Act of War

by Brad Thor

  Harvath remained silent as the Florida dipped beneath the surface and the submarine began its descent. As he climbed into his own drysuit, he could see the fear building in Yaqub’s eyes. He had no idea if the man could swim or not, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the swimming part Yaqub was going to have to deal with.

  Opening up the valve of his oxygen tank, Harvath depressed the purge button on the regulator. It made a loud hiss, indicating that oxygen was flowing.

  Harvath signaled the SEAL inside the bubble to begin flooding the hangar.

  “What are you doing?” Yaqub demanded as the water started rushing in.

  Harvath looked at him as he spat into his face mask. “I told you. I’m taking you back to hell.”

  The terrorist glanced down. Harvath had removed the man’s shoes and socks back in Karachi. The cold water was already covering the tops of his feet.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Harvath ignored him and held his mask up to the light to judge whether he had fully coated the inside.

  “Answer me,” the Saudi demanded.

  Picking up his tank, Harvath carefully slung it over his back and slowly adjusted the straps. Finally, he addressed his prisoner. “How long do you think you can hold your breath, Ahmad?”

  Yaqub nervously looked around the narrow, cramped space. Despite the chilly temperature, he had begun to perspire.

  The dry deck shelter hadn’t been Harvath’s first choice. What he had wanted to do was get onboard and drag Yaqub straight down to the torpedo room, stuff him in a tube, and flood that. The sensation would have been much more unnerving. The problem had been getting him past the Florida’s crew. There’d be too many witnesses, so the plan was nixed back in D.C. Whatever Harvath intended to do with Yaqub, it had to be done in the confines of the dry deck shelter.

  That meant either threatening to drown him, or locking him in the forward hyperbaric chamber and keeping him there until his ears bled or his eyes popped out of his skull. One way or another, Yaqub was going to tell Harvath everything he wanted to know.

  Each of the SEALs who were present had been read in on the prisoner and the imminent threat to the United States. Not only would they never reveal whatever Harvath was going to do, they’d help him with it. The President himself had pulled out all the stops. Harvath’s instructions had been perfectly clear—do whatever needed to be done to neutralize the threat. And that’s exactly what he would do.

  He had no reservations about torturing a scumbag like Ahmad Yaqub if he had to. He had done it before.

  While the politically correct crowd was against any form of coercion, Harvath appreciated its merits. The uninformed often confused enhanced interrogation techniques like loud music, sleep deprivation, and open-handed slaps with torture. Those weren’t torture. And they didn’t bring America down to the terrorists’ level.

  What would bring America down to the terrorists’ level was if the United States had the same callous disregard for human life. Life was cheap in the eyes of the terrorists, not so for America. The United States revered human life and therefore would do everything it could to protect it. Using enhanced interrogation techniques, or even torture in some cases, demonstrated the high value America placed on the lives of its citizens.

  People liked to talk about the Geneva and Hague conventions, but very few had read them. Not only were terrorists not signers to the conventions, but they also didn’t wear uniforms to identify themselves on the battlefield—a key provision. They hid in the general population, behind women and children, and therefore were not entitled to any of the Geneva and Hague protections.

  In any other time in history, terrorists would have been shot on sight, not shipped off to some Caribbean island for religiously sensitive Halal meals including dates, honey, olive oil, and fresh-baked pita bread, along with access to lawyers, newspapers, unlimited DVDs, a library, and soccer games.

  The terrorists had chosen to not only go to war with the U.S.A., but to keep that war going through attack after deadly attack. Their convoluted religious ideology was beyond reasoning with. It was impossible to convince them, facts be damned, that America had been the greatest force for good in the history of the world. They would slaughter innocent men, women, and children to impose their will on the entire world. As far as Harvath was concerned, America and its allies couldn’t kill these people fast enough.

  • • •

  The water in the DDS was now up to Yaqub’s knees. “If you had wanted to kill me,” the terrorist said, feigning bravado, “you would have done it in Karachi.”

  Harvath thought he heard a slight tremor in the man’s voice, though it could have been from the cold.

  “That’s right,” Harvath replied. “I don’t want to kill you. I want to watch you suffer and then I want to kill you.”

  The expression on Yaqub’s face tensed. Just for a moment, before turning defiant again. It was a microexpression, something Harvath had been trained by the Secret Service to detect. It was a subconscious indicator given off by a subject when under stress. It normally meant the subject was lying or intending to do harm. It could also mean you had him scared shitless.

  Yaqub was anxious, but tried to cover it. He looked around. “All of this for just one man?”

  Harvath’s visage was like stone. “Not just any man, Ahmad. This is for you. This is what happens when you kill Americans. We come for you. We never forget. We never stop hunting. Sooner or later, we find you.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, the frigid water nearing his genitals. Yaqub tried to rise up onto the balls of his feet.

  The SEALs holding him by the arms forced him back down. His body began to shake from the cold. It was time for Harvath to increase the pressure.

  “I want you to remember my face, Ahmad. For the few minutes you have left alive, I want you to study it. After you’re dead, we’re going to defile your body and dump it into the ocean, they way we did to Sheik Osama, in order to make sure you don’t go to Paradise. Then I’m going to visit your family.”

  He paused to watch the expression on the terrorist’s face before continuing. “Your wives, your children . . . I’m going to torture them and then I’m going to kill them. All of them,” said Harvath. “And then I’m going to visit your father, your mother, your four brothers and your two sisters and their families in Saudi Arabia. They’ll meet deaths even more horrific than yours. And as each of them writhes in pain, as they beg death to come and take them, I’ll make sure they know that it was you who brought that misery upon them.”

  Yaqub’s lips were beginning to turn blue and his teeth had started chattering. “I curse you and your entire country. You and your American arrogance. You are doomed.”

  Harvath stepped forward and drove his fist into the terrorist’s chest. When the Saudi doubled over in pain, Harvath signaled for the SEALs to release him, and then he grabbed the back of his neck and plunged Yaqub’s head beneath the water.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  * * *

  Harvath held the terrorist there until the air had left his lungs and he was struggling for his life. Breaking Yaqub meant breaking his ideological willingness to die. He had to want to live more than he wanted anything else.

  When Harvath finally yanked the man’s head out of the water, the Saudi terrorist drew in huge gulps of air and then started vomiting. Harvath waited for the vomiting to stop, and then shoved his head back under the water.

  A few moments later, he pulled him out, allowed him to partially catch his breath, and then plunged him back down. He repeated this process several more times.

  When he next pulled the Saudi’s head from the water, he did so with a demand. Once the man quit heaving and could hear him well enough, Harvath said, “I’m going to give you one chance, Ahmad. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, we’re going to open the valves all the way, fill the rest of this compartment with water, and we’re all going to watch you drown.”

 
Yaqub shook his head as he coughed and sputtered.

  “Then, just as I promised, I’m going to visit your family.”

  The terrorist shook his head even more vigorously before vomiting up more seawater.

  Harvath waited, his blue eyes like two cold pieces of ice as he bored his gaze into Yaqub’s. “You have something I want,” he said. “If you give it to me, I’ll let you live and no harm will come to your family. Do you understand me?”

  Yaqub nodded.

  “I know about the coming attack, Ahmad. All of it. And I know you’re a part of it.” Harvath watched the man again for a moment before continuing. “I know Ismail Kashgari came to you for assistance. Correct?”

  Yaqub nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Men,” the terrorist mumbled.

  “How many men?”

  “Six,” said Yaqub.

  “To do what?” Harvath demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  Harvath slapped him. “You’re lying to me, Ahmad. You know what happens to your family if you lie. Now tell me about the attack.”

  “I don’t know,” he insisted, the water now up to his chest. “It was a trade.”

  “What do you mean trade?”

  “I helped him get men and he paid me.”

  Harvath studied him. “You know the target, though, don’t you?”

  “America. Yes.”

  “That’s why you helped him.”

  “Yes,” Yaqub replied.

  “But you never asked about the attack? You weren’t curious? I don’t believe it.”

  The man vomited again. The water was nearing his shoulders. His teeth kept chattering and Harvath had to strain to understand him. “He would not tell me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. He told me not to ask him again. I don’t think he knew. I think he was working for someone else.”

  “Who?” said Harvath.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who do you think?”

  “I don’t know. He is a Uighur. Chinese Muslim. We knew each other from the jihad. I don’t know who he worked for.”

  Harvath changed tack. “Where are these six men?”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Where are they?” he repeated.

  “They are already inside the United States.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” Yaqub answered. “I didn’t handle that part.”

  “You don’t seem to know very much, do you, Ahmad? You know what? I don’t believe you.”

  “Kashgari requested special men,” the terrorist clarified. “Smart men. Engineers.”

  Engineers. The word sent a chill down Harvath’s spine. Terrorists recruiting engineers could mean only one thing—bombs.

  “Where did these engineers come from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He was playing with him and Harvath didn’t like it. He forced his head beneath the water again.

  Yaqub was weak and he didn’t fight for very long. Harvath knew he was taking a risk.

  Pulling the man’s head back up he yelled at him, “This isn’t a game, Ahmad. You tell me now. Who are they and where did they come from?”

  Yaqub, his body suffering from the cold and repeated oxygen deprivation, was trembling wildly. “I don’t know,” he repeated.

  “Which of your children, which of your wives do you want me to kill first?”

  “Khuram Hanjour,” he muttered. “Khuram Hanjour.”

  “Who is Khuram Hanjour?”

  “Khuram Hanjour,” the terrorist repeated, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

  Harvath slapped Yaqub again. He looked like he was going hypothermic. “Ahmad, who is Khuram Hanjour? Ahmad. Ahmad.”

  Harvath slapped him once more, and for a moment, the man’s eyes met his. “Ahmad, tell me who Khuram Hanjour is.”

  “The recruiter,” the man said.

  “Khuram Hanjour recruited the men?”

  Yaqub’s head lolled to the side, the water now up to his chin.

  Harvath slapped him again. “Ahmad, where do I find Khuram Hanjour?”

  Nothing.

  “Who was Kashgari working for? Tell me.”

  It was no use. Yaqub had lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  * * *

  PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY GENERAL STAFF HEADQUARTERS, BEIJING, CHINA

  Colonel Jiang Shi hated politicians. Few possessed analytic minds. Fewer still understood the tenets of warfare. It was why he had wanted the politicians kept out of it.

  But the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee was the supreme decision-making body of the Chinese Communist Party. Nothing in China was done without their permission. Shi had been left with little choice, especially when his superiors secured an invitation from the General Secretary for him to make the presentation himself.

  Depending on whom you asked, the meeting had either been a success or an utter disaster. Shi believed it fell in the latter camp.

  A thirty-five-year veteran of the Chinese military, Colonel Jiang Shi worked for the PLA’s intelligence division, known simply as “Second Department.” Second Department was home to some of China’s greatest strategic thinkers, including Shi, who headed the PLA’s unrestricted warfare program. Snow Dragon had been his idea.

  With good reason, the Politburo Standing Committee was highly resistant to any talk of attacking the United States—even if carried out by third-party nationals. If China’s involvement were ever exposed, the repercussions would be devastating. It would mean nuclear war. No matter how many times Colonel Shi repeated his deepest held belief that the United States would be made to bow to China, the answer from the PSC was an unequivocal and emphatic no.

  Shi had been disappointed, but far from surprised. Politicians lacked not only vision, but courage. He had returned to his office, opened his walk-in safe, and relegated Snow Dragon to the stack of other rejected plans he and his people had developed over the years. At some point, China would wake up and realize that war with the United States was inevitable. When that happened, his phone would ring. Two weeks later, it did.

  The General Secretary, who was a supporter of Second Department and its unrestricted warfare program, had lobbied continually in favor of a strike against the United States. He presented them with fact, after fact, after fact. China was running out of time, and options. Either China would dictate the terms of war or the terms of war would be dictated to it. War, though, was inevitable. Eventually, the PSC agreed. Permission was granted, but with one caveat. The Politburo Standing Committee wanted essential Chinese personnel evacuated from America beforehand.

  There was absolutely no way such a thing could be done without risking exposure. The plan’s success depended upon the United States and the rest of the world believing that the attack had been committed by Al Qaeda terrorists. If anything at all hinted at China’s involvement, the entire operation would be undone.

  There were two key reasons Shi and his people had picked September for the attack. The first was the most obvious. A strike on the September 11 anniversary would automatically be blamed on Al Qaeda. It would be the only evidence most people needed in order to levy blame.

  The other reason was that the strike Shi had planned would create absolute chaos in the U.S. But to maximize that chaos, they needed to hit before America’s crops were harvested. If they did, famine would take hold over the winter and the die-off of American citizens would be accelerated.

  Despite these excellent reasons, the politicians on the Politburo Standing Committee had convinced themselves of a “better” idea—postpone the attack until Chinese New Year.

  It was one of China’s biggest national holidays, and millions of Chinese from around the world returned for the event every year. The United States wouldn’t think twice about influential Chinese doing the same. Shi disagreed.

  While it might not draw attention before the attack, it definitely would afterward
. It wouldn’t matter if the United States government was in a shambles. Every intelligence agency around the globe would be trying to figure out what had happened. The timing of the attack would be one of the key things they’d be looking at. That it had taken place during Chinese New Year and so many of China’s America-based VIPs had been miraculously spared wouldn’t go unnoticed. In the intelligence business, there were no such things as coincidences. They were always signs of something more sinister afoot.

  Because the men and materials would already be in the United States, postponing the attack until midwinter also meant more time for the attack to be uncovered. The PSC was unswayed. The General Secretary delivered their decision.

  Even though the PSC planned to abandon many high-level Chinese executives and diplomats in the U.S., Shi still didn’t like it. Knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and the significance of the anniversary were burned into global consciousness. Using any other date was a mistake. The PSC didn’t care. Shi was ordered to make a New Year’s strike a success.

  No matter what time of year, attacking America on its own soil posed special challenges. Security was always elevated and American law enforcement was getting better and better training on what to look for. Even if men and materials could be smuggled into the country and could remain hidden, one American patrol officer could undo everything. In fact, once in the United States, terrorist operatives had more chance of being discovered by a beat cop or state trooper than they did by an FBI or CIA officer.

  Shi had studied the histories of the Al Qaeda members sent by Bin Laden to carry out the 9/11 attacks and was fascinated by their brushes with the law and how many clues they had dropped in the run-up to that dramatic day. Examining all of the pieces in the aftermath, he was stunned that the United States hadn’t uncovered the attack. Bin Laden had been extremely lucky. Shi’s plan would also require a certain amount of luck. He decided to set the attack for two days after Chinese New Year.

  Once the date had been fixed, he arranged to meet with his colleague who ran one of the PLA’s best hacking units—Unit 61398. It was based out of a twelve-story building in a run-down neighborhood in Shanghai. Their job would be to populate key jihadist websites with chatter in the run-up to the attack. Anyone investigating afterward would believe all of the signs had been there. Hindsight could always be counted on being twenty-twenty.