by Brad Thor
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, I’m not. Actually, we’ve got a bit of a problem.”
“That seems to be par for the course today. What is it?”
“Are you alone?”
“No, why?”
“This has to do with Operation Blackboard.”
Blackboard was a codename the president had hoped never to hear uttered again, but ever since Tracy Hastings’s shooting it seemed to be all he and the DCI talked about.
Placing the receiver against his chest, Rutledge asked his chief of staff to clear the room and close the door behind him.
Once everyone was out, the president said, “Now I’m alone.”
Chapter 47
T he CIA director got right to the point. “Mr. President, you’ll recall that one of the Gitmo detainees exchanged in Operation Blackboard was a former Mexican Special Forces soldier turned Muslim convert who was helping to train Al Qaeda operatives. His name was Ronaldo Palmera.”
Though the president normally remembered only the most significant names in the war on terror, the names of the five men released from Guantanamo had all stayed with him. At the time, it was because he harbored a fear in the deepest recesses of his soul that the names would one day come back to haunt him. Suddenly it looked as if that fear was about to become reality. “What about him?”
“Palmera was struck and killed by a taxi cab in Querétaro, Mexico.”
“Good.”
“His wrists were Flexicuffed behind his back when it happened,” replied Vaile.
“Not so good, but from what I recall the man had a lot of enemies. He was an enforcer for some of the big drug cartels down there, correct?”
“Yes, Mr. President, but that’s not the problem. Apparently, Palmera jumped through a window and then ran out into the street. Three men, three white men,” Vaile added for emphasis, “were seen coming out of Palmera’s residence immediately afterward. One of them removed Palmera’s boots and then they disappeared.”
“Removed his boots?”
“Yes, sir. You’ll recall that Palmera was rumored to have made a pair of boots from the tongues of the Special Forces and CIA agents he killed in Afghanistan. When he was captured, we looked but never found the boots. He obviously had them stashed somewhere and picked them up after he was released from Guantanamo.”
“Obviously,” replied the president, who could feel an intense headache coming on. He looked down and saw the blinking light of the line where Harvath was sitting on hold. “So according to your information, three gringos were responsible for Palmera exiting his home, through a window, with his arms Flexicuffed behind his back, at which point he ran into traffic and was run down by a taxi cab.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Then one of these men removed Palmera’s boots and the trio fled the scene?”
“Exactly,” replied Vaile. “We think they may have come in via Querétaro’s international airport, and we’re working on getting hold of the aviation logs as well as customs information and security tape footage now. I don’t need to tell you what this is starting to look like.”
“I know exactly what it looks like. It looks like we broke our word. None of those men from Gitmo were supposed to be touched. Ever.”
“In all fairness, Mr. President, if we’d been able to track them, we might have been able to prevent this from happening.”
“I’m not going to rehash that, Jim,” replied the president, growing angrier. “Secretary Hilliman and the folks at DOD had every reason to believe the isotope tracking system would work. We still don’t know how the terrorists found out about it.”
“Well, they did. The blood transfusions probably began the minute that plane left Cuban airspace.”
They’d had this argument ad nauseam. The DOD blamed the CIA for losing the five terrorists released from Gitmo, and the CIA blamed the DOD for betting the farm on the isotope tracking system. Each was sure the other was where the leak about the ultrasecret tracking system had come from. The whole plan had been based upon being able to track the five men, and it had fallen apart. Now, it was coming back to haunt them all.
Switching gears, the president said, “How come I haven’t had any updates on your progress locating the terrorist stalking Harvath?”
“Because unfortunately there hasn’t been much progress. Not yet, at least.”
“Damn it, Jim. How the hell is that possible? You’ve got every available resource at your disposal. You told me the people you put on this were seasoned counterterrorism operatives. You promised me, and I promised Harvath, that this would be taken care of.”
“And it will be, Mr. President. We’re doing everything we can to hunt this guy down. We’ll get him, I assure you.”
Vaile was sounding like a broken record, but Rutledge let it go for the moment. He had other problems to deal with. “So how do we fix this problem in Mexico?”
“It’s going to take a lot of work. We’ll have to create a pretty damn convincing deception and even then I don’t know if it will fly. We were warned what would happen if anything befell any one of the five.”
The president didn’t need to be reminded of the penalty terms of their agreement. He’d been forced to make a deal with the devil, and he’d agonized over violating the nation’s first commandment in the war on terror. “Let’s just get to the bottom line here.”
“For starters,” replied the DCI, “we need to figure out who was chasing Palmera.”
The president once more looked down at the flashing light on his phone. “And then?”
“Then we make sure that person can in no way, shape, or form be associated with you, this administration, or the United States government,” replied Vaile.
“And then?”
“Then we pray to God the people we had to deal with six months ago don’t see right through us and make good on their threats.”
Chapter 48
SARGASSO INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM
ELK MOUNTAIN RESORT
MONTROSE, COLORADO
H arvath hung up the phone in utter disbelief. He had no idea who the president had spoken to while he’d had him on hold, but when Jack Rutledge got back on the line he was beyond angry, and their conversation went from bad to worse.
The president told him point-blank to back off the investigation, and when Harvath refused, the president said he had no choice but to order his arrest on grounds of treason.
Treason? Harvath was shocked. How could trying to save the lives of people who were important to him, people who were American citizens, be an act of treason?
The president gave him twenty-four hours to get back to D. C. and turn himself in. “And if I don’t?” Harvath had asked.
“Then I cannot and will not be responsible for your well-being,” Rutledge had answered.
And there it was. The cards were all on the table and Harvath now knew exactly where he stood.
He ended his conversation with the president by saying, “I guess we’ve each got to do what we feel is right,” and hung up the phone.
It was a moment Harvath could never have foreseen. The president of the United States had actually threatened his life. It was incomprehensible—just as incomprehensible as being labeled a traitor. For a moment, Harvath wondered if this was all some sort of bad dream, but the stark reality of the situation was too much to be anything but real.
His standing was now clear. In spite of years of selfless service to his country, he was disposable. His expertise, his track record, even his loyalty, were nothing more than items on a balance sheet to be weighed and disposed of at will.
Though Harvath wanted to give the president the benefit of the doubt, he could not bring himself to; not now. Not after having been taken into the president’s confidence so many times in the past. Never once had Harvath betrayed that confidence. His loyalty and his discretion were above reproach, but those apparently mattered little if at all anymore to Jack Rutledge.
Harvath felt betrayed and abandoned
. The president had actually chosen the terrorists over him. It was absolutely surreal.
Be that as it might, the one thing Harvath didn’t feel was hopeless. The president could threaten him with arrest for treason, or worse, but the threats carried weight only if he got caught. And with a twenty-four-hour head start, the last thing he planned on doing was being apprehended.
Looking down at the folder he’d put on Tom Morgan’s desk, he pulled out the latest smattering of data he’d been given before leaving the conference room.
As he studied the list of aliases used by the released detainees, he came across one that he actually knew from his past, but it had belonged to a man he had killed and whom he had most definitely watched die. There was no way he could still be alive. The discovery could only mean one thing. Somebody was using his alias.
Chapter 49
T hree and a half hours later, Harvath spoke into his headset and said, “You’re positive?”
“Yes,” replied the Troll, who went over the information again. “Abdel Salam Najib is a Syrian intelligence operative who has been known to use the alias Abdel Rafiq Suleiman.”
Najib was the third name on the list, and the Suleiman alias had originally belonged to the man Harvath had killed. “What about Tammam Al-Tal?” he asked.
“Also Syrian intelligence and Najib’s handler. That’s the connection you were looking for, isn’t it?” asked the Troll.
“Maybe,” said Harvath, not wanting to give anything away to the Troll. “I want you to forward us everything you pulled on both Najib and his handler, Al-Tal.”
“I’ll send it now.”
Harvath logged off his computer, removed his headset, and turned to face his colleagues.
“You want to explain this to me?” asked Finney as he interlaced his thick fingers behind his head and stared at Harvath.
“On October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes Benz delivery truck packed with explosives drove out to the Beirut International Airport. The First Battalion Eighth Marines of the U. S. Second Marine Division had established their headquarters there as part of a multinational peacekeeping force sent to oversee the withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon.
“The driver of the truck circled the parking lot just outside the Marine compound and then stepped on the gas. He plowed through the barbed wire fence on the perimeter of the parking lot, flew between two sentry posts, went through a gate, and rammed his vehicle into the lobby of the Marine HQ.”
“Why didn’t the sentries shoot this idiot?” asked Finney.
“They weren’t allowed to use live ammo,” replied Parker, who had lost a good friend that day. “The politicians were afraid an accidental discharge might kill a civilian.”
When Parker didn’t add any more, Harvath continued. “According to one Marine who survived the attack, the driver was smiling as he slammed his truck into the building.
“When he detonated his explosives the force was equivalent to over twelve thousand pounds of TNT. The rescue effort took days and was hampered by continual sniper fire. In the end, 220 Marines, eighteen Navy personnel, and three Army soldiers were killed. Sixty additional Americans were wounded. It was the highest single-day death toll for Marines since World War II and the battle of Iwo Jima. It’s also the deadliest attack on U. S. forces overseas post-World War II, but what’s most interesting from a counterterrorism viewpoint is that, kamikaze pilots notwithstanding, the attack on the Marine compound was the first real suicide bombing in history.”
Finney was speechless. He was familiar with the story, but not in such detail.
“We never knew exactly who was responsible, so aside from a few shells we lobbed at Syria, there never was any concrete response,” stated Harvath. “Now fast forward to about five years ago and a man named Asef Khashan.
“Khashan was extremely adept at guerilla warfare and the use of high explosives courtesy of training he had received from Syrian intelligence.
“He was a driving force within the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization and reported directly to Damascus. When the United States uncovered information that Khashan had been directly involved in the planning and staging of the 1983 bombing, it was decided it was time for him to take an early retirement.”
Parker looked at Harvath from across the table and said, “And you were sent in to give him his pink slip.”
Harvath nodded.
Finney unclasped his hands and removed the pen he had tucked behind his ear. Pointing at the screen in the front of the room he said, “So this guy Najib is after you for what you did to Khashan?”
“If I’m right,” said Harvath, “then sort of.”
“What do you mean sort of?”
“The actual connection between Najib and Khashan is via their handler, Tammam Al-Tal. Khashan was one of his best operatives. Some say that he was like a son to Al-Tal. When Khashan was killed, Al-Tal placed a bounty on my head.”
“If this was a covert operation, how’d he know you were involved?”
“We used a Syrian military officer the U. S. had on its payroll to help track down Khashan,” replied Harvath. “I never gave him my real name, but he had compiled a dossier on me with surveillance photos and other pieces of information from our meetings. When he was indicted for embezzlement not long after, he tried to use the dossier as a bargaining chip. The dossier eventually made its way to Al-Tal, who used all of his resources to connect a name to my photos. The rest is history.”
“Did Al-Tal have anything to do with the attack?” asked Parker.
“We could never uncover enough evidence to prove whether he was directly involved. There is a mounting pile of evidence, though, that Al-Tal has been helping coordinate the sell-off of the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein stashed in their country shortly before we invaded.”
“How much is the bounty he put on you?”
“Somewhere around $150,000 U.S.,” answered Harvath. “Allegedly, it represents the bulk of Al-Tal’s life savings, and due to his willingness to expend said life savings to fund my demise, the powers that be in Washington removed Syria and Lebanon from my area of operations.”
“It would seem that we’ve got more than enough to believe that Al-Tal is behind the attacks on Tracy, your mom, and the ski team,” said Finney. “Do you have any idea where he is?”
“He’s undergoing treatments in Jordan for stage-four lung cancer.”
“With the end drawing near,” stated Parker, “he’s probably even more determined to take you out.”
Harvath tilted his head in response as if to say, Maybe.
“But what does Najib’s alias have to do with Al-Tal?”
Harvath looked across the table at Parker. “Abdel Rafiq Suleiman was the alias Khashan was using when I tracked him down to a Hezbollah safe house just outside Beirut.”
“So?”
“Al-Tal had given Khashan that alias.”
“It’s not uncommon for aliases to be recycled,” offered Morgan. “In some instances, a lot of time and money goes into building them. If a previous operative wasn’t too high profile, an agency or a handler might decide to pass the alias on to another operative.”
At that moment, Harvath knew exactly how he was going to take down Abdel Salam Najib.
He was going to make his handler give him up on a silver platter.
Chapter 50
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
M ark Sheppard had returned home with the makings of an absolute bombshell. Mac Mangan, the Charleston County SWAT team leader, had turned out to be a better resource than he ever could have imagined.
Though Mangan had asked that their discussion after the tape recorder was turned off be “off the record,” Sheppard knew there would be no story without it. It had taken him a major chunk of the afternoon, but he had finally gotten the SWAT team leader to agree to be quoted as an anonymous source.
Something was very wrong about that shooting, and Mangan had no desire to increase his complicity in it any further than he
already had. The fact that a reporter from the Baltimore Sun had come all the way down to Charleston to talk to him about it told him he needed to start making things right.
Sheppard listened as the SWAT team leader recounted the events surrounding the takedown. It had all supposedly been coordinated via the FBI in D. C. But no one from the FBI’s Columbia, South Carolina, field office had been involved. The two agents who arrived to work with the SWAT team explained that the Columbia office was being purposely shut out. There was a concern that their fugitive had access to a person inside, and pending a full internal investigation, Charleston law enforcement was supposed to remain mum on the Bureau’s involvement in this takedown.
Sheppard had asked Mangan to describe the two FBI agents who had magically shown up from out of town with information leading to the subject’s location. They were the same men whom Tom Gosse had seen take the body from the ME’s office in Baltimore and who had threatened Frank Aposhian. The SWAT leader had described them to a tee, right down to the names they were using—Stan Weston and Joe Maxwell.
The “agents” were very convincing. They were polite, professional, and had all the right credentials. What’s more, they had come to apprehend a criminal who had threatened to kill a bunch of kids and whom the whole state was anxious to see brought to justice.
Mangan and his Charleston County SWAT team were called out, but were relegated to providing cover as Weston and Maxwell took the lead. The pair claimed they wanted to talk to the suspect in hopes of bringing him out alive. Shortly after they entered the house where he was holed up a brief, but fierce gun battle ensued.
Before the smoke had even cleared, Maxwell was at the door letting Mangan and his men know that the suspect had been killed and that they were going to need a meat wagon.
As the lead tactical officer on site, Mangan approached the house to survey the scene for his after-action report. Weston met him at the threshold and bodily blocked his entrance. The agent stated that he and his partner needed to collect evidence and that until they were done, the fewer people trampling the crime scene the better. Mangan didn’t like it. These guys were being a little too overprotective, and he made his feelings known loudly enough that Maxwell came to the door and told Weston to let the SWAT leader inside.