by Brad Thor
Even so, he was smart enough to realize that with every attack he carried out, the odds of his being captured or killed were increasing.
Roussard wanted to skip to the end of the list, but his handler wouldn’t hear of it. Their relationship was growing strained. Their last conversation in Mexico had ended with the normally calm and collected Roussard shouting and hanging up.
When they spoke a couple of hours later, Roussard’s temper had cooled but he was still angry. He wanted Harvath to pay for what he had done, but there were other ways to do it. Vengeance should be bigger and more extreme. No survivors should be left behind. The people close to Harvath should die, and he should feel and see their blood upon his hands for the rest of his life.
Finally, his handler had relented.
Roussard watched as the last aerialists of the day climbed the stairs for their final jumps. It was time.
Carefully, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked down to the edge of the pool. The lack of security at the park amazed him. Spectators and staff smiled and said hello to him as he passed, none of them suspecting at all the horror he would shortly unleash.
The first device was packed inside a long sandwich roll and then wrapped in a Subway foods wrapper. It went into a trash receptacle near the main gate to the pool.
From there, Roussard calmly let himself in through the unlocked gate and headed toward the locker room. He was a chameleon, and 99 percent of his disguise came from his attitude. He had nailed the mountain casual, resort-town look perfectly. The ubiquitous iPod, T-shirt, jeans, and Keens—they all came together with his air of purpose in such a way that anyone who looked at him assumed that he either was a skier or worked for the park. In short, no one bothered Philippe Roussard because he looked like he belonged there.
In the locker room, Roussard quickly and carefully placed the rest of the devices. When he was done, he let himself out an unalarmed emergency exit and headed for the parking lot.
He placed the buds of the iPod into his ears, donned his silver helmet, and left the glass bottle with his calling card note where investigators should find it.
Firing up the 2005 Yamaha Yzf R6 sportbike he had stolen across the border in Wyoming, Roussard pulled out of the parking lot and slowly wound his way down the mountain.
Nearing the bottom, he pulled over and waited.
When the first of his explosions detonated, Roussard scrolled through his iPod, selected the music he wanted, revved his engine, and headed for the highway.
Chapter 43
SOMEWHERE OVER THE SOUTHWEST
G etting out of Mexico had been Harvath’s greatest concern. But once they were safely away, he traded one concern for another. After Finney’s jet had reached its cruising altitude and passed into U. S. airspace, a phone call came through.
Harvath and Parker listened as Finney chatted with Tom Morgan. He ended the call by telling his intel chief to send everything the Sargasso people had.
Finney then looked over at Harvath and said, “Scot, I’ve got some bad news.”
Harvath’s heart seized in his chest. Was it his mother? Tracy? He didn’t need to ask as Finney picked up a remote, activated the flat-panel monitor at the rear of the cabin, and tuned to one of the cable news programs.
Helicopter footage showed a raging fire with countless emergency vehicles gathered around one of the main buildings of the Utah Olympic Park that Harvath knew all too well. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Someone placed several pipe bombs packed with ball bearings throughout the U. S. Freestyle Ski Team training area. At least two went off in the locker room while the team was there.”
“Jesus,” replied Parker. “Do they have casualty estimates yet?”
“Morgan’s emailing them now,” said Finney. “But it’s not good. So far they haven’t found any survivors.”
Harvath turned away from the television. He couldn’t watch any more. “What about the coaches?” he asked.
“Morgan’s sending everything he has,” responded Finney as he powered up his laptop and avoided Harvath’s gaze.
Harvath reached out and pulled the laptop away from Finney. “There’s a reason Morgan contacted you with this. What about the coaches?”
“You think this is connected?” asked Parker.
Harvath kept his eyes glued to Finney as he said, “The seventh plague of Egypt was hail mixed with fire.”
Parker was at a loss for what to say.
“Two of the coaches were my teammates,” said Harvath. “They were like family to me. I don’t want to wait for Morgan’s email. I want you to tell me what he said.”
Finney held Harvath’s gaze and replied, “Brian Peterson and Kelly Cook were pronounced dead at the scene along with nine other U. S. Ski Team members.”
Harvath felt as if he had been hit in the chest with a lead pipe. Part of him wanted to scream out Why? But he knew why. It was about him.
The more pressing question was, when was it going to stop? That, too, had an equally simple answer—when he put a bullet between the eyes of whoever was responsible for all of this.
He regretted losing Palmera. The idiot had run right out into the street and had gotten himself killed.
Not that it made much difference. They could have been there all night. If and when Palmera had cracked, his information wouldn’t have been worth anything, because he obviously wasn’t the man they were after. Someone else on that list was, and Harvath was determined to track him down before he could strike again. But time was obviously running out.
Chapter 44
SARGASSO INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM
ELK MOUNTAIN RESORT
MONTROSE, COLORADO
T om Morgan finished his presentation by playing the CCTV footage from the San Diego Marriott and the Utah Olympic Sports Park in a split screen on a monitor at the front of the Sargasso conference room. “Though we don’t have a shot of his face, the cops found a note with the same message as the other two crime scenes—That which has been taken in blood, can only be answered in blood. Everything here tells me we’re dealing with the same guy.”
Harvath agreed. “Let’s get that footage to both hospitals. Even though we don’t have his face, I’d feel better about my mother and Tracy knowing their security people were keeping an eye peeled for this guy.”
“We’re going to send some of our guys out too,” replied Finney.
“What do you mean?” asked Harvath.
“We’ve handpicked two teams to cover your mom and Tracy,” answered Parker.
Harvath looked at him. “That would cost a fortune. I can’t ask you guys to do that.”
“It’s already done,” replied Finney with a smile. “The sooner you catch the asshole who’s responsible for all of this, the sooner I can bring my guys back and put them on a gig that actually pays.”
“I owe you,” said Harvath.
“Yeah, you do, but we’ll take that up later. For right now, we need to figure out what our next move is going to be.”
It was a word Harvath didn’t want to hear, much less acknowledge. This was not our move, as Finney had put it. It was his move—Harvath’s. He loved Finney and Parker like brothers, but he preferred working alone. He could move faster and there was less to worry about. While Finney and Parker had been a big help to him in Mexico, he couldn’t put them at risk anymore.
He was already struggling under a mountain of guilt. He needed to start compartmentalizing his life—firewalling off everyone he could from danger, and that included Tim Finney and Ron Parker.
Turning to Tom Morgan, Harvath asked, “What do we know about the three remaining names on the list?”
Morgan handed folders to everyone and then opened a file on his computer. The CCTV footage on the monitor disappeared and was replaced with three head-and-shoulder silhouettes, with names and nationalities underneath. “Not much. Scattered intelligence references. A smattering of aliases. Little to no known contacts. What I could find is in the fo
lder. I’m afraid it looks like we’re going to be at the mercy of the Troll for running these three down.”
“Have you put them through our domestic databases?” asked Harvath as he studied the screen and set his folder on the table.
“Yes,” replied Morgan, “but I can’t find any visas, visa applications, airline tickets, or anything else that suggests any of them have recently entered the United States.”
Harvath wasn’t surprised. “This guy isn’t going to leave a trail.”
Morgan nodded.
“Then do you think Mexico was a red herring?” asked Finney.
“I think we wanted Mexico to equal two plus two,” said Harvath, “but it wasn’t that easy.”
“So is the Troll playing us?”
Harvath shook his head. “I think we jumped the gun. We have no idea which way our guy went after he left the San Diego Harbor. He might even have stayed within the U. S. But in our minds, Mexico made the most sense, and when the Troll handed us Palmera, we jumped.”
“So?”
“So maybe we shouldn’t jump anymore.”
“You went with your gut,” clarified Parker. “You didn’t jump. Instinct is part of good investigative technique.”
“Yeah? So is evidence,” replied Harvath.
“Well, this guy doesn’t leave a lot of evidence behind.”
“Let’s face it,” said Finney, “we’re not being left with anything.”
Harvath studied the countries of origin of the remaining three men on their list: Syria, Morocco, and Australia. According to the Troll, one of those men was responsible for three horrific attacks, and there was every reason to believe there’d be more. Since whoever was preying upon the people close to Harvath was tying the attacks to the ten plagues of Egypt, Harvath wondered if maybe the answer lay within the plagues themselves.
Then again, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it all had something to do with Egypt as a country. Still, there was no making sense out of any of it. And what terrified him was that there were six plagues left. Would this nut job combine them as he had with his mother? Or would they each be loosed individually? And behind all of it, what did the president have to do with releasing the four from Gitmo in the first place? Surely a release of this magnitude couldn’t have happened without his knowledge.
Gathering up the folder and his notes, Harvath excused himself from the conference room and went to Tom Morgan’s office.
He needed to check on his mother and Tracy. He dialed his mother’s hospital first. She was awake and he spent twenty minutes talking with her, reassuring her that everything was going to be all right and that he’d be back out to see her as soon as he could. As he was preparing to say good-bye, another of his mother’s friends arrived at her room, and he was heartened by the fact that she wasn’t alone. It would have been better if he could be there, but he couldn’t be in two places at once.
He clicked over to a new line and called the hospital in Falls Church, Virginia. Tracy’s parents had already gone back to their hotel for the night. Her nurse, Laverna, was on duty, and she gave Harvath a full update on her condition. It wasn’t good. While her overall condition had not changed, small signs were materializing that suggested her situation was beginning to deteriorate.
Glancing at the fly-fishing scene on Tom Morgan’s wall, Harvath asked Laverna for a favor. When she held the phone up to Tracy’s ear, he began to tell her about the wonderful vacation the two of them were going to take as soon as she got better.
Chapter 45
L eaning back in Morgan’s desk chair, Harvath closed his eyes. There had to be something he wasn’t seeing, some sort of thread strung just beneath the surface of everything.
At this point, he knew of only one man who could answer his questions. Though already rebuffed by him once, Harvath decided enough had changed to warrant trying again. Picking up the phone, Harvath dialed the White House.
He knew better than to ask for the president directly. No matter how much Rutledge liked him, he had multiple layers in place to prevent direct access. The best Harvath could hope for would be to reach the president’s chief of staff, and even then there was no knowing when or if Charles Anderson would pass the message along to the president.
He needed someone he could trust and someone who would get the president on the line right away. That someone was Carolyn Leonard, head of Jack Rutledge’s Secret Service detail.
Getting to an agent while she was working, much less getting her to step away from active protection to take a phone call, was a near impossible task. When Carolyn Leonard picked up the phone, she wasn’t happy. “You’ve got five seconds, Scot.”
“Carolyn, I need to speak with the president.”
“He’s not available.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in the cement mixer,” replied Leonard, using the Secret Service codename for the Situation Room.
“Carolyn, please. This is important. I know who carried out the attack on the U. S. Olympic facility in Park City today.”
“Give it to me and I’ll have it run down.”
Harvath took a deep breath. “I can’t do that. Listen, I need you to tell the president that you have me on the line and that I have important information for him regarding today’s attack. He’ll want to hear what I have to say. Trust me.”
“The last time I let a man slip that one past me I ended up pregnant with twins.”
“I’m being serious. People’s lives are at stake here.”
Carolyn thought for a moment. Harvath was clearly violating the chain of command. He had come to her as a shortcut, which meant that either time was of the essence or other avenues were unavailable.
He was a legend in the Secret Service, and his heroism and patriotism were above reproach, but Harvath was also known as a shoot-from-the-hip maverick who often chucked the rule book in favor of expediency. His “ends justifies the means” way of doing business had also become legendary in the Secret Service and was always held up as an example of what not to do.
Often, Harvath was characterized as having more balls then brains, and agents were admonished not to follow his example. It had been made crystal clear throughout the organization that Harvath’s success as a U. S. Secret Service agent had been due more to luck than anything else.
Leonard’s ass was on the line. Her job was to protect the president, not to decide what phone calls should get passed through to him. Going to the president with this would clearly be overstepping her bounds and could very well lead to a demotion, transfer, or worse.
“Scot, I could get fired for this,” she said.
“Carolyn, the president is not going to fire you. He loves you.”
“As did, supposedly, my ex-husband who left me with said twins, a mortgage, and over twenty-five thousand in credit card debt.”
“For all I know, Jack Rutledge may be on this whackjob’s list as well. Please, Carolyn, this guy is a killer and he needs to be stopped. I need your help.”
Leonard had always liked and admired Harvath. Regardless of what the powers that be said about him, he was a man who got things done, and never once had his motives been questioned. Everyone at the Secret Service knew that he put his country before all else. If there was ever someone more deserving of a favor, Leonard had never met him. “Hold on. I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 46
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
F our and a half minutes later, Jack Rutledge picked up the phone. “Scot, I heard about your mother and I want to let you know how incredibly sorry I am.”
Harvath let his silence speak for him.
“Agent Leonard tells me you have information about today’s bombing that I should know about,” continued the president. “She says you know who’s behind it.”
“It’s the same person who shot Tracy Hastings and who put my mother in the hospital.”
Rutledge’s blood began to boil. “I told you to stay out of this.”
Harvath was inc
redulous. “While this guy continues to prey upon the people I care about? Two are in the hospital, two more are dead, and plenty of others who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time have been killed or injured. I’m sorry, Mr. President, I can’t just stay out of this. I’m right in the middle of it.”
Rutledge struggled to remain calm. “Scot, you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Why don’t you help me? Let’s start with that group of detainees you released from Guantanamo Bay a little over six months ago.”
Now it was the president’s turn to be silent. After a long pause, he spoke very carefully. “Agent Harvath, you’re treading on extremely thin ice.”
“Mr. President, I know about the radioisotope that was supposed to track them and I know it was found in the blood above my doorway. One of those men is sending a message by targeting the people close to me.”
“And my word that the people I have on this are doing all they can isn’t good enough for you?”
“No, Mr. President. It isn’t,” replied Harvath. “You can’t shut me out any more.”
Rutledge bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t have any choice.”
Harvath didn’t believe him. “You’re the president. How’s that possible?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss any of this with you. You need to obey my orders or else you and I are going to have a very big problem.”
“Then it looks like we’ve got a very big problem, because there’ve already been three attacks and they’re going to keep coming unless I do something.”
The president paused as his chief of staff slid him a note. When he was done reading it he said, “Scot, I need to put you on hold for a minute.”
Clicking over to the line where the director of Central Intelligence, James Vaile, was waiting, Rutledge said, “You’d better be calling me with some good news, Jim.”