When they rounded the corner and came back down the street where they had left the convoy, it looked as if they had driven into a war zone. At least fifteen cars were burning out of control. Glass and flaming wreckage were scattered everywhere, and several shops and nearby buildings were also engulfed in flames.
Claudia drove in as close as she could, and then she and Harvath jumped out of the car and began running. It was immediately evident that this had been no accident. A very large explosive device had been detonated right when the motorcade passed. Harvath saw Claudia draw her weapon.
“How about me?” he asked.
Without breaking stride, Claudia reached underneath her blazer, withdrew a short Walther P38K and tossed it to Harvath. She pressed her walkie-talkie against her mouth and began shouting orders.
When she finally came up for air, she turned to Harvath and said, “One of the plainclothes men said he thinks the motorcycles were taken out by a sniper. When they went down, the convoy stopped and that’s when the explosion happened. I have the helicopter searching the area, and the city police are setting up roadblocks.”
The fire eventually stopped them from getting any closer, and Scot stood by while Claudia tried to coordinate the collective efforts of the police and military personnel via walkie-talkie. When emergency crews arrived on the scene, it took them over three hours to get the fires under control. It was another four hours before the techs had accumulated any evidence.
The explosive device had been a car bomb. Based on the make and model of the car, residents said they thought it had been parked on the street for at least two days, but nobody was certain, nor could they come up with a description of who had been driving it. The police had only one witness, but they immediately discounted her. She was an old gypsy who roamed the neighborhood poking through garbage cans with a stick, and was thought to be quite mad. She said she had seen the driver and, when asked to describe him, replied simply that it was none other than Satan. The Devil had looked at her with eyes that could change colors-from silver to black, like the moon turning into slate.
Standing nearby, Harvath could make out enough of the woman’s heavily accented German, along with her gestures, to pick up on what she was talking about. His suspicions had been right on the mark. The same person who had killed Philip Jamek wanted Gerhard Miner dead. The Lions had known something, and someone had wanted to make sure they were kept quiet-permanently.
Harvath was trying to connect the loose array of dots in his mind when Claudia came over and spoke to him. “There’s something up the street I’d like you to take a look at.”
“What?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. She began walking and Scot followed.
Harvath did not believe in coincidences. As a matter of fact, swearing off coincidences was how you stayed alive in his line of work. They just simply didn’t exist. That was what made the attack on the convoy all the more disturbing. His two best leads were now dead. What were the odds that Jamek and Miner had intentionally been killed before they could tell Harvath, or anyone else for that matter, what they knew about that fateful night the Spec Ops team was taken out?
Claudia led him into a narrow apartment building and up several flights of stairs. In typical European fashion, there was no elevator, and they had to hoof it all the way up.
On the top landing, she motioned toward an open apartment door, where inside a team of crime-scene technicians was busy at work. Claudia spoke briefly with the lead investigator and then translated for Scot.
“According to the landlady, the occupant of this flat has been out of town on vacation for the last week. The door shows signs of forced entry, but nothing appears to have been taken.”
“And?”
“And wait till you see what’s in the bedroom.”
Claudia led Harvath past the photographers and men dusting for fingerprints. In the bedroom lying on the bed, next to a pane of glass that had been surgically removed from the window, was a long, black rifle.
“Do you recognize that?” asked Claudia.
“It looks like a fifty-caliber Barrett sniper rifle. One of the best money can buy.”
“Very good. Ever seen one of these before?” asked Claudia as she ejected a round from the five-round detachable magazine. “They’ve already been dusted for prints. There’s nothing on them.”
Harvath accepted the almost six-inch-long projectile and held it up to the light coming in through the window. “This is a Barnes bullet.”
“You can tell the manufacturer just by looking at it?”
“There’s nothing else like it. It has a very distinct shape. The U.S. Navy had it developed for use by their SEAL snipers in the Gulf War. This bullet holds the world record at one thousand meters, and SEALs have even reported confirmed kills with it at over two thousand.”
“So taking out the motorcycle escorts with head shots at four hundred meters would have been easy.”
“I wouldn’t say easy. My guess is the shooter used the attached bipod for added stability and was obviously careful with his ammunition selection. If you look here, you can see that he also used a top-of-the-line Leupold scope with an optical filter to reduce sun glare.”
“What about a laser range finder?”
“Did your people find one in the apartment?”
“No, it just seems like it would have been helpful for a shot like this.”
“Probably, but to tell you the truth, range finder or not, whoever we’re dealing with is one incredibly skilled marksman who really knows his equipment.”
“Who would want to kill Miner?” Claudia asked as she took back the fifty-caliber bullet from Harvath.
“Where do you want me to start, and how much time do you have? His group did a lot of murder for hire before kidnapping President Rutledge.”
“I know, but it was common knowledge that we were going to lock him up and throw away the key. His trial was nothing more than a formality. He was essentially finished for life. Why go to all this trouble?”
“Maybe somebody thought jail was too good for him,” Scot offered.
“Maybe. But someone also went to a lot of trouble in Macau to kill Jamek as well. Someone wanted to make sure both Miner and Jamek were definitely dead. Why? It doesn’t make sense.”
Maybe it didn’t make sense to Claudia, but a picture was beginning to form in Harvath’s mind.
While Claudia returned to conducting her investigation, Harvath made plans to leave Switzerland. Where he was headed next was one of the last places he thought he would ever see again.
7
Three days later, as his Lufthansa flight turned to make its final approach into Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, Harvath closed his eyes and tried to stop thinking about Claudia. He told himself he had been crazy for believing a solid relationship was within his grasp.
In his line of work, he couldn’t become too attached to anything or anyone. It was the axiom he had lived by for more years than he cared to remember. He should have known from the start he couldn’t have a future with her. Claudia knew better too, yet they allowed themselves to fall for each other deeply and quickly. It had been as if they had known right at the beginning that the end was in sight and therefore tried to squeeze in as much passion as possible. Harvath thought that the experience should have left him feeling good, somehow satiated, but it hadn’t.
When Harvath stepped onto the pavement outside the arrivals hall of Ben Gurion, the hot evening wind on his face felt like the blast from a blow dryer. The normally high airport security presence of Israeli soldiers and police was exponentially higher now as Israel continued to deal with waves of reprisals for the Hand of God attack at Medina. The tension in the air was palpable.