Takedown

by Brad Thor

  The prisoner was enraged with the reference to his religion and struggled to free his head from Herrington’s grasp. “Bastard fuck you. Bastard fuck you,” he yelled over and over again.

  Harvath signaled for Bob to let go of him and step back. Upending the evidence bag, Harvath poured its contents onto the table and said, “Any more spitting and I’m going to leave you and my friend in here alone for some etiquette lessons. Understand?”

  “Lawyer. Give me lawyer,” the man replied in his broken English.

  That really pissed Harvath off—just as much as the fact that there were Americans who would fight to the death to see that this piece of shit got a fair and just trial. Where was the justice for the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Americans who had just been killed by this asshole and his pals? “You don’t get anything unless you cooperate. No lawyer, no judge, nothing until you give us some answers. Let’s start with your name.”

  “I no hear you. I talk lawyer.”

  Harvath signaled Herrington, who came off the wall and slammed the man’s head right into the table.

  “Can you hear me now?” asked Harvath as blood gushed from the man’s broken nose.

  When he didn’t respond, Herrington cuffed him with an open-handed slap to the left side of his head and added, “How about now?”

  Waving Herrington back, Harvath stated, “Let’s talk about this brand-new Casio watch of yours. They make pretty good detonators, don’t they? Your colleague Ramzi Yousef used one of these to detonate a little saline solution bottle filled with nitroglycerin on a plane bound for Tokyo a while back. He called it his microbomb, but it didn’t bring the plane down like he hoped. We caught him before he could improve upon the formula, Allah be praised.”

  “Waj ab zibik!” yelled the man, wishing Harvath an infection in a very private place for invoking the name of his god.

  Harvath ignored him and continued, “This watch wasn’t meant as a detonator, though, was it? I’d be willing to bet that all of you got the same new watch for synchronization. Am I right?”

  The man said nothing. He just sat there as blood rolled down from his nose, along his chin, and dripped onto his shirt.

  “How about the phone?” pressed Harvath. “Motorola iDEN. Pretty nice, but a bit out of your league, don’t you think? I mean, digital wireless phones like this are meant for business people. Two-way digital radio, alphanumeric messaging, fax capabilities, high-end Internet access. That’s a lot of features just so you and your buddies can set up blow-job parties at the local mosque, Allah be praised.”

  “Nikomak,” the man growled.

  Harvath ignored the suggestion of what he should do to his mother and toyed with the phone as he continued posing questions. “Since at least one other bomb went off in the PATH tunnel, we’re assuming you were either a primary or a contingency operative, or was the plan to wreak as much damage as possible?”

  The man remained silent.

  “How were you recruited for this job? Who contacted you?”

  Nothing.

  “When were you first contacted?”

  Still nothing.

  “What else do your colleagues have planned? More bombs? Something with an airplane? Other cities? What is it?”

  At this, the prisoner smiled.

  Bob was about to reach out and strike him again, when Harvath stood up and stated, “I’m going to post a flyer over at the World Trade Center site to see if there are any lawyers willing to represent you.” Turning to Herrington he said, “Let’s go.”

  Once outside the interrogation room, Bob stopped Harvath and said, “We were just getting started in there. The fear was absolutely wafting off that guy. You could smell it.”

  “I was definitely smelling something, though I don’t know if it was fear. Listen, we’re both fans of the art of not-so-subtle persuasion, but we don’t have the time to work this guy over the way we’d like to. Even the NYPD is going to have a limit as to what they’ll let us do to a terrorist suspect in their custody.”

  “So let’s remove him from their custody,” said Herrington. “We’ll take him back to 26 Federal Plaza, or to a quiet hotel room, an abandoned building, wherever. It doesn’t matter. He knows something. You could see it in his face.”

  “What he knows is that we’re desperate. If we put the testicle clamps on him maybe he’ll tell us something of value, maybe not. We’d need to have psychological leverage—have his family in custody or something like that. But at this point, we don’t even know his name.”

  “Give me five minutes with him and you’ll have it.”

  “This guy could turn out to have been nothing more than cannon fodder for al-Qaeda—a means to get a bomb into the PATH train tunnel. I don’t want to waste any more time on him. Besides, he may have already helped us out without even knowing it.”

  “How?” asked Herrington.

  Harvath held up the cell phone and said, “With this.”

  “Are you going to tell me this moron was dumb enough not to erase his call log?”

  “Nope. In fact I don’t think his phone was used for calls at all.”

  “So what’s it for, then? Text messaging?”

  “Let me ask you a question. You’ve been in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. How many people does it take to detonate a suicide bomb?”

  Most people would have thought it was a trick question, but Herrington knew better. “One, plus a handler nearby with a remote detonator in case the bomber chickens out. You think that is what this is all about? Backup detonation?”

  “Not necessarily. There were too many bombers to have had handlers physically following each one of them. I think this is a coordination issue. These phones work on a combination of cell phone towers and GPS. I’ve got a very similar setup on my BlackBerry. If all of the bombers had these phones, they’d have access to maps of New York City that would allow them to always know where they were. A good feature if you’d just been brought in from out of town.”

  “And provide their handler a way to keep track of them at all times,” added Herrington.

  “Exactly. If one of them got pulled over driving into a tunnel, the handler would be able to see that they were stopped and either call or text the operative to see what the holdup was, or automatically warn the other bombers and put a contingency plan into effect. It’s a pretty clever way to coordinate multiple attacks on a large scale.”

  “Do you think you can backtrack the signal?”

  “That kind of stuff is way beyond my ability,” replied Harvath. “But I think I might know somebody who can.”

  Twenty-Four

  I’ll put it next on my list—right after finding the cure for cancer. Are you nuts?” asked Kevin McCauliff from the other end of Harvath’s cell-phone call. The two were members of an informal group of federal employees who trained together every year for the annual Washington, DC, Marine Corps Marathon. In addition to being a fellow runner, McCauliff also held a position within an important government agency that Harvath had turned to once before for help—the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

  Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA was a major intelligence and combat support subsidiary of the Department of Defense. And in this situation, that was potentially one of its biggest drawbacks.

  “So what you’re saying is you can’t do it,” replied Harvath.

  “No,” returned McCauliff, “What I’m saying is that I don’t want to do it. Not if you’re asking me to hide it from my superiors.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.”

  “I could get fired, Scot. What would I do then?”

  “If you get fired, I’ll make sure you get work over at Homeland Security.”

  Even though he was all the way down in Bethesda, Maryland, McCauliff laughed so loud, it sounded like he was standing on the street right next to them. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather collect unemployment.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Kevin, this i
s serious. Have you seen what’s happened up here?”

  “Of course I have. It’s all over the place. Worse than 9/11, they’re saying.”

  “And it could get worse still if you don’t help.”

  “Scot, you’re going to have to tell me what I’m doing this for.”

  “For me, Kevin.”

  “We’re close friends and all, but that’s not good enough.”

  “I’ll take your sister to dinner again, okay? How about that?” said Harvath. He knew the analyst’s sister had a thing for him. After the last time McCauliff had helped him out on a hush-hush case, that had been the payment he’d asked for in return.

  “We weren’t in the middle of a national crisis that time. We’re not supposed to be diverting any resources right now. If I get caught, I’m going to need a cover story.”

  “And I don’t have one for you,” said Harvath. “You’re going to have to come up with one on your own. Please, Kevin. We think the people behind the attacks today may have something else planned. I need you to do this for me so we can stop them.”

  “And the reason you’re not doing it out of your department?”

  “Is because nobody in my department can do this stuff as well as you.”

  McCauliff remained silent so long, Harvath felt he had no choice but to let the other shoe drop, “And because this morning, before the bridges and tunnels blew, I was involved in a covert operation with what I thought was the Manhattan Joint Terrorism Task Force. It turns out they were actually DIA agents posing as JTTF. Whatever they’re up to, word somehow leaked. Terrorist chatter intercepted today shows that they already know all about the op.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. We’re all on the same side. Why wouldn’t these guys work with you and tell you they were DIA?”

  “That’s what I hope to find out, but none of it matters unless I can figure out what the terrorists are planning to do next. Are you going to help me or not?”

  McCauliff thought about it for a moment and then said, “A lot’s going to depend on the cell phone data. If it’s transmitted in a clear format, we can grab it. If it’s over a secure channel like SSL, I’m going to need some time to work on decoding it.”

  “We may not have time.”

  “You said these phones were on Nextel network?”

  “Correct.”

  “I know a guy over there who might let me peek behind the curtain. I’ll work that angle as well as the GPS tracking company’s servers. I’ll call you back in a half hour.”

  Harvath gave McCauliff some additional information from the phone he had “forgotten” to put back in the NYPD evidence bag and then hung up.

  “What do we do now?” asked Herrington.

  “McCauliff’s the best guy on something like this. If anybody can turn this to our advantage, it’s him.”

  “And then what? If we pick up a trail on the terrorists, there are still only two of us.”

  “To tell you the truth, I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet,” said Harvath.

  “I have,” replied Bob. “Let’s get back to the VA and see if we can’t improve our odds.”

  Twenty-Five

  With their two litter bearers, Tim Fiore and Marcy Delacorte pounded down the bridge as fast as their feet would carry them.

  When they reached the end of the bridge, three ambulances were already pulling away—packed with injured.

  Tim yelled to an NYPD officer about twenty feet ahead, “Stop that ambulance!” but the officer knew there wasn’t room in any of them for even one more person.

  “There’s more ambulances on the way,” he shouted back.

  “We can’t wait,” replied Marcy as she flashed her credentials. “U.S. Secret Service. We have a priority injury here.”

  “The ambulances are gone, ma’am. There’s nothing I can do.”

  Fiore tilted his head in the direction of the officer’s squad car, and Delacorte knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “We need your patrol car.”

  “I can’t do that,” said the officer.

  “And I’m not asking,” replied Marcy as she raised her weapon.

  The cop put up both his hands. “Okay, okay. It’s yours.”

  “Let’s get her into the car,” Tim said to the two men who were helping them.

  They rushed to the patrol car, and as the officer watched them place Amanda on the backseat, he asked, “Is that—?”

  Fiore nodded his head. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  “Beth Israel,” replied the cop. “Fifteenth and First. The NYU hospital downtown is going to be overloaded.”

  “You can’t drive,” stated Marcy as she got in the back with Amanda. “You don’t know your way around.”

  Tim looked around and then spotted something on the dash of a car idling in the gridlock not far from where they were. Running toward it, Fiore removed his credentials and held them up when he reached in the window and grabbed the device. “U.S. Secret Service” was all he said.

  Sprinting back to the squad car, Tim propped the Garmin iQue GPS handheld on the dash, fired up the vehicle, and hit the lights and siren. Motorists tried to get out of their way, but the effort was useless. There was nowhere for them to go. The traffic was absolutely locked down.

  Aiming for the sidewalk between two parked cars, Fiore yelled, “Hold on,” and hit the gas.

  Twenty-Six

  As Ali knew from the information provided by the Troll, there was no telling which location Mohammed bin Mohammed was being held at. All they knew was that until they found the right one, each location was going to be very difficult to penetrate and each would pose its own special set of challenges.

  The rather benign store on 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth, in the heart of New York’s diamond district, looked like any other, but Ali and his men knew it was only a front. The windows and doors were mounted with bulletproof Lexan glass reinforced with high-tensile steel frames. There was an airlock-style double entrance that required patrons to be buzzed in the first door and have it close completely behind them before the next would be allowed open. Discreet vents near the floor were capable of pumping in an incapacitating nerve agent in the event the high-voltage-electrode woven “shock” mats were not enough to fell any would-be intruders. Even among the extremely security conscious merchants of the diamond district, this store was in a league of its own.

  It was the Chechens who had decided to avoid the airlock all together. As far as they were concerned, there was no reason the balance of their force couldn’t go right in through the windows—provided, of course, someone was kind enough to “open” them up first.

  Dressed like the ubiquitous Hasidic Jews who did business up and down the street, two of the Chechen operatives were buzzed into the store with nondescript briefcases in hand. Moments later, as the store staff was distracted by the blacked-out Chevy Tahoes that crashed up onto the sidewalk outside their windows with their lights blazing, the Chechens carried out their plan.

  Both briefcases were detonated with deafening pressure concussions and blinding flashes of white light. Before any of the staff could react, they were gunned down by one of the operatives while the other slapped shape charges to the inside of the largest window. By the time the charge blew, both of the men were already at the vaultlike door leading to the heart of the store’s true operation.

  Three U.S. marines, dressed in civilian clothes and body armor, were able to take down the first terrorist with fire from their short-barreled M16 Viper assault rifles, but as skilled as they were, they could not escape the high-velocity shrapnel from the grenade the man’s partner lobbed into their security room.

  With the marine contingent down and the rest of the team in the store, the terrorists made their way into the bowels of the building, shooting anyone and anything that moved.

  Three-and-a-half minutes later, the rooms had all been cleared. Two of the men body-bagged their comrade while the others reloaded their weapons. As Abdul Ali
reached into his vest for another magazine, he noticed he was still carrying his cell phone—an unforgivable over-sight, especially as it was no longer necessary. If the Troll or anyone else needed to reach him, they knew how to do it.

  Removing the battery, Ali smashed the phone with the butt of his weapon and gathered up the pieces. As he exited the store, he threw the remains into the nearest storm drain.

  “Are we done here?” Ali asked an enormous bear of a man named Sacha.

  The Chechen leader unslung his bag of electronics, threw it into the lead Tahoe, and nodded his head.

  As the SUVs pulled off the curb, Ali looked at his watch and tried to compute how long it would take to maneuver through the streets to their next destination. He also wondered if it would be where they would finally find Mohammed bin Mohammed.

  Half a world away, the Troll was lying on a long leather sofa as his Caucasian Ovcharkas, Argus and Drako, dozed on the floor next to him. He was enjoying an exquisite snifter of Calvados and an original copy of the Friedrich Dürrenmatt play The Visit, when a tiny chime sounded from the direction of his desk.

  Setting the slim volume on the table next to him, the Troll swung his legs over the edge of the couch and hopped down onto the floor. Immediately, the dogs snapped to attention and followed their master to the manor house’s enormous dining hall. There, any traces of the hall’s original function had been erased by the rows upon rows of high-end computer servers and satellite equipment that filled the room.

  A raised platform with a sleek, yet child-sized glass-and-chrome table sat accompanied by a tiny leather desk chair at the far end of the hall. Suspended above the table were three flat-screen monitors. Sitting down in the chair, the Troll punched a series of keys on a Lucite keyboard recessed within the table’s surface and the monitors sprang to life. It was amazing how far the Troll had come in his little life.

  Moments later, a series of multicolor status bars began charting the enormous chunks of encrypted data that had already begun downloading to his servers. Thanks to his bag of sophisticated electronic tricks, Sacha had fulfilled the first part of his assignment perfectly.