The first thing they noticed was the smell. Even the large, industrial fans spinning above the doors couldn’t circulate it out. It smelled like despair.
The odors of vomit and urine mixed with sweat and blood. More than one hundred people slept on the rough concrete floor. Some had blankets. Most did not. A trench drain ran down the center.
Toward the other end of the structure, several people were coughing. The coughs were deep, wet. Harvath and his team could only imagine the illnesses being suffered, shared, and incubated here.
Closing the door, he glanced down at the lock. It was keyed from this side as well. If there were ever a fire, the building would be a deathtrap for those caught inside.
The team moved quietly through the open space, sweeping their weapons from side to side. Considering how unpalatable the conditions were, they weren’t surprised not to find any guards.
The people sleeping on the floor had paid enormous sums of money to escape their home countries and be smuggled into Europe. They had traveled thousands of miles from places like Gambia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. Others had come from places like Iraq and Syria.
Some were sick. Many were malnourished. And even with the horrors that had been visited upon some of their fellow refugees, none of them were going to run. They had come too far to turn back now.
In the back corner of the building was the office. As the team cautiously approached, Harvath noticed a young woman leaning against the wall. She was gaunt, her skin sallow. A piece of fabric lay draped over her shoulder. Beneath it, an impossibly small baby breastfed.
She stared up at Harvath, her eyes unblinking, almost lifeless. He didn’t know how well she could see him in the dark, but she seemed to know he was there. He raised his finger to his lips and instructed her not to make any sound.
Unwrapping an energy bar he had brought with him, he placed it in her hand. Nearby, was a half-empty bottle of water. He moved it closer so that she could reach it without disturbing the baby.
He wished he could do more, but already Haney was signaling that the office door was locked and that they needed him to come open it.
Harvath left the mother and baby to rejoin his team.
The office door was solid—even more solid than the one they had entered the warehouse by. It reminded Harvath of the security door at the electronics shop. Removing his picks, he got to work.
This lock was tougher to defeat, but not impossible. As soon as he had beaten it, he nodded at Haney, who signaled the team and then counted backward from three with his fingers.
On the Marine’s mark, Harvath eased the door open and Haney button-hooked inside, followed by Morrison and Staelin. Harvath and Barton brought up the rear.
It was a small room, stacked with supplies. There was a metal desk with two chairs atop a faded Persian rug. Tattered binders were jammed haphazardly into a cheap, wooden bookcase. A ten-gallon bucket stood in one corner like an umbrella stand, but instead of containing umbrellas, it contained prayer rugs.
Along the far wall were several tall filing cabinets. Taped to the wall above them was a nautical chart of the Mediterranean. In it, several small pins had been stuck.
Harvath examined the map as Morrison and Barton moved the desk and chairs in order to pull back the rug. Nothing said smuggler like a trapdoor.
The team’s hopes were dashed, though, when all they found underneath was the same battered linoleum tile that covered the rest of the office.
Taking his eyes from the map, Harvath looked down at the floor beneath his boots. The tiles here, as best he could tell through the gray-green of his night vision goggles, looked less worn than the rest of the others.
Crouching, he ran his fingertips across the top of them. At first, he didn’t feel anything. Then on his second pass, as he moved his fingers more slowly, he felt it.
There were two extremely fine grooves. Waving Haney over, he showed him what he had found.
It took them five minutes to discover the release mechanism. Once they did, there was a click, and the center filing cabinet popped out a quarter of an inch.
It was on wheels, and by grabbing hold of the top, they were able to pull it into the room and reveal a small passageway behind.
Radioing Gage, Harvath stated that they had found what they were looking for and to meet him at the warehouse door.
He wanted his full team there for what they were about to do.
CHAPTER 25
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Morrison studied the wire connected to the filing cabinet release. He wanted to make sure it wasn’t attached to a signaling device that might somehow alert Halim and his men that they were coming.
“We good?” Harvath asked after several seconds.
The Marine nodded, but then added with a smile, “You go first.”
Harvath rolled his eyes and, taking point, led his team into the passage.
There was a short flight of stairs, after which the stone tunnel widened, but not by much.
They moved slowly, at times having to duck or turn sideways to make it through. Helmets scraped against the ceiling. Elbows scraped against walls.
They maintained strict silence even though each of them—especially the larger guys—wanted to utter a few choice words.
At the end of the tunnel, Harvath signaled for the team to stop. Hammered into the wall was a series of metal rungs made out of rebar. It reminded him of a sewer ladder.
Looking up, he saw the outline of a trapdoor. Using hand signals, he relayed what he wanted done.
As the message was passed down the line, he transitioned to his pistol and spun the suppressor onto its threaded barrel.
He tested his weight on the first rung, and, once confident that it would hold, he began climbing.
With each step, he kept his eyes glued on the trapdoor above him. He hated trapdoors. They were often obstructed with rugs or tables, and could be a pain in the ass, if not impossible, to open. Worse still, all of your guys had to follow you up the ladder one at a time. But the closer he got, the less he thought it was going to be a problem.
Based on the length of the tunnel, he had a good idea of where they were beneath the compound. The smell of animal dung confirmed it.
Placing his ear against the trapdoor, he listened. If there was anything or anyone on the other side, they weren’t making any noise.
Wrapping his arm through the uppermost rung, he steadied himself as he raised his pistol and applied pressure to the door. It wasn’t locked or obstructed. To his surprise, it moved.
Before raising it any farther, he scanned the frame for booby-traps. He’d seen more than his fair share over the years. He had left a few as well.
They weren’t hard to build. One of the simplest required nothing more than a grenade, a piece of wire, and half a Coke can.
Seeing no indication that it was rigged, Harvath opened the trapdoor the rest of the way.