Hidden Order

CHAPTER 15

Harvath pulled up in front of the chipped brick warehouse and checked the rusted numbers above the door against the address the Old Man had given him. He appeared to be at the right place.

Though he normally didn’t leave anything of value in his SUV, he did a quick visual sweep of the seats just to make sure. This neighborhood wasn’t exactly in the town’s garden district and the last thing he wanted to do was tempt some passing thug into a quick smash-and-grab.

Preparing to exit the vehicle, he adjusted his weapon. He was convinced that one of the biggest reasons D.C. was so dangerous was that its citizens weren’t allowed to defend themselves and legally carry firearms. The criminals knew this and took full advantage. A proponent of the belief that it was better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, Harvath always carried his .45-caliber H&K USP Compact in a custom Blackhawk “Check Six” holster placed securely behind his right hip, wherever he was. One of the few exceptions was that afternoon when he had gone straight from the airport to the Federal Reserve Building. As a rule, any weapons used overseas stayed overseas.

By and large, most of the rules Harvath lived by served him well. Some, though, were more difficult to reconcile with circumstances than others. His maxim that there was no such thing as a perfect crime was a prime example. Whether it was a terrorist attack, a kidnapping, or a murder, there were always clues to be found. But in the case of the kidnapped Fed candidates, the clues were proving to be extremely hard to find.

With some help from the Old Man, Harvath had turned his study into a makeshift war room and they officially launched their investigation. They began with what Harvath had hoped would be the easiest and quickest route to uncovering potential suspects — the Internet.

Though he didn’t know much about the Fed, he did know that their critics were fairly outspoken. Some of the better known ran the gamut from pundits to business leaders and members of Congress, while the lesser known were simply day-to-day citizens. He used every mix of search terms he could come up with. He began with a generic search for the “Sons of Liberty” and because of its historical relevance was gifted with over a million prospective returns.

He tried to narrow it down by adding the term “Federal Reserve” to the search and ended up with just over thirteen thousand possibilities. From there, he added the names of the kidnapped candidates and hit a digital wall. As best he could tell, none of the terms appeared together, at least not openly anywhere on the Web.

Stripping out the “Sons of Liberty” from his search, he entered the hostages’ names along with the term “Federal Reserve.” He even tried adding the Henry Hazlitt quote about today being the “tomorrow” that the bad economist told us to ignore. The results were a mixed bag and not very helpful. There wasn’t anyone, at least not on the open Internet, calling for any of the victims to be harmed, much less killed.

Harvath turned his attention to the police reports. He had been through Claire Marcourt’s file a hundred times. It felt like there was something missing, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

He read through the reports of the other kidnap victims, searching for some common thread, but the only thing he seemed to be able to come up with was that the kidnappings had been very well executed. They had all happened on the same night, but in different cities, which meant that multiple teams had to have been used. That was a plus, as far as Harvath was concerned. The more people involved in any plot, the greater the chances were that one of them would screw up. The challenge, however, was allocating enough assets to a case in order to see the screw-up the moment it happened, jump on it, and leverage it to your advantage.

The Carlton Group, though, didn’t have many assets, much less extra ones they could move from project to project, as they’d been forced to let most of their people go. At the moment, Harvath was it, conducting the entire investigation himself out of his house, with his study acting as ground zero and the overflow spilling into the hall.

Even the Old Man was limited by how much time he could spare. He had spent a few hours with Harvath on the assignment before having to leave to deal with the fallout from the Sienna Star operation.

Though he didn’t come right out and say it, Carlton had also been troubled by Claire Marcourt’s murder. Harvath could see it in his face and by how much time he had spent with the file. He’d scanned all the contents onto his laptop and uploaded them onto a secure FTP site before walking outside to place a lengthy phone call. When he came back in and announced that he was leaving, he handed Harvath a slip of paper with the address for a warehouse and WWII written on it.

The initials stood for William Wise II. “He’s expecting you,” the Old Man had said on his way out the door.

“Expecting me for what? Who is he?”

“He used to work for the Agency, brilliant guy. Knows something about everything. I gave him the file. He might have some insight.”

Harvath tried to ask what kind of work Wise had done and what made him so special, but Carlton was in a hurry and gone before the conversation could go any further. He figured he’d learn soon enough.

Walking up to the front of the building, Harvath noticed several low-visibility security precautions. While they may have been in response to the neighborhood’s crime rate, Harvath suspected there might be another, much more realistic reason. Whoever this Bill Wise person was, he had some very dangerous enemies.