by Brad Thor
“Growing up on a farm in Grindelwald, you find lots of ways to amuse yourself.”
“I doubt you learned that kind of shooting on a farm. Help me get him all the way inside.”
Claudia was just as amazed as Scot at her own deadly accuracy because, in fact, she hadn’t aimed at the man’s head; she had been aiming at his chest. Either he moved or she moved, or they both did just at the last second. It really didn’t matter. What mattered was that the man had been neutralized before he could sound an alarm.
“We must be getting close. They wouldn’t have spread themselves too thin. There are probably three or four rooms that they’re using. They will be as close together as possible. Let’s get moving before anyone comes looking for this guy.”
Harvath checked the hallway, twice, before signaling to Claudia that it was safe to come out. They continued in the same direction, hugging a flat wall with no further doors. A group of crates were pushed up against the left-hand side, and they had to swing out to the right to get around them.
As soon as they stepped into the middle of the hallway, a yell broke out behind them. “Eindringlinge! Eindringlinge!” (Intruders!), followed by a spray of automatic weapon fire.
Scot grabbed Claudia and threw her behind the crates for cover and then landed right on top of her.
“I guess they know we’re here,” she said.
“You think so? Listen, I’ll take care of the guy with the big mouth, and you make sure nobody comes from the other direction.”
Harvath flipped on the laser sight, swung the MP5 around the side of the crates, and rolled out onto his stomach. The man at the other end of the corridor was on full auto, and the bullets sent pieces of gray-painted rock everywhere. Despite how close the shots were falling, Harvath focused his concentration, gently squeezed the trigger, and fired. The spray from the other end of the corridor came to an abrupt halt, and the man fell to the floor, dead.
That’s one down, he thought, but how many more to go?
“Scot, I think you’d better get back here,” said Claudia, immediately answering his question.
He rolled behind the crates and began hearing what Claudia had heard—footsteps, and lots of them, coming fast from the opposite direction. Claudia had the assault rifle ready to go. When the first of the men appeared around the corner, she let loose with a deafening round of fire. Everyone’s weapons to this point had been silenced, so the unsilenced SG551 Swiss SWAT assault rifle sounded like a rapidly booming cannon. The men retreated back around the corner.
“Now’s our chance. Let’s go.”
Harvath jumped up and pushed Claudia around the crates, in the direction they had originally come. Scot ran as best he could backward, guarding their six, as Claudia ran as fast as her legs would carry her forward. They came upon and passed right through the T intersection where they had been five minutes ago. Now they were running down the corridor to the right, opposite of all the other tunnels.
Only sporadic doors were visible along this passageway, and they were all locked. This hallway was carved much rougher than the others and seemed to be some sort of access or service tunnel. Eventually, it began to curve back around to the left. Scot and Claudia kept running.
Fifty meters later, the tunnel opened up onto a large cargo bay complete with overhead winches. Huge pallets stacked with food and bottled water sat in the middle of the otherwise empty room. Scot walked over to examine the pallets.
“Evian,” he said.
“There’s also French wine and Italian pastas,” said Claudia.
“Somebody’s got good taste.”
“But, how’d they get it in here?”
“That way,” said Scot, pointing to a set of railway tracks on the far side of the bay that led into a dark tunnel. “I’ll bet you a year’s worth of water that those tracks link up somehow with the cogwheel railway.”
At the far end of the pallets was a smaller pallet covered with a green canvas tarp. Scot walked over to it and drew it back. Underneath were crates of ammunition and wooden boxes filled with various weapons. The look on Claudia’s face said it all as she stepped closer.
“Let me guess,” said Harvath. “Your stolen weapons.”
“Yes. I don’t know why I’m going to say this, but I can’t believe it.”
“Well, that takes care of everything on your Christmas list. Now for mine. Where’s that U.S. president I asked for?”
From behind the pallet closest to Claudia, the groundsman sprang up and placed the point of his pistol against her temple. “That is not part of the tour, I’m afraid,” he said.
Harvath’s eyes bored into the man, and he tightened the grip on his MP5.
“I suggest you drop your weapons,” said the groundsman.
Claudia hesitated until he grabbed her left arm and gave it a good, strong jerk. She let her assault rifle clatter to the floor.
Scot also hesitated, but then set the H&K down gently.
“Very good,” the groundsman said, as he ran his hands along Claudia’s body. He found her holster and removed the SIG-Sauer. “And what about you?” said the killer, indicating he was speaking to Harvath. “You American cowboys never only have one weapon. I should expect at least five or six, no? Let’s go. Out with the rest of them!” He kept a firm grip on Claudia’s arm as he pointed his pistol at Scot to emphasize the seriousness of his point.
“You know,” began Harvath, “I really hate it when people point things at me. It doesn’t matter whether it’s guns, knives, or…now, Claudia!”
Harvath dove for the deck on the off chance an involuntary spasm might cause the pistol the killer had trained on him to go off. Claudia clumsily drove the blade of her knife deep into the side of her captor’s throat and stepped back. He clutched ineffectively at the blade, falling to his knees in agony. As the blood gushed from his neck, all that was visible of the knife was the bone handle.
Claudia rushed to Scot, who pulled her into his arms. “You okay?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“Not bad, but remind me to teach you sometime the correct way to use one of those things.”
Claudia stared at the man, who had killed so many in his lifetime, lying on the floor dying. “My grandfather gave me that knife. I never climbed without it.”
Scot was about to say that he liked Claudia’s grandfather more and more with each passing minute, but he didn’t get the chance. A group of men emerged from the access tunnel and began shooting.
Claudia tried to reach for her assault rifle, but Scot pulled her away.
“There’s no time. Let’s move!” he yelled, grabbing her hand and running toward the opposite end of the cargo bay. The pallets provided some cover at first, but the bullets got closer and closer as they broke into the open and ran for the nearest hallway.
79
Between the two of them, the only weapon they had left was Scot’s Beretta. Out of habit, he examined the clip and drew back the slide to check the chamber. He had sixteen shots, semiautomatic. Not much against a group of men carrying submachine guns, but it was better than nothing. He and Claudia kept running.
They came to another intersection, and before they knew what was happening, two men with H&Ks appeared from around a corner. Scot dropped to one knee, and Claudia hid behind him. He fired three shots at each man, taking them both down in a roar of gunfire that echoed throughout the tunnel. Scot and Claudia were deafened by the blasts from the Beretta and couldn’t hear the men from the cargo bay coming down the hall behind them, but Scot sensed it.
He whirled, and managed to keep Claudia protected as he fired again from his crouched position. The bullets didn’t find their targets as quickly this time, and he pulled the trigger repeatedly until, finally, one man fell and then another. Scot yanked Claudia to her feet and pushed her down the corridor. They came to another intersection.
“Which way?” she yelled.
Scot pointed left and they ran. Thirty meters later they hit another intersecti
on. Scot glanced quickly behind them and motioned for Claudia to go right. They did, and Claudia stopped dead in her tracks.
She wasn’t sure what she noticed first, the man or the smell. Fifteen feet in front of them was a man dressed in desert fatigues with an Arabian-style headdress. Only his eyes were visible, but even then, they were shaded by the fabric. In his right hand, he held a model 61 Skorpion machine pistol, and it was pointed right at them.
Scot, who was right behind Claudia and had almost bumped into her when she stopped so suddenly, reached his left hand out for her waistband, knowing the man in front of them couldn’t see it.
“Drop your pistol on the floor!” Scot yelled.
Harvath hoped Claudia understood what he was going to do, or they were both dead for sure. He gave her waistband the first tug as if to say, one. Then came another tug, two. Claudia nodded her head ever so slightly as if to say she understood, and on tug three she let her legs go limp, and the two of them dropped.
Scot’s first shot went off just as he was hitting the floor and missed the man’s head by a fraction of a centimeter. His next shot was dead-on, right between the eyes, and the man went down. Scot’s pistol was empty, and he let it fall where he lay.
The man had been sitting at a small wooden desk across the hall from a large metal door. On the desk was a ring of keys. Harvath stepped over the man to grab the keys and almost had to pinch his nose from the stench of body odor. Fucking Middle Easterners. Why hadn’t some of them ever heard of showers?
Scot had been convinced that neither Abu Nidal, nor his FRC was involved with this whole mess, but now it looked as though he might have been wrong. Or had he? Harvath reached down and yanked off the headdress. Underneath was the head of a man with blue eyes and blond hair who looked more Swiss than Heidi of the mountains herself. Scot glanced at Claudia, whose face was registering the same bewilderment as his own. Why pose as a Middle Easterner? What’s the point?
With the keys in his hand, Scot motioned to Claudia to pick up the Skorpion.
“Cover me,” he said.
Claudia nodded and looked both ways up and down the hallway.
Approaching the door, he noticed a shelf had been built directly to the left and on it sat a box. Wires ran from the box up the wall and above the door. Booby trap? Very gently, Harvath opened the box and looked inside. What he saw made absolutely no sense at all—a tape recorder. He pushed the play button and he heard a faint wailing sound coming from the unit’s built-in speaker. It was a Muslim call to worship. Even more bizarre.
Above the door, was another box with some sort of fan unit pointing toward whatever lay on the other side. Scot dragged the creaky wooden desk chair around the body and beneath the box so he could check out this other mysterious item.
Once again, he eased off the lid. Immediately he was sorry. It was like being punched in the face. The stench was horrible. There was only one thing in the world that smelled like that—camel shit.
The two boxes were not booby traps. They were meant to annoy the hell out of whoever was on the other side of that door, and Scot was finally sure of one thing. He knew exactly whom he’d find inside.
He gave the door a last once-over and also checked beneath the desk for any hidden wiring or switches. There were none. Claudia stood ready with the machine pistol as Scot found the correct key and turned it in the lock.
As the door opened, Harvath was greeted with a hot gust of air and the terrible smell of camel feces. The temperature had to be at least thirty degrees higher than in the hallway. The room was dark, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust. The walls had been treated to look like sandstone, the floor was covered with straw, and there, sitting in the corner, his hand in a dirty bandage, was the president.
He was dressed in the simple robes Harvath had seen on so many Arab peasants during missions in the Mideast. The same type of robes the members of operation Rapid Return had been wearing when they were all killed. The light from the open door hurt the president’s eyes, and Scot maneuvered himself in front of it to help shield the glare.
“What do you want? If you’ve got my food, then leave it. If you’re going to take another finger, then get it over with!” said the president. His voice reflected how drained he was.
“Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore, Mr. President,” said Scot.
Rutledge lifted his hand to his forehead and tried to peer into the light. “Who is it? Who’s there?” he asked feebly, too forlorn to even hope that a rescue had been achieved.
“It’s Secret Service Agent Harvath, sir. You’re going home.”
“I seriously doubt that,” said a voice as Claudia was struck in the back of the head and thrown in a heap across the floor, landing next to the president.
Scot spun just in time to see Gerhard Miner bring the machine pistol down hard across the top of his head.
Harvath’s knees buckled and gave out. He fell to the ground and before he could catch his breath, Miner kicked him hard in the jaw, sending him reeling backward.
“Do you know how many of my men you have killed? Do you have any idea what an incredible inconvenience you have been?”
While he ranted, Miner kicked Harvath repeatedly in the ribs. “Some of the finest men I assembled for this mission are dead. I worked tirelessly, thinking of everything, and then you come along and ruin it all.”
The blows fell again and again. Scot was unable to breathe. The man was going to kill him, and then Claudia, even Rutledge. Scot was seeing stars, the blow to his head had been incredibly painful. He needed to do something now, or it would be too late.
As Miner drew his foot back and came forward for the next kick, Scot was ready for him and grabbed at his ankle in mid-strike.
“Do you honestly think I am that stupid, Agent Harvath?” said Miner, who’d anticipated the move, avoided it, and now pointed the Skorpion right at him. “You seem to have more lives than a cat, yet this is how it is going to end for you, and your president will be able to watch you fail him yet again. I would like to say it has been nice knowing you, but it hasn’t. As I said last time, I hope never to see you again. Now I will make sure that happens.”
Harvath started laughing.
“What’s so funny, Agent Harvath?”
“Ah, Gerry. If you only knew how much I hate having things pointed at me.”
Miner’s smug look of satisfaction was quickly replaced by fear as he was barreled sideways into the wall of the makeshift cell. Claudia had taken advantage of the fact that Miner was distracted and thought her unconscious to surprise him. He fell to the floor with the machine pistol in his hand, rolled, and struck Claudia full across the face. Once again, she fell in a heap along the floor, and this time Harvath knew she wasn’t faking.
Without wasting a moment more, Harvath fought back his dizziness to pounce on Miner. As Scot fought to subdue him, Miner struck him repeatedly with the gun. Harvath returned the favor with a knee to Miner’s groin, an elbow to his face, and an uppercut to his jaw. Harvath hammered at the man’s shoulder and reached for the hand that held the gun, which was once again swinging dangerously toward him.
Scot caught Miner by the wrist and drove it with incredible force into the area where the wall met the floor. He heard a snap as Miner let out a scream and his finger squeezed the trigger. The twenty-round magazine emptied in the blink of an eye. Bullets showered the room. Scot could only pray that neither Claudia nor the president had been hit. As he continued his assault Miner began to weaken, and Scot knew he had hurt him…badly.
He pounded the man relentlessly, the blows falling faster and with more ferocity. He pounded him for Agents Maxwell and Ahern and Houchins. He pounded him for the betrayal he had suffered at the hands of William Shaw and for the lives of his friend Natalie Sperando and her friend André Martin. He pounded Gerhard Miner for all of the innocent lives that had been lost, especially that of his best friend, Sam Harper. Miner was going to die, and Harvath was going to send him to hell an on express
train, all expenses paid.
Scot’s hands were covered in blood. He heard bone shatter as he landed his blows. His rage, guilt, and remorse drove him on like a madman. In the middle of it all, something called out to him, urged him back toward the shores of sanity. There was a hand on his shoulder, the president’s. He was speaking to him.
“Agent Harvath, that’s enough,” he rasped. “We need him alive. Come on now. He can’t hurt us anymore. Let up on him.”
The president was right. Scot slowly rolled off Miner and looked at the badly beaten body lying before him. He couldn’t tell if the man was breathing or not, and frankly, he didn’t care.
The president had begun to regain his equilibrium. Despite his haggard appearance, some of the stately confidence was back in his eyes.
“Are you okay, Mr. President? Can you make it on your own?”
“I’ll be okay. Let’s get her up.”
To Scot’s relief, Claudia was coming around. Her lip was split and bleeding, but at least she was responding. He put his arm around Claudia’s waist and struggled with her to the door. He was beyond the point of exhaustion. We’re almost there. Don’t give up, he told himself. Don’t give up.
“Mr. President,” said Scot, motioning toward Miner, “unless you’ve got an idea on how to get him out of here, we’re going to have to leave him. My mission is your safe evac, period.”
“You called the man Gerry. Do you know who he is?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President. He is a high-ranking member of Swiss intelligence.”
“Swiss intelligence? What’s he doing over here in the middle of the godforsaken desert?”
“Actually, sir. You are in a mountain in Switzerland.”
“Switzerland?”
“Yes, sir. For some reason—I don’t know why—they wanted you to believe you were being held by a Mideast terrorist group.”
“Fine. We’re in Switzerland; we’ll let the Swiss handle him. Let’s get out of here.”
“Yes, sir!”
Scot steered Claudia out the door and to the right. The president followed behind. Harvath had no idea if any of Miner’s men would be in front of them, but he knew they had to chance it. Going back the way they came didn’t seem like the best idea.