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Both Harvath and the Old Man looked at Nicholas. He had made an excellent point. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added. “I’m sure whoever was running Aazim didn’t want him interrogated. But it would have made more sense to kill you. The fact that he’s dead means that he either made someone very angry or had outlived his usefulness.”

“Or both,” said Carlton.

“Or both,” agreed Nicholas. “But with Aazim gone, there’s definitely tension and uncertainty within the network. I think that’s why this Karami character wanted Mansoor brought to Sweden. Maybe he doesn’t trust the Sheikh from Qatar. Maybe he wanted to pump Mansoor for as much information as possible. If that’s true, then maybe we can find a way to exploit the upheaval and use it to our advantage.”

“That’s a good idea,” replied Harvath as he said good-bye to both of the dogs. “But we’re going to need a hell of a lot more intelligence before we can even think of launching an operation like that.”

Carlton stood up, placed his hand atop Harvath’s shoulder, and guided him toward the door. “Go home and get some rest,” he repeated. “I’ll call you if anything breaks.”

Harvath did as he was told. Retrieving his personal vehicle from the garage, he headed south on I-495 toward home. By the time he hit US-1, all he could think about was a hot shower and falling into bed.

He let the water pound on his body for a good five minutes before turning it off and reaching for a towel. He was too tired to shave.

After cracking the bedroom window, he lay down and closed his eyes. Sleep should have come quickly, but it didn’t. Instead, his mind took over and replayed everything that had happened in Sweden, over and over again.

He couldn’t escape his feelings of responsibility, the guilt he felt over the deaths of the assaulters. He tried to focus on something else, something positive. He thought about Riley Turner and what she might be doing at the moment.

It worked for a while, but then he was back on the mental rack, his mind torturing him with what-ifs and second-guessing over what had happened. He thought about pouring himself a stiff drink and numbing it all away, but chose instead to lie there and take it.

Finally, two hours later, he drifted off into a fitful sleep. In it, he was haunted by visions of a larger, more gruesome attack he felt sure was about to hit the United States.

CHAPTER 37

L
ONDON

S
ATURDAY
M
ORNING

R
obert Ashford possessed one of the key character flaws necessary to a traitor. He thought he was smarter than everyone else. This allowed the overeducated career bureaucrat to sell out his own country, because he believed he knew what was best for his nation and its people.

Of course, he was being well-paid for his treason, but he rationalized the money away by telling himself that it wasn’t about money. This was about right and wrong, and if only England and the rest of the West had stood up and done the right thing, none of what he was doing would have been necessary.

It was this deep-seated belief and growing disenchantment with the direction of the world that had drawn him to James Standing.

Ashford had read all of the billionaire’s books. Never had one person been able to put what he was feeling so succinctly into words. Standing was the high priest of a glorious new truth. A majestic ship was about to sail and there would be only so many seats on board. Ashford had no desire to be left behind. In fact, he thought he could be very helpful in bringing about the new dawn that James Standing was going to usher in.

The two had been introduced at a cocktail party given by a mutual acquaintance, an influential member of Parliament. Standing was impressed not only with Ashford’s thorough reading of his books, but also with his dedication to his vision of a new world. Slowly, the men’s relationship built.

Ashford was a confirmed bachelor and the billionaire had originally thought him gay until he realized the MI5 man was simply a careerist. Entanglements, familial and otherwise, were seen as something that could only slow him down. Without wife, children, or girlfriend, Ashford could work any and all hours without fear of recrimination. With both military and intelligence training, he was the perfect man for the job Standing was creating.

When the billionaire had assured himself that Ashford’s loyalty could indeed be purchased and assured, he parted the curtains and drew the man inside. Now, Ashford was trapped. Standing had him and he could never go back.

And despite most of his colleagues’ having already retired, Ashford was still in the game. It was all that mattered to him, and he was damn good at it. At least he had been. All of a sudden, though, too many things were not working the way they should.

While he still had no idea what had happened to the sanction of the Hollywood producer, the source of the rest of his operational headaches was easy to pinpoint—Arabs.

Ashford was an unrepentant bigot of the highest order. He didn’t just dislike, he actually detested working with Muslims. In his opinion, Muslims—Arab Muslims in particular—were some of the laziest and most uncreative people he had ever come across. Their zealotry bred myopia and an inability to think for themselves. In his experience, the only thing they were good for was blowing themselves up. He had yet to meet enough clever members of the faith to believe that those possessed of even average intelligence were anything more than an aberration.

He was putting the finishing touches on elevating the next commander in the Aleem network, when Mustafa Karami finally made contact.

He found the email in the draft folder of the account he was about to delete. He quickly copied it into a translation program, and when the Arabic had been translated to English, he read the man’s brief account of what had transpired in Uppsala.

Both the safe house and the apartment used for their ops center across the street had been compromised. According to Karami, a team of men posing as professional movers had been behind the attack. The ops center had been detonated, but two men survived. They were both dressed as Swedish Security Service agents.

Karami reported that both he and Sabah had been able to escape to the emergency retreat location, but that he had no idea what had become of the rest of the cell members. At this point, he was standing by, awaiting further instruction.

Ashford took several minutes to compose his reply. He front-loaded the email with what he referred to as “Muslim Mumbo Jumbo”—the blessings of Allah and all of that antiquated nonsense that he felt was a complete and utter waste of time, but was important to maintain the charade of his being the number two to the man who financed the entire network, the mysterious Sheikh from Qatar.

The Chinese had established the fictitious Sheikh as the network’s financial benefactor and ultimate authority, who allegedly took his orders directly from the al Qaeda leadership. The mistake the Chinese had made, though, was that they had not perpetrated the myth of the Sheikh much past Aazim Aleem, the operational director of the network. When Ashford had been forced to kill Aazim before he could be interrogated, there was reluctance on the part of Mustafa Karami to take over.

Karami was used to taking orders from Aazim. He had never met the Sheikh and therefore didn’t trust him. Ashford had been tempted to cut Karami out of the picture right then and there and simply move to the next commander in the network’s hierarchy, but Standing had told him to have patience. Karami had been Aazim’s designated successor for a reason. He trusted Karami and recognized him as the most able to take over, should anything ever happen to him. And it had.

Ashford had been extremely fortunate to get to Aazim before Scot Harvath and the Carlton Group could hand him over to the CIA.

As Aazim was a British citizen and Ashford had worked with Harvath and the Carlton Group to stop an Aazim cell from carrying out attacks in London, Carlton had kept him abreast of what was happening, including reading him in on the operation to apprehend Aazim and turn him over to the CIA in Yemen.

But as soon as Aazim had been killed, the information flow stopped. Ashford knew better than to be paranoid. They were closing their ranks and being much tighter with their compartmentalization. It just meant information would be harder to get. They had to believe he had something of value to trade, and an idea had already begun to form in his mind about how to get Reed Carlton to let down his guard and show his cards.

For the time being, though, he needed to focus on Karami. James Standing wanted the silver and gold attacks launched.

Carefully, he typed out the appropriate activation message, translated it, and placed it in the draft folder for Karami.

Logging out of the account, he scrubbed his back trail and shut down his computer.

He did the math in his head and computed when news of the first attacks would hit the wires. At best, there were about sixteen hours before all hell broke loose in the United States.

CHAPTER 38

S
OUTHERN
C
ALIFORNIA

L
ike most in the Special Operations community, retired or otherwise, Hank McBride was incredibly resourceful. He had managed to track down everything on Luke Ralston’s list. With Southern California the home to SEAL Teams 1, 3, 5, and 7 under Naval Special Warfare Group One, Hank had probably done it with one phone call, two at the most.

The motorcycle was a red 2007 Yamaha YZF. It was a bit much for Ralston’s taste, but no one gave flashy street bikes a second look in Southern Cal. It was fast and maneuverable, which was what he had asked for. If he needed to weave through traffic or outrun the police, the Yamaha would do the job perfectly. Using a motorcycle also meant that he could wear a full-face helmet and be able to better conceal his identity.

The pistol was a cold “drop piece” that one of Hank’s buddies always took with him when he drove down to Mexico. It was a Colt Anaconda with a four-inch barrel, chambered in .44 Magnum. Ralston hadn’t expected a revolver, especially from a SEAL, but he was happy to have a firearm, any kind of firearm, and he tucked it into the backpack Hank had given him, along with the other items.

It had been a big gamble meeting Alisa in Manhattan Beach the day before. It was an even bigger gamble traveling up to L.A. now. Broad daylight was not the environment Ralston wanted to operate in, but he’d been given no choice.

Alisa’s father had refused to help her unless she told him who the favor was for. She was asking for a very dangerous introduction—one incongruous with the legal dealings of an entertainment attorney. He’d already lost one daughter because he wasn’t able to protect her from violent criminal elements. He’d be damned if he was going to lose another.

With no choice, Alisa had filled her father in on the entire meeting she’d had with Ralston. Martin Sevan wasn’t happy. He told her he’d have to think about the favor Ralston wanted the Sevan family to do for him.

Two hours later, Martin called Alisa back and told her to have Ralston come and see him the next day at noon. Ralston had no idea if the man was going to help him or not, but the fact that he had asked him to come to the house and not the office was a good sign, and Ralston had decided to go prepared.

He arrived two hours early. After driving by the front of the house and not seeing anything that gave him cause for concern, he found a place to park his bike and then secreted himself in a ravine along the side of the house. He had a perfect vantage point from which to surveil Martin’s property as well as that of his immediate neighbors.

Ralston didn’t know how much animosity, if any, Ava’s father harbored toward him over her death. For all he knew, the man despised him and was planning to set him up and hand him over to the police. He had to accept that as a possibility. He could very well be walking into a trap. From his vantage point, though, the only people he had seen in or near the house were the gardener and the housekeeper, both of whom he had met before. That was it.