Takedown (9 page)

I
’ll put it next on my list—right after finding the cure for cancer. Are you nuts?” asked Kevin McCauliff from the other end of Harvath’s cell-phone call. The two were members of an informal group of federal employees who trained together every year for the annual Washington, DC, Marine Corps Marathon. In addition to being a fellow runner, McCauliff also held a position within an important government agency that Harvath had turned to once before for help—the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA was a major intelligence and combat support subsidiary of the Department of Defense. And in this situation, that was potentially one of its biggest drawbacks.

“So what you’re saying is you can’t do it,” replied Harvath.

“No,” returned McCauliff, “What I’m saying is that I don’t
want
to do it. Not if you’re asking me to hide it from my superiors.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.”

“I could get fired, Scot. What would I do then?”

“If you get fired, I’ll make sure you get work over at Homeland Security.”

Even though he was all the way down in Bethesda, Maryland, McCauliff laughed so loud, it sounded like he was standing on the street right next to them. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather collect unemployment.”

“For Christ’s sake, Kevin, this is serious. Have you seen what’s happened up here?”

“Of course I have. It’s all over the place. Worse than 9/11, they’re saying.”

“And it could get worse still if you don’t help.”

“Scot, you’re going to have to tell me what I’m doing this for.”

“For me, Kevin.”

“We’re close friends and all, but that’s not good enough.”

“I’ll take your sister to dinner again, okay? How about that?” said Harvath. He knew the analyst’s sister had a thing for him. After the last time McCauliff had helped him out on a hush-hush case, that had been the payment he’d asked for in return.

“We weren’t in the middle of a national crisis that time. We’re not supposed to be diverting any resources right now. If I get caught, I’m going to need a cover story.”

“And I don’t have one for you,” said Harvath. “You’re going to have to come up with one on your own. Please, Kevin. We think the people behind the attacks today may have something else planned. I need you to do this for me so we can stop them.”

“And the reason you’re not doing it out of your department?”

“Is because nobody in my department can do this stuff as well as you.”

McCauliff remained silent so long, Harvath felt he had no choice but to let the other shoe drop, “
And
because this morning, before the bridges and tunnels blew, I was involved in a covert operation with what I thought was the Manhattan Joint Terrorism Task Force. It turns out they were actually DIA agents posing as JTTF. Whatever they’re up to, word somehow leaked. Terrorist chatter intercepted today shows that they already know all about the op.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. We’re all on the same side. Why wouldn’t these guys work with you and tell you they were DIA?”

“That’s what I hope to find out, but none of it matters unless I can figure out what the terrorists are planning to do next. Are you going to help me or not?”

McCauliff thought about it for a moment and then said, “A lot’s going to depend on the cell phone data. If it’s transmitted in a clear format, we can grab it. If it’s over a secure channel like SSL, I’m going to need some time to work on decoding it.”

“We may not have time.”

“You said these phones were on Nextel network?”

“Correct.”

“I know a guy over there who might let me peek behind the curtain. I’ll work that angle as well as the GPS tracking company’s servers. I’ll call you back in a half hour.”

Harvath gave McCauliff some additional information from the phone he had “forgotten” to put back in the NYPD evidence bag and then hung up.

“What do we do now?” asked Herrington.

“McCauliff’s the best guy on something like this. If anybody can turn this to our advantage, it’s him.”

“And then what? If we pick up a trail on the terrorists, there are still only two of us.”

“To tell you the truth, I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet,” said Harvath.

“
I
have,” replied Bob. “Let’s get back to the VA and see if we can’t improve our odds.”

W
ith their two litter bearers, Tim Fiore and Marcy Delacorte pounded down the bridge as fast as their feet would carry them.

When they reached the end of the bridge, three ambulances were already pulling away—packed with injured.

Tim yelled to an NYPD officer about twenty feet ahead, “Stop that ambulance!” but the officer knew there wasn’t room in any of them for even one more person.

“There’s more ambulances on the way,” he shouted back.

“We can’t wait,” replied Marcy as she flashed her credentials. “U.S. Secret Service. We have a priority injury here.”

“The ambulances are gone, ma’am. There’s nothing I can do.”

Fiore tilted his head in the direction of the officer’s squad car, and Delacorte knew exactly what he was thinking.

“We need your patrol car.”

“I can’t do that,” said the officer.

“And I’m not asking,” replied Marcy as she raised her weapon.

The cop put up both his hands. “Okay, okay. It’s yours.”

“Let’s get her into the car,” Tim said to the two men who were helping them.

They rushed to the patrol car, and as the officer watched them place Amanda on the backseat, he asked, “Is that—?”

Fiore nodded his head. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

“Beth Israel,” replied the cop. “Fifteenth and First. The NYU hospital downtown is going to be overloaded.”

“You can’t drive,” stated Marcy as she got in the back with Amanda. “You don’t know your way around.”

Tim looked around and then spotted something on the dash of a car idling in the gridlock not far from where they were. Running toward it, Fiore removed his credentials and held them up when he reached in the window and grabbed the device. “U.S. Secret Service” was all he said.

Sprinting back to the squad car, Tim propped the Garmin iQue GPS handheld on the dash, fired up the vehicle, and hit the lights and siren. Motorists tried to get out of their way, but the effort was useless. There was nowhere for them to go. The traffic was absolutely locked down.

Aiming for the sidewalk between two parked cars, Fiore yelled, “Hold on,” and hit the gas.

A
s Ali knew from the information provided by the Troll, there was no telling which location Mohammed bin Mohammed was being held at. All they knew was that until they found the right one, each location was going to be very difficult to penetrate and each would pose its own special set of challenges.

The rather benign store on 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth, in the heart of New York’s diamond district, looked like any other, but Ali and his men knew it was only a front. The windows and doors were mounted with bulletproof Lexan glass reinforced with high-tensile steel frames. There was an airlock-style double entrance that required patrons to be buzzed in the first door and have it close completely behind them before the next would be allowed open. Discreet vents near the floor were capable of pumping in an incapacitating nerve agent in the event the high-voltage-electrode woven “shock” mats were not enough to fell any would-be intruders. Even among the extremely security conscious merchants of the diamond district, this store was in a league of its own.

It was the Chechens who had decided to avoid the airlock all together. As far as they were concerned, there was no reason the balance of their force couldn’t go right in through the windows—provided, of course, someone was kind enough to “open” them up first.

Dressed like the ubiquitous Hasidic Jews who did business up and down the street, two of the Chechen operatives were buzzed into the store with nondescript briefcases in hand. Moments later, as the store staff was distracted by the blacked-out Chevy Tahoes that crashed up onto the sidewalk outside their windows with their lights blazing, the Chechens carried out their plan.

Both briefcases were detonated with deafening pressure concussions and blinding flashes of white light. Before any of the staff could react, they were gunned down by one of the operatives while the other slapped shape charges to the inside of the largest window. By the time the charge blew, both of the men were already at the vaultlike door leading to the heart of the store’s true operation.

Three U.S. marines, dressed in civilian clothes and body armor, were able to take down the first terrorist with fire from their short-barreled M16 Viper assault rifles, but as skilled as they were, they could not escape the high-velocity shrapnel from the grenade the man’s partner lobbed into their security room.

With the marine contingent down and the rest of the team in the store, the terrorists made their way into the bowels of the building, shooting anyone and anything that moved.

Three-and-a-half minutes later, the rooms had all been cleared. Two of the men body-bagged their comrade while the others reloaded their weapons. As Abdul Ali reached into his vest for another magazine, he noticed he was still carrying his cell phone—an unforgivable over-sight, especially as it was no longer necessary. If the Troll or anyone else needed to reach him, they knew how to do it.

Removing the battery, Ali smashed the phone with the butt of his weapon and gathered up the pieces. As he exited the store, he threw the remains into the nearest storm drain.

“Are we done here?” Ali asked an enormous bear of a man named Sacha.

The Chechen leader unslung his bag of electronics, threw it into the lead Tahoe, and nodded his head.

As the SUVs pulled off the curb, Ali looked at his watch and tried to compute how long it would take to maneuver through the streets to their next destination. He also wondered if it would be where they would finally find Mohammed bin Mohammed.

Half a world away, the Troll was lying on a long leather sofa as his Caucasian Ovcharkas, Argus and Drako, dozed on the floor next to him. He was enjoying an exquisite snifter of Calvados and an original copy of the Friedrich Dürrenmatt play
The Visit,
when a tiny chime sounded from the direction of his desk.

Setting the slim volume on the table next to him, the Troll swung his legs over the edge of the couch and hopped down onto the floor. Immediately, the dogs snapped to attention and followed their master to the manor house’s enormous dining hall. There, any traces of the hall’s original function had been erased by the rows upon rows of high-end computer servers and satellite equipment that filled the room.

A raised platform with a sleek, yet child-sized glass-and-chrome table sat accompanied by a tiny leather desk chair at the far end of the hall. Suspended above the table were three flat-screen monitors. Sitting down in the chair, the Troll punched a series of keys on a Lucite keyboard recessed within the table’s surface and the monitors sprang to life. It was amazing how far the Troll had come in his little life.

Moments later, a series of multicolor status bars began charting the enormous chunks of encrypted data that had already begun downloading to his servers. Thanks to his bag of sophisticated electronic tricks, Sacha had fulfilled the first part of his assignment perfectly.

Removing the Treo device from the pocket of his sport coat, the Troll ignored the desire to contemplate the course of his life and authorized Sacha’s first bonus. So far, so very, very good.

B
ack at the VA, Harvath waited in Dr. Hardy’s office while Bob went up to the roof in search of his three friends. The images of death and destruction Scot saw on the small television on Hardy’s desk were worse than anything he’d ever seen in any combat zone. The macabre horror of it all made it difficult to tear his eyes away, but he had to. He needed to think beyond the devastation and try to put the pieces of what he knew into some kind of coherent picture in his mind.

To do that, Harvath focused on one of the framed diplomas hanging on the wall. Because of Bob’s injured shoulder he had automatically assumed that Samuel Hardy was an M.D., but as he read, Harvath realized the man was actually a PhD.
How the hell could a PhD be in charge of Bob’s physical therapy,
he wondered.
Unless
—

Harvath’s train of thought was interrupted as Dr. Samuel Hardy, PhD, entered the office. “Anything new?” he asked as he threw a stack of folders on his desk and gestured toward the television.

“The body count projections have been raised twice in the last twenty minutes,” Scot replied.

“God help us all.”

Harvath nodded his head and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What kind of therapy are you doing with Bob Herrington?”

Hardy looked at Harvath a moment and then crossed over to his desk. “With all due respect, that’s really none of your business.”

Harvath begged to differ with the doc and politely replied, “I’m assuming it’s not physical rehabilitation.”

“No,” said Hardy, careful with his choice of words. “Physical rehabilitation is not my specialty.”

“And the others I met on the roof—Cates, Morgan, and Hastings? What about them? Bob told me they were pals from his
rehab.
I figured that meant physical therapy—kind of like workout buddies.”

“That’s not too far from the truth, but again, I’m not at liberty to—”

“Discuss your patients,” said Harvath, finishing Hardy’s sentence for him. “I understand.”

“Actually, I don’t think you do.”

“Then why don’t you help me?”

“I’m a psychologist.”

“That’s it? Just plain old psychologist?”

“There’s nothing that plain about psychology. Old, maybe, but nothing is ever plain in my work.”

Harvath wasn’t a big fan of circumlocution. He got his fill of it on a daily basis working in Washington. “Let me cut to the chase,” he said. “Up until five minutes ago, I thought Bob Herrington was putting together a team of ex-service people that I could rely on. Now I’m not so sure, so forgive me for being blunt, but what exactly do you do here?”

The doctor reached into his lower desk drawer and pulled out a black-and-white photograph of four soldiers. They were standing along a riverbank wearing vintage Vietnam-era tiger-stripe camouflage. “That’s a much younger me there on the left,” he said. “That picture was taken at Nha Trang when I was with the 5th Special Forces Group.”

“You were a Green Beret?” asked Harvath.

“Yup.”

“How’d you end up a psychologist?”

“When I got out of the Army, I was dealing with a lot of issues.” Hardy paused a moment and then said, “Bob told me you were a SEAL, is that right?”

“Technically, I still am,” replied Harvath. “I’ve just been on loan to a couple of different government agencies.”

“Well, then you may be able to appreciate some of the problems I was facing. I burned through a lot of doctors when I got home from Vietnam—both psychologists and psychiatrists alike. They all had one fundamental thing in common that made it impossible for them to truly help me—none of them had ever been in combat. Their code as human beings was based upon the Judeo-Christian ethic, while mine was based upon the warrior ethic. They couldn’t even begin to understand the things I had been asked to do, and which I had done so willingly for my country. That’s why I decided to go into psychology.”

“So you specialize in helping treat people who have been in combat?”

“Not just anybody,” replied Hardy. “Only the best of the best. My area of expertise is with Special Operations personnel.”

“Like Bob,” remarked Harvath, whose brain then took the next step, “and Rick Cates, Paul Morgan, and Tracy Hastings.”

Hardy allowed his silence to serve as his answer.

“What are we talking about here? High-end PTSD?” asked Harvath.

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a relatively common issue for combat veterans, but less so for our elite warriors. What we see in them, especially when they’ve been forced to leave active duty prematurely, because of an injury or whatever, is an inability to reconcile the ‘real’ world—a place not often governed by loyalty and honor, with the world they have just left behind—a brotherhood that prides itself on character and integrity.”

Harvath was intrigued, but he was still having trouble deciphering what exactly the doctor’s role was. “So your job is to help them adjust to life outside the Spec Ops community?”

“More or less,” replied Hardy. “Every combat vet has issues—no matter who they are. But people in the Special Operations community often share several in common and that’s why group therapy in some cases can be so helpful in making a smooth and productive transition back into the civilian world.”

Harvath let the idea tumble around in his brain for a few moments and wondered if there were any issues he might be keeping at bay, which he had never really taken a good look at. Bob’s words from the Pig & Whistle about letting Meg Cassidy get away rang in his ears, but he tried to ignore them. Dr. Hardy was talking about deep psychological issues, not his decision to place his career over a healthy interpersonal relationship with a member of the opposite sex.

Pushing that thought from his mind, Harvath asked the one question that was most pressing at the moment. “Without violating doctor-patient confidentiality, is there anything going on with any of them that I should be concerned about?”

“That depends. How well do you know them?”

“Bob has told me about each of them in his e-mails, but this is the first time I’ve ever met any of them in person.”

“Without knowing the details of what you’re asking them to do,” replied Hardy, “it’s very hard for me to answer your question.”

That was a fair enough response. “I may not be asking them to do anything,” said Harvath. “In fact I hope that turns out to be true. But the flipside is that I may be asking them to step up to the plate in a way they haven’t been asked to in a little while.”

“The terrorists aren’t done yet, are they?” asked Hardy.

Harvath shook his head. “We don’t think so.”

“Well, each person reacts to the stress of combat in different ways. What I can say is that Bob Herrington is an exceptional leader. If Rick, Tracy, and Paul are the people he wants on your team, then I’d take that as a serious endorsement.”

“But what if things get ugly?”

“There’s no way to predict. Unfortunately, you won’t know until something happens.”

“At which point it could be too late.”

Hardy nodded. “Many symptoms exhibited by soldiers outside the realm of combat have more to do with adjusting to the
real
world than anything else. Put them back into the stresses of battle and nine out of ten times their symptoms disappear.”

“And that tenth time?” asked Harvath. “How do I deal with that?”

“You can’t. Only that soldier can. It comes down to facing his or her personal demons, and that’s a battle that requires more courage than anything you might ever face on the other end of a gun.”

It was an answer that Harvath not only understood, but could appreciate. The only problem was that the possibility that one of the people on his team could very well freeze up when they were needed most scared the hell out of him.