Full Black - Brad Thor [23]
“Good. I want this op wrapped up and everyone out of there as soon as possible. Understood?”
“Roger that,” replied Harvath. He and Carlton spoke at length about how long to give Phoenix Three before launching their takedown of the Uppsala cell. They both understood that the longer Chase was in their midst, the more he might be able to learn. They also understood that the longer he stayed, the greater the odds were that he might be discovered. If he was, they’d kill him on the spot.
The call ended, Harvath gathered up the blanket and the water bottle, and headed outside.
“Anything?” he asked as he approached the operative standing guard at the barn. “Praying? Crying? Anything?” Knowing how their prisoner had spent the time since Harvath had been gone would affect how he decided to continue the interrogation.
“Nothing,” replied the operative, an ex-CIA man named Andy Bachmann. He was in his late fifties and built like a drill instructor. The Old Man had suggested him for this operation as they’d known each other in the old days back at Langley, and Bachmann had worked in Sweden before. “Not a sound.”
Mansoor Aleem might be tougher than Harvath had thought. Nodding, he walked past Bachmann, unlocked the barn door, and jerked it wide. He stood there with the door open for several seconds to encourage the flow of cold air. The prisoner didn’t move.
Considering how he’d been shivering, there was no way that Mansoor could have fallen asleep. Had he slipped into unconsciousness? That would be a world record. He hadn’t been exposed to the cold that long.
For a moment, Harvath wondered if he was being played. “Time to wake up, Mansoor,” he said as he walked up to the man and snatched off his hood. There was no reaction.
The man’s head was bent forward, his chin resting on his chest. Harvath grabbed a fistful of hair and tilted his head back so he could look at his face. He slapped him, but the man didn’t even flinch. He wasn’t conscious.
Harvath opened one of his eyelids. The eye failed to dilate. He placed two fingers against the man’s carotid and felt for a pulse. Nothing.
“Fuck,” said Harvath, as he then yelled for the operative outside. “Andy! Andy, damn it!”
Bachmann threw open the door and charged inside, his MP7 drawn from beneath his coat. “What is it?” he said, scanning the barn as he tried to figure out what was happening.
“Get Riley,” Harvath ordered. “Now! Tell her Mansoor has flatlined.”
As a medical student and Winter X Games athlete, Turner had been one of the first recruits into a covert Department of Defense program known as the Athena Project. Its goal was to provide women with the same training male Delta Force operatives received, making it possible to send them into the field alone, on all-female teams, or in various mixed assignments such as Harvath’s Sweden op. The bad guys could often see the men coming but rarely, if ever, suspected women. He had requested Riley, now a trauma surgeon, personally. Having worked with her before, he knew she was exceedingly capable. There were also personal reasons he wanted her along, but those were far from his mind right now.
As Bachmann took out his radio to raise Riley, Harvath cut his prisoner loose and laid him on the floor. Harvath had killed plenty of people in his career, but they’d all been bad guys who had deserved to die. Harvath had killed each of them intentionally. Mansoor Aleem was definitely a bad guy, but Harvath didn’t want him dead. And he definitely didn’t want it to happen because he had screwed up.
With him on the floor, Harvath immediately began CPR. The new guidelines called for doubling the number of chest compressions and not worrying about blowing air into the victim’s airway. “Don’t you die on me, asshole,” he said as he rapidly compressed the man’s chest. “Don’t you die.”
“What happened?” Riley shouted as she ran into the barn and saw Harvath on the floor performing CPR.
“I’ve got no idea,” said Harvath, as he kept focused on his prisoner. “When I came back in, he didn’t have a pulse.”
“Don’t BS me,” she replied as