TUESDAY
By the time Harvath stepped outside, his ride was already waiting for him. It was an older, navy blue van with the words David’s 24 Hour Plumbers, Home of the Royal Flush painted along the side. The driver looked like a heavily tattooed thug, barely into his twenties.
When he spotted Harvath, he stepped out of the vehicle and opened the sliding door. “You’ll have to ride back here.”
Harvath climbed inside and tried to get comfortable. It was still dark outside and the morning rush was several hours off.
The van headed east. The driver didn’t speak. A half hour later, it pulled into the garage of a plumbing supply warehouse in East London.
When Harvath’s door was opened, Bob Ashford was waiting for him.
“Sorry for the subterfuge,” he said. “Unfortunately, in this neighborhood Anglo-Saxons stick out like sore thumbs.”
“I’ve ridden in worse conditions. Don’t worry about it. What have you got?”
Ashford led Harvath to a small office with a coffeemaker and a scarred conference table. The walls were lined with shelves stocked with plumbing parts. In the corner was a television set. The MI5 man switched it on while Harvath helped himself to some coffee.
A thin Pakistani man sat at a small desk. There were what appeared to be two plainclothes detectives in the room with him. One was sitting while the other stood leaning against the wall.
“That’s a feed from the room down the hall,” said Ashford as he followed Harvath and poured a cup of coffee for himself. “The man you see there is named Saud Wadi. The men with him are Metropolitan antiterror police.
“Mr. Wadi is one of their informants. Last night, he learned of a terror cell planning to carry out an attack in the very near future.”
“How do you know it’s the cell we’re looking for?”
“Because his youngest brother, Rafiq, is a member.”
Harvath turned and looked back at the image on the TV as Ashford continued. “Apparently, Rafiq has already made his martyrdom video, but he got cold feet. He reached out to his big brother to help him figure a way out. But before Saud could do anything, Rafiq disappeared.”
“And Rafiq told him everything?”
“Unfortunately, no. All he said was that it was a martyrdom operation geared for central London.”
“Did he mention Piccadilly?”
“Yes.”
Harvath couldn’t believe it. “Do we have any idea where Rafiq may be?”
“We think the cell is operating out of a mosque four blocks from here. The police are assembling their tactical teams now.”
“Did he mention what kind of attack they had planned or what their secondary target was?”
Ashford shook his head. “No.”
“How well do you trust this source?”
“I don’t know him. He’s run by the Yard. They say he has always produced good intelligence for them in the past. But it’s never been on this kind of scale before.”
“How long have you been watching the interrogation?”
“Since they brought him in. I think he’s genuinely worried about his brother.”
Harvath was running the options through his mind. “If Rafiq got cold feet, they may have killed him already.”
“Or they may have wooed him back. An already-recorded martyrdom video can be a very successful tool for cultural blackmail. They also may have threatened his family. We don’t know and frankly, I don’t care. I just want to stop this attack.”
“So do I.”
“Good, because as soon as we have our ducks in a row, we’ll launch the teams.”
Harvath pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He watched the two cops continue their interrogation. “Do we know if their attacks were going to use explosives?”
“That’s been confirmed, but it appears to be the limit of what Saud was able to glean from his brother.”
“When you say operating out of the mosque, what do you mean?”
“We think they’re headquartered there,” said Ashford.
“Do you think they’re building the bombs there too?”
“It’s happened before. These people are smart. They know we’ll raid a mosque, but only as a last resort and only if we really have to. The PR fallout in their community is terrible. The PC moonbats everywhere else also go crazy.”
“Makes you wonder whose side they are all really on.”
“I know,” said Ashford. “What’s more, from a strategic standpoint, if the bombers have a willing imam, they’re probably better protected in a mosque than in a house or an apartment.”
“And if that is what’s happening, you know the imam will claim he knew nothing about it.”
“They’re always shocked to learn what was going on right beneath their noses.”
Harvath took a sip of his coffee. “If today’s the day the attack happens, they’re going to be on edge.”
“They probably have been up all night praying and getting ready. Hopefully, they’ll be sluggish when the entry teams hit the mosque.”
“What if they’re not? What if they’re prepared for the teams?”
“We have the element of surprise on our side,” the MI5 man replied. “What’s the motto Peaches was always so fond of? Speed, surprise, and violence of action?”
Harvath nodded. “But what if they’re buttoned down?”
“Meaning they have their fingers on the proverbial switch?”
“Exactly. What happens if your teams kick the doors in and they detonate their packages?”
“That’s one of the reasons they call it a high-risk entry. These teams have gone after bombers before. They know what’s at stake.”
“With all due respect, they don’t know what’s at stake,” said Harvath. “This isn’t just about Piccadilly; one cell and one attack. This is about an entire terrorist network. We need these guys alive.”
“What do you suggest then? Should we knock on the door and ask Mother, may we come in?”
Harvath brushed aside the man’s sarcasm. “What information do you have about the mosque?”
Ashford rolled his chair back and withdrew a file folder from his briefcase and slid it across.
It was a general briefing and contained only a couple of pages. Harvath skimmed it until he found what he was looking for. “What if we could get operators inside?”
“That sort of thing takes time; a commodity we have precious little of right now.”
“It says in here that Scotland Yard has a confidential source unaffiliated with the Wadi family who attends this mosque.”
Ashford nodded. “They’ve already dispatched a team to collect him. He’s going to provide us with detail as to the layout.”
“What if he can also walk a small team of operators inside?”
“Even if we had enough ethnic operators who could fit the bill, if Saud is correct about what is going on in that mosque, there’s no way they would allow a bunch of strange men in. Not today.”
Harvath looked at him and replied, “Who said anything about men?”