Path of the Assassin

CHAPTER 40

In a remote corner of North Carolina’s Fort Bragg stood a high Cyclone fence patrolled by heavily armed soldiers. On the other side of the fence lay one of the most secure counterterrorism training facilities in the world — Delta Force’s famed headquarters and multimillion-dollar Special Operations Training facility.

The facility was known by many different nicknames. Some called it SOT for short, while others, because of the original stucco siding, called it the Fiesta Cantina. The real comedians liked to refer to it as Wally World, after the amusement park in the Chevy Chase movie Vacation, or the Ranch, because of early Delta Force operatives’ penchant for chewing tobacco and wearing cowboy boots. Whatever name was used, there was no escaping the fact that it was the most impressive complex of its kind.

The Ranch boasted a wide array of training areas. There were large two- and three-story buildings used for heliborne inserts and terrorist takedowns; indoor and outdoor live-fire ranges, as well as ranges for close-quarters battle, combat pistol, and sniper training; Delta’s Operations and Intelligence Center; staging grounds where mock-ups of structures in different terrorist scenarios could be constructed; and a host of other facilities and training areas too numerous to list. Simply put, the Ranch was where the best of the best came to train, and that was the reason Harvath had chosen it.

As a former SEAL, Harvath and his charge would have been welcome guests at SEAL Team Six’s training facility located in Dam Neck, Virginia, but there would have been too many questions asked. Having been on-site for the hijacking in Cairo, Delta already knew about Operation Phantom and Hashim Nidal. Plus, Delta had everything they needed right at Fort Bragg. SEAL Team Six was always jetting off someplace or other to train. They climbed oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, parachuted in the Arizona desert, practiced boarding tankers in Southern California, and sharpened their close-quarters battle skills at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Total-immersion training with Six was too widespread and would have taken too much time. Every second Harvath had with Meg Cassidy needed to be as efficiently spent as possible.

When Meg had sucker-punched Rick Morrell in the middle of the Harvey Point lodge, Harvath knew he had to get her out of there. Not only was she suffocating under the routine, she wasn’t getting everything she needed in the realm of counterterrorism training. Even though she was a civilian riding along on a government operation, she was traveling with experienced soldiers and needed to learn the ropes as quickly as possible. Harvath had hoped that Morrell and his men would teach her, but when it became apparent that they weren’t going to, he marched over to the Point’s communications center and was cleared by Morrell to make two phone calls.

The first call was to Gary Lawlor, who had been appointed his liaison and, for lack of a better term, supervisor, for Operation Phantom. Once Harvath had explained the situation and had gotten Lawlor’s approval, Harvath made his second call. Within forty-five minutes, he and Meg Cassidy were packed and standing on the Harvey Point helipad as an MH-60K Special Operations helicopter, piloted by members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or SOAR, touched down and took them aboard. Also known as the Night Stalkers, for the pilots’ unparalleled ability to fly over all kinds of terrain in all kinds of weather using only night-vision devices, SOAR was attached to Delta Force specifically for the purpose of aviation support and getting Delta’s “guys in the skies.”

Harvath hadn’t expected a tearful farewell from Morrell and didn’t get one. He simply ferried Scot and Meg to the helipad in his Suburban, asked for their ID badges back, told Harvath to stay close to his beeper, and then drove off. Harvath had pulled some major strings and knew Morrell was seething about it, but didn’t care. The man was not running his operation correctly, and Harvath was not about to stand by and see Meg miss out on training that might save not only her life, but also the lives of her teammates. Meg Cassidy was going to get the best training the United States was capable of.

When the helicopter touched down at the Special Operations training facility at Fort Bragg, Bullet Bob was waiting. He stood off to the side of the helipad with several of the Delta Force operatives who had been part of the takedown in Cairo. When Harvath and Meg stepped out of the helicopter, Bullet Bob lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth and said, “Let ’em rip, T-Bone.”

From a nearby demolition range came the sound of a twenty-one-gun salute — all done with explosives. There is nothing like guys who enjoy playing with demo, thought Harvath. And so the tone for their time at the Ranch was set.

Meg Cassidy was again pushed to her limits day in and day out, but always by intelligent instructors who clearly articulated and explained the goals of the exercises.

In concert with Bullet Bob and several Delta instructors, Harvath had come up with what they believed was a thorough yet turbocharged curriculum in counterterrorism training. She was instructed in the use of weapons, including stun grenades and flash bangs; close-quarters battle, also known as CQB; room-clearing techniques; self-defense and hand-to-hand combat; land navigation; small boat operation; encrypted radio operation; and basic first aid. She excelled in everything, except the training that involved heights.

Rappelling, fast roping from a hovering chopper, and land qualifying for parachute jumping were the most difficult training sessions of all. Meg even refused to get into Fort Bragg’s vertical wind tunnel to simulate free fall unless Harvath was with her. She was deathly afraid of heights and practically had to be dragged to every session kicking and screaming. It was important to have Meg acclimated to all situations that required her to deal with heights, just in case. But, as the operation profile didn’t call for anything along those lines, Harvath eventually backed off the exercises.

Meg’s training was rounded out by spending time with female members of Delta, affectionately nicknamed by the men as the Funny Platoon. Members of the Funny Platoon were experts at infiltrating foreign countries to conduct reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. Harvath figured that they could give Meg special insight into the experience of being a woman involved in covert operations.

He and Meg had been at the Delta facility for two weeks, when she entered the cafeteria one day and found him in the back, reading the paper. Harvath was engrossed in a story about the bombing at Mecca and how Jordan was currently amassing armored divisions along Israel’s borders. Not only had the death toll from the Hand of God attack been staggering, but the group had struck at the most sacred Islamic site in the world. Thousands of worshippers outside the Holy Mosque had been killed when the center of the courtyard exploded in flames and collapsed, while thousands more inside had perished as a result of the vaporized cyanide. The explosion had taken with it the Ka’ba, a square stone, wood, and marble building, which Muslims considered the most holy structure in Islam — believed by some to have been the first house of worship, originally built by Adam, and of great importance in the life of Muhammad.

The article explained that even though the previous attacks had been horrendous, the bombing of Mecca was seen as an absolutely unforgivable assault upon the Islamic world. Even liberal and moderate Arabs, so heavily relied upon to keep the peace in the Middle East, were now calling for an all-out war against Israel.

A million scenarios ran through Harvath’s mind as to how Hashim Nidal could now definitively push the region into all-out war, and he didn’t like the United States’s chances of stopping any of them.

“Were you looking for me?” asked Meg as she put a gentle hand on Harvath’s shoulder and sat down next to him, interrupting his thoughts. She was wearing a gray T-shirt with “ARMY” emblazoned across the chest and a pair of black fatigue pants. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She didn’t need to. All of the outdoor training had tanned her skin to a deep, rich brown, which enhanced her beauty even more.

Harvath tried to pull his mind back to business. “Yeah. I heard from Washington last night. It looks like the CIA might have new information on Hashim Nidal’s whereabouts. What do you think? Are you ready?”

Meg had done extremely well and had excelled at almost everything she had been taught, but classroom proficiency was not a reliable indicator of real-world performance.

“Ready? You bet I’m ready. Look at this,” said Meg as she flexed her biceps before twisting the lid off a bottle of Gatorade and taking a long drink.

“That’s all well and good, but what about up here?” asked Harvath as he tapped a finger against his temple.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think you could cram any more knowledge in there.”

“You’ve really been fast-tracked through this stuff. If we had more time—”

“But we probably don’t. Don’t worry. I’ve got it all down. Honestly, I’m good to go.”

Harvath had his reservations. “Meg, it takes months to learn this stuff and years to perfect it. You’ve been here two weeks. I don’t want you getting overconfident in your abilities. If this thing goes according to plan, we’ll be in and out without encountering any—”

“Hostile fire or dangerous situations which might necessitate calling upon my newfound skills. Scot, I know all this. You sound like an old lady. I am one hundred percent ready to go.”

Meg had done well, and, unfortunately, she knew it. But, she had also become a little too cocky, and that was dangerous. Harvath worried that he might have created a monster. She’d been thrown in at the deep end and had proved she could swim, but that was in the pool. The next test would be the open ocean itself.

“You’ve done a good job,” said Harvath as he reached for his coffee.

“Good job? I’ve done a great job.”

“Easy there. I don’t want this going to your head. There’s a big bad world outside the Ranch, and it’s a completely different place. Out there, the bombs are real, the bullets are real, and people die—” Harvath’s admonishment was abruptly halted by the sound of his pager going off.

“What is it?” asked Meg as Harvath studied the display.

“The big bad world. Time to see how well you’ve learned.”