Brad Thor - Takedown

Ali was more than prepared for the assistant’s questions. “At our diplomatic missions abroad, especially when it concerns matters of state security, it is not uncommon for messengers to arrive unannounced. You and I both know this. Now, please stop wasting my time and direct me to the ambassador.”

“Interesting,” continued the assistant, determined to scrape some of the arrogance off this man. “But what is uncommon is for a messenger to show up in the midst of such unfortunate circumstances. I would think it more appropriate to have waited before making yourself known here. This is not a time for the U.S. missions of Arab nations to be holding clandestine meetings.”

Ali nodded his head. “Waiting, of course, would have been a more prudent course, but the information I bring for the ambassador is extremely time sensitive.”

“I’m sorry,” replied the assistant, “but without some idea of what this is in regard to, the ambassador cannot be disturbed. We have been placed on our highest security alert.”

Ali smiled, and this time it was for real. “Tell the ambassador, Tripoli no longer wishes this facility to be used as a hotel.”

“A hotel? What are you talking about?”

Looking at the detail agent, Ali said, “Radio the agent with the ambassador right now and relay my message. Tell him that the Americans and their package are no longer welcome here.”

The security agent looked at the stunned assistant, who, though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, nodded his head and gave his assent.

The agent spoke into a microphone in his sleeve, and once a response came back over his earpiece, he turned and whispered it to the assistant.

Looking at Ali, he reluctantly replied, “The ambassador will see you now. Please follow me.”

Sizing up the two men as they ascended in the elevator, Ali thought about taking them right there but forced himself to wait. His attack was only moments away.

Getting the ambassador’s undivided attention turned out to be the easiest part of the entire plan. Once the man had foolishly dismissed both his assistant and his security team from his private office, Ali stopped answering questions and began asking ones of his own.

Once he had everything he needed, he forced the ambassador to call his assistant back into the office. When the smarmy little man appeared, Ali fought the urge to make his death long and painful and instead broke his neck, delighting in the rather delicate pop as it finally snapped. There was no other sound in the world like it, nor was there any greater feeling of power than to take another’s life with your bare hands.

A little too high from the kill, Ali took a few deep breaths and relaxed. The next several minutes had to be perfectly smooth and without incident. He had come too far to fail now. Only one floor above where they now stood, the ambassador had confirmed that Mohammed bin Mohammed was being held and interrogated. The thought of how the Troll had betrayed him, had betrayed al-Qaeda once again, entered his mind, but he quickly pushed it away. There would be time to deal with him later. Right now, Ali needed to concentrate on the task at hand. There were still the ambassador’s security guards to deal with and then the two Libyan intelligence officers and four Americans guarding Mohammed.

Knowing he was about to be killed, the ambassador made a run for the door and began yelling for his bodyguards.

He had taken less than two strides when Ali felled him with a single silenced round. The damage, though, was already done. The security agents came charging into the room with their weapons drawn and upon seeing the ambassador and his assistant sprawled on the floor, opened fire.

Thankfully, their shots went wide as Ali dove for cover behind the desk.

The security agents managed to get off several more rounds before Ali found his opportunity, rolled from behind the desk, and took out each of them with exceptionally clean head shots.

With the bodyguards down, Ali leapt from behind the desk. He had no idea if the shots had been heard by anyone else, but he didn’t want to wait around to find out. This would be his one and only chance to free Mohammed bin Mohammed, and either he would succeed or they would both die trying.

Ali quickly found the items he needed, and once he had retrieved his diplomatic passport, he wheeled his little surprise toward the freight elevator.

One of the few pieces of useful information he’d been able to squeeze out of the ambassador as the man blubbered for his life was that the Americans had welded their stairwell doors shut and that the only way to gain access to their floor was via the freight elevator. Though they were many things, stupid was not one of them. They had gone to considerable lengths to ensure their security. And who could blame them? The last thing they wanted was for someone like Abdul Ali to spoil their party.

After prepping the door upstairs with the remaining plastique he had hidden inside his specially made belt, Ali returned to the ambassador’s floor and using the man’s keycard, swiped it through the card reader and summoned the elevator.

When the elevator arrived, Ali looked up and saw that the hatch had been welded shut. He smiled. The Americans really had thought of everything. But he doubted they had a contingency plan for what was about to happen next.

Swiping the card again on a reader inside the elevator, Ali punched the button for the next floor, positioned his surprise aboard, and headed for the stairwell. Things were about to get very interesting.

From the streaks of blood on both the floor and along the wall of the elevator, it looked as if the ambassador had stumbled inside after being shot and had managed to swipe his keycard and press the button for their floor before collapsing.

“Don’t touch him!” commanded Jaffe as the two Libyan intelligence agents rushed into the elevator. Until he knew what the hell was going on, he wanted everything taken very slowly.

That plan, though, fell to pieces when the agent they called Hassan leaned down close to the ambassador’s face and could hear the sound of breathing. “He’s alive!” he shouted.

Jaffe gave a rapid series of orders and after sending Harper for the medical kit and telling the two Libyans to back out of the elevator, he stepped inside to have a look for himself.

Shouldering his weapon, Jaffe carefully approached the ambassador to check on his condition. The man was in bad shape, and what Hassan had thought to be the sound of breathing was actually the sound of the ambassador choking on his own blood. If they didn’t do something and fast, the man was going to die.

Calling Rashid, Hassan, and his two other marines back into the elevator, Jaffe placed them along both sides of the ambassador and prepared them to carefully turn the man while he supported his head. On three, they began to roll him over, and that’s when Jaffe realized he hadn’t been cautious enough. The ambassador was indeed choking on his own blood, but he was also desperately trying to warn them not to move him. By the time Jaffe realized what was happening, it was too late.

The improvised device rigged to the ambassador exploded in an enormous fireball, ripping the roof off the car, shearing the cables, and sending it plummeting into the basement.

Upon hearing the explosion, Ali ran back up the stairs and detonated a second device, blowing the welded door right out of its frame.

He stepped into the freight area and saw the blackened elevator doors standing open, but nothing else. It was like an enormous gaping mouth with smoke billowing from its throat.

His weapon up and at the ready, Ali began his search for Mohammed. Moving quickly, he swept into the first three offices along the hall and finding them empty, moved on. In the fourth, he found a television set, a cooking area with a sink as well as a table, chairs, and some couches, but nothing more.