Authors: Brad Thor
CHAPTER 71
O
FF
THE
R
ECORD
B
AR
H
AY
-A
DAMS
H
OTEL
W
ASHINGTON
, D.C.
I
t had been a long day and Rebecca Ritter needed a drink—a big one.
After her nooner with Joe Edwards, she had slipped away to another clandestine rendezvous. This one was all talk and no action. In fact, Rebecca had been grilled for well over an hour.
By the time she left, she had a splitting headache. Everyone seemed to feel she wasn’t doing enough.
Intuitively, she knew it was part of a carrot-and-stick play. No matter how well she preformed, they were always going to want more. She was pushing the ultimate drug—
power—
and they were hooked.
Stopping at a CVS on the way back to the office, she had purchased a bottle of Naprosyn and two cans of Red Bull. She was tempted to call in sick for the balance of the afternoon, but she couldn’t risk making Senator Wells any angrier.
He was still upset over the question she had planted for him at
Meet the Press
yesterday. It had taken him by surprise, which had been her intention, and he had handled it brilliantly. He had acted like a senior statesman, above the fray, and while not giving details, had assured the host and the American people that it was being looked into.
It was perfect. They had gotten the rumor into the news cycle, but without making it look like it had come directly from Wells. All of the papers this morning had run with it.
The Senator acted upset for another day or two, but in his heart, he knew Rebecca had done him a huge favor. President Porter had just been
taken down another peg in the minds of American voters. A couple more leaks between now and the election, and Porter wouldn’t stand a chance.
Returning to her office, she tackled the pile of paperwork on her desk and tried to winnow down her long list of phone calls and emails that needed to be returned. At five o’clock, she grabbed her purse and headed for the Hay-Adams Hotel across from the White House.
Its famous Off the Record bar was considered one of the hottest watering holes in D.C. It was known as
the
place to be seen, but not overheard.
Located on the hotel’s lower level, its walls were covered with caricatures of the politically powerful—both past and present. Rebecca fully expected her own to be up there one day soon.
The bar was already filling up by the time she got there. As she entered, she turned more than a few heads. Though she’d had a tough day, none of the men in the place seemed to notice, nor would they have cared. Rebecca Ritter was a stunning woman, no matter what the situation.
Walking up to the bar, she grabbed the last stool at the end, waved the bartender over, and ordered a double Maker’s Mark on the rocks.
As the bartender poured her drink, she turned to survey the room. Even in the wake of the attack on the White House, it was still a Washington power spot. She was always on the lookout for well-connected people who could expand her sphere of influence.
Her eyes came to rest on a tall, distinguished-looking man who had just approached the bar to order his own drink.
“You’re Brian Wilson,” she said. “
Mornings on the Mall
on WMAL.”
“I am indeed,” the broadcaster replied with a smile, flattered to be recognized by such an attractive young woman.
“Rebecca Ritter. Chief of Staff for Senator Wells.”
As she spoke, she extended her hand.
Wilson took it politely and, sharp man that he was, noticed that she arched her back in order to subtly extend another part of her body.
“The Senator is making a lot of news lately. We’d love to have him on the show.”
“Absolutely,” Ritter replied, fishing out one of her business cards. “Do you have a pen?”
Wilson removed a pen from his blazer pocket and handed it to her.
Writing on the back of the card, she said, “This is my personal cell phone number.”
The broadcaster didn’t need to look left or right. He could feel the envious stares of all the men at the bar.
“You were fantastic at Fox and if memory serves, you also broke the story of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement.”
“You have good taste
and
a good memory,” Wilson said. “Although I think you’re a little too young to remember that.”
“I make it my business to know things,” she replied with a coy smile as she picked up her drink and took a seductive sip through its straw. “I’ve always enjoyed your work. In fact, I think you’d make a terrific White House spokesperson.”
Was she trying to pick him up or offer him a job? Whatever it was, Wilson was enjoying it. And whatever ended up happening, he was going to have one hell of a story to tell his cohost, Larry O’Connor, in the morning.
“So,” he said, turning the subject back to work, “when can we get Senator Wells on the show?”
Rebecca was about to speak, when one of the concierges from the hotel upstairs appeared. “Miss Ritter?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“You have a phone call at the front desk. It’s your office.”
“My office?” she replied, removing her phone from her purse and looking at it. The signal strength appeared fine and there were no missed calls or messages.
“Yes, ma’am. If you’ll follow me.”
“Will you excuse me for a moment?” she said to Wilson.
“Of course.”
Taking one more sip of her drink, she set it on the bar, gathered up her purse, and followed the concierge.
Upstairs, he directed her to the phone that had been placed atop the concierge desk. A husband and wife, probably hotel guests looking to make reservations for dinner or something, stood at the other end.
As she approached the phone and picked up the line the concierge had indicated, the man and woman stepped over to her.
“Rebecca Ritter,” the woman stated, displaying a set of credentials, “FBI. You’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER 72
S
YRIA
I
t was amazing how cold the desert could get at night, even after an unseasonably warm day. The rocks, the sand, all of it seemed to have released any stored heat the moment the sun had started to set.
Stretching his legs, Harvath checked his phone and noted their position. They were about one hundred kilometers from the border with Iraq.
As Thoman emptied a fuel can into the Land Cruiser, Mathan kept an eye on the prisoners.
They had parted ways with Yusuf and Qabbani hours ago. Harvath was relatively confident that the Syrians would be able to make it home without him. Just in case they ran into any problems, he had given them the rest of his cash and his Kobold chronograph.
He felt it was the least he could do—especially as he and the Hadids had kept all the weapons and the CIA’s Reaper.
Having the drone overhead had proved invaluable. Always knowing what lay ahead had made it possible to avoid problems. It had also caused them to take a few wide, extremely circuitous routes to avoid potential enemy engagements. As a result, they had burned a lot of fuel. And the Syrian desert wasn’t exactly populated with gas stations.
“That was our last one,” Thoman said as he placed the empty fuel can in the cargo area.
Harvath had been keeping track and already knew that. “There’s nothing between us and the border. We should be okay.”
Thoman smirked. “Tell that to Mr. Murphy.”
Harvath smiled back. The Hadids were good men. Tough, smart, and
unafraid. Harvath had to hand it to McGee, the Agency knew how to judge talent. Whether or not they’d be able to tip the scales in Syria would have to be seen, but one thing was for sure: the Syrian people were incredibly fortunate to have the twin brothers fighting on the side of freedom.
Harvath respected the hell out of them. They could have been cooling their heels with their mother in Paris, but they weren’t. They were right here, right in the thick of the fight.
“Okay,” Harvath said as Thoman closed the hatch. “Let’s get moving.”
Unslinging their AKs, the men climbed back into the SUV. Changing up drivers, Harvath took the wheel, Mathan rode shotgun, and Thoman sat in back to watch over Baseyev and Rafael, who were on the floor, bound and gagged.
Harvath plugged his phone back into the cigarette lighter and placed it in the cup holder where he could watch it. Putting the vehicle in gear, he pulled back onto the desert road and continued on toward the border.
They had only gone a few hundred meters when Ryan’s voice came over his earpiece. “Norseman, you’ve got company.”
Harvath swung his head quickly from side to side and then turned to look out the rear window. “I’m not seeing anything. Talk to me.”
“Russian drone. Coming in hot.”
Harvath slammed on the brakes and shouted for the Hadids to get out.
“What about the prisoners?” Mathan replied.
Harvath grabbed his phone and yelled, “Leave them!” as he bailed.
With the brothers right on his heels, he ran down the steep incline from the road. Gesturing at a thick outcrop of rock five hundred meters away, he waved for them to follow.
“Hawk Four going hot,” Ryan relayed, using the code name for the CIA’s Reaper.
“How much time?” Harvath shouted as he ran.
“Stand by, Norseman.”
“Damn it!” he cursed. “How much time?”
Ryan wasn’t listening. She was completely focused on the battle unfolding above the desert.
“Russian drone, missile away,” she stated clinically. And then, as if suddenly realizing the target, urged, “Run, Norseman! Run!”
Harvath didn’t need to be told twice. “Hurry!” he shouted to the Hadids. “Incoming!”
They tore across the sand, running harder and faster than any of them had ever run in their lives.
“Impact,” said Ryan, “in three, two, one!”
There was a blinding flash of light and an enormous explosion just as Harvath and the Hadids reached the rocks and the missile from the Russian drone slammed into the Land Cruiser.
Harvath and the brothers dove for the safety of the outcropping as a braided pillar of hot, orange flame twisted into the sky and a powerful expulsion of heat, sand, and broken rock raced across the desert with the force of a hurricane.
Harvath had made himself as small as possible, protecting as much of his body as he could. The heat from the explosion was so intense it singed the hair on his arms.
As soon as it had passed, Harvath untucked and rolled up onto his knees so he could look beyond the rocks to what remained of the SUV. There was only a smoking crater in the road.
“Fuck,” he said aloud. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
Everything was gone. The prisoners. The hard drives. And, worst of all, their only means of transportation out of Syria.
Above the ringing in his ears, Harvath then heard, “Russian drone inbound.”
Again? What the hell was Langley waiting for?
he wondered.
“Hawk Four locked on,” Ryan then stated. “Hawk Four missile away. Impact in five, four, three, two, one.”
Harvath had no idea where the drone dogfight was happening. All he could do was look up into the night sky. As he did, he saw a streak of orange flame as Hawk Four unleashed its air-to-air missile. It was followed, seconds later, by a brilliant explosion that illuminated the night sky.
“Russian drone destroyed,” Ryan reported.
Harvath looked over at Thoman and Mathan. Both men had survived. He then asked Ryan, “What the hell just happened? Why’d the Russians target us?”
“We didn’t pick up their drone until it went hot. But you’re in the
middle of the desert, carrying AKs, and headed toward the border. That’s enough in their book.”
Murphy
. Harvath had a bunch of choice words he wanted to utter, especially about the Russians, but now wasn’t the time. “We’re not going to make it to the extraction point.”
“Roger that. Stand by.”
As Ryan reached out to the Joint Special Operations Command for the two stealth helicopters waiting just inside Iraq, Harvath looked again at the Hadids. Thoman was smiling.
“What are you smiling at?” he asked, not exactly finding any of this amusing.
Rolling off his stomach, he revealed two pillowcases.
Harvath then looked at Mathan, who had the third.
He was just about to smile back when he saw motion back by the crater of where their Land Cruiser used to be.
Pulling his pistol, he got to his feet and ran toward it. Halfway there, he saw them. Baseyev and Rafael were alive.
Somehow they had managed to flop like fish out of the Land Cruiser and make it to the embankment. Rolling downhill, they had managed to avoid the blast.
Slowing his pace, Harvath reholstered his pistol at the small of his back and smiled. Shaking his head, he uttered just one word. “Murphy.”
CHAPTER 73
T
HIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER
A
MMAN
-D
AMASCUS
H
IGHWAY
N
ASIB
B
ORDER
C
ROSSING
T
he CIA’s Reaper and a pair of F-22 Raptors kept Harvath, the Hadids, and their precious cargo covered long enough for the specially modified Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks to pick them up and whisk them off to the safety of a covert air base in Kurdistan.
From there, a security team transported Baseyev and Rafael via private jet to Malta. Vellas was waiting in the hangar when they arrived. He had a new interrogation technique he was looking forward to trying out on them once their physicals were complete.
Williams met Harvath and the Hadids as their jet landed in Amman. While they drove into the city, Harvath double-checked that everything he had asked for was in place.
They went through the entire list, and when they got to the final item, Williams said, “I had to make a direct appeal to the Ambassador on that.”
Harvath had requested a sniper, on the Jordanian side, to provide overwatch for what they were about to do. “And?”
“And it got kicked all the way up to the King.”
“King Abdullah of Jordan?” Harvath remarked.
Williams nodded.
Though he had never met him, Harvath thought very highly of Abdullah. He had been extensively educated in both the United States and Britain. But even more impressive was his military experience. He had not only been a troop commander in the British Army and a tank commander in Jordan’s 91st Armored Brigade, but he was a former
general and Jordanian special forces commander who had also been trained to fly Cobra attack helicopters.
“What did he say?”
“Officially, the King didn’t say anything. The conversation never took place.”
“And unofficially?” Harvath asked.
“He was extremely moved by your story. You’re going to have Jordanian overwatch.”
It wasn’t Harvath’s story. It was Yusuf’s. And Qabbani’s. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was going to be able to get them and their families out of Syria. He had promised.
As long as they could get to the border, there was a place for them in the United States. The men had more than earned it.
Harvath wanted to insert back into Syria to make the journey with all of them, but Yusuf had told him no. It was too risky. He knew the route and he had the little bit of money and the watch Harvath had given him, plus the money he had saved for his treatments, to bribe his way past the checkpoints. Qabbani didn’t have much money, but he would use what he had to bribe his way through too.
“Just be at the crossing,” Yusuf had said. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” Harvath replied.
That had been all that Yusuf had needed to hear. He trusted Harvath. If the American said he would be there, Yusuf knew that,
Insha’Allah,
he would.
Insha’Allah,
Murphy . . . it all came down to powers outside of their hands. Even so, Harvath had no intention of failing the men or their families.
• • •
Smiling at the unshaven, armed thug on the Syrian side of the Nasib Border Crossing, Harvath held up his laminated press credential along with his phony Canadian passport and said, “Journalist.”
He knew the man remembered him. And judging by the look on his face, he was wondering what he was doing back so soon.
Williams, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to Harvath, held up his press credential to the thugs on his side and said, “Cameraman.”
You would have thought someone had just dropped hot coals down their fatigues. Like a bunch of chimpanzees, they began waving their arms and hopping up and down in unison, as several of them yelled for their commander.
“Come on out, motherfucker,” Harvath whispered beneath his breath.
Right on cue, the man stepped out of the crumbling building. He was even uglier than last time. His brown, leathery face that was crisscrossed with scars seemed drawn even tighter. His mustache was so dark it looked like it was dyed with black paint.
With his right hand on the leather holster at his hip, he raised his left hand and gave it one quick jerk. The message was clear. Come forward for an “inspection.”
As Harvath inched the windowless van forward, Williams tapped the wall behind his seat with three quick raps.
Pulling into the inspection area, Harvath brought the vehicle to a halt, but left it in gear. They had disconnected the brake lights back in Amman.
The moment they stopped, they were surrounded. The armed men yelled for them to get out of the car. They began pulling on the door handles but couldn’t get them open. Reaching inside, they tried to activate the locking buttons, but that didn’t work either.
Instantly, the van looked like a porcupine that had been turned inside out as countess rifle barrels were shoved through the driver- and passenger-side windows.
The men continued to yell for the men to open up until Harvath raised a thick, sealed envelope and moved it back and forth in front of the windshield so that the commander could see it.
He barked at his men and they backed off, removing their rifle barrels from the windows.
Stepping off the curb, he walked slowly toward the van. He had the haughty air of a petty despot. A man who, given a modicum of power, had decided to abuse it and lord it over all those unlucky enough to cross his path. He was a bully, a shakedown artist, a tyrant. He was the kind of man Harvath abhorred.
Sidling up to the van, the commander kept one hand on his holstered pistol. With the other, he played with his oily mustache.
“Monnee, monnee,” he said, leaning in the window, looking at the envelope sitting in the cup holder.
“Journalist,” Harvath said, just to be difficult as he pointed at the credential hanging around his neck.
Williams, not satisfied to let Harvath have all the fun, echoed him.
“Monnee!” he snapped in his terrible English. “Monnee now!”
“No money,” Harvath replied, pointing at the highway. “Just go.”
The commander, unaware that they were screwing with him, was confused. The journalist had waved an envelope at him. And it had been a thick one at that.
“Monnee!” he growled, pulling his pistol. It was an old, piece-of-shit Russian Tokarev. They were notorious for discharging accidentally. Anyone who knew anything about guns never carried one with a round chambered. Hell, anyone who knew anything about guns didn’t carry a Tokarev, period. But that was another story.
“We might as well get this over with,” Harvath said as he reached for the envelope and handed it over.
The commander took a step back, and with the Tokarev still in his right hand, ripped open the top of the envelope.
By the time he noticed he’d been had and it was only filled with newspaper, Harvath and Williams had begun shooting.
With his left hand, Harvath drew his pistol from the driver’s-side door pocket. Applying pressure to the trigger, he began firing as soon as he cleared the frame.
Five rounds slammed into the commander. Harvath had zipped him up from his stomach to his face in less than two seconds. Before the last shot had even been fired, he had punched the accelerator.
As he did, both doors in the cargo area were thrown open and the Hadids, armed with fully automatic, belt-fed weapons, began firing at anything carrying a rifle. Every single thug ran for cover.
Harvath pulled a hard left and gave chase. It was an absolute bloodbath. In less than two minutes, they had mowed down over fourteen men.
Bringing the van to a stop back underneath the concrete canopy, Har
vath could hear hot brass shell casings hitting the ground as the Hadids kicked them out of the cargo area.
He was about to compliment everyone when he saw six .50-caliber mounted technicals racing at them from a half-demolished building a mile back from the border crossing.
“This isn’t good,” he said, pointing toward the incoming vehicles.
Williams smiled. “Get out of the van.”
“What?”
“You’re going to want to see this,” he replied. “Get out of the van.”
Harvath thought he was insane, but he gave in and hopped out. Williams and the Hadids joined him.
“What the hell are we doing?” Thoman asked.
“Just watch,” said Williams.
They stood there, watching, but all Harvath noticed was the vehicles getting closer and closer. They were already in range. In fact, as if they were reading his mind, the gunner in the bed of the lead vehicle began firing.
Harvath, Williams, and the Hadids were forced to lunge for cover. Pieces of the concrete canopy rained down on top of them.
“What the hell are we doing?” Harvath demanded.
“It’s coming. Watch!” Williams yelled over the gunfire.
From back on the Jordanian side of the border there was what sounded like intense, incredibly loud thunder. Harvath and his team whipped their heads in its direction.
As they did, they saw one of the heavily fortified Jordanian traffic gates spring open and a sleek Cobra attack helicopter come flying out.
No sooner had it cleared the Jordanian side, than its two 7.62mm minigun pods roared to life and began chewing through the approaching technicals.
The Hadids cheered and pumped their fists in the air.
With the first two vehicles disabled, the others realized they were in trouble and attempted to turn around and head back. That was when the Cobra switched to its 70mm rockets.
One after another, the machine gun–mounted pickups and their crews were taken out. It was an incredible thing to watch.
As soon as the job was complete, the Cobra disappeared.
Harvath was beyond impressed. It had been an absolutely overwhelming show of force—something right up his alley. The Jordanians were amazing.
They stood there for several moments before Harvath looked at Williams and said, “Unbelievable. I hope someone lets King Abdullah know how awesome his pilots are.”
Williams smiled back. “No one needs to let him know. That actually
was
Abdullah.”
As a Jordanian team raced across to help them sanitize the scene, Harvath took out his phone to call Yusuf, who was waiting with his family and Qabbani’s ten kilometers up the highway.
The border crossing was safe. He would be waiting for him on the other side. There would be no armed thugs to harass him at the checkpoint.