The walls were lined with empty metal shelves. In the back sat an empty soda cooler alongside an old freezer chest covered with ice cream advertisements. The cracked linoleum floor had been designed to look like alternating tiles of blue and white marble.
The temperature inside wasn’t much better than out. An air-conditioning unit above the door in back sounded like it was ready to die. The place smelled like milk that had gone bad months ago.
What few electronics the store offered were laid out in a long glass display case up front. A lean, bearded man in his thirties sat behind it. He wore a green polo shirt and dirty jeans and was doing something on a computer.
He should have been surprised, or at the very least intrigued, to see a Westerner wander into his shop. But if he was either, he didn’t let on. In fact, he barely looked up from what he was doing.
“Ah-salaam-alaikum,” Harvath said, greeting the man as he walked up to the counter and set his messenger bag down on top of it.
He waited several moments, but the man remained focused on his computer and didn’t reply. Harvath rapped his knuckles on the display case and drew out the word “Marhaba?” in Arabic. Hello?
There was an edge to the clerk, a toughness. Harvath had picked up on it the minute he walked in. Former soldier? Militia member? Maybe he was just a local thug. Harvath couldn’t tell. But there was definitely something.
Shutting down his computer, he stood slowly and faced him. “Shen tebbee?” he demanded. What do you want? His upper left front tooth was black, dead.
“Nibi ma’loumat,” Harvath replied. I want information.
“Abie ‘illiktruniat, la ma’loumat.” I sell electronics, not information.
Harvath smiled. Sure you don’t.
“Shen tebbee?” the man repeated, gesturing angrily at the handful of cell phones, digital cameras, and laptops in his glass case.
Unzipping a pocket on his messenger bag, Harvath withdrew a sheet of paper and set it in front of the shopkeeper. On it were strings of numbers.
“Shu hadha?” the man asked. What is this?
“Thuraya satellite phones,” Harvath replied in English. Raising his finger, he pointed at him. “Your satellite phones.”
The man slid the paper back across the counter and said, “Ma bíhki Inglízi.” I don’t speak English.
Opening the main compartment of his messenger bag, Harvath withdrew two ten-thousand-dollar stacks of cash and set them on the counter. “Wáyn hu Umar Ali Halim?” Where is Umar Ali Halim?
Upon mention of the smuggler’s name, the shopkeeper’s icy demeanor turned to stone. But as it did, Harvath saw a brief flicker of something else slip across his face—fear.
“Ana mish mohtam,” he answered. Not interested.
Harvath withdrew two more stacks of cash and set them next to the others. “That’s forty thousand dollars, U.S.,” he said. “Araba’een-alf.” Forty thousand.
As the man eyeballed the money, Harvath repeated his question. “Wáyn hu Umar Ali Halim?”
When the man didn’t respond, Harvath added two more. “Sitteen-alf.” Sixty thousand.
There was still no response.
Harvath upended his bag, dumped the remaining money on the counter, and pushed it toward him. “Maya-alf.” One hundred thousand.
Staring the man down, he demanded once more, “Wáyn hu Umar Ali Halim?”
The shopkeeper had had enough. “Barra nayiek,” he replied. Fuck off.
Pushing the money back, the shopkeeper pointed at the door and added, in English, “Now.”
So much for the language barrier, Harvath thought.
He was about to respond when Staelin’s voice came over his earpiece. “Boss, we’ve got a problem. Exhibits D, E, and F just pulled up outside your front door. Looks like they’re getting ready to come in.”
Damn it. That was the last thing he needed. The Libya Liberation Front was in Halim’s pocket. As soon as the shopkeeper opened his mouth, it’d be game over. There was only one thing Harvath could do.
Grabbing the man by his shirt, he pulled him forward and head-butted him as hard as he could.
Instantly, the shopkeeper’s knees buckled, and he crumpled to the floor. As he did, Harvath pulled a syringe of ketamine from his messenger bag and leapt over the counter.
Pulling the cap off the needle, he jabbed it into the man’s thigh and depressed the plunger.
Ketamine was created as a powerful battlefield anesthetic, but was best known as a horse tranquilizer. When injected into humans, it caused muscle paralysis in less than a minute. Too much of it, though, sent users into a hallucinatory state called the “K-hole.”
Stuffing the cash back into his messenger bag, Harvath removed a set of plastic restraints, flipped the shopkeeper onto his stomach, and flex-cuffed him.
“How much time do I have?” Harvath asked over his radio.
“All three are getting out of the truck. You’ve got maybe sixty seconds,” Staelin replied.
“Tell Gage and Barton to bring the SUV around back. I’m going to be coming out plus one.”
Rolling the shopkeeper back over, he grabbed him by the collar, slung his messenger bag, and dragged the man across the floor toward the rear exit.
Immediately, he realized the heavy security door was locked.
Harvath ran his hand along the top of the frame, hoping to find a key, but there was nothing there.
“Forty-five seconds,” said Staelin.
He patted the shopkeeper down and checked his pockets. Nothing. Where the hell was the key?
Staelin continued his countdown. “Thirty seconds.”
Maybe it was under the counter. Maybe it was inside the register. There wasn’t time to tear the store apart. Harvath needed to come up with a Plan B.
“Tell me exactly what you’re seeing,” he ordered, as he rapidly scanned the store.
“Three men with AK 47s. Mix of fatigues and street clothes. All three carrying sidearms in holsters.”
“Body armor?”
“Negative,” Staelin replied. “No radios either. One guy’s talking on a cell phone.
“Anyone else in the truck?”
“Negative. At your door in fifteen seconds.”
“Roger that. Zero comms,” he ordered, calling for radio silence.
Dragging the shopkeeper over to the ice cream freezer, he flipped up its lid. Instantly, he figured out where the terrible smell had been coming from. With the lid open, it was worse than spoiled milk. The inside of the chest smelled like death.
He could only imagine what it might have been used for during and even after the revolution. The bottom of it was covered with several inches of moldy, black sludge. Squatting, Harvath heaved the shopkeeper over his shoulder, dumped him inside, and closed the lid. There was only one place left for him to hide.
As he took cover, he removed a suppressed H&K VP Tactical pistol from his bag and did a press check to make sure a round was chambered.
Harvath didn’t know why the three men were about to enter the electronics shop and he didn’t care. The Libya Liberation Front members were bad actors.
He had no reservations about what he was about to do.
CHAPTER 14
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