Full Black - Brad Thor [153]
Harvath looked at Carlton and gestured toward the hallway. They left Ashford strapped to the chair and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind them.
“We’re going to need a complete map of that terror network. Names, pictures, telephone numbers, addresses, means of contact, all of it,” said Harvath. “Then somebody’s going to have to figure out how to take down all of the cell members, all at the same time, all across the country, without any word leaking out.”
“That’s going to mean an extremely well-coordinated law enforcement effort,” replied Carlton.
Harvath nodded. “We also need to get our hands on that unrestricted warfare plan. If Ashford has a copy, and we should assume he does, we need to get it ASAP. The more we know about what’s in that playbook, the better defense and offense we can mount.”
“Which brings us to James Standing.”
Harvath took a moment as he tried to be certain he had put all of the pieces together correctly. “If Ashford and Standing control the network and we have Ashford, then the only one left calling the shots is Standing.”
“Correct.”
“At some point, though, when he’s unable to make contact with Ashford, he’s going to know that something is up. In fact, when the Dow attacks don’t happen, he’ll know he’s been penetrated.”
“And could go for broke and activate all the remaining attacks.”
“Which is why we need to get to the network’s current commander, this Karami guy, as well as Standing, right away,” said Harvath. “If we can do that, we might be able to short-circuit the network and render it inert until all its members can be rounded up.”
“There’s just one thing,” said Carlton. “Taking out some foreign terrorist like Karami is one thing. Dealing with a politically connected billionaire American philanthropist like James Standing is something totally different.”
“I agree,” replied Harvath. “And I know exactly how we should handle it.”
CHAPTER 68
Manhattan
Robert Ashford had provided Harvath with the rough layout of James Standing’s New York City apartment. He had also provided an accurate picture of the billionaire’s personal security detail.
For the overnight shift, only four men were kept on duty. One was positioned in the lobby with the doorman, while another was at the receiving entrance. A third man remained in the apartment in a small security room located off the kitchen, monitoring the building’s closed-circuit camera feed. The fourth agent operated as a “floater,” moving from position to position, relieving the other men when it was time for their respective breaks and filling in as an impromptu driver when needed.
Harvath had gained access to the building via the roof of an adjacent structure. He made his way down the interior security stairs to the back door of Standing’s apartment, underneath which he slid a fiber-optic surveillance camera. Cupping the scope to his eye, he slowly scanned the interior of the kitchen.
Because of the angle, he couldn’t see into the security room, but he had little doubt that the agent watching the CCTV feeds was there. Retracting the camera, Harvath put it back in his pack and removed a short aluminum cylinder wrapped in clear tubing, as well as a full-face respirator.
Placing the respirator over his head, he made sure the seal around his face was tight and then unwound the tubing from the cylinder and fed it beneath the door.
There was a barely perceptible hiss as he opened the valve and began to pump the contents of the cylinder into the kitchen.
Three-Methylfentanyl, or 3-MF as it was known, was an opioid analgesic that ranged anywhere from four hundred to six thousand times more powerful than morphine, depending upon what type of isomer it was combined with. Harvath was using a cis isomer, which pushed the gas being emitted from the tube beneath the kitchen door to its most effective range.
It was the same substance used by the Russians in the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 and was extremely tricky to work with. Minimum exposure could knock a person out for hours. Anything more