Brad Thor - Foreign Influence

Checking his watch, Carafano addressed the students. “I can see that some of you are moving a bit slower than normal this morning and I’m not going to inquire as to the reason. I think I know why.”

A wave of polite laughter swept the breakfast room. When it died down, he continued. “You’ve got ten minutes to load up on caffeine, aspirin, whatever it is that helps make you human, and then I want to see everyone in the lobby, checked out, with their bags ready to go. Okay?”

Heads nodded and with the scrape of chair legs across the tile floor, the students rose to get more coffee and return to their rooms to finish packing.

Depending on traffic, the professor knew that the drive south from Rome to Pompei would take a little over two and a half hours. Halfway there was a church with amazing mosaics that he wanted them to have plenty of time to study and sketch. After that, they had reservations for lunch at one of his favorite trattorias overlooking the Bay of Naples.

Half an hour later, the tiny hotel lobby was awash in a sea of suitcases and backpacks. As a handful of students made one last dash to the breakfast room for coffee, others helped the program’s bus driver, Angelo, load the bags into the belly of the bright yellow motor coach. In the chaos of everyone checking out, none of them noticed that one of the bags didn’t belong to their group.

After a final head count to make sure everyone was on board, Tony Carafano gave Angelo the okay to depart.

As the Italian maneuvered the coach through Roman traffic, the professor distributed the day’s itinerary. Walking down the aisle, he found his students engaged in their morning ritual of texting friends back home, checking e-mail, and listening to their iPods. Few were bothering to take in their last glimpses of one of the most beautiful and historically significant cities in the world.

With one of Rome ’s most popular landmarks drawing near, Carafano called his students’ attention to it. “If anyone’s interested, we’re about to pass the Colosseum on our left.”

Some of them looked up. Many, though, were too busy. It was a shame that even though they had all seen it before, a thing of such wondrous beauty should go ignored. Especially considering what was about to happen.

As the bus pulled even with the ancient arena, a spotter on a rooftop half a mile away removed a cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number he had been given.

Six seconds later, an enormous explosion rocked the city as the motor coach erupted in a billowing fireball.

FALLUJAH, IRAQ

THE NEXT DAY

As his Russian GAZ sped down the dusty road, Omar-Hakim was fuming. The local Iraqi National Guard commander had been engaged in plenty of blackmail schemes, but always as the perpetrator-never the victim.

Next to him sat the man who had ensnared him and who had broken his hand when he had gone for his gun. He never should have agreed to meet with him. In fact, he should have shot him on sight. But now it was too late. He was trapped and there was nothing he could do.

The man in question was a forty-year-old American who spoke Arabic as well as Omar-Hakim spoke English. He was five-foot-ten with light brown hair, blue eyes, and a well-built physique. A Navy SEAL who had been recruited to the White House to help bolster the Secret Service’s counterterrorism expertise, the man had become a previous president’s favorite weapon in the war on terror. But when that president had left office, the man’s tenure had expired. Now, he was working for a private organization.

His employer was a legend in the intelligence world and had spent the last year polishing and honing the skills of the man who, always deadly serious about his work, now approached his life with a renewed sense of vigor.

He had a sense that somewhere a clock was ticking down. It was due, in part, to a realization that his own time on the playing field was winding down, but there was something more to it. There was a sense of foreboding; a sense that a storm was gathering and picking up strength as it sped toward shore-his shore- America.

There wasn’t a specific act or event he could pin his sense of foreboding on. It was everything; the movements and chatter and unending determination by America ’s enemies to hit again and again and again. He and others like him believed that something else, something different was on the way, and they constantly reminded each other to keep their “powder dry.”

There were only two things any of them could do about it-hunker down and wait for it to happen, or get out there, locate the threat, and take the fight to the enemy head-on. Scot Harvath wasn’t the hunker-down-and-wait-for-it-to-happen type.

Looking at his GPS device, he activated his radio and said, “Two minutes. Stand by.”

“Roger that,” replied a voice from the neighborhood up ahead. “Standing by.” The snipers had been in place for hours. It was now nearing four a.m.

Even though he couldn’t see it, he knew the drone was still above them on station. Via the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, he radioed for a final situation report from the drone pilots back at Creech Air Force base northwest of Las Vegas. “Press box, are we still good to go?”

“That is affirmative,” came the reply. “Tangos one through four are still in place. Thermals show that the heat signatures inside the target have not changed.”

Harvath didn’t bother asking about the hostages. He knew why there were no longer any heat signatures from them.

As they turned the corner, the outline of their target could be seen silhouetted against the night sky. It was time to go to the next phase of their operation. “This is it,” he said over his radio as he set the GPS down on the seat next to him and adjusted his beret. “We’re going to sterile comms,” which meant from this point forward they would communicate only via a series of prearranged clicks.

In the two trucks following his, the rest of the team made ready. After checking their weapons, they straightened the uniforms Omar-Hakim had provided and donned their Iraqi helmets.

Power outages were a common occurrence in Iraq. Per Harvath’s request, the power to this neighborhood had been cut earlier in the evening. The streets were completely dark. At this hour, even families with their own generators were sleeping.

“Remember what we discussed,” Harvath said to Omar-Hakim when the vehicles pulled up in front of the target.

“I remember,” said the man.

Harvath then motioned for him to get out.

In front of them was a house surrounded by a thick mud wall. Its entrance was a set of wide double doors fabricated from sheet metal and scrap wood. A fist-sized hole had been punched through each side. A heavy chain padlocked from the inside kept them securely closed.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard.

Omar-Hakim sucked in his gut and attempted to ignore the throbbing pain from his broken hand. Harvath had warned him to leave it by his side and not draw attention to it.

The commander walked up to the gate and whispering, so as not to awaken anyone, addressed the sentry inside. “Abdullah. Open up.”

“Who is it?” replied a voice in Arabic.

The Iraqi bent his face down to the hole and spoke over the chain. “Commander Hakim, you idiot.”

“What do you want?”

Omar-Hakim came from a large, powerful Fallujah family. He was accustomed to being respected. The insolence of the al-Qaeda sentry grated on him. “Open these doors right now or I’ll tell Assad you’re the one who betrayed him to the Americans.”