by Brad Thor
Harvath’s legs burned and sweat was breaking out on his forehead. He was like a coiled spring that had been wound too tight. He wasn’t going to be able to hold this position much longer.
Suddenly, there was a flash of color as one of Morrell’s men did a hasty peek around the corner of the garage. That was when Harvath sprang.
Grabbing the man’s submachine gun with his left hand and pulling him off-balance, Harvath slammed the butt of his pistol into the man’s temple hard enough to make him see stars, lots of them.
Instantly, his knees buckled, and Harvath yanked him the rest of the way around the corner to his side of the house.
Keeping his own pistol trained on him, Harvath took the man’s MP5, as well as a spare magazine, and slung it over his shoulder. The man carried a .40 caliber Glock in a paddle holster at his hip, and Harvath helped himself to that too.
In the man’s ear was a Secret Service–style ear bud. Harvath checked his collar and found a microphone, which was connected to a small, Midland walkie-talkie on his belt.
“I’m going to give you one chance,” whispered Harvath. “Tell your team I’m in the woods, north of the house headed for the road. Got it?”
“Fuck you,” spat the man, his head still reeling.
Transitioning to the silenced MP5, Harvath jammed the weapon into the man’s groin. “He’s in the woods, north of the house and headed for the road,” repeated Harvath. “Do it, or I’ll blow your balls off.”
With his eyes glaring at Harvath, the man nodded.
Harvath reached over and activated the micro-phone.
Wincing in pain, the man stammered, “This is McCourt. Harvath’s in the woods north of the house. He’s headed for the road.”
Releasing the transmit button, Harvath pulled the submachine gun out of the man’s crotch and cracked him across the side of the head, knocking him unconscious.
He waited until he heard Morrell’s people go crashing through the brush at the north end of the property and then made his break for the waterfront.
As he ran, his mind replayed what Jean Stevens had said about the rehearsal dinner. We’re getting picked up on the dock at five-thirty for a cocktail cruise and then it’s off to the club for dinner.
Harvath looked at his Kobold. It was already five-thirty-three.
No longer caring that his cell phone could allow the CIA to pinpoint his location, Harvath pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket and turned it on. As soon as it registered a signal, he dialed Meg’s cell phone. He was immediately dumped into her voice-mail and realized that the phone must have been turned off.
The only other person he knew on the boat was Jean Stevens, but he had no idea if she even carried a cell phone, much less what her number was.
Harvath contemplated calling the Secret Service, so they could alert the agents on Meg’s detail, but working his way through the chain of command would take too much time.
He was the only person who could possibly stop Roussard, but to do that, he needed a way to get to the other side of the lake.
Arriving at the shore path, Harvath stopped. He could go either right or left, but whichever direction he chose it needed to have a pier in close proximity with a fast boat. If he chose wrong, Meg Cassidy, as well as her Secret Service detail and all of her guests, were going to die.
Harvath ran out to the end of Roussard’s dock to get a better view. East of his location for at least a thousand yards was nothing but shoreline, while less than two hundred yards to the west were a handful of short piers like the one he was standing on. Several of them had boats, and one even had a family that was loading theirs with food and wine as they prepared to go out for an evening cruise.
Harvath pulled his creds from his pocket and spun, ready to ID himself to the boat’s owners as he ran for their dock, but was instead greeted by the sight of Rick Morrell’s silenced MP5 pointed right at his head.
CHAPTER 118
You were always too smart for your own good,” said Morrell, his gun trained on Harvath. “Where’s McCourt?”
“Sleeping it off behind the garage,” replied Harvath. “Listen, Rick—”
Morrell held up his hand. “My guys wanted to grab you in downtown Lake Geneva when you were heading for your car, but I said no. It was too public. Now I’ve got one man down and the rest of my team on a wild-goose chase. This is going to end right here before anybody else gets hurt.”
Harvath started walking toward him. “We don’t have time for this.”
Morrell responded by painting a racing stripe with his MP5 right up the dock, stopping only inches from Harvath’s feet. “Stop right there and drop all your weapons, right now,” he commanded.
“Roussard is on his way to kill Meg Cassidy.”
“Roussard’s not my problem. Now drop your weapons.”
“He killed Vaile’s nephew, for Christ’s sake. You’ll be a hero at the Agency for bagging him. Jesus, Rick. You know Meg. You know better than anybody else what she risked when she agreed to come on that assignment with us. I don’t care what anybody has told you, you can’t let some shitbag terrorist kill her.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not authorized to—”
“Fuck authorized. This is about us—all of us who were part of that operation to hunt down Abu Nidal’s kids. Do you know who Roussard is?”
Morrell shook his head. “I don’t think it would make any diff—”
“He’s Adara Nidal’s son, Rick,” replied Harvath, cutting Morrell off again. “This whole thing is about revenge. Payback for whatever twisted thing they think I did to her. And it’s why he saved Meg for last.”
A flood of images sped through Morrell’s mind. He remembered all too well the mission to take down Adara and her brother that he and Harvath has been assigned to years ago.
“All that matters,” continued Harvath, “is that we stop Roussard. After that, I’ll put the cuffs on myself, but we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
Morrell lowered his weapon and said, “How?”
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The twenty-nine-foot-long Cobalt speedboat his realtor had provided was more than up to the task Roussard had set for it.
Affixing the commercial-grade tripod to the deck in the rear seating area had proven to be a little more time-consuming than he had anticipated, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. The specially milled joining plates provided a perfect mount for the weapon.
Originally, Roussard had thought he’d have to wait until the very last moment to seat it, but then he witnessed the family a few docks over returning home from an evening of waterskiing and tubing. The next morning, he purchased a similar oversized neoprene-covered “ski tube” and found that it concealed the tripod-mounted weapon perfectly.
The 20mm M61A2 Vulcan was an electrically fired, six-barreled Gatling-style gun that could spit out over six thousand rounds per minute. Not only would Meg Cassidy and all of her guests be ripped to shreds before they knew what had happened, but so would all the bystanders on the shore behind them. The Polaris itself would also be so badly damaged that it would very likely catch fire and sink.
There was no doubt that the waters of Lake Geneva would run red with blood, the fulfillment of Roussard’s final plague.
His body coursed with adrenaline as he bobbed silently in the water a safe distance away. Through his binoculars, he watched as the last of Meg Cassidy’s tardy guests were loaded aboard the oblong pleasure steamer moored at the end of her pier. It was only a matter of minutes now.
Roussard had picked the perfect spot for the attack. The bar at the Abbey Springs Yacht Club would be loaded with early-bird customers, as would its restaurant and the terrace outside. Beneath the terrace, the Yacht Club’s beach would be populated with families barbecuing, as well as beachgoers who had not yet called it a day.
The scene both on the Polaris and behind on the grounds of Abbey Springs would be nothing short of horrific. Roussard shook with anticipation.
; Peering through his binoculars once again, he watched as the last of Meg Cassidy’s passengers boarded and the crew began to untie the lines.
The water was calm and there was little wind to upset the boat’s orientation and equilibrium. It was a perfect night for the type of killing Philippe Roussard was about to do. He smiled as he reflected on how proud his mother would be. He almost didn’t want it to end, but of course it had to. And after tonight, he had only one last name to check off his list. After tonight, he would finally begin to hunt Scot Harvath.
Three sharp blasts of the Polaris’s steam whistle signaled its departure from the pier. Roussard reached down and turned the key, firing up the citron-yellow Cobalt’s engines.
He had already piloted the route several times during the day. As the Polaris passed the subdivision before Abbey Springs known as the Harvard Club, Roussard would uncover the Vulcan and move in for the kill. By the time he reached Meg Cassidy and her guests, they would be parallel with the Yacht Club and the fun could begin.
As he watched the Polaris cruise past a small spit of land that jutted out into the lake, which he’d learned from his maps was called Rainbow Point, he could hear laughter and the tinkling of glasses accompanied by jazz music.
The passengers of the Polaris were blissfully unaware of what was about to happen, and Roussard’s sense of power soared. Nudging his throttles forward, he picked up speed.
He took in the positions of the other boats around him, noting that the lake looked no different than it had over the last two days. The small number of law enforcement boats the lake did have were actively tied up at the Lake Geneva Country Club, preparing for the president’s attendance at a wedding that would never happen. In essence, Roussard’s getaway was all but guaranteed. And if any do-gooder was stupid enough to give him chase after the attack, he would have more than enough ammunition left to blow him right out of the water.
Seeing the Polaris approaching the Harvard Club, Roussard peered beneath the ski tube to make sure the weapon was “hot” and ready to fire.
Satisfied that everything was exactly as he wanted it, he straightened up and focused on the target.
As the steamship neared the Harvard Club, Roussard bumped the throttles farther forward and began to pick up speed again.
When the Polaris pulled even with the Harvard Club’s swim pier, Roussard threw the ski tube overboard and pushed the Cobalt’s throttles all the way forward.
It took only a moment for the speedboat to pop out of the hole, and once the craft was on plane, it accelerated like a jet off an aircraft carrier.
He’d already opened the boat all the way up earlier in the day, but the sensation was nothing like what he was feeling now. He rose from his seat, feeling his body become one with the craft. With the Vulcan, the three of them combined to create the perfect killing machine.
Roussard watched as the distance between him and his unknowing victims aboard the slow-moving Polaris narrowed.
As he got within a thousand meters of the steamship he began to count down in bite-sized chunks. Seven hundred meters. Six hundred meters. Five hundred.
He wanted to shout the attack cry of his ancestors as his boat ripped through the water and he closed in on the final several hundred meters. Already he could see passengers on the Polaris taking notice. At first their faces reflected bewilderment and then terror as they realized what was happening and comprehended that they were powerless to stop it.
He was within a hundred meters of where he needed to bring the boat to a stop so that he could man the Vulcan. Seventy-five. Now fifty meters!
As Roussard cut back the throttles, the engines failed to quiet. Instead they roared and grew louder.
It took the killer but a fraction of a second to comprehend what was happening, and by then it was too late.
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The hull of the bright-red Cigarette boat sliced right through Roussard’s Cobalt. At the moment he realized what had happened, the deed was done. Roussard was barely able to throw his hands up in front of his face before impact.
Passengers aboard the Polaris began screaming as soon as they saw that the low-slung Cigarette boat was doing nothing to avert an impending collision with the bright-yellow Cobalt.
The sound of the impact was sickening. Fiberglass was ripped apart and rent asunder as the Cigarette plowed right through its victim and kept going, grazing the stern of the Polaris.
The Cigarette finally stopped when it ran aground halfway up the rolling hill that met the thin strip of rock, sand, and grass that composed the Harvard Club’s shorefront.
The first thing Harvath heard as he came to were the terrified screams from the Polaris. Blood was dripping into his right eye, and he raised his hand to his forehead and felt a gash several inches long. Looking to his left, he couldn’t find Morrell and assumed he’d been ejected.
Smoke was pouring from the engine compartment. Harvath cut the engines and the wildly spinning props soon fell silent. Stumbling from the boat, he looked for Morrell and found him lying near a rock wall over thirty feet away. He was barely conscious, and Harvath knew better than to move him. He told Morrell to stay still and that he’d be back with help soon.
What he didn’t share with him was that he had something else he had to do first.
Off the end of the Harvard Club boat pier, Harvath could see the two halves of Roussard’s boat upturned and bobbing just above the waterline. Ignoring the splitting pain from his head, Harvath took off running down the pier, launching himself at the end of it in a flying leap over the water.
When he plunged beneath the surface, he opened his eyes and began looking for Roussard. He stayed down as long as he could, until he had no choice but to come up again for air. Circling the wreckage in search of the terrorist, he ignored the burning sensation of spilled gasoline that was pouring into his wound.
He was about to submerge himself again when he heard coughing from about seventy-five yards away. It had come from a fleet of moored sailboats. Swimming as quietly as he could, Harvath made for the sound.
From Fontana, the village air raid siren was calling the police, volunteer fire, and rescue workers to duty.
Unobserved, he moved closer to the sailboat, and then, taking a deep breath, Harvath slipped once more beneath the surface of the water.
When he got beneath the sailboat’s heavy, fixed keel he looked up and saw a pair of legs feebly treading water. Sliding his Benchmade from where it was clipped in his pocket, Harvath depressed its lone button and the blade swung up and locked into place.
Like a great white shark circling its prey, Harvath made a loop beneath Roussard and headed upward, quietly breaking the surface behind him.
The man must have sensed Harvath’s presence, because all of a sudden he spun, his eyes wide with fear. Blood was running from his nose as well as both of his ears. When he coughed, great gobs of it came out, and as Harvath positioned himself for the kill, he noticed that one of Roussard’s eyeballs must have become detached, as it remained stationary and didn’t track the way the other one did.
There was no mercy in Harvath’s heart for this terrorist, this killer of innocent men and women. Roussard was beyond rehabilitation, and Harvath knew the greatest gift he could give the American taxpayers was to prevent Roussard from ever standing trial and living out the next twenty years on appeal after appeal in some prison somewhere.
Harvath swung the knife with one fluid slash, and its blade tore through the soft flesh of Roussard’s throat. That which has been taken in blood, can only be answered in blood, he thought to himself.
Watching him die, Harvath began to realize that he’d made a mistake. The blade was so razor-sharp that Roussard probably hadn’t even felt it. Bleeding to death was too good for him. Harvath wanted him to be filled with terror as he died, just as so many of his victims had.
Quickly swimming around behind him, Harvath placed both of his hands upon Roussard’s shoulders and pushed him beneath the surface of
the water.
The man struggled violently for almost a minute. Then his body fell quiet and Harvath knew he was dead.
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Harvath remained at the scene with Rick Morrell until an ambulance arrived. Though the CIA operative insisted he’d be fine, the EMTs put him in a cervical collar, placed him on a backboard, and transported him to the hospital for evaluation. Once Morrell was gone, Harvath made his way back down to the water.
The Polaris had docked at the end of the Abbey Springs boat pier, and when Todd Kirkland saw Harvath making his way to where all the passengers were gathered, he thought for sure he was coming for him. But he wasn’t. Nor was he coming for Meg. Instead he spoke briefly with Meg’s two Secret Service agents and then took Jean Stevens by the hand and led her away.
After walking back along the lake path to her cottage to pick up extra clothes and her car, Jean drove Harvath to the Abbey Resort. Still soaking wet, he walked straight past the gaping-mouthed stares of the front desk staff to his room.
He called the pilots and told them to be ready to move in five minutes, then quickly changed into the clothes Jean Stevens had given him. As she drove them to the airport, Harvath informed Zucker and Burdic that they were flying to D.C. His one hope was that he would make it there before Tracy’s parents could remove her from life support.
When the plane touched down it was raining. Through the rain-soaked windows of his cab, he could see by the light of the D.C. streetlights that the leaves were already beginning to turn color. Summer was officially over.
Tracy’s night nurse, Laverna, was the first one to notice him when he stepped into the ICU. “I tried to call you. Didn’t you get any of my messages?” she asked.
Harvath shook his head. “I’ve been out of pocket for a few days. How’s Tracy?”
The nurse gripped his arm. “Her parents took her off the ventilator this afternoon.”