by Brad Thor
He stripped the ends and twisted them together to begin the flow of power. Next he cut the starter wires, stripped the ends, and made sure not to touch them with his hands, lest he get a healthy shock.
Holding an exposed starter wire in each hand, he took a breath and brought them together. The Cadillac groaned, but seconds later, its large engine roared to life.
Carlton separated the starter wires from each other, tore off two pieces of electrical tape, and wrapped each exposed end.
After quickly replacing the panels around the steering column, he stashed his tools in the glove compartment, put the car in drive, and quietly drove out of the retirement community.
Back at the forest preserve, he transferred his gear from the Cherokee into the trunk of the Cadillac and then drove the Jeep down a long fire road.
In the bouncing beam of his headlights, he spotted a narrow break in the trees and took it. He drove as far as he could and then turned off the ignition. In case anyone should stumble across it, he left a quickly scrawled note: Hiking, be back soon.
He walked back out through the trees and up the fire road to the Cadillac. As he pulled out of the forest, his mind returned to the image of the Hydra, and he began to plan what he needed to do next.
CHAPTER 42
TEXAS
After checking the two figures outside and seeing that they were both dead, Harvath slipped inside the guesthouse. From the direction of the master bedroom, he could hear a man’s agonized cries. Thankfully, the voice was much too deep to belong to Nicholas.
Creeping forward and using the thermal scope, his weapon up and at the ready, Harvath made it about half the distance before Draco charged into the hallway and started barking. The dog’s muzzle looked to be dripping with blood and its eyes were wild, as if it had gone feral. He gave no indication that he recognized Harvath. In fact, he looked primed to attack.
“Easy, boy,” he said softly, but the dog continued barking and moving forward. He didn’t want to hurt the animal, but he also didn’t want to give himself away if he didn’t have to by calling out.
The standoff was quickly broken by Nicholas’s voice from inside the room. “Who’s there?” he called out.
“Rubber Duckie,” Harvath replied, knowing you never answered “me” to a who-goes-there question.
The little man shouted a command in Russian, and the dog ceased barking and returned to the bedroom. Harvath kept his pistol up and pulled it into his chest as he followed.
He stopped at the edge of the doorframe and lowered the scope. A faint glow spilled out the door into the hall, and again he heard a man’s cries. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Nicholas responded. “You can come in.”
Harvath did a snap peek around the corner before stepping fully into the doorway. A man in his mid-twenties lay on the floor, covered in blood. Argos, whose snout was also covered in blood, stood nearby. Much of Nicholas’s computer equipment had been shot to pieces. A badly damaged laptop still gave off enough light to see by.
Draco stood alongside Nicholas, who was covering the wounded attacker with his little M3. There was no sign of Nina. Harvath was about to ask what had happened to her when he heard the sound of vomiting from the bathroom.
He stepped into the room and trained his pistol on the young man bleeding all over the floor. The dogs had torn him to shreds. From where he stood, Harvath doubted he’d make it.
“Are you all okay?” he repeated to Nicholas.
“Nina’s shook up, but we’re okay.”
Harvath removed the tiny .45-caliber pistol from his pocket and tossed it to him. “Here,” he said. “Cover him with this.”
Nicholas transitioned to the more powerful pistol and did as Harvath instructed.
As he approached the kid on the floor, he motioned for Nicholas to call off Argos.
“No,” Nicholas argued. “He came to kill us. Let the dogs finish the bastard.”
Harvath glared at him. “Keep those dogs back. That’s an order.”
Nicholas relented, issuing a command in Russian, and the dog retreated to his side.
Harvath looked down at the attacker and decided he wouldn’t need his pistol. Tucking it into his jeans at the small of his back, he bent over and lifted the kid into a sitting position against the side of the bed.
It was a messy operation. When Harvath finally got him into place and drew back his hands, they were slick with blood.
The extent of the kid’s injuries was very grave. His face had been savaged, and the dogs had done incredible damage to his limbs, as well as his groin area, and his throat looked like raw hamburger. Harvath was amazed he could make any sound at all. There was a wet whooshing noise that could be heard beneath the moaning as the man labored to take in oxygen. The fact that he hadn’t slipped totally into shock was incredible.
“You’re in bad shape,” Harvath said gently. “I’ve got a trauma kit and will do what I can, but before I can help you, I need you to answer some questions. Who are you? Who sent you here?”
The kid’s eyes were glassy and unfocused. His breathing was coming in gasps. There was a gurgle as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“He’s not going to answer you,” Nicholas replied. “Let me put the dogs on him.”
Argos and Draco began growling again.
“I’m not telling you again,” Harvath snapped. “Keep those dogs under control.” Turning his attention back to their prisoner, he said, “It’s up to you. I’ve got pain meds as well. We can stabilize you and get you to a hospital. It’s your call. Just tell me who you are and who sent you.”
The kid was dressed like his dead comrades outside. He wore 511 trousers, tactical boots, and an ill-fitting sweatshirt likely taken off one of the men he and his team had murdered at the water trough. On his wrist was a military-version Suunto watch, popular with SOF guys. He had short, dark hair and a fit build. Under different circumstances, he could have been some young SEAL or Green Beret Harvath had trained or operated alongside at some point in his career.
He waited for the kid to say something, but nothing came, so Harvath said, “All of the men I worked with were good, honorable men who had shed blood for their country. They’re dead now, murdered by the same people who sent you here to kill us.”
It caused the kid a lot of pain, but he tilted his head and rolled his eyes up to meet Harvath’s. He was no longer moaning. His pupils were beginning to dilate.
“Whatever they told you, they lied,” Harvath said. “You were used. This has to end here, now. If you help me, no one else has to die.”
Moments passed. When the kid opened his mouth to speak, blood-soaked air rattled in and out of his lungs. The words that formed on his shredded lips were barely discernible, and Harvath had to lean down to make them out.
“Bremmer,” the young man rasped. “Chuck Bremmer.”
Harvath thought he recognized the name from when he was attached to the President’s Secret Service detail. There had been a special Defense Department liaison to the White House named Bremmer. “Are you talking about Colonel Chuck Bremmer?”
There was no response. The kid had gone into agonal respiration, or “guppy breathing,” and was gasping in very short, rapid breaths.
Harvath repeated his question, searching the young man’s face for any sign of acknowledgment. All he got back was a cold, glassy-eyed stare. Seconds later, the guppy breathing stopped.
Harvath checked his pulse. He was dead.
CHAPTER 43
Coordinating with Nicholas as he cleaned up, Harvath rattled off a list of instructions before driving away in the Denali. It was the early hours of Sunday morning and the majority of the staff was still hitting the bars in town. He had posted Maggie Rose up the road to make sure none of them came back onto the property into the middle of a potential gunfight. Now that that danger had passed, there was something else he needed her to do.
Her truck was parked along the shoulder of the road and he pulled into the
oncoming lane so they could talk driver’s side to driver’s side.
Her words tumbled out in a rapid cascade. “Are you okay? Is everybody else okay?”
Harvath reached his hand through his open window so he could place it on her arm. “Everyone’s fine. Don’t worry.”
Maggie was expecting an explanation of what had happened, some sort of summary, but it didn’t come. It took a moment for that to sink in.
Harvath could tell she was confused. “Maggie, listen,” he said. “The less you know the better. Okay? The men who came onto the ranch aren’t a problem anymore. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“What does that mean?”
He smiled, trying to reassure her. “It means there’s nothing to worry about. Okay?”
Still confused, Maggie simply nodded.
“Good. Now, is there someone whose computer you could use right now? Someone not associated with the ranch?”
She looked at her watch before responding. “I think so.”
Harvath searched the truck for a piece of paper and something to write with. When he found them, he scribbled down a Web address and several strings of numbers. Handing it to her, he explained what he wanted her to do.
Maggie listened, studying what looked like a list of serial numbers, and repeated back his instructions. “That’s it?” she ended by saying.
“That’s it,” Harvath replied. “When you get the confirmation, write it down and then come back to the ranch.”
Maggie checked her watch again. “What are you ordering anyway, in the middle of the night? I don’t understand. How do you even know somebody will be there to get it?”
“They’ll be there. Don’t worry.”
She shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head. “The bars will be closing soon. What do you want to do about the staff coming back?”
“As long as they steer clear of the guesthouse, we’ll be okay.”
“They will. They may continue drinking in one of their casitas, but you won’t see any of them on the main property until morning.”
“What about you? How long until you’re back?”
She thought about it for a moment. “I have some friends who live about halfway into town. Figure it’ll take me about twenty minutes to get there, twenty minutes back, plus however long it takes me to roust them out of bed and place your order. Are you sure I can’t call to give them a heads-up?”
Harvath shook his head. “No. Don’t use the phone. In fact, I want you to take the battery out of your cell phone right now.”
He watched as Maggie shook her head and did as he asked. “Thank you,” he said. “Don’t stop for anything. I’ll see you in about an hour.”
Without waiting for a response, he then put the truck in gear, pulled a U-turn, and headed back to the ranch.
When he got there, he parked in back of the vehicle storage building. He would have to work fast.
A set of tall double doors led into a wide concrete bay with stainless steel tables, overhead cable hoists, gambrel systems, and a narrow channel that fed into multiple floor drains. Off to the side of the game-processing area was the walk-in freezer.
He spotted a game cart and in a cabinet behind it, a stack of large game bags. After tracking down an apron and a pair of heavy rubber gloves, he exited the building, loaded everything into the Denali, and headed back toward the guesthouse.
His first stop was the stand of maples. The sniper was right where he had left him. Dead weight was always a pain in the ass to move, and he hadn’t been able to get the truck right up close. After slipping on the apron and the rubber gloves, he packed the corpse in a game bag and used the cart to wheel it over to the Denali.
Bending down, he slung the body over his right shoulder, stood up, and manhandled it in the cargo area. The two other corpses adjacent to the guesthouse were just as difficult. Pulling up next to each of the men, he mummy-wrapped them in game bags and hefted them into the SUV, then made sure he had gathered up all of their weapons. The last thing he had to take care of was the body inside the guesthouse.
Stepping inside, he found Nicholas and, surprisingly, Nina—who’d moved past her emetic horror—hard at work in the master bedroom.
The pair had already packed up Nicholas’s salvageable gear and stacked it along the east wall. Next to the nightstand were a mop, a bucket, and various cleaning products from the kitchen pantry.
Neither Nicholas nor Nina had done anything with the corpse of the last attacker, not that Harvath had expected them to. Nicholas was too small, and Nina wasn’t cut out for that kind of work. The man remained as he had died, propped up against the bed. One of them had draped a sheet over him. Where the blood had seeped through, it caused the sheet to cling and mold itself to those parts of the corpse.
“About that,” Nicholas said, seeing Harvath looking at the shrouded body.
Harvath held up his gloved hand. “I’ll take care of it. Just finish what you need to do.”
“What should we do about my damaged equipment?”
“Leave it. We’re only taking what we absolutely have to,” he replied. “I’ll ask Maggie to get rid of the rest. Is any of it traceable?”
“No,” said Nicholas. “It’s all clean and I’ve already pulled the drives.”
“What about Caroline’s flash drive?”
The little man tapped his right front pocket. “Good to go.”
Harvath stepped over to the bathroom and held the door for Nina. “I’ll try to be as quick as I can. You may want to wait in here.”
He didn’t need to tell her why he wanted her out of the room for a few moments. She knew what his role was the minute he appeared with the gloves and the butcher’s apron.
Once she had stepped into the bathroom, he closed the door, retrieved the game cart he had left in the hallway, and wheeled it in.
“What are you going to do with the bodies?” Nicholas asked.
“If we had time, we’d drive them to a remote corner of the ranch, dig the biggest hole we could, and cap it with a thick layer of cement.”
“And seeing as how we don’t have time?”
“Plan B.”
Nicholas didn’t bother to ask what plan B was. Instead, he stood back and watched as Harvath tucked the corpse into a game bag and cinched it shut. Hefting the body onto the cart, he said, “Get Nina to help you pile whatever gear you’re taking near the front door. As soon as that’s done, scrub the hell out of the floor. Make sure there isn’t a drop of blood left anywhere in here.”
The little man put on a good show, but Harvath could tell that, like Maggie, he was a bit shaken. Nicholas flashed him a thumbs-up, and Harvath disappeared through the door, wheeling the last corpse.
Outside, he hoisted the body into the back of the SUV with the others and returned to the guesthouse. As fast as Nicholas and Nina could stack the Storm cases near the front door, Harvath snatched them up and piled them on the roof. He ran a length of cord through the handles and secured them all to the rack. After giving everything a quick tug to make sure it would remain in place, he took off for the recreation building.
CHAPTER 44
Daylight was still two hours off when the first strains of the Pilatus PC-12 turboprop aircraft began to be heard circling above the ranch.
Harvath flashed the lights of the Denali. Maggie threw the switch and illuminated the landing strip. The pair had already said their good-byes, and Harvath had coached her on how to report the bodies at the trough. She was savvy enough to understand why he didn’t want her watching him loading the plane. It was for her own good.
After the white-and-blue aircraft touched down, it turned around at the end of the runway and taxied back to where the party was standing.
Pulling up alongside their stack of gear, the plane came to a stop and its single turbine engine spun down. After the main door was opened and the air stairs unfolded, a clean-shaven man in his early fifties stepped out.
He had thick brown hair and was wearing a den
im shirt, khakis, and a pair of work boots. He studied the group amassed beside the runway, along with their gear and the two enormous white dogs, then gave Harvath a wave.
Harvath waved back and watched as the sinewy pilot descended the stairs.
The man crossed the tarmac and Harvath stuck his hand out. “Thanks for coming, Mike.”
The pilot wrapped him in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground. “You’re damn right I came. I always told you I would. I just didn’t think it’d be in the middle of the night.” Letting go, he stood back in order to take everyone in again. “Good Lord, if this isn’t a great group of passengers.” Looking down at Nicholas he added, “How the heck are you doing? You ready to go flying?”
Mike Strieber was a character. Quick to tell a joke, as well as to find the humor in any kind of situation, his happy-go-lucky personality was infectious.
Born and raised in San Antonio, he had joined the Marines after securing his engineering degree, because he wanted to kick ass and fly planes. He flew all sorts of aircraft before deciding that it wasn’t planes he really wanted to fly but helicopters. In his indomitable fashion, Strieber went after his new goal with everything he had.
As it turned out, he made an excellent helo pilot and was eventually tasked to Marine Helicopter Squadron One, also known as HMX-1, the squadron responsible for flying the President, Vice President, cabinet members, and other VIPs. It was while Harvath was on the President’s Secret Service detail that he and Strieber had met and become friends.
When Strieber retired from the Marines and HMX-1, he decided to return to his engineering roots. He had an idea for a tactical flashlight that he thought might be pretty good. Once again, he went after his goal with everything he had and created quite a name for himself.
Strieber flashlights, as well as a very creative line of knives he had begun producing, were in such demand with the military, police, and private citizens, that Mike ran his people and his fabricating shop around the clock. With U.S. troops deployed in so many different time zones, he always made sure he had someone checking their website and e-mails 24/7. He was fanatical about customer service. It was just the way he was and his success reaffirmed it. Harvath had had no doubt that the coded message he’d scribbled down for Maggie would get through to him. The words may not have made any sense to her, nor did the latitude and longitude coordinates that looked like serial numbers, but Mike had had no problem figuring it all out.