Foreign Influence

by Brad Thor

  “Reed’s a good man and an even better operative,” Ashford added.

  “Is that where the nickname Peaches comes from, or should I ask Mrs. Carlton about it?”

  The MI5 agent smiled. “Suffice it to say, the nickname was meant as an antithesis. Your boss was anything but sweet. No matter how unsavory a tactic the enemy employed, he could always one-up them. He never hesitated doing what needed to be done. And you should have seen him interrogate. My goodness, within minutes, even I was ready to tell him everything I knew, and I was on his side. In a word, he could be bloody ruthless, ergo the name—”

  “Peaches.”

  “Exactly,” replied Ashford as he changed lanes, cutting off a cab driver who honked in protest. “He has always been a gentleman, though. Exceedingly polite, your boss.”

  “He speaks very highly of you too,” said Harvath.

  “He damn well should. Without me, he never would have been allowed back into the U.K. again.”

  Harvath had heard rumors around the Carlton Group offices about the Old Man’s past. “He didn’t really strike Prince Charles, did he?”

  “He didn’t strike him. He knocked him out bloody cold, mate. That’s where that whole polo accident story came from.”

  “All because Charles had said something about Diana?”

  “Reed was very fond of the princess. He had gotten to know the royal family quite well while working over here. They always insisted he be involved with their security when they came to the U.S. Whether that rankled the Secret Service or not, I don’t know, but Reed always made sure the royal family had the very best agents. Some even said their security plans rivaled the president’s.”

  “He got called in for help after Diana’s death, right? He was part of the secret team looking into whether the car crash was an accident or a homicide.”

  Ashford nodded. “When Reed arrived, Charles had been drinking, a lot. That’s when the prince made a crude remark about Diana and Reed punched him out. I stuck up for Peaches, of course.”

  “Which means you pulled your gun when Charles’s security detail rushed him?”

  “There are many conflicting stories as to what happened that night,” said Ashford as he switched lanes and cut off another vehicle. “Let’s put it this way, I understand why all my peers have been knighted and I haven’t. But in the end, as long as I’m still recognized in the pub when I go back to Yorkshire, that’s all that matters to me.”

  Harvath smiled. “Bullshit. I haven’t met a Brit yet who doesn’t dream of being knighted.”

  The MI5 man smiled back and changed the subject. “Reed’s phone call has caused quite a bit of a stir.”

  “I can imagine,” said Harvath.

  “Obviously, we want to extend to you every professional courtesy, but we are taking the lead on this.”

  “Based upon the intelligence we gathered for you and which specifically states that Americans are the target?”

  Ashford downshifted and switched lanes. “The targets may be American, but the attack is planned for Britain and British lives, as well as other nationalities, are also at risk. Besides, if the shoe was on the other foot, would you be giving us control over Times Square?”

  The man had a point. “No, we wouldn’t.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. Nobody wants an attack to take place in their own country.”

  “As long as we work together.”

  “We already are. Against our better judgment, we are not raising the terror-alert level and we are not going to close down Piccadilly Circus. You and your team will be able to work the area, but our teams will be there too.”

  Harvath was about to reply, when he added, “And before you say anything, I want you to know that you have nothing to worry about. You won’t see my people.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  Ashford laughed. “Okay, maybe you will see them, but I guarantee you the bad guys won’t.”

  Harvath loved the Brits. They were some of the most squared-away operators he had ever met, but he wasn’t comforted by Ashford’s assurance.

  “And there’s one final item which is not open for negotiation,” the man added. “Any suspects taken into custody here shall belong to us and will be interrogated by us. It’s the only way I could get this signed off. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” Harvath replied. “Interrogations make me squeamish anyway.”

  Ashford looked at him. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  For the balance of the drive, the men made small talk and discussed politics.

  Ashford soon brought his BMW to a stop in front of an immaculate Georgian town house in Belgravia, just southwest of Buckingham Palace.

  “There’s a package for you in the boot,” he said, activating the trunk-release as Harvath climbed out.

  Harvath walked to the rear of the BMW, and inside was a large, hard-sided suitcase. Lifting it out, he walked back around to the front of the vehicle.

  Ashford rolled down his window. “Peaches has pinned a lot of his hopes on you. He says you have good judgment and that we can trust you.”

  “You can,” replied Harvath.

  “Good, because we’ve put a lot at risk. There are many people we’ve kept out of the loop for security reasons. When this goes down, they’re not going to be happy that they weren’t included.”

  “They’ll get over it.”

  “Provided everything goes to plan. But, if a bomb or bombs are detonated tomorrow and there are casualties, there will be hell to pay.”

  Harvath had no trouble grasping who Ashford and the Brits intended to stick with the bill if something went wrong. “We want to take as many of them alive as possible.”

  “Let’s hope we get them all,” said Ashford, putting his car in gear. He looked at his watch. “We’ll meet tomorrow morning at six. I’ll pick you up here. If I hear of anything before then, I’ll call you.”

  Harvath thanked him and stepped back from the curb as the MI5 man pulled away. Opening the townhome’s wrought-iron gate, he walked up the stairs to the front door. He punched the code Reed had given him into the keypad and stepped inside.

  There was a cavernous silence. It was immediate, as if a television had just been shut off, but the echoes of a program still lingered in the air.

  Harvath was suddenly aware that he wasn’t alone. He set the case down and stepped into the living room.

  For a moment, he thought that he had entered the wrong house. Then he saw the weapons, one of which had been picked up and was now pointing right at his chest.

  CHAPTER 43

  The woman pointing the MP5 at Harvath turned to one of her colleagues and commented, “I thought somebody said this guy was hot.”

  The other five women in the room laughed.

  “He’s a lot better than that guy we had to work with in Dubai,” replied another. “Remember him? What was his name?”

  “Aswad.”

  Most of the women groaned.

  The woman holding the MP5 looked Harvath up and down. “He’s definitely better looking than ass wad, but is he into goats? That’s the question.”

  The women laughed again.

  “There are a lot of things I’m okay walking in on a man doing,” the woman continued, “but the goat thing isn’t one of them.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Harvath through the laughter. “I must be in the wrong place. I’m looking for the Emily Dickinson reading?”

  “He’s also a smartass,” said the woman as she lowered her MP5. “Just my type.”

  So this was what an Athena Team looked like, Harvath thought to himself. He had heard the stories about Delta haunting high-end women’s sporting events, recruiting the best female athletes to turn into operators, but he had never worked with any of them.

  They were considered just as lethal as their male counterparts and often posed as wives in husband/wife teams with male Delta operators, especially in countries or situations where sending in two or more men would raise too much suspicion.
The ruse worked particularly well when posing as missionaries or NGO workers.

  The women were also deployed as they were now, in all-female teams, normally composed of four to six members.

  Harvath had every confidence in their abilities. He also liked the fact that they’d be harder for the bad guys to key in on.

  In their mid twenties to early thirties, the women were all extremely fit. They were also very attractive and represented a cross section of backgrounds.

  Harvath was trying to figure out who was in charge when one of the women stepped forward and introduced herself, “I’m Gretchen Casey.”

  She had brown hair pulled back and a slight southern drawl. It sounded as if she might have been from Texas.

  “Nice to meet you,” Harvath said as he walked over and shook her hand.

  After explaining that their sixth teammate had been injured in training in Wales and had been forced to remain behind, Casey went around the room and introduced the rest of the team. “So from left to right, we have Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, Alex Cooper, and on MP5, Nikki Rodriguez.”

  Ericsson had jet black hair and looked like a Brazilian volleyball player. Rhodes was the tallest of the bunch, had blue eyes, and was the only blonde. Cooper had fine Ethiopian features with a light-brown complexion and brown eyes. Rodriguez was the shortest of the group, but despite her tough exterior was easily the best-looking, with dark hair and even darker eyes.

  “Nice to meet you all.”

  “We’re not going to have any goat trouble with you, are we?” asked Rodriguez with a smile.

  “Give the guy a break, Nik,” said Rhodes as she stood up and offered her hand to Harvath. “It’s bad enough he has to be surrounded by women who can shoot better than he can.”

  “All right already,” said Casey. “He may just be a Navy man, but I think he gets it.” She gestured to the women and then looked at Harvath. “Tough ladies, get it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “We need to recon Piccadilly, but we can’t all walk through en masse.”

  “True.”

  “I want to do it in teams; separated out over the next few hours. You and I will get a bite to eat and then when it’s our turn we’ll go in. When everyone’s done, we’ll meet back here to debrief. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good,” Harvath replied. Smiling at the Athena Team as he headed for the hallway, he added, “There’s one more thing.”

  “What is it?” asked Casey.

  “Make sure I get the bedroom with the lock on it.”

  The women snorted and rolled their eyes.

  “Got your lock right here,” said Cooper, as she flipped Harvath the finger.

  Ericsson made a lewd gesture while Rhodes blew him a kiss, and Rodriguez started stripping the MP5.

  Harvath and Casey went over details as they ate at a small Thai restaurant off Regent Street. When they were finished, they walked to Piccadilly Circus to begin gathering intelligence. The area was packed with Britons and tourists alike. People took pictures of the blazing neon signs and of each other standing in front of the Shaftesbury memorial fountain.

  Most of them appeared not to have a care in the world. Undoubtedly they were aware of the attacks in Paris and Rome, but if they were concerned, they didn’t show it. Those who were out and about were all smiles and laughter.

  Harvath reflected on what his friend Colonel Dave Grossman liked to say, “Sheep only have two speeds—graze and stampede.” As a sheepdog, Harvath wanted to guarantee that nothing would happen to them. The sheer size of the traffic circle, or circus as it was known in Roman times, made him question whether they were doing the right thing. Even if they flooded the area with operatives, there was no way they could check every face; follow every suspicious person. It was an overwhelming task.

  Casey had brought along a digital video camera. She used it to blend in with the other tourists and film as much of the area as possible. As she did, Harvath tried to put himself in the mind-set of the bombers.

  Rome had been a single bombing, but Paris had been a quantum leap forward with multiple bombings in multiple locations. Each event was created to have maximum impact, but also to be different from the last. From a tour bus bombing to multiple bombings in one city, to simultaneous bombings in two cities, the terrorists wanted to keep shaking people up. They wanted to keep citizens and law enforcement off balance while continuing to create spectacular attacks.

  Taking in everything as they walked, he asked himself how he would pull this off if he was them. Would he detonate in the Tube station and then have a secondary device waiting for all of the survivors who then flooded out on the street? How about placing a lone device or suicide bomber near the fountain with secondary bombers on every street leading away from the circus?

  He tried to think of everything. He studied the fixed railings all along the sidewalks that funneled pedestrian traffic and only allowed crossing at recognized crosswalks. He studied what buildings people might run into for safety. He watched how traffic moved into, around, and out of the circle. He forced himself to examine every detail and by the time they left, he was exhausted.

  Back at the Belgravia house, he and Casey compared notes. They discussed where the most efficient kill zones would be. They explored what a single bomb would do versus multiple bombs. Based on the devices used in Paris, they queried each other on where similar devices in London might be placed. Then they discussed the topic Harvath was most concerned with. What if it wasn’t bombs in backpacks or suicide vests they were planning to detonate?

  What if they were going back to a vehicle-bomb model as had been used in Rome? What if there was more than one? What if they all converged in Piccadilly at the same moment and detonated en masse? Buildings would be leveled, and the carnage would be off the charts. The only scenario Harvath feared more than that was actually being there when it happened.

  Bob Ashford had been right to bring his people on board. There were too many what-ifs here and it was far too large an operation for Harvath and Casey to get their arms around by themselves.

  When the rest of the Athena operatives had gathered at the house, they designated the dining room as a makeshift ops center. Sitting around the table, each team reported their findings and delivered an assessment.

  Everyone was in agreement that screening and managing traffic in and out of Piccadilly Circus was far outside their ability. That task was going to have to fall to the Brits. But if the bombers came in on foot, as they had in Paris, then that would be a different story.

  The largest gathering place for tourists was around the Shaftesbury fountain. That’s where most people stood to take in the neon signs and it was also where the Tube stop was. This was where bombers leaving backpack bombs or detonating suicide vests would get the biggest bang for their buck.

  It was also the most obvious, and that’s what bothered Harvath. While it made the most sense to strike near the fountain, the terrorists weren’t stupid. With the Paris bombing, security had already been stepped up at tourist sites across Europe, and London was no different. He and Casey had seen plenty of uniformed officers as they did their reconnaissance of Piccadilly and they had noted several plainclothes officers as well.

  And they weren’t limited solely to Piccadilly Circus either. They had picked up concentric rings of security the moment they had left the restaurant and had begun walking down Regent Street. The closer they got to Piccadilly, the more intense the police presence became. The terrorists would be doing dry runs as well and would have to know this.

  So what were they planning? How did they intend to subvert the police and get close enough to strike? Harvath had reached out to Reed Carlton twice, hoping for news that Adda Sterk had revealed more information about the bombings to the interrogation team, without any luck. He’d inquired as to whether or not the Dutch authorities had had any success on th
e Amsterdam attack and whether or not the interrogators had come up with more information on who had hired Sterk, but so far everything seemed to be a bust.

  With cameras everywhere, they knew the Brits would be scanning every face coming and going from Piccadilly. They also knew, though, that the cameras wouldn’t prevent a determined terrorist attack. Whereas pickpockets and purse snatchers might be concerned with the police hunting them down after they had committed their crime, martyrs didn’t really have that problem.

  If the bomb or bombs were going to be vehicle-borne, Rhodes brought up a very good point. According to Sterk, the London and Amsterdam attacks were supposed to be simultaneous. That meant that a vehicle, or vehicles, would have to arrive at Piccadilly at a precise time. This would mean that the terrorists would have to commit drivers. They couldn’t simply plant a bomb as they had done in Rome and hope that the vehicle they had planted it in arrived at Piccadilly on time and didn’t get held up or change course.

  It was an excellent point. Harvath made a note to bring it up with Ashford. They needed to make sure that any regularly scheduled traffic that passed through Piccadilly, such as public buses or guided tours with set routes and pickup/drop-off times, were monitored.

  If the terrorists did try to drive in, then hopefully, London police would be able to identify and neutralize them before they reached Piccadilly, and before they could detonate their explosives.

  Harvath didn’t like having to hope for successful outcomes. He liked to tilt the playing field so far to his advantage that his opponent didn’t have a chance. This was a different game entirely.

  He was still very concerned with how little they had to go on. The odds were much more in favor of the terrorists. Maybe keeping the alert level low was a mistake. Maybe people did have a right to know.

  With his cognitive abilities nearing zero and his head still filled with doubts, Harvath walked upstairs to grab a few hours of sleep before Ashford came to pick him up.

  He thought about calling Reed again but realized the Old Man would call him when he had something to report.