Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

The CIA had tentatively identified Papandreou, an associate of Constantine Nomikos, as a key personality behind 21 August. Evidence also suggested he had a hand in the attacks upon Ambassador Avery and his team. The dots didn't co

Still dubious about the intelligence the U.S. had gathered from its Greek sources, Harvath glanced at his Kobold tactical wrist-watch and wondered where the hell his target was. Papandreou should have been here by now.

Suddenly, the sound of the ocean crashing on the rocky beach below was replaced by the sound of tires crunching down the villa's long gravel drive. Harvath readied his rifle and pressed himself flatter against the damp earth. He prayed to God his superiors back in Washington weren't making a mistake.

A blue Land Rover rolled to a stop before the large double doors of the house. When the driver's door opened Harvath peered through his scope, but it was no good. He couldn't see the man's face. He'd have to wait for him to exit the vehicle.

"Norseman, can you properly ID the target?" said a voice over his headset, thousands of miles away in the White House Situation Room.

"Negative," replied Harvath. "Stand by."

Pressing his eye tighter against his scope, Harvath strained to get a positive identification on Papandreou so he could do his job and pull the trigger.

"Norseman, satellite is giving us only one, I repeat one individual in that vehicle. Can you confirm the subject's identity? Do we have our man?"

Command-and-control elements in the rear always wanted to know everything that was going on in the field. Harvath, though, couldn't give them a play-by-play and pay full attention to his assignment, so he gave them the field operative's polite equivalent of shut the hell up, "Clear the net."

The chatter on his headset fell silent and Harvath watched as the driver began to exit the vehicle. From where he was positioned, he'd have to wait until the man came around the Land Rover and made it to the double doors of the villa before he had not only a clear view of his face but also a clean shot to take him out.

"Ten seconds until subject ID," said Harvath, more for his own benefit than the men and women gathered in the Situation Room.

Three more steps, Harvath thought to himself as the man rounded the grille of the Land Rover.

It was hot and Harvath could feel beads of perspiration collecting on his forehead. What if this wasn't the right guy?

As the man's head came into view, Harvath took a deep breath, held it, but delayed applying pressure to the trigger of his SR25. A few more steps, he thought to himself. A few more steps.

Suddenly a shot rang out and Harvath's target fell face-first in a spray of blood onto the gravel drive.

"What the-" Harvath whispered into his microphone.

"Norseman," came the voice from the Situation Room. "What just happened?"

Harvath sca

"You're the only operator on this assignment," replied the voice from Washington. "Can you ID the target?"

Harvath stared through his scope at the man lying in the driveway. "Negative. A positive ID is impossible from my position."

Moments later the voice responded. "Norseman, you're going to need to change your position ASAP and get that ID."

"The subject's facedown in the gravel."

"Then get down there and lift him up."

Harvath tried to keep his anger in check. "We've got an active shooter. I need you to pinpoint him for me first."

"Negative, Norseman," said the voice from the Situation Room. "No can do. All the infrared satellite is showing is you and the subject adjacent to the vehicle."

"No heat signature from a recently discharged weapon?" asked Harvath, though he knew if they could see it, they'd tell him.

"That's a negative. No heat signature."

Whoever that shooter was, he was very good and being very careful.

Harvath was truly up against it. There was no way he could move to the driveway, not when the other sniper could be out there waiting for someone to approach the body.

Though he was trained to expect the unexpected, an additional shooter was something Harvath hadn't banked on. Nevertheless, the idea that somebody else might be after the Achilles device was perfectly reasonable, but none of that mattered now. Harvath needed to identify the guy in the driveway and make his way into the villa where the device was supposedly being kept, and to do that, he was going to need a distraction.

Waiting for him two hundred meters offshore was the Amalia, a weather-beaten Greek trawler ma

Changing his radio frequency, Harvath raised Ben out on the Amalia and told him what had happened and what he needed him to do. When Ben's flare broke over the water four and a half minutes later, Harvath was already up and ru

He never bothered ID'ing the body-it would have been suicide. Instead, Harvath grabbed the man by the collar, kicked open the villa's double doors and dragged him inside the courtyard. It was only then that Harvath rolled the body over. There was no mistaking the man whose photo he had seen during his briefing in Washington, Constantine Nomikos. What the hell was he doing here? Harvath examined him. Head wounds always bled profusely and he looked like he had lost a lot of blood. Harvath doubted he would make it.

"Goddammit," he mumbled under his breath. Nomikos had picked a hell of a time to come visit his old pal. Changing freqs, Harvath clued the Situation Room in on the development.

With no other vehicles inbound, Harvath was told to shift to locating the Achilles device. Easy for them to say, he thought. Somewhere, very nearby, was a killer who was most probably sent to Papandreou's villa with the same orders as he was.

With the Metaxas brothers offshore on the Amalia, Harvath had no direct backup. He could only rely on himself. He was in the process of rigging a booby trap when the landscaping lights illuminating the neat rows of olive trees throughout the courtyard dimmed and went dark. Harvath had been in this game long enough to know there was no such thing as coincidence. The other sniper had just cut the power. That could only mean one thing-he was about to breach the villa. Harvath needed to move.

Finding the front door unlocked, Harvath quickly made his way inside and searched for the study. Five minutes later, he had uncovered Papandreou's safe. While he knew more than most about safecracking, tonight it made no difference. Secreted behind a false panel was an American-made Safari-brand safe. Safaris were the best and Harvath knew he had no choice but to blow it. The only question was whether or not he'd brought along enough C4.

Considering Safari's impregnable reputation, Harvath prepared to use everything he had. If he overestimated and it resulted in him damaging the Achilles device inside, then so be it. He knew Washington would be glad just to know the device was out of commission.