Brad Thor - Full Black

Two minutes later, the microphones picked up the sound of Sarhan’s door opening. Muted good-byes were exchanged in Arabic before two young Middle Eastern men appeared towing wheely bags.

Harvath snapped several wide shots and then got close-ups of their faces. “Let’s run these right away.”

“I’m already on it,” replied Nicholas.

They were dressed in casual business attire. It reminded him of the airport security footage of the 9/11 attacker Mohammed Atta. He suddenly had a very bad feeling about what he was seeing. “Where are you two girls going?”

The two men placed their heavy bags in the van’s cargo area and climbed inside. The driver then pulled away from the curb.

“Can you follow them in the traffic cam system?” asked Harvath.

“Yes.”

“You should ping the Old Man and let him know what’s going on.”

“Already did.”

“Good,” said Harvath as he watched the van disappear at the end of the street. What is going on inside that house? he wondered. Had they just wrapped up some sort of meeting and these two guys were heading home, or was something else going down?

Ten minutes later, the mystery deepened as two more men with luggage exited the house and climbed into a taxi that had just arrived.

Once again, Harvath snapped pictures, and everything was beamed back to Nicholas in Reston.

“We need to follow that taxicab as well. Make sure you get all the information about the cab company and the driver and put it all into

There was a delay in Nicholas’s response as he clicked away at his keyboard. Finally he said, “Scot, I can’t sweep data and follow two vehicles.”

“Get the Old Man to help you.”

“I already am,” said Carlton, who had joined Nicholas in the SCIF and had plugged into the call. “We’re going to have to open this up a bit.”

“No, we’ve got to keep it contained.”

“Scot, I’m making the call. Nicholas will remain in charge on this end, but I’m going to open this up to the personnel in the TOC. We need the manpower.”

Harvath knew better than to argue. “Just tell them these are people of interest. They don’t need the big picture.”

“Agreed,” replied the Old Man as he clicked off to activate the office’s Tactical Operations Center.

“So far,” said Nicholas, “the two vehicles appear to be headed in opposite directions. Maybe they’re going to different airports. Or maybe one pair is going to catch a plane and the other a train.”

“Or maybe they’re doing SDRs,” stated Harvath, referring to the surveillance detection routes one used in order to ascertain whether one was being followed. “Just stay on them. They look like they’re headed out of town. As soon as we know where, we need to have teams waiting to put them under surveillance.”

“The Old Man already has teams standing by.”

Harvath was about to say something, when another taxi pulled up and two more men exited the house.

“Are you getting all of this?” asked Harvath as he took still more photographs.

“Yes,” replied Nicholas.

The driver popped the trunk, the men placed their wheely bags inside, and after shutting the lid, slid into the backseat, and the vehicle pulled away.

“That makes three two-man teams in less than half an hour,” said Harvath, adding, “you still have nothing back on the photographs or the vehicles?”

“All of the vehicles check out. This cab, too.”

“Do we have any idea yet where the other two are headed?”

“No,” said Nicholas. “I’m starting to believe you may be right about the SDRs.”

“Whatever you do, don’t lose them,” replied Harvath.

Harvath glanced for the thousandth time at the dated picture of Tariq Sarhan he had been issued. All of the men who had left the house were too young to have been him. He still had to be inside, and at this point, there was no question that he was definitely up to something. Harvath decided he couldn’t wait any longer to find out what.

He grabbed several extra mags for his compact. 45 caliber H amp;K USP Tactical pistol along with its suppressor. He tucked the pistol into a holster at the small of his back and the rest of the gear into the pockets of his coat.

“I’m going to zero comms,” he stated. “I want a closer look at the target.”

“A closer look?” replied Nicholas, “or are you going over to take him?”

“If the Old Man asks, tell him you can’t raise me. Understood?”

“I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”

“Lucky for me that-” Harvath cut himself off midsentence.

“Repeat, please,” said Nicholas.

“Hold on.”

“What’s up?”

“I’ve now got a black Lincoln Town Car approaching,” said Harvath, who was at the camera as two more young Middle Eastern men exited the house with wheely bags. They were soon followed, though, by a third.

“Zoom in on the third man, please,” said Nicholas.

Harvath didn’t need to be told. He zoomed in and began snapping pictures of Tariq Sarhan. “That’s our guy,” he stated.

“Is he going to get in the car with them?”

“Negative,” replied Harvath as he watched Sarhan kiss both of the young men on the cheeks and remain in front of the house as they walked down to the curb.

“I’m running the plates on the Town Car, now.”

“Roger that,” said Harvath as he watched Sarhan through the camera. “I hope you saved a little cake for me, Tariq, because you and I are going to have a little party of our own.”

“The Town Car looks clean. It’s registered to a Los Angeles limousine company. Wow, that makes eight guys. He really did have a lot of people in there.”

“Now we’re going to find out exactly what the hell he’s up to,” said Harvath. “I’ll call you back.”

Harvath disconnected the call and stayed at the window. He watched as the Town Car pulled away and Sarhan turned and went back into his house.

After grabbing a roll of duct tape and his Taser, Harvath exited the little room and headed for the stairs. He had no idea if Sarhan was alone or not now, but he had a pretty good feeling that he was.

The man had aged a lot since his photograph had been taken. He was still very thin, but his face was drawn. His hair had gone gray and he wore glasses. He looked more like a university professor than a terrorist, but that didn’t mean anything. Harvath would know soon enough what the man’s game was.

Having disabled the perimeter security system, he was halfway to the back door when his cell phone vibrated. Unwinding the earbud and placing it in his ear, he activated the call and said, “I told you we were going to zero comms.”

“Sarhan’s on the move,” stated Nicholas.

“What?” replied Harvath. He stopped and thought about returning upstairs to see for himself.

“He just came back out wearing a jacket and opened his garage door.”

“Is he alone?”

“As far as I can tell.”

Harvath turned around and headed for the front door. “Tell me when you can see his car.”

“He’s backing out now,” said Nicholas. “It looks like a blue Nissan Sentra.” He read Harvath the license plate.

“Tell me which direction he goes when he pulls out of the driveway.”

“Roger that.”

Seconds ticked by. Finally, Nicholas said, “He’s coming south. He’s going to go right past you.”

With the tall hedges in front of the downstairs windows, Harvath knew he’d have a hard time seeing the street. “Let me know when he does.”

“Fifteen seconds.”

Harvath waited.

“He should be passing you now.”

Harvath unlocked and cracked the front door. Sure enough, he heard the sound of Sarhan’s car as it passed. He figured it would take him at least ten seconds to get to the end of the street.