by Brad Thor
“If these were my guys,” said Harvath, “I wouldn’t allow them to operate a motor vehicle. There’s too great a chance that they would come into contact with law enforcement that way. I would have them in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in each city, lying low. To get to those Wi-Fi spots, they’d either have to walk, ride a bike, or take public transportation.”
“Which means we can start drawing circles around each one, see where they intersect, and then start tightening the net,” replied FBI Director Erickson. “This is significant.”
Harvath looked back to the DNI. “What about the handler? Whoever is in charge of these guys has to be aware of their Facebook accounts. He’d be watching to make sure they stay off and don’t post anything.”
“That one was a little bit harder to track down, but the NSA found him. He’s using six different accounts—one dedicated to each engineering student’s Facebook page.”
“Where is he located?”
“He’s using different free Wi-Fi locations in Idaho, specifically within a couple of hours’ drive of Boise. Truck stops, coffee shops, he never uses the same spot twice. Boise is interesting because three weeks after the NASA internship ended, all six engineering students used the free Wi-Fi at the Greyhound bus station in Boise to check their Facebook accounts. All six, all on the same day.”
“Do we have any idea what they were doing in Idaho?” Carlton asked.
“I’ll bet you a month’s pay,” said McGee, “they were training. Pretty rugged and rural up there. They wrap up their training, the handler drops them at the bus station, and they all jump online to see what’s been going on back home since they’ve been off the grid.”
Harvath agreed. “We need the CCTV footage from the bus station, as well as every single ATM, traffic, and security camera from that area. Plus, we’ll need all the locations where we believe the handler has been.”
“We’re on it,” said Erickson.
“Besides possibly training, do we have any other idea why they might have picked Idaho?” McGee asked.
“We’re not sure,” General Johnson replied. “A couple of years ago, a Chinese company was looking into building what it called a ‘self-sustaining city’ about fifty miles south of Boise, but nothing ever came of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘self-sustaining city’?” the President asked.
“They have these in China. They call them ‘technology zones.’ Everything is self-contained, even their power plants and the housing for workers. They don’t need much of anything from the outside. Some company owned by the Chinese government called the China National Machinery Industry Corp. began lobbying the Idaho governor a couple years ago to be allowed to build a thirty-thousand-acre ‘technology zone’ with homes, retail centers, and industry. It would include a $2 billion fertilizer plant as well as a facility that would mass-produce solar panels, all to be built just south of the Boise airport, which would be used for all of their air freight.”
“Did anything come of it?”
“According to the governor’s office, it was just preliminary. The delegation also approached several other states proposing similar technology zones.”
“All near major airports?” asked the President.
Johnson nodded.
“Knowing what we know now,” stated McGee, “it sounds like these could have also functioned as self-sustaining forward operating bases for their landing forces.”
The President nodded and turned to the FBI Director. “Let’s talk about the other item that wasn’t included in the briefing.”
“We believe we know where in Nashville Bao Deng is,” said Erickson.
“Where?” Harvath asked.
Pulling up a satellite image onscreen, he said, “FedEx delivered a package this morning to a Residence Inn by Marriott in the Cool Springs area near Nashville. It was addressed Hold for Hotel Guest Mr. Bao Deng.”
“How did you find that?”
“NSA uncovered it.”
Harvath didn’t bother asking what NSA was doing combing through FedEx’s shipping receipts. “Where did the package come from?”
“An unattended drop-box in San Francisco. Billing info is from a prepaid credit card,” said Erickson. “We have agents out there looking into it.”
“Do we know what was in the package?”
“No. Only that it was a standard shipping box that weighed in under five pounds.”
“Is he registered at the hotel?” Harvath asked.
The FBI Director nodded. “He checked in this afternoon.”
“Do you have people sitting on it?”
“Yes. We don’t believe he’s there right now, but we have it under surveillance.”
“Pull it back,” Harvath said.
“What?”
“Pull your people back. As far as possible.”
“Why?” Erickson responded.
“Because if you don’t, this guy absolutely will spot your surveillance teams.”
“How do you know that?”
“With all due respect, Mr. Director, when I get sent halfway around the world by my government, it’s not because someone needs help slicing birthday cake. This guy will know what to look for.”
The FBI Director held up his hand. “First of all, you’re assuming he’s a professional.”
“I’m not assuming anything,” Harvath replied. “Based on what we’ve already seen, Deng has proven that he is a professional. The question is, why is he here? Has anyone looked into when he bought his airline ticket?”
The Director looked through his notes and found the information. “Two days ago.”
“Last-minute. Just like Tommy Wong,” said Harvath. “That’s a huge risk. They know we scrutinize last-minute purchases. He would have needed a cover story in case immigration asked him anything at LAX. You should tell your people to triple-check any stories they come across at his poultry plant.”
“What kind of stories?”
“An accident, a failed piece of machinery, a client backing out of a major deal. That sort of thing.”
The FBI Director made a note on his pad.
“Why do you think he took the risk?” the President asked.
Harvath thought about it for a moment. “Everything should be on autopilot at this point. You don’t do anything that risks exposing the operation unless something has gone very wrong. I think that’s what’s happened. Something has gone upside down and the Chinese have sent in a pro to straighten it out.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I think the Nashville cell is probably compromised.”
“Compromised how?” asked McGee.
Harvath shrugged. “You know this game as well as I do. It could be anything. Did someone get cold feet? Is the cell being blackmailed? Do they need to get rid of a body? Did a key piece of equipment fail? Whatever it is, it isn’t good news for them. But if we handle this right, it could be good news for us.”
Silence settled over the room as the directors for National Intelligence, CIA, and FBI all turned and looked at the President.
The President looked at Harvath. “In your estimation, what do we need to do to handle this right?” he asked.
Harvath studied each of the faces gathered around the table. “Off the record?”
President Porter nodded.
Looking over at Carlton, Harvath asked, “How soon do Sloane and Chase land?”
The Old Man glanced at the Situation Room clock and said, “Twenty minutes.”
CHAPTER 32
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FBI Director Erickson didn’t like a single thing Harvath had proposed. His entire plan was dangerous, outside the law, and just too damn risky. He offered to put all of the resources of the FBI at his fingertips, but Harvath said no.
In Harvath’s estimation, he not only knew the enemy better than Erickson, he also knew the Achilles’ heel of the law enforcement system. He had the utmost respect for the FBI, particularly its Hostage Rescue
Team, which was world-class, but he knew what would happen if Erickson and his G-men succeeded in capturing Deng.
They would hold off on Mirandizing him in the hopes that the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, could squeeze the information they needed out of him. HIG had been created by the previous administration to interrogate terrorism suspects immediately after arrest in order to gain intelligence that would head off an attack and help round up accomplices.
HIG teams were staffed with FBI, CIA, and DoD personnel, as well as linguists, professional interrogators, and terrorism analysts. All of them were good, solid, experienced people, but all of them were bound by a very specific set of rules. Harvath wasn’t bound by anything.
If Deng was half the professional he appeared to be, even the best HIG team wasn’t going to get anything out of him. But he was putting the cart in front of the horse. Before HIG could question Deng, the FBI would have to apprehend him.
You could be the best dogcatcher in history, but it wouldn’t amount to much on the day you had to catch a panther. When that happened, you wanted somebody around who not only knew how to track a big cat, but knew how to think like one—somebody who knew what to do just in case the panther turned the tables, and began tracking you.
More important, you wanted someone who understood the number-one rule of tracking a top predator—there are no rules. That’s what made a panther a panther and that’s why the President wanted Harvath to go to Nashville.
By the time he arrived at Reagan National, Sloane and Chase’s plane had already been diverted from Dulles and touched down. They met up at Signature Flight Support, a fixed-base operator, or FBO as it was known, on the general aviation side of the airport. Bob McGee had arranged for Harvath and his team to use one of the Agency’s Citation Longitude business jets.
While Sloane and Chase used the courtesy showers in the Signature building, Harvath unloaded his Tahoe. In addition to the bug-out and overnight bags he always kept loaded and ready to go in his vehicle, he also had a Truck Vault.
The Truck Vault was a strongbox bolted to the cargo area with two lockable sliding drawers, which turned his vehicle into a rolling armory.
Sloane and Chase had flown home clean. The weapons they used in Karachi had stayed in Karachi. If they had been caught trying to get guns out of Pakistan, they would have been arrested, and it wouldn’t have taken long for the ISI to link them to the death of their agents and the kidnapping of Ahmad Yaqub. As they had been working with no official cover or sanction, Sloane and Chase would have been looking at heavy prison time. They left all of their gear with a trusted CIA operative who was happy to have it.
Harvath set an empty Blackhawk load-out bag on top of the Truck Vault and began filling it up. Into the bag went his LaRue 14.5” PredatOBR rifle and his Remington 870 Express tactical shotgun. He grabbed his .45 caliber H&K USP compact pistol, a Glock 21, a Glock 17, and a RONI conversion kit that would turn the 17 into a short-barreled rifle.
He threw in a Taser X26P, a set of night vision goggles, flashlights, walkie-talkies and earpieces, an extra Benchmade folding knife for Sloane and one for Chase, as well as plastic restraints, holsters, ammunition, his Otis cleaning kit, and extra magazines.
With his bug-out bag over one shoulder and his overnight bag over the other, he extended the handle of his load-out bag and wheeled it behind him into the building.
Signature Flight Support was known for always having fruit, fresh-baked muffins, cookies, and popcorn. Harvath grabbed an apple and a bottle of water.
He had just taken his first bite when Sloane Ashby appeared. She was wearing jeans, trail runners, and an Under Armour shirt.
“An apple, huh?” she said. “I guess guys your age really have to watch their weight.”
“Fuck you,” Harvath replied through a smile and a mouth full of apple.
“Gotcha. Listen, about my hostile work environment complaint? How does Tuesday look for a sit-down with HR?”
Harvath gave her the finger and grabbed another apple.
“Allahu Snackbar,” Sloane said, lampooning the terrorist battle cry of Allahu Akbar, as she studied the counter full of treats. She made a show of picking the two biggest cookies and then filled up a bag with popcorn.
Harvath shook his head. Ashby was a wiseass and it was one of the many things he liked about her. Despite the difference in their ages, they had a lot in common—the same healthy disrespect for authority, the same determination to succeed at any cost, and the same wise-guy sense of humor. They were two peas in a pod. So much so that Carlton had given Harvath a very stern warning—no dating. The last thing the Old Man wanted was a romance to develop between them. He had been perfectly clear what the repercussions would be if that happened.
Even though Harvath thought Sloane was “cute”—a word he used continually because he knew she hated it and it got under her skin—he kept their relationship platonic.
He admired her skills and saw her as a teammate; someone he could mentor. In fact, he believed she’d probably end up being an even better operator than he was. She was born for the work and everything about her made her perfect for it. The Old Man had always been a scary-good judge of talent.
Chase Palmer was the other operator Harvath figured would outpace him. General George Johnson, the Director of National Intelligence, had uncovered Chase while heading the Army’s Intelligence Support division, also known as “The Activity.”
Johnson had a career full of experience with clandestine operations. He had seen men rise and fall, come and go, but he had never seen an operator like Chase. There was a row of locked file cabinets at the Pentagon stuffed with accounts of his exploits at the Unit. There was also a coterie of career soldiers, or Chairborne Rangers as they were derogatorily referred to, who resented not only Chase’s talent and meteoric rise but also his above-average intelligence.
His star was burning white-hot right about the time he ran afoul of a drunk two-star general and knocked him out. It didn’t matter that the general was asking for it both by being overly aggressive with a female soldier and by exhibiting conduct unbecoming an officer. Word spread quickly. Chase had embarrassed the two-star, who was bound and determined to make Chase pay. That’s when General Johnson had stepped in.
Johnson spoke with the Unit and they agreed to “share custody” of Chase. It gave Chase the best of both worlds, and he very much enjoyed the arrangement. But just when he thought it couldn’t get any better and he was preparing to reenlist, Reed Carlton had come along. He was a difficult man to say no to.
Before Chase knew it, he had given up his house at Fort Bragg, had bought a new car, and had taken a splashy condo in D.C. Carlton was opening up an incredible new world to him and he could already tell he had a lot to look forward to. And with his sense of humor, he fit right in.
Joining Harvath, Chase looked at Sloane’s cookies and said, “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.”
Harvath chuckled as Sloane gave them both the finger. As she did, the copilot stepped inside and told them the plane was ready to go.
CHAPTER 33
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The flight to Nashville would take a little over an hour and the FBI would have a car waiting at the airport for them to use. Harvath had requested something with a big trunk, as well as rope, plastic sheeting, and several other things Director Erickson would probably rather not have known about. Harvath also asked him to arrange a safe house, preferably in the middle of nowhere, with lots of acreage and no neighbors.
He had watched the man write everything down and was sure that as soon as the instructions had been relayed to the field office in Tennessee, Erickson would burn the list. He was a decent man who played by the rules. The way Harvath handled business obviously made him uncomfortable. Not because he couldn’t stomach violence, but because he believed in the rule of law and the concept that Americans should hold themselves to a higher standard than their enemies.
It was a
noble notion and one that Harvath wanted to live by as well. The trouble was, it was something that no nation could afford to cling to without having a Plan B. When your enemies succeed because they aren’t constrained by rules, at some point you have to either accept defeat, or tear up the rulebook. Harvath had pretty much played by the rules while he was in the Secret Service. The President at that time had joked that it was like staking a pit bull to a chain in the backyard. No matter how mean he looked or how loud he barked, there were some people who wouldn’t be deterred.
Take that same pit bull, though, unchain him and let him go, and it was a different dynamic altogether. The pit bull might bite the wrong person someday, but if he was well-trained enough, you wouldn’t lose sleep over something that might happen. You actually might sleep much better knowing he was on duty. That was how President Jack Rutledge had seen Harvath then and how President Paul Porter saw him now.
Onboard the plane, Harvath and his team stowed their gear, chose their seats, and buckled up. They had been given priority clearance for takeoff.
Once the plush Citation Longitude was airborne, Harvath accessed the pressurized luggage compartment behind the lavatory and retrieved his load-out bag. He wanted to clean and check the weapons as they went over what the plan was going to be.
“And if he’s not there?” Sloane said as she broke down the LaRue rifle. “What then?”
“Then we’re going to let ourselves in, take a look around, and let ourselves out.”
“What about wiring the room?” Chase asked.
Harvath shook his head. “I don’t have that kind of equipment. The Bureau is sending one of its top guys, but he won’t get in until later tonight.”
“It had better be a top guy,” Sloane interjected. “If he doesn’t do a first-class job, and Deng finds something, that’s it. We’re blown.”