Brad Thor - Path Of The Assassin

“Being the boss of your own town in the middle of the desert must carry with it a certain amount of political weight too.”

“The CIA predicts that the towns will develop into their own little fiefdoms. In the long run, they might turn out to be more of a headache for Gadhafi than he ever imagined.”

“For now, at least one of those towns looks like it’s going to be a headache for us. What’s the plan?”

Morrell gathered up all but the most relevant Ubari Sand Sea oasis satellite photos and placed them back in the envelope. “The name of Nidal’s town is the Hijrah Oasis. Hijrah is an Arabic term that refers to-”

“The Prophet Muhammad’s journey from Mecca to Medina. It means ‘to leave a place of persecution in search of sanctuary or religious freedom.’”

“Then you also should know that the term can mean ‘leaving a bad way of life for a better or more righteous way,’ which is how we think it is being applied in this case. Nidal has brought in a very radical fundamentalist cleric to run the mosque. Either Gadhafi doesn’t know about it, or doesn’t care, but it’s another reason we think this whole thing is going to come back to bite him in the ass eventually.”

“As far as I’m concerned, Gadhafi can go screw himself. I’m in this for Nidal.”

“As are we,” replied Morrell, who used a wax pencil to circle a building on one of the photos. “But we also want his training camp taken out.”

“Are you sure that’s it?”

“No, and that’s another one of our problems. We haven’t had enough time to do extended reconnaissance. We’re going to need to get in there and recon it ourselves. The last thing we want to do is take out a hospital or an orphanage or something. Gadhafi would have a field day with that one and milk the worldwide PR for all it was worth. We need to be able to pinpoint where the training is happening and, if possible, what they’re training for.”

“Sounds like a pretty tall order to me.”

“Tall order or not, that’s our mission.”

“It seems the parameters of this operation are being stretched a bit.”

“Harvath, like I’ve told you before, if you don’t like it, you’re free to leave at any time. As a matter of fact, there’s an exit right there,” said Morrell as he tipped his wax pencil in the direction of the forward cabin door.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Ricky. Besides, I want to see Nidal taken out just as badly as you do. Let’s get down to brass tacks. I’ve got three questions. How do we get in? How do we do it? How do we get out?”

“Our infiltration is still in flux.”

“What do you mean in flux?”

“Originally, we thought we’d go in via Algeria’s border with Libya, but Gadhafi’s all of a sudden doing military exercises in that area.”

“Do you think there’s a connection?”

“No. He does these border defense drills all the time. This is just bad timing. We’re still working on it. If the Algerian angle falls through, I’ve got a backup.”

“Such as?”

“We’ve still got several hours until we get there,” said Morrell. “Let’s see what shakes out between now and then.”

“What about taking out Nidal?”

“It’s by the book, just like we trained. Meg Cassidy will ID him, and the snipers will earn their checks. Simple as that.”

Harvath wished things were that simple in the real world. He could see from Morrell’s face that he was worried too, but Harvath let it slide for now. There was no sense putting any more stress on Morrell than was obviously already there. Instead, Harvath asked for an answer to his third question. “And how do we get out?”

“If we’re able to insert via helicopter from Algeria, that’s the same way we’ll do the extraction.”

“And if not?”

“We’ve got a contingent of FAVs at an airbase in Sicily. I’ve already dispatched several of my men to load them onto a C-130 and drop them into the Ubari Sand Sea, not far from the Hijrah Oasis.”

Harvath had worked with FAVs, or more appropriately, Fast Attack Vehicles, before. They looked like dune buggies on steroids and were awesome pieces of machinery. The knobby-tired, 2100-pound FAVs could reach speeds in excess of eighty miles per hour cross-country and could clear sand berms over six feet high. They came complete with a fifty-caliber machine gun and forty-millimeter grenade launcher forward, as well as a 7.62 machine gun to cover the rear. Strapped to the roof rack of each FAV was an antitank-and-antiaircraft missile. Though the vehicles were made to carry only three people, two extra passengers could be transported in the wire-mesh equipment baskets welded to each side of the vehicle. All in all, the FAV was an extremely efficient way to get around and extremely deadly for any opponents.

“It seems like you’ve thought of everything,” said Harvath in an attempt to be reassuring.

“You and I both know you can never think of everything,” said Morrell with a wry smile.

Harvath smiled back. It was a rare moment of camaraderie between the two men. “What’s the timetable on this? Are we going to be able to go through some run-throughs in country before the actual assault?”

“Negative. The meeting’s set for tomorrow night.”

Harvath couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Tomorrow night? What time?”

“About eleven P.M. local time.”

“That’s nuts. We’d have to get in place tonight.”

“I know.”

“Jesus, any other surprises?”

“I hope not. Listen. I want to ask you a favor.”

“What?”

“I want you to keep Meg Cassidy as calm as possible until we go in. I’d rather not discuss the operational details with her just yet, especially as we haven’t been able to nail everything down.”

“As long as you don’t ask her to fast-rope out of one of the helicopters, I think she’ll be fine. She’s not too fond of heights.”

“So I’ve heard. Just try and keep her calm up there, and keep her mind off of things for the time being. Okay?”

“Fine by me. Is there a movie on this flight?”

“No, and no prime rib either. I stocked the plane myself, so I know. You’ve got your choice in the galley of MREs or we loaded a couple of pizzas on board.”

“I think I’ll go with the pizza,” said Harvath as he stood up. “Did you bring any beer?”

“Beer? What are you, crazy? I wouldn’t bring beer on a mission.”

Harvath shrugged his shoulders as if to say, It never hurts to ask, and made his way back up to the front of the plane to see if Meg was hungry for pizza.

When he returned from the galley with two hot slices for each of them, he noticed that Morrell had joined his nine man team in the back of the plane for a discussion. He knew Rick was holding back something about the execution of the mission. He didn’t know what it was, but something was off. Harvath tried to push it out of his mind as he settled in for lunch and the long ride ahead.

Two-and-a-half hours out from Libyan airspace, the Gulfstream jet began to descend and Rick Morrell called another meeting. An hour earlier he had given Harvath, Meg, and the rest of the SAS team a full mission briefing. Morrell covered everything from the encrypted radio frequencies they would use, to GPS coordinates, land contour formations, code names, and the contents of their weapons packages. The two items he had left out were the methods of infiltration and extraction. As the team members gathered in the rear of the aircraft this time, it looked as if Morrell was ready to complete the picture.

“According to our intelligence, it doesn’t look like the Libyan military exercises along the Algerian border are going to be letting up anytime soon. I had hoped to insert via helicopter from Algeria, but that’s no longer an option,” said Morrell.