by Brad Thor
Ninety-Three
Though Abdul Ali had been meticulous about clearing the otherwise empty rooms, what he didn’t realize was that, as in many consulates and embassies around the world, hidden passageways as well as escape exits were often part of the architecture. It was just such a passageway that had allowed the surviving marine, Brad Harper, to create an advantage and assume the upper hand.
He had already been on his way back with the medical kit when the blast from the first explosion had knocked him to the ground. When the second, smaller explosion detonated, he wisely rushed back to the control room to see what was happening on the closed-circuit monitors.
Now, as Harper held his modified M16 Viper on the man who had just assassinated his entire team, he was very tempted to administer justice himself. All it would take was a simple pull of the trigger, and this entire nightmare would be brought to an end, but Harper knew better. He also knew the man he had in front of him was extremely dangerous and could have any one of a hundred possible tricks up his sleeve. “I’ve got every reason in the world to kill you right now. Try anything stupid and I will pull this trigger. Do you understand me?”
Ali had no idea how he had missed this man. His eyes darted around the room as his mind scrambled for a way out.
Harper shifted his sights a fraction of an inch to the right and he pulled the trigger, sending a quick burst of fire over the man’s shoulder and into the Sheetrock in front of him. “Do you understand?” he repeated.
Ali nodded his head.
“I want you to raise your hands, slowly. That’s it. Nice and easy. Now interlace your fingers behind your head.”
Once Ali had complied, Harper ordered him onto his stomach. With the man fully prone, the young marine cautiously leaned down to cuff him. It was at that moment that Mohammed bin Mohammed snuck up behind him and with the very last reserves of strength, hit the large marine not once but twice across the back of the head with a fire extinguisher, knocking him to the floor unconscious.
Ninety-Four
As Harvath and the rest of his team rapidly made their way to Libya House, things were beginning to make sense. In 2003 the United States made headlines when in exchange for agreeing to lift its sentence of rogue-nation status and restart diplomatic ties with Libya, the Libyans agreed to abandon their weapons of mass destruction, discontinue any support of terrorism, and enact sweeping social and democratic reforms.
Such unprecedented cooperation in the war on terror might very well have been just the surface of a much deeper and much quieter deal. It was no wonder that even with his Polo Step clearance Harvath had not been able to learn which top al-Qaeda member the United States had taken into custody. Somewhere at State or the Department of Justice, somebody was walking a very thin legal line. The only way Harvath could figure they had pulled it off was to have brought M&M up to the edge of international waters on a private craft of some sort and flying him the rest of the way by chopper, then dropping him on the roof of Libya House, where the Libyans took over.
Though he was sure the American involvement was supposed to be nothing more than “observer” status, he knew who was really running this show. In fact, he had a pretty good feeling he knew the person by name: Mike Jaffe. What he didn’t have a good feeling about was their being able to get access to Libya House. Gary was right. It was sovereign territory and without an invitation, the only way they were going to be able to get inside was by force. But as it turned out, that wasn’t necessary.
When they arrived, the few people who were in the lobby were in an absolute panic. Harvath flashed his DHS credentials and was told by a man who identified himself as the mission receptionist that there had been an enormous explosion from somewhere within the building and that they couldn’t raise their ambassador, his assistant, or the ambassador’s security team.
After Harvath explained that they were there because terrorists had targeted the building and they believed that an attack was eminent, the receptionist assigned them the building’s only security guard and sped them into one of the lobby elevators for the ambassador’s office on the twenty-third floor.
The moment the doors opened, the guard showed them into the ambassador’s office, where they came upon the bodies of the assistant and the two bodyguards.
Borrowing the guard’s radio, Harvath called down to the receptionist to ask how long it had been since the man had last had contact with the ambassador, his assistant, or any members of the protective detail.
The man filled Harvath in on everything he knew, including the unannounced visitor with the diplomatic passport. He provided a full description, but when Harvath asked his next question, the receptionist became very quiet.
The entire staff of Libya House had been told that the twenty-fourth floor was absolutely off-limits, and even its existence shouldn’t be discussed with anyone. The receptionist had suspected it had something to do with the two stern-faced intelligence agents who had joined the mission from Tripoli. Faced with the very real fact that the building was under siege, the man shared the rest of what he knew.
Before the receptionist was even done speaking, Harvath and company. were rushing for the freight elevator. They were halfway there when the receptionist came back over the radio. Based on what he could see from his security panel, the freight elevator was no longer operational. What’s more, even though the rest of the building was supposedly empty, one of the main elevators had unexpectedly risen to the twenty-second floor and was now beginning to descend.
Though he couldn’t put his finger on why, Harvath had a very bad feeling about who was inside that elevator.
Shrugging off the pain in his shoulder, he made for the stairway, but Bob Herrington and Tracy Hastings were already in front of him.
Relieving the lumbering security guard of his radio and with Rick Cates and his bad knees bringing up the rear, Harvath hit the stairwell and barreled down as fast as he could go.
The landings, which he normally would have taken by gripping the handrail with his right hand and swinging his body around, were nearly impossible because of his wounds, and so he took the tight turns as best he could, relying only on his feet. More than once, his excessive speed caused him to slam his left side up against the wall before he could regain his path and tackle the next set of stairs. Invariably, he lost sight of Bob and Tracy, who were making much better time than he and considerably better time than Cates, who was sucking up the pain and moving as fast as he could.
Twice, Herrington and Hastings stopped on random floors to depress the elevator’s call button in hopes of stopping it. But without a keycard, it was no use. Once they finally realized they couldn’t stop it, the pair tore back into the stairwell and continued their mad dash down the stairs.
Within ten floors of the ground level, Harvath radioed Herrington on his Motorola. “Bob, what’s your status?” he asked.
It was a moment before Herrington replied, “At the lobby now. We’re going to intercept that elevator.”
“Negative,” said Harvath. “Wait for me.”
“What floor are you on?”
“Eight. I’ll be right there.”
“You’re not going to make it. The elevator’s already on four.”
“Wait, for me, Bob,” repeated Harvath.
“Listen, there’s a mail room kitty-corner from where you’re going to hit the lobby,” said Herrington. “That’s where we are. You can give us fire support from the stairwell when you get here.”
Harvath, who was now touching one, maybe two steps in between each landing as he flew down the stairs, was about to remind Herrington who was in charge of the operation, when Bob’s voice came back over his radio. He was counting down the elevator’s arrival. “Two. One. Bingo!”
Based upon the scene in the ambassador’s office, Harvath knew that if this was their guy, he wasn’t going to come easily, and based on Mohammed bin Mohammed’s extremely bloody history, neither was he.
Harvath expected to hear gunfir
e the second the elevator opened, but nothing came. Instead, Herrington’s voice crackled over his earpiece, “Shit. It’s not stopping. They’re going for the garage.”
“I’m coming up on the fifth floor,” said Harvath, his chest heaving for oxygen. “Wait for me in the stairwell.”
“We’re going to lose him,” replied Herrington.
“You’ve seen what this guy can do. We’re all going in together.”
Harvath waited for Bob to reply, and when he didn’t, Harvath knew it meant that Bob had decided to go without him. If he could have run any faster, he would have, but as it was, Harvath was tackling the stairs faster than anyone in their right mind should have. He’d be lucky if all he got out of it was a bruised shoulder from bouncing off of each of the landing walls.
Harvath was at the second floor when the ear-splitting thunder of automatic weapons fire started and filled the narrow stairwell. When he hit the lobby level, just one floor from the garage, Tracy Hastings’s frantic voice came over the radio yelling, “Man down! Man down!”
Ninety-Five
Harvath hopped the railing from one set of stairs to another and landed hard on his right foot, twisting his ankle. Bursting through the garage door, he could immediately see where Bob lay, ribbons of crimson spreading out from beneath his body and flowing downhill toward a metal floor drain several yards away.
Harvath ran to where they had taken cover alongside several dumpsters. Hastings was covered in blood up to her elbows, her hands pressed hard against Bob’s chest. Seeing Harvath approach, she looked up and the tears began to roll down her face. He didn’t need to ask. He knew. Bob was gone, and at that moment time stood still for Harvath.
It was Tracy pushing at his good shoulder, yelling, “Scot, go! Go!” that brought him back to reality.
At the far end of the garage, an engine had roared to life. Pulling an extra magazine as delicately as he could from one of the pockets of Bob’s vest, Harvath ignored the pain throbbing throughout his body and half limped, half ran toward the sound. He felt guilty beyond words, and while part of him wanted to bend over, puke his guts out and mourn the loss of a friend who had been like an older brother to him, another part wanted to bathe in the blood of the people who had just killed Bob Herrington. It was from that part of himself that he summoned the strength to keep moving.
The vehicle was accelerating now and the rev of its engine was quickly joined by another unmistakable sound—the heavy metal garage door rumbling open.
Harvath used his other radio to hail the receptionist and tell him to override the door, but the man said his system wouldn’t do that. Dropping the radio, Harvath ran faster, trying to close the distance with the unseen vehicle. His adrenaline all but spent, the Troy CQB assault rifle he’d taken back from Bob began once again to feel like a hundred-pound barbell. Harvath’s back, his arms, and his shoulders begged for him to drop it, but he refused. Having tapped the last of his reserves, he used his rage to push him forward, but it did little good. He finally closed on the ramp leading out of the garage and up to the street, only to see the taillights of a green Mini Cooper crest the top and pull a hard left, its tires screaming as they bit into the sidewalk, and it disappeared from sight.
Undeterred, Harvath stumbled up the ramp, and as his legs began to fail him, he willed them to keep going. He could not let the terrorists get away.
Out of breath, his chest heaving, Harvath hit the top of the ramp and pivoted to the left, the Cooper halfway down the block. Raising the weapon to his injured right shoulder, Harvath aligned the car in his sights and with no breath to hold, squeezed the trigger.
The rounds flew down 48th Street, and when Harvath saw the vehicle swerve, its brake lights illuminating the night, he knew he’d made contact. The tires squealed as it careened and scraped along several parked cars. Harvath lined up another shot, tried to control the desperate filling and emptying of his lungs, and then pulled the trigger again. He heard the distinct pop that indicated that he had fired his last round and without even thinking about it pressed the magazine release, slapped the new mag to make sure the rounds were seated, and slammed it into the weapon.
He ripped back the charging handle and let go of it just as fast. With the car nearing the end of the sidewalk, this was Harvath’s very last chance. Firing in short bursts, he kept the Mini Cooper in his sights as its driver swerved back and forth, trying to avoid being hit.
As Harvath began to squeeze the trigger once more, the vehicle hit First Avenue, pulled another tight left turn, and disappeared from sight.
The white-hot anger swelled up inside him once more. Based on the little he had seen, he knew these people were incredibly professional and would have put just as much effort into Mohammed bin Mohammed’s evacuation as they had his rescue.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Harvath had to accept that they were gone.
Ninety-Six
It was not Hastings or Cates who found Harvath propped up against a parked car and unable to move outside Libya House, but the receptionist.
Without saying a word, the man bent down and helped Harvath to his feet. When Harvath had trouble balancing on his damaged ankle, the man offered his shoulder. He tried to steer him toward the steps leading to the front of the building, but Scot shook his head and motioned toward the garage. At the bottom of the ramp, he thanked the man and told him to return to his post. What Harvath had to do now, he wanted to do without strangers present.
It took him several minutes to limp back to where he had left Hastings and Herrington, but when he got there he saw Rick Cates covering Bob’s body with a tarp. Cates looked up expectantly, and Harvath shook his head. He knew the question, and unfortunately the answer was no. He didn’t get the people who had done this to Bob.
Scot and Tracy and Rick stood there, staring down at the tarp, and said nothing. They had lost not only a teammate, but also an exceptional fellow soldier who was an even better friend.
There was no telling how much time had passed when Harvath finally said, “Let’s go back upstairs. I want some answers.”
The receptionist provided them with a keycard, but it got them only as high as the twenty-third floor. From there they walked up one more floor and realized why the freight elevator wasn’t working. Its charred doors stood wide open, and it didn’t take much of an imagination to realize what had happened. A severed hand and a lone Quantico boot with part of a leg sticking out of it, suggested at least one person, or probably more had been standing near the elevator when it exploded. What was left of the car was probably in the basement, and Harvath didn’t envy the forensic team that would have to go through it later.
As they continued on, each of the rooms they cleared was empty, until they reached the one that must have been used for bin Mohammed’s dialysis treatments. There they found another man—a marine, by the looks of him, who had taken a couple of severe blows to the head, but who was still alive. With no choice for the moment, they quickly made him as comfortable as possible and then continued with their sweep.
At the end of the hall, they found one last survivor—Sayed Jamal. He was Flexicuffed to a chair and had been beaten almost beyond recognition. Because this was Jaffe’s operation, Harvath didn’t need to recognize the prisoner to know who he was. He felt for a pulse and found one. It was weak, and even with immediate medical attention the man was probably not going to make it.
Leaving him alone, they went to clear their last and final room—the interrogation’s nerve center. After deeming it to be safe, they stared at the sophisticated electronic equipment as well as the dry-erase boards, the relationship diagrams, and the multiple photographs that had been taped up along the wall. Seeing one that bore a resemblance to the prisoner across the hall, Cates asked, “Is this what the guy in the other room used to look like?”
Harvath looked at the photo and nodded.
“They really did a number on him. Who the hell is he?”
“His name is Sayed Jamal. He’s an
al-Qaeda bombmaker who—”
Suddenly, Cates spun around and seeing that Hastings was no longer in the room said, “Oh, shit!”
“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Harvath as Cates ran for the door.
“Sayed Jamal was the man behind Tracy’s last bomb in Iraq.”
Harvath was about to echo Cates’s Oh, shit, when the crack of a single round being discharged in the interrogation room stopped him dead in his tracks. Without even seeing it, he knew that Tracy had killed him.
Ninety-Seven
GRACE CHURCH
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS
JULY 10
Search-and-rescue efforts throughout New York City had turned to search and recovery. Because of the overwhelming number of dead needing to be buried, churches were conducting group funeral masses. But in the case of one of their distinguished parishioners, Grace Church had made an exception.
At a special request from the family of Master Sergeant Robert Herrington, traffic around the church had been blocked off by McGahan and several officers from various NYPD Emergency Service Units. The media respectfully kept their distance.
As a dark blue hearse rolled forward and came to a quiet stop in front of the church, a lone bagpiper played. Supported by his teammates, who had all been granted leave from Afghanistan to attend the service, Bob’s family watched as his flag-draped casket was removed from the vehicle and carried up the stairs by pallbearers in full military dress.
There were a significant number of soldiers in attendance, many from some of the world’s most elite fighting units—men Bob had had the pleasure of either training or fighting with. More than a few of them owed their lives to the brave man who had so tragically lost his life just a week before.
Some of the soldiers Harvath had known previously and some of them he didn’t, but he had gotten to know almost everyone the night before at Bob’s wake where, despite the sad circumstances and aided by lots of cocktails, everyone seemed to be able to come up with several funny stories about Bob. As a result, most of the tears that were shed were not tears of sadness, but actually bittersweet tears of joy remembering what a wonderful and inspiring person Bob Herrington had been.