Path of the Assassin

by Brad Thor

  When they rounded the corner and came back down the street where they had left the convoy, it looked as if they had driven into a war zone. At least fifteen cars were burning out of control. Glass and flaming wreckage were scattered everywhere, and several shops and nearby buildings were also engulfed in flames.

  Claudia drove in as close as she could, and then she and Harvath jumped out of the car and began running. It was immediately evident that this had been no accident. A very large explosive device had been detonated right when the motorcade passed. Harvath saw Claudia draw her weapon.

  “How about me?” he asked.

  Without breaking stride, Claudia reached underneath her blazer, withdrew a short Walther P38K and tossed it to Harvath. She pressed her walkie-talkie against her mouth and began shouting orders.

  When she finally came up for air, she turned to Harvath and said, “One of the plainclothes men said he thinks the motorcycles were taken out by a sniper. When they went down, the convoy stopped and that’s when the explosion happened. I have the helicopter searching the area, and the city police are setting up roadblocks.”

  The fire eventually stopped them from getting any closer, and Scot stood by while Claudia tried to coordinate the collective efforts of the police and military personnel via walkie-talkie. When emergency crews arrived on the scene, it took them over three hours to get the fires under control. It was another four hours before the techs had accumulated any evidence.

  The explosive device had been a car bomb. Based on the make and model of the car, residents said they thought it had been parked on the street for at least two days, but nobody was certain, nor could they come up with a description of who had been driving it. The police had only one witness, but they immediately discounted her. She was an old gypsy who roamed the neighborhood poking through garbage cans with a stick, and was thought to be quite mad. She said she had seen the driver and, when asked to describe him, replied simply that it was none other than Satan. The Devil had looked at her with eyes that could change colors—from silver to black, like the moon turning into slate.

  Standing nearby, Harvath could make out enough of the woman’s heavily accented German, along with her gestures, to pick up on what she was talking about. His suspicions had been right on the mark. The same person who had killed Philip Jamek wanted Gerhard Miner dead. The Lions had known something, and someone had wanted to make sure they were kept quiet—permanently.

  Harvath was trying to connect the loose array of dots in his mind when Claudia came over and spoke to him. “There’s something up the street I’d like you to take a look at.”

  “What?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She began walking and Scot followed.

  Harvath did not believe in coincidences. As a matter of fact, swearing off coincidences was how you stayed alive in his line of work. They just simply didn’t exist. That was what made the attack on the convoy all the more disturbing. His two best leads were now dead. What were the odds that Jamek and Miner had intentionally been killed before they could tell Harvath, or anyone else for that matter, what they knew about that fateful night the Spec Ops team was taken out?

  Claudia led him into a narrow apartment building and up several flights of stairs. In typical European fashion, there was no elevator, and they had to hoof it all the way up.

  On the top landing, she motioned toward an open apartment door, where inside a team of crime-scene technicians was busy at work. Claudia spoke briefly with the lead investigator and then translated for Scot.

  “According to the landlady, the occupant of this flat has been out of town on vacation for the last week. The door shows signs of forced entry, but nothing appears to have been taken.”

  “And?”

  “And wait till you see what’s in the bedroom.”

  Claudia led Harvath past the photographers and men dusting for fingerprints. In the bedroom lying on the bed, next to a pane of glass that had been surgically removed from the window, was a long, black rifle.

  “Do you recognize that?” asked Claudia.

  “It looks like a fifty-caliber Barrett sniper rifle. One of the best money can buy.”

  “Very good. Ever seen one of these before?” asked Claudia as she ejected a round from the five-round detachable magazine. “They’ve already been dusted for prints. There’s nothing on them.”

  Harvath accepted the almost six-inch-long projectile and held it up to the light coming in through the window. “This is a Barnes bullet.”

  “You can tell the manufacturer just by looking at it?”

  “There’s nothing else like it. It has a very distinct shape. The U.S. Navy had it developed for use by their SEAL snipers in the Gulf War. This bullet holds the world record at one thousand meters, and SEALs have even reported confirmed kills with it at over two thousand.”

  “So taking out the motorcycle escorts with head shots at four hundred meters would have been easy.”

  “I wouldn’t say easy. My guess is the shooter used the attached bipod for added stability and was obviously careful with his ammunition selection. If you look here, you can see that he also used a top-of-the-line Leupold scope with an optical filter to reduce sun glare.”

  “What about a laser range finder?”

  “Did your people find one in the apartment?”

  “No, it just seems like it would have been helpful for a shot like this.”

  “Probably, but to tell you the truth, range finder or not, whoever we’re dealing with is one incredibly skilled marksman who really knows his equipment.”

  “Who would want to kill Miner?” Claudia asked as she took back the fifty-caliber bullet from Harvath.

  “Where do you want me to start, and how much time do you have? His group did a lot of murder for hire before kidnapping President Rutledge.”

  “I know, but it was common knowledge that we were going to lock him up and throw away the key. His trial was nothing more than a formality. He was essentially finished for life. Why go to all this trouble?”

  “Maybe somebody thought jail was too good for him,” Scot offered.

  “Maybe. But someone also went to a lot of trouble in Macau to kill Jamek as well. Someone wanted to make sure both Miner and Jamek were definitely dead. Why? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Maybe it didn’t make sense to Claudia, but a picture was beginning to form in Harvath’s mind.

  While Claudia returned to conducting her investigation, Harvath made plans to leave Switzerland. Where he was headed next was one of the last places he thought he would ever see again.

  7

  Three days later, as his Lufthansa flight turned to make its final approach into Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, Harvath closed his eyes and tried to stop thinking about Claudia. He told himself he had been crazy for believing a solid relationship was within his grasp.

  In his line of work, he couldn’t become too attached to anything or anyone. It was the axiom he had lived by for more years than he cared to remember. He should have known from the start he couldn’t have a future with her. Claudia knew better too, yet they allowed themselves to fall for each other deeply and quickly. It had been as if they had known right at the beginning that the end was in sight and therefore tried to squeeze in as much passion as possible. Harvath thought that the experience should have left him feeling good, somehow satiated, but it hadn’t.

  When Harvath stepped onto the pavement outside the arrivals hall of Ben Gurion, the hot evening wind on his face felt like the blast from a blow dryer. The normally high airport security presence of Israeli soldiers and police was exponentially higher now as Israel continued to deal with waves of reprisals for the Hand of God attack at Medina. The tension in the air was palpable.

  Back in the sandbox, Harvath said to himself. The sandbox was the affectionate term American intelligence operatives and Special Operations personnel had for the Mideast. During his tenure with SEAL Six, now known as Dev Group, Harvath had been involved in many white and black op
s in the sandbox. Though he had enjoyed the adrenaline rush that his assignments had provided, he didn’t miss the Mideast one bit. It was always too hot or too cold, and the sand got everywhere, no matter what precautions you took. Still, though, Scot longed for his action days. Not that being assigned to protect the president of the United States didn’t have its moments. It did, but once you’d played offense, it was almost impossible to move over to defense. Either you took it to them, or you sat back and waited until they brought it to you. Harvath was not made for sitting back and waiting.

  Though he didn’t particularly like the sandbox, part of him felt it would be worth the heat, the cold, and even the sand just to get back on the offensive. He had to laugh at himself. What was he doing right now? He was on the offensive. This was what he loved doing. He was made for this—the hunt, and when necessary, even the kill.

  In an odd, roundabout way, Harvath had found his dream job, though he didn’t know how long it would last. Even the president would have a limit to his largesse. But for now, Harvath was receiving a healthy Secret Service paycheck to utilize his Special Operations skills. And on top of it all, there was a twist. For once, he was in charge of himself. There was no command structure telling him where to be and what to do. Sure, he was expected to report in and had done so from the U.S. embassies in Hong Kong and Bern, but other than that, he was on his own. He had been given carte blanche, and for good reason. The president and those closest to him knew that Agent Scot Harvath completed his missions no matter what the cost. For him, there was no option other than total success.

  He climbed into one of the shared taxis, known by Israelis as a sherut, which were always lined up outside the airport. When it was full, it pulled away from the curb and began the twenty-eight-mile drive to Jerusalem. The vans operated on a fixed route. There were no set stops; passengers simply indicated to the driver when they wanted to get out. Though the van would take longer to get to his hotel than would a regular taxi, Harvath preferred the anonymity of the sherut and the opportunity it provided to quietly reimmerse himself in Israeli culture.

  An hour-and-a-half later, Harvath descended from the sherut on Nablus Road in the heart of the ancient city of Jerusalem. The smells and sounds had steadily been drifting through the van’s open windows, but it wasn’t until he stepped outside that the many memories came flooding back. There was a special aura about Jerusalem, a certain magic, tinged with the perfume of ever-present danger. The Jerusalem from his past that he had known during his SEAL days, had now drawn him back to become part of its present. He suddenly felt haunted by a feeling of foreboding. It was the same feeling he had experienced one night many months ago in the White House situation room as he watched Operation Rapid Return unfold on the flat-panel monitors throughout the room. The feeling had grown in its intensity as he watched the soldiers approach their target. Moments later, he saw the ambush and murder of the entire team and all but one of the support operatives, who were Israeli intelligence agents. The sole survivor of the doomed mission had dropped out of sight immediately afterward. There were even rumors that he had died, but Harvath’s intelligence led him to believe otherwise. It was this man that he was here in Israel to meet, and hopefully use to his advantage.

  Harvath picked up his bag and stared at the façade of the old Jerusalem Hotel. Conventional wisdom would have one believe that in a war-torn country like Israel the bigger, Western-style hotels were the safest, but Harvath knew differently. If there were any local acts of terrorism, they would be carried out by Palestinians against major Israeli or western targets. No one would waste time on a small hotel like this, especially one with such strong Arab ties. Those were Harvath’s tactical reasons; his personal reasons were different.

  The Jerusalem Hotel was perfectly situated less than one hundred meters from the Damascus Gate and the Old City. It lay within an old Arab mansion of thick-cut creamy limestone accented with Arabic plasterwork. The fourteen rooms were fitted out with arabesque furnishings, and the traditional architecture included arched windows, high ceilings, flagstone floors, and even a secluded vine garden. The only thing better than the price, at less than one-hundred-dollars a night, was that the same family had been running the hotel since the 1960s, and neither better nor friendlier service could be found anywhere else in Jerusalem.

  After unpacking his bags, Harvath walked back downstairs and hailed a cab, giving the driver the address of one of his favorite restaurants, Le Tsriff, at number 5 Horkanos Street. The driver was a chatty man who immediately asked Harvath where he was from. Harvath gave his standard, nonthreatening answer of “Canada” and made small talk with the man until they reached the restaurant.

  The place was just as he had remembered it. Though the decor left a little to be desired, he was here to eat, not to shoot a photo spread for Architectural Digest. He was shown to a table in the quaint outdoor dining area, where he enjoyed an excellent meal.

  After dinner, Harvath decided to take a stroll. He had long ago learned to take his peaceful moments where he could find them. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?

  He tried to ignore Jerusalem’s intense security and instead focused on the history of the city as he followed the Jaffa Road and entered the Old City through the Jaffa Gate. He wandered through the Armenian Quarter, past the Christian Cathedral of St. James and into the Jewish Quarter until he found himself standing in the plaza along the Western Wall. Though it was late at night, people were still placing their pieces of paper with their wishes for God into spaces in the wall. Scot thought about Claudia and tried to remind himself that everything had happened for the best. Even so, he still wrote something on a small scrap of paper and placed it between two of the ancient weathered stones.

  At the Ecce Homo Arch, he turned around to admire the brilliantly lit Dome of the Rock. The entire Temple Mount, with its Dome of the Rock, Dome of the Chain, al-Aqsa Mosque, and Museum of Islamic Art, was the focus of the Muslim faith in Jerusalem. It had also become the most hotly contested piece of real estate in the Arab-Israeli conflict—recognized as sacred ground by both sides.

  The fact that three of the world’s greatest religions could have three of their holiest sites shouldered together within the tiny space of Jerusalem’s Old City and yet their followers have such an immensely difficult time getting along had always confounded Harvath. Religions were supposed to represent tolerance. But just like everything else in life, Harvath had learned, it wasn’t necessarily the philosophy that was flawed, but rather the human beings who were trying to interpret it.

  From the Damascus Gate, it was a short walk back to the Jerusalem Hotel. A student of history and a warrior himself, Harvath reflected upon all of the destruction and death that had been wreaked in the name of religion. He doubted God supported any of it. A Delta Force guy Scot had once known put it best. The man had been brought up Protestant and was marrying an Irish Catholic girl. In the mandated Pre-Cana marriage counseling, the priest asked the hopeful groom how he thought their marriage would fare, considering their different religious backgrounds. The Delta Force operative was quick to respond, “To tell you the truth, Father, I don’t think God has a favorite football team, or a favorite religion.”

  His friend had summed it up pretty well, Harvath believed, and with a little dash of humor thrown in to boot. The priest, though, wasn’t amused. He was from Notre Dame.

  Reflecting on that story normally made Scot smile, but not tonight. There was an ominous air hanging over the city, as if something evil was about to make itself known.

  8

  While the Dome of the Rock might have been the crown jewel of Jerusalem, the adjacent al-Aqsa Mosque was the city’s main place of Islamic worship. It was from this point that the Prophet Muhammad was said to have ascended into heaven. It was also from here that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the infamous Palestinian faction that had long plagued Israel with countless suicide bombings and other deadly terrorist attacks, had taken their name. Friday’s noon prayer service
at the al-Aqsa always drew enormous crowds of devout Muslims.

  Most of the Mosque’s façade, as well as the façades of several other buildings on the Temple Mount, were undergoing much needed renovations and were covered with scaffolding. The scaffolding was covered with life-size fabric depictions of what each building would look like when completed. As the cracked and dusty earth of the Temple Mount baked in the scorching summer sun, the only hint of a breeze was the occasional flutter of one of the intricate architectural renderings.

  When prayers were finished, the worshippers dutifully proceeded down the al-Aqsa’s long corridor toward the exit. Though many would have enjoyed lingering in the cool of the mosque’s interior, it was only midday on a Friday, and there were important errands and jobs to be gotten to.

  Thousands filed outside and began making their way toward the many ancient gates that led from the Temple Mount back into Jerusalem’s Old City. Those without pressing engagements stopped at the holy Al-Kas Fountain and chatted.

  As the last of the worshippers filed into the sparsely treed area outside, a spray of machine gun fire leapt out from behind the fabric façade of the mosque’s scaffolding. In an instant, the square was engulfed in a storm of panic as bodies were sawn in half from large-caliber rounds. The once parched, pale ground quickly ran crimson with rivers of blood. As the frenzied mob ran from the front of the mosque toward what they hoped would be safety, another course of leaded fire erupted from the scaffolding of the nearby Dome of Learning. Muslim worshippers, as well as crowds of tourists, were running for their lives. The religious protocol dictating that non-Muslims be restricted to using only two of the many gates that led from the Temple Mount was all but forgotten. The only thing that Jews, Christians, and Muslim’s alike were thinking about was getting out alive.