Path Of The Assassin

Harvath had worked with FAVs, or more appropriately, Fast Attack Vehicles, before. They looked like dune buggies on steroids and were awesome pieces of machinery. The knobby-tired, 2100-pound FAVs could reach speeds in excess of eighty miles per hour cross-country and could clear sand berms over six feet high. They came complete with a fifty-caliber machine gun and forty-millimeter grenade launcher forward, as well as a 7.62 machine gun to cover the rear. Strapped to the roof rack of each FAV was an antitank-and-antiaircraft missile. Though the vehicles were made to carry only three people, two extra passengers could be transported in the wire-mesh equipment baskets welded to each side of the vehicle. All in all, the FAV was an extremely efficient way to get around and extremely deadly for any opponents.

“It seems like you’ve thought of everything,” said Harvath in an attempt to be reassuring.

“You and I both know you can never think of everything,” said Morrell with a wry smile.

Harvath smiled back. It was a rare moment of camaraderie between the two men. “What’s the timetable on this? Are we going to be able to go through some run-throughs in country before the actual assault?”

“Negative. The meeting’s set for tomorrow night.”

Harvath couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Tomorrow night? What time?”

“About eleven P.M. local time.”

“That’s nuts. We’d have to get in place tonight.”

“I know.”

“Jesus, any other surprises?”

“I hope not. Listen. I want to ask you a favor.”

“What?”

“I want you to keep Meg Cassidy as calm as possible until we go in. I’d rather not discuss the operational details with her just yet, especially as we haven’t been able to nail everything down.”

“As long as you don’t ask her to fast-rope out of one of the helicopters, I think she’ll be fine. She’s not too fond of heights.”

“So I’ve heard. Just try and keep her calm up there, and keep her mind off of things for the time being. Okay?”

“Fine by me. Is there a movie on this flight?”

“No, and no prime rib either. I stocked the plane myself, so I know. You’ve got your choice in the galley of MREs or we loaded a couple of pizzas on board.”

“I think I’ll go with the pizza,” said Harvath as he stood up. “Did you bring any beer?”

“Beer? What are you, crazy? I wouldn’t bring beer on a mission.”

Harvath shrugged his shoulders as if to say, It never hurts to ask, and made his way back up to the front of the plane to see if Meg was hungry for pizza.

When he returned from the galley with two hot slices for each of them, he noticed that Morrell had joined his nine man team in the back of the plane for a discussion. He knew Rick was holding back something about the execution of the mission. He didn’t know what it was, but something was off. Harvath tried to push it out of his mind as he settled in for lunch and the long ride ahead.

42

Two-and-a-half hours out from Libyan airspace, the Gulfstream jet began to descend and Rick Morrell called another meeting. An hour earlier he had given Harvath, Meg, and the rest of the SAS team a full mission briefing. Morrell covered everything from the encrypted radio frequencies they would use, to GPS coordinates, land contour formations, code names, and the contents of their weapons packages. The two items he had left out were the methods of infiltration and extraction. As the team members gathered in the rear of the aircraft this time, it looked as if Morrell was ready to complete the picture.

“According to our intelligence, it doesn’t look like the Libyan military exercises along the Algerian border are going to be letting up anytime soon. I had hoped to insert via helicopter from Algeria, but that’s no longer an option,” said Morrell.

“So how are we getting in?” asked Harvath.

“We’re going to hop and pop.”

“No, seriously. How are we going in?” repeated Harvath.

“I am serious.”

“But right now we’re descending. Are you going to try and get us in under their radar in this jet?”

“No. We’re going to go in through the normal air traffic lanes with a commercial IFF signature so we don’t raise Libya’s suspicions. We’re descending now to below ten thousand feet so we can get everyone started on masks with one-hundred-percent oxygen.”

“And then what?”

“We climb to just over thirty thousand.”

“Then we hop and pop?” asked Harvath.

“That’s the plan. We’ll be under canopy for a little over a half hour, but it’s going to put us right on the money.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” said Harvath, hinting in Meg Cassidy’s direction with his eyes.

“If there was an easier way to do this, I would,” replied Morrell.

Meg, who had been listening, but not understanding any of the exchange, finally spoke up. “What are we talking about here?” She had a bad feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer to her question.

“There’s been a decision made on the infiltration, Meg,” said Harvath.

“How are we going in?”

“It’s a technique called HAHO. A high-altitude, high-opening parachute jump.”

Meg’s face immediately drained of all color. “Exactly how high are we talking about?”