Takedown

Seeing Harvath’s and Hastings’s weapons and realizing they must be plainclothes police, the hotel manager offered each of them extra bottles of water and thanked them for what they were doing. The manager, of course, had no idea what they were doing and, in Harvath’s opinion, how poorly they were actually doing it, but he was grateful for the water as well as the opportunity to rest while they waited for Herrington and Cates to catch up with them.

Less than a minute later a man ran up to the front of the Lexington and relayed to the hotel’s manager the details of the shootout and the shuttle bus explosion in the Metropolitan’s lobby.

Taking their luggage carts from near the front door, the manager and three of his doormen loaded them up with water and ran off toward the other hotel. Harvath watched them leave. When they had disappeared, Harvath realized how utterly exhausted he was. His shoulder was killing him and he probably should have sought further medical attention, but he ignored the pain as best he could and closed his eyes.

Eighty-Six

When Harvath’s eyes snapped back open, he had no idea how long he’d been out. Nearby, Hastings sat on the hotel steps talking with Cates and Herrington as she tried to shake pieces of ash and charred soot from her hair. Across the street, a Greek restaurant had taken over handing out bottled water to thirsty passersby. A group of businesspeople standing near the restaurant even managed a smile as one of them apparently said something worth smiling at. New Yorkers were an amazing bunch, and as terrible as it had been, they seemed to know that this day too would pass.

Harvath was about to close his eyes again, when he felt something vibrating between his elbow and his hip and realized it was his BlackBerry. Pulling the device out of its cradle, he saw the icons indiciating that he had new voicemail and e-mail messages, as well as an incoming call from his boss.

Putting the phone in his left hand, he raised it to his ear and said, “Harvath.”

“Scot, it’s Gary,” replied Lawlor. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last half hour. What’s going on?”

Scot filled him in as best he could and then fell into an exhausted silence.

“Listen, I may have some good news for you,” said Gary.

“There isn’t much I’d consider good at this point, but go ahead, shoot.”

“The terrorists may be hitting a fifth location not far from where you are right now.”

Hearing that, Harvath sat up straight. “What location? Where? Wait a second. How do you know this?”

“Do you remember all the reports that bin Laden was on dialysis?”

“Of course, it was a rumor based on the Pakistani president claiming al-Qaeda had smuggled two dialysis machines into Afghanistan, right?”

“Exactly. Then one of our Delta Force teams discovered a sterile facility used for dialysis treatments at bin Laden’s Tora Bora base near Jalalabad.”

“So?”

“So they also found a patient log and discovered it wasn’t bin Laden getting treatment, it was Mohammed bin Mohammed, aka Abu Khabab al-Fari.”

“Wait a second,” said Harvath. “M amp;M? Al-Qaeda’s master bombmaker? He was the head of their entire weapons of mass destruction committee until he disappeared a couple of days before 9/11. Nobody has seen him since.”

“The DIA has,” said Lawlor.

Harvath was floored, and smoke was nearly coming out of his ears as his mind raced to put all of the pieces together. “What’s this have to do with them grabbing Sayed Jamal from us?”

“Apparently, they’re related-as in family. The DIA wanted to use Jamal as leverage in their interrogation of Mohammed.”

“The DIA has Mohammed?” Harvath couldn’t believe it. “Who told you this?”

“Stan Caldwell,” replied Lawlor.

“How does the deputy director of the FBI have that information?”

“According to Caldwell, it was DIA’s chief of staff who coordinated the Joint Terrorism Task Force ruse and then swore the Bureau to secrecy.”

“Based on what? What kind of sway does the DIA have over the Bureau?”

“I don’t know,” said Gary. “That’s all he would tell me. In fact I was surprised to get that much from him.”

Harvath thought back and replied, “That high-level al-Qaeda operative the U.S. took down-the one with the exploding laptop. Do you think that was Mohammed?”

“The timing on it would be right.”

“Then that intercept about the U.S. grabbing a bombmaker and bringing him into America against his will and in violation of international law wasn’t about Jamal after all. It was about Mohammed.”

“I think so,” said Lawlor.

“And you believe he’s here, in New York?”

“I’m almost certain of it.”

“But what’s the connection with the NSA’s deep black intelligence sites?” replied Harvath. “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it either. The only one who might have been able to explain it to us is Joseph Stanton, and he’s dead.”

“So how do you know there’s a fifth location and that it’s here in New York?”