YEMEN
ONE MONTH LATER
The end of August was not a good time to be in Yemen. In fact, as far as Harvath was concerned, there was never a good time to be in Yemen or anywhere else on the Arabian Peninsula.
He sat at one of the city’s few halfway decent cafés, his chair propped up against the wall, an awning shielding him from the afternoon sun. As he took a sip of his chai, he thought about everything that had happened.
With visible tactical teams in plate armor at Chicago ’s Millennium and Van Buren stations, the shooters who had come there to cause maximum carnage had immediately switched out their magazines for the ones loaded with Chase’s “armor-piercing” rounds.
As their weapons exploded in their faces and civilians scattered, both men were gunned down. Credit was given to the quick-thinking CPD tac teams. The fallen Metra office at the Ogilvie Transportation Center was rightly billed as a hero without whose actions many more innocent lives, including those of a small group of six-year-olds, would have been lost.
The slaughter at Union Station had been worse than Ogilvie because it had started three minutes before Gretchen Casey got there. Positioned behind the shooter, she took a shot from over seventy yards and killed him instantly with one round through the back of his head. She then secreted her weapon and quietly left the station. While the police in general were given credit for fast action, no single officer or department had yet officially been credited for killing the shooter. A rumor that it had been done by an undercover U.S. marshal on his way to work had gained wide traction in the press.
All of the would-be suicide bombers were apprehended exactly where Sean Chase had said they would be. Neither Harvath nor any of the Athena Team members had seen him again after he had chosen to take the La Salle Street station.
According to Carlton ’s contacts at the CIA, Chase had been tasked with hunting down Aazim Aleem. Based on chatter the Agency had intercepted, Aleem was convinced that his entire network had been compromised and had fled the country for somewhere in the Middle East. Authorities so far had been unable to uncover any evidence of plots or Jarrah-Aleem cells in Los Angeles or New York. Their investigations were ongoing.
Once stabilized, Nikki Rodriguez was transferred stateside and was expected to make a full recovery. Julie Ericsson had been treated for her gunshot wound at Stroger Hospital in Chicago and released. She traveled back to Ft. Bragg with her teammates, Megan Rhodes, Alex Cooper, and Gretchen Casey. Casey had been keeping Harvath up to date on their progress and in her last e-mail informed him that, upon reflection, Rodriguez was convinced that he had been looking at her ass in Amsterdam. She wanted him to call her to discuss the matter further. In other words, they all sent their best wishes and looked forward to seeing him again soon.
Josh Levy, the owner of Surety Private Investigations, had been discharged from the hospital after being held overnight for observation and was expected to make a full recovery. Based on a couple of calls from Washington, John Vaughan and Paul Davidson both received commendations and promotions. While Davidson was happy where he was, Vaughan gladly accepted a newly created position with the Chicago Police Department’s Intelligence unit. Davidson recruited the Pakistani mechanic, Javed Miraj, into his network and was using him to help build a case against the three stooges at the Crescent Garage.
Alison Taylor had begun making progress, and her family couldn’t have been happier. Mr. Taylor had paid Vaughan the balance of his monies owed and realized that with all of the federal charges against Mohammed Nasiri, Alison would probably never get her day in court. Even so, knowing that she was getting better and that Nasiri would never walk free was justice enough for him.
In Switzerland, Adda Sterk had been remanded to a DOD black site for further interrogation, and Michael Lee was given immunity from prosecution, along with a small payment from the Carlton Group to guarantee his silence. He was reunited with his dog and also tracked down Sterk’s contact, who had accepted the two decoy dogs that supposedly belonged to Nicholas. The Old Man had made it known to Harvath that he wanted the settlement money to Michael Lee to be reimbursed to the Carlton Group by the Troll, in person. Harvath had no idea where he was, but he assumed that he and Padre Peio had returned to the Basque country.
After Chicago, Harvath had intended to return to Virginia, but instead he had gone to Maine. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy telling Tracy things were over. She was a beautiful woman and he loved her very much, more than he had ever loved anyone else. He wanted a family, though. He had come to the conclusion that he wanted that more than anything else, even more than his career. He had thought he could have both with her. He believed that at one point it had been possible, but not the way things were now.
They drank a lot and stayed in bed together for three entire days. When the Old Man called and Harvath told her he had to go, she told him she loved him and that she hoped he would keep in touch with her. She also told him that she understood and that he was doing the right thing.
As Harvath left, he consoled himself with the knowledge that if a great relationship had once been possible with Tracy, it could be possible with somebody else. Maybe even Riley, the doctor Carlton had sent to him in Geneva. For his part, though, the Old Man wasn’t forthcoming with any further information about her. That was okay. When he was done in Yemen, he was seriously considering going to Paris to see if he could find her on his own.
Taking another sip of chai, he checked his watch and looked across the dusty street at the figure that was approaching.
“You’re late,” he said as the man pulled out one of the rickety chairs and sat down.
“Fuck you.”
Harvath smiled. If he hadn’t met Sean Chase in Chicago, he never would have been able to pick him out here in Yemen, or in any other Muslim country. He blended in perfectly. “You still mad?”
Chase’s eyes widened. “Is that a serious fucking question? Because I spent three years of my life infiltrating Aleem’s network only to have you cock it all up.”
“You’re young, there’ll be other assignments.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that? How do you tell somebody to just walk away and forget something like that?”
“I didn’t tell you to walk away and forget it,” said Harvath. “I told you that there’d be other assignments.”
“Spoken like a true old-timer.”
“Forty makes me an old-timer?”
“It certainly doesn’t make you a spring chicken.”
Harvath laughed. This kid was all mouth and balls. He liked him. Probably because that’s exactly the way he had been. “Hot enough for you?” he asked, changing the subject.
“We’re going to talk about the fucking weather now?” Chase asked. “I thought you had something for me. Or did you fly halfway around the world just to pull on my dick?”
Harvath laughed again.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“You’ve got an incredible mouth on you. If you don’t get a handle on it, it’s going to hold you back.”
“What the hell would you know about it?”
“I know,” said Harvath. “Trust me.”
“So, are we going to cuddle up and read chapter two from Miss Manners or are you going to give me the intel you supposedly uncovered on Aleem?”
Harvath motioned for the waiter to bring another chai for his guest. Then, turning to Chase, he said, “I’ve got good news for you, Sean.”
“I bet you do. What is it?”
“Aleem’s close.”
“How close?”
Harvath pulled a set of car keys from his pocket and dropped them on the table. “See that white Corolla over there?”
Chase looked at the car and then back at Harvath. “You’ve got Aleem in there? In the trunk?”
Harvath nodded.
“Holy shit. Where’d you find him?”
“We followed the same leads you did here to Yemen.”
“Let me guess. Age and wisdom over youth and inexperience. Is that what you’re going to tell me?”
“From what I understand,” said Harvath, “you’ve already got more experience than a lot of people twice your age.”
“So what? You’re trying to tell me you’re just that good?”
Harvath smiled. “You’re going to learn, Sean, that it’s often better to be lucky than good.”
Chase rolled his eyes. “What’s the catch? What do you want?”
“Personally, I’d like you to sit and have a glass of tea with me and then you can drive me to the airport.”
“That’s it? That’s all you want?”
“I said that’s what I wanted personally. Professionally, we expect you to share everything with us you can download out of Aleem.”
“But you could do that yourself,” said Chase. “Why give him to me?”
“Because we want to. You worked harder than anyone to get close to this guy and take his network apart. A lot of people have been killed because of him and it’s going to make America look good that we captured him. My group doesn’t want any publicity. The Agency on the other hand needs the good press. Just make sure management doesn’t try to grab all the credit.”
“Thank you,” said Chase as the waiter set down his glass.
Harvath’s phone vibrated. It was an unknown number and he was tempted not to answer it, but for some stupid reason he thought maybe Carlton had given in and passed his number along to Riley in Paris.
The moment he heard the modulated voice on the other end, he knew he had made a mistake. “You owe my boss some money, Nicholas. And he wants it from you in person,” said Harvath.
“I’ve got something else the Old Man’s going to want a lot more,” replied the Troll.
“Then call him and tell him yourself,” he said as he reached for more chai. “I’m going on vacation.”
“I found something on Adda Sterk’s thumb drive.”
“What thumb drive?”
“The one I found in Geneva after you dumped her purse out looking for her inhaler.”
“That’s U.S. government property, Nicholas.”
Wherever in the world he was, the Troll laughed. “I’m doing you a favor. I really think you should see this.”
“Not interested,” said Harvath.
“Aazim Aleem has a nephew who works at Harrods.”
“So what?”
“So, his nephew was a digital courier for him. Real smart when it came to transmitting information without leaving a trail. Except he made one mistake, and I found it.”
“On the thumb drive.”
“Yes.”
Chase was listening intently. Harvath decided the conversation was over. Clinking the tiny spoon he had against his glass he said, “You know what sound that is, Nicholas? That’s the bell signaling the commencement of the local cocktail hour. I’m off the clock. I’m sure you can track down my boss if you try hard enough.”
That’s when the Troll let the other shoe fall. “A piece of data was transmitted to Sterk that never should have been. It was highly encrypted and even if she had noticed it buried in another file, I don’t think she could have decrypted it. I think that’s why it was left on her thumb drive, hidden in plain sight.”
“Okay, I give. What is it?”
The Troll took a deep breath and let it out. “Site 243 wasn’t just about a string of Islamic terrorist attacks. The attacks are a small wave preceding a giant tsunami meant to crush the United States.”
On a rooftop two blocks away, as a man listened to his employer, he could picture him sitting in his club’s library, his liver-spotted hands holding his encrypted cell phone.
“You are positive Aleem is in the trunk of the car?”
“I am,” said the man on the rooftop.
“And nothing will be traced back to us?”
“Nothing at all.”
There was a pause before the man in London finally said, “You have my permission to proceed.” With that, the line went dead.
The man on the rooftop plucked out his earbud, wrapped the cord around his cell phone, and replaced it in his pocket.
Bending over, he flipped open the lid of the hard plastic container at his feet and removed the rocket-propelled grenade.
He flipped up the sights and hoisted the weapon on his shoulder. It was heavier than he remembered. It took him a moment to focus on the white Corolla in the distance.
When he had his target perfectly aligned in his sights, Robert Ashford pulled the trigger.