Loops were staggered along the thick rope, and Harvath took up the first position, where he rapidly locked his harness in with a heavy metal D ring. Out in the open, even with the heavy fire from the door gunners up above, they were all still sitting ducks. Next on the line came Meg, then Carlson, DeWolfe, and finally Avigliano. Once everyone was clipped in, Avigliano blew the FAV with a remote detonator. He then signaled the pilot with an infrared beam, and the Chinook began its quick ascent.

The key to a hot FRIES extraction was to keep one hand on the rope and the other on your weapon, so you could return fire at the enemy. Harvath, DeWolfe, and Avigliano, along with the gunners in the MH-47, gave the Libyans every single thing they had. With a broken collarbone, it was all Carlson could do to hold on, and it made him madder than hell that he wasn’t able to shoot anybody.

Meg Cassidy’s sheer terror of the FRIES extraction was rivaled only by her newfound hate for Scot Harvath. By the time they had crossed the Tunisian border, she had vowed to herself not only to never trust him again, but never to speak to him either.

52

The new United States Embassy in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, was located at the intersection of the La Marsa Highway and the road to La Goulette -literally the gullet, which connected the Gulf of Tunis to Tunisia’s main seaport. The sprawling, intricately landscaped compound occupied approximately twenty-one acres and included a chancellery, guardhouses, motor pool, commissary, low-rise office building, warehouse, shops, Marine barracks, recreation center, and embassy staff town houses. All U.S. Embassy operations for Tunisia were headquartered there. Some might wonder why the U.S. needed such a large compound in Tunisia, but Harvath knew the answer.

The embassy served as a major intelligence-gathering center. Its off-limits areas, with raised floors and next-generation satellite listening-and-surveillance equipment, ran at a frenetic pace day and night as operatives tried to stay three steps ahead of everything that was happening in “their corner of the world.” From this forward outpost, the United States monitored, collected, and processed sensitive information regarding most of the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Middle East. Almost the entire staff was on either the NSA’s or CIA’s payroll, and it was no surprise to Harvath that after their extraction from Libya, this was where they had been brought for debriefing.

It had been intense. Though Harvath tried to interject on his behalf, Gordon Avigliano took quite a verbal beating from Rick Morrell for coordinating the unapproved rescue operation. To Avigliano’s credit, he shielded his two fellow operatives from most of the heat and claimed sole responsibility for disobeying a direct order from his superior. Harvath was seeing, yet again, a different side to the CIA and, in particular, the Special Activities Staff. He was beginning to think that his earlier assumptions about the group as a whole might have been wrong.

The debriefing was an endless session of finger-pointing and shouting. Harvath was repeatedly blamed for screwing up the operation by going in too close and getting captured. Though Harvath claimed that they had acquired excellent intelligence, Morrell would hear nothing of it. Morrell was certain that even if Abu Nidal had a daughter, there was no way she would ever be put in charge of his organization. At best, the whole scenario, stated Morrell, was established to put Harvath off-guard to get information from him that would be useful to Hashim Nidal.

Round and round the debriefing went until Harvath was excused from the room so Morrell and his men, along with the Tunisia CIA station chief, could finish the meeting in private. Harvath didn’t like being shut out, but it had also been over forty-eight hours since he’d had any sleep. As he got up to leave, he asked for access to one of the embassy’s other secure conference rooms to make a telephone call.

“If you’re looking for a secure line,” responded the station chief, “you can use the STU in my office.”

Harvath wanted a secure telephone unit, all right, but he also wanted to be in a room where he was guaranteed no one would overhear his conversation. “I need to make a report to the president. I’m sure you can appreciate my desire to keep the conversation private.”

Once an aide had shown him to the secure conference room and the double doors had locked behind him, Harvath made himself comfortable at the head of the table and picked up the STU. He dialed Gary Lawlor’s direct number at FBI headquarters in D.C. by heart.

“Deputy Director Lawlor’s office, may I help you?” Lawlor’s assistant, a woman Harvath had known for years named Emily Hawkins, picked up on the second ring.

“Emily, it’s Scot Harvath. Is Gary in?”

“Hi, Scot. Where in the world are you?”

“U.S. Embassy, Tunis. I’m on the STU. I don’t mean to be short, but I need to talk with Gary right away.”

“He’s not here right now.”

“Where is he? Can you patch me through to his cell?”

“He’s with the president at the White House. They’re in the situation room. I can put a call in and interrupt if it’s that important.”

Harvath thought about it for a second. He needed to talk to Lawlor and find out what was going on back in Washington, but the last thing he wanted to do was interrupt a meeting with the president. “Any idea when the meeting is supposed to end?”

“It could be a while. The FBI arrested three terrorists this morning in D.C. who were plotting to detonate a dirty bomb. Apparently, they were one of Hashim Nidal’s sleeper cells, and there’s reason to believe other attacks were planned to go off at the same time in multiple cities around the country.”

“Did they say when the attacks were supposed to happen?”

“The only thing being said right now is that they were in the advanced planning stages and that radioactive and bomb-making materials were discovered at two of the men’s apartments.”

“As soon as you talk to Gary, please have him contact me at the embassy here.”

“Will do. You take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

Harvath reset the STU and dialed his home phone in Alexandria. The last message on his voice mail was a series of discordant digital tones, which signaled he had messages waiting on his secure cell phone. Once again he reset the STU, and this time dialed his digital phone, which had been left behind in Alexandria, per Morrell’s orders. He had one message waiting. Harvath pressed I, to play the message.

“Agent Harvath, this is Ari Schoen. I have been trying for some time to get hold of you. I have been hesitant to leave a message, but I think it is of the utmost importance that we speak. Please return my call. You already have my number.”

Schoen? After what Frank Mraz had said about him possibly being involved with the Hand of God attacks, Harvath had decided to avoid him. But what if he wasn’t involved? What if Schoen was one of the good guys? What if Mraz was wrong? What if Mraz wasn’t telling him the truth?

Harvath figured there was no harm in calling Schoen back and seeing what he had come up with. He dialed the secure number Schoen had given him. After several rings, the voice with the pronounced lisp answered, “Thames amp; Cherwell Antiques.” Another tumbler fell into place in Harvath’s mind.

“Ari, it’s Scot Harvath. I received a message you might have information for me.”

“You are on a secure line?”

“Trust me. I could not be any more secure than I am right now.”

“Agent Harvath,” lisped the voice. “It is good to hear from you. I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to contact me again. I thought we had an agreement. A sort of quid pro quo.”

“I apologize, Mr. Schoen. I have been…how shall I put it?-very busy of late.”