Takedown

They agreed that the fastest way to the diamond district from Gramercy Park was to try to go straight up Fifth Avenue, but it was reserved for emergency vehicles only, and most of the cops they’d been seeing weren’t particularly helpful. Unless you were driving an official vehicle, they weren’t letting anyone through, not even a car full of surgeons they’d seen who needed to get to an uptown hospital as quickly as possible. Harvath was wondering if maybe they would be better off heading north on foot, retrieving his vehicle and using its lights-and-siren package to try to barrel through the rest of the distance, when Cates was shoved backward onto the pavement by one of the tattooed bikers.

Immediately, Harvath and the rest of his group stepped forward, but Cates held up his hand and waved them back. Showing extreme patience and control, he got up off the ground, dusted himself off, and reengaged the man who had just shoved him.

Harvath and the others watched as Cates went toe-to-toe with the 250-pound biker and their exchange got progressively more heated.

Moments later, the biker grabbed Cates by the throat and swung his other arm around in an attempt to hit him in the side of the head. Cates parried the blow and brought his free hand crashing into the man’s jaw. Before the tattooed giant could respond, Cates whipped his head forward and shattered the cartilage in the man’s nose with a vicious head butt.

The bike store manager rammed his knee into Cates’s abdomen, but the Special Forces reservist quickly returned the assault by kicking the big man in the groin, causing his knees to buckle and for him to fall to the pavement in pain.

“If you guys would like to help,” yelled Cates over his shoulder as the rest of the biker staff in the shop began grabbing wrenches, pipes, and assorted bludgeons, “now would probably be a good time.”

Harvath and company drew their weapons and rushed forward. Upon seeing the display of firepower, the biker shop staff laid down their arms and retreated into the back of the garage.

Cates kicked his assailant in the gut and walked inside, located the keys for the motorcycles they wanted, and then hit the button to lower the garage-style door. Once it was down, he jammed a screwdriver into the holes where the padlock normally went, pulled two sets of Flexicuffs from Paul Morgan’s pack, and secured the front door.

“What did I tell you about not turning this situation into a confrontation?” demanded Harvath as they climbed onto the motorcycles.

“I couldn’t help it,” replied Cates as he fired his up. “Did you see that guy’s tats?”

“He’s got a million of them-so what?”

“You obviously missed the one on his left arm,” said Cates as he pulled forward onto the sidewalk. “He had a picture of Uncle Sam with a black eye and underneath it the letters F-T-A.”

“Fuck The Army?” yelled Morgan over the whine of his Suzuki. “Fuck that asshole. Hoorah, Cates.”

Herrington and Hastings both flashed Rick the thumbs-up, and Harvath had no choice but to flash his as well. To be kicked out of the service for what was known as the Big Chicken Dinner, or more correctly a bad conduct discharge meant that the bike shop manager was one screwed-up individual and had committed the equivalent of a serious felony.

To proudly boast that fact underneath a disfigured tattoo of Uncle Sam was unforgivable. He deserved everything Cates had dished out to him and more.

“What do you say, boss?” yelled Morgan as he revved his motorcycle.

Harvath noticed that the team was looking to Bullet Bob for guidance, and as Herrington shot a questioning look in Harvath’s direction, Harvath nodded his head for him to take control. These people respected Bob’s experience and looked to him as their leader.

“Forty-seventh and Fifth,” yelled Herrington, “as fast as we can get there.”

Lowering his head and rocketing his bike out into traffic, Harvath decided he could worry about chain-of-command issues later. Right now, they had a very strange puzzle to start putting together. The only question was, were the few pieces they had going to be enough to make any sort of progress?

Thirty-Four

Gary Lawlor tried to discern a connection between the two addresses Harvath had given him. The terrorists were obviously looking for something, but what? What could they possibly want in a brownstone on the Upper West Side and a location in the diamond district in Midtown? Neither seemed typical terrorist targets.