A million scenarios ran through Harvath’s mind as to how Hashim Nidal could now definitively push the region into all-out war, and he didn’t like the United States’s chances of stopping any of them.

“Were you looking for me?” asked Meg as she put a gentle hand on Harvath’s shoulder and sat down next to him, interrupting his thoughts. She was wearing a gray T-shirt with “ARMY” emblazoned across the chest and a pair of black fatigue pants. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She didn’t need to. All of the outdoor training had tanned her skin to a deep, rich brown, which enhanced her beauty even more.

Harvath tried to pull his mind back to business. “Yeah. I heard from Washington last night. It looks like the CIA might have new information on Hashim Nidal’s whereabouts. What do you think? Are you ready?”

Meg had done extremely well and had excelled at almost everything she had been taught, but classroom proficiency was not a reliable indicator of real-world performance.

“Ready? You bet I’m ready. Look at this,” said Meg as she flexed her bicep before twisting the lid off a bottle of Gatorade and taking a long drink.

“That’s all well and good, but what about up here?” asked Harvath as he tapped a finger against his temple.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think you could cram any more knowledge in there.”

“You’ve really been fast-tracked through this stuff. If we had more time-”

“But we probably don’t. Don’t worry. I’ve got it all down. Honestly, I’m good to go.”

Harvath had his reservations. “Meg, it takes months to learn this stuff and years to perfect it. You’ve been here two weeks. I don’t want you getting overconfident in your abilities. If this thing goes according to plan, we’ll be in and out without encountering any-”

“Hostile fire or dangerous situations which might necessitate calling upon my newfound skills. Scot, I know all this. You sound like an old lady. I am one hundred percent ready to go.”

Meg had done well, and, unfortunately, she knew it. But, she had also become a little too cocky, and that was dangerous. Harvath worried that he might have created a monster. She’d been thrown in at the deep end and had proved she could swim, but that was in the pool. The next test would be the open ocean itself.

“You’ve done a good job,” said Harvath as he reached for his coffee.

“Good job? I’ve done a great job.”

“Easy there. I don’t want this going to your head. There’s a big bad world outside the Ranch, and it’s a completely different place. Out there, the bombs are real, the bullets are real, and people die-” Harvath’s admonishment was abruptly halted by the sound of his pager going off.

“What is it?” asked Meg as Harvath studied the display.

“The big, bad world. Time to see how well you’ve learned.”

41

The black Gulfstream V-SP jet raced through the frigid, high-altitude air above the Atlantic Ocean at Mach.80. With an uninterrupted range of 6,750 nautical miles, the aircraft was more than up to the task Rick Morrell and the Operation Phantom team had set for it.

After responding to Morrell’s page, Harvath and Meg were choppered from Fort Bragg back to the airstrip at Harvey Point. The sleek, dark as night jet, courtesy of the CIA’s Air Branch, was waiting for them on the runway when they arrived. Morrell was barking orders left and right as his operatives loaded the plane with gear. When Harvath and Meg hopped out of their Special Operations helicopter, Morrell shouted over the roar of the rotors that clothes had been left for them in the adjacent hangar and that they should get dressed as quickly as possible. Much to Harvath’s surprise, he found boots and fatigues waiting for them in a desert-camouflage pattern-not jungle. The uniforms made no sense for assaulting a tropical island in Indonesia.

Once the plane had leveled off, Harvath unbuckled his seat belt and made his way back to where Morrell was sitting. The Gulfstream V-SP was one of the most technologically advanced long-range jets in the world and through recent design enhancements, had been able to increase cabin volume by more than twenty-percent. Baggage capacity had also been increased by twenty-five-percent, and Gulfstream’s exclusive second pressurized bulkhead allowed unrestricted access to the baggage compartment during flight.

“Rick,” said Harvath, “can I get a word?”

Morrell typed in a few more keystrokes and then closed the lid of his encrypted laptop. “What do you want?”

“I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

“I’m not in the mood for games, Harvath.”

“Neither am I, so let’s cut to the chase. Where are we going and why are we dressed in desert camo? I can tell from the plane’s eastward flight path that we’re not going toward Indonesia, unless we’re taking the long way around.”

“No, we’re not. We’re going to Libya.”

“Libya?” repeated Harvath quietly.

“Yeah. We’ve received new intelligence that Nidal is going to be there.”

“What kind of intelligence?”

Morrell gestured to the empty seat across the table from him and Harvath sat down. “You want some coffee?” asked Morrell as he removed a thermos from a bag on the seat next to him.

“Sure. Thanks,” said Harvath as Morrell poured some into a small, Styrofoam cup and handed it across the table.

Morrell tightened the lid on the thermos and set it back down next to him before speaking again. “You’re familiar with the fact that the U.S. government has been monitoring several suspected Abu Nidal Organization bank accounts around the world?”

“I was under the impression that we had frozen them all,” said Harvath as he took a sip of coffee.

“For the most part, we have, but we left a couple semifrozen.”

“What do you mean by semifrozen?”

“We had assets at certain banks, human assets, and we quietly leaked word in ways that were sure to get out to Hashim Nidal’s people that these assets could be had for a price.”

“And in exchange, the assets would provide access to the frozen funds?”

“Exactly. Knowing that the FRC was desperate for money, we thought we could smoke out a couple big fish.”

“And?”

“We got a hit. Two days ago in Helsinki.”

“What happened?”

“An FRC operative contacted our agent at the Bank of Finland and arranged an immediate meeting. It happened so fast we almost didn’t have time to organize the grab.”

“But you got him. Can he ID Nidal?”

“No,” said Morrell, shaking his head and taking a sip of coffee. “Unfortunately he can’t.”

“Did he have any useful information?”

“Big time. This guy was involved with organizing an upcoming meeting between Nidal and a wealthy Saudi. He gave us the time, place…everything except what they’ll be serving for dinner.”

“How credible do you think the information is?” asked Harvath.

“Very.”

“Based on what?”

“The man was extremely uncooperative. The information was extracted under duress,” said Morrell.

“Would this be of the physical or chemical variety?”

“I’m not at liberty to answer that. Suffice it to say that my superiors believe the intelligence is quite reliable.”

“And you think the meeting is still a go, even though this guy has been pulled out of action? Don’t you think his superiors might be a little suspicious when he goes missing?”

“Technically, he’s not out of action. He’s in a hospital in Helsinki, the victim of a horrible car crash. Among his many injuries is a broken jaw that needed to be wired shut, and he’s pumped so full of sedatives, nobody could get anything coherent out of him even if they wanted to. His room is being kept under surveillance, but other than that, his friends and associates are free to come and visit. There was even a write-up in several of the local papers about the crash. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no reason for his superiors to suspect anything other than an unfortunate accident.”