Foreign Influence (48 page)

“Office is empty. We’re on our way,” said Cooper over the radio.

“Hurry up,” ordered Casey.

Harvath noticed movement in the hallway and let loose another burst from his MP7. When he realized what had happened, he barely had time
to yell, “Flash bang!” as a concussion grenade was banked off the wall at them.

It went off immediately in a blinding flash of white light with a thunderous boom that overpressured the basement. Harvath had barely shut his eyes and his mouth was only partway open when it happened; not enough to fully mitigate the effects. He had no idea if the rest of his team had heard his warning or not.

His vision blurred from the flash, he thought he could see two forms coming right at him. He raised his weapon to fire, but someone beat him to it. There were two loud
booms
and both figures dropped to the ground. He didn’t know who had fired and how he could have heard it over the ringing in his ears, as everyone on his team was using suppressed weapons. Then he realized the shots hadn’t come from his team. They’d come from someone else; someone at the other end of the hallway.

CHAPTER 71
 

Drop your weapon!” Harvath yelled. “Drop it now!”

Abdul Rashid straightened his trigger finger and allowed the pistol to roll upside down and hang from it.

Harvath repeated the command in Arabic.

“I’m going to bend down and set it on the ground,” Rashid replied in English.

“Slowly,” said Harvath, his vision and hearing coming back. “Very, very slowly.”

“I’m setting it down.”

Once the weapon was on the ground, Harvath said, “Back up five steps and kiss the ground.”

Rashid did as he was told, and while Rhodes helped tend to Ericsson, Harvath and the rest of the team cautiously advanced.

Harvath kept his weapon trained on Rashid while Casey and Cooper cleared the two rooms on either side of the hallway. Once they were done, he checked the two men Rashid had shot. They were both dead.

“Where’s Jarrah?”

“There’s another room at the far end of the basement. He’s barricaded in there.”

“How many other people in the building?” demanded Harvath.

“There’s nobody else. This is it. Listen, you can’t shoot him. I need Jarrah alive.”

Harvath looked at Casey and Cooper. “Go get him.” Looking down at Rashid, he removed a pair of EZ Cuffs and said, “Put your hands behind your back.”

“My name’s Sean Chase. I’m with the CIA. Ground Branch.”

“Shut up and put your hands behind your back,” Harvath repeated.

Before Chase could respond, Alex Cooper yelled, “Gun!” and all eyes turned to the end of the hallway where Marwan Jarrah had just stepped from around the corner with an AK47 and begun firing.

CHAPTER 72
 

Marwan Jarrah never had a chance. As the bullets popped and zinged all around her, Alex Cooper stood her ground and returned fire.

Though she wanted to kill him on the spot by putting two rounds right into his head, she focused on his chest and didn’t lay off of her trigger until he laid off of his.

The Iraqi fell back against the wall and left a trail of blood as he slid down into a sitting position. His AK clattered to the ground next to him and Cooper kicked it away.

Chase tried to get up, but Harvath kept his knee in his back as he zipped his cuffs.

“I don’t know who the hell you are,” shouted Chase, “but if he dies, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

Harvath stood up, yanked Chase to his feet, and handed him to Casey. “Let him ask any questions he wants, but watch him.” Harvath then took Cooper to clear the rest of the basement.

“You lied to me,” murmured Jarrah as Chase kneeled next to him.

“Tell me how I can reach Aleem,” he said, knowing full well it was pointless. Marwan wasn’t going to give him up.

The Iraqi laughed and then produced a wet cough as he spat up blood.
“I treated you like a son.” His eyelids were drooping and his breath was coming in sharp gasps.

He whispered something further but Chase couldn’t hear it and so leaned in closer. “What did you say?”

“I have something to tell you,” the Iraqi rasped, before his body was racked once more with bloody coughs.

“What is it?”

“I have a secret.”

Chase was inches away from his face. “What is it, Marwan? Tell me.”

As his final breath escaped his body, Jarrah looked at his beloved protégé and said, “I lied to you too.”

After clearing the basement, Harvath came back to interrogate the man claiming to be from the CIA.

“Listen, there’s going to be an attack downtown in two hours.”

“Let’s start with who the hell you are,” said Harvath.

“I told you, my name is Sean Chase. Call Langley and ask to be connected to Kip Houghton. He’s my handler.”

Harvath nodded at Cooper, who removed her cell phone and headed for the stairs.

“Jarrah’s got eight suicide bombers,” continued Chase, “but you don’t need to worry about them. What you need to be worried about—”

“Wait a second,” interrupted Harvath. “Why shouldn’t we be worried about eight suicide bombers?”

“Because their vests don’t work. I made sure.”

Casey looked at him. “How?”

“The circuit’s not complete. The detonators can’t get any electricity.”

“Just like the vests in Nasiri’s apartment.”

“Where are the bombers now?” asked Harvath.

“That’s not important,” replied Chase. “Jarrah has three two-man teams of Mumbai-style shooters that are going to hit a bunch of hotels unless we stop them. We need to get going.”

“Until we get confirmation on who you are, you’re not going anywhere. Why was there a camera in Nasiri’s apartment?”

“So I could have an excuse to get away from Jarrah. I wanted him to think I was going to detonate the vests on the hostages myself. If I could get away from him, then I could try to stop the shooters.”

“Why not call the cops? Why go to all this trouble?”

“Because this isn’t the end of it. There’s somebody else above Jarrah, a man named Aleem.”

“Aazim Aleem?” Harvath replied.

“That’s him. The guy with the hooks. Jarrah told me that he has networks in at least two other cities. Supposedly, he’s already left for Los Angeles and I was supposed to coordinate an attack in New York. But—” Rashid’s voice trailed off.

“
But
what?”

“I think he was lying to me.”

“About what?” asked Harvath. “The location of the attacks or the fact that you were supposed to coordinate the one in New York?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted Jarrah
alive.
He was the only one who knew how to get to Aleem.”

Harvath pressed him with more questions. “Why’d you torture those cops?”

“You’re wasting time,” said Chase.

“Answer me.”

“For fuck’s sake. I’m the only reason they’re still alive. Jarrah wanted to kill them.”

“But you shot one of them.”

“It was clean. Through and through. If I’d wanted to kill him, trust me, he’d be dead.”

Harvath was about to ask another question when Cooper hailed him over the radio and told him someone at Langley wanted to talk to him.

CHAPTER 73
 

After Harvath had spoken to Kip Houghton, he hung up and called Reed Carlton, who contacted Bruce Selleck, director of the National Clandestine Service at CIA. Once they had both vouched for Chase and his deep-cover operation, Harvath had been instructed to remove his restraints and allow him to come along.

Chase was part of a small contingent of faux John Walker Lindhs whom the Agency had recruited from various walks of life, trained, and then set adrift in a handful of madrassas across the Islamic world hoping that they might get picked up by al-Qaeda. Several of them had, but no one had gotten as far as Sean Chase.

Trained to operate completely on his own, Chase went for long stretches without contact. The assignment and his cover always came first. His handler was used to the irregularity with which he reported in. But as well as the operation had worked, everyone was now extremely concerned that maybe they had let this go too far and that more innocent people were going to die.

Over two hours had passed and Harvath was developing a very bad feeling as Casey’s voice came over his earpiece. “Negative,” she replied to his request for a sitrep. “There’s no sign of any of them. We’re still all clear at the InterContinental.”

Across the street at the Marriott hotel, Harvath looked at Chase. “According to your timetable, they should have been here by now.”

“I don’t know where the hell they are.”

“You’re positive these were the hotels?”

“Yes,” replied the CIA operative, who was equally frustrated.

“I’m getting ready to pack it in,” said Harvath.

“I know. They should have been here by now. Give it a few more minutes. They’ll come.”

“I don’t think so.”

If the truth be told, Chase didn’t know what to think either.
But why would Marwan have brought him here?
What was the point?

The last words the man uttered to him were that he had lied.
Was this what he had lied about?
It didn’t make any sense. Marwan had six shooters. Minus the two Chase had shot in the basement of the store, there were four left, two of whom had been wounded by Levy’s shotgun blast. Where were they? If the hotels weren’t their target, what was?

All of a sudden, it hit him. “The train station! That’s the target.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know him. He wanted this to be a dramatic attack. That’s why all the bombers were supposed to detonate in the Loop, the city’s central business district. Look at this lobby. It’s half-empty. Where are you going to get the highest body count first thing in the morning? You go to where the commuters are.”

“I hope to God you’re right,” said Harvath as he radioed the other team members.

“So do I,” Chase replied under his breath.

Based on the CIA operative’s guarantee that the suicide bombers wouldn’t be able to detonate, they had decided to bring the Chicago Police Department into the plan. Plainclothes officers had been positioned where the bombers were supposed to appear and tactical teams were placed at the hotels.

With the morning rush in full swing, the streets were jammed with traffic. Even with lights and sirens, they’d never make it on time—unless they could avoid the traffic altogether.

Harvath radioed Casey and told her where to meet them. Next, he radioed the Chicago Police and then he and Chase exited the hotel and took off running faster than either of them had ever run before.

It was three long, hard blocks to the river. When they arrived, Casey and a Chicago Police boat were waiting for them. Harvath and Chase leapt in and the officer behind the wheel spun the craft into the river and put the throttle all the way down.

Casey yelled over the engine noise. “We’ve got good news and bad news. What do you want first?”

Harvath’s lungs were on fire and he could barely breathe, much less speak. He held up two fingers.

“The bad news,” yelled Casey as she pointed at a map, “is that there are basically five downtown commuter Metra stations and because of traffic, the tac teams can only get to two of them. It’ll take them at least fifteen minutes to get to the others.”