“I’ll pass on the sponge bath,” shot Davidson, “but there’s a couple of you who should definitely consider it. Maybe some back waxes too.”

The interrogator picked his foot up and kicked Davidson over backward. The sound of his head cracking against the floor could be heard across the room.

Calling two of the men over, the interrogator had them tilt Vaughan back. Another man grabbed a towel, and though the police officer resisted, managed to wrap it around his face and pull it tight at the back of his head.

The interrogator opened half of the bottles and sent the man to go get more. Picking up two of them, he walked over and stood looking down at the Marine. “We have much more water and I have all night. Let’s see if we can decide once and for all whether or not this is torture.”

CHAPTER 41

Rashid had seen enough. He opened the door and stepped back out into the hallway.

Marwan Jarrah was waiting for him and could read the younger man’s face. He signaled for him to hold his tongue until they got upstairs.

The two men proceeded in silence to the mosque’s office, the faithful having long dispersed since the end of evening prayers. Once they were inside and the door was closed, Rashid wasted no time getting to the point. “We’re in big trouble.”

“Everything will be fine, Shahab,” replied Jarrah.

“No, it won’t. Do you have any idea how serious this is? You have two Chicago policemen as prisoners in your mosque.”

“A police officer does not carry a private investigator’s badge when he is on duty as a policeman. Nor does another carry business cards identifying him as an attorney and a little notebook with the information about his case.”

“It doesn’t matter what they were carrying, Marwan, they’re still cops.”

“I understand the situation,” said Jarrah. “I also understand that they were carrying a picture of Mohammed Nasiri and that it wasn’t my idea to bring Nasiri here. It was yours.”

“We had no choice.”

“We should have killed him.”

“Please, Marwan. We’ve been through this. We need Nasiri.”

“So what do we do now?”

“You mean now that your thugs have tortured those two cops?”

“It’s not the time for recriminations,” replied Jarrah.

“I told you that those guns were supposed to stay in the mosque until we were ready to use them.”

“Shahab, what is done is done. We need to plan.”

“You want to make a plan?” said Rashid. “Here’s my plan. We pack everything up, send everyone home, and put this entire operation in a box and bury it for at least two years; maybe longer.”

The man shook his head. “We can’t do that.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“There are always choices.”

“Marwan, your thugs tortured two cops. Do you understand that? Maybe we could have made up a mistaken-identity story about how we thought they were breaking into the mosque when we found them, but not now.”

“Then we need to kill them.”

Rashid shook his head. “We could, but that might not be the right move; not yet.”

Jarrah looked at him. “Then what would you like to do?”

The younger man thought about it for a moment and then said, “Obviously, the mosque is no longer safe. We’ll need to move everything and we need to do it right away.”

“Move it where?”

“You know where.”

Jarrah now shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. It is too dangerous.”

“You wanted choices. You can stay here, compromised, or you can move the operation. Just know that if you decide to stay, you’ll be staying without me.”

“You would leave?”

“If you force me to, yes.”

“For the sake of argument,” Jarrah replied, “let’s say we move. What will we do with the policemen?”

“We’ll move them too.”

“Why do you want to take that risk? It seems easier to just be done with them.”

“I know it seems that way,” said Rashid, “but they could end up being worth more to us alive than dead.”

“No. They’re a complication. We need to be rid of them.”

“Marwan, you agreed to let me run this cell and this part of the operation. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Do you not trust my judgment?”

“Of course I trust your judgment. You are like a son to me.”

“How many times have I risked my life for you?”

“More than once, Shahab. More than once.”

“So?”

After a short period of reflection, the man finally relented. “Okay, we’ll move. I’m not happy about it, but I agree with you. We cannot stay here.”

Rashid remained quiet.

“And we will bring the police officers,” he added.

“It’s the right choice.”

Jarrah shrugged.

Rashid removed his cell phone as he opened the office door. “We’ll need to start as soon as possible and do it in two trucks.”

They continued discussing their plans as they walked downstairs to the basement. The men who had captured the police officers were standing in the narrow hallway talking. One of them was smoking.

Seeing the men standing there, Rashid’s anger resurfaced. In rapid-fire Arabic, he berated them for their mistakes. There was no excuse for it.

He was lecturing them on how stupid they had been to carry their weapons outside the mosque when the door to the alley burst open.

The men were caught completely off guard. A bright flashlight clamped to the barrel of the intruder’s weapon blinded the men as they pulled out their guns and attempted to shoot.

“Drop your weapons!” the intruder yelled.

None of the men complied.

As the first pistol was pointed in his direction, Levy pulled the trigger of his Remington 870 shotgun and hit the two men closest to him.

Racking the slide, he prepared to fire again, but before he could pull the trigger, two shots rang out and he was knocked backward into the alley.

Smoke was still rising from the barrel of his pistol as Abdul Rashid pushed past the men and rushed to the door.

He kicked the intruder’s shotgun away. Pointing his weapon at the man’s head, he said, “Don’t even think of moving.”

With pain spreading through his body and blood soaking through his clothes, Josh Levy did exactly as he was told.

CHAPTER 42

LONDON

Harvath flew out on the private jet Carlton had arranged for him, leaving things back in Geneva in the best state he could.

Nicholas remained in the warehouse while Peio helped Harvath transport Adda Sterk to the Carlton Group safe house. Riley was already there tending to Michael Lee, and she secured the woman in one of the bedrooms. The priest agreed to stay until the interrogation team Carlton had en route arrived. He had no desire to watch them wring whatever else could be wrung from the woman.

Harvath still wanted to have a discussion with the priest about what had happened at the chalet, but the opportunity never really presented itself. It was none of his business, and he figured he should probably drop it and leave the man to his own conscience.

He had fed everything he was able to download from Sterk, including her medical condition, back to Carlton in Virginia. Outside of the dates and locations, she seemed to know very little about the attacks themselves.

She believed the cells were composed of Muslim males, but was uncertain of their ethnicity. They would be using homemade bombs packed with marbles, ball bearings, nails, or screws to act as shrapnel to maximize their killing power.

Sterk also couldn’t tell him if the men would be wearing suicide vests, if the bombs would be carried in backpacks, or if they would be packed in a car. She didn’t know how many bombs there would be or how they were designed to go off. She couldn’t say if the men would be hiding their explosives and leaving as had been done in Rome, or blowing themselves up as had been done in Paris. She also had no idea if there was one bomb intended for Piccadilly and one for Amsterdam’s Dam Square, multiple bombs at both, or one bomb at the former and multiple bombs at the latter.