by Brad Thor
“No, he hasn’t been let go. Officially, Ozbek is on unpaid leave from CIA pending a disciplinary review. Unofficially, he is continuing his unsanctioned surveillance of Omar and Waleed, but let’s talk about Tracy for a minute.”
This was the topic Harvath was most apprehensive about getting to. He felt certain the other shoe was about to drop and that it was going to be full of bad news.
“The French are playing hardball,” said Rutledge, “big time. To tell you the truth, I can’t say that if the situation was reversed we wouldn’t act the same.
“They’re aware of the fact that we know more than we’re letting on. The only way they’ll cooperate with us is on a quid pro quo basis. They won’t consider turning Tracy over until we give them something of equal or greater value.”
“Like what?” asked Harvath.
“Like Matthew Dodd.”
“But we don’t even know where he is.”
“That’s about to change,” replied the president.
Harvath leaned forward. It was the first piece of good news he had heard in days.
“We just learned that Dodd used a satellite phone to contact Omar. He was smart. He kept the call short in order to make it difficult to trace.”
“But you did,” said Harvath, “correct?”
“We know he was calling from somewhere outside the United States.”
“That’s it?”
The president held up his hand. “The Defense Department has a new satellite program that we’ve started using in Iraq and Afghanistan, to track high-value targets who make short SAT phone transmissions. The secretary of defense has his best people standing by. If Dodd uses his phone again, we’ll be able to pinpoint his whereabouts no matter how short the call.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Harvath.
“I have a plane at Andrews ready to go. When we find out where Dodd is, I want you on it. I’m authorizing you to do whatever is necessary to recover the al-Jazari device. Once we have what we need, we can get to work on finalizing Tracy’s exchange. Any questions?”
Harvath shook his head and stood.
As he was nearing the door, the president stopped him. “By the way. Your report mentioned that before Dodd took the device, you managed to get a small bit of writing out of it.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Harvath. “Just one word.”
“What was it?”
Harvath looked back across the Oval Office and said, “Peace.”
CHAPTER 86
VIRGIN GORDA
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
Located on the North Sound of the small island of Virgin Gorda was one of the best-kept secrets in the world. Accessible only by sea, the Bitter End Yacht Club was the last island outpost before the open waters of the Atlantic.
It was where Matthew Dodd and his wife, Lisa, had spent their honeymoon and to where Dodd had now returned.
He had flown into Tortola’s Beef Island airport and walked the three hundred yards to Trellis Bay where the boat he had chartered was waiting. Though he could have taken the high speed ferry to Bitter End, Dodd didn’t want to mingle with other people. He had come to be alone.
After leaving Poplar Forest, he had come to a painful conclusion. Just as he had duped Andrew Salam, he himself had been duped. He had been playing with fools; engaging in business with men who weren’t properly equipped to further Islam’s aims. The entire religion was being subverted by men who pursued Islamic supremacism at all costs. They were neither worthy of the fealty Dodd had sworn to them, nor were they worthy of their exalted positions as spokespersons and representatives of true Muslim faith in America. They hungered for power under the guise of Islam rather than for the sake of Islam. They were apostate.
Dodd was also beginning to believe that in this grand struggle there was no “right” side to be aligned with after all. Maybe there were only right actions.
The assassin checked in at the front desk with only a backpack slung over one shoulder. The cottage built above the beach looking out over the aquamarine Caribbean water was just as he remembered it. Nothing had changed. As Dodd quietly unpacked his few possessions, he thought about the better times in his life.
He remembered Lisa’s love of snorkeling and her delight over the Bitter End’s brilliant array of wrasses, damselfish, and parrotfish. He smiled as he recalled the hours she had spent among the colorful sponges and corals just offshore.
Removing his clothes, the assassin slid into a pair of trunks and walked down to the beach. He’d dealt with sand extensively over the last several years—in his hair, in his eyes, his food, his weapons, but not between his toes where it really belonged. It felt good as the warmth radiated up through his body.
Dodd walked into the wet sand and allowed the sea to lap at his feet. Slowly he moved forward until he was up to his waist in the warm water.
After marking the time on his watch, he submersed himself beneath the surface and began swimming.
He pulled with long, powerful strokes for over half an hour. When he stepped back onto the beach, his breathing was shallow and his pulse rapid. His mind felt clear and sharp.
Outside the cottage, he cleaned the sand from his feet and then opened the screen door and stepped inside.
He stripped out of his swimsuit and rinsed off in a hot shower. With his hair slicked back and a towel wrapped around his waist, he retrieved his backpack, a glass, and walked out onto the wraparound veranda.
He placed everything on the table, sat down, and powered up his satellite phone. As it worked to establish a signal, Dodd opened one of the bottles of Arundel rum he’d bought at the airport in Tortola and poured three fingers into his glass. He and Lisa had gone through at least two bottles of it during their honeymoon.
The brown liquid burned as it went down and though it had been years since he had had a drink, the taste and the sensation were pleasant and familiar, like coming home.
His Koran should not have been sitting right there next to a bottle of alcohol. He knew that, just as he knew that he should not begin drinking again. Alcohol had only added to the darkness and despair of losing his wife and son, but here he and his Koran were anyway.
He had prayed relentlessly for guidance, but none had come. After retrieving the al-Jazari device, he had studied his heart and made his plans accordingly.
The assassin looked down at the glass in his hand and laughed. Though he was far from soft, he certainly wasn’t exhibiting much self-discipline at the moment.
Islam was the answer for America. He felt more certain of that than anything else. He was just without any idea of how to bring such a shift about.
Nevertheless, he knew that Omar with his hate-spewing mosques and Waleed with his laughably corrupt Foundation on American Islamic Relations were all standing in the way of the truly good work Islam could do in America. The two men were not part of the solution. They were abominations and unquestionably part of the problem.
Dodd poured himself another drink. He sipped slowly at it as he watched the minutes tick away on his watch.
At the appointed time, he picked up the satellite phone and dialed Sheik Omar’s private number.
Omar picked up on the first ring. “Is that you, Majd?” he asked.
“It is I,” said the assassin.
“Allah be praised. We have been so worried about you since your last call. We barely had any time to speak. Did you find it? The invention of al-Jazari?”
“I did.”
“Allahu Akbar, my brother. Allahu Akbar.” The sheik was overjoyed. “Allah’s work—our work is now secure. Allahu Akbar!”
“Are you at your desk?” asked Dodd.
“Of course I am. You’ve called me on my private line.”
“And Abdul is with you?”
“He is sitting right here,” replied Omar. “Just as you requested. When can you bring us the device?”
Dodd had no intention of staying on the phone any longer than he needed to. “Stay right there and
don’t move,” he said. “I will call you back in thirty seconds.”
Omar, though frustrated, respected the need for security. What’s more, he was so happy with his assassin that at this point the man could have asked anything of him and he would have gladly obliged. “I understand,” he said. “We will be right here waiting. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar!”
Dodd hung up with the words Allahu Akbar, God Is Great, ringing in his ears.
A man of his word, the assassin began dialing the digits almost immediately, except they weren’t for the sheik’s private line. They belonged to a cell phone attached to an improvised explosive device that had been hidden behind Omar’s desk.
CHAPTER 87
BITTER END YACHT CLUB
THE NEXT EVENING
As the last rays of daylight faded, Scot Harvath watched Matthew Dodd drain the final drops out of the bottle he was drinking and stumble inside his cottage.
Having watched the man drink himself into a stupor, Harvath liked his odds. It didn’t mean the assassin wasn’t still dangerous, but it did mean his reflexes and his situational awareness would be significantly dulled.
Harvath put away his binoculars and grabbed his dry bag, grateful to finally be going topside. Though he had rented a sizable sailboat for the operation, being cooped up belowdecks with not much of a breeze for the better part of the afternoon was not his idea of the perfect Caribbean getaway.
Needless to say, he was here to work, not to play. But a luxury yacht beat any of the snake-, scorpion-, or bug-infested hide sites he’d been forced to endure over the course of his career. Life, especially an enjoyable one, was all about perspective and as Harvath checked the restraints in the cabin he had prepared for Matthew Dodd, he reminded himself of that.
Darkness was settling in as Harvath stepped outside and took a deep breath. The evening breeze felt great against his sweat-soaked body. Quickly, he wiped himself down with fresh water and then tossed his gear into the Zodiac RIB he’d kept moored on the opposite side of the sailboat.
After casting off, he started the engine and moved toward shore, the noise from the small outboard engine just one of several that would be making their way in from the deep water harbor to the Bitter End for cocktails and dinner.
Harvath pulled the boat onto the beach just out of sight of Dodd’s cottage and unloaded his dry bag and a small beach towel. The .40 caliber suppressed Glock 23 he had been issued for this assignment was meant to be a tool of last resort. Plan A was a new waterproof TASER that had been developed for the SEAL teams along with a potent drug cocktail that would keep Dodd sleeping like a baby until Harvath could get him back aboard the sailboat and out into the ocean where he’d be able to start his interrogation.
As Harvath got closer to the cottage, he stopped to listen for signs of what was going on. The last he had seen of Dodd, the rogue CIA operative had come back onto his veranda with another bottle and had round two of the drinking Olympics well under way.
Keep going, my friend, Harvath had thought to himself. You’re only making it easier.
The cottages were built on stilts with wooden staircases on each side of the verandas. Based on how Dodd had positioned himself to look out over the harbor, Harvath decided to come up the south set of stairs and hit him from behind.
Stopping once more at the bottom of Dodd’s staircase, Harvath listened. There was the sound of glass on glass as Dodd poured another drink and then silence.
With the beach towel over his arm and the Glock hidden beneath, Harvath crept soundlessly up the sun-bleached stairs of the cottage.
When he stepped onto the veranda he moved to the wall and kept himself pressed up against it as he continued forward.
He reached the first set of windows, their sheer curtains moving in and out with the breeze. Looking through the bedroom, Harvath could see Dodd’s outline through the open doors on the other side silhouetted by the faint glow of light from the harbor.
The assassin’s back was to him. It was time.
Harvath ducked beneath the windows and stood up on the other side. At the corner of the cottage, he listened and with nothing changed, he raised his weapon and stepped out directly behind Dodd.
As he did, Dodd shot out of his chair and leapt to his feet, but the reaction had nothing to do with Harvath.
CHAPTER 88
Harvath was surprised to see one of the Defense Department’s highest-ranking officials, Imad Ramadan, standing at the other end of the veranda with a suppressed SIG Sauer pistol in his hand.
He was a balding, barrel-chested man of average height in his mid-fifties with a thick gray goatee and dark eyes.
“You’re a long way from D.C., Imad,” said Harvath, his Glock up and at the ready.
Upon hearing the voice from behind, Dodd spun to see who it was and almost lost his balance. He had to reach out and grab the table to keep from falling over. Even then, he was so drunk he couldn’t stop swaying.
“Whoever you are,” said Ramadan, “none of this concerns you.”
“Why? Is this an official Defense Department matter now?” asked Harvath as he adjusted his aim. The levels of government the Islamists had been able to infiltrate and the degree to which they were working together was astounding. Nevertheless, Harvath had no reservations about killing him if he had to. The Navy would probably even give him a medal for it.
“I’m going to guess,” continued Harvath when Ramadan didn’t answer, “that the Defense Department has no idea you’re here. Somehow you wormed your way into the loop and were able to access Mr. Dodd’s classified whereabouts. So where does the defense secretary think you are? Sick day?”
“Shut up,” replied Ramadan.
To his list of unsavory accomplishments as an Islamist apologist and enabler whose loyalty was to Islam above all else, the United States could now add traitor. Harvath wanted to choke the man with his bare hands.
Looking at Dodd, Harvath saw that he was still swaying slightly from side to side. “What happened to the device you took from us at Poplar Forest?” he asked.
Dodd was silent for a moment. Finally, he slurred, “I took care of it.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Ramadan.
“I did what was right.”
“Right for whom?”
“Right for my religion.”
“Your religion,” exclaimed Ramadan. “What are you talking about?”
“What did you do with it?” interjected Harvath, who knew all too well that this was not the right way to conduct an interrogation. “Where is it?”
“Who cares where?” Dodd slurred.
More people than you can possibly imagine, thought Harvath, but he didn’t want to get into that argument. What he wanted were answers, and so he changed tack. “What about the Don Quixote and everything else you took from my house?”
“It’s all gone.”
That was exactly what the president had been afraid of and if the truth be told, so had he. There was zero incentive for Dodd and his extremist cohorts to hold on to any of the materials that so threatened them. All the same, Harvath needed to be absolutely certain the assassin was telling the truth and for that he needed Dodd all to himself, someplace quiet, preferably out in open water on his sailboat. First, though, he had to deal with Ramadan. “Put your weapon down, Imad,” he ordered. “Right now.”
The Pentagon official ignored him. Instead he asked Dodd, “Are you aware that Sheik Omar and Abdul Waleed were killed in an explosion yesterday?”
“Yes,” mumbled Dodd, his eyes glassy.
“I thought so,” replied Ramadan as he tightened his grip on his pistol.
“Imad, I’m not going to give you another warning,” said Harvath. “Drop your weapon or I’m going to drop you.”
Again, Ramadan ignored him and posed another question to Dodd, this time using his Muslim name. “Majd,” he said, softer, as if addressing a small child, “has the al-Jazari device been disposed of properly?”
Harvath watched a
s Dodd’s swaying grew worse. His lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. Though the swaying was due in large part to the amount of alcohol he had consumed, there was an additional reason for it.
Many Muslims rocked back and forth during their prayers. Harvath had seen it again and again in mosques and also with suicide bombers right before they blew themselves up.
Harvath refocused on Ramadan. “How did you know about the al-Jazari device? What’s your connection to all of this?”
“Do you think Sheik Omar and Abdul Waleed were just two men working all alone? This is much bigger than you will ever know.”
Harvath didn’t doubt that, but his attention was focused on Ramadan’s eyes. They had changed and his expression had become more resolute. He was going to kill Dodd even if it meant he would be killed as a result. Harvath could feel it. He had no choice but to act.
Harvath began applying pressure to his trigger just as Dodd rocked backward once more and suddenly came forward in an explosion of movement. He threw the wooden table in front of him into the air.
Ramadan was barely able to get a shot off before Dodd and the table were on top of him.
Harvath fired as well, but it was too late. Dodd was dead. A single round from Ramadan’s weapon had drilled through his nose and out the back of his head. Harvath’s shot had been equally well placed. Imad Ramadan’s lifeless body lay on the veranda, the weathered floorboards turning bright red with his blood.
CHAPTER 89
ST. MARTIN
It took Harvath less than a day to sail from the Bitter End to St. Martin—the nearest overseas administrative division of France. En route, he contacted the president to give him a full debriefing on everything that had happened and to strategize what their next course of action should be. Like it or not, and neither Harvath nor the president did, the al-Jazari device and all of the promise it contained was lost. They needed to focus on moving forward.