Path of the Assassin

by Brad Thor

  Harvath stood for hours, leaning against the wall of his cell. He could hear the sound of gunfire and occasional explosions. Men shouted to each other in Arabic. He listened hard, but the voices were too muffled for him to discern exactly what was being said. At times, it was completely quiet and Harvath figured the men had either stopped for prayers, or had gone off somewhere to eat. Finally, from the other side of the rough wooden door securing his cell, there came the sound of metal scraping upon metal. The heavy bolt was drawn back, and the door was slowly opened.

  The late afternoon sunlight exploded into the dark cell and burned so bright that Harvath had to shut his eyes. Several heavily armed men grabbed his arms, shackled his hands in front, and roughly shoved him outside.

  Harvath had to hold up his hands to shield his eyes, but soon the sun dimmed, and he could see he was in a large shaded courtyard. When he looked up, he saw that he was not in a courtyard as much as a canyon the length of at least two football fields. An opaque woven fabric, the color of the surrounding steep rock walls, was stretched far overhead from end to end. That explains why this place has never shown up on any satellite photos, thought Harvath to himself.

  The canyon floor was broken up into different training areas. There were firing ranges, makeshift shoot houses, the charred hulks of numerous types of automobiles, various ambush and attack scenarios…You name it and Hashim Nidal had it. It made the monkey-bar footage from Osama bin Laden’s training camps look like child’s play in comparison. This setup was extremely sophisticated, and though Harvath had no idea where he was, it was obvious he wasn’t in the oasis town anymore.

  At the end of the canyon was an enormous stone edifice carved directly into the wall of rock. It reminded Harvath of Petra, the two thousand-year-old rock carved city in Jordan. The carvings were incredibly intricate, and the façade looked like the entrance of an enormous palace.

  Abruptly, Harvath’s captors steered him toward a discolored section of the canyon wall. The pockmarks in the rocks told him all he needed to know. If he had any doubt about what lay in store for him, when one of the guards offered him a cigarette, the picture was perfectly clear.

  Two of the guards fired rounds at Harvath’s feet to see if he would jump. He didn’t. Not even a flinch. If they were going to kill him, he didn’t intend to add to their pleasure by going soft.

  The captain of the guard stepped away from his men and walked up to Harvath. He was carrying a Russian Makarov. He raised his robed arm and placed the pistol against Harvath’s forehead. As he did, Harvath could see that he was wearing his missing Rolex. The man smiled with a mouth full of yellowed teeth and then pulled the trigger.

  Harvath harbored a strange feeling that he had not been brought all this way to be killed. These men were nothing but low-level peons amusing themselves at his expense until their boss called. Well, now it was Harvath’s turn.

  His reaction undoubtedly surprised the captain and his men. Instead of blubbering for his life or pissing his pants, as many poor souls before him had probably done, Harvath just smiled. He smiled big and wide, then kneed the captain right in the pistachios.

  “Now the camels in the village will be safe for the rest of the day,” said Harvath in Arabic.

  A couple of the captain’s men could not help but chuckle. The captain, though, was enraged and, as soon as he caught his breath, dove for Harvath.

  Shackling Harath’s hands in front had been a dumb idea. It didn’t take long for Scot to overpower the captain and lock him in a choke hold with the restraints. The man kicked like a mule as Harvath began to squeeze the life out of him. His men looked on stupidly, not knowing what to do. One of the captain’s kicks eventually connected with Harvath’s left thigh, and the two men fell to the ground and continued to wrestle.

  Finally, a hail of bullets tore up the sand only millimeters from the men’s heads. Whoever was firing at them was either extremely lucky or extremely accurate. Harvath was tempted to crush the captain’s windpipe, but let up on the pressure and looked up to see who had fired the shots. Astride a beautiful black Arabian was a perfect match for the man Meg Cassidy had described as Hashim Nidal. With his kaffiyeh, flowing white robes, and the elaborate tassels on his mount, he looked more like someone out of Lawrence of Arabia than a cold-blooded terrorist.

  “Enough!” shouted the man from atop his horse.

  Harvath was loath to surrender his advantage. The man pointed his weapon down at him, and Harvath knew he had little choice in the matter. He let the captain free, and as the man rolled out of his prisoner’s grasp, he delivered a hard elbow to Harvath’s ribs.

  “We’re not finished yet,” groaned Harvath.

  Two other guards yanked him to his feet and pushed him painfully toward the stone façade at the rear of the canyon.

  As Harvath was shoved along, he kept his eyes open and tried to take in everything that was going on around him. If he ever got out of this situation, he wanted to be able to report in the greatest detail possible what he had seen.

  The guards led him up a massive series of stone steps and through the main entrance of the enormous edifice. The interior was amazing. At least a hundred columns soared over six stories to the perfectly domed ceiling, which contained a grand oculus exposing the sky high above. Intricate mosaics adorned the walls, and the floors were covered in marble tiles so highly polished they shone like mirrors. The acoustics were perfect. Even the slightest whisper from across the immense rotunda reverberated back with absolute clarity. All throughout the structure, natural light radiated from a series of mirrors and additional holes carved in the roof of the building.

  Harvath was marched through a narrow apse to a low doorway along another colonnade. One of the guards knocked twice upon a heavy wooden door and waited until he was directed to enter. When the direction came, the guard pushed the door open and motioned Harvath inside.

  This room was much darker than the series of hallways they had been navigating, and it took a moment for Harvath’s eyes to become adjusted to the low level of light. The wooden floors, paneled walls, and bookcases were all a deep mahogany. Thick, splintered beams of the same color ran at intervals along the ceiling. Several chairs sat in front of a large wooden desk, and in the corner stood an actual fireplace. The room looked like something out of a medieval British abbey. The walls were covered with photographs, many of which, from what Harvath could make out from where he was standing, were not of Arabs, but of Anglos. One in particular caught his attention. He was trying to figure out why the photo had captured his interest when a small door opened at the back of the room and several figures appeared. The first, much to Harvath’s relief, was Meg Cassidy. She was also incredibly relieved to see Scot and ran right to him.

  Though his guard tried to stop him, Harvath reached out for her. “Are you all right?” he asked as he looked her over. There were no apparent signs that she had been harmed.

  “I’m okay. But this is all my fault. I’m so sorry,” she replied as she laid her head on his chest, wishing the entire nightmare would just disappear.

  “This isn’t your fault, so don’t worry about it. They haven’t done anything to you, have they?”

  “Mr. Harvath, contrary to what you might think, we are not barbarians,” said a man standing in the doorway that Meg had just come through. Harvath recognized him immediately. It was the man who had broken up his fight with the captain of the guard outside. Meg squeezed Harvath’s arm, and it was the only signal he needed.

  “There are millions of people around the world who would disagree with you,” said Harvath, letting go of Meg so he could face the man and the other figure who had joined him. The other person’s face was covered in the traditional Arab kaffiyeh, but there was something familiar about him. “How do you know my name?” he asked, though he was sure that Meg had told them. It would have made sense to question her first. She was the weakest of the pair and could be broken much easier.

  “I know more than just your name,�
�� said the man as he took a seat behind the large desk. “Your government should not have sent a woman, a civilian no less, to do a soldier’s job.” The man’s English had a thick Middle Eastern accent.

  “Considering that she foiled your hijacking, you hardly seem qualified to comment on the abilities of women,” said Harvath with a smile.

  The man signaled his guard, who brought the butt of his rifle hard into Harvath’s stomach. Scot doubled over in pain as Meg screamed. She tried to intervene, but another guard grabbed her arm and pulled her away to the other side of the room.

  “I believe that is what the British call witty repartee, no? I can assure you I do not find it amusing at all. Do not forget, Mr. Harvath, who is in control here,” said the bearded man as he removed his kaffiyeh and set it on the desk in front of him.

  “And who would that would be?” asked Harvath as he struggled to his feet.

  The man gave another command with his hand, and the guard struck Harvath once more; this time on his shoulder as he was trying to regain his balance. Harvath fell to his knees and, though he tried to stifle it, a deep groan of pain escaped his lips. Meg screamed for them to stop.

  “We can do this as long as you wish, but I am not a very patient man, Mr. Harvath. You have information I want, and we will get it out of you sooner, rather than later.”

  Harvath looked up from where he knelt on the floor and said, “The only thing you have even the slightest chance of getting out of me is a very serious beating. I’m not telling you anything.”

  The man stood up from his chair and removed a long knife from inside the folds of his robe. He spoke as he began to make his way around the desk, “You will find, Mr. Harvath, that I am quite good at getting what I want with a knife.”

  “First of all, it’s Agent Harvath to you, and second of all—” Harvath was interrupted by an unseen backhand from the guard.

  Harvath tasted blood in his mouth and spat onto the guard’s robes, saying in Arabic, “Let your mother clean that up for you.”

  The guard was incensed, and as he raised his rifle to bring it crashing down upon Harvath’s head, a voice rang out from the back of the room.

  “Enough!” it shouted. It was a woman’s voice, but it hadn’t come from Meg Cassidy.

  47

  The covered figure in the back of the room unwound a dusty kaffiyeh to reveal the face of one of the most beautiful women Scot Harvath had ever seen. Her long black hair tumbled down to her shoulders and framed the near perfect features of her face. She appeared neither Middle Eastern nor western, but somehow a mystical combination of the two that came together to form an otherworldly beauty.

  Immediately, Harvath was drawn to her eyes, which had momentarily flashed deep black, but were now returning to an almost platinum color. The assassin! But she was a woman. Harvath didn’t believe what he was seeing.

  In perfect English with a hint of a British accent, she said, “You must forgive my brother. He is sometimes overzealous in his approach, but his intentions are admirable.”

  “Do not patronize me,” spat the bearded man as he rolled up the sleeves of his robe so he could go to work on Harvath.

  “Me? A simple woman? Patronize you? Oh, Hashim, please, do not think me so insubordinate,” said the woman with a feigned curtsy.

  The truth hit Harvath, hard. It took only a moment to sort it all out. “All this time that we were looking for Abu Nidal’s son,” he said, “and we should have been looking for—”

  “His daughter, Adara Nidal,” said the woman as she locked eyes with Harvath and made another curtsy, this one much more genuine.

  “Adara,” repeated Harvath. “Interesting name. It’s Arabic for ‘virgin,’ isn’t it?”

  “And to the Jews, it means ‘fire.’”

  “Your father certainly was creative in naming you two.”

  The bearded man raised his knife and nodded toward the guards, who tightened their grip on Harvath. “We are wasting time.”

  “Leave him alone,” Meg screamed.

  “Of course,” said Hashim, stopping in his tracks and turning to face Meg. “Mr. Harvath is very brave. He is a soldier and is most likely no stranger to pain. You, on the other hand, are different.” Hashim Nidal ran the flat of his blade along Meg Cassidy’s cheek until the point rested just underneath her eye. He applied just enough upward pressure to cause an involuntary fluttering of her lids.

  “What do you want?” growled Harvath, struggling against the grip the guards had on him. “She doesn’t know anything.”

  “Everyone knows something, Mr. Harvath. The question is how to arrive at the information, and I think I have found a way to make you more cooperative.”

  “Don’t you touch her,” snarled Harvath.

  “You are commanding me?” said Hashim as he ran his hands over Meg’s body.

  “You will not defile that woman here. Not in my presence,” said Adara.

  “I will do what I like, where I like,” replied the brother as he lowered his blade and ran it along the inside of Meg’s thighs. Tears were now streaming down her face. The nightmare had once again returned.

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” warned Harvath. This was a torture worse than anything they could have dreamed for Meg, and Scot knew it. He strained against his captors with all of his might, but they held fast.

  “Mr. Harvath, you are in no position to tell me what to do. As I told my sister, I do as I like, where I—”

  His rant was interrupted by Adara, who, slipping unseen across the room as her brother’s attention was riveted on Meg, landed a searing blow to the side of his head.

  Enraged, the man spun on his sister, but she spoke first. “Your indiscretions have cost us dearly. I will not permit another. Agent Harvath will tell us what the Americans know about our plans. I guarantee you.”

  “You forget yourself, sister,” said Hashim. His eyes smoldered and his face was flushed with embarrassment at being so demeaned.

  “I forget nothing. Your place is not to disagree with me. Our father made clear—”

  “Our father was a sick old man.”

  “How dare you?” hissed Adara. “You have sworn your loyalty and obedience.”

  Hashim Nidal hated to be seen taking orders from a woman, but he backed down. There was no question left as to who was in charge. He glared at his sister, who never broke eye contact. She commanded the guards in Arabic, and as Scot and Meg were herded out the opposite door, Hashim called after them in English, “We have only just begun. I will come for each of you later.”

  And I’ll be waiting, thought Harvath.

  48

  The minute the guards locked Harvath in his room, his evasion-and-escape training took over. He needed to find something, anything, that could be used as a weapon or aid in their escape, and he needed to find it before Hashim Nidal came back for them.

  Whoever had retrofitted the guest room as a glorified holding cell had done an extremely good job. Everything was either bolted to the floor or the wall. The holes that served as windows were barred from the outside, there were no accessible light fixtures, no springs in the mattress or the bed frame, and there wasn’t even any glass in the bathroom.

  An hour later, Harvath’s search was interrupted by the sound of his door being unlocked. His time was up. He would have to face Hashim empty-handed.

  When the door opened, he saw Meg standing in the hallway flanked by the same guards from earlier that day. “Where are we going?” he asked in Arabic. One of the men just motioned him outside with his assault rifle. Harvath shook his head, No.

  The other guard grabbed a handful of Meg Cassidy’s hair and yanked hard, causing her to cry out. Harvath gave in and came out of his room.

  He and Meg were paraded down several hallways to an elaborate dining room. Muted frescoes adorned the walls, and a large chandelier hung from the arched ceiling. Two candelabras on a sideboard provided additional light. Sitting at the head of the long, rough wooden table eating her
dinner was Adara.

  “Quite lovely, isn’t it?” she asked as the guards marched Scot and Meg to the head of the table and then took up positions behind them. “This whole complex was once a secret stronghold of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem. Colonel Gadhafi presented it to my father as a gift.”

  “Pretty generous guy,” said Harvath.

  “You’ll find that generosity is a cornerstone of our culture. In fact, I am prepared to make you a very generous offer. But first, you must be hungry. How would you like something to eat?”

  Adara Nidal rang a small silver bell next to her wineglass, and a servant appeared. She gave him instructions in Arabic, and he quickly set two more places at the table.

  “Please, sit,” she said.

  “We’re not interested,” replied Harvath.

  “Please do not be impolite, Agent Harvath. You would do well to take advantage of my generosity. The alternatives are not very pleasant.”

  A rifle barrel jammed in his back encouraged Harvath to accept the woman’s hospitality.

  “Excellent,” she said. “Yes, you sit there, Agent Harvath, and Ms. Cassidy will take the seat here next to me.”

  As Meg took her seat next to Adara, she noticed, a faint scent that she thought she recognized. Her thoughts, though, were disrupted when their hostess raised the bottle in front of her and asked, “Ms. Cassidy, may I pour you some wine? It’s quite nice. A Frascati. Wine of the popes, they say. This is a Santa Teresa Superiore, one of the best.”

  “No thank you,” replied Meg.

  “That’s too bad. What about you Agent Harvath?”

  “I’m not thirsty, thank you. Besides, I thought alcohol was forbidden by the Muslim faith.”

  “It is,” answered Adara as she refilled her glass. “But there are certain pleasures in life which I am unwilling to forgo.”