Brad Thor - Full Black

On the floor, and also restrained with duct tape, was a man about Hank’s age with greasy black hair and a pug face.

“Sorry we’re late,” said Harvath as he let go of Sarhan.

“Another pinata,” replied Ralston. “Now things are getting interesting.”

“If you gentlemen want to use the kitchen to talk,” said Hank, “I’ll keep an eye on these two.”

Harvath thanked him and followed Ralston and Salomon out. As he was leaving, he reminded the old SEAL not to abuse his prisoner. Hank picked up a ball-peen hammer from the workbench and told him he wouldn’t dream of it. Shaking his head, Harvath joined the other men in the kitchen.

Ralston introduced himself and then Salomon.

“I’m a big fan,” Harvath said to the producer.

“Thank you. We appreciate your coming.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” said Harvath as he motioned at the kitchen table for the men to sit. He saw that Hank had a pot of coffee made and helped himself. He offered to pour for the other two men, but they politely refused.

Sitting down at the table he listened as Luke laid out what had happened and Salomon filled in some of the details.

Twenty minutes and an additional cup of coffee later, Ralston finished by saying, “That’s when Hank called you and here we are.”

It was an amazing story. Harvath leaned back in his chair, processing what he had heard. “For what it’s worth, you were smart not to kill Yatsko.”

“I gave my word,” replied Ralston. “That said, I probably ruptured his eardrum, discharging the weapon so close to his head.”

“He deserves to pay,” said Salomon.

Harvath nodded in agreement. “You both did the right thing, though.” Changing gears, he asked, “What happened to the homeless guy in his trunk?”

“After I dumped Yatsko here, I drove the car back up to L.A., wiped all of my prints off it, and left it in his garage.”

“Where’s the hard drive?”

Ralston reached under the table where it had been taped, removed it, and handed it across to Harvath. He then gave him the code the Russian had revealed out in the desert.

“You haven’t tried to open it, have you?”

Ralston shook his head. “He was bargaining for his life, so I think he was being straight with me. But I’ve dealt with this stuff enough to know that he could have given me a kill code. I didn’t want to type in that password only to have it fry the entire drive.”

“Smart,” replied Harvath. “We’ve got somebody back east that should be able to get into it and see what’s there. What about Project Green Ramp? You said it was a plan to weaken the United States and then collapse it via a black swan event? Do you have any idea what kind of black swan? Could that be what’s behind all of these terrorist attacks?”

“You probably shouldn’t rule anything out,” Ralston replied with a shrug, “but I don’t see Standing as the terrorism type. He’s a financial guy who buys influence and messes with currencies and economies.”

“Who may have used an active MI5 operative as a cutout to hire a Russian wet work team to kill Mr. Salomon.”

“I guess when you put it that way, anything is possible.”

It was definitely possible. In fact, having the unrestricted warfare piece of the puzzle, Harvath now saw Standing as highly likely to be behind the entire thing. He had the financial means. He also, from what Harvath knew, had the ideology and hadn’t been shy in his public calls for the American system to be replaced with something else.

“If Ashford is dirty,” asked Salomon, “will you be able to link him to Standing?”

“We’ll definitely try. But it would be helpful to have copies of the material you were working on. Did you back it up offsite or does the LAPD have all of it now as part of their investigation?”

“Everything was in my home office at the time of the attack.”

“So, no backup, then.”

“No,” said Salomon. “There’s a backup. I just don’t know how you can get to it.”

“Let me worry about that,” replied Harvath, figuring the Old Man could put together a team to take care of the job. “Where is it?”

“Back at the house. I have a stack of high-capacity portable drives in a locked cage hidden in the basement. My entire life is backed up on those things, including the rough cut, or at least as far as we had gotten on it, of the Well Endowed documentary. If you can get someone past the police and into the house, I can tell them how to find the cage and access the drives.”

As Ralston and Salomon began to sketch out a map of the house and the surrounding property in Coldwater Canyon, Harvath stepped outside to make a phone call.

He needed to bring the Old Man up to speed on what he had learned, but more important, he needed to lay the groundwork for what they had to do next. Reed wasn’t going to like it, but they were going to have to go after Robert Ashford.

A civilian Lockheed L-100 Hercules was waiting for Harvath at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Center, forty-five minutes south of Hank McBride’s home in Hermosa Beach.

Also waiting was a SEAL team contingent who had been choppered up from Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. As Harvath was transferring both Sarhan and Yatsko back to the East Coast, the Old Man wanted to make sure he had all the additional manpower he might need.

The guards at the base gate were expecting Harvath and waved him through. The L-100 was parked on the tarmac outside Hangar Three with its rear cargo ramp down.

Upon seeing Harvath, one of the young SEALs at the base of the ramp shouted into the plane. Moments later, Harvath and his vehicle were guided right up into the belly of the enormous aircraft.

As this was a black flight with no records, the SEALs were dressed in civilian clothes. Only first names were used. Harvath introduced himself as Bob. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. On the contrary, these were his brothers. He knew that it was better for them if they knew zero about him.

Once his vehicle was secured, the cargo ramp was closed and the crew instructed everyone to prepare for takeoff. The men took their seats as the four massive turboprop engines were started.

Slowly, the enormous bird began to roll forward and taxi out to the runway. Harvath was exhausted and allowed himself a few minutes to lean back and close his eyes. This was not going to be a relaxing flight. There were still dots all over Nicholas’s map in Reston representing further terrorist attacks. Back at LAX he had wanted Sarhan to tell him what he knew about that immediate attack. Now, he wanted to know about everything else. He figured the man wasn’t going to be any more cooperative than he had been at LAX.

When the plane leveled out, Harvath opened his eyes and nodded to the SEAL in charge. He in turn signaled his men, who all produced black balaclavas and rolled them down over their faces.

Harvath opened the trunk and three of the SEALs shined bright flashlights into the faces of the two captives. Two other SEALs reached down and yanked out Tariq Sarhan, after which Harvath slammed the lid back down. Yatsko would get his turn, but for the time being, Harvath wanted him as disoriented and as frightened as possible.

A heavy steel cable, complete with a metal hook, had been thrown over one of the cargo area’s upper supports. It ran to a winch covered with chipped yellow paint.

The two SEALs held Sarhan upright under his arms as Harvath removed his knife and cut through the tape and FlexCuffs binding his wrists. The sense of relief the terrorist felt at having his hands cut free was short-lived as one of the other SEALs forced his wrists together in front of his body and resecured them again with tape.