Full Black

CHAPTER 13

The young Muslim’s body went rigid, his head rolled back, and his back arched off the floor.

Harvath withdrew the Tasers and rocked back on his heels as Mansoor’s body landed with a thud on the dirt-covered barn floor. Riley reached forward and placed two fingers on his neck to see if he had a pulse.

“Anything?”

Riley shook her head. “Scot, this is not going to work.”

Harvath ignored her. “Stand back,” he said.

“Scot.”

“Stand back,” he repeated.

When she was out of the way, Harvath reapplied the Tasers, gave the warning he was about to deploy another charge, and then pulled the triggers.

The prisoner’s body went stiff once more and then came to rest on the floor. “Check his pulse,” Harvath said.

Riley did as he asked. Feeling nothing, she shook her head and scooted back.

“Damn it,” cursed Harvath. “Everybody back up. I’m going to hit him again.”

Riley and Bachmann did as they were told. Placing the Tasers against Mansoor’s left and right chest walls, Harvath applied yet another stun drive of electricity.

As had happened each time previously, the young man’s body convulsed and then dropped back to the dusty barn floor.

“He’s gone,” said Bachmann.

“He doesn’t get to choose when he goes,” snapped Harvath. “I’m not done with him.”

Without any warning this time, Harvath repositioned the Tasers and pulled the triggers. Mansoor’s body stiffened and then dropped back down.

“Check him again,” he said.

Riley moved forward and reached out her fingers. “Nothing.”

“Fuck!” Harvath yelled.

Abandoning the young man’s right and left chest walls, Harvath placed both Tasers directly over Mansoor’s heart and pulled the triggers. When the body fell back to the ground, he did it again, and then again once more.

“Scot,” Bachmann said, but Harvath ignored him. Angry at the prisoner and even more angry with himself, Harvath pulled the triggers two more times.

Riley said something, but Harvath didn’t listen to her either. She put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. It wasn’t until she grabbed his arm just above his triceps in a viselike pinch that she broke the spell.

“Son of a-” he began, as he turned his anger toward Riley.

“He twitched,” she said.

“He what?”

Riley shoved Harvath aside and laid her fingers on Mansoor’s carotid. She then leaned her ear over his mouth. “I think I can feel a breath.”

Tilting the prisoner’s head back, she pinched his nose, placed a CPR barrier over his mouth, and delivered a breath of air. She waited for several seconds and then repeated the process two more times until he began breathing on his own.

“Is he alive?” asked Harvath.

“Barely,” replied Riley. “We need to get him warm and get an IV started.”

Bachmann wrapped Mansoor with the blanket Harvath had brought with him and then went to the farmhouse to gather more.

Harvath handed Riley the items she requested from her medical bag and then rigged up a makeshift IV stand.

Once she had the fluids running into the young Muslim’s arm, Harvath asked, “How long until he’s ready to be interrogated again?”

Riley looked up at him. He couldn’t tell if what he was seeing on her face was admiration or disgust. He figured it was probably a mixture of both. “You’ve got to be one of the luckiest people I’ve ever met. Don’t push it.”

Harvath had often said it was better to be lucky than good, but he didn’t offer that sentiment to her. “I need to know how soon I can start asking him questions again.”

Riley shook her head. “First he’s got to regain consciousness.”

“How long?” Harvath insisted.

“It’s indefinite at this point. He probably has some sort of underlying heart condition. I think that’s why he coded. He could also have brain damage now. He’s going to need some tests; tests we can’t conduct where we’re supposed to be going. We’re going to need access to a friendly hospital.”

Harvath knew what she meant by a “friendly” hospital. They had planned for the possibility that Mansoor might get injured in the car crash. Whether that happened or not, he was going to be drugged up and flown out of Sweden on a Sentinel Medevac jet. All the paperwork was in order and an impeccable passport had been created for him. They’d be portraying him as the son of a wealthy Arab who’d had a stroke and was being flown back to the UAE for emergency medical treatment. Not even the most rigorous of authorities would have any reason to suspect the party and their patient were anything other than who they said they were.

By the time Mansoor awoke from his drug-induced stupor, the flight plan would have been refiled for Jordan and he would find himself in one of the multiple “extraordinary rendition” black interrogation/detention sites still in operation despite the U.S. government’s public proclamations to the contrary.

Based on the cyber jihadist’s enhanced medical needs, though, they were probably going to have to reevaluate which host country’s site they were going to use. Carlton and the DoD would make the final call.

The members of the Uppsala cell were another matter. Harvath had decided it would be foolish to put all of his eggs in one basket. He wanted Mansoor out of the country as quickly as possible. He had developed another plan for getting the safe house terrorists out of the country, though he still had no idea at the moment how many there were.

First things first. “How long until he can be ready for transport?” asked Harvath as he gestured at Mansoor.

Riley glanced at her patient and again shook her head. “At this point, I don’t even want to try to move him to the farmhouse. That said, the plane has a lot of the medical equipment he’s going to need, so as soon as he is ready to be moved, I think we should move him.”

Getting Mansoor to the airfield was another shell game, which would be played out via a private ambulance service from Stockholm willing to make the drive up to Uppsala. Looking at the man lying on the floor, Harvath wondered if he’d even survive the trip to the airport. Fortunately, that wasn’t his problem. It was Riley’s. He had other problems.

The biggest among them was deciding how long to leave Sean Chase in place and when to take down the Uppsala cell. With Riley now tied up with overseeing Mansoor, Harvath was going to have to shift to his contingency plan. He didn’t like it, but they had all known that it was a possible outcome. The team, and more important Harvath, would have to do without her.

That meant that things were about to get much more dangerous.