Act of War (28 page)

His loneliness was troubling. He was too needy. With all of the distractions America had to offer, the fact that Mirsab couldn’t tolerate being by himself spoke to deeper issues—none of which Cheng had the time or the desire to address.

“What else did you tell these men?” Cheng asked.

“Nothing, I swear.”

“Did you tell them where you are from?”

“No,” Mirsab replied, before changing his answer. “I mean, yes.”

“Which is it?”

“They know I am from the Emirates, but I lied about what village.”

Cheng’s displeasure was growing. “What else?”

“Nothing, I swear.”

That was the second time he had given that answer and Cheng didn’t believe him. The man was a weak link. While he didn’t think Mirsab had blurted everything out, he only needed to have said just enough. If one of the men in his prayer group had been an FBI informant or, even worse, an actual FBI agent, there was no telling what damage might have already been caused. All it would take was Mirsab not to remember one of his lies or to go halfway down a conversational road he hadn’t intended. Cheng could only hope the other cell members were not this dysfunctional.

“Mirsab, I want to talk with you about the project,” said Cheng. They didn’t use the term “operation” with the cell members, it sounded too military, too much like terrorism. If any of them were ever interrogated
by authorities, the Second Department wanted the entire thing to sound as much like a criminal enterprise as possible. “Do you understand what it is we are trying to do?”

Once again, Mirsab looked at the floor. “Yes.”

“Look at me,” said Cheng. “What is it you think the project is?”

“I don’t think anything. I just want it to be over so I can go home.”

“Mirsab, before I came to see you, I paid a visit to Wazir Ibrahim. Do you remember what you told Wazir you thought was in the canisters?”

The engineering student nodded.

“We explained to you what our project is, so why would you think any different?” asked Cheng.

“Because the canisters we trained with were too heavy.”

The intelligence officer smiled. “Did you share this concern with the others?”

Mirsab shook his head.

“Good,” replied Cheng.

Pulling the suppressed M&P pistol from his briefcase, he then shot the Emirati right between the eyes.

N
ormally when it came to surveillance, you were left trying to make lemonade out of truckloads of lemons. In this case, though, they had caught a partial break right off the bat.

Harvath’s first goal had been to isolate Deng’s room. He didn’t want any hotel guests above, below, or on either side. Fortunately, only the rooms above and below were occupied. Offering those guests upgrades, the manager moved them to another part of the hotel. She then blocked out the rooms on either side of Deng in the computer so that they’d remain empty.

The room across the hall was also unoccupied and that’s the one Harvath wanted. When he and Sloane entered the lobby with their bags, the manager met them at the front desk and checked them in. Despite the fugitive drama unfolding in her hotel, she remained calm and professional.

She provided Sloane with key cards to their room and then handed Harvath an envelope with an override card that would open any guest room or other key-card-controlled door on the property.

Harvath thanked her and he and Sloane headed toward the elevator. As they did, Chase entered the hotel and approached the front desk. The manager met him there and led him back to her office where he could watch the CCTV feeds unseen. For as big a building as it was, they could
have done with a lot more cameras, but the limited number they had was better than nothing.

Harvath and Sloane got off the elevator on the third floor and followed the signs to their room. They appeared to pay no attention to Deng’s door, though they paused long enough for Harvath to listen while Sloane pretended to look for the room key. All he could hear was the television. The
Do Not Disturb
sign was still hung from the handle. There was no telling if Deng was inside. That was the first issue Harvath planned to address.

When Sloane finally produced their key card, she opened the door and Harvath followed her in.

He quietly reminded her not to turn on the lights. Sloane understood. They would be using the peephole to watch Deng’s door. If their room was backlit and one of them stepped up to the hole, they might give themselves away.

Setting her bag down, Sloane stepped into the kitchen area and turned on the small light under the microwave above the stove. Then, walking into each bedroom, she turned on the en suite bathroom light. It would give them enough light to operate by, but not enough to indicate when one of them was standing at the door.

Harvath unpacked his gear and handed a radio and earpiece to Sloane. Once he had his set up, he walked into one of the bedrooms and hailed Chase down in the manager’s office.

“All clear here,” he replied.

Harvath told him to stay alert and tucked his radio in his pocket. Returning to the living room, he set his phone on vibrate, made his LaRue hot, and propped it near the door. Sloane readied her Glock and then stepped into the bedroom to rack a round into the shotgun. There was no other sound like it in the world. The last thing she wanted to do was give away their presence with a loud
schik-schak.

The FBI had had the hotel under surveillance for only a matter of hours. Before Harvath had asked them to pull back, they had paid a visit to the manager and gone through all of the CCTV footage. They had seen Bao Deng check in and get on an elevator up to his room, but he hadn’t appeared on camera again after that. As far as they knew, he was still in his
room. If so,
What was he waiting for? Who was he waiting for?
Those were the questions on everyone’s minds.

The list of possible answers was endless—he was waiting for someone to make contact with him, he had a meeting but it wasn’t until well after midnight, he was here to make sure the Nashville cell carried out its assignment. There were countless reasons an intelligence operative might hole up in a hotel room. There also was another possibility—Deng might not even be in the room. He might have used the hotel simply to receive his FedEx, and once he picked it up, had covertly left the premises. That was the first thing Harvath wanted to ascertain.

Turning on the TV, he sent Sloane to the peephole, called the front desk, and asked for the manager. When she got on the phone, he told her they were ready to go and explained what he wanted her to do.

The housekeeping crew had already gone home for the night. What’s more, the hotel had a strict policy of respecting their guests’
Do Not Disturb
signs. If Deng had stayed at the hotel before, he might very well know both of these things. Sending a maid to his room for turn-down service could make him suspicious. That wasn’t something they wanted.

As Harvath waited, he listened as the manager picked up another phone and dialed Deng’s room. The sound of it ringing could be heard from across the hall.

It rang several times and finally went to voice mail. When it did, the manager left the message Harvath had instructed her to leave. It was time for the next step.

The manager had been reluctant to place one of her staff in harm’s way. Harvath had reassured her that he and his partner would be right across the hall, watching the entire thing. While he could have sent Chase, all it would have taken was one question about the hotel that he couldn’t answer and Deng would have been on to him. That, in Harvath’s opinion, was an even more dangerous risk. The hotel engineer would be fine.

A couple of minutes later, Sloane signaled that she could see the engineer in the hallway. Walking up to Deng’s door, he knocked loudly, saying, “Engineering.”

When there was no response, he pulled out his key card, opened the door, and once again announced himself.

Removing a rubber wedge from his pocket, he propped the door open and walked inside. If he saw Deng, the hotel engineer had been told to explain that the room below had water dripping down and he had come to investigate the possible source of the leak. The engineer was only inside for a few moments before stepping back into the hall and knocking on Harvath’s door.

“Nobody’s there,” he said as Sloane opened up.

“Thank you,” she replied. “We’ll take it from here.”

Handing the engineer back his wedge, Harvath stepped inside Deng’s room while Chase monitored the CCTV feeds downstairs and Sloane stood in their doorway to keep a lookout.

There was no food in the fridge, no dishes in the sink, nor in the dishwasher. The bed had not been slept in. The shower had not been used. Some clothing hung in the closet. An empty suitcase sat with its lid open on a luggage stand. As far as Harvath could tell, it didn’t contain any hidden pockets or false panels.

The empty FedEx box sat next to the wastepaper basket under the desk. Harvath studied the shipping label, but it provided no clues to what had been inside. On top of the desk was a wall charger for a cell phone. That was all that he could see sitting out in the open.

He now moved much more methodically through the room, looking anywhere and everywhere things could be hidden. He looked under tables, opened air vents, unzipped cushions, slid the fridge out from the wall, and took the lid off the toilet tank. He removed drawers, outlet covers, and light fixtures, putting each item back afterward exactly the way he had found it.

When he left the room and closed the door behind him, he looked at Sloane and shook his head. “Suitcase and some clothes, that’s it.”

“Which sounds like he’ll be back at some point.”

Harvath stepped into their room. “Probably,” he repeated. “But if he sneaks back in, we’re going to have to be watching that hallway, or none of us will know.”

•  •  •

There was no easy way to conduct the surveillance. Someone had to stand at the door, stare out the peephole, and wait. In a word, it sucked. But surveillance normally did. They had decided to go in half-hour shifts. Harvath offered to go first.

After radioing down to Chase, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick SITREP to the Old Man and Agent Urda. Then he took his place at the door.

Sloane grabbed the remote and sat down on the couch. They’d had the news on, but searching through the program guide, she found a romantic comedy she liked and switched over to that. Harvath rolled his eyes. Sloane ignored him.

While Harvath wasn’t a big romcom fan, having something going in the background helped break up some of the monotony. After his half hour was up, he handed over the surveillance to Sloane.

They had bought snacks on their way in and he grabbed a bottle of water and a granola bar before sitting down on the couch.

Picking up the remote he searched the program guide to see what else was on. He just wanted to zone out for a little bit and didn’t care for Sloane’s movie. He was in luck as
Black Hawk Down
was on. As soon as he changed the channel, she flipped him the bird.

He smiled and put his feet up on the coffee table. Opening his granola bar, he began to eat.

When his cell phone vibrated, he looked down to see the Old Man had sent him an update. None of the FBI interviews at the Johnson Space Center had been able to produce any actionable intel and the CIA’s interviews with the engineering students’ families in the Emirates had also come up empty.

The one piece of good news was that some employees in the free Wi-Fi locations the terrorists had used in Seattle, Dallas, and Baltimore had remembered seeing them. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Everyone had been hoping that the engineering students had been undisciplined, and that when they had used the same locations for free Wi-Fi, it was because those were the closest to where they were living.
Harvath acknowledged the Old Man’s message, set his phone on the arm of the couch, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them and looked at his watch, he saw that he had slept through his shift. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked.

“Old people need naps,” said Sloane.

Harvath smiled and got off the couch. “You know what? You’re going to make a great first wife someday.”

Returning his unopened bottle of water to the fridge, he grabbed a tall Red Bull and took his post at the peephole.

“Touché,” Sloane replied, before hailing Chase over the radio for a SITREP.

All was quiet downstairs, so she settled in on the couch and changed the channel back to watch the end of her romantic comedy. Harvath had no grounds to complain. She had given him the gift of extra sleep.

After a couple of lines of stupid comedy dialogue, though, he smiled when she clicked back over to
Black Hawk Down.
They really did have a lot in common.

Listening to the movie as he peered out the peephole, Harvath could picture all of the scenes in his head, he had seen it that many times. The operation never should have gone as wrong as it had. Too many lives were lost on that op. Every branch of the military had studied it. The greatest insult that could have been paid to those who had died that day would have been to not have learned from their sacrifice.

When his shift was up, Sloane handed him the remote, told him the movie
Commando
was coming up, and then, mimicking one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lines from the film, added, “I eat Navy SEALs for breakfast.”

“The line is ‘I eat
Green Berets
for breakfast,’
not
Navy SEALs,” Harvath corrected. He offered to repay her kindness by taking the next shift, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

“I’ve got my second wind,” she said.

Harvath didn’t want to risk falling asleep again and was halfway to the fridge for another Red Bull when his cell phone vibrated. It was Special Agent Urda.

“This is Harvath.”

“I think we know where Deng is,” said Urda. “Or at least where he was recently.”

“That’s fantastic. Where?”

“There’s a brew pub on the corner. I’ll be parked outside. Meet me there in five minutes.”