by Brad Thor
Squeezing off at least three rounds, Harvath blew out the rear window and drilled two holes through the Tahoe’s rear tailgate doors. If he didn’t have the terrorists’ attention before, he definitely had it now. In fact, he had everyone’s attention. The drivers of the cars behind the Tahoe panicked at the gunshots and slammed on their brakes, causing a dangerous chain-reaction collision.
From the backseat of the SUV, two men in black balaclavas raised submachine guns and opened fire. Harvath pulled up on the horse’s reins and as he did so the animal caught a round to the neck. The beast slipped and once again lost its footing. This time, though, it didn’t recover. Harvath followed it headfirst, straight down into the pavement.
Forty-Nine
When Harvath came to, the first thing he saw was Bob Herrington. “So much for operating as a team.”
Harvath didn’t want to hear it and ignored his friend as he tried to move.
“Take it easy,” said Bob. “Don’t try to get up too fast. Are you okay? Anything broken?”
Harvath slowed down and tried moving his fingers. Next he moved his toes and then worked his way through the rest of his body. “I think I’m okay. What about the horse?”
Herrington looked over his shoulder, then back at Harvath, and shook his head. “Nope.”
“How about the cop by the Armory?” asked Harvath.
“Two rounds to the chest. Morgan had one of those QuickClot sponges in his bag and got it on him right away. Probably saved his life. I think he’s going to make it.”
Harvath pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned back against a parked car. He rubbed his brow along his shoulder to get some of the sweat out of his eyes and then saw that it wasn’t sweat, but blood.
“Don’t worry,” said Morgan, the team’s self-appointed medic, as he pulled some supplies out of his pack, including a tube of medical Krazy Glue known as Dermabond. “You’ve got one hell of a road rash on the left side of your face, but as long as we can get those cuts closed up, I don’t think it’s going to be too serious.”
“So much for me being the only pretty face in this group,” said Hastings.
Harvath’s smile quickly turned into a wince as Morgan swabbed his wounds with antiseptic.
“We heard the shots from the park,” said Cates. “Were you able to hit any of them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about faces, or something distinct about the vehicle?” asked Herrington.
“At least four faces,” said Harvath, “all covered. And as for the vehicle, it’s a late-model black Tahoe which now bears the distinction of having lost its rear window while gaining a bullet hole in each of its rear tailgate doors.”
“That’s a start,” said Herrington, trying to remain upbeat and bolster his buddy’s spirits. “Not a very good one, but a start nonetheless.”
“So what you’re telling us is that you got an NYPD horse killed and yourself beat to shit for nothing?” asked Cates.
As Morgan began applying the Dermabond to close his wounds, Harvath surrendered to the inevitable. They had just blown their last and only lead. Holstering his weapon, which Hastings had found and now handed back to him, Harvath said, “Yeah, I guess it was all for nothing.”
Fifty
WASHINGTON, DC
Please tell me you’re calling because you’ve got something good to report,” said Gary Lawlor.
From his office at the Pentagon, Lieutenant Colonel Sean Olson replied, “I’ll let you judge for yourself how good this is.”
Lawlor grabbed a pen. After finding a clean sheet of paper on his desk he said, “Go ahead.”
“The men your agent identified in New York City are definitely active-duty marines. At least they were as of their last fitness reports.”
“Which was when?”
“Eighteen months ago.”
“Eighteen months ago?” replied Lawlor. “Don’t the Marines conduct fit reps every twelve?”
“Yeah,” said Olson, “but for some reason the paper trail on these marines stops exactly eighteen months ago.”
“Any idea why?”
“Based on what you’ve told me, I think that’s when someone took them off book.”
“That would make sense,” said Lawlor. “Were you able to find out anything else?”
“They were all Marine Security Guard School graduates and had been doing embassy security.”
“Where?”
“Pretty much all over the place, but one thing they had in common was that they each had requested high-risk postings.”
“What do you mean by high-risk?”
“They wanted to serve embassies that were operating under very high threat levels, like Bogotá, Athens, Kabul, Baghdad…you name it, and these guys were not only willing, but wanted to go.”
“Can you place them together at MSG school or in one of the embassy postings? There must be a bigger connection.”
“That was one of the first things I looked for, but they all graduated from different classes and never served at the same embassy at the same time either.”
“So what’s that leave us with?” asked Lawlor.
“Those avenues in particular don’t leave us with anything, but I dug a little deeper and found something that may be helpful.”
“I’m all ears.”
Olson pulled a file up on his computer and said, “While they’re deployed, the Marines are under the operational control of the State Department, but their coordination, logistics, and training is still handled by the Marine Security Battalion out of Quantico, and here’s where it gets interesting. The battalion maintains a low-key group of force readiness officers responsible for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Marine Security Guard details in over one hundred and thirty embassies and consulates worldwide.
“The same force readiness officer filed very complimentary reports for the three marines whose names you gave me, as well as at least fifteen more, all of whom had their trails wiped clean as of eighteen months ago.”
“You think this guy recruited these marines into whatever off-book operation we’re looking at in New York?”
“All I can say is that I think it’s worth checking into.”
Fifty-One
Captain Bill Forrester’s small English Tudor was on a quiet street, in an equally quiet neighborhood in North Arlington, Virginia. Everything about it suggested it was inhabited by a normal, unassuming citizen—right down to the green-gray Subaru Outback parked in the driveway. What gave him away as something more were the Marine Corps and POW flags hanging from a pole above the front door.
Parking his car in the street and walking up the flagstone pathway, Gary Lawlor hoped the Subaru meant that somebody was home. He rang the doorbell and waited.
Moments later a solidly built man in his mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair cut high and tight, answered the door and said, “Can I help you?”
Gary raised his ID and said, “Captain Forrester?”
“Yes?” replied the marine.
“I’m Agent Lawlor from the Department of Homeland Security. I’m investigating the terrorist attacks of this afternoon and I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Why would you want to talk to me?”
“May I come inside, please?”
Forrester opened the screen door and showed Lawlor inside to a bland kitchen with cheap cabinets and yellow wallpaper. He pointed to a table with a view of the backyard and told his visitor to have a seat. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.
“I’ll take a beer if you’ve got it,” replied Gary. “It’s been a long day.”
Forrester didn’t know what to make of a Federal agent having a beer on company time, but something told him this DHS operative was not all he seemed to be. “You want a glass?” he asked as he withdrew two beers from the fridge.
“Please.”
Forrester poured the beers, handed one to Lawlor, and said, “What can I do for the Department of Homela
nd Security?”
Gary slid the printouts of three service photos Olson had e-mailed him across the table. “Do you recognize these men?”
The captain studied the photographs for a moment, slid them back across the table, and said, “No, I don’t.”
“If you need a little more time, that’s okay.”
“I’m pretty good with faces, Agent Lawlor. If I say I don’t recognize someone, I don’t recognize them.”
“From your glowing assessments, I would have thought these marines unforgettable.”
The man was toying with him, and Forrester didn’t like it. “What do you want?”
Removing the rest of the photos and sliding them across the table, Lawlor replied, “I want to talk about the recruiting operation you’ve been running out of the Marine Security Battalion.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve read assessment reports for each of the marines in those pictures and they were all written by you.”
Forrester took a long swallow of beer, using the time to carefully craft his response. As he set the glass down on the table he looked at Lawlor and said, “I assess hundreds of marines every year. So what?”
“Not like these. These marines were exceptional, and eighteen months ago the ones you gave the highest marks to dropped off the grid.”
The captain rolled the base of his glass on the tabletop and fixed his guest with a steady gaze. “You’re talking to the wrong guy.”
“Why? Because you really don’t know what I’m talking about or you were just following orders? Captain Forrester, I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to cut to the chase. Of those marines, the first three I showed you are dead. They were killed today, we think by the same group responsible for blowing up the bridges and tunnels in New York, and something tells me that more marines are going to die very soon if you don’t help me out.”
Fifty-Two
309 EAST 48TH STREET
NEW YORK CITY
Satisfied?” asked Mike Jaffe as he turned off the monitor.
Brad Harper was stunned. “So those were female DIA operatives dressed to look like his kids?”
“Why do you think the camera never made it into the bathroom until their heads were already bent over the edge of the tub?”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have given it the same reaction,” replied Jaffe. “It was perfect. Worthy of an Academy Award.”
“But I wasn’t acting.”
“I know. That’s why it was so perfect. Mohammed would have smelled the good cop/bad cop routine a mile away. Right now he thinks you’re terrified of my methods. If he thinks you believe I’m unstable and will stop at nothing, then he’s going to start believing it too.”
Harper didn’t like being used.
“So are we good here?” asked Jaffe in response to the marine’s silence.
Harper wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.
“Are we good?” repeated Jaffe, slowly and deliberately.
The subtext was obvious. Jaffe wanted to know if Harper was going to continue to play ball, or if he had some sort of a problem that needed to be addressed. Harper had some serious doubts as to how Jaffe might handle any dissension. After all, the man had pointed a loaded pistol at his head, point-blank.
As long as the kids were out of the picture and no longer potential casualties, he figured he could go along with almost anything else Jaffe had up his sleeve. Harper nodded his head and said, “Yeah, we’re good.”
“Excellent. I’ve got three large rolls of Visqueen in the office at the end of the hall. I want you to go get them. It’s going to get pretty bloody in there.”
“Excuse me?” replied the young marine.
“Visqueen,” repeated Jaffe. “Rolls of plastic sheeting.”
“I know what Visqueen is. What are we going to need it for?”
“I just told you. Right after you told me we were good. Did I misunderstand something?”
“No,” said Harper.
“No, sir,” corrected Jaffe.
Harper wanted to deck this deranged piece of shit, but he choked the impulse back and responded, “No, sir.”
“Good, because I’d hate to think you were going soft on me, Harper. I asked for marines on this assignment because marines are tough. Marines have got guts! And we’re gonna need all the guts we have to face down these two shitbags in the other room.”
“I understand,” said Harper, “but plastic sheeting? Are we really going to need it?”
“It’s not for us. It’s for the two foreign intelligence agents who are assisting us. They requested it.”
“Rashid and Hassan? What are they going to do with it?”
“They’re probably going to use it to keep blood off the walls and off the carpeting.”
Harper had figured things were going to really get ugly at some point, but the ugly he had anticipated was from psychological stress applied to their captives. They were in New York City, for Christ’s sake, not some third-world torture chamber.
Jaffe could read the young marine’s mind just by looking at him. “What’d you think this was going to be, son? We call them a few names, withhold everything but high-sugar foods, keep them up for days on end until they eventually crack, tell us what we want to know and then we go home to sleep in our warm beds with crystal clear consciences? Is that how you saw it going down? Because if you did, you’re not the man—wait, scratch that—you’re not the marine I thought you were.”
“Sir, I respect your command, but I’m going to ask you not to impugn my integrity as a United States marine.”
“Fuck that,” said Jaffe, getting into the taller man’s face. “Duty, honor, courage. Fuck all of that. That’s why guys like Humpty and Dumpty in the other room are beating us in the war on terror.”
The man was nuts. Harper was sure of it. And because he was nuts, Harper also knew that he couldn’t be reasoned with.
“You don’t believe me?” said Jaffe.
“No, sir. I believe whatever you say,” replied Harper.
“Bullshit, marine. It’s written all over your face. You think I’m a few cans shy of a six-pack, don’t you?”
“No, sir I didn’t say—”
“Quit lying to me, son. I can smell it from a mile away. You think I’m nuts? That’s fine by me. I probably am to have taken this job and stayed with it as long as I have, but I’ll tell you one thing. If we don’t start executing this war on terror in the correct fashion, we’re going to be overrun.
“We’re fighting for our civilization’s very survival here. They might not talk about it that way in the newspapers or on the evening news, but that is exactly what’s happening. Your country is depending on you. It’s depending on us. You and me. And that’s why what we’re doing here matters. It matters big-time. Because if we don’t stop these guys from going nuclear, thousands if not hundreds of thousands—maybe millions of innocent people are going to die. So keep that in mind the next time you want to question how I’m running this interrogation. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Harper flatly.
“Good. Now go get the Visqueen.”
Fifty-Three
THE WHITE HOUSE
I know you’re distraught over Amanda’s surgery, but you can’t be serious. Tell me you’re not serious,” pleaded Charles Anderson.
“I couldn’t be more so, Chuck,” replied the president.
The chief of staff threw his hands up in defeat. “Of course you are! You’ve declared war on Islam, and then you fired the Secretary of Homeland Security. A trip to New York with the terrorists still at large would be the icing on the cake. It’ll be a public relations trifecta. Should I get Geoff in here to draft a release?”
“First of all, I didn’t declare war on Islam. We’ve already been through that. Secondly, I didn’t fire Driehaus;he resigned.”
“No, you didn’t fire him, but you didn’t pr
event him from resigning either.”
“Semantics. What difference does it make?”
“It makes a lot of difference to you, to this presidency. I’d also make the case that to have him step down in the middle of all this erodes public confidence in our government.”
“That certainly wasn’t the case when the FEMA director bowed out in the aftermath of Katrina.”
“The key word there, Mr. President, is aftermath. Besides, the FEMA chief was inept and everyone knew it. I think letting Driehaus go in the middle of a horrific national crisis is a very bad idea.”
“The hell it is, Chuck. DHS isn’t working, and we all know it. I’m not going to let Alan Driehaus bully this office. He calls himself a patriot? Well, let me tell you something. A patriot doesn’t pull petty political gamesmanship in the middle of a crisis. You put your personal problems aside and you put the welfare of your country above all else. He couldn’t do that, so he’s out.”
Anderson thought about it. “Maybe there is a way we can use his resignation to our advantage. Anyone with half a brain will read between the lines and believe he resigned because he mishandled the terrorist threat. That could work for us.”
“No way,” said Rutledge. “We’re not going to throw Driehaus to the wolves just to divert attention away from what happened.”
“Why not? You think the American people wanted accountability after 9/11? They’re going to be packing the streets demanding a lot more than accountability this time. They’re going to want blood, and plenty of it.”
“And why shouldn’t they? Their government has failed to protect them, again.”
“So why shouldn’t Driehaus be the first one to the guillotine? With each one we throw them, the bloodlust will ebb.”
