Harvath wanted to bring the drone in over the port city of Zuwara. As soon as the shopkeeper realized what he was looking at, he’d know exactly where the drone was headed.
Despite the Reaper’s amazing speed, the minutes would pass like hours as a sense of dread built within him. As he watched familiar buildings and landmarks pass by underneath, he’d agonize that his family was that much closer to death.
But, because of its airport, the CIA wanted to avoid Zuwara entirely. Instead, they decided to fly the drone in via the desert. Harvath wasn’t happy.
The desert offered nothing but sand and rocks. The shopkeeper could only guess what he was looking at.
As the drone neared the edge of Al Jmail, though, he began to pay closer attention. There was a soccer field, a gas station, a bank. Harvath watched the shopkeeper. He recognized all of it.
Near Al Jmail’s center, the drone slowed and went into a wide elliptical orbit overhead. The ruins of the burned-out electronics shop were not hard to discern. Harvath instructed the drone operator to zoom in on the scene.
If the shopkeeper thought Harvath had been lying to him, he was now fully disabused of that notion.
The detail captured by the drone’s camera was astounding. After scanning across the smoldering rubble of the electronics shop, its roof having fully caved in, the drone’s camera switched to the faces and license plates of those gathered outside. It was an incredible piece of technology.
Just as incredible, though for different reasons, was the shopkeeper’s cell phone. Harvath had disabled the fingerprint sensor and was able to dip in and out of it at will.
Opening up the call log, he held it up for the shopkeeper to see. “Your wife has called you multiple times. Do you think she has heard about the fire?”
The man’s jaw tightened.
“Speaking of your wife,” Harvath continued. “Let’s go see what she’s doing.”
Activating the microphone, he instructed the drone operator to proceed to “Target Bravo.”
Like a telescope being collapsed, the camera lens zoomed back out and the drone took on a new heading.
The NSA had pinpointed the shopkeeper’s wife to a property outside Al Jmail. Harvath knew they had the right spot just by the shopkeeper’s reaction once the drone had arrived overhead and began to circle.
“Zoom in,” Harvath instructed.
The operator did, and the home could be seen as clearly as if they were floating fifteen feet above it.
Financially, the shopkeeper appeared to be doing well. There was evidence of recent construction on the house. There was a healthy garden, much greener than his neighbors’. There was even a large play set, the kind you saw in suburban backyards across the United States, for his children.
Harvath was about to comment on it, when movement caught his eye. “Zoom in,” he instructed.
A woman, presumably the shopkeeper’s wife, had just opened a door from the house to let the two boys play. Their timing was perfect.
Harvath looked at the man and said, “This is your last chance, Fayez. Tell me where I can find Umar Ali Halim.”
The shopkeeper stared at the laptop, speechless, his eyes moist. It wasn’t the answer Harvath was looking for.
Hailing the drone team, he requested a readout of the Reaper’s weapons package.
The screen split in two and a digital rendering of the drone’s underbelly appeared next to the live feed. The Reaper was carrying a contingent of highly accurate air-to-ground Hellfire missiles and a pair of five-hundred-pound laser-guided Paveway II bombs.
“Arm Hellfire missiles,” he said.
On the weapons readout, the Hellfires were highlighted in red, followed by the word Armed.
When the shopkeeper finally broke, he spoke so softly Harvath could barely hear him.
“Riqdalin,” he whispered. “Umar Ali Halim lives near the village of Riqdalin.”
CHAPTER 20
* * *
* * *
PARIS
Tursunov chose a small hotel in the twelfth arrondissement near the Gare de Lyon. It was in the eastern part of the city, north of the Seine. There were lots of tourists and plenty of turnover. It was an easy neighborhood to disappear in.
He had begun his morning as he always did. After conducting a partial ablution, he had directed himself toward Mecca, had prayed, and then begun his exercises. The Americans and the Russians had been sticklers for physical fitness. In the quiet of his room, he had carried out thirty minutes of intense push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and dips.
When his workout was complete, he had showered, dressed, and left the hotel. Near the train station was a café with an outdoor table that allowed smoking. He had taken a table and ordered un serré—a shot of the blackest coffee you could get in Paris.
Unwrapping a pack of Gauloises, he had lit his first cigarette of the day and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. The nicotine relaxed him and helped him focus.
He had been taught that like his body, his mind was also a weapon. It was yet another area in which his Russian and American instructors agreed.
Both countries had taken an active interest in counterterrorism measures in Tajikistan. As an elite operator, he had been invited to travel abroad and train with their Special Forces units. He had grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
He learned as much traveling to Russia as he did traveling to the United States. He hadn’t spent much time outside Tajikistan before that. They had been eye-opening experiences.
Instead of developing a greater appreciation for and deeper commitment to his homeland, he began to loathe the Tajik government. Everything was corrupt—from the President, with his grand palace in Dushanbe designed to look like the American White House on steroids, to his own command structure within the National Police Force.
As he had exhaled a trail of smoke into the air, his eyes had tracked the people moving up and down both sides of the street. He had seen a police officer chatting with a grocer. He had wondered if it was about money.
In Tajikistan, everyone was on the take—even the cops. But while they took just a little, the politicians took a ton and lived like royalty.
Everything was based on a pecking order. You knew where you stood based on your license plates. The president had 8888. His family was just beneath him. The numbers, along with a person’s status, dropped from there.
Tajikistan was such a poor country that just to make ends meet, street cops resorted to shaking down citizens by “arresting” their cars if they didn’t have the right safety equipment onboard. Tajiks would have to bribe the officers on the spot, or face an even steeper payment when they went to retrieve their vehicles from the government impound facility. He hated Tajikistan.
The more corruption he saw, particularly from fellow Muslims, the angrier he became. It got to the point where he couldn’t even stand to attend mosque with cops or politicians.