Takedown

Bits and pieces of the things Bob had told him about them in his e-mails floated to the forefront of Harvath’s mind. Cates, who had relocated to New York from Oklahoma, was the son of evangelical parents. Though he himself was not particularly religious, he saw the war on terror exactly as his enemy did, as an out-and-out crusade. The physical stresses of the job had bought him a ticket out of active duty when both his knees blew on an assignment in the south of Afghanistan.

Morgan, the youngest team member, had been raised by a single mother. He’d been in big trouble with drugs and street gangs and had joined the Marine Corps as his ticket out and a way to see the world beyond New York. Though a head wound left him unfit for duty, many doctors, including Hardy, questioned if he wasn’t already just a bit off-a bit too reckless with his own life long before that fateful day in Iraq.

Finally there was Tracy Hastings-the Naval EOD tech. She was the daughter of a wealthy New York family; her parents had seriously disagreed with her decision to join the armed forces, but the attack on the USS Cole had helped her make up her mind, and the headstrong young woman wouldn’t be dissuaded. She hadn’t joined the Navy in spite of her affluent upbringing, she had joined because of it. She thought that if anyone had an obligation to serve their country, it was people who had profited so handsomely by it.

Tracy used a little makeup to cover the facial scars left by an IED disposal gone bad, but the damage was still visible. From what Herrington had told Harvath, her injuries had been quite severe, but the surgeons had done a remarkable job-right down to matching the particularly pale blue color for her artificial eye.

Harvath could tell by looking at each of the people standing there that they were a tightly knit group. That was good. The question was, could they function both as individuals and as a cohesive unit under the stress of combat? And just as important, would they accept him, an outsider, as both one of their own and as their leader?

As Hardy went to check on some of his other patients, they had the office to themselves. Harvath asked Herrington to close the door. Once it was shut, he said, “I am going to be completely honest with all of you. You’re not my first choice for something like this, and you’re not even my last choice. But the situation being what it is, you are my only choice.”

“Fuck you too,” said Morgan.

Herrington held up his hand and said, “Let him finish.”

Harvath waited a beat and then said, “State, local, and federal resources are completely, and I mean completely, tied up with search-and-rescue efforts. Air traffic over and maritime traffic around Manhattan has been suspended due to sniper and RPG fire. What helicopter and boat traffic there is, is working off the opposite sides of both the Hudson and East rivers. Somebody doesn’t want any reinforcements making it to Manhattan. That means that we will have no support for this assignment whatsoever. Your participation will be in an unofficial, unrecognized, and most definitely unsanctioned capacity.”

“Meaning what?” asked Cates.

“It means you’re not federal employees and you are not being recognized as active duty soldiers-in essence, your disabled status hasn’t changed.”

“I guess it’s lucky for you then that even though they took our jobs, we all got to keep our training,” replied Cates.

Harvath liked that answer. Continuing, he said, “We’re dealing with an extremely well organized enemy of indeterminate size and resources who is presumably still operating somewhere in Manhattan.”

“You mean they’re not done yet?” responded Paul Morgan.

Harvath shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to be completely straight with you. In short, we have very little idea of what we’re up against. This could turn out to be nothing, but I’ve got a feeling it might be an extremely dangerous assignment. Anybody have any other questions?”

“Yeah,” joked Cates, “so what’s the bad news?”

A wave of tense laughter rolled through the room.

Tracy Hastings raised her hand halfway and asked, “If we don’t know who these people are and what their objective is, how are we supposed to find them?”

“I just got off the phone with someone who’s working on it,” replied Harvath. “We might have something very soon, so we need to be ready to move. In the meantime, we’ve got a bigger problem. All I have is a pistol, and it’s in my truck back up in Midtown. We’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do for weapons.”

Another wave of laughter rolled through the room, but this time it was anything but tense.

Twenty minutes later Paul Morgan removed a piece of false drywall from the back of a closet in his small Gramercy Park apartment and said, “Go ahead and take your pick.”