Takedown (15 page)

I
n an ambush, the enemy sets the time, but the attacker gets to set the place, and that was exactly what Harvath and the rest of the team had done. The trick was to select a good location that was also within a reasonable distance of the Geneva Diamond and Jewelry Exchange. Kevin McCauliff felt relatively confident that he was going to be able to spoof what they all hoped was the lead terrorist’s pager.

The idea was to make it look like it was receiving positioning updates from the cell phone of the captured Middle Eastern man whose backpack had failed to explode and who was currently cooling his heels in an NYPD jail cell.

While it might be very odd for the lead terrorist’s pager to be getting updates, it might just be odd enough to pique his interest and cause him to look into why the failed bomber was apparently trying to reconnect.

“And if the lead man tries to call or message our guy’s cell phone?” asked Herrington.

“It doesn’t matter. No cell phones except for first responders and law enforcement are working now anyway. Kevin’s pal at Nextel says he’ll make sure all anyone gets when they dial the number is a fast busy signal and any text messages will fail to go through. All we have to do is keep the updates coming sporadically enough to keep their interest,” said Harvath.

It sounded like a reasonable enough plan, though it potentially had two fatal flaws. The team was divided over whether or not the terrorists would have had a contingency plan—a
what to do if you can’t hit your target or your bomb fails to go off.
If they did and one of the bombers diverged from that contingency plan—like returning to a predetermined location and contacting an outside player—it might set off alarm bells and instead of drawing the remaining terrorists in, actually push them away. The second potential pitfall was whether or not the suicide bombers would have been privy to the rest of the operation. It was another sticking point that could just as easily work against them as it could in their favor.

There was a third problem that they all agreed on—they had no idea who or what they were going to be looking for. They could set up the world’s best ambush, but if they couldn’t identify their quarry, how would they know when it was time to spring the trap? In the end, they decided they would just have to jump off that bridge when they came to it.

The south end of Central Park fit the ambush bill better than anything else they could think of. It provided ample cover and concealment and multiple vantage points, and with all of the mayhem across the city, the people who had decided to congregate there away from tall buildings or other potential terrorist targets were by and large in the open expanse of the Sheep Meadow. That was a big plus, as the last thing they wanted was unnecessary collateral damage or a ready supply of potential hostages if the ambush went sideways, which at this point none of them were prepared to rule out.

Their goal was to draw the terrorists into the narrow area just north of the underpass that ran beneath the 65th Street Transverse known as the Denesmouth Arch. From there, Bullet Bob, the team’s most skilled long-gun shooter, would have an unobstructed field of fire from both directions. Though he couldn’t argue with Harvath’s rationale, Herrington would have much rather preferred being with the rest of the team. The idea of not being in on the actual ambush didn’t sit well with him at all.

With the light fading, Harvath took Tracy Hastings aside and handed her the night-vision device from his bug-out bag.

“So you’ve got no problem giving the girl with one eye a monocular?”

“Do I look like I have a problem with it?” he replied as he pulled a pair of Motorolas out of the pack.

“Then how come every time I turn around, you’re staring at my face?”

Without even thinking about it, Harvath looked away from her. “You remind me of somebody, that’s all.”

“I’ll bet I do,” she replied, not taking him seriously.

“Listen, being an EOD tech, you’ve been trained to pay attention to the smallest details, and that’s what we need right now. As long as you pull your weight, I don’t give a damn that you’re a woman. And as far as having only one eye, I don’t care about that either. You got a night-vision monocular because that’s all I have with me.”

Hastings was surprised by his honesty. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” replied Harvath as he turned and walked away to assign Cates and Morgan their positions.

A
bdul Ali was beyond angry. Either Hussein Nassir had lost his nerve or his bomb had failed to detonate. Regardless, the Jordanian peasant would undoubtedly choose the latter as his excuse. The man’s involvement had been a mistake, Ali could see that now, but a beggar could seldom choose from whom he received his alms. The operation had necessitated the activation of almost every sleeper al-Qaeda had within the United States and even then additional men had to be smuggled in from both Canada and Mexico.

Martyring oneself, at least in an operation of this nature, did not call for a superior intellect, not even superior courage, but rather a blinding faith that one’s reward would be delivered in paradise.

That said, Nassir was a fool who was putting the rest of the operation in jeopardy by trying to track the team down. How he knew where they were was beyond Ali. All he knew was that keeping the details of an operation of this size quiet was very difficult. Someone must have told Nassir more than he needed to know. The positioning messages didn’t lie. The man had gone to both the Transcon office and the Geneva Diamond Exchange, and now for some reason had situated himself in Central Park. The idiot was going to get himself captured and would compromise everything. Ali had no choice but to go after Nassir and secure him until the rest of their work was done. Then he would find out how he had learned about the rest of the operation.

Though it was going to have a significant and detrimental impact upon their schedule, Ali instructed Sacha to turn around and head for Central Park. He just hoped he could get there before Nassir made any more stupid mistakes and gave them all away.

W
hen Gary Lawlor fed the names Harvath had collected at the two crush depth locations into the shared intelligence database, he once again came up empty-handed. They were ghosts, every one of them—figuratively and, unfortunately now, literally. But while sterilizing civilian backgrounds was one thing, Gary had a feeling that erasing a marine’s life might be a little bit different—especially if his only role had been to provide security.

Picking up the phone, he dialed the number for USMC Lieutenant Colonel Sean Olson. The ropy, five-foot-six Olson was a graduate of the FBI’s law enforcement leadership program known as the National Academy. Conducted on the Bureau’s Quantico, Virginia, campus, the program included courses in law, behavioral science, forensic science, leadership development, communication, and health and fitness. Its expressed mission was “to promote the personal and professional development of law enforcement leaders,” but many argued that the most valuable thing that was formed at the National Academy were the incredible relationships and vast network of contacts among its graduates.

Lieutenant Colonel Olson was head of the Law Enforcement Security & Corrections Branch for the entire Marine Corps. If anyone could get Lawlor the information he needed on the mystery marines, it was his fellow National Academy graduate, Sean Olson.

“I’m neck-deep in shit right now, Gary,” said the lieutenant colonel when his assistant put the call through, “so I’m going to save us both a lot of time. What do you need?”

Lawlor appreciated his colleague getting right to the point and he returned the favor. “Sean, we’ve got reason to believe that the bridges and tunnels in New York weren’t the only targets.”

“Jesus Christ,” replied Olson as his attitude shifted from impatience to genuine concern. “You think there’s going to be more?”

“We believe there already have been.”

The man was shocked. “Where? How come we haven’t heard of it here?”

If by
here
Olson meant the Marine Corps Security Division, it was easily explainable, but if by
here
he really meant the Pentagon, then Lawlor wasn’t so sure the deep crush attacks
hadn’t
been heard about. “This is a very delicate situation. The attacks I’m referring to were not civilian targets.”

“What were they? Military? Government?”

“That’s just it. We don’t know. We’ve got two locations in Manhattan that appear to have been involved in some sort of covert operations—there’s nothing about them or their employees that we can pull from any of our databases. The only connections we can find between them are that everyone was well armed and all the work they were doing was via paperless workstations.”

“And how were these locations attacked?” asked Olson as he shifted the phone to his other ear.

“From what we can tell, two assaulter teams hit each location and gunned down everyone inside.”

“What for?”

“We don’t know,” replied Lawlor.

“Gary, I appreciate the update,” offered the lieutenant colonel, “but why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because three of those killed were U.S. marines. I need to find out who they were and what they were doing there.”

Olson was already running on an unstable fuel of adrenaline and pure hatred of Islamic terrorists, but to now hear that on top of everything else today the terrorists had purposely taken out three marines sent him around the bend. It took all he had to keep his anger under control and craft a professional, un-obscenity-laden response. “Believe me, I would like to help you, but this is way above my purview. You need to get in touch with DOD directly.”

“That’s just it,” replied Lawlor. “I can’t.”

“Why the hell can’t you? You’ve got three marines dead, not to mention a bunch of their civilian colleagues. I’m pretty confident they’ll make this a priority.”

“Just give me five minutes, Sean, to explain. If after that you still don’t think you can help me, I’ll find somebody else.”

Olson reluctantly agreed.

Three-and-a-half minutes later the lieutenant colonel had heard enough. He hung up with Lawlor, called his assistant into his office, and began giving orders. Getting to the bottom of what had happened to those marines was now one of his top priorities.

T
he Chechens had never met Hussein Nassir. In fact they hadn’t met any of Ali’s bombers, so asking them to find him and bring him in was out of the question. Besides, it was Ali’s mess. It was he who should clean it up.

Changing into street clothes, Ali secreted a nine-millimeter Spanish Firestar pistol inside a copy of the
New York Post,
tucked it beneath his arm, and had the team drop him on Central Park South.

Though Ali had studied his map well, the park was still unfamiliar territory and made him nervous. He had decided on his way over that this was not going to be a rescue. He was going to put a bullet in Hussein Nassir’s head and hide his body so that by the time it was found it would be too late to make any difference.

From what Ali could tell, the last three messages to his pager placed Nassir somewhere near the Central Park Zoo. At least the fool hadn’t forgotten all of his training. The area was normally well frequented by tourists, many of them foreigners, and if he remained calm, there was no reason he would draw any undue attention to himself. The more disturbing offshoot of that logic was what would a Middle Eastern man, or anyone else, for that matter, be doing at the zoo when New York had just suffered the worst terrorist attack in history? Anyone with any sense, especially a Middle Eastern man, would not be wandering the city but would be off the streets enjoying the safety and concealment of his home or hotel room. Nassir was an even bigger idiot than Ali gave him credit for.

Ali bore no concern over his own appearance. His surgeries had softened his Middle Eastern features, and he was often told he looked more Sicilian than anything else. If put to the test, his Italian was exceptional, and even a native speaker would be hard-pressed to question his pedigree.

Approaching from the southwest, Ali decided to avoid the more direct thoroughfare into the zoo for as long as possible. Though he had precious little time at his disposal, he tried not to rush. Something was beginning to trouble him about the situation. Coming alone might have been a mistake. He radioed the Chechens to ascertain their positions, but it did little to calm his unease. They needed to keep moving. Staying in one spot too long risked discovery. Though they spoke English, it was heavily accented. Only Ali could have passed for an American, and without him in the lead vehicle, they were asking for trouble by just sitting in one spot, waiting for him. A very nervous part of him hoped that ordering them to keep moving was the right decision.

Emerging from beneath the somewhat hidden and rarely used In-scope Arch, Ali’s senses were on fire. He climbed the short flight of stairs at the end of the underpass and found himself on the pathway known as the Wien Walk. Making his way toward the zoo, Ali scanned the area for any sign that he was walking into a trap.

He passed a group of people—three women and a man—who were obviously distraught over the bombings and felt nothing but contempt for them. What they had experienced today was only the beginning for America. It had proven it would never learn its lesson, and therefore it would drink from the same bitter cup it had forced on the Muslim world for decades.

Arriving at the zoo, Ali was eager to finish his business and be on his way. He soon discovered that everything was closed—including the café where he had expected to find Nassir. He would have to comb the area.

As he did, he lost even more time. With every minute he wasted, he vowed to make Nassir’s death as painful as possible.

Nearing the building known as the Armory, Ali noticed a figure up ahead. Even though it was from the back, he could tell it was a man about the same height and build as Hussein Nassir. He was sitting alone, wrapped in a Mylar space blanket, the kind given to runners after a marathon or to victims needing to stave off shock after a major calamity such as a terrorist attack. Abdul Ali was confident that he had found his man.

Reaching inside his
NewYork Post,
he wrapped his hand around the butt of the Firestar and quickened his pace. It would all be over in just a matter of moments now.