“You’ll warm up. Wait’ll we get walking. It’s actually pretty warm in the desert tonight. It just takes your body a while to heat back up.”

Harvath did one last check of his own gear and scanned the horizon with his night-vision goggles before he and Meg joined the rest of the team. It was already well past one in the morning local time. It would take them at least two hours, maybe three, to hike into the rocky hills above the oasis, where they would wait until tomorrow night. They could sleep during the daytime, but for now they needed the cover of darkness to hide their movements. Not a moment could be wasted. When the team was gathered together, Morrell gave the order to maintain complete radio silence and then signaled them to move out.

The deep desert sand, coupled with the heavy loads Morrell’s men were carrying, made for extremely slow going. Free of his tandem rig with Meg, Harvath had taken more than his share of weight off the packs of the other guys, but they still slogged along. It wasn’t until the team hit firmer terrain that the pace noticeably picked up. It didn’t matter that they were hiking at a steep grade up the hillside. Everyone was thankful just to be off the sand.

Morrell’s man on point gave the full-fist hand signal to stop, and the column came to an immediate halt. Team members took up defensive firing positions as Morrell and the point man explored a small cave behind a low overhang and several large boulders. A moment later Morrell reemerged and gave the command to set up camp. Two of the men unshouldered their packs and set out to re-connoiter the rest of the area. Morrell set up his encrypted Motorola portable satellite communications system, while one of the men positioned a field antenna on the rock overhang.

“Welcome to the Plaza,” said Harvath as he helped Meg into the cave. They found a relatively smooth area on the ground toward the west wall and unpacked only the gear they would need for the time being. Extra food, water, and equipment would be placed in a nearby hide site, in case they had to exit the cave in a hurry. The last thing they wanted to do was leave behind any clues that would tip off the Libyans or Hashim Nidal that they were in the area.

Meg unwrapped one of the three-thousand-calorie MREs and asked, “Can you eat this cold?”

“Cold or hot, it doesn’t matter,” replied Harvath as he laid out a poncho liner for each of them to sleep on.

“You have to boil it in the package if you want it hot, though, right?”

“Yeah, but toxic chemicals leach off the wrapping, so you have to toss the water out afterward. It’s a waste of good water and that’s something you never do in the desert.”

“But there’s an oasis just around the corner with plenty of water.”

“And probably plenty of people who would be more than happy to let Nidal know we’re here. Let’s just say Jack and Jill will not go down the hill and will not be fetching a pail of water. Your MRE is already unwrapped, so you eat it cold.”

Meg took a cautious bite and made a face right away. “God, this is terrible. How do you guys eat this stuff?”

“I’ve eaten much worse.”

“I can’t imagine worse than this.”

“There is, believe me. You don’t want to hear about it.”

“Well, with all of the advancements the military has made in weapons and technology, you’d think they could at least spend a little time in the food department.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like a true soldier, Cassidy,” responded Harvath. “Let’s check your weapons.”

Most of the men, except for the snipers, were carrying next-generation Heckler amp; Koch G11 caseless ammunition assault rifles. Though the G11 was an excellent weapon, Harvath and Meg carried H amp;K’s G36 modular weapon system, which, because of its collapsible stock, was effective both at longer ranges and in close-quarters battle. Harvath always liked to be prepared for anything.

He was explaining how to fieldstrip the weapon and the importance of keeping everything free of sand when Morrell came back inside the cave followed by one of his men.

“…and I think it just froze up,” said the man.

“Those devices are supposed to be rated to extreme cold,” said Morrell as Harvath and Meg stopped what they were doing to listen to the conversation.

“There are ones like that, but because we were deploying in a desert theater, we never thought we’d need anything arctic rated.”

“What’s up?” asked Harvath.

“Our Marty is nonoperational,” said the operative.

“Your what?”

“Marty McFly,” said Morrell. “That’s what we call our micro-mechanical flying insect. It’s a spin-off of a project the Navy code-named Robofly.”

“You mean those tiny drones with the miniature fuel cells that can literally be a fly on the wall to gather intel?” asked Harvath.

“The same,” answered Morrell. “We think the cold from the jump screwed ours up.”

“Why would you drag one of those along on a sniping mission?”

“Washington wants to know who the Saudi is. They thought if we could get the mini-drone in close enough, we could ID him.”

“Jesus, anything else we can do while we’re here?” asked Harvath. “Maybe we can pick a few villages and help vaccinate some kids on our way out.”

“I know. I know,” said Morrell.

“So do I,” responded Harvath. “The more elements you try and add to a mission, the greater the chances it’s going to turn into one big GoFu.”

“What’s a ‘GoFu’?” asked Meg.

“A Goat Fuck, ma’am,” said the operative who was trying to fix the mini-drone.

“Rick, there are already too many elements involved here, what with taking out Nidal and you being given the additional task of reconning the training camp. Be smart. Let’s not add anything more. Mark my words. Out here, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and it will screw our day major,” said Harvath.

“Consider them marked,” replied Morrell as he turned back to help the operative with the drone.

44

The time difference between the east coast of the United States and Libya was six hours. By the time Harvath and Meg had organized all of their gear and gotten to sleep, it was after midnight for them back home and almost sunrise on the Ubari Sand Sea.

Harvath had offered to post one of the four-hour guard shifts, but Morrell declined, saying he had more than enough men to cover the rotations. Harvath drifted into one of his deep trancelike states while Meg slept in interrupted, fitful bouts. At one point, she awoke with a start at the sound of bells, but Harvath was quick to cover her mouth. A herd of goats from one of the oasis farmers had wandered close to the mouth of the cave. Meg looked around and saw that every member of the team had his weapon drawn and was ready to kill the goatherd, should he be unlucky enough to stumble across them, but nothing happened. The goats moved on, and the team eventually stood down.

After a while, Meg gave up trying to fall back asleep. Thoughts of what lay ahead filled her mind, and there was no way she could completely relax.

Morrell had brought along two two-man sniper teams as part of the operation. The men who had gone out to recon the area had confirmed the distances to where they assumed the target would be, and the sniper teams were now quietly quizzing each other on ballistic charts. “At five hundred meters in ten-to-twelve-knot winds, how far will a three hundred Win Mag drop?” said one of the men.

The spotter from the other team responded, “Considering the drag coefficient on a three hundred Win Mag, it’ll be seven inches off, right to left,” and so the conversation continued. It was completely over Meg’s head. All she knew was that there were at least seven more hours till sunset and God only knew how many more before Morrell would give the order to move out of the cave so they could take up their positions and await Hashim Nidal.