by Brad Thor
The shot was perfect. It sailed right into the room where the sniper had been and detonated in a blinding explosion.
Glass, timber, and pieces of concrete erupted out onto the street. A pillar of thick, black smoke rose into the air.
“Time to go,” Harvath said, as he transitioned back to his rifle, scanned for more threats, and began issuing orders over the radio.
He was relieved to see Staelin, along with Barton and Morrison, moving Umar Ali Halim quickly down the street. It must have been the little Libyan, the one who had ratted them out back at the compound, who had gotten killed in the exchange of gunfire.
Just beyond them, Harvath could make out their Land Cruiser riddled with bullet holes. The night sky was beginning to give way to morning. They needed to get moving.
Haney quickly backed the technical down the street to pick everyone up. It was a double cab designed to hold five people, but that was going to be pushing it for a team of men in tactical gear. With six shooters, plus a hostage, someone was going to have to ride in the back. Harvath and Barton both offered to do it.
Once they had all been loaded, Haney peeled out and began speeding them out of town.
As Staelin helped Gage pack his wound with hemostatic gauze up front, a call came for Harvath over the radio.
It was the drone team. They had good news, but they also had bad news.
The good news was that they were back overhead. The bad news was that an army of Libya Liberation Front members was headed right at them.
CHAPTER 32
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“How many and from what direction?” Harvath asked.
“There’s a three-vehicle convoy including one technical west of you out of Abu Kammash,” the drone team leader stated. “A five-vehicle convoy is to your east from the port at Zuwara with two technicals. Finally, there’s a seven-vehicle convoy approaching from your south. That one has four technicals, two of which are mounted with antiaircraft guns.”
Shit. “How far out are they?”
“The convoy from Abu Kammash is a little over ten klicks out. The others are closer to twenty.”
That was way too close as far as Harvath was concerned. They’d never be able to outrun them. Not with the piece-of-shit truck they were driving. And definitely not when it was loaded down with six shooters, two of whom were riding in the bed, all their gear, plus a hostage.
“I’ll let you guys call it, but my preference is that you take out the Abu Kammash convoy first,” said Harvath.
“Negative. We’re not authorized to target Libyan militias.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. What do you mean you’re not free to target Libyan militias?”
“Our agreement with the Tunisians is that airstrikes are only authorized when targeting Islamic militants.”
Fucking politics. “Let me talk to your senior.”
“I am the senior. In fact I specifically requested this op to make sure you guys got everything you needed.”
“I appreciate that, but what I need right now is some CAS,” Harvath replied, using the acronym for close air support.
“Don’t worry,” the drone team leader replied. “We’re going to help navigate you out of this.”
Harvath was worried. “What other armed assets do we have in the air that didn’t launch from Tunisia?” he asked.
“There’s another Reaper, west of Benghazi. But it launched from U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella on Sicily.”
“So what? How quick can we get it on station here?”
“Per our agreement with the Italians, only non-Libyans can be targeted in drone strikes launched from Sigonella.”
The world had lost its mind. “The Tunisians and the Italians realize that the Libya Liberation Front is allied with Ansar al-Sharia, which in turn is linked to Al Qaeda, right?”
“Sorry, sir, I don’t make the rules.”
“Are there any U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean right now operating drones?”
“Yes, sir, but none that will be able to get an asset on station for you quickly enough.”
“Give me the name of the nearest vessel.”
The drone team leader confirmed his information and then replied, “It’s the Nimitz-class supercarrier, the USS George H. W. Bush.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Stand by,” said Harvath as he pulled out his satellite phone and dialed the cell phone of the Director of Central Intelligence.
Back in the United States, it was just past eleven o’clock at night. Bob McGee answered on the third ring.
“Sorry to wake you,” said Harvath. “I need you to make a phone call for me, fast.”
He gave the DCI the details and secured his promise to cut out the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, as well as the Defense Attaché, even though that was protocol. They’d only get in the way.
Within sixty seconds of hanging up, McGee had the Secretary of Defense on the phone. The SecDef personally called the Commander of the Sixth Fleet, who conferenced in the Commander of Carrier Strike Group Two, which was responsible for the USS George H. W. Bush. Once they were all on the line, McGee explained the situation and what they needed.
Five minutes later, a phone rang at the Tunisian air base from which the Reaper tracking Harvath and his team was being piloted.
After authenticating the caller and listening to the Pentagon’s instructions, the drone team commander replied, “Roger that. Right away.”
Relaying the command to the drone pilot, he then turned to his Tunisian liaison and stated, “This drone is being removed from inventory and will not be returning to Tunisian soil. We’re handing over control to the USS George H. W. Bush.”
Within seconds, the drone banked and headed out to sea. As it did, Harvath’s satellite phone vibrated. It was McGee.
“As soon as Strike Group Two has control of the drone, video to the base in Tunisia will be cut. They know what’s going on, but it gives them cover. Once the drone gets beyond Libya’s territorial waters, they’re off the hook.”
“But that’s twelve nautical miles,” Harvath replied, as he stared out from the back of the technical, expecting to see militia members behind them at any moment. “We don’t have that long.”
“Strike Group Two isn’t going the full twelve. The second the handoff is complete, they’re sending it back to you. In the meantime, you’ve got to figure something out, because you are on your own.”
Harvath acknowledged the Director’s update, made one more request, and then disconnected the call.
They were approaching the north side of Zelten now. With every building they passed, he saw people in windows and on rooftops—most of them with cell phones. Not good.
There was no question in his mind that the team’s location and heading was being relayed back to the Libya Liberation Front.
Harvath wasn’t one for ducking a fight, but he was a big believer that discretion was always the better part of valor. Gage was already injured. He didn’t want to risk more injuries, or worse, if he didn’t have to.
If they could make it out of town and into the sparsely populated area between Zelten and the coast, they might be able to find a place to hole up and avoid the Libya Liberation Front all together.
But without the drone monitoring the militia’s progress, there was no telling how much time they had. If they were going to pull off and hide, they’d have to do it soon.
Getting on the radio, he relayed to the team what he wanted them to be on the lookout for.
Minutes later, he could see Zelten receding. So far, there were no vehicles approaching.
As the area’s small farms grew farther and farther apart, Haney’s voice came over the radio. Up ahead, he could see a small cluster of buildings surrounded by a low wall.
Harvath told him to head for it. He had a feeling those buildings might be their best, and only, opportunity for survival.
CHAPTER 33
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P
ARIS
Tursunov had eaten dinner in a small Moroccan restaurant near Notre Dame along the rue Xavier. It had come recommended by Abdel and was close to the last stop he needed to make before turning in for the night.
Walking up to the Pont Royal, he crossed the Seine and entered the enormous formal garden created by Catherine de Medici known as the Jardin des Tuileries.
Rolling out like a giant green welcome mat that stretched from the Louvre Museum to the Place de la Concorde, it was one of the most popular places in all of Paris to gather, stroll, and relax.
Statues by Giacometti, Maillol, and Rodin adorned the manicured grounds and crushed gravel walkways. It boasted two giant fountains. One of which—much like the cathedral in Santiago—had drawn his attention for a very special reason.
ISIS despised the French. They despised them for being the European embodiment of everything they saw was wrong with the West. The French were arrogant, libertine hypocrites who had outlawed all face covering, including niqabs and burkas.
The French not only pretended to desire Western ideals like democracy, free speech, and human rights, but they actively sought to impose them on the Islamic world through force. If that required dropping bombs on and killing Muslim people, the French were more than happy to do it.
ISIS had set its sights on France and was determined to attack it repeatedly. Tursunov had been told that they didn’t care where he struck, as long as he was successful.
He knew they preferred that he strike Paris. It was the heart of the nation. And any successful attack there had the added benefit of not only damaging the French psyche, but also killing plenty of Western tourists, and thereby helping to damage the economy.
Very few would want to visit a city, or a nation for that matter, besieged by terrorism.
Paris presented the additional benefit of being awash with strangers. He could wander. He could linger. He could study the ebb and flow of people. He could take photographs. None of it would attract undue attention.
That had been important when selecting the Tuileries for his attack. But just as important had been an added, personal piece of symbolism.
His Sufi mother believed that symbolism was a reflection of the Divine and that numerology was one of its forms. The Holy Qur’an, when explored through the lens of numerology, contained incredible revelations—the atomic number for iron, earth’s ratio of land to sea, the genetic code of the bee.
But one of its most fascinating revelations—made more than a thousand years before it would happen—was the date of man’s lunar landing.
She had imbued in him a sense of awe and, most important, of respect for how Allah’s hand guided all things.
It was this awe and wonder that had brought him to Paris, and specifically to the Tuileries.
Of the things he was most certain of, there was nothing greater than his certitude in the truth of his Muslim faith. His belief was consistently fortified by the wickedness and ignorance of the non-Muslim infidel.
A prime example was their devotion to the idea that the number 666 was somehow evil.
In their book, the “mark of the beast” was described as “six hundred threescore and six” or 666, but “six hundred threescore and six” was also the number of gold talents delivered to King Solomon in one year. Certainly they didn’t believe Solomon to be the beast.
Yet, they never seemed to take their reasoning that far. They seemed content to accept 666 as evil and leave it at that. But the number wasn’t evil. In fact, it was actually divine, and he considered it Allah’s signature.
There was a host of reasons why. The angle between the North Pole and the plane on which the earth traveled around the sun was 66.6 degrees. The Tropic of Cancer was 66.6 degrees from the North Pole. The Tropic of Capricorn was 66.6 degrees from the South Pole. The Equator was 66.6 degrees from both the Arctic and Antarctic circles. The earth’s average orbital speed was 66,666 miles per hour.
And as if he needed even more proof of Allah’s design, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, where the Prophet Mohammed ascended into heaven, was 666 miles from the Kaaba in Mecca.
Allah’s signature was everywhere, and he always strove to let it guide him. That was why he had chosen the Tuileries. Not only was it popular and packed with people, but its round fountain was exactly 666 miles from the center of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Allah had sent him a message.
Reaching the fountain, he turned and looked to his east. Beyond the Place du Carrousel, he could see the Louvre’s great glass pyramid. It was constructed of 666 rhombi and sat exactly 666 miles from the pilgrimage sanctuary of Lourdes. Turning to his west, he could see the Luxor obelisk 666 meters away at the Place de la Concorde. This was indeed willed by God.
Walking around the fountain, he made his way toward the rue de Rivoli and the Terrasse des Feuillants. Here, running for several blocks along the edge of the park, was the Fête des Tuileries.
The Parisian carnival had bumper cars, giant slides, trampolines, climbing walls, carousels, shooting galleries, a Ferris wheel, ice cream, doughnuts, crêpes, cotton candy, and even candy apples. It was popular with tourists and locals alike.
Tursunov had visited on multiple occasions. He wanted to make sure he chose the absolute perfect moment.
As he strolled through the crowded fairground, he smiled and whispered to himself, “Allahu Akbar.” God is the greatest.
CHAPTER 34
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The next morning, Tursunov rose well before dawn and said his prayers. After a quick round of calisthenics, he showered, shaved, and put on a set of fresh clothes.
Leaving the hotel, he passed by his café, but it was closed. He had to walk three more blocks before he found something that was open.
He ordered several shots of espresso to go, doubled up on the paper cup, and grabbed a free weekly magazine on his way out the door.
Outside, he lit his second cigarette as he headed toward the Metro. Abdel’s nephew, the chemist, lived in Aubervilliers—a predominantly French-Arab suburb northeast of Paris. He wanted to ascertain for himself whether the young man was under surveillance.
Abdel had provided him with Younes’s picture, address, and information about the mosque he attended. Under strict instruction, he did not let his nephew know that the man would be paying him a visit. Tursunov didn’t want the chemist looking over his shoulder. If he were under surveillance, any unusual behavior would only heighten the suspicion of those who were watching him.
Arriving in Aubervilliers, he exited the station and started walking. It was a town that had seen better days.
The architecture at its center resembled that of any number of Parisian neighborhoods, but any similarity to the City of Light ended there.
Aubervilliers was dark. Its inhabitants were rough, its shops and restaurants down-market. The streets were dirty. Graffiti was everywhere.
Surrounding the town were ugly, concrete apartment complexes, built in the 1960s and ’70s. Here, as in many of the suburbs, Paris hid its poor—particularly its immigrants.
Many of the immigrants were happy to have escaped the grinding poverty and hopelessness of their home countries. They had come in the same decades the ugly apartment complexes were built, grateful for the opportunity for a new life.
They gladly accepted the jobs most French didn’t want to take—street sweeping, sewer work, menial labor jobs. This wave of immigrants, the bulk of which came from Muslim North Africa, appreciated how much better things were for them and their families in France.
They had hope for the future. Not only for themselves, but even more so for their children. Liberté, égalité, fraternité wasn’t just a motto. It was a promise.
They believed that in France their children would experience more opportunity and achieve more than they could ever imagine. Their children wouldn’t be Moroccans or Algerians. They would be free French men and women with all of the benefits thereof. Unfortunately, that wasn’t
how things turned out.
The immigrants’ children found themselves with one foot in the old world and one in the new. Though born, raised, and educated in France, they were seen as outsiders and not fully welcome in French society.
While some pushed for greater access, others retreated into ethnic pockets outside the city, marginalizing themselves and their voices.
Without access to avenues of upward mobility, many angry young men turned to violence and criminal activity. Others turned to Islam.
With more than 70 percent of its citizens followers of the faith, Aubervilliers was often referred to as a “Muslim city.”
It also had a reputation for being dangerous. There were certain areas in town that even police officers wouldn’t enter without substantial backup.
Tursunov was wary of all these issues as he made his way to Younes’s mosque.
Using a sophisticated system for surfing the web anonymously, he had studied Google Street View images of the area around the mosque.
It had been set up on a busy road in an old retail space that looked to be a former beauty salon. Across the street was a small café.
After familiarizing himself with the neighborhood, Tursunov entered the café and took a table near the window. It smelled like newspaper ink and dark roast coffee.
Once he had ordered breakfast, he opened up the weekly he’d picked up earlier and pretended to read as he watched the comings and goings at the mosque.
If French authorities were conducting surveillance, they were being very careful about it.
Though there could have been cameras in any of the upper-floor apartments along the street, there was nothing overt. Every person who passed by looked as if he or she belonged in the neighborhood. None of them stood out. None of them screamed “cop.”
