Pushing into the room, Harvath was almost clear of the doorway when one of Halim’s men sat up in his bed, followed by two more. All three of them had their weapons not next to their beds, but in their beds.
Whether they had been awakened by the goats bleating and were just being cautious, or whether they always slept with their AK-47s, Harvath would never know. Nor would he ever care. Depressing his trigger, he engaged.
He felled the first two men with headshots. But as he engaged the third man, his shot went wide and hit the wall.
Reacquiring the target, he skipped one off the man’s skull—giving him a Mohawk—and then put one right into his left eye, killing him.
By now, Barton had shoved into the room from behind him. Halim’s men were throwing off their blankets and scrambling for their rifles. Barton took the right side of the room. Harvath focused on the left.
Harvath fired in controlled pairs—his shots now rock steady and deadly accurate. Barton was just as deadly, if not more so.
As soon as the job was done, Harvath sent Barton to check on Morrison. Once he had exited, Harvath walked the length of the room, delivering extra rounds to make sure there were no survivors.
At the end of the row of beds, he heard Haney’s voice come over his earpiece. “Jackpot.”
They had Halim.
? ? ?
After sending Morrison and Barton to cover the front door, Harvath moved through Morrison’s room to make sure there were no survivors. There weren’t. The Force Recon Marine was damn good at his job.
Exiting the guesthouse, Harvath headed to the main house while Morrison and Barton, covered by Gage, swept the rest of the compound.
Staelin and Haney had found the smuggler, alone, in his bedroom.
As Harvath entered, he saw Halim sitting, flex-cuffed to a gilded chair with a blood-soaked towel wrapped around his hand.
“What happened?” Harvath asked.
“He went for this under his pillow,” Haney replied, holding up a Makarov PMM pistol. “So, I shot him.”
“Good job. Go clear the rest of the house. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
From his pocket, Harvath removed one of the few pictures ever taken of Umar Ali Halim.
It was twenty years old, but the scar that ran from above his left eye, down through his eyebrow, over his nose, and across his left cheek was unmistakable. There was no question they had the right guy.
Halim was built like a wrestler, thick and muscular. He had short black hair, a close black beard, and a noticeable overbite that reminded him of Saddam Hussein’s psychopathic son Uday.
Harvath could have turned on the lights, but he wanted to keep the smuggler on edge. The room was extremely dark. Being denied the ability to see was unsettling.
“Let’s see your hand,” Harvath said, as he slung his weapon and unwound the towel.
Even through his night vision goggles, he could tell that the injury was severe. There was a lot of blood and one of Halim’s fingers had been blown almost all the way off. It lay on the towel, barely attached.
“It looks like your piano career is over,” said Harvath.
Halim didn’t respond. Instead, he brought his head back and spat a huge glob of spit in Harvath’s face.
Drawing back his weapon, Harvath crashed it into the bridge of the smuggler’s nose, breaking it. “Your modeling career isn’t looking so good now either.”
Wiping the man’s saliva from his face, he chastised himself for not expecting it. North African and Middle Eastern men used spitting as a high-grade insult.
It wasn’t the first time one had spat at him. They usually did it out of fear. It was their way of trying to assert dominance over a situation in which they had zero control. It had to be responded to quickly, which was why Harvath had broken the man’s nose. The smuggler needed to know, right up front, who was boss and that Harvath hadn’t come to play games.
He looked back down at the man’s injured hand and touched it near the severed finger with his suppressor. The smuggler’s body went rigid as a lightning bolt of pain shot through his body, and he let out a piercing scream.
Harvath carefully wrapped the towel back around it, making sure not to get any blood on his bare hands.
They were going to have to treat him before they started his interrogation. The easiest route to answers would likely be through the man’s injured hand. But as far as Harvath was concerned, that would be taking it too easy on him.
Karma was a bitch and Umar Ali Halim deserved as much of his own medicine as could be forced down his throat. Harvath wanted to take him for a ride on his own flying carpet.
As Staelin had the most medical training on the team, Harvath wanted him to patch up the Libyan.
He was just about to hail him on the radio when he heard his voice in his earpiece: “Boss, we’ve got a problem. Need you in the courtyard ASAP.”
CHAPTER 27
* * *
* * *
Once Morrison and Barton were done clearing the main house, he left them in charge of Halim and headed outside.
Staelin and Haney were standing by the awning where the smugglers’ crappy vehicles were parked. On the ground, a Libyan lay flex-cuffed. He was in his late teens or early twenties and wasn’t very big.
“Where’d you find him?” Harvath asked as he approached.
Haney nodded at the sedan closest to them. “Inside the trunk.”
“He had these with him,” added Staelin as he reached inside and removed an AK-47 in addition to a chest rack stuffed with magazines. “He was probably on guard duty and slipped into the car to take a nap. That’s why the drone didn’t see him. When you guys started shooting, he must have folded down one of the rear seats and snuck into the trunk.”
“The dumbass even left his gear up front. But it probably saved his life. If he’d been holding a rifle when we popped that lid, he’d be a dead man right now.”
“What about a phone? Was he carrying one?” Harvath asked.
Haney handed it to him, but it was locked.
“Stand him up,” Harvath ordered.
Staelin and Haney got the Libyan on his feet.
Harvath held up the phone, pointed to the screen, and said to the man, “What’s the password?”
“Anna la ’atakallam ‘Inglizi,” the Libyan answered, feigning ignorance. I don’t speak English.
Harvath nodded to Haney, who hit the man so hard in his stomach that it lifted him off his feet.
The man doubled over in pain.
Harvath gave him a minute to let it pass and then nodded again to Haney, who grabbed him by the hair and straightened him up.
“What’s the password?” Harvath repeated.
The man only got halfway through his I don’t speak English routine before Harvath drew his pistol and pointed it at his head.
All of a sudden, the man was fluent. “Two, two, three, seven,” he said with a heavy accent.
Harvath entered the numbers. The phone unlocked. As soon as he saw the phone’s activity, he knew they were in trouble. “Are there any keys in those vehicles?”
Staelin nodded.
Harvath raised the drone team, “Any movement in our area? Vehicles or individuals?”
“Negative movement.”