He had a bad feeling it wouldn’t stay quiet. Hailing Barton, he told him to come out to the courtyard to collect the new prisoner and bring him inside the main house.
“What do you want us to do?” Haney asked.
“Take one of these cars and bring back our vehicles.”
“Then what?”
Harvath grabbed the Libyan by the back of the neck and pushed him toward the gate to open it for them. “I haven’t gotten that far yet,” he said. “Just get going.”
“Roger that,” the men replied. They chose an old LC70 pickup. As Haney fired it up, Staelin used the butt of his weapon to smash the taillights. The less attention they drew to themselves outside the compound, the better.
Turning the headlights off, they rolled out of the compound back toward where they had left the team’s SUV and the technical.
As the little Libyan closed the gate, Barton appeared in the courtyard. Harvath handed him over and pulled out his satellite phone.
Back at the CIA, Harvath’s call was picked up on the second ring. He gave a quick rundown of the situation, rattled off the telephone number of the cell phone he had taken off the Libyan, and told them what he was looking for.
He figured it would take Langley at least five minutes. They called back in three. The NSA had been patched in on the call. It wasn’t good news.
“It looks like someone stepped on an anthill,” the voice from the NSA said. “All of the Libya Liberation Front phones we’re tracking are lighting up. The number you just sent us has sent text messages to at least six of the numbers we’ve been monitoring.”
That was exactly what Harvath was worried about. “Understood. Keep an eye on them. Let me know as soon as they start moving.”
“They’re already moving,” the voice replied. “You should think about doing the same.”
Harvath thanked them and disconnected the call. Raising Gage, he said, “Company’s coming, Jack. I want you up near the gate. You see anything but our guys, you shoot. Copy?”
“Good copy,” he replied. “Shit’s gettin’ real.”
“It’s gettin’ real, all right, but we’re going to be long gone before it gets here.”
Harvath was halfway across the courtyard, running the route to the safe house through his head, when the leader of the drone team hailed him.
“It looks like the Liberation Front is setting up a perimeter,” the voice said. “There’s already two roadblocks outside the town. You guys need to haul ass.”
Block the exits, and then send in an assault team to clear out the threat. It was smart, and what Harvath would have done if the situation had been reversed. Whoever had trained them had trained them well.
Ending his transmission with the drone team, he radioed Haney. “Mikey, what’s your status?”
“We’re inbound to you. Thirty seconds.”
“Roger that,” Harvath replied, as he hailed Gage. “Jack, open the gates for them.”
“Copy that,” said the Green Beret.
Hurrying into the main house, Harvath checked on the status of the prisoners.
The little Libyan was lying facedown on the floor in the bedroom. Halim’s flex-cuffs, which had secured him to the chair, had been cut away and a new set put on. An additional pair had been doubled up and pulled extra tight as a tourniquet to reduce the blood flow to his injured hand. The blood from his broken nose had slowed to a trickle. Each man had been gagged with a piece of duct tape.
“We all good to go here?” Harvath asked as he stepped into the room.
Morrison and Barton flashed him the thumbs-up.
Removing two hoods from his pocket, Harvath placed one over each of the prisoner’s heads and gave the command to move out.
By the time they stepped outside, Staelin and Haney were already in the courtyard, engines running, doors open.
While Morrison and Barton loaded the two Libyans into the cargo area of the Land Cruiser, Harvath laid a map out on the hood and illuminated it.
According to the NSA and the drone team, militia fighters were headed toward them from all directions.
The only way to avoid contact was to stay off the main paved roads. Crisscrossing the desert was a series of dirt roads predominantly used by local farmers. They’d be tough as hell to follow, but Harvath had a plan.
Quickly indicating the route he wanted to take, he told everybody to mount up, and then he let the drone team know they were rolling.
Outside the gates, they slowed only long enough for Haney to pick up Gage, and then put the pedal to the metal.
They were going to punch right through the center of the trap. There was only one way it could go wrong.
CHAPTER 28
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* * *
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The woman looked at him as if he was crazy. “You want me to put a full package on Lydia Ryan? The Deputy fucking Director of the CIA. Are you nuts?”
“Keep your voice down,” Andrew Jordan cautioned.
They were sitting at a small table in the back of the oldest bar and restaurant in town, the Old Ebbitt Grill. It was a popular spot for D.C. power players, just a stone’s throw from the White House. And while Andrew Jordan didn’t look it, he definitely considered himself a power player.
He was the hidden force behind Page Partners, Ltd. Without him, Paul Page would be nothing and would have nothing.
But unlike Paul, he had to keep a low profile. Every penny he made from his share of Page Partners, Ltd., was deposited into offshore accounts. From there it flowed into a series of shell corporations that invested in real estate and various foreign business ventures.
All of it stayed outside the United States, beyond the prying eyes of his employer, the Central Intelligence Agency. Nothing triggered an investigation faster than a report that you were believed to be living beyond your means.
To avoid getting flagged, he was extremely judicious with everything. He maxed out his retirement plans, had a mortgage below what he qualified for, drove a predriven car, vacationed modestly, and contributed generously to a handful of charities.
He had no vices, save one—from time to time, he liked to go out for a good meal. This time, it was dinner at the Old Ebbitt. With him was a contractor who did a lot of off-the-books work for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Unless someone from the Directorate of Operations had walked in, no one in the restaurant would have recognized either of them. And even then, it was highly unlikely they would have recognized the contractor. She was a discreet source whom Jordan had spent a lot of time quietly developing.
The woman’s name was Susan Viscovich. She had been in Army Intelligence, then the NSA, and eventually had gone out on her own. She was in her late thirties, but took very good care of herself and looked ten years younger.
She had long blonde hair, which tonight she wore up in a tight bun. This was business. And from what she had just been told, it was dangerous business.
Leaning over the table, she lowered her voice and asked, “Why the hell would you want a full electronic surveillance package on Ryan?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” he replied.
Picking up her wineglass, she leaned back in her chair and said, “Find somebody else.”