Brad Thor - Takedown

After chatting with him for only a few seconds, two things became apparent. Kevin had some pretty good news. He also had some pretty bad news.

Harvath listened as McCauliff gave him the good news first. The NGA analyst had been able to hack the server containing the tracking data for the terrorist’s cell phone that Harvath had “borrowed” from the NYPD’s evidence bag. It was one of over forty-seven different phones operating off the same account. It and one other had continued to broadcast a signal after the bridges and tunnels had been blown. That “other” phone was recognized by the server as the lead wireless reception device. McCauliff explained that all of the units had been programmed to text message positioning data to the lead phone at regular intervals. Now it was time for the bad news.

Wherever that lead phone was, it was now no longer transmitting a signal. McCauliff had no way to tell Harvath its current location, only where it had been-an address on the Upper West Side and another in the diamond district on West 47th Street.

Even though the lead phone appeared to have been disabled, McCauliff strongly suggested that Harvath make sure that the positioning software on the one he was now carrying was turned off. Harvath told him he’d already done so back at the police station and, as he grabbed a pen and paper, asked McCauliff to repeat the addresses the lead phone had been at one more time.

When Harvath asked if there was any satellite imagery available for those locations, McCauliff told him that was also part of the bad news and that Harvath would understand what he meant once he saw it. All Kevin needed was an e-mail address. Harvath saw the cable modem next to the PC on Paul Morgan’s desk, crossed his fingers he’d be able to get online, and gave McCauliff one of the Hotmail accounts he used when he didn’t want to run things through the DHS servers.

Five minutes later, Harvath downloaded the first in a series of e-mails and saw exactly what McCauliff meant about the satellite imagery also being part of the “bad” news. The smoke from all of the fires made it very difficult to make anything out. Three e-mails later, he waved Herrington over and said, “Do you see what I see here?”

Bob stared at the screen and slowly scrolled through the images from the building on West 84th Street. When he was finished, he backed up and did it again, then repeated the process several more times. He wanted to be as sure as possible before rendering any kind of opinion. Finally he said, “The image quality absolutely sucks, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say that those are pictures of two vehicles carrying two breaching teams of anywhere from four to seven men each.”

“That’s what I think too,” replied Harvath as he clicked on the imagery of the diamond district address. “How about here?”

“These pictures are even worse than the others,” said Bob. “Those could be our two vehicles, or they could be completely different ones. With all the haze and interference from the smoke, you can’t tell for sure.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

“Hoo-ah,” shouted Cates, mocking Morgan, but doing it with the Army yell. “Let’s go get those fuckers.”

Hastings paid no attention to Cates. Looking at all the gear, she said, “Don’t you think we’re going to draw a lot of attention running around Manhattan with all of this stuff?”

“Good point,” replied Herrington as he looked at Morgan.

The marine crossed the room and pulled several backpacks from his hall closet. “A buddy of mine is a rep for CamelBak. These are their new scabbard bags. You can throw a rifle or a shotgun into the scabbard in the center and then pack the rest of your gear in the compartments around it.”

Harvath studied the cleverly designed bags and remarked, “It’s still going to look like we’re packing some serious firepower.”

Morgan pulled three rain covers from behind his snowshoes. “We’ll use these for the Remington, the Troy CQB, and the Mossberg. Nobody will have any idea what we’re carrying.”

For someone who had his hair parted seriously enough by a bullet to be medically discharged from the Marines, so far he seemed to have his act together. This guy didn’t miss a trick. “Okay,” remarked Scot. “I guess now all we have to do is figure out how the hell we’re going to get where we’re going.”

Looking out one of the windows and down the street of the lower-floor apartment, Rick Cates replied, “I’ve got an idea, but I’ve also got a feeling nobody’s going to like it.”

Eyeing the collection of dirt bikes outside Cox Cycle Shop, Harvath cautioned Cates not to let things devolve into a That’s my chopper Charlie, this is my gun Clyde kind of situation.

As they stood on the sidewalk watching the Army Civil Affairs specialist spin his story to the cross-armed, heavily tattooed staff of the motorcycle custom shop, Harvath, Herrington, Hastings, and Morgan tried to come up with a Plan B.

They agreed that the fastest way to the diamond district from Gramercy Park was to try to go straight up Fifth Avenue, but it was reserved for emergency vehicles only, and most of the cops they’d been seeing weren’t particularly helpful. Unless you were driving an official vehicle, they weren’t letting anyone through, not even a car full of surgeons they’d seen who needed to get to an uptown hospital as quickly as possible. Harvath was wondering if maybe they would be better off heading north on foot, retrieving his vehicle and using its lights-and-siren package to try to barrel through the rest of the distance, when Cates was shoved backward onto the pavement by one of the tattooed bikers.

Immediately, Harvath and the rest of his group stepped forward, but Cates held up his hand and waved them back. Showing extreme patience and control, he got up off the ground, dusted himself off, and reengaged the man who had just shoved him.

Harvath and the others watched as Cates went toe-to-toe with the 250-pound biker and their exchange got progressively more heated.

Moments later, the biker grabbed Cates by the throat and swung his other arm around in an attempt to hit him in the side of the head. Cates parried the blow and brought his free hand crashing into the man’s jaw. Before the tattooed giant could respond, Cates whipped his head forward and shattered the cartilage in the man’s nose with a vicious head butt.

The bike store manager rammed his knee into Cates’s abdomen, but the Special Forces reservist quickly returned the assault by kicking the big man in the groin, causing his knees to buckle and for him to fall to the pavement in pain.

“If you guys would like to help,” yelled Cates over his shoulder as the rest of the biker staff in the shop began grabbing wrenches, pipes, and assorted bludgeons, “now would probably be a good time.”

Harvath and company drew their weapons and rushed forward. Upon seeing the display of firepower, the biker shop staff laid down their arms and retreated into the back of the garage.

Cates kicked his assailant in the gut and walked inside, located the keys for the motorcycles they wanted, and then hit the button to lower the garage-style door. Once it was down, he jammed a screwdriver into the holes where the padlock normally went, pulled two sets of Flexicuffs from Paul Morgan’s pack, and secured the front door.

“What did I tell you about not turning this situation into a confrontation?” demanded Harvath as they climbed onto the motorcycles.

“I couldn’t help it,” replied Cates as he fired his up. “Did you see that guy’s tats?”

“He’s got a million of them-so what?”

“You obviously missed the one on his left arm,” said Cates as he pulled forward onto the sidewalk. “He had a picture of Uncle Sam with a black eye and underneath it the letters F-T-A.”