by Brad Thor
There they are. Right there,” the ranch manager said as she backed up the closed-circuit footage.
They were sitting in the security office on the first floor of the main house, built and decorated in the same Tex-Mex Mission style as the other buildings. “I have a monitor with a live feed at my place,” she continued, “but I have to come here if I want to rewind anything.”
Harvath used a trackball to slowly roll the footage backward and forward. “Do you get a lot of people who cross through the ranch?”
“The illegals, you mean?”
“Anyone. Illegals, poachers, whatever.”
“Most of them tend to be illegals moving their way up from Mexico. They hide and camp during the day, then move across the ranches down here at night. With the cloud cover and no moon, they’ve got a perfect night for it.”
It wasn’t the only thing a night like this was perfect for. “Does this happen every night?”
Maggie shook her head. “A couple of times a month, maybe.”
“When was the last time?”
She shrugged. “We’d have to go through all the footage. No one watches the cameras unless the Knights are here.”
“But you were watching.”
“I happened to be awake and something caught my eye. I wouldn’t characterize that as watching. Like I said, I only came out to make sure you-all were okay.”
Harvath froze a frame of video. Despite hunching over when they moved, they couldn’t hide their size. “These guys look pretty big to me,” he said, “or am I wrong?”
She leaned in next to him and looked at the monitor. “No, you’re right. They do look big.”
“Are the groups normally made up of four people?”
Maggie shook her head. “There isn’t a standard. For every one you see, there can be five or ten more.”
“What about clothing? Is this the kind of stuff you normally see?”
“The clothing is perfect.”
“Even with all four men wearing baseball caps?”
“It’s all perfect, but there’s something missing.”
Harvath looked at her. “What?”
“Anything these people own, they’re usually carrying it with them. But these four aren’t carrying anything. No food, no water, no plastic grocery bags. Nothing.”
It was a very good observation. “How do I zoom in?” he asked.
She showed him and Harvath tightened up as close as he could. “What do those look like to you?”
“Whatever they are,” Maggie replied as she studied the pixilated, infrared image, “they definitely aren’t cowboy boots.”
She was right. In fact, even with the rough quality of the extreme close-up, the boots they were wearing looked exactly like what Harvath envisioned had left the prints near the generator.
Zooming out, he scrolled through the rest of the night’s footage, trying to ascertain when and how the men had crossed onto the property, what they had done while there, and when and how they had left. The problem was that there were large gaps. The men had been captured on only a couple of the cameras, and they never showed their faces. They’d either been extremely lucky or had known exactly what they were doing, purposely avoiding the cameras.
As he played some of the footage again, Maggie said, “Freeze that.”
Harvath stopped the feed and peered at the image. “What do you see?”
“Now that I look at it again, there’s something not right about the clothes.”
“How?”
“It can be pretty cold at night this time of the year. You normally see these people wearing multiple layers that they can take on and off as they need to. It’s warm tonight, but none of these guys has any extra clothes tied around their waists. Now zoom in on the last one in that frame there.”
“What am I looking for?”
“The shirtsleeves. See how high up the cuffs ride on his arms? Now pull out just a bit and look at all four of them. Their pants and boots fit, but nothing else does.”
“Because those aren’t their clothes,” stated Harvath.
“Then where’d they get them from?”
Harvath remembered the buzzards from earlier that were circling the watering hole and wondered if maybe it wasn’t deer that had stopped to drink there. “I think I may have an idea,” he said.
Before leaving the house, Harvath talked Maggie into opening up the gun room for him. It looked like something out of a British castle: rows of mahogany cabinets filled with expensive hunting rifles, watched over by exotic animal heads adorning the walls. Down the center was a long glass table with drawers containing a range of handguns.
Some of their barrels were threaded, which meant there probably were suppressors somewhere. Maggie confirmed this, but explained to him that they were kept in a separate safe that only the Knights had the combination to.
It would have been a helpful thing to have, but he’d have to live without it.
Harvath selected a Heckler & Koch Mark 23 pistol, took a handful of spare magazines, and helped himself to one of Mr. Knight’s Benchmade knives. All told, he was in and out of the room in under two minutes.
He had thought of using Maggie’s cell phone to call Nicholas, but the man was already on alert. Besides, for all he knew, Maggie’s phone was being monitored, and reaching out to Nicholas might set something in motion before he could get back, so he had decided against it.
Not knowing how many eyes were on the ranch, Harvath lay on the floor of Maggie’s truck as she drove out one of the service gates.
A mile down the county road, she pulled onto a rutted access path and brought the truck to a stop. Harvath climbed out of the back and into the passenger seat. “How far away are we?” he asked.
“Less than a mile.”
He nodded, and Maggie put the truck in gear and resumed driving. He needed to check out that watering trough. Seeing the ill-fitting clothing of the “illegals” on the CCTV footage had set alarm bells ringing in his head.
As they were nearing the trough, Harvath signaled for Maggie to stop.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I think there’s a vehicle up ahead.”
“Where? I don’t see anything.”
“Kill the lights. Shut off the engine.”
Maggie did as she was told.
“Do you have a flashlight?” he asked.
The ranch manager nodded, opened the armrest, and handed him one.
“When I come back,” he said, “I’ll let you know it’s me by flashing the light three times; two longs and a short. If you see anyone else, shoot them.”
Maggie looked at him like he was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
“Trust me,” he replied. Then, after disabling the dome light, he climbed out of the truck and disappeared.
Creeping toward the vehicle he had seen in the bounce of Maggie’s headlights, he reflected on what he would do if tasked with assaulting Three Peaks Ranch. Surveillance would be the first order of the day, but before that, he’d need a place to hide whatever he was driving. You couldn’t just leave a car parked along a county road out here. It would attract too much attention. You needed someplace to hide it, close enough that you could cover the rest of the distance by foot.
Using an adjacent ranch that abutted your target made sense, especially if the area you picked wasn’t currently in use. The windmill was also a good landmark, easy to navigate back to.
It was the presence of water, though, that had bothered Harvath. Water didn’t attract only animals, it also attracted human beings.
Moving through the darkness, he arrived at a dark Dodge Durango that had been pulled off the road and partially hidden behind a tall clump of scrub. The doors were locked and there was nothing inside. Reaching his hand out, the hood was cool to the touch. How long the SUV had been sitting there was anyone’s guess. Twenty yards on, he could make out the silhouette of the windmill. Beneath it would be the trough that it pumped water into.
Harvath stood for several moments and listened for any sound indicating there were people up ahead. He didn’t hear any and quietly continued on toward the trough. He came across the first body ten yards on.
It looked to be a young Hispanic man who had been shot in the back of the head, execution-style. He had been dead for at least a day, probably more, and his flesh had been picked apart.
Moving onto the trough, he found five more bodies, a mix of men and women. All had been shot at close range and dumped into a shallow grave. Whoever did the burying, though, hadn’t realized how quickly the bodies would be dug up and feasted upon by scavengers.
Playing the light over the carnage, Harvath was able to re-create enough to figure out what had happened. Many illegals carried maps marked with “safe” places to camp and find water along their routes. Judging by what he saw, somebody else was already here when they arrived and it didn’t end well.
Four of the victims had been stripped to the waist. Scattered around the trough were the illegals’ few possessions, mostly in plastic grocery bags, just as Maggie had said.
Studying the ground, Harvath discovered perfect matches for the boot prints around the generator outside the guesthouse. He had seen enough.
After flattening the tires of the Durango with his knife, he rejoined Maggie, making sure to signal her with the flashlight before he got too close.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“You need to get back to the ranch as fast as you can,” he replied.
The look on his face must have said it all. Maggie didn’t ask any more questions. Firing up the truck, she turned it around and stepped on the gas as Harvath began giving her instructions.
When they reached the main county road, Maggie headed toward Three Peaks Ranch. Half a mile out, she slowed down and Harvath opened his door and leapt out.
CHAPTER 38
Harvath used the wire cutters from Maggie’s truck to cut through the game fence and slip inside. It was the one angle of attack he felt certain no one would expect.
Without knowing who or what he was up against, all he could do was envision how he would carry out a similar assault. Not only were the conditions favorable weather-wise, with heavy cloud cover and low ambient light, it was a Saturday night and most of the ranch staff was in town.
If Paris and Spain were any indication, this would be another four-man team. That seemed to be confirmed by the CCTV footage, as well as by the four dead males stripped to the waist back at the water trough.
He had no idea how long they had been surveilling the ranch, but they had accurately identified the guesthouse, and Harvath had no doubt that was the target. While Maggie had originally believed that the men had left the property, Harvath wasn’t so sure. They had done their flicker test. Now they would dig in and wait to take their objective.
Other than the olive trees in back, there wasn’t any vegetation obstructing the guesthouse. There were only two doors—the one in front and the one off the kitchen—and lots of windows. If Harvath were running this operation, he wouldn’t risk sending all four men inside. He’d take his best long-range shooter and set him up in an overwatch position.
The best place was a clump of red maples about four hundred yards north of the guesthouse. From there, you could see almost the entire structure. If he had to set up a sniper, that’s exactly where he would do it.
The breeze did little to keep Harvath’s body temperature down as he raced across the exotic game enclosure. He had picked the most direct route, cutting off one of the corners and running at a diagonal. When he reached the fencing on the other side, he had to use the wire cutters again and pull back a small section in order to slip out.
He wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t come across any game. They knew he was there long before they could see him. The breeze had been at his back the entire time, pushing his scent out in front of him like an olfactory air horn.
As he swung around in a loop, a thousand yards out from the maple trees, the wind was coming at him, no longer at his back.
Using a row of tall grasses for concealment, he continued moving forward. He was in rattlesnake country and while he tried not to think about it, he wished he had some sort of night vision gear and should have asked Maggie. If the security cameras were IR equipped, they probably had other equipment, especially for hunting at night. At this point, though, it was too late. He’d have to rely on his own natural abilities.
The dry autumn grass crackled underfoot and rattled like dry cornstalks as he moved through it. He did the best he could to minimize the noise, but it resulted in little attenuation. Very soon, he was going to have to abandon the safety of concealment for a quieter path.
Halfway to the maples, he stepped out from the grass, steadied his breathing, and listened. All the sounds were as they had been when he had stepped outside the guesthouse almost two hours earlier. Had he not seen the CCTV footage and the bodies on the adjacent ranch, there would be no indication that an intense danger was lurking somewhere in the darkness.
He began moving forward again but stopped after thirty yards, when he thought he smelled something. It was only the faintest whiff, and the harder he tried to zero in on it, the more he smelled only earth and other odors.
Exhaling through his nose, he gave up and continued on. Ten yards further and the scent was delivered unmistakably on the breeze. Cigarette smoke.
Smoking was something you were never supposed to do on an op, but it was a rule that was broken all of the time. Harvath now knew there was definitely someone up in the clump of trees. Hidden away, at least four hundred yards from his target, whoever it was probably thought they could risk a quick cigarette without tipping anyone off. Most likely, he was using the soldier’s trick of cupping both hands around the cigarette in order to prevent the glowing tip from being seen, but it didn’t make any difference. Harvath knew exactly where he was.
If the man was in fact a sniper, he’d be equipped with some sort of night vision device. But with both hands cupped around his cigarette, he’d be incapable at the moment of anything more than peering through a fixed rifle scope. He wouldn’t be actively looking to either side or, more to the point, behind him.
Quickening his pace, Harvath closed the distance to the copse of maples to thirty yards, then dropped to the ground and crawled in on his belly, inch by carefully silent inch.
He was less than ten yards away when he saw the sudden bright orange glow of the coal as the smoker uncupped his hands from the cigarette and crushed it out. There was a crackle of dry leaves while the sniper adjusted himself behind his rifle and peered into his scope. From his prone position, he slowly pivoted the rifle from side to side. Barely above a whisper, he spoke into his headset microphone and said, “Gold One, you’re clear. Gold Two, also clear. Gold Three, you’re good to go.”
Harvath drew his knife. With his other hand, he felt around him for a rock just the right size. He needed only to distract the man for a second.
As his fingers closed around what he was looking for, he took a silent breath, let it out, and sprang.
CHAPTER 39
The distraction wasn’t as effective as Harvath had planned, because when the sniper’s attention was drawn in the direction of where the rock had been thrown, he immediately seemed to sense he was under attack.
Harvath had launched himself, expecting to land on the man’s back. Gripping his forehead, he would pull his head back, expose his throat, and slice through his larynx, thus silencing him instantly. Then he’d push the head forward and plunge the knife into the base of his skull. With a twist of the blade, the brain stem would be severed and the man would no longer be a threat. That wasn’t exactly how it unfolded.
The sniper rolled over, bringing his rifle with him. As Harvath landed on top of him, the young man swung the stock and connected with Harvath’s left collarbone, creating a shock wave of pain.
His body wanted to roll away from the agony, but he fought to stay where he was. Rapidl
y his eyes swept the young sniper’s face and neck; in a microsecond, he found what he was looking for.
Being on top, Harvath had the advantage of leverage. In the blink of an eye, he clamped down on the butt of the weapon and drove all his weight forward.
The sniper tilted his head to the side so as not to be hit in the face, and that was the opening Harvath had been hoping for. Reaching over the scope, he swept the knife. It entered behind the man’s right ear and came down below his jawline, slicing through flesh and the wire of his headset.
Taking some of his weight off the rifle, Harvath added pressure to the blade, making sure to cut as deep as possible. As soon as he severed the larynx, he pulled the knife out and slid it between the man’s ribs. He was wearing body armor, but it was soft and meant to stop bullets, not a knife. Adding more force, Harvath thrust the blade up and into the man’s heart.
The sniper’s body went rigid, spasmed, and then fell still. His hands dropped from the rifle. Harvath pulled it away and stood. The entire struggle had lasted only a matter of seconds.
Setting the rifle aside, he relieved the twenty-something sniper of his radio and then dragged him behind one of the maples and dumped the body. In a perfect scenario, he would have taken the man captive in order to interrogate him, but there had been no way to subdue him and he had nothing with which to tie him up. Even then, it would have been an impossible task to keep one eye on the sniper while figuring out where his colleagues were. If he could have done it another way, he would have. As far as he was concerned, he had exercised the only option available to him.
Though he had done it before, Harvath was not fond of using a knife. There was something barbaric about it. It was too close, too messy, too personal. He preferred using a firearm; it allowed him to keep a certain psychological distance.
He had lost track of the men he had killed by pulling a trigger. Those weren’t the faces he struggled to keep banished to remote corners of his psyche.
It was the men he killed up close, inches away, whose faces sometimes loomed in his mind’s eye. He had never figured out why. He was required to kill for a living, and he had little problem doing it. Why should one form of killing be any different from any other? The end result was the same.
