Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [5]
His employer was a legend in the intelligence world and had spent the last year polishing and honing the skills of the man who, always deadly serious about his work, now approached his life with a renewed sense of vigor.
He had a sense that somewhere a clock was ticking down. It was due, in part, to a realization that his own time on the playing field was winding down, but there was something more to it. There was a sense of foreboding; a sense that a storm was gathering and picking up strength as it sped toward shore—his shore—America.
There wasn’t a specific act or event he could pin his sense of foreboding on. It was everything; the movements and chatter and unending determination by America’s enemies to hit again and again and again. He and others like him believed that something else, something different was on the way, and they constantly reminded each other to keep their “powder dry.”
There were only two things any of them could do about it—hunker down and wait for it to happen, or get out there, locate the threat, and take the fight to the enemy head-on. Scot Harvath wasn’t the hunker-down-and-wait-for-it-to-happen type.
Looking at his GPS device, he activated his radio and said, “Two minutes. Stand by.”
“Roger that,” replied a voice from the neighborhood up ahead. “Standing by.” The snipers had been in place for hours. It was now nearing four a.m.
Even though he couldn’t see it, he knew the drone was still above them on station. Via the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, he radioed for a final situation report from the drone pilots back at Creech Air Force base northwest of Las Vegas. “Press box, are we still good to go?”
“That is affirmative,” came the reply. “Tangos one through four are still in place. Thermals show that the heat signatures inside the target have not changed.”
Harvath didn’t bother asking about the hostages. He knew why there were no longer any heat signatures from them.
As they turned the corner, the outline of their target could be seen silhouetted against the night sky. It was time to go to the next phase of their operation. “This is it,” he said over his radio as he set the GPS down on the seat next to him and adjusted his beret. “We’re going to sterile comms,” which meant from this point forward they would communicate only via a series of prearranged clicks.
In the two trucks following his, the rest of the team made ready. After checking their weapons, they straightened the uniforms Omar-Hakim had provided and donned their Iraqi helmets.
Power outages were a common occurrence in Iraq. Per Harvath’s request, the power to this neighborhood had been cut earlier in the evening. The streets were completely dark. At this hour, even families with their own generators were sleeping.
“Remember what we discussed,” Harvath said to Omar-Hakim when the vehicles pulled up in front of the target.
“I remember,” said the man.
Harvath then motioned for him to get out.
In front of them was a house surrounded by a thick mud wall. Its entrance was a set of wide double doors fabricated from sheet metal and scrap wood. A fist-sized hole had been punched through each side. A heavy chain padlocked from the inside kept them securely closed.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard.
Omar-Hakim sucked in his gut and attempted to ignore the throbbing pain from his broken hand. Harvath had warned him to leave it by his side and not draw attention to it.
The commander walked up to the gate and whispering, so as not to awaken anyone, addressed the sentry inside. “Abdullah. Open up.”
“Who is it?” replied a voice in Arabic.
The Iraqi bent his face down to the hole and