by Brad Thor
“I took some AK-47 fire on my way over,” said the driver as he came around the side to meet them. He was dressed in the traditional Arab garment that looked like a long nightshirt known as a dishdasha. As he unwound the checkered kaffiyeh from his face, they could see he was an American. “Chip Reynolds, “He said as he stuck out his hand.
Harvath and Alcott introduced themselves and then watched as he opened the tailgate and retrieved two shopping bags. “I brought you each a change of clothes. The natives are getting a little restless, and the less foreign you look, the better off we’ll be.”
“What about this?” asked Harvath as he pulled back his jacket to reveal his .40-caliber H&K handgun. Not only wouldn’t he be able to hide it beneath a traditional dishdasha, but even if he could, he’d have to hike up the entire robe just to get at it. That wasn’t going to work.
Reynolds sifted through the gear in the cargo area of his Land Cruiser and pulled out a small briefcase with Arabic writing on it used for carrying sections of the Koran known as a Juz that was perfect for holding Harvath’s weapon.
He had to hand it to the guy. Reynolds was definitely clever and apparently had thought of everything.
Once Harvath had changed into his dishdasha and Jillian into her full-length black abaya, complete with a long niqab that revealed only her eyes, they were ready to roll.
“Boy, are you a looker,” joked Reynolds as Jillian climbed into the backseat. “You’re going to break a lot of hearts around here with those eyes.”
Harvath wasn’t crazy about the man’s casual attitude and switched their conversation back to the matter at hand. “How do you know Gary Lawlor?”
Reynolds put the car in gear and headed for the air base’s main gate. “Gary and I were in Army Intelligence together. I joined the CIA about the same time he went into the bureau.”
“How’d you end up over here?”
“The Middle East was my area of operations. I learned how to speak Arabic and Farsi and actually used to enjoy it over here, Saudi Arabia in particular.”
“Gary said you do security work for the Aramco company. A man with your background, I’m sure the CIA was sorry to see you go.”
“I’m sure they were, but I’d made a lifetime career out of serving my country. What I’m doing now, I’m doing strictly for the money, and I don’t see any shame in it. Why shouldn’t I be able to cash in on the few workable years I have left?”
The man had a good point. As they drove out the main gates of Riyadh Air Base, Harvath asked, “I can’t blame you, but do you ever miss it?”
“What? Working for the agency?”
Harvath nodded his head.
“In the beginning, yeah, I missed it. I missed it a lot, but I could see the writing on the wall. The company wasn’t going to hold onto me forever. What was I going to do, invest in a rocket-propelled wheelchair to chase down bad guys? If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that life is all about change, and stress comes from avoiding change. I think that’s the biggest lesson that came from losing my wife. She was extremely supportive of my career, but I knew she wasn’t crazy about it. The pay wasn’t super and the hours were horrible, but she understood I was in it for something more than that. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” replied Harvath. “I know what you mean.”
“Are you married?” asked Reynolds.
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
Harvath had to think about his answer a moment. “Not really.”
“Well, I’ll give you a free piece of advice. It’s something I wish somebody had told me a long time ago. The only love I ever had greater than my love for my country was my love for my wife. I wouldn’t be half the man I am today if it wasn’t for her. I see a lot of people in this game who have chosen their career over having a family, and I think that’s a bunch of crap. It’s a copout. Even though you’re working your ass off protecting life and liberty, it doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to the pursuit of happiness. The key, though, is in finding the right person.”
“There’s the understatement of the year,” said Harvath as he wondered if Dr. Phil knew somebody in Saudi Arabia was stealing his material.
“How old are you? About thirty-five?”
“About.”
“That’s when I got married, but I almost didn’t do it. It would have been a colossal mistake on my part not to. I guess what I’m saying is, don’t let your career stand in the way of what you want out of life.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Harvath, while what he was thinking was that his career was all he was aware of ever really wanting. He couldn’t see past it. He hadn’t even tried to until he was faced with what his life might be like without it. Reynolds was an interesting character. Unlike Rayburn, who’d been forced out of government service and into the private sector, Reynolds had chosen to leave and had done so on his own terms after a long and ostensibly satisfying life of service. What’s more, Reynolds had somehow been able to have a rich and fulfilling relationship—something Harvath had not yet been able to achieve. As he listened to the man speak, he wondered if maybe it wasn’t the women he had dated so much as it was he himself who had been sabotaging his relationships.
After a few more moments of reflection, Harvath realized he had allowed himself to be blown off course and once again tried to bring the conversation back around to the matter at hand. “Why don’t we talk about what it is we’re driving into.”
With time being of the essence, Reynolds avoided any roundabout side road routes, swung onto the main access road into Riyadh, and pinned the accelerator. “As far as what’s going on in the city itself?”
“Yeah.”
“You saw the ventilation that’s been added to the back of my truck?”
“That many holes are hard to miss,” answered Harvath. “You said something about the natives getting restless?”
“The mullahs have whipped a lot of the faithful, particularly the young men, into a frenzy.”
“Over what?” asked Jillian from the backseat.
“They claim that the Royal Family has ordered the police to crack down on all militants, even the moderate ones, in response to pressure from America.”
“There’s definitely some pressure being applied here,” said Harvath, “but it’s not from America.”
“That’s just it. The Royal Family seems to be playing right into this guy Kalachka’s hands. They’re arresting militants left and right.”
“Why?”
“They seem to believe that there’s a strong possibility a coup might be afoot.”
EIGHTY-THREE
A s they drove through the tracts of housing complexes outside Riyadh, Reynolds talked about the militants he had been keeping tabs on, why he had decided to follow them, and what he had learned. Then it was Harvath’s turn.
Over the next ten minutes, Harvath provided a brief summary of their investigation and everything they had been through. He finished by explaining why Reynolds hadn’t been able to find Khalid Alomari and what the man had been doing during his long absences from Saudi Arabia. When Harvath reached the point when the al-Qaeda assassin was killed, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw Jillian avert her eyes out the window.
“You did the right thing,” said Reynolds in an attempt to break the silence that had settled over them.
“I know,” said Jillian. “I know.”
“Let me ask you something else,” the man continued, “about this illness. Gary says that it has just shown up in the United States. How’d it get in and where are they seeing it?”
“As far as the FBI, DHS, CDC, and USAMRIID teams can figure out, it started with a Muslim food importer who shipped a package UPS from Hamtramck, Michigan, to Manhattan,” said Harvath. “Apparently, anyone who has come in contact with it has become infected, including the importer himself.”
Using the rearview mirror to look at Jillian, Reynolds asked, “Do you have any idea how the illness is
spread?”
“No, we don’t. All we know is that according to the Aga Khan, immunity to the illness is transmitted somehow via water. A holy water of some sort that only Muslims have access to.”
“Only Sunni Muslims,” added Harvath. “Which is why Gary thought we could help each other out. You said that one of the things you discovered in that warehouse was bottled water, right?”
“Tons of it,” replied Reynolds. “The warehouse was enormous, and they had the stuff stacked floor to ceiling. There had to be over a million bottles in there, easy.”
“What about the documents you found?”
“That brings us back to my question, “He said, looking to Jillian once again. “Could the illness be spread by contact with things that had been purposefully contaminated?”
“Sure,” responded Jillian. “The ancients were very fond of lacing fields they knew their enemies were going to pass through with toxic poisons. The enemy would walk through, and the substance would enter their bodies through direct dermal contact or respiratory inhalation. They were even known to contaminate foodstuffs, water supplies, or everyday goods and leave them for the enemy to ‘discover,’ and that would be that. Why are you asking?”
“From what Gary told me, the contaminated package in the U.S. contained some sort of powdered spice made from ground cherry pits. It was being shipped to an ex-Saudi national who owns a string of very interesting businesses.”
“What kind of businesses?”
“Gas stations, convenience stores, currency exchanges, payday loan and check-cashing operations throughout the Northeast.”
“So?”
“So what do all those businesses have in common?”
After a moment, Harvath responded, “Cash. They all deal very heavily in cash.”
“Bingo,” said Reynolds. “And all of those businesses encounter little or no regulation. They’re virtual money-laundering machines.”
“Or money-dirtying machines.”
“According to the list I saw, these guys have operations throughout the United States, even in Alaska. Short of getting someone inside the Treasury Department, I can’t think of a better way to compromise large amounts of American currency. The question is, though, could they use that powdered spice to contaminate paper money?”
“If what I learned in the Secret Service is any indication,” replied Harvath, “then definitely.”
“How?”
“Our paper is very fibrous, and it doesn’t take much for things to get embedded in those fibers. The best example would be cocaine. According to statistics, trace amounts of cocaine are believed to infect four out of every five bills in circulation.”
“That’s impossible,” answered Reynolds. “There aren’t that many people doing drugs in America.”
“The drug users may be the root source, but they represent an almost negligible minority when it comes to how bills get contaminated. When a powdered substance like cocaine is very finely milled, it passes easily from one surface to another. The biggest contamination culprits are ATMs. Once infected, they were shown to spread trace amounts of cocaine to all the bills they distributed. Counting and sorting machines like those used in banks and casinos are just as bad. Even the machines tested in several Federal Reserve banks were shown to be contaminated.
“Basically, a single bill with trace amounts of a substance like cocaine can infect an entire cash drawer, and when that cash encounters a counting or sorting machine, which fans the bills, the contamination grows exponentially. It makes perfect sense.”
Reynolds looked back at Jillian. “You’re the scientist. What do you think?”
“From a personal standpoint, I think it’s terrifying. But from a strictly scientific point of view, it’s absolutely brilliant.”
Harvath hadn’t liked it when al-Qaeda’s strategic genius was praised after the September 11 attacks, and he didn’t like hearing this current terrorist strategy described in such a way either, but he understood what she meant. “So is this a viable means of infection?”
“It makes sense,” said Jillian. “Contaminated currency would be a perfect, virtually unstoppable way to spread it. It would also have a chilling psychological effect on financial markets worldwide. The American dollar would be quite literally worthless. Not only would al-Qaeda succeed in killing scores of infidels, but they would also decimate the American economy. Quite a one-two punch.”
Harvath turned to Reynolds and asked, “How much time before we get to the warehouse?”
“About five more minutes.”
“Is your cell phone secure?”
“More secure than most in the kingdom, why?”
“Just in case we don’t walk out of that warehouse, Gary needs to know what we’ve discovered.”
As Harvath raised the phone to his ear, he glanced in the Land Cruiser’s side-view mirror and watched as a blue Mercedes behind them turned off onto a small side street and another car merged into traffic three lengths back. It was the same car that had been behind them when they turned onto the main road leaving Riyadh Air Base.
Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, he said to Reynolds, “I think we’ve got company.”
EIGHTY-FOUR
R eynolds trusted Harvath’s instincts. Without even waiting for an explanation, he yelled for everybody to hang on and pulled a hard right turn followed by a quick left. Pulling a walkie-talkie from beneath his seat, he asked Harvath to describe the car he had seen. Once he knew what they were looking for, he raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth and said, “Bluebird, this is Pelican. Do you copy? Over.”
“Who’s Bluebird?” asked Harvath as he glanced over his shoulder to see if they were still being followed.
“He’s one of my men. His name is Zafir.”
“Is he a Saudi?”
“No, Pakistani. He’s ex-military and one of the few people I trust with something like this. He’s on a rooftop down the street from the warehouse keeping an eye out for us. In about a block he’ll have a clear view, and we’ll know if anyone is following us.”
“Pelican, this is Bluebird. I copy. Over,” broke a voice across Reynolds’s radio. “What’s your status? Over.”
“Pelican is inbound with possible company. Please check our tail for a beige, late-model Nissan Sentra. Over.”
“Late-model beige Nissan Sentra. Roger that,” said Zafir. “Take a right turn at Al Mus’ad and another right turn at Khair al Din. Will let you know. Over.”
“Roger that. Pelican out,” said Reynolds as he handed the radio to Harvath and prepared to execute the turns.
Three minutes later, Zafir radioed back that they were all clear. Either Harvath had overreacted and they weren’t being followed, or they had managed to lose whoever was behind them. Something told Harvath it was the latter. He had a bad feeling that they were about to walk into something they might have a very difficult time walking out of.
Taking the radio back from Harvath, Reynolds did one final check with Zafir, who told him the warehouse had been quiet all day. Even though the parking lot was empty, Reynolds chose to park on the street about a block away. The last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to the fact that someone was visiting.
Fool them once, shame on them. Fool them twice, double shame on them was Reynolds’s feeling as he removed the prayer mat, which, just as in his last visit to the warehouse, was wrapped around his Remington twelve-gauge tactical shotgun. The nice thing about this trip, though, was that unless the owners of the structure had changed the locks, Reynolds had his own set of keys.
Working their way around to the office at the rear of the structure, Reynolds tried several of the keys until he found the one that worked. With Harvath helping cover him with his H&K, Reynolds pulled his Remington from the prayer rug, and they quietly crept inside with Jillian right behind them. At the end of the hallway, Reynolds held up his hand and counted to three, at which point he and Harvath both swept into the office and found it totally empty.
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sp; Every desk drawer stood open and bare. Harvath checked the file cabinets and found the same thing. The entire place had been cleared out. Somebody had decided they didn’t want to wait around to see if the shotgun-toting Westerner was going to make a second appearance.
Motioning toward the opposite doorway, Harvath struck off into the warehouse and signaled for Reynolds to follow. When they entered the cavernous space, they saw that it too had been completely cleared out. All that was left was a battered forklift with two flat tires, a few stacks of discarded pallets, and other assorted pieces of trash. By the looks of it, no one would ever have known the space had been recently occupied. Bending over to get a closer look at one of the pieces of garbage, Harvath heard Jillian say, “Whatever you do, don’t touch anything.”
Harvath immediately drew his hand back. Wearing a pair of surgical gloves from the plane’s first aid kit and using some plastic trash bags she had brought with her from the galley, Jillian began combing the warehouse gathering samples. As she did, Harvath continued his examination of the premises.
In the far corner, he came across a stack of pallets that at some point had been knocked over. Whoever had been clearing the place out must have been in an awfully big hurry, because they failed to recognize that something had been caught underneath. Using the toe of his boot to kick the pallets out of the way, Harvath uncovered a large cardboard box with what appeared to be a military uniform of some sort inside.
Mindful of the how the British provided American Indians blankets infected with smallpox, Harvath called Jillian and her latex gloves over to help him check it out.
As she approached, he could see from the bags she carried that she had already collected quite a few samples. “Look at these,” she said excitedly as she held up a pair of matching water bottles. “Muslim holy water from a sacred spring near Mecca.”
Harvath stared at the Arabic writing on the front of the bottles and asked, “You can read Arabic?”
