by Brad Thor
“Palmera and Najib are both dead, yet nothing has happened so far. Nothing.”
“Well, one was killed in Mexico and the other in Jordan. Maybe their organization doesn’t know yet.”
The DCI shook his head. “Everyone in the neighborhood knew Palmera, and his death was very public. Najib was a member of Syrian intelligence and while I have no idea what the Jordanians might have done with his body, Harvath allowed Al-Tal’s wife and son to live and they are definitely not going to keep their mouths shut. Word like this travels fast. Their organization knows. And yet I keep coming back to the fact that nothing has happened.”
The president thought about it a moment. “For all we know, they’re putting their people in place as we speak.”
“Oh, I think they’ve done more than that,” replied Vaile. “I think they’ve got one person and he’s already been in place.”
“Roussard?” asked Rutledge.
The DCI nodded. “If we maintain the reasoning that these five were so important that their organization risked all to spring them from Gitmo and then could be so angered by the deaths of two of them that it would make good on its threat to retaliate, then how could this same organization not know that Roussard was here and not know what he was doing?”
“He could be acting alone. He’s obviously got a vendetta against Harvath.”
“He might be acting alone in carrying out his attacks, but he’s getting a lot of support from somewhere. This kind of operation takes money, intelligence, weapons, forged identification. There’s no way, just over six months after being released from Guantanamo, he could pull this off completely alone. His people know what he’s doing, and I think this has been their plan from the beginning.”
The president was quiet while he thought about this from as many angles as possible. Finally, he said. “It’s an interesting theory, but can you prove it? Because you’re asking me to risk the lives of tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of American children on a theory.”
“No, sir,” answered Vaile. “I can’t prove it.”
Rutledge rubbed the hairline scar where his right index finger had been reattached, an ever-present reminder of his own gruesome kidnapping several years ago, and said, “Well, there’s one thing I can prove. I can prove that these people already hijacked one school bus and killed its driver. Those victims and their families were terrorized and traumatized beyond belief. It made national headlines, and as president, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that never happens again.
“So I am going to allow DHS to issue the alert and I’ll deal with the Baltimore Sun or whomever else I have to deal with if and when they become a problem. In the meantime, I am ordering you to find Scot Harvath and stop him. No more excuses. You tell your people to do whatever they need to do to get their job done. And damn it, you remind them that when I said dead or alive, I meant it.”
CHAPTER 88
ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL
The Troll had dropped a bombshell on Harvath and the impact was intense. Philippe Roussard wasn’t the assassin’s real name after all. It was the name that had been given to him as a boy to protect him from his family’s enemies. His real name was Sabri Khalil al-Banna.
He began to explain who Roussard had been named after, but Harvath held up his hand to stop him. “He was named after his grandfather.”
The Troll nodded his head.
There was an acidic gnawing in the pit of Harvath’s stomach. Before Osama bin Laden, Sabri Khalil al-Banna had been the world’s deadliest and most feared terrorist. His exploits were bloody, ruthless, and the stuff of legends in both the terrorism and counterterrorism worlds.
As was common with Islamic radicals, he was known by many names, the most famous being Abu Nidal. Philippe Roussard was almost a dead ringer for his late grandfather. Now Harvath knew why he had looked so familiar in the material Vaile had sent.
He also knew why he, or more appropriately the people he cared about, were being targeted.
It was payback for a mission he had led several years ago, code-named Operation Phantom. His assignment had been to decapitate a resurgent Abu Nidal terrorist organization. The reins of power had been handed to Nidal’s daughter and son, twins who had been born and raised without the knowledge of Western intelligence agencies. Based upon what Harvath was hearing, it seemed something of a family tradition.
“As far as we know, Abu Nidal had only two offspring.”
“Correct,” said the Troll, “the son, Hashim, and the daughter, Adara.”
Just their names had the power to send a chill down Harvath’s spine. They were two of the most vicious terrorists he had ever come across, Adara even more so than her brother, Hashim.
Harvath remembered her all too well. Her hatred for Israel and the West consumed her to such a degree that it poisoned what would have otherwise been ravishing features. She was tall, with high cheekbones and long dark hair. Her eyes, though, were her most striking feature. They were gray to the point of almost being silver, like the color of mercury. But when she was enraged or under stress, they underwent an amazing transformation and turned jet black.
It was in the midst of a hijacking by Adara Nidal and her brother that Harvath had met Meg Cassidy. Together, they had tracked the twins to a vineyard outside Rome, only to be beaten to the punch by a veteran Israeli intelligence operative named Ari Schoen—a former top-ranking member of the Mossad who had his own axe to grind with the Nidal family.
It had ended very badly. The memories had haunted Harvath for a long time, and he did not care to be reliving them now.
Hashim had appeared like a wraith out of the vineyard and had run right at them with hand grenades in each hand. Harvath prepared himself for the attack, but Hashim ran right past them. He took Schoen and his team completely by surprise. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Hashim jumped into the van just as the door began to close.
Harvath had thrown himself on top of Meg. The grenades detonated and the van exploded into a billowing fireball, taking Schoen, Hashim, and his sister, Adara, along with it.
The horrible smell of gasoline and burnt flesh was one Harvath would never forget.
So now someone from the Nidal family tree was out for blood. The only question was which branch Philippe Roussard represented.
“So whose son is Philippe? Hashim’s or Adara’s?”
“Adara’s,” replied the Troll.
“Who’s his father?” asked Harvath.
“An Israeli intelligence operative who died before the boy was born.”
“Daniel Schoen?” responded Harvath, stunned that the twisted operation had come back to haunt him so. “He was Ari Schoen’s son.”
Harvath was good. “How did you know that?” asked the Troll.
“I didn’t.”
“But then—”
“The night Adara was killed,” said Harvath, “Schoen confessed to having broken up her relationship with Daniel. He called her a whore and she said something about Daniel wanting to have children with her. But I sensed there was something more—something that she wasn’t saying.”
“Obviously, there was. She had the child out of wedlock shortly after leaving Oxford where she and Daniel had met. Since the elder Schoen had done such an admirable job of making it look like Daniel wanted nothing further to do with her, Adara raised the boy in secret. She placed him with a French family she had connections with, and they raised him as their own. He wanted for nothing and went to the finest Western schools. But he always knew who he was and where he came from.”
“Just like his mother,” said Harvath.
Once again, the Troll nodded.
“You still haven’t explained your connection. Was it with the Nidals, or the foster family, the Roussards?”
“It was with the Nidals,” replied the Troll. “Abu Nidal was one of my earliest clients.”
Harvath looked at the dwarf with contempt. “You keep rather distasteful company. Birds of a feather, I suppose.”<
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The Troll took a long sip of his brandy. “Like I said, in my line of work, a person collects enemies very quickly. Friends are much harder to come by. Abu Nidal was one of the best and most loyal friends I ever had. His daughter, Adara, was the second best. Normally, a man like me has to pay for a woman’s attention. With Adara things were different.”
Harvath had heard some boasts in his time, but this guy was full of shit. “You and Adara Nidal?” he asked.
“A gentleman wouldn’t ask such questions,” said the Troll as he took another sip of brandy.
From what Harvath knew of her, Adara Nidal was a raving psychopath with unparalleled bloodlust. She was a woman of strange appetites, and the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Adara Nidal and the Troll would be perfect for each other.
At the moment, though, none of that made any difference. Harvath had a killer to catch. “So Adara’s son is targeting the people around me because he holds me responsible for his mother’s death?”
“It’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense,” replied the Troll.
“What about tying his attacks to the ten plagues of Egypt? The lamb’s blood above my door, the attack on Tracy, my mother, the ski team, the dog, and all the rest of them are tied in to the ten plagues, but in reverse order—ten through one instead of one through ten.”
“Hold on a second,” said the Troll. “The dog I left for you?”
Harvath nodded.
“What about it?”
Harvath realized that he might have just touched a nerve. “Roussard took great joy in torturing it. He severely beat the puppy and then put it in a body bag infested with fleas. He hung the puppy upside down from a rafter and left it there to die.”
The Troll’s face flushed with anger.
CHAPTER 89
That dog was an innocent, an absolute innocent!” growled the Troll angrily as he slid off the couch and walked to the bar to refill his glass.
Attributing his increasing loquaciousness to the alcohol, Harvath had no intention of stopping him.
“There’s a reason I haven’t been in touch with Philippe,” said the Troll as he refilled his glass. “He had always been a very disturbed young man.”
“How disturbed?” asked Harvath.
“Extremely,” he replied as he crossed back over to the couch and climbed up. “There even came a point where the Roussards refused to care for him any longer. Adara had to put him into a very expensive boarding school. But there his problems only got worse.”
“What kind of problems?”
“In the beginning, his behavior was marked by a lack of empathy or conscience. He had poor impulse control and exhibited an array of manipulative behaviors. A psychologist the Roussards consulted could not make a specific diagnosis. The boy exhibited both antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders—neither of which was good news.
“To paraphrase the renowned criminal psychiatrist Robert D. Hare, Philippe was a predator who used charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy his own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and feeling for others, he cold-bloodedly took whatever he wanted and did whatever he pleased, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret.”
Philippe sounded just like his mother, and Harvath wondered if such an abhorrent psychological condition could be inherited.
“The Roussards tried to medicate the boy,” continued the Troll, studying the bit of brandy in his snifter, “but he refused to take his pills. When he attacked their youngest daughter with a knife, the Roussards gave Adara an ultimatum.”
“Which was?”
“Either she show up within the next twenty-four hours to collect him, or they were going to put him on the next plane to Palestine.
“It was the first in a perceived series of abandonments that undoubtedly contributed to his already precarious mental condition. The boy had always been very conflicted about his Palestinian-Israeli parentage. The use of the plagues, and in reverse order, may be some twisted nod to his father’s Jewish heritage.”
Now that Harvath’s worst fears about the man stalking the people closest to him had been confirmed, he had to focus on how to stop him. “Do you have a way to contact him?”
The Troll shook his head and took another sip of his drink. “Philippe and I had an incident. We never spoke again after that.”
“What kind of incident?”
“It’s not something I like to talk about.”
Harvath squinted over the sights of his pistol and began to apply pressure to the trigger. The Troll got the message.
“We had a disagreement. It was over something entirely inconsequential. Any normal person would have forgotten it and moved on, but Phillipe wasn’t normal, he was sick.
“He abducted me and held me hostage for two days, during which time I was subjected to torture. It was Adara who finally found me and came to my rescue. She nursed me back to health.”
“So why the hell would you want to show any loyalty to a man like that?” inquired Harvath.
“My loyalty wasn’t to him,” said the Troll, a sad smile playing out on his lips, “but to his mother.”
“I want to know something,” said Harvath. “I was there the night she died.”
“Yes.”
“Do you hold me responsible for what happened?”
The Troll was silent. “Does it really matter?” he finally asked.
“Yes, it does.”
“I don’t know who to blame. Hashim martyred himself and blew up the van, but he did it to save his sister from an ignoble fate at the hands of Schoen.”
“But what about me?” said Harvath.
“You were there. How could I not blame you?” asked the Troll. “I loved her and now she is gone. You were a part of that night, so yes, in part I do blame you.”
Harvath watched for any sign that the Troll was not telling him the truth. “Enough to want me dead?”
There was a long pause. Finally the man said, “At one point, I wanted you dead. I wanted everyone involved dead. But I realized that what happened was more of Adara’s making than anything else. She was the one ultimately responsible—she and her crazy brother, Hashim. The entire family was destined for tragedy.”
“Including Philippe?” probed Harvath.
The Troll’s eyes drifted toward the water. There was an odd sound coming from the bay. It sounded like a quickly moving watercraft rhythmically crashing against the waves. The only problem was the bay was perfectly calm. There were no waves tonight.
Harvath noticed it too and looked up just as a blacked-out Bell JetRanger helicopter came into view and began firing into the open living room.
CHAPTER 90
The roar of the large helicopter hovering just above the water outside was eclipsed by the deafening thunder of heavy machine guns emptying themselves into the house.
Harvath grabbed the Troll by the back of his thick neck and forced him to the tile floor as all around them the walls, the furniture, and the fixtures were chewed to a pulp.
Shards of broken glass blanketed the ground, and a fire began in the kitchen. With its wooden construction and thatched roof, Harvath knew the place was going to go up faster than a box of kindling.
Drawing his pistol, he marked in his mind’s eye where the chopper had been hovering and readied himself to return fire. But the opportunity never came.
At a pause in the machine-gun rampage, Harvath popped up from the floor with his Beretta poised, only to see the skis of the helicopter as it disappeared overhead.
Despite the ringing in his ears, he could hear the helicopter as it flew over the roof and had a bad feeling about where it was headed—the landing pad.
The JetRanger could carry anywhere from five to seven passengers, which meant that there was no telling how many men were aboard. Harvath had already expended two rounds of ammunition and had only one spare magazine remaining. He didn’t like the
odds if they got into a protracted firefight. His only hope was to get the drop on whoever was aboard that helicopter.
When Harvath reached down to help the Troll off the floor, he was no longer there. Harvath spun to see the man running for the front door. Harvath caught him right at the reading nook. “We have to get out of here,” he shouted as he grabbed the dwarf by his collar.
“Not without the dogs!” he returned.
“There’s no time. We have to go now.”
“I won’t leave them!”
Harvath couldn’t believe the Troll would put his life on the line for his dogs. “Now,” he said as he spun him in the direction of the dining room and gave him a shove to get going.
Passing the couch, Harvath grabbed his dry bag and slung it over his shoulder.
At the dining-room table the Troll stopped again, this time for his laptop. Frantically, he began pulling the cables from its ports. Before Harvath could say anything, he stated, “We’ll want this. Trust me.”
Harvath didn’t argue. Grabbing the device by its handle, he jerked it off the table, stripping it from its remaining cables, which went whipping off in different directions.
With his other hand, Harvath took hold of the Troll’s arm and propelled him forward. They ran to the front of the structure, where the dining room and living room met. Beneath them was the glass floor. Many of its panes had been shattered. Others were pockmarked and splintered from the waves of machine-gun fire that had torn up the house.
As Harvath approached the wall of open windows that led out over the water, the Troll stopped dead in his tracks. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting us the hell out of here. Get moving.”
The Troll twisted free of his grasp and retreated backward into the house.
“You’re going to get us killed. What the hell is wrong with you?”
The Troll glanced at the fire engulfing the kitchen, its flames now high enough to lick at the roof. As he turned back to Harvath he said, “I can’t swim.”
