Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 58

Smartphones in hand to light their way, the long-haired, T-shirt- and high-top-wearing Hadids strode into the lobby of the apartment building like they lived there.

The moment they did, the Russians were all over them.

“Hands! Hands!” the two remaining Spetsnaz operatives ordered in horrible Arabic as they shined flashlights into the brothers’ faces.

The twins complied immediately and raised their hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture.

“On the ground!” one of the soldiers commanded.

Mathan looked at him. “On the ground?”

“ON THE GROUND!” the man roared again in Arabic. He had no idea who these two were and he didn’t care. He wasn’t playing. The QRT would be here any second. Once it was, they could make their escape. Until then, he was in charge and these two Syrians were going to obey.

“But we live here,” Thoman protested in Arabic. “Fourth floor.”

The Russian put the barrel of his weapon right in his face.

Mathan appealed for calm and encouraged his brother to cooperate. Slowly, the Hadids lay down on their stomachs.

“Who the hell are you?” Thoman demanded. “What’s this all about?”

“Shut up,” the Russian growled.

At that moment, the twins’ phones chimed with a group text from Harvath. That was their signal.

“This is bullshit,” Mathan said as he began to get up.

“Total bullshit,” Thoman agreed, starting to get up as well.

The Russians closed in. One drew his boot back, ready to kick the nearest Hadid. As he did, a shot rang out from across the marble-clad lobby.

Harvath, his SIG Sauer gripped in his hands, had sent a round speeding toward the Spetsnaz operative. It caught the man just above his left ear and went straight through his brain, killing him instantly.

Before the other Russian could react, Thoman and Mathan had drawn their pistols from beneath their shirts and began firing. The man never had a chance.

The brothers kept firing until their slides locked back and their weapons ran dry. Then they just stood there taking in the carnage.

“Let’s move!” Harvath ordered, breaking the spell.

He had covertly surveilled the lobby before the Hadids had entered and now dragged Proskurov from the stairwell where his security team had hidden him. “Back door,” he said. “Now!”

Inserting fresh magazines into their weapons, the Hadids followed.

Harvath jammed his pistol into the back of General Proskurov’s flabby neck. “I know you speak English,” he said as he hustled him along. “If you resist, I’ll kill you. Is that clear?”

Proskurov nodded. He had trained countless soldiers on how to deal with capture.

This, though, felt different. And Proskurov was aware of what the Americans were capable of. He would need to do everything he could to stay alive.

Out on the street, Harvath steered them away from the grand boulevard and back toward the saltbox. It was about to get very nasty.

They had only made it a half block when they heard the vehicles from the Russian Embassy screech to a halt outside the apartment building.

And as soon as the quick response team leapt from their vehicles, the Syrian rebels lit them up.

The .50-caliber rounds from three blocks away chewed through their soft vehicles and the Syrians on the adjacent rooftop sprayed them with AK fire. Then they began lobbing grenade after grenade — and all of them detonated.

The Russian team was overwhelmed. They took heavy casualties. There was blood everywhere.

Through the windows of the lobby, they could see the dead Spetsnaz soldiers. Panic took over. The team gave up and pulled out.

Retreating to their vehicles, they didn’t even attempt to gather their dead. They fled so fast they left tire marks.

As they fled, a van skidded to a halt in the middle of the street near Harvath and the Hadids. Two men in black balaclavas jumped out.

Throwing a bag over Proskurov’s head, the men pulled him inside. Harvath and the Hadids joined them.

Reversing back up the street, they spun ninety degrees at the next corner and took off. Other vehicles were already in place to pick up the rest of the team.

They drove to the mechanic’s garage Mathan operated. Jumping out of the van, he opened the rollup door. Once the van had driven through, he stepped inside, rolled the door back down, and locked it.

The garage was small and only had one lift. It smelled like spilled motor oil. There was no waiting area — just an office and supply room.

“Where are we set up?” Harvath asked.

Mathan opened the supply room and turned on the overhead lights. A black drop cloth had been hung along the rear wall. A chair sat in front of a tripod with a video camera on it. There were two stands with lights.

Harvath looked at his watch. He was in uncharted water. Vella had said the drug worked differently on different people. It could take fifteen minutes or it could take three hours. They had to just watch and monitor him.

Pulling Proskurov out of the van, they dragged him back to the supply room and secured him to the chair.

Harvath had been expressly warned not to up-dose the prisoner. No matter how long it took, he needed to go slowly. Too much of the drug too fast could scramble Proskurov’s brain.

The General was wearing the hood Harvath had brought from the Solarium in Malta. They had bound his hands, as well as his feet in the van and had placed a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

Unpacking several strips of cloth and what looked like a bottle of cold medicine, Harvath prepared everything exactly as Vella had shown him.

Once the pieces of cloth were soaked through with the synthetic pheromone, he removed them from the bowl, folded them in half twice, and then packed them into the pocket of the hood covering Proskurov’s nose and mouth.

Then he adjusted the bezel on his watch and went to wash his hands. He didn’t want to get any of the compound near his own mouth, nose, or eyes.

“How long does it take?” Mathan asked as he grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler in his office.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve done an interrogation like this before?”

Harvath shook his head and took a long drink of water. After swallowing, he screwed the cap back on. “Have you heard anything? Did the rest of your men make it out okay?”

Mathan nodded.

“I’m sorry about the two you lost.”

The young Syrian nodded again. “They were good fighters. It was an honorable death.”

Harvath appreciated the sentiment. It was one many wouldn’t understand. If you had to go, dying on your feet, for a cause you believed in, was the best way.

He was about to say as much when Thoman came running up to the office door. “Something’s wrong.”

“With what?”

“With Proskurov. He’s sick.”

Harvath set the bottle of water down and followed Thoman to the supply closet.

Even though he was still secured to the chair, Proskurov’s body was convulsing wildly.

Harvath rushed over and snatched off the hood. The General’s eyes had rolled back into their sockets. All he could see were the whites. Proskurov was having some sort of a seizure.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mathan asked.

“I don’t know.”

Harvath snatched off the tape covering Proskurov’s mouth and was greeted by a spray of sudsy pink foam. Everyone leapt back.

“Cyanide,” Thoman stated.

Harvath had no idea what the hell was going on. Pulling out his encrypted cell phone, he tried to call Vella, but couldn’t get a signal inside the garage. Damn it.

Tossing the phone aside, he unsheathed his knife. “Hold on to him,” he ordered.

The Hadids grabbed hold of the man as best they could while Harvath cut through his restraints.

Moving everything out of the way so he couldn’t hurt himself, they lay Proskurov on the floor and then rolled him onto his side. His body continued to violently jerk and contort as the pink froth oozed from his mouth.

Grabbing his phone back, Harvath told the brothers to keep an eye on him as he ran for the front of the shop.

Near the roll-up door, he was able to get one bar of service. But every time he tried to place the call, he got the same message—call failed.

Unlocking the door, he rolled it up a few feet and slipped underneath. He didn’t like having to stand outside to make his call, but he had no choice.

Vella picked up on the first ring and Harvath explained what was taking place.

He fired back a series of health questions Harvath couldn’t possibly have answered. He asked about fatigue, hypertension, blood sugar, stress.

Of course the Russian was stressed. He had just been involved in a major gun battle and had been taken prisoner.

Vella asked him to detail how he had prepared and administered the compound. He then asked how long after introducing it the seizures had begun.

Harvath answered all the questions as quickly and succinctly as he could. None of this was helping, though. Harvath needed to know what, specifically, to do.

He was stunned by Vella’s response. “Nothing.”

Nothing? Harvath was about to push back when Thoman ducked under the roll-up door and stepped outside.

He didn’t need to ask why he wasn’t back inside with the Russian. He could read it on the man’s face. Proskurov was dead.