“Which was all bullshit, right?” stated Harvath as he set their dishes near the sink and turned around. “I mean, she never struck me as a devout Muslim. She drank and did a whole bunch of other stuff I think Allah would have frowned on.”

The Troll laughed. “Despite the many habits she had developed to better blend into Western society, I feel she was still a true mujahideen at heart.”

Harvath pulled another beer from the fridge and sat back down at the table with the opener. “So who’s running Roussard then? He didn’t spring himself from Gitmo. With Hashim and Adara dead, the Abu Nidal organization effectively fell apart. It wasn’t a many-headed hydra like Al Qaeda. We cut off two heads and the monster died.”

“Or so your intelligence told you.”

“Do you know something different?”

“No,” said the Troll as he got up to make coffee. “Everything I have seen is in line with your assessment.”

“So then Roussard became a free agent. Somebody had to have picked him up. The question is who?”

The Troll slid the stepladder over to the stove and climbed up. “If we knew what kind of leverage was used to get the U. S. to release Philippe and his four fellow prisoners from Guantanamo, maybe we could begin to piece together who he was working for. But we don’t have that, and without it, I really don’t think we have very much to go on.”

Harvath hated to admit it, but the Troll was right.

He also hated to admit that the only way to get around the impasse he now saw himself at was to share a secret of enormous national security importance with a direct enemy of the United States.

Chapter 97

This time, Harvath really had committed treason. There was no doubt about it. The only saving grace would be if something of greater value came of it.

It couldn’t be something of greater value to himself. It had to be something of greater value to his country. Failing that, Harvath very well could have just betrayed everything he stood for.

He searched the Troll’s face, but there was nothing there. “This plot doesn’t sound familiar to you in any way? Adara or the Abu Nidal organization never mentioned anything like this to you?”

“By targeting children, the plot sounds very much like what happened in Beslan. In fact, I’d say hijacking the school bus was an improvement. It’s a lot easier to capture a school bus than a school.”

“But what about Adara? Did she or her people ever mention something like this?”

“I didn’t talk tactics with her,” replied the Troll. “At least, not often. I deal in the realm of information. That is my stock in trade. If Adara or her deceased father’s organization had any plans for an attack like this she would have known better than to talk to me about it. She knew me well enough to know that I would be against it.”

“That’s right. I forgot,” said Harvath. “Saint Nicholas.”

“In the world we live in, bad things happen every day. Innocent people are killed. Sometimes these innocents are children. I believe in America you call it collateral damage. But to specifically target children is reprehensible. Whoever conceived of this attack should be strung up by his balls.”

Harvath couldn’t argue. But his agreement with the Troll’s position didn’t bring him any closer to finding out who was behind Philippe Roussard and what else they had planned.

He sat there for a long time in silence, thinking, until the Troll said, “I’ve been trying to find a connection, outside of ideology, between Philippe and the other men who were released with him. Maybe that was a mistake.”

“How so?”

“Maybe there is no connection. Maybe the other four were simply decoys. Like when multiple versions of your president’s helicopter lift off at the same time and go in different directions.”

Harvath hadn’t thought of that. “I started with Ronaldo Palmera because he was close, proximitywise.”

“It doesn’t matter who you started with. We’ve been looking for a connection between the five released from Gitmo and I don’t think there is one. I think this has been about Philippe from the beginning, and lumping him in with four others was a smoke screen.”

Harvath was with him that far. “Okay, so let’s say the other four don’t matter for our immediate purposes. We still know nothing about who’s behind Roussard.”

“Not yet at least.”

“I don’t follow you.”

The Troll looked at Harvath and smiled. “The one thing we can agree on is that someone is helping Philippe. Whoever that person-”

“Or organization,” added Harvath.

“Or organization is, they’ve obviously got it out for you and they sent Philippe to stop me from helping you.”

“Agreed.”

“Then let’s break this down into the smallest, most logical bits of data we can,” replied the Troll. He was the puzzle master and completely in his element now. “Most likely, Philippe had neither the contacts nor the resources to mount that attack on me. Someone had to play matchmaker and paymaster for him.”

“And he used Arabic-speaking talent,” added Harvath.

“Which narrows down the pool of operators in South America considerably.”

“Unless they were shipped here specifically for this job.”

The Troll nodded. “It’s possible. But a lot went into this. Someone had to secure the weapons, the helicopter, and a willing pilot. Most likely surveillance was conducted. Even if the muscle came from outside, someone had to help them locally, and it had to be someone Philippe’s people had a relationship with and could trust.”

Harvath watched him as he listened.

“There’s one other thing,” said the Troll. “The most important thing of all.”

“What’s that?”

“The money,” he replied. “This would have been pretty expensive. They couldn’t have just walked into the country carrying that kind of cash. The Brazilians are very serious about money laundering and illicit activities. This would have required-”

“Banks,” interrupted Harvath.

The Troll nodded again.

“Do you think there’s a way to track backward via the money flow?”

Pressing his fingers into a steeple, the Troll thought about it. “If we knew what group or individual Philippe used locally to facilitate everything here, I think I could.”

“What would you need?” said Harvath, careful not to let his enthusiasm show in his voice.

“Two things. First, it takes money to find money. I’d need cash and a lot of it. You’d have to unfreeze a substantial sum. I’m going to have to go to market to get the facilitator’s name and background info. To get that information quickly we’re going to have to pay a premium. Antennae will go up among the brokers we’re going to approach. They’re going to smell blood in the water and will wonder if they can sell the information someplace else for more. We have to be able to offer so much right off the bat that they’ll be afraid to jerk us around and shop the intel.”

“What’s the second thing?” asked Harvath.

“Once we’re on the trail we’re going to have to move fast. I’m going to need a lot more computing power than I have now.”

“How much more?”

The Troll looked at him and replied, “Do you have any friends at the NSA or CIA who owe you a favor?”