Takedown (25 page)

H
arvath and Hastings exited the Waldorf via the 50th Street stairwell and took off at top speed for Park Avenue. As they neared the corner, they heard what sounded like a car crash, followed by spurts of automatic-weapons fire.

“Bob, what the hell is going on up there?” demanded Harvath over his headset.

“We’ve got ’em. They carjacked a minivan but collided with a cab and it got stuck on the median. They’re headed for St. Bartholomew’s church on the corner. What’s your ETA?”

“We’re thirty seconds out.”

“They’re going through the outdoor café area. Hurry up.”

As they ran, Harvath relayed everything to Tracy. When they arrived at the church, Herrington, Morgan, and Cates were waiting for them.

“What do we have?” asked Harvath.

“I count five tangos,” said Bob. “All in black Nomex with automatic weapons like the ones we found at the Grail facility. The HRT patches are the only way you can tell them apart from the good guys.”

“Do we know where they are inside?”

“Negative. Only that they went in this way.”

Harvath switched over to his police radio to raise Colin McGahan, whom he’d already given a report to as they were on their way down the 50th Street stairwell.

“I read you,” replied the ESU commander. “We heard shots fired. What’s going on? Over.”

“They’ve just entered St. Bartholomew’s, but we’re going to need help with containment. Can you spare anyone to cover the exits? Over.”

“I’ve already sent a couple of guys your way, but that won’t be enough to cover every exit. Over.”

“Tell your men to place themselves so that they can cover more than one door at once—even if it means they have to stand in the middle of the block. And make sure they know that we’re after five tangos dressed exactly like you guys, except with HRT patches on their vests. Over.”

“Roger that,” replied McGahan, who then signed off.

The St. Bart’s outdoor café had been converted into an open-air aid station, with waiters and waitresses providing bottled water and snacks to anyone who needed them. The sound of gunfire followed by heavily armed men running into the church had everyone terrified.

Approaching someone who looked like a manager, Harvath identified himself as DHS and said, “I need a map of the inside of the church with exits, stairwells, and elevators, and I need it right now.”

The manager nodded her head and quickly retrieved a narrow red binder from beneath the hostess stand. She withdrew a piece of paper labeled
Fire Evacuation Plan
and handed it to Harvath.

“Other than your staff, is there anyone inside?”

“No,” she replied, “the church is closed. Only the café is open.”

Harvath thanked her, and after asking her to get everyone off the terrace and as far away from the building as possible, he and the team went inside.

Knowing that the men they were chasing were very fond of booby traps, they made their way very carefully.

St. Bartholomew’s was a Romanesque church based upon the Cathedral of St. Marco in Venice and had been built in a traditional crucifix pattern with the altar at the top, facing east. It was an incredible structure, and on any other day this would have made for a perfect place to while away several hours, but they weren’t here to sightsee. They were here to take down a team of highly efficient killers.

Having been one step behind for so long, it was tough for Harvath to now place his mind one step ahead. He knew very little about his enemy, but he did know they were disciplined, well armed, and obviously very well trained. They were Chechen soldiers, some of whom probably had even been Russian Spetsnaz at some point. While they didn’t shy from conflict, they did seem to avoid it whenever possible, as they had in the Waldorf. Harvath knew this meant that they would probably be looking for an exit on the north side of the church, away from their pursuers.

Looking at the floor plan he’d been given by the manager of the café, Harvath figured the exits that made the most sense were the emergency ones on the northernmost side of the sanctuary. Falling into their conga line, they raced forward toward the doors that led into the main church structure. No sooner had they opened them than they were greeted with a searing wave of deafening weapons fire.

J
esus Christ,” said Morgan as they retreated back into the hallway and he looked up at the pockmarked wall just above their heads. “Flechettes.”

The word was French for tiny arrows, and that’s exactly how they had gotten their name. They were fin-stabilized steel projectiles that looked just like little arrows, which could be fired from a twelve-gauge shotgun, significantly increasing the weapon’s lethality.

Herrington looked at the wall and said, “Even so, watch your language in here.”

Cates asked, “Am I the only one who finds it ironic that we’re in a Christian church duking it out with Muslim terrorists?”

“So far they’re the only ones doing the duking,” replied Harvath. “Now here’s the plan. Bob, Tracy, and I are going in on my command. Cates and Morgan, you’re going to provide cover fire. Everybody ready?”

The team nodded its assent, Harvath readied his weapon and said,
“Now!”

Rick Cates kicked open what was left of the door leading into the sanctuary, and he and Morgan laid down a vicious curtain of cover fire.

Crouching low and moving as fast as they could, Harvath, Herrington, and Hastings raced for the nearest row of pews. They went as far as they could until the men at the end of the church began returning fire, and then they hit the deck.

Harvath pulled the fire evacuation map from his vest and tried to get a fix on where their opponents were. As best he could tell, they were within spitting distance of an exit at the north end of the transept.
But why weren’t they using it?

Grabbing his police radio, Harvath tried to raise McGahan. With the roar of the gunfire filling the cavernous church, it took a moment before he could hear anything over the radio. Finally, he could make out McGahan’s voice. “Are your men in place yet?”

“Affirmative,” replied McGahan. “I’ve got one on Fifty-first who almost got his ass shot off, but he just pushed the targets back inside.”

That explained it.
And it also gave Harvath an idea.

If he could get McGahan’s men on the north and south ends of the transept, they could execute a classic pincer movement. Confident for the first time that they might have the terrorists all but in the bag, he radioed his plans to McGahan and then used his Motorola to radio Cates and fill him in.

Crouching near Herrington and Hastings, Harvath prepped them on the plan. As they nodded their heads, he then radioed McGahan and told him to get ready.

Harvath glanced at his Suunto, counted down thirty seconds, and then over both radios gave the command,
“Go, go, go!”

Right on cue, Cates and Morgan laid down as much cover fire as they could muster. As they did, the terrorists returned fire and retreated into the back of the nave. Harvath didn’t need to look at his evacuation plan to know they had them trapped. There was no way out.

R
eloading, Abdul Ali looked toward Sacha and commanded, “Find us a way out of here. Now!”

It had been the Chechen’s idea to flee into the church, where he had legitimately expected little to no resistance. But what the enormous warrior had not planned on was for the men chasing him to be reinforced so quickly—at least not in such a manner as to hinder their escape. They needed to put a lot of distance between themselves and their pursuers as quickly as possible.

While he was incredibly adept at thinking on his feet, the Chechen disliked being put on the defensive and being forced to react. A hasty retreat was hard to turn to one’s advantage, especially when you had no idea where the hell you were going. The most deadly mistakes in combat often came from operating too quickly and without enough information. In this case, though, Sacha had little choice.

Near the altar, he found the door to the sacristy and ruptured it from its hinges with a kick from one of his enormous boots. Signaling to the rest of the team, he took up position in the door frame and tried to pin down their opponents as one by one his men ran past him. As the last man came through, he took a grenade from him, pulled the pin, and threw it toward the center of the church.

When the device detonated, showering St. Bartholomew’s with its deadly shrapnel, Sacha and his men were already running through the sacristy and into a narrow service corridor. The Chechen knew that, if not already, the church would soon be surrounded and that heading back out could be suicide. They needed another route, and as his eyes fell upon a small steam radiator along one side of the corridor, Allah blessed him with an idea.

Once Sacha located the correct door, he opened it, careful not to leave any signs of entry, and sent Ali and the rest of the team down the stairs. Before he could join them, though, he needed a diversion—something that would send the men chasing them in a completely different direction. Moments later he found it.

Sacha didn’t bother opening the glass case. Instead he smashed it with the butt of his weapon and tore the ax from its mounting bracket. With one swing he was through the window, and with two more he had torn away the security wire. He then threw the ax out the window into the narrow, ground-level courtyard and ran back toward the stairwell. With any luck, he and the rest of his team would be long gone before their pursuers had any idea what had really happened.

T
he first thing Harvath heard when the ringing in his ears subsided was Paul Morgan cursing at the top of his lungs. As Bullet Bob had done to Cates earlier, Scot was about to admonish the man for spewing obscenities in a church, until he saw the reason why—Morgan had been hit.

The team ran to where he lay, blood oozing from several wounds to his chest. Along with Cates, he had advanced up the south wall of the sanctuary, but unlike his partner, he had failed to drop fast enough when the huge Chechen pitched his grenade into the center of the church.

In a flash, Harvath had undone Morgan’s vest, drawn the Benchmade knife from his pocket, and sliced through the marine’s bloody shirt. As Harvath looked at the wounds, he asked, “Can you breathe?”

Coughing, Morgan replied, “It feels like somebody whacked me in the chest with a bat.”

“But can you breathe?” repeated Harvath.

Morgan coughed again and said, “Yeah, I can breathe, but it hurts like hell.”

“Why didn’t you duck, dumb-ass?” demanded Cates.

“I had that fucker in my sights. There was no way I was going to let him go.”

“So much for discretion being the better part of valor.”

“Discretion is for pussies. When you go back there, you’re going to find that clown on the ground.”

“Fifty bucks says you missed him,” responded Cates.

Morgan coughed out a laugh as he tried to stand up. “You’re on. Let’s go.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Harvath as the marine winced and fell back down. “You need medical attention. These wounds are pretty bad.”

“You want the coppers to get all the credit for collaring these guys?”

Harvath ignored him and quickly fished through the pockets of his vest for some gauze and a QuickClot pouch. Tearing it open, he pressed the rapid coagulation sponges against the worst of the wounds and then had Herrington lean him forward so that they could wrap his chest with gauze. The pain from the piece of Lexan that had been lodged in Harvath’s shoulder grew so intense as he did this that he had to back off.

“Are you okay?” asked Bob.

“Fine,” replied Harvath as he sucked it up and went back to rapidly dressing Morgan’s injury.

Once the gauze had been wrapped tight, Harvath leaned him up against the wall and crossed his arms, encouraging him to continue applying pressure.

“That’s it?” asked Hastings. “That’s all you’re going to do for him?”

“It’s all we can do,” Harvath responded as he radioed McGahan, told him they had a man down, and gave him Morgan’s position.

The marine looked up at him and forcing a smile, coughed, “Let’s hope this is the worst thing that happens.”

Standing up, Harvath turned to the others and said, “Let’s go.”

With Harvath at the lead, the team raced toward the nave while McGahan’s ESU officers from the north and south ends of the transept were already well ahead of them.

When they exited the sacristy and charged into the service corridor they saw the two cops standing in a pile of glass on either side of a broken window.

Using hand signals, one of the officers indicated for Harvath and his team to hold up, because the terrorists they were chasing had gone out the window.

Harvath didn’t like it. It was too dangerous. As they went through that window, the terrorists could pick them off one by one. They needed a better plan.

Harvath hugged the wall and began creeping forward. He wanted to tell the ESU guys to back off, when he heard something pop beneath his boot and Bob Herrington grabbed his arm.

Raising his leg, Harvath looked down at what he’d stepped on—a tiny piece of glass. Herrington didn’t need to say a word. Harvath knew what it meant. Whoever had broken that window had come back down the hallway in their direction. Maybe his urban tracking skills weren’t as bad as he thought.

And maybe they had just caught a significant break.

T
he floor of St. Bart’s service corridor was covered in linoleum tiles. Not the most inspired decorating choice, but as far as Harvath was concerned, they were absolutely beautiful. Whoever had broken the glass fire cabinet and the window had managed to get another small piece of glass wedged in the sole of his boot.

Studying the floor, Herrington and Harvath soon discovered the true route by which the terrorists had exited the corridor.

Once Tracy gave them the thumbs-up indicating that the door wasn’t rigged, they slowly made their way down the stairs, keeping their eyes open for booby traps the entire time.

Despite Harvath’s discovery, McGahan’s two ESU officers opted to tackle the window. They were going with their guts and Harvath couldn’t blame them, though his gut told him it was a dead end. The real trail was the one he and his team were following right now down an old metal staircase.

As they descended, the brick walls on either side grew slick with moisture. The air was dank and moldy. A series of bare lightbulbs lit their way down until finally, at the bottom, they encountered a large iron door marked
Utility Tunnel Access. Keep Out. Authorized Personnel Only.

Cates, who was bringing up the rear, smiled and raising his weapon, said, “I brought my authorization.”

“Shut up, Rick,” replied Tracy. She didn’t like what she was seeing. The fact that the door had been left ajar put her on edge. It was almost too inviting.

Harvath, though, doubted that it was rigged. Whoever had gone through the trouble of breaking the window upstairs hadn’t expected to be followed—at least not right away.

Once Tracy finished checking the door over and gave the okay, the team filed though.

Rusting pipes of varying sizes lined the fetid walls, while water dripping from the ceiling created a patchwork of stagnant puddles along the floor. Even their breathing seemed to send echoes bouncing off in all directions, and as they made their way forward, Harvath, Hastings, Cates, and Herrington took great pains not to make any unnecessary noise.

The tunnel curved to the right and then intersected with another. The light wasn’t very good;even so, when Harvath looked into the new tunnel, he could see movement way down at the other end.

Holding his hand up in a fist, he froze his team in place. Tunnels were very bad places to get into gunfights. The walls had a very nasty habit of funneling rounds right at you. Turning, he used hand signals to let the others know what he was looking at.

Herrington queried him on range and Harvath relayed what he thought the distance was.

Raising one of the M16 Vipers they’d taken from the Geneva Diamond location, Bob indicated what he wanted to do. Nodding his assent, Harvath peered back around the corner just in time to see the terrorists disappear from view.