The Old Man loved him like a son, but Harvath knew he loved something more: his country.
So now, here he was—a world away with the weight of the world where it shouldn’t be at this moment, on his shoulders. This was the last thing he should have been wrestling with. He couldn’t do anything for the Old Man if he returned in a flag-draped box.
He needed a few minutes to decompress, to rest. And then he’d need to focus on his assignment.
He adjusted himself in his chair, turning his face ever so slightly to track the sun as it began its descent toward the horizon. He slowed his breathing and synchronized himself with the ebb and flow of the waves below.
He was about to drift off when he heard Mike Haney step onto the balcony.
“The shopkeeper’s coming out of the K-hole.”
CHAPTER 18
* * *
* * *
Haney was one of the most squared-away Marines Harvath had ever worked with. Handing him a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, he offered to monitor the laptop for message traffic from Langley while Harvath went downstairs. It was the best offer he’d had all day.
Grabbing the shopkeeper’s phone, he stepped back into the house and descended the stairs.
Down the hall was the bedroom where the shopkeeper was being held. Jack Gage sat in a chair outside the door. In his hand was the cup he’d been spitting tobacco juice into.
“Everything good?”
“Livin’ the dream,” the large man deadpanned, raising his dip cup in a toast. He was known for his dry sense of humor, as well as being stone cold under pressure. The saying in the Special Operations community was that the difference between Gage and a walk-in freezer wasn’t the temperature, it was the beard.
“Is that coffee?” he asked, eyeballing Harvath’s cup.
“Libyan style.”
“Hot, tasteless, and totally fucked up?”
Harvath grinned. “I was going to say Kareem, no sugar, but never mind. It’s in the kitchen. Go grab some.”
Gage got up from his chair and Harvath stood aside to let him pass. Then he knocked on the bedroom door and let himself in.
Barton was sitting on one of the beds. He had a towel in front of him and was cleaning his Sig Sauer pistol.
In the center of the room, the shopkeeper was bound to a chair with a hood over his head.
Harvath dragged Gage’s chair in from the hall and shut the door. Walking over to a small dresser, he set up his iPhone to record the interrogation.
After positioning himself in front of the shopkeeper, he motioned for Barton to go stand behind the man.
Once he was there, Harvath started recording and nodded for Barton to remove the man’s hood.
The shopkeeper was groggy. His head rolled and he blinked his eyes as he tried to adjust to the light and figure out where he was.
Harvath slapped him a little bit to help him come around.
“Come on, Fayez,” he ordered. “Wake up. Let’s go.”
He had learned the man’s name from accessing the social media accounts on his phone.
Slowly, the shopkeeper began to emerge from his stupor.
“Fayez, look at me,” Harvath commanded. “Look at me.”
When he didn’t obey, Harvath slapped him a few more times on each cheek. Finally, the man made eye contact with him.
“Where is Umar Ali Halim?”
As his mind returned from wherever it had been, and he realized what was happening, the man began to thrash in his chair.
“Laa. Laa,” he sputtered in Arabic. No. No.
“Look at me, Fayez.”
When he didn’t comply, Harvath grabbed the shopkeeper’s lower jaw and twisted his face toward him.
“I offered you a lot of money. You could have cooperated. So now here we are. This can be easy, or it can be very painful. Where do I find Umar Ali Halim?”
“I don’t know who—”
Before the man could finish his lie, Harvath drew his hand back and delivered a cupped slap to the side of his head.
Instantly, the shopkeeper saw stars and his ear began to ring.
“Where do I find Umar Ali Halim?”
When he didn’t answer, Harvath nodded and Barton hit him the exact same way on the other side, from behind.
The shopkeeper tried to turn around, but Barton grabbed the back of his head and forced him to face forward.
“Who’s this, Fayez?” Harvath asked, holding up the man’s cell phone so he could see. On it was a picture of him with a young woman and two little boys. “That’s your wife, isn’t it? Those are your sons?”
The man tried to look away, but the flash of recognition, followed by fear, was enough to confirm Harvath’s assumption.
“Have you ever called her from this phone?” Harvath asked. “That’s all I need to find her.”
The shopkeeper didn’t answer, but the same flicker of fear raced across his face once more.
Turning the phone back around, Harvath began scrolling through the call logs. “Fayez, let me explain something to you,” he said. “When we left your store, I set it on fire. It’s completely burned to the ground. And if you don’t tell me where I can find Umar Ali Halim, I’m going to go after your family. I’m going to kill them and then I’m going to burn your house to the ground.”
The man’s gaze intensified and his body tensed as he pushed against his restraints. Harvath had seen the behavior enough times to know that this was when they swore and spat at you, and he made ready to dodge any projectile saliva.
Instead, the shopkeeper leaned forward and challenged him. “I don’t believe you,” he hissed.
Harvath smiled and nodded to Barton, who put the hood back over the man’s head.
Harvath then stood and left the room.
CHAPTER 19
* * *
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, Harvath walked back into the room, carrying his laptop and satellite phone. Crossing over to the window, he opened it up and then placed everything atop the dresser and slid it over.
Once he had a strong signal and a clear picture established, he grabbed the shopkeeper’s chair and dragged him over, so that he could watch what was about to unfold.
Harvath didn’t need to signal Barton to remove the man’s hood. He snatched it off himself.
The shopkeeper shut his eyes against the light. Harvath grasped him by the back of the neck and pushed his face forward toward the screen. “Open your eyes,” he demanded. “Watch.”
Slowly the man’s eyes adjusted and he focused on the screen in front of him.
Through Facebook’s facial recognition program, the NSA had identified the shopkeeper’s wife in record time. From there, they were able to pinpoint her cell phone and to leaf out her entire relationship tree.
Placing a headset on, Harvath gave the order to begin. The animated globe spinning on the screen was replaced by a live feed from a Reaper drone already in flight.
The drone had been launched from a covert U.S. base just across the border in Tunisia.