Use of Force

CHAPTER 81

The Grande Senegal was a Grimaldi Lines container ship that had left Rome’s Civitavecchia Port en route to Baltimore, Maryland.

The ship was almost two and a half football fields long and, according to Vottari, was carrying crates containing two cases of fragmentation grenades, six Russian mortars, and twelve binary chemical weapon shells designed for mixing highly deadly sarin gas in flight.

Ever suspicious of his ISIS clients, Vottari admitted to having hidden RFID tags in the weapons’ crates to make sure the contraband material did in fact leave Italy. There was an app on his cell phone actively tracking the tags.

“But your ISIS contact told you that the final destination for Mustapha Marzouk, and the weapons, was outside Italy, somewhere in Europe,” Vella had pressed during the interrogation.

“They lie,” Vottari had responded. “It’s what they do.”

The fact that ISIS had intended to smuggle the weapons out via the Port of Rome was also reinforced in the interrogation when Vottari admitted that his ISIS contact wanted the weapons delivered to a warehouse in Civitavecchia.

So thorough was the security at the Port of Rome that after an initial investigation, Vottari’s people had told him it was too dangerous. So Vottari had negotiated a different, safer location for the weapons to be delivered to.

For Harvath, everything was coming together. Via the Italian Mafia, ISIS had purchased Russian weapons, capable of delivering sarin gas. Those weapons were to be smuggled to Rome, along with an ISIS chemist.

ISIS had then lied about the final target, evidently intending to put the weapons and the chemist on a cargo container bound for the United States. According to the app on Vottari’s phone tracking the RFID tags he had hidden in the crates, the weapons were on their way. If Lovett’s assumption back in Palermo had been right, then so too was a new ISIS chemist.

The good news, though, was that the United States knew exactly where the Grimaldi Lines’ Grande Senegal was and a U.S. Navy SEAL Team had already launched from a ship in the western Mediterranean.

Sitting on the rooftop of the ROS safe house in Villa San Giovanni, Harvath and Argento watched as a video feed of the interdiction was beamed to Harvath’s laptop via his satellite phone.

A drone had been dispatched to shadow the ship and send back reconnaissance information.

Once the SEALs launched, they did so via two Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopters.

All of the SEALs were wearing miniature cameras that would provide real-time video of the assault.

Half of the team was responsible for locating the weapons, including any chemical components. The other half of the team was responsible for securing all crew and passengers. After which, they would conduct an investigation to determine if anyone aboard was an ISIS member or sympathizer.

Knowing what was at stake, the SEALs went in, not only expecting the chemist to be on the ship, but also expecting that he might be traveling with protection.

When the teams fast-roped out of the helos, Harvath’s screen split in two and he received video feeds from each team leader.

As Alpha team — armed with an RFID scanner that let them zero in on the frequencies of Vottari’s tags — headed for the containers, Bravo team headed for the bridge.

It took about twenty minutes for the bad news to start flooding in. First came a report from Alpha team. They had found the RFID tags, all thrown together in a plastic grocery bag. There were no weapons and no chemicals in the container.

Then came Bravo’s SITREP. All passengers and crew were accounted for. Unless there were stowaways that nobody knew about, they were it.

Bravo team’s leader held the passports up to his camera, so everyone watching the feeds could see them. Back at Langley, the CIA ran the names and photos through all of their databases. None of them were on any lists, nor were they affiliated with any known or suspected terrorist, terrorist supporter, or terrorist organizations.

The entire interdiction — all of that work — had been a bust. Harvath was back to square one.

But then, reflecting on the RFID tags, he abruptly realized that being back to square one was exactly where they needed to be.