Halim didn’t want to answer the question. He averted his eyes. Harvath came off the wall, knife in hand.
“The Italians would put all of them in a refugee camp,” he said, looking up, hoping to prevent any further pain.
The man was lying. He had a very distinct tell. “Bullshit,” Harvath repeated. “You weren’t paid so that he could end up in a refugee camp.”
“I was,” the man insisted, a little too quickly.
The tell was the icing on the cake. Harvath stepped forward and sliced the man’s finger the rest of the way off.
Halim rocked in his chair, screaming. Harvath went back and leaned against the wall.
Considering the horror the smuggler had visited upon his victims, Harvath didn’t feel a shred of remorse. Halim was evil incarnate. He deserved much worse.
When enough time had passed, Harvath once again re-engaged. For as big as he was, the man was a mess. He was shaking, his eyes were bloodshot, and perspiration and tears stained his face. He had lost a lot of his color.
“This is the last time I am going to ask this,” he said. “What was the VIP supposed to do when he reached Italy?”
The smuggler refused to answer.
Grabbing his other hand, Harvath pressed his knife down and began cutting into the same finger. “What was the VIP supposed to do when he reached Italy?”
“A fishing boat!” Halim shouted. “Off the coast of Lampedusa.”
“What about it?”
“It was supposed to pick him up and take him the rest of the way.”
“Whose fishing boat?”
“I don’t know.”
Harvath sliced deeper into his finger and blood began to spurt out.
“The Mafia!” Halim cried.
“Give me a name,” he demanded. “Or this is going to get a lot more painful.”
CHAPTER 42
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* * *
Leaving the bedroom, he stopped in the kitchen for a second cup of coffee. Unplugging his satellite phone from its charger, he carried it upstairs, along with his coffee, out onto the balcony.
It was at least fifteen degrees cooler at the coast than it had been inland. As he fired up the phone and waited for it to acquire a signal, he took a deep breath of the ocean air. It smelled and sounded exactly the same as it had yesterday. Despite everything that had happened, at least that hadn’t changed.
There might have been a lesson in there somewhere for him, but at this moment he didn’t have the mental bandwidth to grapple with it.
When the signal icon appeared on his phone, he relayed everything the smuggler had told him to Deborah Lovett, his CIA contact at the Embassy in Rome. She told him she’d get back to him as soon as she had something. After that, all he could do was wait.
He needed sleep, but with two cups of coffee in his system and so many things weighing on his mind, he was too wired. That wasn’t like him.
Normally, he could calm his thoughts enough to slip into an almost meditative state that allowed him to replenish his strength. Today, though, had been anything but normal. He was still keyed up, expecting a fight. Until the boats arrived, he wouldn’t be able to relax. Not even for a moment.
He felt fully responsible for his team, including their injuries. But, considering everything that had happened, it could have been much worse.
The bullet that hit Haney could have severed an artery or shattered his leg. It hadn’t. And while Gage would have his left arm in a sling for a while, his wound could have been a lot worse too. All things considered, they’d been pretty fortunate to all be getting out of this alive. It was a testament to both their courage and their skill. Sometimes, shit just happened.
Unable to unwind, he put his mind toward what to do with the smuggler and the satellite phone salesman. Neither had any further intelligence value.
He thought about killing them. Halim certainly deserved it. And in his mind, Harvath could make the argument that the phone salesman deserved it too. He certainly wasn’t going to cut them loose.
Listening to the sound of the ocean on the beach below, he let the pieces tumble in his mind.
As he did, an idea began to form. After making sure it was fully baked, he transmitted it back to Langley.
It was common knowledge that the locals, as well as the fledgling Libyan government, didn’t like the human traffickers. Plenty of their boats had sunk only a few miles out to sea. When that happened, bodies washed up on Libya’s beaches.
Harvath decided the best thing he could do was to leave their two captives right where they were—tied up in the safe house.
Once he and the team were safely away, the Libyan government could be tipped off. They could then “perp walk” the smuggler and his accomplice on TV. Rounding up one of the most-feared smugglers in the country would make them look strong and competent.
Freeing all the refugees locked up at his compound would further burnish their image as just and compassionate. And if they were smart, they’d vilify and undermine the power of the Libya Liberation Front by tying them to the monstrous smuggler.
By claiming that it was government forces that had clashed with the militia overnight and this morning while attempting to capture Halim, they’d look strong and brave.
It was a win, win, win that gave the new government everything tied up with a ribbon.
McGee liked the plan too, and felt a high degree of confidence that the Libyan government would go for it.
He also shared with Harvath that identifying the stolen Glocks from Camp 27 had turned out to be a big help in speeding up the earlier drone handoff.
This made the Defense Department, which was eager to settle that score, move faster. Also, once the Tunisians were informed of the evidence connecting the Libya Liberation Front and Ansar al-Sharia, they gladly took themselves out of the loop and allowed the attack to happen.
They were two small hash marks on a much larger balance sheet, but had just one of them been removed, there was no telling how things might have turned out.
? ? ?
When darkness fell and the High Speed Assault Craft with their knifelike hulls arrived off the coast, six SEAL Team members slipped over the sides and swam to shore.
Harvath was on the beach, waiting for them when they arrived and led them up to the safe house.
There, the SEALs passed out waterproof dry-bags for everyone to load up their gear, including the surveillance equipment Morrison had stripped from the van.
The SEALs then did a quick assessment and made plans for getting everyone out.
Harvath had his own ideas, but he kept them to himself. This was what these men were paid to do. If they wanted his opinion, they’d ask for it.
The biggest challenge was moving Haney, but the SEAL Team had come prepared.
HSACs, as long as they weren’t getting pounded by waves in a surf zone, could come in very close to shore. The CIA couldn’t have known when they chose the safe house, but the location had been perfect.