“Under his command? No way. I command myself, and that’s final.”

“Agent Harvath, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. If you wish to be a part of this operation, these are the conditions under which it will happen. You’re a former SEAL. You, of all people, should appreciate the need for a clear and definite command.”

“You left out ‘capable,’” said Harvath.

“It will please you to hear that Mr. Morrell is not at all happy about you being added to the team and that he tried very hard to stop it from happening.”

“Thanks. That does make me feel better.”

“Per Director Vaile’s agreement with the president, you will be on Mr. Morrell’s team for the ID and termination of Hashim Nidal, after which you will return to your duties at the White House. Is this understood?”

“There’s no plan to try and grab him?” asked Harvath.

“No. Our projection is that if we’re lucky, we’ll only get one opportunity to put him out of business. If we fail, which is far more likely in a snatch operation than with a sniper team, he’ll go so far underground we won’t see him again until the dust has settled from whatever major event he has brewing. This is precisely why we cannot afford any interference from Mr. Schoen and the Israelis, especially if Schoen’s involvement is more personal than professional. That’s how mistakes happen. Now, we’re going to need to keep you overnight for observation, and then-”

“No you’re not. I feel fine. I’m going home now,” said Harvath as he began to raise himself up from the bed.

“Agent Harvath, please don’t-”

Now it was Lawlor who interrupted. “Do me a favor and just cooperate, would you, Scot? Okay? I’ll come pick you up tomorrow and drive you home.”

“And then what am I supposed to do? Sit around and watch Oprah?”

“You’re free to do whatever you want, Agent Harvath,” said Mraz. “You’ll be provided with a beeper. As soon as Mr. Morrell’s team is ready to move out, you’ll be contacted and told where to meet them.”

“How can I get a hold of Morrell if I need to?” asked Scot.

“You won’t need to. Besides, I don’t think it’s such a good idea. I’d rather you two stay away from each other. Just wait until he contacts you. Be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“What about gear?”

“Mr. Morrell will handle all of that from here.”

“They’re not going back to the embassy in Jerusalem?”

“No, we’ve got another team there now. Mr. Morrell and his team will wait here until we have gathered further intel as to the whereabouts of Hashim Nidal.”

“Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“We believe his base of operations is somewhere in Indonesia.”

“That would figure, wouldn’t it? The Muslims love that warm weather.”

Mraz ignored him. “We have assets on the ground in Indonesia who are actively seeking his training camp and base of operations. Once we have located it, if time permits, we’ll build a mock-up and practice the assault.”

“And if time doesn’t permit?”

“We roll and we’ll just have to wing it.”

Mraz’s final comment scared Harvath more than anything else he had heard in the last forty-five minutes.

15

The next day Scot felt well enough to check himself out, and Gary Lawlor drove him home. On the way, they stopped at his favorite burger joint in Alexandria-Five Guys, on King Street. As much as Scot enjoyed traveling, he was always glad to come back home. There was something about seeing the United States from abroad that reaffirmed for him how proud and fortunate he felt to be an American. The other thing foreign travel did was give him an overwhelming craving for a good cheeseburger and fries.

They made one more stop at the deli-market around the corner from Scot’s apartment, where he bought a six-pack of Sam Adams, and then Lawlor dropped him in front of his building.

“Morrell is going to want to send a courier over with the file for you to look at. There’s not much in it, but it’ll put you on the same page as everybody else,” said Lawlor.

“Okay,” said Harvath as he closed the passenger side door behind him. “Have him send it over this afternoon.”

“Do you have a shredder?”

“Yup.”

“Good. He’ll want you to shred and then burn it when you’re through.”

“You don’t have to worry about my tradecraft,” said Harvath. “Let’s just hope Special Assholes Staff doesn’t botch things up.”

“Scot, you’ve got to give that a rest. There’s too much at stake. I know you don’t like Morrell, but you’re part of their team now, so start acting like it,” admonished Lawlor, who then rolled up the window and pulled out into the street.

Harvath didn’t like that Lawlor had the final word, but the aroma of his cheeseburger and fries, as it wafted up through the grease-stained bag, quickly made him forget about it.

He held the cold six-pack and burger bag in one hand as he fished in his pockets for his house keys. The few possessions he had on him when he was jumped by Morrell and his colleagues in Jerusalem had been returned. Just to make trouble for Morrell, Harvath had claimed his wallet was about two hundred bucks short. The CIA duty officer signing him out had almost believed him until Lawlor told him to stop screwing around. Harvath was told that his bags had already been retrieved from the Jerusalem Hotel and would be delivered to his apartment in Alexandria. When asked if there was anything else the CIA could do for him, Scot asked who really killed Kennedy, but then Lawlor jabbed him in the ribs and told him to get moving.

He stopped by the building manager’s apartment and picked up the shopping bag full of mail she had been collecting for him and then headed up the stairs to his third-floor apartment. He checked to see that the hair he’d wedged into the upper right corner of the doorframe was still there, indicating that the door to his apartment had not been opened in the weeks he had been gone. Still there.

Inside, the apartment was hot and muggy. Summers in D.C. could be unbearable. He walked over to his air-conditioning unit and switched it on full blast. He removed two bottles of beer from the carton, and put the rest of the beer in the fridge. He walked into his living room, sat down on the couch, and flipped on the TV while he began his meal.

It was the top of the hour and Fox News was running their top news stories. Scot recognized the façade of the Hotel Ritz in Paris immediately. It was surrounded by police cars and emergency vehicles. Apparently, the Prince Khalil assassination story had broken.

The reporter on the scene talked about a little-known toxic poison called Sadim, what dermal exposure was, and how death must have been for the Saudi prince and his two bodyguards. The Ritz was surely horrified by the publicity. The public still talked about how Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed, had spent their last evening there and had died when their limousine crashed, a drunken Ritz chauffeur at the wheel.

Somehow, the reporter had obtained a copy of the letter in which the Hand of God organization claimed responsibility for the murders. After she had read it verbatim, the screen changed to a feed from Jerusalem and Fox’s Jerusalem bureau chief. The dark-haired man spoke for several minutes about escalating tensions and violence in Israel, then segued to a video package edited and narrated earlier that day. It showed footage of the carnage at Medina in Saudi Arabia, as well as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. There was heavy troop and tank placement throughout villages along the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel had closed all of its border crossings in response to sixteen suicide bombings by Palestinians at crowded restaurants, shopping areas, and resorts popular with Israeli citizens. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were all taking credit for the attacks and stated that they were in retaliation for the Hand of God attacks. And so it went, with each subsequent attack ratcheting up the rhetoric and the violence. It was a vicious circle and it was spiraling out of control.