Brad Thor - Path Of The Assassin

Harvath indicated that they would stay where they were and wait. With two short abrupt movements, he again pointed at his eyes and then at the tent. Meg got the picture, but she didn’t like it. She again shook her head No. Harvath didn’t care what she thought and he firmly pointed to the ground at their feet. He was lowering from his crouched position to his knees and preparing to lay in behind a clump of tall oasis grass when Meg took off. It was the last thing Harvath had expected.

He engaged his throat mike and whispered, “Meg! Damnit! Get back here. You’re going to get killed!”

Meg either didn’t hear or didn’t want to hear, because she kept moving at a running crouch closer toward the tent. Harvath had no choice but to go after her.

“What the fuck is going on down there?” rasped Morrell over his earpiece, but Harvath didn’t pay any attention. His only thoughts were on stopping Meg before she went too far.

She was no match for him, especially in the soft sand. She had swung out toward a pile of discarded crates when Harvath caught her around the waist and tackled her to the ground.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” snarled Harvath as he rolled her over to stare her in the face.

“With me?” whispered Meg. “What’s the matter with you? I told you I couldn’t see anything from where we were. I had to get closer.”

“And I told you no.”

“We’re here now, so let’s make the best of it.”

“No way. We’re getting out of here.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” said Meg as she rolled over and prepared to get back up.

“The hell I am. We’ve got absolutely no sniper support here.”

“We don’t need it. We’re safe here. If we can get over behind those crates, I can get a good view of Nidal when he leaves the tent. Then the sniper team can take him out. Nobody will be looking for us over there. Once the shooting starts, we’ll sneak back out and around the oasis.”

“That plan is almost as bad as coming down here in the first place.”

“But it will work.”

“It might work,” said Harvath.

“It will,” replied Meg. “Trust me.”

“Trust you? Taking off like you did, you just lost my trust. From now on, you do exactly what I say. You understand me?”

“Does that mean we’re staying?”

“Are you going to do what I say?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’re staying.”

Meg thanked Harvath, but he ignored her as he quietly radioed to Morrell their new intent. Morrell didn’t like the fact that Harvath and Meg were where the rest of the team couldn’t see them, but he agreed with their plan nonetheless.

Harvath signaled to Meg to remain completely quiet as they silently crawled forward toward the stack of discarded crates. Halfway there, first one, then several figures began to emerge from the tent. Harvath didn’t need to tell Meg what to do. She froze, then slowly brought the night scope up to her eyes. The men had exited the tent between gusts of wind and, believing that the sandstorm had passed, did not bother covering their faces.

“The party is breaking up,” said Harvath quietly into his throat mike to the rest of the team.

“Copy that. Awaiting your ID,” responded one of the sniper teams.

Harvath crawled over so that he could lie right next to Meg. He was angry that they hadn’t been able to make it to the cover of the crates before the men began exiting the tent. “How’s the view?” he whispered into Meg’s ear.

Meg rocked her outstretched hand from side to side as if to say, So, so, and then pointed her thumb straight down. Her voice barely a whisper, she leaned toward Harvath and said, “I’m getting backs of heads and the occasional profile. This is no good. We’ve got to get behind those crates.”

Harvath didn’t like it. It was too risky. Though they were halfway there already, it still seemed a long way off. What’s more, they’d be that much further away from the oasis and the fire support the sniper teams could lend them if they were seen. But, Harvath knew they had no choice. Scot tapped Meg on the shoulder and indicated for her to quickly follow him, which she did.

Men were now filing out of the tent at a steady clip, and the eyes of the armed guards were busy surveying the entire area. With the night scope again pressed tight against her face, Meg peered out from behind the crates and focused on a tall man in a striped robe as he exited the tent and looked around. When the man unknowingly glanced in their direction, Meg could see his eyes. It was him! Hashim Nidal. As Meg was about to engage her throat mike and call in the target, she was struck hard with the butt of an assault rifle against the back of her head and everything went black.

When Harvath awoke with a throbbing headache, the first thing he noticed was the stifling heat. It made him feel as if he were in an oven. There was no telling how long he had been out, or where he was. He assumed that he was somewhere within the oasis town. The tiny room was completely black. The floor he was lying on was hard-packed sand and reaching out either arm he could touch the walls, which were some sort of stone. He did a quick inventory and wasn’t surprised that all of his weapons had been taken away, as well as his Rolex.

Something with way too many legs crawled across his thigh and he quickly brushed it off. He jumped up and, guessing at where the creature was, raised his foot to smash it. He brought his boot down and heard the satisfying squish of a direct hit.

Despite the good-night kiss he’d been given by one of Nidal’s men, physically, he was doing okay. He wished he could be sure of the same for Meg. There was no telling what they were doing to her. A woman like Meg was quite a trophy. Being captured as an enemy would all but guarantee the unthinkable.

Harvath stood for hours, leaning against the wall of his cell. He could hear the sound of gunfire and occasional explosions. Men shouted to each other in Arabic. He listened hard, but the voices were too muffled for him to discern exactly what was being said. At times, it was completely quiet and Harvath figured the men had either stopped for prayers, or had gone off somewhere to eat. Finally, from the other side of the rough wooden door securing his cell, there came the sound of metal scraping upon metal. The heavy bolt was drawn back, and the door was slowly opened.

The late afternoon sunlight exploded into the dark cell and burned so bright that Harvath had to shut his eyes. Several heavily armed men grabbed his arms, shackled his hands in front, and roughly shoved him outside.

Harvath had to hold up his hands to shield his eyes, but soon the sun dimmed, and he could see he was in a large shaded courtyard. When he looked up, he saw that he was not in a courtyard as much as a canyon the length of at least two football fields. An opaque woven fabric, the color of the surrounding steep rock walls, was stretched far overhead from end to end. That explains why this place has never shown up on any satellite photos, thought Harvath to himself.

The canyon floor was broken up into different training areas. There were firing ranges, makeshift shoot houses, the charred hulks of numerous types of automobiles, various ambush and attack scenarios…You name it and Hashim Nidal had it. It made the monkey-bar footage from Osama bin Laden’s training camps look like child’s play in comparison. This setup was extremely sophisticated, and though Harvath had no idea where he was, it was obvious he wasn’t in the oasis town anymore.

At the end of the canyon was an enormous stone edifice carved directly into the wall of rock. It reminded Harvath of Petra, the two thousand-year-old rock carved city in Jordan. The carvings were incredibly intricate, and the façade looked like the entrance of an enormous palace.