He fired six rounds, two of which found their mark, striking the man in the stomach and lower jaw.
Out on the road, a handful of AK-47s erupted. The rounds popped and hissed all around them.
Harvath, his leg muscles already burning, focused on the wall and pushed himself to move faster. Haney fired back.
Weaving was out of the question. One wrong step while carrying his colleague and he could have easily blown out a knee.
They had barely made it a quarter of the distance, when there was a loud pop from the convoy and a blue-gray trail of smoke sped right at them.
“RPG!” shouted Haney.
Harvath immediately changed course and ran for a different section of wall. He only made it three steps before the warhead hit.
The force of the explosion threw both men to the ground. Harvath landed hard on his left side and once again saw stars.
When his vision finally cleared, he saw Haney’s pistol lying on the ground a few feet away. Beyond it, Haney was facedown, not moving.
Harvath began crawling in his direction. As he did, he called out, but the Marine didn’t respond. Harvath crawled faster.
Reaching him, he placed two fingers on his carotid artery and felt for his pulse. He was still alive.
Supporting his neck, he was about to roll him over so he could drag him to safety when the Libyans opened up the .50 cal on them again.
Harvath grabbed hold of the left shoulder strap on Haney’s chest rig and pulled with all the strength he had.
The heavy rounds tore up the ground and carved a path right toward them. As the gunner adjusted his aim, they got closer and closer.
Harvath groaned as he doubled down and summoned every last ounce of energy he had. The wall looked like it was a mile away, but he refused to quit.
The earth shook around him and he prepared for the bullets that he knew were going to tear him up.
Suddenly there was a streak of orange in the sky. A fraction of a second later, there was an explosion, followed by another streak and another explosion.
He looked over his shoulder toward the road just as the team aboard the USS George H. W. Bush fired a third Hellfire missile.
The entire convoy was in flames. The Reaper had finally arrived back overhead. Their troubles, though, weren’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER 40
Every morning as Lydia Ryan drove to Reed Carlton’s home, she reflected on what an insidious disease Alzheimer’s was.
After a lifetime spent in the espionage business, Carlton had amassed a wealth of experience. Every shred of it had come at great personal risk to him, as well as to the nation. That experience was invaluable. He was invaluable.
It pissed Ryan off to see what was happening to him. It wasn’t fair, not with everything he had been through, all the scrapes and close calls. This wasn’t how a man like Reed Carlton should go out.
Yet it was happening. A little more each day. Ryan had to remind herself that life wasn’t fair.
Carlton had even told her to get over it. He was still in the fight and would be until the very end. In the meantime, he didn’t want her around if she was going to be morose. They had a tough slog in front of them. If she couldn’t be positive and optimistic, he told her, she could stay at the CIA and ride that sick pony into the ground.
He had a good sense of humor and she had grown to love and respect him dearly. She wished they had more time, but the clock was working against them.
As he was sharper and more focused first thing in the morning, she had adjusted her schedule to match.
Setting her alarm for 4:30, she was able to work out and get to his house by 7:00.
Always, the two dark SUVs of his security team were parked in the driveway. This morning, though, there was a third vehicle — a pearl-gray Mercedes van.
She rang the doorbell and was greeted by Carlton. He was always showered, shaved, and dressed before she got there. This morning he was wearing khakis, a green oxford shirt, and leather driving moccasins.
“Whose van is that outside?” she asked as they said their good mornings and he let her in.
Gesturing toward his study, he replied, “Nicholas is here.”
Nicholas was the Carlton Group’s IT wizard. He was a Soviet Georgian born with primordial dwarfism. As a result, he stood just under three feet tall.
He had been abandoned by his parents and raised in a brothel near the Black Sea. The things that had been done to him there were unspeakable.
Despite his small stature, his intelligence was off the charts. He had eventually turned snippets of pillow talk and the loose lips of brothel customers into a blackmail empire.
He had become known throughout the intelligence world as “The Troll.” He dealt exclusively in the black market purchase, sale, and theft of highly sensitive, often classified, information.
Entering the study, the first thing Ryan noticed were Nicholas’s giant dogs. Named Argos and Draco, the highly trained, fiercely loyal white Caucasian Ovcharkas were always at his side.
Upon seeing her, the dogs stood up and came over for some attention. She scratched them both behind their ears and ran her hands over their powerful shoulders.
“Me next,” said Nicholas with a smile, as he gave the command for the dogs to lie down.
“Good morning,” she replied with a laugh.
“Coffee?” Carlton asked her. Nicholas already had a cup.
“Yes, please.”
It was Harvath who had brought Nicholas into the organization — something that wasn’t an easy feat.
They had started out as bitter foes, and many in the Carlton Group, including Carlton himself, were highly suspicious of Nicholas. But over time, the little man had more than proven his loyalty and his worth.
He and Harvath had developed a deep friendship.
Though he had been happy for Harvath about his decision to pursue a life and family of his own in Boston, he had been profoundly saddened by his friend’s departure. He had been the one person at the Carlton Group whom Nicholas felt he could fully trust.
“I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” Ryan said to Nicholas.
“Something’s come up.”
Carlton handed her a cup of coffee, and after thanking him, she asked, “What’s going on?”
“Late last night,” he continued, “a job order was opened on the dark web.”
The dark web was a series of encrypted sites accessible only through networks using special software like the Tor Hidden Service Protocol. They allowed users to remain anonymous and beyond the reach of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
From the most abhorrent pornography to the hiring of hit men, if it was illegal, and especially if it was morally repugnant, it was on the dark web.
“What kind of order was it?”
“A hack,” said Nicholas.
“Okay,” replied Ryan. “Of who?”
“You.”
She laughed. As Deputy Director of the CIA, she was under constant threat of being hacked. In fact, she had stopped paying attention to the reports a while ago. The attacks and scams came daily. That’s why the CIA had such a robust IT team, and she trusted them to do their jobs.
“So someone offered a bounty to hack me. What’s new?”
“What’s new,” replied Nicholas, “is that it was a twofer. The contract was to hack you and Mr. Carlton.”
That was new. It also told her that someone suspected they were working together. That had not been announced publicly yet.
“What are they looking for?”
“Everything,” replied Nicholas. “Not only all of your previous correspondence, but they wanted code planted that would allow them to monitor everything going forward, undetected.”