by Brad Thor
Unlike most pepper sprays that required a button to be continually depressed or a trigger to be pulled to dispense its contents, the Guardian device had a mechanism that allowed the canister to be primed and thrown into a room where seconds later a fog of pepper spray would pour out, making the space completely uninhabitable.
Lawlor triggered the device, pitched it inside the inner office, and with his Beretta up and at the ready, waited for the NSA operative to stumble out hacking and choking.
When he did, Stanton came out with his gun blazing, shooting in all directions, and Gary had no other choice but to return fire.
Fifty-Seven
NEW YORK CITY
You couldn’t have just winged him?” asked Harvath.
“I had no time. His bullets were way too close for comfort,” replied Lawlor from his cell phone back in DC. “Whatever was going on, he and Forrester took it to their graves together. Everyone at the NSA is being incredibly tight-lipped, including my contacts, and despite the urgency of this situation, all they’ve said is that they’ll get back to me. They’re not even prepared to admit that Stanton was one of theirs.”
This was exactly the kind of bureaucratic bullshit that was encouraging Harvath to seriously consider resigning his position. “So they don’t care if their next location gets hit?” he asked.
“They won’t even admit there is a fourth location, much less a first, a second, or a third.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
“You’ve got all the information I was able to get before Stanton killed Forrester. I think you should make your way to the third location as quickly as possible and see if you can find out anything there.”
“And if we don’t?” asked Harvath.
Listen,” replied Lawlor. “This has been a hard day for everybody. Just see what you can do. I’ll keep working things from this side.”
“Fine, but Gary?”
“What?”
“If Stanton thought this program was worth killing to protect, and his people know you’ve uncovered it, you’d better watch your back.”
“I will. Don’t worry,” replied Lawlor. “Just get to that Strong Box location and let me know what you find.”
When they found the bodies of the slain employees in the back of the New York Waterway bus garage, Harvath knew they were already too late. Nevertheless, Bob Herrington led the way down the hidden stairwell—the more senseless destruction he saw, the more the demons from his last mission in Afghanistan seemed to haunt him. He insisted on being on point, and out of all the members on the team, he was starting to concern Harvath the most.
After making their way down the metal stairs, the first thing the team noticed was the enormous door that had been blown off its hinges. As they carefully entered the facility, they saw that shrapnel had pitted both the walls and the ceiling. Whatever kind of bomb had gone off in here had done incredible damage. Blood was everywhere and several bodies had been sawed completely in half.
As Harvath tried to pinpoint how long ago the attack had occurred, the one thing he was confident of was that it had happened before their botched ambush in Central Park. They couldn’t have made it here in time even if they had wanted to.
“What the hell hit this place?” said Rick Cates as he stepped around the bodies of what looked like three more dead marines. “This was no fragmentation grenade.”
“This was more like the type of bomb suicide bombers use,” replied Tracy Hastings, who had witnessed the aftermath of suicide bombers more times than she cared to remember.
“Are you saying somebody walked in here and blew him or herself up?” asked Harvath.
Tracy looked around some more and then replied, “Maybe. All I can say is that I think we’re looking at a tight and very powerful package of plastique packed with ball bearings as the projectile.”
“Any idea how it got in here?”
Tracy shook her head.
“Maybe the pizza guy brought it,” said Cates as he bumped the edge of a personal pan-pizza box still sitting on someone’s desk.
The team spread out and combed the facility. Like the others before it, it was all computerized. Now, though, they knew the reason why. Morgan found a functioning workstation, but without a password, he couldn’t gain access to the system. Not only that, but as Harvath studied the shiny dials built into the frames of the computer displays, he realized they weren’t cameras, as several on the team had suspected, but actually retinal scanners. The Athena Program took the handling of its data very seriously.
It was hard to tell if anything had been stolen. From what Harvath and the rest of the team could tell, everything seemed to be there; it was just shot to hell—including the employees. The only thing that had avoided the carnage was the server room, just like in the previous two locations.
But why risk so much just to take out the employees? What the hell was al-Qaeda’s game? Was it some sort of payback? And what did any of this have to do with Sayed Jamal and Mike Jaffe? None of it made any sense.
That said, Harvath had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that once he did uncover the answers he was looking for, he wasn’t going to like them.
As they left the server room, everyone was helping collect identification from the dead, when Herrington swung his weapon into the firing position and yelled, “Nobody fucking move.”
Harvath and the rest of the team had no idea what the hell he was talking about until they noticed two strangers at the far end of the room pointing a pair of very nasty-looking short-barreled M16 Viper machine guns at them. The strangers ordered Bob and the rest of the team to drop their weapons and remain absolutely still. It was a Mexican standoff—although this time they wouldn’t be able to count on Tracy Hastings sneaking up behind their adversaries with a big leafy tree branch.
“Everybody stay cool,” cautioned Harvath. “What do you guys want?”
“What do we want?” demanded one of the strangers. “Why don’t we start with who the hell are you?”
“My name’s Scot Harvath and I’m with the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Who are the rest of these people?” the man asked, indicating the rest of the team with the barrel of his weapon.
“They’re with me. Who you are?”
“Homeland Security? Bullshit. DHS doesn’t have anything to do with this facility.”
“We do since Captain William Forrester was shot and killed less than an hour ago,” replied Harvath.
“Captain Forrester is dead?”
“As a doornail,” said Morgan as he shouldered his weapon and pulled a half-liter of water from his pack.
Tracy saw the men tense and begin applying pressure to their triggers. “Paul, are you nuts?” she responded. “Quit screwing around. You’re going to get us all killed.”
“No, I’m not,” said Morgan. “And you know why? Because marines don’t kill other marines.”
Fifty-Eight
Once the two strangers had lowered their weapons and downed the water Morgan had given them, Harvath asked, “What are you guys doing here?”
“It’s our shift,” said the lead man, who identified himself as Staff Sergeant Steve Gonzalez, United States Marine Corps.
“With all the shit going on in the Lincoln Tunnel, why didn’t you come earlier?” asked Herrington.
“Orders. Believe me, Tommy and I wanted to come down here as soon as we heard, but it was against the protocol.”
“Whose protocol ?” replied Harvath.
“Captain Forrester’s,” said Lance Corporal Thomas Tecklin. “He ran us through every contingency he could think of. The last thing he wanted was for any of the security personnel to be caught in a secondary blast meant to target newcomers rushing to the scene.”
“Wait a second,” interjected Gonzalez, the bodies of his Marine Corps colleagues—and the people they were charged with protecting—littering the floor. “Let’s start by talking about what the hell happened here.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Harvath. “Captain Forrester gave us this location.”
Gonzalez didn’t believe Harvath. “He wouldn’t have done that. This place is above top secret.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” replied Herrington, who appreciated the man’s loyalty to his mission and his commanding officer. “He didn’t want to see any more of his marines die.”
“More?” repeated Morgan. “What do you mean, he didn’t want to see more marines die? What marines?”
“Two other sites were hit,” said Harvath. He chose the words very carefully, as he wanted to see how much the marines knew.
Gonzalez was very concerned. “Which sites?”
“Transcon Enterprises and Geneva Diamond and Jewelry Exchange.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Tecklin. “How bad?”
“Equally as bad as this. No survivors.”
“Who was it?”
“We believe it was al-Qaeda.”
“Al-Qaeda? Why?”
“We don’t know why,” answered Harvath. “We were hoping that was something you could help us with. Is there anything in particular about the information being processed here that could be beneficial to them?”
“Officially,” replied Gonzalez, “we didn’t know anything about the information that flows through here. Our job is to guard this site.”
“And unofficially?”
“Unofficially? People talk, you know? You couldn’t help but overhear things here. It was all political stuff. Some of it run-of-the-mill dirty dealing and some of it extremely volatile. Like well-placed spies in foreign governments, murder cover-ups, assassination plots, coup attempts—it goes on and on. There is stuff even hotter than that, if you can believe it, but the hotter it is the quieter everyone here is—was—about it. At the end of the day, we actually overheard very little. And none of it directly valuable as far as al-Qaeda is concerned—at least nothing I can think of that would justify all of this,” said the lead marine as he took in the devastated facility.
Three locations and zero leads. It was driving Harvath nuts. The more they uncovered, the less sense it all made. No matter how many steps they took forward, they still couldn’t seem to catch up with whoever was behind these attacks. “What about the fourth site?” he asked.
“What fourth site?” said Gonzalez.
“Sergeant, we know there is a fourth and final site. Captain Forrester mentioned it before he was killed. If we’re correct, that’s exactly where the terrorists are headed next.”
Gonzalez didn’t respond.
“He’s right,” replied Tecklin. “We need to warn them.”
“Quiet,” ordered Gonzalez.
“Why? These guys know about the fourth site, and they’re right that the terrorists probably do too.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Sarge, they’ve hit three out of four. I’d say the chances are pretty good al-Qaeda knows about the last location. We can’t just sit here and let our guys get killed. We’ve got to warn them.”
Gonzalez was torn. On one hand there were the lives of fellow marines at stake and on the other were a set of orders that didn’t seem to make much sense at this point. Nevertheless, orders were orders.
“Will you at least call the fourth location and warn them?” asked Harvath.
“It doesn’t matter. I already tried from one of the pay phones outside before we came in here.”
“No answer?”
“All I got was a fast busy signal and a ‘circuits are overloaded’ response.”
“Did you try calling Transcon and Geneva Diamond?”
Gonzalez again nodded his head. “Same thing.”
“You’ve got to tell us where that fourth location is.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t discuss any other location or locations.”
Bob Herrington had had enough. “For fuck’s sake, Sergeant. Those people are going to die over there if you don’t help us out. Make a goddamn command decision.”
“I can’t.”
“The hell you can’t. Your CO has been shot by the NSA program manager, and at this point you are the most senior marine on site. You think they’re going to court martial you for trying to save that other location?”
“The NSA program manager?” remarked Tecklin.
Gonzalez didn’t want to know anything further. He’d made up his mind. “I’m sorry, I have my orders.”
“Well, you and your orders can kiss my fucking ass,” said Herrington. “I thought marines were smarter than this. I guess I was wrong.”
As Bob walked away in disgust, Harvath pulled Gonzalez aside and said, “Steve, I’ve got a lot of respect for your orders, but at least take Morgan and get over there. You guys might be able to help even the odds. The terrorists have enough players on their team to fill at least two Tahoes.”
The sergeant shook his head. “No can do. We’ve got to secure this site and make sure no one else gets in or out until help arrives.”
“You know that could be quite a while.”
“It doesn’t matter. This information needs to be protected.”
“Even if that means other marines might die?”
Gonzalez looked at Harvath and slowly nodded his head. Come hell or high water, he was going to stand his post. In the process, though, several of his comrades were most likely going to lose their lives.
For a fleeting moment, Harvath wondered if they could muscle the marine and get him to crack, but he decided against it. As wrong as he believed the man’s decision to be, Harvath wasn’t going to torture a fellow serviceman faithfully executing his duty.
He was about to make one more impassioned plea, soldier to soldier, when Paul Morgan caught his attention and signaled that he needed to talk to him.
“What’s up?” said Harvath as he crossed over to where Morgan was standing.
“I know where the fourth site is.”
Harvath couldn’t believe it. “How?”
“Tecklin gave it to me. We both went through basic at Camp Pendleton. It turns out we had the same D.I.”
“So because of a drill instructor he just gave the information to you?”
“No,” replied Morgan. “His brother is part of the security detail at the fourth location. When they joined the Marines together, they promised their old man they’d do everything they could to make sure nothing bad ever happened to the other. He respects Gonzalez, but the way he sees it, the Marines not only taught him how to follow orders, but also to react when old orders didn’t make sense anymore and lives were on the line.
“That’s why he wanted us to have the location. But wait till you hear where it is. At first I thought he was pulling my leg, but he swears it’s for real.”
“Where is it? Where’s the fourth location?”
Morgan held up a diagram made by Lance Corporal Tecklin, and it made such perfect sense that Harvath almost couldn’t believe it.
Fifty-Nine
Abdul Ali watched as Sacha drew his Para-Ordnance 1911 pistol, affixed its silencer, and finished off his wounded comrade. They had done all they could to save him, but it was clear to everyone that Khasan wasn’t going to make it. He was slowing them down, and that made him a liability. As cold as the decision was, they had no choice. Their own survival necessitated the act. Just like the man who had been killed during the assault on Geneva Diamond, Khasan’s payment would be made to his family, including the bonus at the end of the job. Sacha would see to it personally.
Ali knew that the lead Chechen, as well as the rest of his men, held him responsible for this most recent death. Ali had almost walked into an ambush in Central Park and had brought whoever had orchestrated it out after them. The man on horseback had fired his first shot through the rear window of one of their Tahoes, hitting Khasan at the base of the throat. The man’s next shot had gone straight through the tailgate, killing the Chechens’ dog, Ivan, while the third shot had punched through the other side of the tailgate and miss
ed by a matter of millimeters one of their men gunning from the backseat. As far as Ali was concerned, the first shot was all that mattered. The team was down two men now and still had two more locations to go.
With the rear window shattered and the back row of seats covered in Khasan’s blood, Ali decided they not only needed to get rid of both the bodies they were carrying, they needed to get rid of the damaged Tahoe as well. First, though, they needed to find a suitable vehicle as a replacement.
Nearby in the tony Lenox Hill neighborhood, Sacha saw what they were looking for. The all-black GMC Yukon Denali was as close to perfect as they were going to get. Three blocks later, they dumped the damaged Tahoe, the bodies of their two dead comrades, and the body of the woman from whom they’d just carjacked the Denali.
They drove south toward Midtown east and their next assault. With multiple breaching points some distance apart at this location, timing was going to be everything. Though Ali would have preferred to have been on one of the street-level breaching teams, he had no choice but to go with the team that would be coming up from underneath. Theirs was the most perilous trek, and it was also the most likely to encounter resistance from inquisitive police officers. If push came to shove, only Ali and his grasp of American English could help the subterranean team pull it off.
The Denali sped toward 50th while the intact Tahoe pulled up onto the sidewalk of 49th Street, and Ali’s team unloaded its equipment. Startled onlookers backed away as men in balaclavas and black tactical gear set up a utility company–style screen, sparked a Gentec portable acetylene torch, and began to cut through the sidewalk grating. Once the grating was pulled free, a high tinsel tripod complete with enormous rubber feet and a pulley and winch system was suspended above the opening, a rope was fed through, and Abdul Ali prepared to be the first one down.
The goal was to fast-rope in as quickly as possible. That all changed when only halfway down an MTA officer spotted Ali and reached for the radio mic clipped to his shoulder. With the laser sight of his MP5, Ali painted a red dot on the man’s chest and pulled the trigger, quieting any premature announcement of their arrival.