37

It didn’t take long for Meg’s training at Harvey Point to grow monotonous. It was based upon intelligence the CIA had been able to gather from its Indonesian sources, who believed Hashim Nidal’s base of operations was on one of the Moluccas Islands, formerly known as the Spice Islands.

During the day, Meg worked with Rick Morrell and his sniper teams, learning how to identify and call out targets. In the evenings, they would do the whole thing all over again, only this time aided by night-vision devices. Meg’s free time was never her own. She was plonked down in front of monitors and subjected to hours of images relating to suspected and known terrorists. It soon became overwhelming. Despite her resolve, everything began getting to her-the heat, the humidity, the insects, the incessant training schedule…Morrell had planned everything down to the minute. They went through the same drills over and over again until the execution was perfect, and then they did them again.

They practiced amphibious assaults launched from both the Perquimans River and the Albemarle Sound. Meg grew accustomed to speeding silently across the top of the water in the black rubber Zodiacs, only to slip over the side hundreds of yards from shore and have to swim the rest of the way in.

Meg turned out to be an excellent swimmer. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t much that Morrell and his men had thrown at her that she couldn’t handle.

Harvath understood Morrell’s need to repeat drills over and over again. The goal was to become so accustomed to them that they became second nature. Under the stress of a real operation, you would know what to do automatically and the “fog of war” would have a far lesser impact. On the flip side, though, nobody ever knew how an operative was going to perform in combat until that operative actually saw combat.

Harvath had no doubts that Meg would come through, but what bothered him was that the training Morrell had laid out for her was extremely limited. Morrell didn’t even plan to issue her a weapon, and in Harvath’s mind, that was a mistake. Teaching her simply to keep up and keep out of the way was not good enough.

By not giving Meg better counterterrorism training and not allowing her to carry a weapon, Morrell was making her overly dependent on the rest of them. If she was going to be one of them, she needed to function just like everybody else-she needed to have the self-confidence of knowing she could operate on her own if she had to.

In addition, there was a change in Meg’s personality that was troubling Harvath. While he thought it might be the frustration of the repetitive training schedule and the hurry-up-and-wait scenario that they were all facing as conflicting reports continued to pour in about Hashim Nidal’s whereabouts, there was a chance something else was involved. Over the nine days they had been at the training camp, her temper had grown shorter and shorter, with the smallest things setting her off, and Harvath wanted to know why.

When they finished their training that night, Scot told Meg he had a surprise for her and to knock on his door in an hour. At the appointed time, she knocked, and when the door opened, she was greeted with an unexpected sensation.

“You finally got your air conditioner fixed,” she said as she walked into Harvath’s comfortably climate-controlled room.

“Not exactly,” he said with a smile as he pulled a large bucket filled with ice and Corona beers from underneath his desk. “Compliments of our fearless leader, Mr. Richard Morrell.”

“Wait a second. He fixed your air conditioner and gave you a bucket full of beer? That doesn’t sound right. What’s going on here? I thought there was no alcohol allowed at the Point.”

“There isn’t,” said Harvath, his smile turning to a mischievous grin as he popped open two of the bottles and handed one over to Meg.

“So where’d it come from?”

“Morrell. Just like I told you,” he said as he took a long swallow of the ice-cold beer, letting his words hang in the air.

“How many of these did you have before I got here, because you’re not making any sense.”

“I just got them.”

“How could he have just given them to you? I thought he and his men went into town tonight.”

“They did.”

“Then what gives?”

“What takes might be a better question.”

“So, these weren’t given to you?” asked Meg, slowly catching on.

“Very good, Ms. Cassidy. They’ll make a CIA operative out of you yet.”

“How’d you get into his room? Wait, better yet, how’d you find his room?”

Meg sat down in a chair and made herself comfortable. This was a story she couldn’t wait to hear. If Harvath had one-upped Morrell, it would be priceless.

“Chocolate?” asked Harvath as he produced a family-sized bag of M amp;M’s.

“You bet,” said Meg taking a handful. “I assume these were his too?”

“The guy’s got a sweet tooth like you wouldn’t believe. Always has, ever since I’ve known him. You should see all the stuff in his room.”

“So you did get in there! You’ve got to tell me how you did it.”

“Well, nobody, I mean nobody, would tell me what room he was in. I knew it was here in the building, but that was it. I even tried to scam the operator without any luck. Finally, I wondered if he might just lead me to his room himself.”

“But he always makes sure we’re on our floor before he disappears again.”

“As much as I don’t care for a lot of his tradecraft, I figured it would be really hard to track him. Plus if he caught me, it would have been a little embarrassing.”

“So how’d you do it?” asked Meg as she leaned forward and grabbed another handful of M amp;M’s.

“Do you remember a few nights ago when we used that paint to mark our trail?”

“The kind that only shows up with the night-vision goggles?”

“That’s the stuff. I stole a can of it before we went out on our maneuvers last night. Remember how I jumped out of the Suburban before you and Morrell?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I poured a little on the steps outside.”

“And after tucking us in, he walked through it and made his way to his room?”

“Yup.”

“But what about-”

“The night-vision goggles?”

“Yeah, I thought we were supposed to turn them in with the rest of the gear.”

“I did. I just pulled them back out of the case when nobody was looking.”

Meg was having such a good laugh she had to set her beer on the floor for fear of spilling it. “You have got to show me his room,” she said.

“When we finish the beers, I will. Enjoy the AC while you can. I think you’re going to find Morrell’s room very uncomfortable.”

“You switched air conditioners?”

“Um-hum.”

“That’s classic.”

“I’m not done yet.”

“Oh, no?”

“Nope, there’s something else I owe him.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you know what short-sheeting is?”

“Are you kidding me? This isn’t my first summer camp experience.”

“Well, I take it a step further.”

“How?”

“We’re going to short-sheet him, but we’re also going to take out all but two of the supports from his mattress frame.”

“When he gets into bed, he’s going to hit the floor?”

“Yep, and when he realizes he’s been short-sheeted, he’s going to hit the ceiling.”

Once again, Meg started laughing. After another beer, she confided in Harvath that it felt good to laugh because she hadn’t been feeling herself lately and didn’t know why. When asked what her symptoms were, Meg stated that she’d almost completely lost her appetite, had tons of energy, and seemed to get angry at the drop of a hat. Sometimes she even got the shakes coupled with what felt like heart palpitations. She figured it had something to do with the vitamin supplements she was being given, but when she asked the CIA doctor about it, he had told her it was just stress and not to worry about anything.