Harvath was ready to alert his pilots to file a flight plan for D. C. when an email appeared in his gmail account that changed everything.

Chapter 103

Claudia had found a judge with a real thing against terrorists who used Swiss bank accounts to fund their actions. The judge moved quickly, granting Claudia everything she asked for.

Attached to the email was a transaction history for the Wegelin amp; Company account. Harvath scanned through it, paying close attention to activity that had taken place subsequent to the night Adara Nidal was supposedly killed. One of the first things he noticed was a series of payments to something called the Dei Glicini e Ulivella in Florence.

Harvath did a Google search and discovered that Dei Glicini e Ulivella was an exclusive private hospital. It had an elite plastic surgery team billed as “one of the best” in Europe. Among their many specialties was the treatment of severe burn victims, including reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation, and recuperation.

He didn’t know how she had done it, but Adara Nidal had somehow survived. She had not only managed to get away from the scene of the explosion, but she had also managed to get to someone inside the Italian law enforcement apparatus to sign off on one of the charred corpses from the scene as being hers. It was an elaborate vanishing act, but she had done it. Harvath didn’t want to believe it, but the proof was right in front of his face, and he had learned a long time ago not to underestimate any of the terrorists he went up against.

Skipping ahead to the most recent transactions, he came to something even more troubling. Shortly before each of the attacks, money had been transferred to a nearby bank. Harvath scanned the list and ticked off the dates and locations of all the attacks so far-Bank of America in Washington, D. C.; California Bank amp; Trust in San Diego; Wells Fargo Bank in Salt Lake City, Utah; Washington Mutual Bank in McLean, Virginia; Chase Bank in Hillsboro, Virginia; First Coastal Bank in Virginia Beach, Virginia; and finally, U. S. Bank in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

As the pilots were filing their flight plan and readying the plane for takeoff, Harvath contacted Ron Parker and gave him instructions to overnight the items he’d left at Elk Mountain to the Abbey Resort in Fontana, Wisconsin.

After Parker took down the information, he asked Harvath how much longer Finney’s jet and its two pilots had to remain in Zurich. Finney had an important guest for whom he needed the plane and its crew.

Harvath told Parker to thank Finney again on his behalf and to assure him that he wouldn’t need it too much longer.

It had all been part of that second favor he’d asked Claudia for. When Kevin McCauliff had sent Harvath a follow-up email from outside the NGA with additional details he’d pulled about Wegelin amp; Company’s being the source of the money routed to Brazil, he’d included a warning. Though he couldn’t prove it, he had a sense that both his phone and his work computer were being monitored and suggested Harvath be on his guard.

From that email, Harvath had devised a plan of how to be in two places at once and how to make it work to his advantage.

His country club chat with Jim Vaile, the director of the Central Intelligence, notwithstanding, he had no illusions about what would happen to him the next time Morrell and his team caught up with him.

At best, they’d take him back into custody, and if that happened, Harvath knew Morrell’s men would see to it that he didn’t escape. And at worst, one of Morrell’s people would put a bullet in him.

Either would remove him from the game and give Roussard an open field to finish his rampage. Harvath couldn’t let that happen. As far as he could see, he was the only chance the people in his life had. The president was mired in gridlock and regardless of his promises to the contrary, wasn’t capable of stopping Roussard.

Morrell and his people were good, and Harvath was tired of looking over his shoulder for them. They needed to be drawn off-guard and taken out of play. That was why Harvath had gotten Tim Finney to send his empty jet to Zurich.

Harvath knew the FAA would be monitoring the jet’s flight plans. After Kevin McCauliff’s word of caution it seemed like the only way to go. If Morrell and his team knew about the Wegelin amp; Company account, and if they saw Finney’s jet heading for Zurich, it might be enough to make them believe Harvath was on it.

To make the bait even more attractive, Harvath had Claudia register him at a Zurich hotel under one of his DHS aliases, and the Troll established an electronic credit card trail around the city that would all but confirm his presence. While his professional aliases were in no way public knowledge, he was confident that Morrell and his people would be looking for him to pop on the grid with one of them. It was exactly what he would do in their place.

The idea was to lure Morrell and his team to the hotel where Claudia’s husband, Horst, and his tactical team would be waiting to take them into custody.

Claudia had assured him that under Switzerland ’s rigid antiterrorism laws, if any of Morrell’s men were carrying weapons of any kind, she could hold them for quite some time before actually filing any charges. The only hitch was that she had to catch them first.

Chapter 104

CAMP PEARY, VIRGINIA

Rick Morrell didn’t like any of it. It had fallen right into his lap. It was too sloppy, especially for a guy like Harvath, and that’s why he decided to pull the plug.

Standing his team down, he put up with all their bullshit complaints as he had them unload the plane and stack their gear back in the two trucks they had used to drive out to the CIA’s private airstrip.

“I still don’t get it,” said Mike Raymond as they passed the final checkpoint and headed toward the highway. “It’s almost like you don’t want to catch this guy.”

“If that’s what you believe then you are just as stupid as Harvath thinks you are,” replied Morrell.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Harvath completely disappearing from the grid. Nobody sees him, nobody hears from him, and then suddenly, whammo, he pops back up.”

“Correction,” stated Raymond. “Suddenly he gets in contact with someone the NSA already has under surveillance. That’s how we got our lead.”

Morrell looked at his subordinate and realized he was going to have to connect the rest of the dots for him. “And it doesn’t bother you that McCauliff started back scrubbing all of his data trails and had the DOD do a pickup sweep on all his phone lines? He might not have known when he was talking to Harvath that someone was peeping on him, but he figured it out pretty fast.”

“You’re paranoid. Even if McCauliff did know about it, it didn’t change the nature of the intel he gave Harvath.”

“Meaning?” asked Morrell.

“Meaning Harvath has been off the grid because he went to ground. It wasn’t until he got something actionable that he popped back up.”

“And the fact that he popped back up using one of his known DHS aliases and a credit card doesn’t bother you?”

Mike Raymond shrugged his shoulders. “ Switzerland is fucking expensive. Show me one hotel that doesn’t expect you to present a credit card upon check-in.”

“How about a hostel?” offered Morrell. “Or a Gästezimmer in a private house? He could use a campground. He could even pick up some unwitting woman and shack up at her place. This is tradecraft 101.”

“Sure, maybe, but-”

“He knows we’re watching his buddy Finney’s aircraft,” said Morrell, plowing on, “yet he’d use it anyway to go to Zurich? I don’t buy it. It’s too good a trail.”