Harvath could have turned on the lights, but he wanted to keep the smuggler on edge. The room was extremely dark. Being denied the ability to see was unsettling.
“Let’s see your hand,” Harvath said, as he slung his weapon and unwound the towel.
Even through his night vision goggles, he could tell that the injury was severe. There was a lot of blood and one of Halim’s fingers had been blown almost all the way off. It lay on the towel, barely attached.
“It looks like your piano career is over,” said Harvath.
Halim didn’t respond. Instead, he brought his head back and spat a huge glob of spit in Harvath’s face.
Drawing back his weapon, Harvath crashed it into the bridge of the smuggler’s nose, breaking it. “Your modeling career isn’t looking so good now either.”
Wiping the man’s saliva from his face, he chastised himself for not expecting it. North African and Middle Eastern men used spitting as a high-grade insult.
It wasn’t the first time one had spat at him. They usually did it out of fear. It was their way of trying to assert dominance over a situation in which they had zero control. It had to be responded to quickly, which was why Harvath had broken the man’s nose. The smuggler needed to know, right up front, who was boss and that Harvath hadn’t come to play games.
He looked back down at the man’s injured hand and touched it near the severed finger with his suppressor. The smuggler’s body went rigid as a lightning bolt of pain shot through his body, and he let out a piercing scream.
Harvath carefully wrapped the towel back around it, making sure not to get any blood on his bare hands.
They were going to have to treat him before they started his interrogation. The easiest route to answers would likely be through the man’s injured hand. But as far as Harvath was concerned, that would be taking it too easy on him.
Karma was a bitch and Umar Ali Halim deserved as much of his own medicine as could be forced down his throat. Harvath wanted to take him for a ride on his own flying carpet.
As Staelin had the most medical training on the team, Harvath wanted him to patch up the Libyan.
He was just about to hail him on the radio when he heard his voice in his earpiece: “Boss, we’ve got a problem. Need you in the courtyard ASAP.”
CHAPTER 27
Once Morrison and Barton were done clearing the main house, he left them in charge of Halim and headed outside.
Staelin and Haney were standing by the awning where the smugglers’ crappy vehicles were parked. On the ground, a Libyan lay flex-cuffed. He was in his late teens or early twenties and wasn’t very big.
“Where’d you find him?” Harvath asked as he approached.
Haney nodded at the sedan closest to them. “Inside the trunk.”
“He had these with him,” added Staelin as he reached inside and removed an AK-47 in addition to a chest rack stuffed with magazines. “He was probably on guard duty and slipped into the car to take a nap. That’s why the drone didn’t see him. When you guys started shooting, he must have folded down one of the rear seats and snuck into the trunk.”
“The dumbass even left his gear up front. But it probably saved his life. If he’d been holding a rifle when we popped that lid, he’d be a dead man right now.”
“What about a phone? Was he carrying one?” Harvath asked.
Haney handed it to him, but it was locked.
“Stand him up,” Harvath ordered.
Staelin and Haney got the Libyan on his feet.
Harvath held up the phone, pointed to the screen, and said to the man, “What’s the password?”
“Anna la ’atakallam ‘Inglizi,” the Libyan answered, feigning ignorance. I don’t speak English.
Harvath nodded to Haney, who hit the man so hard in his stomach that it lifted him off his feet.
The man doubled over in pain.
Harvath gave him a minute to let it pass and then nodded again to Haney, who grabbed him by the hair and straightened him up.
“What’s the password?” Harvath repeated.
The man only got halfway through his I don’t speak English routine before Harvath drew his pistol and pointed it at his head.
All of a sudden, the man was fluent. “Two, two, three, seven,” he said with a heavy accent.
Harvath entered the numbers. The phone unlocked. As soon as he saw the phone’s activity, he knew they were in trouble. “Are there any keys in those vehicles?”
Staelin nodded.
Harvath raised the drone team, “Any movement in our area? Vehicles or individuals?”
“Negative movement.”
He had a bad feeling it wouldn’t stay quiet. Hailing Barton, he told him to come out to the courtyard to collect the new prisoner and bring him inside the main house.
“What do you want us to do?” Haney asked.
“Take one of these cars and bring back our vehicles.”
“Then what?”
Harvath grabbed the Libyan by the back of the neck and pushed him toward the gate to open it for them. “I haven’t gotten that far yet,” he said. “Just get going.”
“Roger that,” the men replied. They chose an old LC70 pickup. As Haney fired it up, Staelin used the butt of his weapon to smash the taillights. The less attention they drew to themselves outside the compound, the better.
Turning the headlights off, they rolled out of the compound back toward where they had left the team’s SUV and the technical.
As the little Libyan closed the gate, Barton appeared in the courtyard. Harvath handed him over and pulled out his satellite phone.
Back at the CIA, Harvath’s call was picked up on the second ring. He gave a quick rundown of the situation, rattled off the telephone number of the cell phone he had taken off the Libyan, and told them what he was looking for.
He figured it would take Langley at least five minutes. They called back in three. The NSA had been patched in on the call. It wasn’t good news.
“It looks like someone stepped on an anthill,” the voice from the NSA said. “All of the Libya Liberation Front phones we’re tracking are lighting up. The number you just sent us has sent text messages to at least six of the numbers we’ve been monitoring.”
That was exactly what Harvath was worried about. “Understood. Keep an eye on them. Let me know as soon as they start moving.”
“They’re already moving,” the voice replied. “You should think about doing the same.”
Harvath thanked them and disconnected the call. Raising Gage, he said, “Company’s coming, Jack. I want you up near the gate. You see anything but our guys, you shoot. Copy?”
“Good copy,” he replied. “Shit’s gettin’ real.”
“It’s gettin’ real, all right, but we’re going to be long gone before it gets here.”
Harvath was halfway across the courtyard, running the route to the safe house through his head, when the leader of the drone team hailed him.
“It looks like the Liberation Front is setting up a perimeter,” the voice said. “There’s already two roadblocks outside the town. You guys need to haul ass.”
Block the exits, and then send in an assault team to clear out the threat. It was smart, and what Harvath would have done if the situation had been reversed. Whoever had trained them had trained them well.
Ending his transmission with the drone team, he radioed Haney. “Mikey, what’s your status?”
“We’re inbound to you. Thirty seconds.”
“Roger that,” Harvath replied, as he hailed Gage. “Jack, open the gates for them.”
“Copy that,” said the Green Beret.
Hurrying into the main house, Harvath checked on the status of the prisoners.
The little Libyan was lying facedown on the floor in the bedroom. Halim’s flex-cuffs, which had secured him to the chair, had been cut away and a new set put on. An additional pair had been doubled up and pulled extra tight as a tourniquet to reduce the blood flow to his injured hand. The blood from his broken nose had slowed to a trickle. Each man had been gagged with a piece of duct tape.