Path of the Assassin

by Brad Thor

  Harvath followed Tom Ellis and Rick Morrell down the hall and was shown into the same small conference room that had been used for the press conference earlier that morning. The piece of paper with Anglo-American Hospital printed on it was still taped to the podium. Morrell closed and locked the door behind them.

  “Agent Harvath,” began Tom Ellis, “I know you’re not much for playing by the rules—”

  “What I’m not much for, Tom, is bullshit,” replied Scot.

  “Neither am I, so on that front we should get along fine. Now, in my capacity here in Cairo as—”

  “CIA chief of station?”

  “Yes, that is my capacity. I hope you understand that as Meg Cassidy is a civilian, presenting myself to her as chief Cairo station officer could be uncomfortable.”

  “And having the U.S. Embassy send over their ‘chief consular affairs officer’ to debrief her on a hijacking is supposed to somehow put her more at ease? You guys crack me up. You live in your own little world, you know that? We have one sharp lady in there, and I bet she saw right through you.”

  “Well, whatever the case may be, I’m sure any doubts she had about my capacity with the U.S. government were answered by your referring to yourself as the ‘tooth fairy,’ so we can set that one aside.”

  “Fine with me,” said Harvath. “I just want to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Good. To do that, though, we need to enlist the help of Ms. Cassidy. She’s the only one who can positively ID Hashim Nidal, so instead of encouraging her to put everything behind her, like you were doing back in her room, we need to encourage her to work with us. It’s the only way we’ll be able to nail him,” said Ellis.

  “I don’t understand what the problem is here.”

  Ellis was exhausted. He had been going full throttle since the hijacking had started and was desperately in need of sleep. He leaned wearily against the edge of the podium and said, “We lost him.”

  “I figured as much. How?”

  “Well, there’s no question that Meg Cassidy saw his face. He had taken her up into the bubble of the plane and was going to rape her and God knows what else. She put up a struggle and was apparently assisted by one of Mayor Fellinger’s bodyguards, who had been tied up in one of the upper-deck lavatories, but managed to get out. He was killed as he plowed into the guy with his hands still cuffed behind his back.

  “Cassidy used the distraction to get away from Nidal and grab his weapon. He slashed at her with his knife, nicking her ankle, and she shot him in the head. She then capped a couple of the hijackers, gathered their weapons, and made her way downstairs, where she capped a few more and got up to the first-class section with Mayor Fellinger and Bob Lawrence. She told us that there had been explosions and gunfire, but it all happened so fast, she can’t put together a comprehensive timeline.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Harvath, a degree of awe creeping into his voice. “What amazes me is that she was able to pull the whole thing off by herself. But where does losing Nidal come into play here?”

  “Like I said, she swears she shot him in the head.”

  “Where in the head? Between the eyes?”

  “No, higher up.”

  “How does she know she hit him?”

  “She says he went down. She thought she saw blood too.”

  “A description such as that, does not a confirmed kill make,” replied Scot.

  “Unfortunately, we agree, so we photographed all of the faces of the dead hijackers from the takedown. We also videotaped all of the passengers and crew who were being held in the containment area for the interviews.”

  “And?” asked Harvath.

  “And nothing. Not one of them rang a bell with her. She remembers Nidal, all right, says she could never forget his face. We worked with her via an encrypted laptop with a sketch artist back at Langley and came up with the composite we showed during the press conference.”

  “By the way, what was that all about?”

  “We’re convinced he escaped somehow with one of his lieutenants, who was probably assisting him.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Harvath.

  “Cassidy has said, and other passengers have confirmed, that there were two hijackers dressed in black jumpsuits, who kept their faces covered the entire time—except for in the bubble when Cassidy saw Hashim’s face.”

  “And who was this other masked hijacker?”

  “We believe it was a very high ranking member of the organization. I only use the word lieutenant as a figure of speech. We don’t know who he was.”

  “But why were they wearing masks and not the other hijackers?”

  “I think they realized they had more to lose.”

  “Yeah, but how do you get a bunch of other people to participate in a hijacking after you’ve told them ‘Hey, by the way, we’re going to be wearing masks to protect our identities, but none of you guys can’?”

  “Who knows? Maybe the others were fanatics who were prepared to die. Maybe they were promised protection or new identities after the hijacking. There’s no way to tell. The one thing that’s for certain is that the nonmasked hijackers were spaced throughout the cabins as regular passengers and therefore had no choice.”

  “How do our masked hijackers fit in, then? They couldn’t have gotten on board with masks on. You’ve already got the security tapes from O’Hare International. Let’s have Meg review each of the passengers that way.”

  “We already have. Everyone is accounted for.”

  “So what are you telling me? Hashim Nidal and his lieutenant are ghosts?”

  “Maybe ‘Operation Phantom’ wasn’t such a bad name after all,” injected Morrell.

  Harvath ignored him and said, “Let’s forget for a moment the fact that it was predominantly Egyptian military guarding the perimeter, how do you suppose they escaped?”

  “This is where I get really pissed off,” said Ellis. “I think we had them in our hands and were forced to let them go.”

  “Wait a second, Tom. You had them in your hands? What do you mean? When?”

  “I’ve got a team going over the plane as we speak, but here’s what I think happened. The 747-400 was designed to be easily reconfigured. Lavatories and galleys can be moved to different parts of the aircraft, and whole classes of seating can be moved about.”

  “I know all of this. What’s your theory?” said Harvath.

  “This flexibility also applies to the workout facility. Normally, everything beneath the main cabin level on a 747-400 is for cargo, but United is trying to offer more perks on its long-haul flights to compete with other carriers. If at some point United decided they didn’t want to offer this perk on a particular flight or they wanted more cargo room, they could off-load the exercise equipment, pop out the walls, and that would be that.”

  “I still don’t see what you’re driving at.”

  “The walls of the exercise room can only be removed from the cargo side. With the right tools, it’s not very difficult at all. As a matter of fact, there are certain sections where you can take out just one panel—”

  “Enough for a person or persons to gain access to the aircraft from the cargo hold?” asked Harvath.

  “Exactly.”

  “So you think Nidal and his lieutenant had been stowed away in the cargo hold and waited until the plane landed before making their move?”

  “Yes. Their weapons and explosives were probably hidden there as well.”

  “And you think they returned to wherever they were hiding when the takedown happened?”

  “That’s when I think we had them right in our hands and lost them.”

  “I thought the cargo hold was thoroughly searched, just in case.”

  “It was, but there were several crates that we didn’t get to look into.”

  “Why not?”

  “There were a couple of mummies being shipped from the Field Museum in Chicago to the Egyptian Museum here in Cairo as part of an exchange pr
ogram. There were two mummies, their wooden boxes, and the sarcophagi—all shipped in separate crates.”

  “So you searched the crates, right?”

  “We couldn’t. I was actually at the airport supervising the search and had the minister of antiquities and the museum’s curator breathing down my neck about not exposing the artifacts to the air. The crates were supposedly hermetically sealed in Chicago, and there was risk of accelerated decay if they were opened outside one of the museum’s contained laboratories.”

  “Did you at least x-ray the crates?”

  “I didn’t get a chance. The minister of antiquities and the curator were freaking out because the crates had been sitting in the cargo hold of the plane on the tarmac for so long. They thought the items might be irreversibly damaged because of the temperature or humidity or something.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “The minister of antiquities got on his cell phone with someone in his government who called our ambassador, who told me to release them. When it comes to antiquities, the Egyptians are pretty serious.”

  “So somehow Nidal and his lieutenant used the crates to sneak in and out of the plane?”

  “I’m positive. Earlier this morning we picked up a police report that there had been a shooting at the Egyptian Museum.”

  “Let me guess,” said Harvath.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” replied Ellis. “Apparently, the minister of antiquities and the museum curator went out for breakfast while they waited for the customs broker to load the crates at the airport and deliver them to the museum. We put a tail on the truck, just in case, but it drove straight to the museum and never made any other stops. The minister and the curator apparently returned from breakfast, got checked through security, and were last seen making their way down to the contained lab where the crates had been placed. Two hours later, a lab technician showed up and found both of them shot in the head. They were on the floor in front of two heavily insulated crates, each with several bottles of oxygen and related gear inside.”

  “There must be surveillance monitors in the museum.”

  “There are, but not in the lab itself. The closest camera was in the hall. Security tapes showed what looked like the minister and the curator leaving the lab and exiting the building through a side entrance. What was interesting, was that the curator seemed to lean against the minister as he walked. We didn’t get a clear shot of either of the faces. They were very careful.”

  “So, that’s it then. Somehow Nidal and his lieutenant used the crates to get away from the airport, killed the minister and the curator, changed into their clothes, and left the museum by a side door. Doesn’t seem to be much room for doubt on this one. What about the customs broker?”

  “The Egyptians haven’t been able to find him yet, and even if they do, who knows how much the guy knows, if anything at all.”

  “Is that why you went public with a news conference?” asked Scot.

  “We had to make some fast decisions. If Hashim Nidal was making a run to get out of the country or using a local safe house, we wanted to at least throw up a net to try to catch him. We had to do something. We’re too close to let him slip through our fingers again.”

  “But what about the other stuff, about this being a band of untrained individuals and all that? What happened on that plane was no amateur night, I can assure you. These guys knew what they were doing.”

  Now Morrell chimed back in. “We hoped that through the news conference we could not only get a tip that could help capture Nidal, but also discredit and potentially embarrass him, as it were, on the world stage. People working with him or thinking of hiring him, might not want to be associated with him if he’s shown to be incompetent.”

  “That’s a long shot,” replied Harvath.

  “Yes,” said Ellis taking over control of the conversation once again. “But it’s one of the few shots we have. We are taking it to this guy, and his organization, on all fronts. We’ve already added him to the FBI’s most wanted list and expect confirmation shortly from the State Department that any information leading to his arrest or capture will qualify under the Rewards for Justice program.”

  “So the message to the world is going to be that this guy is a bumbler, but we’re worried enough about him to offer millions of dollars for his arrest or capture?” asked Harvath.

  “Not only is he a bumbler, but a lone civilian, a woman no less, was responsible for thwarting his hijacking. That’s the most damning fact, and the one we hope will seriously demoralize his organization and impede his ability to carry out further actions.”

  “Having your ass handed to you by a woman is probably the pinnacle of shame for a guy like this,” offered Morrell.

  Harvath was silent and that made Morrell nervous. “You’ve spent time over here, Harvath. You know how these people think. Avoidance of shame is a major motivator in their culture. You don’t agree this is going to be a serious blow to the guy?”

  “I think it’ll be a serious blow to his ego, and yes, I think it will damage his reputation some, but not enough to keep money and support from flowing in his direction.”

  “That’s the other concern,” said Ellis as he straightened up and stopped leaning on the podium. “Had he been able to ransom Mayor Fellinger and Bob Lawrence, that would have been twenty million dollars right there. Had the Egyptians fully delivered on Abu Nidal’s frozen assets, that would have been almost another five million. What the hell does he need that much money for?”

  “And,” added Morrell, “have we been able to stave off whatever it is by foiling this hijacking?”

  Harvath pondered a few moments before responding. “I’ll tell you this right now. I have no idea what this guy is up to, but from what I’ve seen so far, if he wants the money bad enough, he’ll find another way to get it. And I think he wants it bad enough. If anything, the only thing we’ve done is slowed him down.”

  “Well, that’s better than nothing,” said Ellis as he crossed the room and unlocked the door, indicating that their meeting was drawing to a close. “Now we need to figure out what his next move is going to be and make sure we’re one step ahead of him.”

  “Something tells me,” responded Harvath as Morrell followed Tom Ellis out the door, “that we’ll hear from Hashim Nidal before he hears from us.”

  As if on cue, an enormous explosion rocked the opposite side of the hospital and sent a concussion wave racing down the hallway.

  28

  The violent force of the blast ripped through the open doorway of the conference room and sent all three men flying backward. Harvath was the first to recover. He couldn’t tell if Morrell and Ellis were okay, and frankly, there just wasn’t enough time. He had to get to Meg Cassidy. The explosion was no accident. Scot was sure of it.

  Even before he had been informed of Hashim Nidal’s escape, something about Ellis’s news conference had made Harvath uneasy. Now he knew what it was. It was the piece of paper taped to the podium. Scot looked behind him, and miraculously there it was, still taped in place, though the podium had been flipped over. The sign told the world where the woman responsible for foiling the hijacking was being treated, Cairo’s Anglo-American Hospital. Instinct kicked in, and before Harvath knew it, he was already on his feet and out the conference room door.

  The hallway was quickly filling with thick black smoke. Many of the fluorescent lights along the corridor ceiling had come loose and hung at angles resembling sinking ships, as they sputtered and shot red-hot sparks onto the bland linoleum floor. Overturned supply trolleys, IV trees, and crash carts littered the hall. The incessant blaring of the fire alarm and the spray from overhead sprinklers made the scene even more chaotic and more difficult to navigate. Staff members and patients alike held surgical masks and wet towels to their mouths to help them breathe as they began assisting each other toward the exits. It took a few moments before Harvath was finally able to locate Meg Cassidy’s room.

  Remarkably, he
found both Gordon Avigliano and the beefy CIA sentry, Jerry, unhurt inside. When Harvath entered the room, both of the men had their weapons drawn.

  “Are you guys okay?” asked Harvath.

  “We’re fine. What the hell was that?” asked Avigliano.

  “It was a bomb of some sort. Probably a car bomb. How’s Ms. Cassidy?”

  “I’m okay,” came the woman’s voice from the hospital bed.

  “What about Morrell and Ellis?” asked the sentry.

  “They were standing in the doorway of the conference room down the hall when the blast hit. To tell you the truth, I don’t know how they are. You need to go take a look. Gordy and I will look after Ms. Cassidy.”

  “Will do,” said the sentry, who soaked a hand towel in water and then crouched low beneath the smoke as he ran from the room.

  “I thought you two were standing guard outside,” said Harvath as he carefully removed Meg Cassidy’s IV from her arm.

  “We were,” replied Avigliano. “Jerry had orders to physically check on Ms. Cassidy every half-hour. He had come in the room to see how she was doing and I was in the doorway when the explosion happened.”

  “Gordo,” said Harvath as he threw the young CIA man the keys to their car, “I want you to bring the car around to the back of the hospital. There’s probably a service entrance of some sort. We’ll meet you there.”

  “What about Morrell and Ellis?”

  “There’s no time for them. That explosion was a little too coincidental and I don’t—”

  “Believe in coincidences,” said Avigliano, finishing Harvath’s sentence for him. “Neither do I.”

  “Good, then get going. We’ll meet you in back.”

  Avigliano didn’t bother to look for a towel to cover his face. He knew time was of the essence and sprinted from the room. Meg already had her legs swung over the side of the hospital bed.

  “Are you going to be okay?” said Scot.

  “Do you think that explosion was somehow meant for me?” she asked.

  “Now is not the time to find out. We need to get you out of here to someplace safe. Do you think you can make it?”