Takedown

It was a veritable arsenal. In the pistol department Morgan had two Unertl MEU SOC 1911’s, a Glock 19, and a four-inch-barreled.357 Smith amp; Wesson 620. Hanging next to them were a Mossberg 590 12-gauge shotgun, a Remington 40-X.308 sniper rifle, and a fully automatic Troy Industries CQB-SPC A4 assault rifle that Morgan had chanced a big official ass-whupping for smuggling out of Iraq.

“So much for our weapons problem,” said Harvath as he gazed at the display. “I’m going to ask another stupid question, but how are you set for ammo?”

Once again, the group laughed. Morgan crossed into the kitchen, which was covered with travel posters for places he hoped some day to see-Paris, Rome, Hong Kong-and removed a set of keys from his pocket. The refrigerator was a mosaic of snapshots showing Morgan as a marine in a number of other exotic locations around the world that were normally much more humid or dusty than Paris, Rome, or Hong Kong.

He unlocked a small padlock on the side of the freezer door and swung it open. Inside, boxes of shrink-wrapped ammunition stood in a neat series of rows.

“Where do you keep your grenade launcher?” asked Herrington.

“Dr. Hardy told me that grenade launchers are for paranoids, so I sold it to a buddy of mine a while back.”

Morgan let them stand there wondering for a second longer and then smiled and said, “Kidding. Only kidding. I never had a grenade launcher. Besides, with what the surface-to-air missile battery I’ve got up on the roof cost me, who could afford a grenade launcher?”

Everyone laughed, but secretly none of them would have been surprised to find that Morgan did have a crate of SAMs stashed somewhere upstairs.

Clearing off the kitchen table, Morgan hoisted a KIVA technical backpack stuffed to the gills with gear and set it onto one of the chairs.

“Is that your bug-out bag?” asked Hastings.

The marine nodded his head and began unloading his pack. “A week’s worth of the very best survival equipment money can buy.”

As Morgan pulled out MREs, chemlights, water purification tablets, parachute cord, and other items, Cates said, “A week’s worth? Whatever happened to seventy-two hours?”

“Hurricane Katrina, that’s what.” The marine looked at Harvath. “Even DHS is now telling people they need to have at least a week’s worth of supplies on hand in case of trouble, right?”

Harvath nodded his head knowing that they were talking about having people raise it to a month or even two. Not only did he have a bug-out bag ready to go at a moment’s notice in case of a terrorist attack or some other sort of disaster, but so did most of the military, law enforcement, and intelligence people he worked worth. Even civilians had them. The way Harvath saw it, it was pretty stupid for anyone, government employee or otherwise, not to be ready in case of an emergency. That said, his bug-out bag was sitting in the back of his TraillBlazer in a garage uptown. It weighed at least fifty pounds, and it would have been quite uncomfortable to carry everywhere with him. Even so, there were several items in it he would have liked to have with him right now.

As Morgan continued to remove items from his seemingly bottomless bag, Hastings asked, “Where’d you get all the money for this stuff?”

“Let’s just say that in my old life I was a good saver.”

“A real good saver,” added Cates as he checked the labels in a couple of the sport coats hanging in Morgan’s closet.

The marine laid out an assortment of extremely high-quality knives from Chris Reeve as well as a brand-new Gerber LMF II-Infantry, which could be used to carve one’s way out of a helicopter fuselage, and respectfully offered Harvath first pick.

Though they were all exceptional, Harvath already had his never-leave-home-without-it Benchmade auto in his pocket, and if they made it back to his TrailBlazer he’d have access to a superb fixed-blade knife from LaRue Tactical.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got some flashbangs in there?” said Harvath as he watched Paul Morgan continue to pull gear out of his bag.

“No, but I do have this,” replied the marine as he withdrew a Blackhawk medical pack.

Harvath was about to say that he hoped they wouldn’t need that when his cell phone rang. It was Kevin McCauliff.

After chatting with him for only a few seconds, two things became apparent. Kevin had some pretty good news. He also had some pretty bad news.

Thirty-Two