In the man’s ear was a Secret Service-style ear bud. Harvath checked his collar and found a microphone, which was connected to a small, Midland walkie-talkie on his belt.
“I’m going to give you one chance,” whispered Harvath. “Tell your team I’m in the woods, north of the house headed for the road. Got it?”
“Fuck you,” spat the man, his head still reeling.
Transitioning to the silenced MP5, Harvath jammed the weapon into the man’s groin. “He’s in the woods, north of the house and headed for the road,” repeated Harvath. “Do it, or I’ll blow your balls off.”
With his eyes glaring at Harvath, the man nodded.
Harvath reached over and activated the microphone.
Wincing in pain, the man stammered, “This is McCourt. Harvath’s in the woods north of the house. He’s headed for the road.”
Releasing the transmit button, Harvath pulled the submachine gun out of the man’s crotch and cracked him across the side of the head, knocking him unconscious.
He waited until he heard Morrell’s people go crashing through the brush at the north end of the property and then made his break for the waterfront.
As he ran, his mind replayed what Jean Stevens had said about the rehearsal dinner. We’re getting picked up on the dock at five-thirty for a cocktail cruise and then it’s off to the club for dinner.
Harvath looked at his Kobold. It was already five-thirty-three.
No longer caring that his cell phone could allow the CIA to pinpoint his location, Harvath pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket and turned it on. As soon as it registered a signal, he dialed Meg’s cell phone. He was immediately dumped into her voicemail and realized that the phone must have been turned off.
The only other person he knew on the boat was Jean Stevens, but he had no idea if she even carried a cell phone, much less what her number was.
Harvath contemplated calling the Secret Service, so they could alert the agents on Meg’s detail, but working his way through the chain of command would take too much time.
He was the only person who could possibly stop Roussard, but to do that, he needed a way to get to the other side of the lake.
Arriving at the shore path, Harvath stopped. He could go either right or left, but whichever direction he chose it needed to have a pier in close proximity with a fast boat. If he chose wrong, Meg Cassidy, as well as her Secret Service detail and all of her guests, were going to die.
Harvath ran out to the end of Roussard’s dock to get a better view. East of his location for at least a thousand yards was nothing but shoreline, while less than two hundred yards to the west were a handful of short piers like the one he was standing on. Several of them had boats, and one even had a family that was loading theirs with food and wine as they prepared to go out for an evening cruise.
Harvath pulled his creds from his pocket and spun, ready to ID himself to the boat’s owners as he ran for their dock, but was instead greeted by the sight of Rick Morrell’s silenced MP5 pointed right at his head.
Chapter 118
“You were always too smart for your own good,” said Morrell, his gun trained on Harvath. “Where’s McCourt?”
“Sleeping it off behind the garage,” replied Harvath. “Listen, Rick-”
Morrell held up his hand. “My guys wanted to grab you in downtown Lake Geneva when you were heading for your car, but I said no. It was too public. Now I’ve got one man down and the rest of my team on a wild goose chase. This is going to end right here before anybody else gets hurt.”
Harvath started walking toward him. “We don’t have time for this.”
Morrell responded by painting a racing stripe with his MP5 right up the dock, stopping only inches from Harvath’s feet. “Stop right there and drop all your weapons, right now,” he commanded.
“Roussard is on his way to kill Meg Cassidy.”
“Roussard’s not my problem. Now drop your weapons.”
“He killed Vaile’s nephew, for Christ’s sake. You’ll be a hero at the Agency for bagging him. Jesus, Rick. You know Meg. You know better than anybody else what she risked when she agreed to come on that assignment with us. I don’t care what anybody has told you, you can’t let some shitbag terrorist kill her.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not authorized to-”
“Fuck authorized. This is about us-all of us who were part of that operation to hunt down Abu Nidal’s kids. Do you know who Roussard is?”
Morrell shook his head. “I don’t think it would make any diff-”
“He’s Adara Nidal’s son, Rick,” replied Harvath, cutting Morrell off again. “This whole thing is about revenge. Payback for whatever twisted thing they think I did to her. And it’s why he saved Meg for last.”
A flood of images sped through Morrell’s mind. He remembered all too well the mission to take down Adara and her brother that he and Harvath has been assigned to years ago.
“All that matters,” continued Harvath, “is that we stop Roussard. After that, I’ll put the cuffs on myself, but we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
Morrell lowered his weapon and said, “How?”
Chapter 119
The twenty-nine-foot-long Cobalt speedboat his realtor had provided was more than up to the task Roussard had set for it.
Affixing the commercial-grade tripod to the deck in the rear seating area had proven to be a little more time-consuming than he had anticipated, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. The specially milled joining plates provided a perfect mount for the weapon.
Originally, Roussard had thought he’d have to wait until the very last moment to seat it, but then he witnessed the family a few docks over returning home from an evening of waterskiing and tubing. The next morning, he purchased a similar oversized neoprene-covered “ski tube” and found that it concealed the tripod-mounted weapon perfectly.
The 20mm M61A2 Vulcan was an electrically fired, six-barreled Gatling-style gun that could spit out over six thousand rounds per minute. Not only would Meg Cassidy and all of her guests be ripped to shreds before they knew what had happened, but so would all the bystanders on the shore behind them. The Polaris itself would also be so badly damaged that it would very likely catch fire and sink.
There was no doubt that the waters of Lake Geneva would run red with blood, the fulfillment of Roussard’s final plague.
His body coursed with adrenaline as he bobbed silently in the water a safe distance away. Through his binoculars, he watched as the last of Meg Cassidy’s tardy guests were loaded aboard the oblong pleasure steamer moored at the end of her pier. It was only a matter of minutes now.
Roussard had picked the perfect spot for the attack. The bar at the Abbey Springs Yacht Club would be loaded with early-bird customers, as would its restaurant and the terrace outside. Beneath the terrace, the Yacht Club’s beach would be populated with families barbecuing, as well as beachgoers who had not yet called it a day.
The scene both on the Polaris and behind on the grounds of Abbey Springs would be nothing short of horrific. Roussard shook with anticipation.
Peering through his binoculars once again, he watched as the last of Meg Cassidy’s passengers boarded and the crew began to untie the lines.
The water was calm and there was little wind to upset the boat’s orientation and equilibrium. It was a perfect night for the type of killing Philippe Roussard was about to do. He smiled as he reflected on how proud his mother would be. He almost didn’t want it to end, but of course it had to. And after tonight, he had only one last name to check off his list. After tonight, he would finally begin to hunt Scot Harvath.