Takedown

Eighty-Five

On some subconscious level Harvath had understood what the rounds plinking off the side of the shuttle van meant and had been able to knock his team to the ground moments before the explosion.

Now the lobby was engulfed in flames and survivors stampeded in search of exits at the back of the hotel.

Herrington picked up the Troy CQB, slung it over his shoulder along with his own weapon, and gently shoved Harvath toward the back of the hotel. “Let’s get outside and see if we can find these guys.”

Harvath knew that wasn’t going to happen, but he grabbed onto the suggestion nonetheless as a reason to get moving. As he did, the fog of battle began to lift and his adrenaline was replaced by a budding anger with himself for having lost the two remaining terrorists.

Cutting through the hotel gift shop, the team exited onto 51st Street and pushed their way through the crowd of stu

Signaling Rick Cates to come with him, Bob Herrington suggested the team split up. Harvath nodded his head and took Hastings around the front of the hotel. The damage was bad, very bad, and several civilians lay dead or dying near the still-burning shuttle van. Even if they’d had medical supplies with them, there was little they could have done.

From what Harvath had seen just before the explosion, the terrorists had looked like they were prepared to head south on Lexington and so that’s the direction they decided to go.

He and Hastings crossed the intersection at 50th Street and continued moving south, but to no avail. The remaining two terrorists could be anywhere. They had a decent head start and there was just too much ground to cover on foot. At 49th Street Harvath radioed Bob and asked, “Anything?”

“Nada,” replied Herrington.

Harvath instructed him to come up 48th Street and meet them at the corner in front of the Lexington Hotel. Several of the hotel staff were standing in front passing out bottled water to anyone who needed it. New York was an amazing city. Harvath marveled at how the absolute worst of times in a rather rough city could bring out the absolute best in so many people. Instead of hoarding supplies for themselves or even for hotel guests, which would have been understandable, the hotel was helping anyone who walked by.

Seeing Harvath’s and Hastings’s weapons and realizing they must be plainclothes police, the hotel manager offered each of them extra bottles of water and thanked them for what they were doing. The manager, of course, had no idea what they were doing and, in Harvath’s opinion, how poorly they were actually doing it, but he was grateful for the water as well as the opportunity to rest while they waited for Herrington and Cates to catch up with them.

Less than a minute later a man ran up to the front of the Lexington and relayed to the hotel’s manager the details of the shootout and the shuttle bus explosion in the Metropolitan’s lobby.

Taking their luggage carts from near the front door, the manager and three of his doormen loaded them up with water and ran off toward the other hotel. Harvath watched them leave. When they had disappeared, Harvath realized how utterly exhausted he was. His shoulder was killing him and he probably should have sought further medical attention, but he ignored the pain as best he could and closed his eyes.

Eighty-Six

When Harvath’s eyes snapped back open, he had no idea how long he’d been out. Nearby, Hastings sat on the hotel steps talking with Cates and Herrington as she tried to shake pieces of ash and charred soot from her hair. Across the street, a Greek restaurant had taken over handing out bottled water to thirsty passersby. A group of businesspeople standing near the restaurant even managed a smile as one of them apparently said something worth smiling at. New Yorkers were an amazing bunch, and as terrible as it had been, they seemed to know that this day too would pass.

Harvath was about to close his eyes again, when he felt something vibrating between his elbow and his hip and realized it was his BlackBerry. Pulling the device out of its cradle, he saw the icons indiciating that he had new voicemail and e-mail messages, as well as an incoming call from his boss.

Putting the phone in his left hand, he raised it to his ear and said, “Harvath.”

“Scot, it’s Gary,” replied Lawlor. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last half hour. What’s going on?”

Scot filled him in as best he could and then fell into an exhausted silence.

“Listen, I may have some good news for you,” said Gary.

“There isn’t much I’d consider good at this point, but go ahead, shoot.”

“The terrorists may be hitting a fifth location not far from where you are right now.”

Hearing that, Harvath sat up straight. “What location? Where? Wait a second. How do you know this?”

“Do you remember all the reports that bin Laden was on dialysis?”

“Of course, it was a rumor based on the Pakistani president claiming al-Qaeda had smuggled two dialysis machines into Afghanistan, right?”

“Exactly. Then one of our Delta Force teams discovered a sterile facility used for dialysis treatments at bin Laden’s Tora Bora base near Jalalabad.”

“So?”

“So they also found a patient log and discovered it wasn’t bin Laden getting treatment, it was Mohammed bin Mohammed, aka Abu Khabab al-Fari.”

“Wait a second,” said Harvath. “M amp;M? Al-Qaeda’s master bombmaker? He was the head of their entire weapons of mass destruction committee until he disappeared a couple of days before 9/11. Nobody has seen him since.”

“The DIA has,” said Lawlor.

Harvath was floored, and smoke was nearly coming out of his ears as his mind raced to put all of the pieces together. “What’s this have to do with them grabbing Sayed Jamal from us?”

“Apparently, they’re related-as in family. The DIA wanted to use Jamal as leverage in their interrogation of Mohammed.”

“The DIA has Mohammed?” Harvath couldn’t believe it. “Who told you this?”

“Stan Caldwell,” replied Lawlor.

“How does the deputy director of the FBI have that information?”

“According to Caldwell, it was DIA’s chief of staff who coordinated the Joint Terrorism Task Force ruse and then swore the Bureau to secrecy.”

“Based on what? What kind of sway does the DIA have over the Bureau?”

“I don’t know,” said Gary. “That’s all he would tell me. In fact I was surprised to get that much from him.”

Harvath thought back and replied, “That high-level al-Qaeda operative the U.S. took down-the one with the exploding laptop. Do you think that was Mohammed?”

“The timing on it would be right.”

“Then that intercept about the U.S. grabbing a bombmaker and bringing him into America against his will and in violation of international law wasn’t about Jamal after all. It was about Mohammed.”

“I think so,” said Lawlor.

“And you believe he’s here, in New York?”

“I’m almost certain of it.”

“But what’s the co

“I don’t get it either. The only one who might have been able to explain it to us is Joseph Stanton, and he’s dead.”

“So how do you know there’s a fifth location and that it’s here in New York?”

“It all comes back to the dialysis machines. We interrogated one of Stanton’s analysts-a young man who worked closely with him on the Athena Program, and he told us that Stanton was very interested in recent sales of high-end units sold by a company called Nova Medical Systems. The name sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember why. When I got back to my office, I did some checking.”

“And?”

“The machines found in the treatment room at the Tora Bora complex were the exact same kind Stanton had his analyst searching for.”