Path Of The Assassin

“Consider them marked,” replied Morrell as he turned back to help the operative with the drone.

44

The time difference between the east coast of the United States and Libya was six hours. By the time Harvath and Meg had organized all of their gear and gotten to sleep, it was after midnight for them back home and almost sunrise on the Ubari Sand Sea.

Harvath had offered to post one of the four-hour guard shifts, but Morrell declined, saying he had more than enough men to cover the rotations. Harvath drifted into one of his deep trancelike states while Meg slept in interrupted, fitful bouts. At one point, she awoke with a start at the sound of bells, but Harvath was quick to cover her mouth. A herd of goats from one of the oasis farmers had wandered close to the mouth of the cave. Meg looked around and saw that every member of the team had his weapon drawn and was ready to kill the goatherd, should he be unlucky enough to stumble across them, but nothing happened. The goats moved on, and the team eventually stood down.

After a while, Meg gave up trying to fall back asleep. Thoughts of what lay ahead filled her mind, and there was no way she could completely relax.

Morrell had brought along two two-man sniper teams as part of the operation. The men who had gone out to recon the area had confirmed the distances to where they assumed the target would be, and the sniper teams were now quietly quizzing each other on ballistic charts. “At five hundred meters in ten-to-twelve-knot winds, how far will a three hundred Win Mag drop?” said one of the men.

The spotter from the other team responded, “Considering the drag coefficient on a three hundred Win Mag, it’ll be seven inches off, right to left,” and so the conversation continued. It was completely over Meg’s head. All she knew was that there were at least seven more hours till sunset and God only knew how many more before Morrell would give the order to move out of the cave so they could take up their positions and await Hashim Nidal.

Meg turned to Harvath to help pass the time. Normally, he would have been concerned with keeping an operative’s head in the game, but he realized Meg needed distraction. She didn’t want to think about what lay ahead. She needed to talk about something else…anything else.

Harvath asked questions about her family and growing up in Chicago. He asked about college and starting her own business. He even spent some time trying to explain the philosophy of true country music, which could be summed up as, “three chords and the truth”-my wife left me, my dog ran away, I lost my job…He had no idea if Meg appreciated his position, but she laughed nonetheless.

Darkness had just fallen when Morrell finally made his way to the back of the cave where Harvath and Meg were still talking. “Saddle up,” was all he whispered before gathering his gear and heading outside.

Sounds from the distant oasis could be heard floating on the mild breeze that stirred the loose sand all around them. Harvath and Meg took their places in the middle of the column, and after a final weapons and equipment check, the team set off for their positions overlooking the Hijrah Oasis.

They picked their way over the boulder-strewn hillside with extreme caution, careful not to make even the slightest sound. Though the entire team was wearing throat mikes, no one dared break radio silence. As they crested the hill, the oasis came into full view. A perfectly still, oblong pool of water seemed to magically spring up from the desert sand like a forgotten mirror and reflect everything around it. An amazing array of flowers and vegetation, including young date and palm trees, surrounded the tiny desert lake and spread outward for hundreds of meters, adding brilliant touches of color to the otherwise barren landscape.

Many of the buildings shown in the satellite photos, once only a hodgepodge of unimpressive gray boxes, were now completely visible. Vegetation hung from windows and over the edges of makeshift balconies. To people who had no idea of the real purpose of this oasis town, it could easily have been mistaken for a modern-day Garden of Eden.

On a small promontory jutting out into the dark water, obviously a place of great honor and ceremony, stood a large bedouin-style tent. Torches lit a path to the open panels of striped fabric that billowed in the desert wind. Robed figures trudged back and forth from covered trucks, preparing for the meeting between Hashim Nidal and the Saudi, while other robed figures stood quietly by, clutching Kalashnikov assault rifles.

All of a sudden, loud music erupted from a boom box in the back of one of the trucks, and the men setting up the tent cheered. The Operation Phantom team hit the deck and searched for cover. Morrell clutched his throat mike and snapped, “What the fuck is that?”

The operatives were all silent. After listening for a few moments Harvath whispered, “Flashlight.”