Blowback

by Brad Thor

  “Supposing he is actually there, could we somehow lure him into the village and then force him to take us back up to the top with him?”

  A quiet ping echoed in Harvath’s mind as if his mental radar had bounced back off something he had been searching for. “I like the idea of using him to get us inside, “He said, “but it’s still too dangerous. With a man like the Aga Khan, money is no object, especially when it comes to security. His people will be the absolute best. They know that the funicular is the only way to get to Aiglemont, and they will have anticipated every possible covert and forced use of it to gain access to the Château. For all we know there’s even two sets of passwords to get the operator up top to start it moving—one for everything’s okay and another for start her up, but I’m bringing company so have the men ready and waiting when we get there. We’d never know. If we do this, it can’t involve the funicular.”

  Jillian was growing frustrated. Harvath was the professional, and he wasn’t offering any suggestions of his own. All he was doing was sitting there, drinking his beer, and shooting down every plan she came up with. Jillian decided to give it one final try. “What about a glacier plane? That meadow looked long enough to land one on. Or what about a helicopter?”

  “Too noisy,” said Harvath, without even considering it.

  “You know what then?” replied Jillian, tired of trying to help when all of her ideas were being shot right down. “You figure it out. I’m not going to sit here and be made to feel like an idiot for my suggestions.”

  “The only reason you haven’t heard me suggest anything, “He replied, “is because I don’t always spit out the first thing that comes to my mind.”

  “At least we’re clear on how much you value my input,” said Jillian, her annoyance building to serious anger. “You know what, Scot? I have no idea how you handle problem solving in your line of work. I’m not an intelligence operative. I don’t know anything about the military. I’m a scientist. All I know is that as a scientist, I try to rule out the simplest possible answers first and then proceed to the more difficult ones from there. And when working with colleagues on problems, we scientists do spit out what first comes to mind. It’s a rather radical process called brainstorming.”

  Whether it was the insult that shook it loose or not, once again Harvath felt that ping in the back of his mind. It was that feeling of familiarity about Aiglemont. “The simplest possible answer, “He repeated to her. “You’re right.”

  Suddenly, Harvath had his answer. He knew why Aiglemont and its security felt so familiar to him, and he also knew how he was going to get inside. But all of it was going to ride on cashing in on one very big favor.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  D EPARTMENT OF H OMELAND S ECURITY

  O FFICE OF I NTERNATIONAL I NVESTIGATIVE A SSISTANCE

  W ASHINGTON , DC

  B rian Turner. You’re absolutely sure?” asked CIA director James Vaile as he sat in Gary Lawlor’s office, admiring an oil painting of George Patton.

  “I know what I saw,” replied the head of the OIIA. “He and Senator Carmichael were both in that hotel together.”

  Vaile took another sip of his coffee before responding. “This is pretty serious stuff—for everyone involved.”

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it here, away from Langley.”

  “You know, we normally like to handle our own problems in-house,” said Vaile.

  “Except your problem has become the president’s problem.”

  That was true, and it was also something the CIA director didn’t have an immediate answer for. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “As far as the CIA as a whole?” responded Lawlor. “Nothing. But I do want you to make it harder for him to get hold of his information. Let’s see how good he really is.”

  “It could compromise us in a lot of ongoing operations.”

  “No, it won’t. At this point they’re baiting for only one type of fish. I don’t want there to be any indication that we’re on to them. In the meantime”—he paused as he reached into his desk and withdrew a small envelope containing a CD-ROM—“I’d like you to plant this information for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Open it up when you get back to your office and you’ll see. Let’s just say that I think it will prove irresistible. Make sure you bury it deep enough that it appears authentic, but not so deep that he’ll never find it.”

  “Consider it done,” said Vaile as Lawlor’s assistant walked into the room and handed him a message.

  Right away, the CIA director could tell something was seriously wrong. “What is it?”

  Lawlor looked at his watch and replied, “In three hours, the president is going to convene a National Security Council meeting in the situation room. We just got word that our mystery illness has officially made its debut in the United States.”

  “Jesus,” said Vaile as he set down his cup. “Where and how many infected?”

  “The trail starts with a Muslim food importer by the name of Kaseem Najjar in Hamtramck, Michigan, and extends to several UPS workers throughout their processing and delivery system beginning in Michigan and ending in Manhattan. The FBI, as well as teams from the CDC and USAMRIID, are already en route.”

  “Do we know if it was intentionally released? Are there any more victims?”

  “Apparently, that’s all they know. Hopefully, we’ll have more information by the briefing this afternoon.”

  “We’d better have more than just information. You saw how fast that thing moved through that village in Iraq,” replied Vaile, already racing through worst-case scenarios in his mind. “If we don’t get a handle on this, the death count is going to be astronomical. It’ll make the plague look like an outbreak of strep throat—” Vaile was interrupted by a text message that came over his secure pager.

  This time it was Lawlor’s turn to read his friend’s visage and inquire as to what was going on.

  Looking up from his pager, the director of the CIA said, “The president’s chief of staff is looking for me.”

  “Chuck Anderson? Why?”

  “They’re concerned that a major offensive with the illness could already be under way and that it’s only a matter of hours before they start seeing casualties inside the Beltway. He wants to talk about moving the president out of DC.”

  “If a major offensive is under way, this thing could turn up anywhere. Where do they want to move him?”

  Vaile set down his pager. “They want to greenlight the doomsday scenario.”

  “Operation Ark?”

  The DCI nodded his head. “Anderson is going to recommend that the president, the cabinet, Congress, and everyone else on the continuity of government shortlist be evacuated to the underground facility at Mount Weather.”

  Lawlor was quite familiar with the emergency command and control continuity of government center built more than a mile beneath the surface of an antenna-studded mountain in northwest Virginia near the West Virginia border. It was a top-secret, self-sufficient subterranean city designed during the Cold War to withstand multiple direct hits from the biggest and baddest nuclear weapons America’s most serious enemy, the Soviet Union, might ever unleash. Whenever the media reported the president or members of the government being evacuated in times of crisis to a “secure and undisclosed” location, nine out of ten times it was Mount Weather. “That’s what Anderson’s paid for,” replied Lawlor, “to plan for the worst.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Vaile. “He’s planning for the worst, all right. The president has already initiated the Campfire Protocol. We’ve got bombers and fighter jets being outfitted with nukes as we speak. “Pausing for a moment to consider what America was on the verge of becoming, he slowly added, “I pity any location in this country that shows signs of this illness taking hold.”

  SIXTY-SIX

  S WITZERLAND

  I t was nearly nightfall when the Crossair Saab 340 HK-ABN aircraft touched down on the tarmac at Sion In
ternational and taxied toward the military section of the airfield. It was amazing what a difference a few seconds of video on al-Jazeera could make. Harvath should have been leading an assault force of American Special Operations soldiers up to Château Aiglemont, but instead he was standing in the dim overhead lighting of a small hangar, watching the plane arrive, and reflecting on the enormity of the favor he had cashed in only hours before.

  When Claudia Mueller had assisted him a couple of years earlier in rescuing the president from a team of Swiss mercenaries known as the Lions of Lucerne, she was merely an investigator with the Swiss Federal Attorney’s Office. Now, though, she was a full-fledged prosecutor with considerably more power and considerably more responsibility. She had reacted to his call just as he had expected she would. At first, she was surprised to hear from him. Their relationship had ended a long while ago and he had never seen the point in keeping in touch. He wasn’t what she wanted and she had made it clear that she was moving on. He couldn’t blame her. Just like he couldn’t blame Meg Cassidy for moving on, but his personal problems aside, he knew Claudia Mueller was the only one who could help him.

  Of course, Claudia was skeptical at first, and in all fairness, he would have been too. That was why he had had Ozan Kalachka e-mail her the kidnapping footage showing Timothy Rayburn and then had Kalachka follow it up with a call to one of his contacts within the Swiss government. For his part, Harvath assembled a memo about Rayburn, his aliases, and the credit card information placing him in Le Râleur and sent it to her hoping that it would be enough.

  As a prosecutor, Claudia had become even more demanding about evidence, and when she waxed noncommittal, Harvath hit her with the only card he had left to play. When the two of them had gone to rescue the president from Mount Pilatus, they had been operating on a lot less. That fact brought back a lot of memories for Mueller. Harvath was right, they had been operating on a lot less at the time, but they were not trespassing on private property and he wasn’t asking her to commit the lives of other people in the process. Even so, in her short time with him she had learned that Scot Harvath had incredible instincts, and so she decided to trust him.

  When the dual-prop Saab 340 HK-ABN pulled up in front of the hangar and dropped its stairs, Harvath felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. Claudia Mueller was the first one out, and she was twice as beautiful as he remembered. Her long brown hair had been streaked blond by the summer sun, and her skin was a deep bronze. She might have been very busy at work, but Harvath could see she hadn’t given up her love of climbing. It was obvious she was still spending a good amount of time outdoors. For a moment, Harvath questioned how he could have ever let her go. Then, just as quickly, he was reminded of the fact that he hadn’t let her go, it had been the other way around. Claudia had seen that he was too wrapped up in his career to ever stick out a real relationship.

  Nevertheless, she was here now, and Harvath allowed himself, at least for a moment, to believe that she wouldn’t have come unless she still cared for him. The thought warmed him until she reached the bottom of the stairs and her left hand trailed down the handrail. On it was something he hadn’t expected to see—an engagement ring.

  Though he had no right to feel betrayed, to Harvath it was as if someone was slicing through his heart with a pair of pruning shears. As he looked at her, he suddenly saw everything that they might have had together, but which she would now have with another man. Maybe he had given up on things between them too easily. Maybe there were things more important than his career.

  Harvath tried to shift his mind to something else and focused on the twenty men who followed Claudia off the plane.

  Unlike most of the other nations in the world, Switzerland was unique in that, despite its ability to do so, it didn’t field a national counterterrorism unit. Instead, the police force of each canton had its own special tactical unit, similar to SWAT teams in the United States. Out of all the canton tactical units, the Stern unit from Bern was the absolute best. Not only did Harvath want to use the absolute best, he also wanted out-of-towners, as there was no telling how loyal the local police were to the Aga Khan. It wouldn’t have surprised Harvath in the least to discover that they were on the man’s payroll.

  Harvath knew that the Stern unit had seen the most action in Switzerland, having deployed on two serious operations, which involved rescuing fourteen hostages from the Polish embassy in Bern, as well as sixty-two hostages from a hijacked Air France 737. If there was going to be trouble, these were the guys he wanted to have on his team.

  Harvath met Claudia halfway to the hangar, and she kissed him on both cheeks. Even though it was meant as a friendly, nonsexual gesture, he still felt a charge shoot through his body.

  “When I told you to call me if you ever needed anything, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” she said as the Stern commandos unloaded their gear and carried it into the hangar.

  “You know me,” replied Harvath, “I never bother keeping in touch unless I’ve got something exciting going on. Speaking of which, you’re engaged?”

  Claudia looked down at her ring then back at Harvath and smiled, almost self-consciously. “Yes, we’re getting married at Christmas.”

  “Congratulations. Where’s the wedding going to be?”

  “My family’s farm in Grindlewald. Scot, I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

  “Why?” asked Harvath. “It’s not like you and I are dating anymore. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Even so, I feel uncomfortable that you didn’t know.”

  “Well I do now, so you can relax. Who’s the lucky guy? Someone from the federal attorney’s office?”

  “Not exactly,” said Claudia as one of the commandos came up next to her and set down his bag. “I’d like you to meet my fiancé. Horst Schroeder, this is Scot Harvath, the man I was telling you about on the plane.”

  Schroeder had to be at least six-foot-three and two hundred fifty pounds of pure muscle. Though he was no judge of man flesh, Harvath couldn’t help but notice how handsome the guy was. With his strong, square jaw, solid nose, and broad forehead, the man’s face looked as if it had been chiseled from a solid block of granite. “So, you’re Harvath,” said the man as he stuck out his enormous hand.

  “That’s right,” replied Scot as he returned Horst’s grip.

  “You’ve got all the information we need to plan the assault?”

  Schroeder was typical Swiss—no bullshit and straight to the point. Either that, or he was a little too up-to-speed on Harvath’s past relationship with his fiancée and had taken a disliking to him before their plane had even touched down. “Are you the team leader?” asked Harvath, who had no desire to get into a pissing match with some jealous husband-to-be.

  Schroeder nodded his large head.

  It pays to know people, thought Harvath as he realized now how Claudia had been able to put a team together so fast. “I’ve got the pictures and video in the hangar.”

  “Claudia says you’re thinking about conducting a re-creation of Operation Oak,” said Horst. “Very clever.”

  “We’ll see,” replied Harvath. “The pilots are already inside. They’re going to be the ones we need to convince.”

  “Then let’s get started,” said the big man as he clapped Harvath on the back and walked him into the hangar.

  Harvath introduced Claudia Mueller to Jillian Alcott and half hoped to see a glint of jealousy in her eye, but there was none. Whether Claudia felt anything or not, she was being a complete and thorough professional. After everyone in the hangar was seated, Harvath began his presentation.

  With the help of an AV tech from the military base, he had uploaded all of his pictures, videos, and drawings into a PowerPoint presentation, which he now went through for the benefit of Claudia, the Stern team, and the special pilots he had asked her to arrange. “This is the base of the funicular in Le Râleur, “He narrated along with the corresponding pictures. “Two police officers in each car. As
far as we were able to tell, they have .40-caliber sidearms and tactical shotguns, but nothing heavier than that.”

  “How long are the shifts?” asked a man from the Stern team.

  “They appear to change about every four hours.”

  “What about the actual compound?” said Schroeder.

  “We did a couple of passes by plane,” continued Harvath, “and the reaction of the security team was exactly what I would expect.”

  “Not very friendly?”

  “I’ll let the video speak for itself,” said Harvath as he scrolled to that part of his presentation. “These are the main buildings here. Not much action until we go to this next clip and come in for a second, considerably lower pass.”

  One of the men let out a whistle. “The way those security people run out of that building, they look like rats jumping off a sinking ship.”

  “Hold it a second,” interjected Schroeder. “Can we back it up and enhance that? What is the man at the far edge of the patio doing?”

  “Good eye,” replied Harvath. Regardless of what he thought of Claudia marrying the guy, the operative was definitely good at his job. “I noticed that too. “Turning to the AV tech helping with the presentation, he asked, “Can you sharpen that up a little bit?”

  “Not by much, but let me see,” replied the young man, who tightened in on the figure in question.

  Though most of the resolution was gone, there was enough left for everyone to know what they were looking at. “That man has a Stinger on his shoulder,” said Schroeder.

  “I guess I can put my doubts about probable cause to rest now,” replied Claudia, who had sat down next to Jillian Alcott and was watching the presentation with rapt attention. “We definitely don’t allow private citizens to possess missiles in Switzerland.”