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In the ensuing pandemonium at the front of the café, Harvath and Claudia hustled Rayburn through an emergency exit near the kitchen. Outside, two of Schroeder’s men were waiting, and Rayburn was quickly flexicuffed, blindfolded, and stuffed into the back of a waiting car.

They drove him to Sion International and the small hangar on the far side of the military base that they were using as their command center. An office in the back of the structure had been set up as a holding cell and makeshift interrogation room. The first person Rayburn saw as they removed his blindfold and his vision came back into focus was the last person he had ever expected to see again. “Scot Harvath,” said Rayburn as he looked around the room and tried to get his bearings. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Harvath didn’t even bother with a response. Instead, he cocked his fist and punched Rayburn right in the mouth.

It was a good punch, and the older man saw stars for several moments. After spitting the blood from his mouth onto the concrete floor, he looked up at Harvath and said, “I guess I deserved that.”

“You deserve a hell of lot more,” replied Scot. “That was just for starters.”

“Hardly a fair fight,” stated Rayburn as he struggled against the flexicuffs binding him to the chair.

“Since when were you ever interested in a fair fight? Besides, this isn’t a fight, it’s a beating and one for which you are long overdue,” said Harvath as he drew back his fist and hit the man again, this time in the stomach.

Outside the room, Jillian, Claudia, and Horst Schroeder listened as Harvath worked over his prisoner. He had to administer his blows very carefully. The first punch to the mouth was the only one he could allow himself to the man’s face. He’d been dreaming about that shot for years, but going forward he would have to keep himself under control. If he marked Rayburn up too much, the man would be of no use to them.

Spitting another mouthful of blood onto the floor, Rayburn looked up at Harvath and said, “If you’re going to kill me, why not just get it over with?”

“Always looking for the easy way out, aren’t you?” replied Scot as he hit the man again, this time in the solar plexus, knocking the wind from him.

As Rayburn struggled to regain his breath, Harvath began asking questions. “Where’s Emir Tokay?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rayburn, doubled over and gasping for air.

Harvath waited until the man’s breath had returned and then grabbed his chin with his hand and jerked his head upward so he could look into his face and ask the question again. “Where’s Emir Tokay?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” repeated Rayburn.

The man was lying, and Harvath knew it. It was written all over his face, which Scot now let go of and then slowly walked to the other side of the room. “I know you’re lying to me, Tim. I can see it in your face.”

“What do you see? A facial expression that lasted for only a fraction of a second and gave away my guilt? That’s a bunch of Secret Service bullshit.”

“Bullshit or not, I’ve also seen footage of Tokay’s kidnapping in Bangladesh. You should have been wearing a mask, or at the very least have chosen a better spot to pick him up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There was a new security camera on the bank across the street. When your goons opened the back door of the car door to stuff Tokay inside, the camera captured a perfect picture of you sitting on the back seat.”

Rayburn was silent.

“No snappy comeback?” asked Harvath.

“That was never my area of expertise, “He said finally. “You were always the wiseass.”

“It’s a little late to be flattering me, don’t you think?”

“See, you can’t help yourself, you never could. That’s your problem. You say whatever pops into your head and you allow yourself to blindly follow the flag. I’ve never seen anybody gobble up the duty, honor, and country bullshit the way you do.”

“That goes to show that I found something in the job other than just a paycheck. If you’re trying to insult me, you’ll have to try a lot harder than that. I’m proud of my service to my country.”

Rayburn spat out another gob of blood and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” said Harvath.

“You. You’re a fucking recruiter’s wet dream. Truth, justice, and the American way. You’ve been fed it so long, you don’t know what anything else tastes like. Step away from the red, white, and blue party line and you’ve got no idea who the fuck you are.”

“And you do?”

“You’re goddamn right I do. You and I are exactly alike.”

Harvath crossed back over to Rayburn’s chair and was about to crack him right in the jaw, but held himself back. “You and I are nothing alike.”

“The hell we aren’t, ”the man responded. “You’ve spent your entire career in both the SEALs and the Secret Service on the razor’s edge of being discharged. You’re a smart guy, but nobody ever seems to appreciate how smart, especially when you decide to six-gun things on your own.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You forget I was one of your instructors. I read your Navy jacket from cover to cover, and I watched the way you operated right up until I left the Secret Service. You may be skilled, but you never belonged with either organization. You’re too smart for them and it drives you crazy being told to sit on your ass when you know how things should be done. Welcome to life working for the government. Your superiors may have called you reckless, but that isn’t it. There’s a borderline brilliance to the way you operate, but none of them will ever see it. It’s only a matter of time before you do something that leaves them with absolutely no choice but to turn you loose-the same way they turned me loose-and then you’ll see that you and I are exactly the same. We’re defined by what we do. And trust me, once you make peace with that, you’ll be a much happier person.”

“What are you, a fucking psychologist now? You got drummed out of the Secret Service for helping assassinate a foreign dignitary.”

“Really?” replied Rayburn. “Then how come I’m not locked up in some prison somewhere?”

“You really believe your own bullshit, don’t you? The reason you’re not locked up in some prison somewhere is because you hid the evidence so deep, nobody was able to ever find it.”

“I’m surprised at you, Scot. Of all people, I would have thought that you would have been willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“Why? Because we had a few beers together back in Beltsville? Because we had been partners once? Fuck you. I’m tired of listening to your bullshit,” said Harvath as he wrapped his hand around Rayburn’s throat. “I’m going to ask you one more time, and I warn you, the more you lie to me, the harder I’m going to squeeze. Where’s Emir Tokay?”

SWITZERLAND

Rayburn might have been a tough nut to crack, but there was something about Harvath choking off the oxygen to his brain that caused him to be extremely forthcoming. He admitted that not only was he in the employ of the Aga Khan, but in fact he was the man’s head of security. When it came to Emir Tokay’s kidnapping, Rayburn also came clean. He confessed that he had been involved and that he had orchestrated the kidnapping under direct orders from the Aga Khan himself. Emir Tokay was still alive, and Rayburn drew a detailed schematic of where in Château Aiglemont he was being held.

Other than that, Harvath didn’t get much more out of him. Either Timothy Rayburn was the world’s greatest liar, or he really was limited in his knowledge of the Aga Khan’s involvement with the Islamic Institute of Science and Technology and Hannibal ’s mystery weapon. Rayburn acknowledged that, per his boss’s orders, he had organized Donald Ellyson’s archeological expedition in the Alps and was its paymaster, but had no idea what the man was looking for. He claimed that until Marie Lavoine had contacted him over a year later, he had no idea that her husband, along with Maurice and Dr. Ellyson, had disappeared.

No matter how many times Harvath tried to trip him up, he couldn’t. There wasn’t a single crack in any of Rayburn’s stories. Yes, he had kidnapped Tokay, but he had no idea what the Aga Khan wanted with him. Yes, he knew the Aga Khan was involved with the Islamic Institute for Science and Technology, but he had no idea to what extent. As Rayburn so eloquently put it, all of those raghead groups were the same as far as he was concerned. His employer seemed to enjoy having an ex-Secret Service officer as his head of security. It made him feel safer. That said, Rayburn claimed the Aga Khan didn’t completely trust anyone, even his head of security. Half the time, Rayburn said his boss seemed to take a perverse pleasure in treating him like a mushroom, i.e., keeping him in the dark and feeding him shit.

Two hours later, it was Harvath who finally cracked. He was exhausted and it was obvious that they weren’t going to get anything further out of Rayburn. What they needed to focus on now was recovering Emir Tokay and, if possible, getting their hands on the Aga Khan and doing whatever was necessary to make him talk.

Though Rayburn requested some water and an opportunity to use the facilities, Harvath turned out the lights and left him tied to his chair while he went in search of someplace to get a little rest. In just under five hours, the team would have their final briefing before lifting off for Château Aiglemont.

An hour before takeoff, Harvath and Schroeder went through the assault plan for the final time. There was no telling how reliable Rayburn’s information was and so they tried to rely on it as little as possible. With their very own Ferdinando Soleti in hand, Schroeder was convinced that their odds were better than fifty-fifty. Harvath wished he shared the man’s confidence.

The biggest tactical decision facing Harvath soon became whether to bring Jillian along with them. When confronted with the decision head-on, she offered the same rationale for coming that she had in Milan -if there were documents at Aiglemont pertaining to the illness, she was the only one who was qualified to ascertain which ones were the most important. If the team encountered a time crunch and was only capable of grabbing a portion of papers, without her there to help, it would be like playing pin the tail on the donkey. In short, they couldn’t go without her.

Jillian was right, but Harvath still gave her one last chance to back out. Even though they were hoping to get in and out without a shot being fired, people might still very easily get killed on this assignment. And one of those people could be Jillian Alcott herself. Apprised of all the risks, her decision didn’t waver. She was in.

Harvath didn’t trust Rayburn any farther than he could punt him and at the very last minute developed a crude piece of insurance to guarantee he wouldn’t give them any trouble. Using his knowledge of improvised explosive devices, Harvath cobbled together a little something special with the Stern team’s demolition expert for Rayburn to wear underneath his boxer shorts.

Duct tape was used to hold the bomb in place, and seeing how uncomfortable Rayburn was, Harvath said, “It’s kind of like a cheap hotel, isn’t it? No ball room. “Then, holding up the remote detonator so Rayburn could see it, he added, “I’m going to be three steps behind you at all times, and if I even so much as think you’re tipping our hand to your men, I’m going to turn that strip of Alpine meadow up there into a real ballpark, if you know what I mean.”

Rayburn didn’t say a word; he just glared at Harvath.

Twenty minutes later, dressed in black Nomex fatigues identical to the ones being worn by Aiglemont’s security team, Harvath gave the Stern commandos and glider pilots a final briefing before they all walked out onto the tarmac.

The new Aerotechnik Super Vivat Icarus motorgliders had an enormous wingspan and looked like a typical side-by-side pilot/passenger configuration sailplane that had been crossed with a small Cessna single-prop aircraft. Designed to carry a pilot and three passengers, their maximum crew weight was listed by the manufacturer at 721 pounds. They needed to carry more. Stripping the motorgliders down to the bare essentials, the team was able to get four people plus a pilot in each one.

Harvath and Schroeder would take Rayburn and an additional commando in the first Super Vivat Icarus, followed by Claudia, Jillian, and two more commandos in the second, and the final two motor-gliders would contain four commandos each. With such a short landing strip, it was important that each glider land, unload its passengers, and take off again in time for the next glider behind it to come in and touch down. It was going to be a delicate dance and one that they all wished they could have had time to rehearse.

The aircraft were given the call signs Silo One, Two, Three, and Four based on the order in which they would be landing at Aiglemont. While Silos One through Three would be immediately taking off after dropping their passengers, Silo Four would be required to stay on the ground in case the team needed to evacuate Emir Tokay in a hurry. Like the other pilots, Silo Four’s captain was a Swiss fighter pilot and had readily accepted his assignment, knowing that if things got bad, he would essentially be a sitting duck. Harvath, though, did his best to assure the man that he was going to see to it that things didn’t get too ugly too early.

The eight remaining commandos on the Stern team would be responsible for subduing the police at the base of the funicular in Le Râleur and joining the party once their colleagues had secured the railway’s upper housing.

After moving the Super Vivat Icarus craft out onto the runway, their pilots conducted the final preflight checks. Inside the hangar, the commandos did a final check of their own, going over their weapons and communications equipment and stuffing their pockets and pouches with as much extra ammunition as they could carry. When all of the motorgliders had been loaded and the first one was cleared for takeoff, the remaining commandos climbed into their two rental cars and headed out for Le Râleur.

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Brian Turner looked over both shoulders to make sure he was alone and then sat down at the terminal and logged in. He’d always marveled at how the CIA was more concerned with a hack from the outside than they were with an interior breach of security.

Turner had been fascinated with encryption technology since he was seven years old. While the NSA had heavily recruited him years ago during his senior year at Cal Poly, it was the snap and panache of the CIA that had ultimately won him over. But life at Langley, especially post-9/11, had failed to live up to his expectations. It was nothing like he had seen in the movies, and with all the bullshit rules he and his colleagues were expected to play by, he considered it only a matter of time until America was struck again by another devastating terrorist attack.

That was probably what had attracted him most to Helen Carmichael. That and the fact that after the Senate Intelligence Committee had toured the new counterterrorism center, or CTC as it was more affectionately known at the CIA, one of her aides had contacted him asking if he would be interested in participating in an above-top-secret focus group. Turner had jumped at the chance and was invited to dinner with the Pennsylvania senator.

It was soon obvious that Helen Carmichael had no intention of conducting any hush-hush focus group, but rather wanted to develop her own personal relationship with him. The first night Turner ever met with her one on one, she took him to one of the biggest power restaurants in DC, Smith amp; Wollensky, where they dined on thick steaks and discovered their mutual love of dirty martinis. Later, in the back of the limo the senator had rented for the evening, he discovered that she gave the world’s best blowjob.

The blowjob was followed by a night of incredible sex at his apartment-sex he never would have thought the senator from Pennsylvania capable of. Helen Remington Carmichael was a hot ticket, and as far as Brain Turner was concerned; her husband was missing out on a first-class freak. The things she did and said when they were together would succeed in getting even the most straight-laced accountant fired from a one-man office.

He was sick of life at the CIA and saw the senator as his ticket out. As the senator’s national security advisor, he would hold enormous responsibility when she came into the vice presidency and then, with enough patience, would hold the utmost power when she eventually became president. The petty thefts and incursions he performed on her behalf now were nothing. In fact, Turner saw them as serving the CIA its own just deserts for not better protecting itself from hackers based inside CIA headquarters.

Snarfing a handful of French fries he had purchased at the CIA’s all-night cafeteria, he launched his newest, untraceable, personal-best blind mouse program and awaited its results.

Twelve minutes later, Turner practically choked on his Mrs. Fields cookie when his flat-screen burst to life with a file containing the names, dates, payments, and details concerning United States president Jack Rutledge and his own personal covert action team.