Takedown

by Brad Thor

  “You think this is all because you weren’t on point?”

  “A team leader leads, period.”

  “That’s bullshit, Bob, and you know it,” said Harvath. “Nobody can be on point all the time, not even you. That’s why the position gets rotated.”

  “But it was my turn to be up front.”

  “Yet you were humping the pack of an injured man. You can’t do both.”

  “Not anymore, apparently.”

  “Shit happens, Bob.”

  “Not to me it doesn’t and not to my team. We hadn’t even had so much as a hangnail in almost two years and then bang, three of us are out. One of my guys will never walk again, will never be able to make love to his wife, and the other one’s blind. He’ll never be able to watch his kids grow up. All of this because I wasn’t up front when I should have been.”

  Harvath knew Bob pretty well and he knew his reputation firsthand. In fact, most people in the Special Operations community knew it. Bob could carry an entire battalion on his back. He was an incredible athlete, and that athleticism made one of the best soldiers the United States had ever created. Since the day he’d joined the Army right out of high school, through his time as a Ranger and into 7th Group and then Delta, Bob had always led the way. It wasn’t an ego thing, it was just Bob—you couldn’t hold him back.

  The fact that he was taking the injuries of his teammates so personally was not surprising to Harvath. That was also the kind of guy Bob was. It was the way most American soldiers were. Truth, freedom, and the American way played well for the cameras, but the fact of the matter was that in the frenzied heat of combat, you weren’t fighting for your country, you were fighting for the guy right next to you.

  Looking his friend in the eyes, Harvath tried to assuage some of the man’s guilt by repeating, “Bob, shit happens.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But, it’s not the way I wanted to go out,” replied Herrington as he paused and took a long swallow of beer. “I wanted to go out on top. I would’ve liked just one more chance to prove not only to my team, but to myself that I could still do it—that what happened had nothing to do with me getting old, too slow.”

  Harvath was not going to let this become the tone for the entire weekend. Bob needed to snap the hell out of it. “You and your team competed in how many triathlons when you were home last year?”

  “Two.”

  “And the worst showing you had?”

  “Fifth place.”

  Harvath pretended to think about it for a moment and then responded, “You know, I think it probably was a good idea for the Army to cut you loose after all. I mean, only two top-ten international finishes? You’re obviously on a downhill slide.”

  Bob wasn’t looking at him, but Harvath could see the faint traces of a smile form on his face and he decided to push the humor a little further. “Jesus Christ, Bob, you’re forty years old. Someone oughtta be fitting you for false teeth and a new hip, not giving you a gun and sending you out on this nation’s most dangerous assignments. That’s what us young guys are for.”

  Herrington’s smile now spread from ear to ear. “First of all, you’re only four years younger than I am, and second, SEAL or no SEAL, I could whip your ass in a New York minute, so don’t get cocky. You’d have a hell of a time meeting women this weekend if I end up dotting both of your eyes for you.”

  Harvath was about to suggest Bob abandon the commando motto of silent, swift, and deadly in favor of senile, slow, and deaf, when Herrington looked up at the television and said, “That’s not good.”

  Harvath looked up and noticed that several NYPD Emergency Services Unit trucks had gathered at the site of the Bronx school standoff.

  “The ESU normally turns out in smaller trucks. Two per squad,” continued Herrington. “Those big rigs are their rolling armories. They don’t move those in unless the situation is really bad. I count at least four up there. That means four squads responding. This is no run-of-the-mill hostage situation.”

  Harvath knew that outside the military, the NYPD’s ESU was not only the largest full-time SWAT response group in the country, but also one of its absolute best. And while they were all brothers in arms, each squad preferred to work alone and only called in backup when it was absolutely necessary. Scenes of the Beslan school massacre in Russia began to race through Harvath’s mind. A school was a perfect terrorist target and an attack on one would have an unbelievable impact here in the States. Harvath often wondered why a terrorist group hadn’t tried it yet. The media coverage, as well as the communal American heartache would be off the charts.

  He was about to mention this to Bob, when one of the TV anchors cut in with two additional breaking news stories—a fire at New York City mayor David Brown’s Emergency Operations Command Center in Brooklyn and a sniper targeting aircraft out at LaGuardia in Queens.

  After listening to the reports, Herrington shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that somebody was skimming the cream. That school standoff in the Bronx has got to be one hell of an assault to get that many ESU squads there.”

  “Just like Beslan,” said Harvath.

  “For all we know,” Bob continued, “more squads are already en route. Then there’s the airport. They’ve got that place so gridded out they know every rooftop, draw, and grassy knoll within a two-mile radius that could accommodate a shooter. Anyone able to get inside that perimeter and stir up this kind of trouble has got to be a pro.”

  “Or this all might be just one really shitty day in New York.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “C’mon, Bob. Why would somebody want to tie up all those tactical teams?”

  At that moment, the TV station cut back to footage of the raging fire at the mayor’s Emergency Operations Command Center beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and Herrington replied, “Maybe for the same reason somebody would want to take out the city’s backup command-and-control facility.”

  “You don’t seriously think this is part of some larger attack, do you?” asked Harvath.

  “Who knows? But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be sitting in a bar in the middle of Times Square if it happens.”

  Ten

  Despite both the air-conditioning and the antiperspirant his handler had insisted he wear, Nassir Hamal’s purple Polo shirt clung to his sweat-covered body. All of the martyrs had been offered drugs—Valium, to be specific—in order to help them remain calm when the time came. The mullah from the mosque in New Jersey who had counseled them had assured them that taking the drugs would in no way jeopardize their entry into paradise. Though several of the others accepted the offer and tested the pills in advance to gauge their effects, Nassir had refused. He was confident that when the time came, he would meet his end with a heart made strong by his love of Islam. But now, as Nassir sat in the interminable traffic along 64th Street with nothing but his thoughts and a broken FM radio to keep him company, he wasn’t so sure.

  Looking at the cell phone on the seat beside him, he considered calling his handler, but then decided against it. They had stayed up all night together praying, reading verses from the Koran and talking about paradise as the others slept. His handler had become almost like an older brother to him, confiding in the younger man that the Prophet Mohammed himself, may peace be upon Him, had visited the handler in his sleep and had instructed him that Nassir be given one of the most important and most difficult of the assignments. It was an honor that Nassir accepted with the utmost sincerity and obligation to duty.

  Though he had not been allowed to say a proper good-bye to his mother and sister, both of whom had immigrated to the United States with him ten years prior, he hoped they would understand. He also hoped they would appreciate the annuity his handler had said each of the families of the martyrs would be receiving. Islam took care of its own—an attribute Nassir saw sorely lacking in the culture of the West.

  Regardless of how his family felt, in his heart Nassir knew he was doing the right thing. When he had be
en approached in his mosque on the north side of Chicago and asked if he wanted to study with a very wise and learned Imam visiting the city, Nassir had jumped at the chance. Disenchanted with a failed business, a failed marriage, and what he saw as his downtrodden American existence, he had looked everywhere until he found the one thing that filled the emptiness inside him—Islam.

  In time, he had thrown out his record collection, had stopped smoking, and was chastising his younger sister on a daily basis about the evils of dancing, the type of friends she associated herself with, and the revealing American clothes she wore. One day, she finally worked up the nerve to suggest that if he didn’t like America and its ways, then maybe he should go back to their home country. Nassir had seriously considered it, had even saved for a plane ticket and made arrangements to stay with extended family once he got back, but then the Imam had come into his life. After they had gotten to know each other he had suggested another idea—one that would require him to place the greater glory of Allah above his own self-pity and self-serving desires.

  As the traffic started moving again, Nassir swung the counterfeit FedEx van onto Third Avenue and headed south. A few blocks later, he saw his target. Without even thinking, he began reciting the special verses from the Koran that all of his fellow martyrs had been given to provide strength and courage for the moments ahead—the last moments any of them would ever know.

  Eleven

  It was 4:30 now and out on the street, most people were oblivious to anything but getting started with their holiday weekend. As he and Herrington walked away from Times Square, Harvath tried to make sense of what they were doing. A healthy bit of paranoia was a prerequisite in their business, but at what point did it become too much? The rational side of Harvath’s brain said leaving a perfectly well-stocked bar and an above-average looking bartender was that point, but his gut said Bob might be right on the money.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  Pointing south down Broadway, Bob said, “Times Square has gotta be pretty high on the terrorist hit parade. I know a good restaurant not far from the VA. Let’s go there.”

  “TheVA?You’ve spent enough time there as it is. Don’t you get sick of being anywhere near there?”

  “You’d be surprised. It’s not your grandfather’s VA anymore, Scot. They’ve come a long way.”

  “Sterilize the instruments and everything now, do they?”

  “Even better, if they amputate a limb, you get two bullets instead of one to bite on.”

  At least Bob hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “What about my truck?” asked Harvath.

  Seeing a cab that had just dropped off its fare, Herrington made a beeline for it and said, “Leave it. We’ll come back and pick it up later.”

  As they drove, Harvath looked out the window at the hordes of people crowding the sidewalks, and his mind wandered back to the news reports they’d been watching in the Pig & Whistle. Taken as isolated incidents, the events unfolding just outside Manhattan were indeed serious, though nothing to panic about. But when you lumped them together as a whole, they were just too coincidental—and coincidences were something neither Scot Harvath nor Bob Herrington believed in. In fact, no one in their line of work did. They had been taught to always try to connect the dots and look for a bigger picture.

  Even though he was supposed to be on vacation relaxing, Harvath couldn’t stop thinking about what Bob had said and so repeated his earlier question. “Let’s say you’re right about what’s going on across the river. Why do you think someone would want to tie up all of those tactical teams?”

  “I can think of about a million answers,” replied Bob as he eyeballed a graffiti-covered truck idling outside a nearby bank, “and none of them have a happy ending.”

  “But if you break this down into its simplest parts, the reason you’d want to tie up tactical teams is to prevent them from interfering with your objective or your egress, right?”

  As their cab sped up, Bob’s eyes moved to a group of taxi drivers who had double-parked near a falafel stand and were chatting animatedly to one another. “So?”

  “So if you were a suicide bomber or were going to fly a plane into a building, you wouldn’t care about tactical teams. By the time they knew what you were doing, theoretically it would be too late.”

  “It depends on what you were doing. What if you weren’t a suicide bomber or planning on flying a plane into a building? What if you had other plans?”

  Harvath looked back out his window and asked, “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Herrington. “I just saw all that stuff happening on TV and it gave one of those uh-oh feelings.”

  “Old habits are hard to break.”

  Bob smiled.

  “That’s better,” said Harvath as he decided to change the subject. They were both a little too on edge. “Now, am I going to be able to get that shot of Louis XIII you owe me at this place we’re going?”

  “Probably not. For that we’ll need to find you some high-end gay bar. But maybe there’ll be some cute Navy guys there you can hook up with.”

  Harvath gave his friend the finger and Bob laughed.

  Below 34th Street the traffic began to back up and Herrington started giving the driver directions.

  Fifteen minutes later, as they crawled down 28th, the cab’s radio erupted with terrified voices shouting in a language neither Harvath nor Herrington understood.

  When Scot asked what was happening, the driver stammered, “The Queensboro Bridge!”

  “What about it?”

  “It just exploded!”

  Twelve

  LONG ISLAND EXPRESSWAY

  Tim and Marcy didn’t mind driving the girls into the city. In fact, they actually preferred it. This way, the girls could have a few drinks and not have to worry about who was driving home.

  As they drove, they could see that the five-o’clock traffic coming out of Manhattan was bumper-to-

  bumper as people fled to places like Fire Island, the Hamptons, and Montauk Point. Tim looked over at Marcy, and she could immediately read his mind. “Thank God we won’t have to be sitting in that,” she said.

  The girls had given them the entire rundown on what they planned to do. First they were going to hit SoHo for shopping and then meet up later with some of their friends for dinner at a trendy new restaurant in Chelsea. After that, there was a hot new club in Midtown they wanted to hit, but they didn’t want to be there too early. Heaven forbid they be the first ones there. So, it had been decided that if upon the initial drive-by there wasn’t already a line in front, they’d kill time at a spot they all liked on 56th called Town. They’d have a glass or two of wine and then try the club again later.

  Though Marcy had been cool about letting the girls listen to whatever they liked in the car, she facetiously begged five minutes of forgiveness as she changed the radio over to WCBS to get a local read on traffic. She wasn’t a worrier by nature, but with what was going on in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, Marcy wanted to make extra sure they were steering well clear of any potential tie-ups.

  According to WCBS, it looked like smooth sailing down to the Williamsburg Bridge and across into lower Manhattan, so Marcy switched the radio back to Power 105 and focused on the drive.

  The girls laughed, gossiped, and lamented their last summer of real freedom before graduating from Yale—all the while acting as if the two adults sitting up front weren’t even there. That was okay with Tim and Marcy. They were more than used to being ignored.

  When they hit the Williamsburg Bridge, traffic began to tighten up. Marcy put up with it for as long as she could, but it was maddening. Once she had enough space to slide over into the left lane, she signaled and made her move. About six car lengths later she could see why traffic was moving so slowly. An ugly, paper-bag brown utility truck labeled Birchman Landscaping was going at least fifteen miles an hour below the speed limit while everyone else was trying to do at least twenty over.

&n
bsp; Marcy rolled her eyes at Tim and he responded, “Don’t even say it.”

  “Just watch,” replied Marcy as she pulled alongside the truck.

  Sitting inside were two dark-skinned males. Probably Mexicans.

  “I told you,” she said.

  “Give it a rest, Marcy. It takes all kinds to make up the world.”

  “I know it does. The Germans are the fast drivers. The Italians the crazy ones, and the Mexicans are the slow ones.”

  “I resent that,” replied Tim. “I’m Italian.”

  “And that’s why I’m driving. I rest my case.”

  Tim smiled. Marcy would never change. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “That truck’s got to be the ugliest color I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’d think landscapers would be a little more creative, wouldn’t you?”

  “Paint some flowers on that thing, or something.”

  Now it was Marcy’s turn to smile. Sometimes she thought Tim had missed his calling in life. He really was pretty artistic. Although she figured that must come with being Italian. Caravaggio, da Vinci, Michelangelo…all Italians.

  “Oh, check this out,” Tim added. “You work for Birchman and you not only get an ugly truck and matching uniforms, but they give you matching watches as well.”

  Marcy looked out the passenger-side window and saw the men looking at their watches. “They must be late for their next appointment. That’s why they’re in such a hurry.”

  Tim stifled a chuckle. He couldn’t help it. Though Marcy was often a little too off-color for his taste, she could be pretty funny. It used to bother him, but they’d been together for so long now that he’d come to accept it as part of who she was.

  Marcy pressed down on the accelerator and as she passed the landscaping truck said, “How do you like that?”

  Tim leaned forward, trying to see what she was looking at out her window. “What?”