CHAPTER 31
Harvath peeled off his soft armor and dropped it to the bathroom floor. Pulling up his T-shirt, he turned and looked into the mirror at the softball-sized bruise growing on his lower back. The ricochet had missed his plate entirely and had slammed right into his soft armor. Though the bullet had been flattened out and its impact had been somewhat blunted from having skipped off the wall, his injury still hurt like hell.
Opening up Gallagher’s med kit, he fished out a one-thousand-milligram horse-pill-sized Motrin, affectionately referred to by SEALs as Vitamin M, and chased it down with a long swig from the can of Red Bull he’d brought into the bathroom with him.
Transporting Khan, from the hospital to the safe house Gallagher had arranged for them, had gone exactly as they had planned. After donning their white doctors’ coats, they wrapped the terrorist’s head with gauze, strapped him to the gurney, threw the blanket over him, and wheeled him right out the front doors to their van. Pamir and Marjan had followed, pushing the hand truck loaded down with all the gear. After helping load Khan and the equipment into the back of the van, they had left the grounds the same way they had come in. The hospital had remained quiet the entire time. Never once did they see another soul.
The safe house was in Kabul’s Shahr-e Naw district—home to many of Afghanistan’s opium kingpins and corrupt politicians. The neighborhood was full of newly constructed mansions, impressive even by American standards. Many of Shahr-e Naw’s dubious landowners had built more than one residence and made sizable, not to mention quasi-legitimate flows of income by renting out their additional homes to Westerners. It was exactly such a property that Gallagher had secured for them.
Taking Khan back to ISS’s Kabul compound was out of the question. Not only was it not set up to hold a prisoner, there were too many people who would ask too many questions. Here, nobody asked any questions and the neighbors kept to themselves. Even better, the cops had been paid off by the opium lords to stay out of the neighborhood and anyone who could afford to live here had private security, which meant it wasn’t unusual to see men with guns coming and going at all hours of the day and night.
Only four people knew about the safe house—Flower, Harvath, Hoyt, and Gallagher. Inspector Rashid had offered to act as an escort on their way back, just in case there were any checkpoints, but Harvath had turned him down. Instead, once they were free of the hospital, he had Flower sit with Rashid and monitor his radio. Flower knew the route Gallagher and Harvath were driving and could warn them in time of any potential problems. As it was, things went off without a hitch.
Harvath and Gallagher stashed Khan in a cleverly constructed panic room the safe house’s owner had constructed in his basement. The room was perfect for holding their prisoner. There was a hole in the floor that functioned as a Turkish-style toilet, there were no windows, and the walls and ceilings were solid concrete. Mustafa Khan could make as much noise as he wanted and no one would ever hear him.
Gathering up his gear, Harvath stepped out of the bathroom and walked down the marble-floored hallway into the living room. Gallagher was sitting on one of the leather sofas with a bottle of Heineken in his hand, watching the large plasma TV. “Want one?” he asked, holding it up.
“Why not?” replied Harvath as he sat down on the couch.
Gallagher walked into the kitchen and returned with another beer for himself and one for Harvath. “How’s your back feeling?” he asked as he handed over one of the bottles.
“I’ll live.”
Gallagher was silent for a moment. “Listen,” he finally said. “About missing my second target—”
Harvath stopped him. “Those XREPs take some getting used to. The important thing is that you popped that last guy before he could get off a second burst.”
Gallagher nodded and after a lengthy sip of beer asked, “So now what?”
It was exactly the question Harvath had been wrestling with. Technically, he shouldn’t have had any misgivings. His assignment was very straightforward—find Mustafa Khan and trade him for Julia Gallo.
For simply agreeing to undertake the operation, Harvath had already been paid five hundred thousand dollars. Bringing Julia back alive would net him another five hundred thousand dollars. He’d be an idiot to screw that up. All he had left to do at this point was to conduct the exchange and the assignment would be over.
The problem, though, was that Harvath had decided not to let Khan go. The man was a terrorist, and that’s exactly what he would go back to being. There was no reforming these a*sholes. You had to either lock them up or kill them. Setting Khan free was an option Harvath was not willing to entertain. Not when it meant more people who didn’t deserve to die would die. There was also the possibility that a man with Khan’s background could be behind the next 9/11 or 7/7 attacks. Knowing he had had him and had released him back into the wild if something like that ever happened was not something Harvath could live with. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized he might not have to.
Looking at Gallagher, he asked, “How long do you think it will be before word gets out that the Afghans have lost Khan?”
Baba G rolled the bottom of his Heineken on the armrest, leaving a chain of wet circles. “I don’t know. This is going to be pretty embarrassing for the government. The Afghan president has made a big deal out of how Afghanistan is a nation of laws and how he intended to see that Khan was put on trial. My guess is that they’re going to keep it secret for as long as they can.”
“How long until the Taliban and al-Qaeda know he’s been snatched?”
“With the moles they’ve got everywhere? I’d say twenty-four to forty-eight hours tops.”
Harvath looked at his watch and calculated the time difference with D.C. He owed Stephanie Gallo an updated report. He also needed her to do something for him.
“Do you think we can get Hoyt and Mark Midland to help babysit?” he asked.
Gallagher nodded. “If the price is right.”
Putting down his beer, Harvath pulled out his cell phone. “Good. Call them and tell them to get over here.” Then he added, “And I need to have a powwow with Fontaine.”
“Fontaine? Why?”
“Because now that the Khan part of the operation is over, he’s going to help us get Julia Gallo back.”