Use of Force

by Brad Thor

  Dropping low, he leaned out from behind the soda cooler and fired twice in rapid succession.

  There was an explosion of pink mist as the man with the cell phone took both rounds to his head and dropped.

  Before he had even hit the floor, Harvath swung around and put two rounds into the man at the ice cream chest. They were sloppy, but did the trick. One round went up through the man’s jaw and into his brain, the other tore straight through his throat.

  Swinging his weapon back toward the front door, he saw that the man with the jet-black beard now had his weapon in both hands and was bringing it up to fire. Harvath fired first.

  The first round entered just below the man’s nose. The second entered just above his left eyebrow. He dropped like a bag of wet cement.

  Coming out from behind the cooler, Harvath quickly shot each of the militia members point-blank in the head to make sure they were dead.

  Picking up the cell phone of the last man through the door, he disconnected the call he had been on, removed the battery, and tucked the device in his pocket.

  He then radioed his team as he looked behind the counter for the shopkeeper’s keys. “Tangos down. Staelin, I need you in here.”

  “Roger that,” he replied.

  Harvath found the shopkeeper’s phone as well as the key to the security door as Staelin entered.

  “Nice shooting,” he remarked as he looked at the bodies near the front.

  “Open up the rear door,” Harvath said, tossing him the key. “Tell Gage and Barton I need both of the spare gas cans, plus a road flare.”

  “Where’s the SAT phone salesman?”

  “In the freezer. Now get moving. I want to be out of here in three minutes.”

  Staelin did as instructed while Harvath gathered up the militia members’ weapons. All three of them had been carrying Glocks. That wasn’t a weapon you saw every day in these parts. In fact, several years ago, a cache of American Glocks had gone missing from a training camp not far from here. Harvath didn’t have time to think about that now, though.

  Despite the heat, two of the men had been wearing camouflage jackets. Removing them, he set them on the counter and then stripped the men of anything that could be used to identify them.

  Tim Barton came back inside with Staelin. The former SEAL Team Six member from Tacoma was in his early thirties and only stood about five-foot-six. But what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in width. He was a devoted weight lifter and was built like a fireplug. He had reddish-blond hair, a bright red beard, and was a bit OCD.

  In one sense, it was an asset, because Barton would double- and triple-check every piece of gear and everything he did. But he was also a clean freak and carried tons of extra hand sanitizer on ops. His teammates busted his balls over it all the time.

  “Where’s the package?” Barton asked, tossing Harvath the road flare.

  Harvath nodded toward the freezer.

  The SEAL lifted the lid and exclaimed, “Jesus Christ!” as he turned his head away from the stench.

  Harvath accepted the gas cans from Staelin and instructed him to help pull the shopkeeper out of the freezer and get him to the SUV. Unscrewing one of the caps, he then began splashing gasoline everywhere.

  It didn’t need to look like an accident. It just needed to slow the local militia. Once he and his team had gotten hold of Umar Ali Halim, he didn’t care what the Libya Liberation Front was able to figure out.

  Wrapping their keffiyehs around their faces, Barton and Staelin pulled the shopkeeper out of the rotten-smelling ice cream chest, carried him outside, and tossed him into the cargo area of the SUV.

  Barton then hopped into the backseat, pulled out his hand sanitizer, and kept an eye on him.

  Six-foot-three Gage from Edina, Minnesota, remained up front with a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek and the engine running.

  Staelin returned inside.

  “Libyan lightning?” he asked, playing on an old arson joke.

  Harvath nodded. “Fire sale. Everything must go. Put this on,” he said, tossing him one of the camouflage jackets.

  “Are we taking that technical with us?”

  Harvath nodded again and put on one of the jackets himself. After dumping the militia members’ sidearms in his messenger bag, he slung one of the AK-47s and sent Staelin outside with the other two to fire up the truck.

  When it was running, he announced. “We’re good to go. Ready when you are.”

  “Stand by,” Harvath replied as he opened the second gas can and soaked the corpses.

  This was supposed to be the easiest stage of their operation, but it had gone sideways, fast. It wasn’t a good omen.

  What can go wrong, will go wrong, he reminded himself. Then something else came to mind. Once Murphy, of the infamous Murphy’s law, had you in his sights, he wasn’t usually content to just let you off with a warning. He tended to stick around and make sure things got much worse. Harvath, though, tried to push the thought from his mind.

  Striking the flare, he tossed it into the center of the room. As the fire leapt to life, he backed out of the shop.

  But as he did, a very bad feeling about what lay in front of them began to take hold in the pit of his stomach.

  CHAPTER 15

  * * *

  * * *

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Paul Page wasn’t a particularly attractive individual—not on the outside, and definitely not on the inside.

  He was in his late fifties, with a receding hairline and gray eyebrows that formed distinct peaks when he was angry or surprised. As a purveyor of global intelligence, rarely was he ever surprised.

  He was a hard, calculating man who enjoyed Kentucky bourbon, Maryland crab cakes, and D.C. call girls. The word that best described him, though, was forgettable.

  His ability to melt into the background had been an asset as a CIA officer—right up until the moment he’d been “let go.”

  He hated the term let go. Cut loose was another he couldn’t stand. He’d been cut loose all right. As if he were an astronaut in the middle of a space walk, Langley had uncoupled his umbilical cord and let him drift off into the cold darkness of space.

  Snatching the terrorist Imam off the streets of Milan had been his idea. He had planned it down to the tiniest detail. In retrospect, would he have done things differently? Probably. But he had never expected to get caught.

  He had picked the team himself. They were good people, people he knew from his years at the Agency. They were hard workers. He was a hard worker. Creating fully backstopped covers was a pain in the ass and took shitloads of time—a year at least. They hadn’t had that luxury.

  When the Imam popped onto the CIA’s radar, Page’s superiors had encouraged him to act quickly. He had made a judgment call. Ironically, no one on his team had given him any pushback.

  They all traveled under their real names, used their own cell phones, and checked into their hotels with their loyalty program numbers so they could get rewards points. As long as the government was picking up the tab for the trip to Italy, why not? It wasn’t like they were skimming money out of petty cash.

  What he hadn’t seen coming was that the intelligence about the Imam might be faulty. The thought hadn’t even entered his mind.

  The thought hadn’t entered the minds of the Egyptian interrogators they were using either. After grabbing the Imam and rendering him to a black site in Cairo, Page and his team had gone back to the United States and waited for him to spill his secrets.

  As it turned out, the Imam didn’t have any. He wasn’t involved in terrorism at all.

  That was a problem.

  It was a problem because during the year he spent in Egyptian custody, he had been beaten, tortured, and even raped—repeatedly.

  Eventually, Egyptian Intelligence realized the CIA had made a massive mistake. The Imam was moved out of the black site and placed under house arrest.

  In that house, though, was a telephone. And as soo
n as he was alone, the Imam called every friend and family member he had.

  At first, they were overjoyed to hear his voice. Then, they were outraged as he described what had happened to him. Right away, they began reaching out to journalists.

  The story spread like wildfire. The public was outraged. The CIA looked every bit as monstrous as the Egyptians. Not long after the story broke, the Italians launched an investigation.

  Because Page’s team hadn’t bothered to take the batteries out of their phones while in Italy, much less use untraceable burner phones, the Italian authorities were able to re-create their every move. In the nine days they spent stalking the Imam, staking out his home and mosque, they had left a distinct trail of digital breadcrumbs.

  The Italians issued warrants for Page and his entire team. Naturally, none of them complied.

  A trial was held in Milan. In absentia, Page and his fellow CIA operatives were all found guilty. Prison sentences were handed down, as was a judgment that each operative pay one million Euros to the Imam and five hundred thousand Euros to his wife.

  With the verdicts in place, the Italians issued new arrest warrants and entered red notices with INTERPOL. If any of the convicted CIA operatives ever set foot in Europe again, they would be arrested on the spot.

  It was considered one of the most embarrassing moments in the Agency’s history and the blame-storming began immediately. The President wanted blood. The Intelligence committees wanted severed heads on pikes outside the Capitol Building. Everyone on Langley’s seventh floor ran for cover.

  As they cowered under their desks, they conspired to come up with an appropriate human sacrifice. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at a name—his.

  Page was expendable. Hell, everyone who worked at the Agency was expendable. But after years of dedicated service, he expected better. He expected someone in leadership to stand up and defend him. Of all people, he expected his mentor, Reed Carlton, to come to his defense.

  That, though, hadn’t happened. Instead, Carlton sat on a board of review and voted against him. Carlton called the operation “misguided and unprofessional.”

  Page was stung by the critique. Yes, he had made mistakes. Yes, Carlton had pulled him aside in the past and had warned him about his behavior. But this was different. Nevertheless, Carlton had chosen to put the precious Agency ahead of their friendship. That was unforgiveable in Page’s book.

  Though he was well liked and had many other friends at the CIA, there was nothing any of them could do to save him. The decision had been made by the CIA Director himself. The angry Potomac gods downriver needed to be appeased. They would not be denied their pound of flesh.

  Without the career that had defined him, the lesser of Page’s angels took over. He began drinking heavily. His marriage (his second) fell apart. His wife left him. He burned through his 401(k). He came inches away from suck-starting his Walther pistol.

  Then, one of his old friends from the Agency had dropped an opportunity in his lap. A big, golden opportunity.

  An American company looking to do business in several Russian satellites needed highly sensitive intelligence. With that intelligence, the company would have a strategic advantage over its competition. The contract it was chasing was worth more than a hundred million dollars.

  It just so happened that Page’s friend had access to the intel that the American company was looking for. As an active CIA employee, he couldn’t deal with the company directly. Page, though, could.

  And thus Page Partners, Ltd.—a global, private intelligence-gathering service geared toward multinational corporations—was born. Paul Page interfaced with the clients and kept the money flowing, while his pal inside the Agency kept the intelligence flowing. It was a lucrative, not to mention illegal, match made in heaven.

  But while Page seemed to have everything he could want—an expensive downtown apartment, a new Mercedes, a flashy wardrobe, and money to burn—there was something missing. Something he wanted above all else. Revenge.

  When the bell rang, he set down his copy of the Washington Post and stood to answer the door.

  He took a deep breath. This was a historic moment—something he had been waiting years for. If everything worked according to plan, this was the beginning of the end for Reed Carlton.

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  * * *

  “Couldn’t find a garbage can outside?” Page asked as Andrew Jordan pushed past him into the kitchen and emptied the remnants of his sack lunch onto the marble counter.

  Jordan was a jowly man in his midforties, with perfectly combed blond hair and an ill-fitting suit. The knot of his tie was poorly tied, but his brown shoes were polished to a high shine. He was a study in contradictions.

  Holding up a crushed can of Coke Zero, he tilted it admiringly in the light as if he were showing off the Hope Diamond. Then he tossed it to his friend and covert business partner. “Merry Christmas.”

  Page caught the can in his left hand. “What’s this?”

  “Open it.”

  “What do you mean open it?”

  “I mean open it.”

  Page looked at him, then gripped the can at the top and the bottom and began to pull. There was something inside. Lifting it to his ear, he shook it and heard something rattle.

  Jordan smiled. “I thought about hiding it in the apple core, but this was cleaner.”

  Page turned the wrinkled can upside down over the counter and out came a micro SD card.

  “If anyone had searched me,” Jordan continued, “all they would have gotten was practice.”

  The CIA man was obviously pleased with himself. Page, though, was beyond pleased. If what he had was legitimate, a whole new era had just dawned. “You took a big risk doing this.”

  “Everything I do is a big risk.”

  Page grinned. The CIA had no clue what was going on right beneath their noses. Jordan was not only a pro at beating the regular polygraph tests, but he was also a pro at spotting coworkers ripe for recruitment.

  The key to successfully stealing intelligence from within the CIA was making sure no one ever noticed anything was missing.

  It was akin to being an art thief. Only a fool would attempt to steal the Mona Lisa. The security alone rendered it pointless.

  The smart thief aimed his sights lower, on lesser pieces of art people weren’t paying close attention to.

  And unlike the art world, in this one Page didn’t have to leave forgeries to cover up his crimes. All he had to do was make a copy of the original. As long as no one noticed, he was home free.

  In fact, even if someone did notice, he had created such a complicated trail that it would take two lifetimes to trace it back to him.

  “Where’s your computer?” Jordan asked. “You need to pop that card in and see what’s on it.”

  Page disappeared to his study to retrieve his laptop. He was gone less than two minutes. When he returned to the kitchen, Jordan had already pulled a four-hundred-dollar limited-edition bottle of Dom Pérignon from the fridge, peeled off the foil, and was loosening the wire cage from around the cork.

  “Sure, help yourself,” Page quipped, as he set his laptop on the counter.

  “If you don’t think what I brought you is worth celebrating, I’ll buy you an entire case to replace this. Where do you keep the champagne glasses?”

  Page tilted his head toward the cabinet above the microwave and fired up his MacBook.

  It took a moment to boot up, but once it did, he attached an SD card reader, inserted the card, and clicked on the icon. Several folders appeared.

  “Which one should I start with?” he asked.

  There was a pop as Jordan wrenched the cork out of the bottle. “The one marked Burning Man.”

  Page did and instantly regretted it. It contained photo after photo of dead bodies, people missing limbs, and thick rivers of blood.

  The carnage made his stomach churn. “I don’t want to look at this.”

&nbs
p; “Keep going.”

  Page relented and scrolled through until he came across pictures of a man with a face full of war paint, beating another man.

  “Those are the money shots,” Jordan said as he handed him a glass of champagne. “Wait’ll you get to the video.”

  “What’s in the video?”

  “Click on it.”

  Once again, Page complied. The feed was shaky, taken on a camera phone by someone quickly backing away from the chaos.

  Several men in the crowd could be seen rushing the man with the war paint, who pulled out a pistol and fired into the air.

  “Where’d all this come from?”

  “Nevada Park Rangers,” Jordan replied. “The people at Burning Man were apparently very cooperative. The Park Rangers handed the footage over to the FBI. We got copies from them.

  “From what we’ve been able to figure out, there were four suicide bombers at the festival. Three were interdicted.”

  “By whom?” Page asked.

  “CIA contractors.”

  “Working with the FBI?”

  Jordan shook his head. “The Bureau had zero idea they were there.”

  “That must be causing a little consternation.”

  “Are you kidding me? The FBI Director hit the roof. And when the CIA Director asked him to keep quiet, he hit it again.”

  Page’s eyebrows peaked in surprise. “McGee asked the FBI to hush it up?”

  Jordan nodded. “Yup.”

  “This is a huge clusterfuck for the Agency. What does it have to do with Reed Carlton, though?”

  “The guy with the war paint? He’s Carlton’s golden boy.”

  “What’s his name?” Page asked.

  “Scot Harvath. SEAL Team Six guy. He’s got a pretty impressive background.”

  “How impressive?”

  Jordan took a sip of his champagne. “Click on the folder marked Personnel Records.”