Brad Thor - Takedown

“Geneva Diamond was the next step up. That’s where most of the data coming in is sifted.”

“Sifted how?” asked Lawlor.

“Don’t say anything more, Bill,” cautioned Stanton. “I’m warning you. You’re already in way over your head.”

Forrester disregarded the admonition and plowed ahead, “Whatever intelligence is deemed political in nature goes to a facility hidden beneath the Lincoln Tunnel known as the Strong Box. The location had been conceived during the Cold War as a means to evacuate high-ranking allied-nation UN personnel from the city via submarine in the case of a nuclear attack, but the project was eventually deemed unfeasible and abandoned. The NSA quietly took over the space and used it as a signals intercept and deciphering station. A stairwell is hidden in the south airshaft and allows access to the facility via a bogus storeroom at the New York Waterway bus garage. Like Geneva Diamond, with the high value of the work that goes on there and the fact that the employees are predominantly analysts, my marines provide round-the-clock security.

“As for the personal intelligence side of things, which is often significantly more damning, it goes to a rather ingenious location very near-”

“I warned you,” said Stanton as he drew an extremely compact.45-caliber Para-Ordnance P-104 pistol from his suit pocket, pointed it at Forrester’s head, and pulled the trigger.

Gary Lawlor didn’t wait for Stanton to point the pistol at him. Instead, he bolted for the door.

Stanton fired, just missing Lawlor’s head and splintering the doorframe. The man was insane. First he killed an officer of the United States Marine Corps, and now he was trying to take out a Homeland Security agent. Gary didn’t have to think about what to do next. His reaction was instinctual. It was either him or Stanton.

Belying his age yet again, Lawlor dove for cover behind a long, wooden credenza in the outer office and drew his Beretta Px4 Storm. There was a wheeled desk chair next to the credenza, and he sent it spinning into the center of the room to draw Stanton ’s fire. As tufts of batting wafted up into the air, Lawlor came around the credenza on one knee and sent a wave of.40-caliber lead right where the NSA man had just been firing from. The problem, though, was that Stanton knew what he was doing and quickly moved to a new location. He wasn’t going to be easy to kill.

“Mr. Stanton,” yelled Lawlor after he had ducked back behind the safety of the credenza. “I’m only going to give you one chance. I want you to throw your gun and then come out with your hands above your head. Do you understand me?”

“The security of those installations was Forrester’s responsibility,” replied Stanton.

It was a very out-of-place response, considering the situation. “Mr. Stanton,” said Lawlor. “Throw out your weapon, come out with your hands up, and we’ll talk about it.”

From the other room, Stanton laughed. “Sure we will.”

“These terms at not negotiable, Mr. Stanton.”

“He shouldn’t have been talking. I don’t care what good he thought he was doing his marines. He knew better than that.”

“Mr. Stanton, I am ordering you to come out of that room with your hands up, right now,” replied Lawlor.

“One of the most beneficial intelligence-gathering programs this country has ever developed and that idiot is ready to let it all out of the bag to save his precious marines. Marines die. That’s their job.”

As Stanton continued ranting, Lawlor crept from around the credenza and tried to maneuver himself for a better line of fire.

“Forrester put his needs and the needs of his marines above the people of this country,” yelled Stanton. “Do you have any idea how many lives have been spared because of this program? It might not be the prettiest way to do business but it’s goddamn effective.”

Lawlor now had a clean line of sight into the inner office. By the sound of Stanton’s voice, he was somewhere over to the right. If he had to, Lawlor was fairly confident he could take him out by firing through the drywall, but now that the playing field was a little more level, he wanted to take the man alive, if at all possible. “Your time’s up, Mr. Stanton. No more talking. I want you to slide your weapon out the door and then follow with your hands clasped on top of your head.”

Once again Stanton laughed. “That’s not going to happen, Agent Lawlor, and you know it. Only one of us is going to walk out of this building today. The question is, which one?”

Gary didn’t bother responding. Like he had said, they were done talking. If Mr. Stanton thought only one of them was leaving the building alive, he was in for a very big surprise.

A company called Guardian Protective Devices of New Jersey had approached the Department of Homeland Security a while back with a very interesting pepper spray device. Very intelligently, DHS had snapped up as many as they could get their hands on, as did many other branches of the military, intelligence, and law enforcement communities. As Lawlor removed the small three-ounce can from the tiny holster on his belt, he was grateful for the ingenious “set it and forget it” feature it contained.

Unlike most pepper sprays that required a button to be continually depressed or a trigger to be pulled to dispense its contents, the Guardian device had a mechanism that allowed the canister to be primed and thrown into a room where seconds later a fog of pepper spray would pour out, making the space completely uninhabitable.

Lawlor triggered the device, pitched it inside the inner office, and with his Beretta up and at the ready, waited for the NSA operative to stumble out hacking and choking.

When he did, Stanton came out with his gun blazing, shooting in all directions, and Gary had no other choice but to return fire.

NEW YORK CITY

You couldn’t have just winged him?” asked Harvath.

“I had no time. His bullets were way too close for comfort,” replied Lawlor from his cell phone back in DC. “Whatever was going on, he and Forrester took it to their graves together. Everyone at the NSA is being incredibly tight-lipped, including my contacts, and despite the urgency of this situation, all they’ve said is that they’ll get back to me. They’re not even prepared to admit that Stanton was one of theirs.”

This was exactly the kind of bureaucratic bullshit that was encouraging Harvath to seriously consider resigning his position. “So they don’t care if their next location gets hit?” he asked.

“They won’t even admit there is a fourth location, much less a first, a second, or a third.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“You’ve got all the information I was able to get before Stanton killed Forrester. I think you should make your way to the third location as quickly as possible and see if you can find out anything there.”

“And if we don’t?” asked Harvath.

Listen,” replied Lawlor. “This has been a hard day for everybody. Just see what you can do. I’ll keep working things from this side.”

“Fine, but Gary?”

“What?”

“If Stanton thought this program was worth killing to protect, and his people know you’ve uncovered it, you’d better watch your back.”

“I will. Don’t worry,” replied Lawlor. “Just get to that Strong Box location and let me know what you find.”

When they found the bodies of the slain employees in the back of the New York Waterway bus garage, Harvath knew they were already too late. Nevertheless, Bob Herrington led the way down the hidden stairwell-the more senseless destruction he saw, the more the demons from his last mission in Afghanistan seemed to haunt him. He insisted on being on point, and out of all the members on the team, he was starting to concern Harvath the most.