Brad Thor - Takedown

After listening to the reports, Herrington shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that somebody was skimming the cream. That school standoff in the Bronx has got to be one hell of an assault to get that many ESU squads there.”

“Just like Beslan,” said Harvath.

“For all we know,” Bob continued, “more squads are already en route. Then there’s the airport. They’ve got that place so gridded out they know every rooftop, draw, and grassy knoll within a two-mile radius that could accommodate a shooter. Anyone able to get inside that perimeter and stir up this kind of trouble has got to be a pro.”

“Or this all might be just one really shitty day in New York.”

“I don’t know.”

“C’mon, Bob. Why would somebody want to tie up all those tactical teams?”

At that moment, the TV station cut back to footage of the raging fire at the mayor’s Emergency Operations Command Center beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and Herrington replied, “Maybe for the same reason somebody would want to take out the city’s backup command-and-control facility.”

“You don’t seriously think this is part of some larger attack, do you?” asked Harvath.

“Who knows? But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be sitting in a bar in the middle of Times Square if it happens.”

Despite both the air-conditioning and the antiperspirant his handler had insisted he wear, Nassir Hamal’s purple Polo shirt clung to his sweat-covered body. All of the martyrs had been offered drugs-Valium, to be specific-in order to help them remain calm when the time came. The mullah from the mosque in New Jersey who had counseled them had assured them that taking the drugs would in no way jeopardize their entry into paradise. Though several of the others accepted the offer and tested the pills in advance to gauge their effects, Nassir had refused. He was confident that when the time came, he would meet his end with a heart made strong by his love of Islam. But now, as Nassir sat in the interminable traffic along 64th Street with nothing but his thoughts and a broken FM radio to keep him company, he wasn’t so sure.

Looking at the cell phone on the seat beside him, he considered calling his handler, but then decided against it. They had stayed up all night together praying, reading verses from the Koran and talking about paradise as the others slept. His handler had become almost like an older brother to him, confiding in the younger man that the Prophet Mohammed himself, may peace be upon Him, had visited the handler in his sleep and had instructed him that Nassir be given one of the most important and most difficult of the assignments. It was an honor that Nassir accepted with the utmost sincerity and obligation to duty.

Though he had not been allowed to say a proper good-bye to his mother and sister, both of whom had immigrated to the United States with him ten years prior, he hoped they would understand. He also hoped they would appreciate the annuity his handler had said each of the families of the martyrs would be receiving. Islam took care of its own-an attribute Nassir saw sorely lacking in the culture of the West.

Regardless of how his family felt, in his heart Nassir knew he was doing the right thing. When he had been approached in his mosque on the north side of Chicago and asked if he wanted to study with a very wise and learned Imam visiting the city, Nassir had jumped at the chance. Disenchanted with a failed business, a failed marriage, and what he saw as his downtrodden American existence, he had looked everywhere until he found the one thing that filled the emptiness inside him-Islam.

In time, he had thrown out his record collection, had stopped smoking, and was chastising his younger sister on a daily basis about the evils of dancing, the type of friends she associated herself with, and the revealing American clothes she wore. One day, she finally worked up the nerve to suggest that if he didn’t like America and its ways, then maybe he should go back to their home country. Nassir had seriously considered it, had even saved for a plane ticket and made arrangements to stay with extended family once he got back, but then the Imam had come into his life. After they had gotten to know each other he had suggested another idea-one that would require him to place the greater glory of Allah above his own self-pity and self-serving desires.

As the traffic started moving again, Nassir swung the counterfeit FedEx van onto Third Avenue and headed south. A few blocks later, he saw his target. Without even thinking, he began reciting the special verses from the Koran that all of his fellow martyrs had been given to provide strength and courage for the moments ahead-the last moments any of them would ever know.

It was 4:30 now and out on the street, most people were oblivious to anything but getting started with their holiday weekend. As he and Herrington walked away from Times Square, Harvath tried to make sense of what they were doing. A healthy bit of paranoia was a prerequisite in their business, but at what point did it become too much? The rational side of Harvath’s brain said leaving a perfectly well-stocked bar and an above-average looking bartender was that point, but his gut said Bob might be right on the money.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Pointing south down Broadway, Bob said, “ Times Square has gotta be pretty high on the terrorist hit parade. I know a good restaurant not far from the VA. Let’s go there.”

“TheVA?You’ve spent enough time there as it is. Don’t you get sick of being anywhere near there?”

“You’d be surprised. It’s not your grandfather’s VA anymore, Scot. They’ve come a long way.”

“Sterilize the instruments and everything now, do they?”

“Even better, if they amputate a limb, you get two bullets instead of one to bite on.”

At least Bob hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “What about my truck?” asked Harvath.

Seeing a cab that had just dropped off its fare, Herrington made a beeline for it and said, “Leave it. We’ll come back and pick it up later.”

As they drove, Harvath looked out the window at the hordes of people crowding the sidewalks, and his mind wandered back to the news reports they’d been watching in the Pig amp; Whistle. Taken as isolated incidents, the events unfolding just outside Manhattan were indeed serious, though nothing to panic about. But when you lumped them together as a whole, they were just too coincidental-and coincidences were something neither Scot Harvath nor Bob Herrington believed in. In fact, no one in their line of work did. They had been taught to always try to connect the dots and look for a bigger picture.

Even though he was supposed to be on vacation relaxing, Harvath couldn’t stop thinking about what Bob had said and so repeated his earlier question. “Let’s say you’re right about what’s going on across the river. Why do you think someone would want to tie up all of those tactical teams?”

“I can think of about a million answers,” replied Bob as he eyeballed a graffiti-covered truck idling outside a nearby bank, “and none of them have a happy ending.”

“But if you break this down into its simplest parts, the reason you’d want to tie up tactical teams is to prevent them from interfering with your objective or your egress, right?”

As their cab sped up, Bob’s eyes moved to a group of taxi drivers who had double-parked near a falafel stand and were chatting animatedly to one another. “So?”

“So if you were a suicide bomber or were going to fly a plane into a building, you wouldn’t care about tactical teams. By the time they knew what you were doing, theoretically it would be too late.”