Brad Thor - Foreign Influence

Shortly before eleven p.m., there was activity in the alley as a truck pulled up to the loading dock. A Pakistani-looking driver backed it in and one of the store’s large, overhead doors was raised.

Casey looked at Harvath. “Seems pretty late for a delivery.”

“Or a pickup,” he replied as he watched three medium-sized crates being wheeled on dollies into the truck.

“Those are the two goons I met earlier,” said Cooper over the encrypted radio as the men, dressed in matching delivery uniforms, placed the crates in the back of the truck and then were joined by the plain-clothes driver. “And that’s the man who tried to take my phone,” she said as a fourth man appeared. He was wearing a matching uniform.

Harvath and Casey watched from their vantage point in the KIA as the other team members held their positions.

The young man stepped out onto the loading dock and took a slow look around. Satisfied, he pulled down the truck’s rear door, enclosing the two goons and the Pakistani man with the crates inside.

He said something over his shoulder and the furniture store’s overhead door was closed. He then hopped off the loading dock, got inside the truck, and started it up.

“What the hell are they up to?” said Ericsson. “Do we follow them?”

As the truck’s engine rumbled to life and it began to pull away from the loading dock, Harvath had a decision to make.

“No, you stay here,” he replied. “We’ll go.”

Putting the KIA in gear, Harvath pulled out into traffic and kept as much distance as he could between themselves and the truck. As he drove, Casey reached into the backseat and flipped up the lid of one of the Storm cases. Removing a 4.6 mm Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun, she affixed its rectangular, Gem-Tech “Brick” suppressor, inserted a fresh magazine, and chambered a round. “Something tells me this is going to be a very long night.”

Marwan didn’t need to tell him to drive carefully, but he did anyway. With two cops and a private eye boxed up in back, Rashid wasn’t exactly anxious to get pulled over.

Traffic was light and the drive up to Nasiri’s apartment took half an hour. The truck was large and difficult to maneuver, but he nevertheless conducted several SDRs to make sure he wasn’t being followed.

In the alley behind Mohammed’s building, he stopped and walked around to the back of the truck. The exterior stairwell was just as Nasiri had described. It was going to be a bitch carrying the three crates up to the apartment, but without an elevator, they had no other choice.

Rashid and Nasiri assisted, but Marwan’s goons did the bulk of the work. They were sweating and cursing quietly even before they got halfway up with the second crate. This was probably not how they had envisioned spending their final night alive. And that went for Nasiri as well. They all knew what tomorrow would bring and they probably wished to already have ritually bathed and shaved themselves for their journey to Paradise.

Rashid had wondered if Aleem would lead the Shahid in prayers, but Marwan explained that the man had already left the city. It was important that he see to what was coming next. As usual, what that was, Marwan wasn’t disposed to say.

When they got the third and final crate into the apartment, they closed the door and Rashid made sure the drapes were drawn as tight as possible. The odor in the kitchen was terrible. There was a plate of rotting food on the table, which Nasiri picked up and tossed into the garbage. He then pulled out some glasses and put on a pot of water for tea.

Rashid closed the blinds in the living room while the goons caught their breath and then set to work opening up the crates. The plan had worked perfectly. They hadn’t seen any neighbors and even if one or two had been watching, it would have looked as if Mohammed Nasiri had purchased a three-piece bedroom set, as that’s what was spray-painted on the side of the crates, and was having it delivered. Sure it was late at night, but with America’s 24/7 culture, most of his immigrant neighbors wouldn’t know to think anything of it.

Rashid arranged three chairs in the living room, just as he had diagrammed it for Marwan. They then tightly duct-taped the two cops and their detective colleague to them. The detective, whom he had shot at the mosque, had begun bleeding again.

Rashid checked their vests and dismissed the goons to join Nasiri in the kitchen for tea. He was almost finished.

After powering up the cell phone detonators, he adjusted their clothing to cover up the vests and then hid the camera ball between a couple of Nasiri’s books in the corner of the room.

Satisfied that everything was exactly how he wanted it, Rashid joined the men for a fast cup of tea. Marwan would want them back as quickly as possible.

They gathered up the crating material and Rashid made sure to wipe down everything he touched so as not to leave any fingerprints. The other men didn’t have to worry. Very soon, they wouldn’t even have fingers.

As Nasiri and the goons threw the garbage in the back of the truck and climbed in, Rashid pulled down the door and checked his watch. It was after midnight. Wednesday had passed into Thursday. The day of the attack had come and now it was only hours away.

Rashid climbed back into truck and started it up. As he drove off down the alley, he had no idea that Harvath and Casey had been watching him the entire time.

As the truck exited the alley and disappeared from view, Harvath motioned to Casey and they stepped away from the Dumpster they’d been hiding behind.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Harvath looked up at the apartment. All of the lights had been turned out and the curtains were still drawn. “I think that they’ve got something very bad in those crates.”

“That’s what I’m thinking too. Whatever they’re planning, it’s big and they’ve got a lot of it.”

“Let’s go take a look.”

She put her hand on Harvath’s shoulder and said, “Wait a second. Shouldn’t we be sure there’s nobody else up there?”

“Trust me,” he replied. “There’s nobody else up there.”

“How do you know?”

Harvath started down the alley. “Because if they had more men, they would have gotten those crates up into the apartment a lot faster.”

Despite his confidence that the apartment was empty, Casey noticed that Harvath was still very careful about how he moved. He avoided motion lights and stayed close to large objects that could function as cover and concealment.

It had been hot and humid ever since they had landed in Chicago. There wasn’t any breeze and the alley was thick with the odor of overripe garbage. Casey was sweating. Her shirt clung to her back as she followed him.

Their target was a four-story brick building with a wooden set of fire stairs behind it. A section of chain-link fencing with a broken gate separated the property from the alley.

They walked down the narrow gangway and were about to mount the stairs when Cooper’s voice came over their earpieces. “Two new trucks just pulled up to the loading dock.”

“What are they doing?” Harvath whispered.

“Bunch of Middle Eastern guys have come out of the store and are now loading cardboard boxes.”

That place was like a clown car. Just when you thought it was empty, more of them crawled out, Harvath thought.