Takedown

Eighty-Four

Bursting into the laundry area, Harvath and the rest of the team swung their weapons from side to side but saw no trace of the terrorists save for a few barely detectable wet footprints they had tracked in with them.

The team kept their weapons up and at the ready. Harvath identified himself to the nearest employee he saw as a federal agent and quickly asked about the men who had just come through. The woman, who apparently spoke no English, could only stare. Rick Cates then tried in Spanish.

Seconds later, he translated, “Five men. They went down the hall to the elevators, and just my luck, there’s a stairway right next to it.”

Herrington glanced at Harvath, who could barely hold up his weapon. His shoulder was obviously giving him increasing trouble. “I’m going to take point,” he said.

Harvath shook his head no. “Let’s catch that elevator.”

Herrington had a bad feeling about letting Harvath remain on point in his condition, but he didn’t argue. This was Harvath’s operation. Kicking it into gear, he and the rest of the team took off for the elevators.

As they approached, they could see one of the elevators was already on its way up to the lobby. With no time to spare, they headed for the stairwell. Everyone, including Cates, took the stairs three at a time-the adrenaline coursing through their bloodstreams.

Hitting the lobby-level landing, Harvath paused for a moment to let the team regroup and slowly cracked the door to see what was happening on the other side.

A line of hotel guests were backed up against a wall near a bank of elevators, staring at something that must have just rushed by. Harvath knew it could only be one thing. Nodding his head, he pulled open the door and the team rushed out in pursuit of the terrorists.

With its swanky sixties retro feel it looked like they had fallen down the rabbit hole and landed in the private lair of Auric Goldfinger. The only thing that kept the scene from being completely surreal were the looks on the faces of the hotel’s guests as they closed the distance with the terrorists.

Coming around the corner into the stainless-steel lobby, the team fa

Immediately, Harvath and company took cover behind anything they could find. They then all began to fire; all, that is, except for Harvath. Suddenly he could no longer lift the heavy Troy CQB assault rifle.

Dropping it to the floor, he transitioned to his pistol and let the rounds fly.

Hotel guests screamed as they ran from the mayhem, several of them cut down by stray rounds in the process.

Realizing the Chechens were wearing body armor, Tracy Hastings yelled for her team to go for head shots and seconds later, Herrington and Cates had one kill apiece.

The remaining terrorists emptied their magazines and reloaded, their assault furious and unrelenting. A thick cloud of cordite hung in the air, and though less than a minute had passed, it seemed like a lifetime.

Down to only three men, Sacha wanted to get the hell out of the hotel and motioned to Ali and his remaining comrade to make for the exit. Ali nodded his head and the trio laid down a swath of fire to cover yet another hasty retreat.

As they did so, Harvath and company continued to reload and pull their triggers, completely shattering the glass doors at the front of the lobby.

Arriving at the exit, Sacha and Ali continued to fire as they slipped out of the hotel toward the street. The remaining Chechen wasn’t as fortunate. When his weapon jammed, he fumbled with it just long enough to catch a very well placed bullet through his throat, courtesy of Scot Harvath.

The Chechen fell to the floor gurgling blood as his associates on the sidewalk searched for a way to make their escape. Ali pointed his gun at a shuttle van approaching the hotel on Lexington Avenue and when the van refused to stop, he put two rounds through the wind-shield, killing the driver, who slumped forward over the steering wheel as the van picked up speed, veered up onto the sidewalk, and slammed into the front of the hotel.

With no regard for the lives of the people inside or for his surviving comrade, Ali began firing in the direction of the gas tank. Sacha barely made it away before the vehicle exploded and sent a roiling fireball deep into the lobby of the Metropolitan.

The mammoth Chechen had a million curses he wanted to hurl at Ali, but he held his tongue. Now was not the time. While the man’s rash actions had almost cost Sacha his life, the al-Qaeda operative had just created the distraction they so needed to escape.

Heading south on Lexington Avenue, they made a left on 50th and kept moving until Ali found a spot where he could remove his balaclava and wiggle out of his tactical gear.

“What are you doing?” said Sacha.

Ali responded by raising his weapon and asking a question of his own. “Where’s your bag, Sacha?”

“What are you talking about? We need to get away from here, now,” he replied.

“The electronics bag you used at all the other locations.”

“It’s gone. I threw it away.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s only one location left. We don’t have to worry about them alerting anyone else.”

“Is that it?” said Ali. “Or is it something else?”

“Something else? Are you mad?” demanded Sacha, as his hand tightened around the grip of his own weapon. “We don’t have time for this. We need to go, now.”

“You knew all along we wouldn’t find Mohammed at those other locations, didn’t you?”

A minute change in expression swept briefly across Sacha’s face. It was all that Ali needed to see. Pulling the trigger, he shot the Chechen right between the eyes.

The Troll must have known all along that Mohammed bin Mohammed was being held at the fifth location! That was why he had insisted on taking the others down first, and Sacha had been a part of that plan from the outset. What a fool Ali had been. The locations had indeed been secret government facilities, but not for the holding and interrogating of prisoners. They had to do with the Troll’s stock-in-trade-information. It explained all the computer workstations and arrays of sophisticated servers. The first four locations were all about collecting information for the man’s evil little empire.

Ali now wondered if the Troll had ever intended for him to succeed. Maybe he and Mohammed weren’t even supposed to leave the city alive. There was no telling what the Troll had pla

It didn’t matter now, though. Ali had been prepared for this eventuality. In fact, he had envisioned several different outcomes the afternoon might bring and he had prepared for all of them.

Moments later, like a snake that had just shed its skin, Ali returned to the street anew. Matching his pace to the other pedestrians, he proceeded east to one of the many strategically placed hotels he had taken rooms in. Looking more Italian than Arab, he had little fear of being stopped or accosted along the way. The passport he carried would identify him as an Italian businessman and though no one should have any reason to examine him any further than that, he had a complete back-story, or legend as it was known in the intelligence community, which would explain who he was and what he was doing in New York City.

Even though this was an exceptional masquerade, it wasn’t his best. The best was yet to come.