

  “How could you not?”

  “Because it’s all being done through another Muslim family with a different name. We had no idea he was attached. In fact, if Gadhafi was ever pressed on the issue, he could probably make a strong case that he didn’t know it either.”

  “Plausible deniability.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But if Nidal’s so strapped for cash, why would he be pumping money into a sandy real estate development deal?”

  “For the same reasons we’ve already discussed. Eventually, the town will turn a profit and provide a steady stream of income. Secondly, with all the itinerant labor brought in to work the fields, it’s the perfect cover for moving terrorism recruits in and out for training. And finally, the success of the oasis development program makes Hashim Nidal’s host look good, and that goes a long way in helping to ensure Gadhafi’s continuing blanket of asylum.”

  “Being the boss of your own town in the middle of the desert must carry with it a certain amount of political weight too.”

  “The CIA predicts that the towns will develop into their own little fiefdoms. In the long run, they might turn out to be more of a headache for Gadhafi than he ever imagined.”

  “For now, at least one of those towns looks like it’s going to be a headache for us. What’s the plan?”

  Morrell gathered up all but the most relevant Ubari Sand Sea oasis satellite photos and placed them back in the envelope. “The name of Nidal’s town is the Hijrah Oasis. Hijrah is an Arabic term that refers to—”

  “The Prophet Muhammad’s journey from Mecca to Medina. It means ‘to leave a place of persecution in search of sanctuary or religious freedom.’”

  “Then you also should know that the term can mean ‘leaving a bad way of life for a better or more righteous way,’ which is how we think it is being applied in this case. Nidal has brought in a very radical fundamentalist cleric to run the mosque. Either Gadhafi doesn’t know about it, or doesn’t care, but it’s another reason we think this whole thing is going to come back to bite him in the ass eventually.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, Gadhafi can go screw himself. I’m in this for Nidal.”

  “As are we,” replied Morrell, who used a wax pencil to circle a building on one of the photos. “But we also want his training camp taken out.”

  “Are you sure that’s it?”

  “No, and that’s another one of our problems. We haven’t had enough time to do extended reconnaissance. We’re going to need to get in there and recon it ourselves. The last thing we want to do is take out a hospital or an orphanage or something. Gadhafi would have a field day with that one and milk the worldwide PR for all it was worth. We need to be able to pinpoint where the training is happening and, if possible, what they’re training for.”

  “Sounds like a pretty tall order to me.”

  “Tall order or not, that’s our mission.”

  “It seems the parameters of this operation are being stretched a bit.”

  “Harvath, like I’ve told you before, if you don’t like it, you’re free to leave at any time. As a matter of fact, there’s an exit right there,” said Morrell as he tipped his wax pencil in the direction of the forward cabin door.

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Ricky. Besides, I want to see Nidal taken out just as badly as you do. Let’s get down to brass tacks. I’ve got three questions. How do we get in? How do we do it? How do we get out?”

  “Our infiltration is still in flux.”

  “What do you mean in flux?”

  “Originally, we thought we’d go in via Algeria’s border with Libya, but Gadhafi’s all of a sudden doing military exercises in that area.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection?”

  “No. He does these border defense drills all the time. This is just bad timing. We’re still working on it. If the Algerian angle falls through, I’ve got a backup.”

  “Such as?”

  “We’ve still got several hours until we get there,” said Morrell. “Let’s see what shakes out between now and then.”

  “What about taking out Nidal?”

  “It’s by the book, just like we trained. Meg Cassidy will ID him, and the snipers will earn their checks. Simple as that.”

  Harvath wished things were that simple in the real world. He could see from Morrell’s face that he was worried too, but Harvath let it slide for now. There was no sense putting any more stress on Morrell than was obviously already there. Instead, Harvath asked for an answer to his third question. “And how do we get out?”

  “If we’re able to insert via helicopter from Algeria, that’s the same way we’ll do the extraction.”

  “And if not?”

  “We’ve got a contingent of FAVs at an airbase in Sicily. I’ve already dispatched several of my men to load them onto a C-130 and drop them into the Ubari Sand Sea, not far from the Hijrah Oasis.”

  Harvath had worked with FAVs, or more appropriately, Fast Attack Vehicles, before. They looked like dune buggies on steroids and were awesome pieces of machinery. The knobby-tired, 2100-pound FAVs could reach speeds in excess of eighty miles per hour cross-country and could clear sand berms over six feet high. They came complete with a fifty-caliber machine gun and forty-millimeter grenade launcher forward, as well as a 7.62 machine gun to cover the rear. Strapped to the roof rack of each FAV was an antitank-and-antiaircraft missile. Though the vehicles were made to carry only three people, two extra passengers could be transported in the wire-mesh equipment baskets welded to each side of the vehicle. All in all, the FAV was an extremely efficient way to get around and extremely deadly for any opponents.

  “It seems like you’ve thought of everything,” said Harvath in an attempt to be reassuring.

  “You and I both know you can never think of everything,” said Morrell with a wry smile.

  Harvath smiled back. It was a rare moment of camaraderie between the two men. “What’s the timetable on this? Are we going to be able to go through some run-throughs in country before the actual assault?”

  “Negative. The meeting’s set for tomorrow night.”

  Harvath couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Tomorrow night? What time?”

  “About eleven P.M. local time.”

  “That’s nuts. We’d have to get in place tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “Jesus, any other surprises?”

  “I hope not. Listen. I want to ask you a favor.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to keep Meg Cassidy as calm as possible until we go in. I’d rather not discuss the operational details with her just yet, especially as we haven’t been able to nail everything down.”

  “As long as you don’t ask her to fast-rope out of one of the helicopters, I think she’ll be fine. She’s not too fond of heights.”

  “So I’ve heard. Just try and keep her calm up there, and keep her mind off of things for the time being. Okay?”

  “Fine by me. Is there a movie on this flight?”

  “No, and no prime rib either. I stocked the plane myself, so I know. You’ve got your choice in the galley of MREs or we loaded a couple of pizzas on board.”

  “I think I’ll go with the pizza,” said Harvath
as he stood up. “Did you bring any beer?”

  “Beer? What are you, crazy? I wouldn’t bring beer on a mission.”

  Harvath shrugged his shoulders as if to say, It never hurts to ask, and made his way back up to the front of the plane to see if Meg was hungry for pizza.

  When he returned from the galley with two hot slices for each of them, he noticed that Morrell had joined his nine man team in the back of the plane for a discussion. He knew Rick was holding back something about the execution of the mission. He didn’t know what it was, but something was off. Harvath tried to push it out of his mind as he settled in for lunch and the long ride ahead.

  42

  Two-and-a-half hours out from Libyan airspace, the Gulfstream jet began to descend and Rick Morrell called another meeting. An hour earlier he had given Harvath, Meg, and the rest of the SAS team a full mission briefing. Morrell covered everything from the encrypted radio frequencies they would use, to GPS coordinates, land contour formations, code names, and the contents of their weapons packages. The two items he had left out were the methods of infiltration and extraction. As the team members gathered in the rear of the aircraft this time, it looked as if Morrell was ready to complete the picture.

  “According to our intelligence, it doesn’t look like the Libyan military exercises along the Algerian border are going to be letting up anytime soon. I had hoped to insert via helicopter from Algeria, but that’s no longer an option,” said Morrell.

  “So how are we getting in?” asked Harvath.

  “We’re going to hop and pop.”

  “No, seriously. How are we going in?” repeated Harvath.

  “I am serious.”

  “But right now we’re descending. Are you going to try and get us in under their radar in this jet?”

  “No. We’re going to go in through the normal air traffic lanes with a commercial IFF signature so we don’t raise Libya’s suspicions. We’re descending now to below ten thousand feet so we can get everyone started on masks with one-hundred-percent oxygen.”