Gretchen Casey quickly steered Rafiq Wadi back into the room and had him lie facedown with the other prisoners.
“Which one?”
Ericsson pointed to the cell phone in question. It was in a pile of pocket litter belonging to the terrorist who had been shot in the neck; the man Rafiq Wadi had identified as the cell leader. She could tell by looking at him that he wasn’t going to make it. He’d already lost too much blood. There wasn’t anything they could do for him. Casey picked up his phone and stepped to the back of the room where she radioed Harvath.
“One of these guys just received a text message.”
“What did it say?” Harvath replied.
“Someone wants an update.”
“What did Rafiq say about the bombs?”
“He said the cell phone triggers are a fail-safe in case one of the devices fails to detonate.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I do.”
“What about the secondary target?”
“He doesn’t know. They surveilled several potentials.”
“Do we know who the cell leader is?” asked Harvath.
“The guy with the neck wound. He’s not going to make it. Right now, though, we need to focus on these bombs. What do you want to do?”
Harvath knew what he wanted done, but it was up to Casey whether she wanted to do it. “How do you feel about deactivating the cell phones?”
“As long as they’re not booby traps, we’ve done these before, so I’ve got no problem with it.”
She was a brave woman. “Good. Grab one of the prisoners and make him stand with you when you do it. They may know more than they are letting on.”
“They might still also want to go to Paradise, in which case-”
“In which case,” Harvath interjected, “it should be written all over each of their faces. Watch for them to start sweating or rocking back and forth, mumbling their prayers. Now, do you see any wire clippers there?”
“I’m already ahead of you,” replied Casey as she picked up a pair off the table. She walked back to the prisoners and pulled one of the men to his feet. She jerked him over to the table with all the messenger bags and panniers assembled on it. She could feel his body tense beneath her grasp.
Opening the first bag, she pointed at the cell phone and the wires leading from it. The man stared at it and then back at her. Casey made a clipping motion with the cutters. The man didn’t respond.
“This guy doesn’t like that we’re standing near the bombs,” she said to Harvath, “but other than that, he’s not giving me any other signals. I’m going to cut the wires coming out of the phone to the circuit board. Everybody get ready.”
Casey paused, took a deep breath, and then let it out. As she did, she gritted her teeth, placed the wires in the mouth of the cutter, and clipped them both at the same time.
Harvath was anxious to know what happened, but he remained quiet, ready for whatever the outcome might be, but hoping for the absolute best. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until Gretchen Casey’s voice came back over the radio.
“Chicken switch number one deactivated,” she said. “Moving to number two.”
“Roger that,” replied Harvath. “Good job.”
When all of the cell phone detonators had been deactivated, Harvath had Casey remove them from the bags and place them in the order she had retrieved them. She then took care of the beacons.
With the bombs deactivated, Ashford and Marx were eager to send the tactical teams into the mosque. Harvath wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.
“Why not?” said Ashford.
“There are two men dying in there,” added Marx.
“With all due respect,” Harvath replied. “I don’t care about two dying terrorists.”
“What if they have intelligence we can use?”
“The cell leader isn’t going to make it. And if the second one dies, that’s two trials the British taxpayers have been spared. I’m more concerned with finding out who’s behind this attack.”
Ashford looked at him. “So then why not secure the mosque and begin interrogating these men?”
“Because we’d lose our advantage,” explained Harvath.
“Which is what?”
“That nobody knows we’re in there.”
“Except the terrorists,” clarified Marx.
“Correct. And we’ve cut them off from whoever their controller is. That’s the person we need to get to.”
“Let’s try to trace the number that text message came through on.”
“I guarantee you it’ll be a throw-away phone. If the right text response doesn’t come back soon, whoever originated that message is going to abandon that phone.”
“Then we check the cell phone detonators. Whoever selected them would have tested them to make sure they received incoming traffic without any problems.”
“I can have Casey pull off the tape and circuit boards to see if there’s a list of previous activity,” said Harvath, “but if it was me, I’d have deleted all the logs.”
Ashford thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “You’re probably right.”
“How about the six men we have in the mosque?” asked Marx. “In addition to interrogating them, shouldn’t we check their phones for any common numbers?”
“I can ask Casey to do that, but I don’t think that’ll provide much either.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“I want to force their hand.”
“How?”
“I want whoever is running this cell to think the operation is in jeopardy and I want them to expose themselves. If we do this right, when they do, we’ll be able to nail them.”