by Brad Thor
Harvath hated to admit it, but the Troll was right.
He also hated to admit that the only way to get around the impasse he now saw himself at was to share a secret of enormous national security importance with a direct enemy of the United States.
Chapter 97
T his time, Harvath really had committed treason. There was no doubt about it. The only saving grace would be if something of greater value came of it.
It couldn’t be something of greater value to himself. It had to be something of greater value to his country. Failing that, Harvath very well could have just betrayed everything he stood for.
He searched the Troll’s face, but there was nothing there. “This plot doesn’t sound familiar to you in any way? Adara or the Abu Nidal organization never mentioned anything like this to you?”
“By targeting children, the plot sounds very much like what happened in Beslan. In fact, I’d say hijacking the school bus was an improvement. It’s a lot easier to capture a school bus than a school.”
“But what about Adara? Did she or her people ever mention something like this?”
“I didn’t talk tactics with her,” replied the Troll. “At least, not often. I deal in the realm of information. That is my stock in trade. If Adara or her deceased father’s organization had any plans for an attack like this she would have known better than to talk to me about it. She knew me well enough to know that I would be against it.”
“That’s right. I forgot,” said Harvath. “Saint Nicholas.”
“In the world we live in, bad things happen every day. Innocent people are killed. Sometimes these innocents are children. I believe in America you call it collateral damage. But to specifically target children is reprehensible. Whoever conceived of this attack should be strung up by his balls.”
Harvath couldn’t argue. But his agreement with the Troll’s position didn’t bring him any closer to finding out who was behind Philippe Roussard and what else they had planned.
He sat there for a long time in silence, thinking, until the Troll said, “I’ve been trying to find a connection, outside of ideology, between Philippe and the other men who were released with him. Maybe that was a mistake.”
“How so?”
“Maybe there is no connection. Maybe the other four were simply decoys. Like when multiple versions of your president’s helicopter lift off at the same time and go in different directions.”
Harvath hadn’t thought of that. “I started with Ronaldo Palmera because he was close, proximitywise.”
“It doesn’t matter who you started with. We’ve been looking for a connection between the five released from Gitmo and I don’t think there is one. I think this has been about Philippe from the beginning, and lumping him in with four others was a smoke screen.”
Harvath was with him that far. “Okay, so let’s say the other four don’t matter for our immediate purposes. We still know nothing about who’s behind Roussard.”
“Not yet at least.”
“I don’t follow you.”
The Troll looked at Harvath and smiled. “The one thing we can agree on is that someone is helping Philippe. Whoever that person—”
“Or organization,” added Harvath.
“Or organization is, they’ve obviously got it out for you and they sent Philippe to stop me from helping you.”
“Agreed.”
“Then let’s break this down into the smallest, most logical bits of data we can,” replied the Troll. He was the puzzle master and completely in his element now. “Most likely, Philippe had neither the contacts nor the resources to mount that attack on me. Someone had to play matchmaker and paymaster for him.”
“And he used Arabic-speaking talent,” added Harvath.
“Which narrows down the pool of operators in South America considerably.”
“Unless they were shipped here specifically for this job.”
The Troll nodded. “It’s possible. But a lot went into this. Someone had to secure the weapons, the helicopter, and a willing pilot. Most likely surveillance was conducted. Even if the muscle came from outside, someone had to help them locally, and it had to be someone Philippe’s people had a relationship with and could trust.”
Harvath watched him as he listened.
“There’s one other thing,” said the Troll. “The most important thing of all.”
“What’s that?”
“The money,” he replied. “This would have been pretty expensive. They couldn’t have just walked into the country carrying that kind of cash. The Brazilians are very serious about money laundering and illicit activities. This would have required—”
“Banks,” interrupted Harvath.
The Troll nodded again.
“Do you think there’s a way to track backward via the money flow?”
Pressing his fingers into a steeple, the Troll thought about it. “If we knew what group or individual Philippe used locally to facilitate everything here, I think I could.”
“What would you need?” said Harvath, careful not to let his enthusiasm show in his voice.
“Two things. First, it takes money to find money. I’d need cash and a lot of it. You’d have to unfreeze a substantial sum. I’m going to have to go to market to get the facilitator’s name and background info. To get that information quickly we’re going to have to pay a premium. Antennae will go up among the brokers we’re going to approach. They’re going to smell blood in the water and will wonder if they can sell the information someplace else for more. We have to be able to offer so much right off the bat that they’ll be afraid to jerk us around and shop the intel.”
“What’s the second thing?” asked Harvath.
“Once we’re on the trail we’re going to have to move fast. I’m going to need a lot more computing power than I have now.”
“How much more?”
The Troll looked at him and replied, “Do you have any friends at the NSA or CIA who owe you a favor?”
Chapter 98
H arvath had friends at both the NSA and the CIA. In fact, he’d even recently taken a steam bath with the CIA’s director at his country club. But something told him that reaching out to anyone for help at either agency at this point would only make his problems worse.
By having the Troll define his computing needs a little bit better, Harvath realized the NSA and CIA weren’t the only government agencies with the capacity that would satisfy him. There were others, one of them being the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, or NGA.
Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA was a major intelligence and combat support subsidiary of the Department of Defense. They also had serious computer power at their disposal and just happened to be the current employers of a friend of Harvath’s named Kevin McCauliff.
McCauliff and Harvath were members of an informal group of federal employees who trained together every year for the annual Washington, D. C., Marine Corps Marathon.
McCauliff had been instrumental in helping Harvath during the Fourth of July terrorist attacks on Manhattan and had received a special commendation from the president himself. It was something he was very proud of. Though he’d broken many internal NGA rules and more than a few laws in the process, he would have done it all again in a heartbeat, no questions asked.
Since McCauliff had helped him with sensitive assignments in the past, Harvath hoped he’d be able to count on him again.
It took the Troll two days and twice as much money as he’d anticipated to get the information he was looking for. But in the end, it was worth it. Brazil was a relatively small country, and he not only discovered who had assisted Roussard locally, but he also assembled a loose idea of how they washed and had moved their money.
At that point it was Harvath’s turn, and he decided to call Kevin.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” asked McCauliff when Harvath got him on the phone. “No way.”
“Kevin, I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t i
mportant,” said Harvath.
“Of course you wouldn’t. Losing my job for helping you is one thing, losing my life when I’m found guilty of treason is something completely different. Sorry, but we are done with this conversation.”
Harvath tried to calm him down. “Kevin, come on.”
“No, you come on,” he replied. “You’re asking me to turn over control of DOD computers to a figure renowned for stealing intelligence from government organizations.”
“So firewall off any sensitive areas.”
“Am I talking to myself here? These are D-O-D computers. All their areas are sensitive. It’s one thing to ask me to pull imagery, Scot, but it’s another thing entirely to ask me to open up the door and give you an all-access pass…”
“I’m not asking you for an all-access pass. I just need enough capacity to—”
“To launch a denial-of-service attack from U. S. government computers on several banking networks so you can more effectively hack your way inside.”
That was the crux of the request right there, and Harvath couldn’t blame McCauliff for his reluctance. Everything he’d asked the NGA operative to do for him in the past paled in comparison to this. McCauliff was going to need a bigger reason than just their friendship to put his career and possibly more on the line.
Harvath decided to fill him in on what had happened.
When he was finished, there was silence from the other end of the line. McCauliff had no idea Harvath had been through so much since the New York City attacks. “If the banks found out where the attacks came from, the fallout for the U. S. would be beyond radioactive,” he said.
Harvath had been expecting this answer, and the Troll had made extensive notes for him on what he wanted to do. “What if there was a way this could be done without a trail leading back to the U. S.?” asked Harvath.
“What do you have in mind?”
Harvath explained their plan as McCauliff listened.
“On the surface,” the NGA operative replied, “it makes sense. It’s probably even doable that way, but there’s still one wild card that kills the deal.”
“The Troll,” said Harvath despondently.
“Exactly,” replied McCauliff. “I’m not saying you would ever intentionally do your country harm, but this could be the mother of all Trojan Horses and I am not going to be the dumb son of a bitch remembered for having swung open the gates so it could be wheeled inside.”
Harvath couldn’t argue with McCauliff’s reasoning. Allowing the Troll access to those computers was akin to handing a professional mugger a loaded gun and sending him into a dimly lit parking garage full of bejeweled society matrons. You couldn’t trust either of them to be on their best behavior.
Though McCauliff felt for Harvath’s predicament and genuinely wanted to help, boosting an enemy of the United States over the government’s firewall was out of the question.
The image, though, gave Harvath an idea. “What if we leave the Troll out of this?” he asked.
McCauliff laughed. “And I’m supposed to feign idiocy when I get questioned? I know you’re with him right now. If I even open up one socket for you, it’s the same as opening it for him.”
“But what if you didn’t open anything for either of us?” asked Harvath.
“Who would I be opening things for? If it’s not you, and not the Troll, who are you going to get to carry out this hack?”
Harvath paused for a minute and then replied, “You.”
“Me?” replied McCauliff. “Now I know you’re nuts.”
McCauliff disliked the idea of carrying out a hack against a host of financial institutions just as much as allowing Harvath and the Troll inside the DOD network to run the operation themselves. Either way he looked at it, there was no upside.
It wasn’t that McCauliff couldn’t do it. His talents at breaching complicated networks weren’t in question. The problem was that he actually enjoyed his job. He liked the NGA. He liked his bosses and he liked the people he worked with. This time, Harvath was simply asking for too much.
The list of things that could happen to McCauliff if he got caught was just too long. He wanted to help Harvath out, but he couldn’t find a way to do it without putting himself in serious jeopardy.
Harvath must have known exactly what he was thinking because he said, “I’m sending you an email,” and moments later, there was a chime as something arrived in Kevin McCauliff’s inbox.
The email was from Harvath’s official DHS account and provided the NGA operative with the one thing he needed to strip away his reservations and come to Scot Harvath’s aid—plausible deniability.
In the email, Harvath stated that he was working under direct orders from President Jack Rutledge and that McCauliff’s assistance, as it had been in the New York City attacks, was necessary in a matter of urgent national security.
Harvath specifically noted that McCauliff’s discretion was of paramount importance and that he was not to inform his superiors or anyone else that he worked with about what he was doing. The email assured him that the president was well aware of McCauliff’s role and was appreciative of his undertaking any and all tasks that might be assigned to him by Harvath.
Plain and simple, it was an insurance policy. As soon as McCauliff finished reading it, he printed out two copies. One he locked in his upper desk drawer and the other he placed in an envelope, which he addressed to himself at home.
The content of the email was bullshit and Kevin McCauliff knew it, but he liked Harvath a lot and wanted to help him. The last time he’d broken the rules, and the law, for Harvath he’d received a commendation from the president for his efforts.
McCauliff figured that if this time his bacon landed in the fire, the right attorney could probably use the email from Harvath to save him from getting fried.
That, of course, presupposed his getting caught, which was something Kevin McCauliff didn’t plan on letting happen.
“So are you in?” asked Harvath.
“Seeing as how I’ve been informed that this is a direct request from the president of the United States,” replied McCauliff, “how can I say no?”
Chapter 99
LATER THAT NIGHT
THE BUCKET OF BLOOD
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA
T echnically, the bar on the outskirts of Virginia Beach, Virginia, had no name—at least none that could be seen on the outside of the ramshackle structure or on any illuminated signs rising from its dirt parking lot. Like its clientele, this was the kind of place that didn’t want to draw attention to itself.
To the initiated, it was known as the Bucket of Blood, or simply “the Bucket.” How it got the nickname was anyone’s guess. The low profile had been designed to keep out persons who didn’t belong there, be they townies or tourists. The Bucket was a bar for warriors, period.
Specifically, the bar served the local men and women of the United States Navy’s Special Operations community, but its doors were open to any Spec Ops community personnel regardless of which branch of the military they served in.
The Bucket was also a popular watering hole with another group who were every bit the warrior—the off-duty members of the Virginia Beach PD.
It was open seven days a week, and there really was no such thing as a bad night to visit the Bucket. In spite of its somewhat narrow membership focus, it was packed with regulars at the time.
As it was owned, managed, and run by Andre Dall’au and Kevin Dockery, two retired members of SEAL Team Two, the Bucket was considered the Team’s de facto home away from home.
As far as décor, the usual tavern trappings of neon beer signs and liquor-company-sponsored pieces of swag were abundant, but what made the Bucket unique were the items contributed by its customers.
Like the Venetian doge who commanded the merchants of Venice to bring back treasures to enhance the city’s basilica, Dall’au and Dockery made it clear that they expected their patrons to bring back items from missions abroad that wou
ld help contribute to the glory of the Bucket.
The challenge was so taken to heart that the Bucket had become a minimuseum, displaying souvenirs from operations all around the world. From the radio Saddam Hussein had been listening to when he was captured, to the knife Navy SEAL Neil Roberts had used in Afghanistan once he’d run out of ammo and hand grenades. The Bucket’s collection was extraordinary.
In fact, the proprietors had put the director of the Navy SEAL museum on retainer to help record and catalog all of the pieces. The mini museum had quite a reputation and was the envy of the nation’s most prestigious war colleges.
Because it was a SEAL establishment, a lot of the items were heavily slanted in that direction. On one wall was a mural from former UDT Frogman Pete “The Pirate” Carolan, of SEALs in action from Vietnam through the present bringing freedom to the far reaches of the globe.
One corner was reserved as a place of deep respect. A UDT/vest, swimmer’s mask, and MK3 dive knife on a guard belt stood behind a small round table with a sailor’s cap, place setting, and empty chair standing in memory of fallen comrades. On the wall were photos of every SEAL killed in action since the beginning of the War on Terror.
Elsewhere, an Iraqi bayonet, an Afghan AK-47, and movie posters from Navy SEALs and The Rock kept company alongside a life-sized Creature from the Black Lagoon and a full color photo of Zarqawi after the bomb had been dropped on his head.
There was a collection of paper money from the Philippines, multiple Middle Eastern countries, Africa, South America, and everywhere else the SEALs had been deployed over the years.
Next to that were pictures from the Apollo Space Program with the UDT Frogmen who were used to recover astronauts after they splashed down into the ocean.
Both the men’s and ladies’ restrooms were adorned with Navy recruiting posters, and above the Bucket’s main doorway, visible only as customers exited, was the motto, “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.”
