BASQUE PYRENEES
SPAIN
With his brown hair and blue eyes, Scot Harvath didn’t exactly look like a local. In fact, despite the call sign
He was a handsome man in his early forties and carried himself with an unmistakable bearing that, to the uninitiated, simply appeared to reflect relaxed self-confidence. The initiated, on the other hand, noticed how he took in his surroundings, how he was aware of everything and everyone without appearing to be paying particular attention to anything. In the parlance of an operator, they could see he was “switched on,” and this heightened awareness could be attributed only to high-end military or law enforcement training.
Indeed, Harvath had received the best training both the military and law enforcement had developed. Leaving a career as an amateur athlete to follow in his deceased father’s footsteps, he had undergone the grueling training and selection process to become a United States Navy SEAL. Always searching for a bigger challenge, he had gone from SEAL Team Two to the Navy’s storied SEAL Team Six, where, among his many exploits, he assisted on a maritime presidential detail and caught the eye of the Secret Service.
The Secret Service invited him to help bolster their counterterrorism expertise at the White House. While it was an incredible honor, playing defense after years of being on offense and taking the fight to the bad guys didn’t sit well with Harvath. It didn’t take long for the President to realize that the young man’s talents weren’t being fully utilized.
Having long desired to level the playing field with the terrorists who threatened America’s citizens and interests, the President set up a top-secret program for Harvath called the Apex Project. In essence, Harvath had only one rule of engagement—don’t get caught.
The program was incredibly successful, but when the President left office after his second term, his successor had a different view of the world. Instead of killing America’s enemies, he wanted to sit down and talk with them. The Apex Project was shut down and its funding directed elsewhere. Harvath had been downsized and was out of work.
He had then taken a job with a company in the mountains of Colorado that specialized in intelligence gathering and highly advanced special operations training. Soon after, the company was purchased by the Carlton Group—an obscure, private organization funded completely from Department of Defense black budgets.
In the post-9/11 world, quality, timely intelligence, and the ability to act on that intelligence were paramount. Deeply concerned with the entrenched bureaucracy at the CIA and the hobbling of the nation’s defense apparatus, the Carlton Group had been established to boldly do what the nation’s politically correct, vote-chasing politicians and cowering cover-your-ass bureaucrats were too timid and too inept to attempt.
It was based on the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, the wartime intelligence agency that had preceded the CIA, and the modus operandi of the Apex Project was quite similar. In addition to the group’s intelligence- gathering mandate, Carlton, or the Old Man, as he was known, had assembled a small group of operatives with specialized military and intelligence experience to carry out “direct action” assignments.
Operating under the simple charter of “Find, fix, and finish,” Carlton had offered Harvath a position identifying terrorist leadership, tracking or luring them to a specific location and then capturing or killing as many of them as possible. Harvath would then be expected to use any intelligence gleaned to plan and execute the next assignment. The goal was to apply constant pressure to the terrorist networks and pound them so hard that they were forever rocked back on their heels, unable to even take a step forward. Harvath had accepted the job on the spot.
Carlton spent the next year personally training him, putting Harvath through the most comprehensive intelligence training he had ever experienced. In essence, Carlton distilled what he had learned throughout his career in the espionage world and drilled it into Harvath.
On top of the intelligence training, Harvath was expected to keep his counterterrorism skills razor sharp. He took classes in Israeli and Russian hand-to-hand combat, and continually updated his training in firearms, driving, and foreign languages.
He made excellent progress and despite having leapt the fence from his thirties into his forties, was in the best shape of his life. All his training had been to prepare him for any eventuality, but what happened in Paris had stunned him to the core.
Riley Turner had been an incredible operative. She was one of the first recruits the U.S. Army had approached for its elite, all-female Delta Force unit, code-named the Athena Project. He had worked with her on a handful of occasions and respected her skill and expertise. He had also been attracted to her but tried to keep things professional between them.
Years ago, he had resigned himself to the fact that in order for the American dream to exist, someone had to protect it. He understood that he was one of those people and that by protecting the American dream for others, he had to forgo a certain portion of it for himself, namely his personal life. He had been okay with that. The world was made up of good people who needed sheepdogs to keep the wolves at bay. Harvath had been a sheepdog ever since he was in grade school and had defended the developmentally impaired boy next door from the neighborhood bullies. Being a sheepdog was what he was good at. It gave him a sense of purpose. But he still wanted purpose beyond simply being a sheepdog. He wanted a family.
Even though he dragged a string of unsuccessful relationships behind him like cans strung to a bumper, he hadn’t given up looking for the right person; someone who understood who he was, why he did what he did, and who could live with all of it. He had wondered if Riley Turner might be that person and had decided that the next time he saw her, he was going to begin to find out. With a heavy heart, he realized that opportunity now would never come.
Disembarking from the train in the seaside resort town of Hendaye, Harvath tried to put those thoughts out of his mind and focus on his next step.
If it were evening, he might have stolen a car from one of the hotel parking lots, relatively secure that the theft wouldn’t be reported until the next morning, if not days later, when the hotel guest finally asked for it. But it was 7:30 a.m., and he needed a better plan.
Walking to an adjacent station, he bought coffee and something to eat before boarding a Basque commuter train that carried him across the border into Spain.
In Irun, he caught the bus to Bilbao, a city he knew from having been there over the summer. He found a small hotel in the city’s medieval Casco Viejo neighborhood and, after presenting his Italian passport for identification, paid in cash for two nights. He had no idea if he would need the room that long, but at least he had it.
After showering and changing into new clothes he had bought en route, he left to surveil his target.
It was warmer in Bilbao than it had been in Paris, too warm to be wearing a jacket. Harvath was grateful to have Riley’s backpack. Not only could he carry all of his possessions with him at all times but he didn’t have to worry about having to walk around with an untucked shirt, beneath which his weapon might print through.
Designed by Camelbak for the Special Operations community, the pack had a hidden handgun compartment at the small of the wearer’s back. It was an ingenious design that allowed him quick access to his weapon while he looked like just another tourist and blended right in.
To round out his look, he picked up a guidebook in Italian and a map of the city, both of which he consulted repeatedly as he strolled the neighborhood’s popular Siete Calles, or Seven Streets, conducting his SDR.
Behind the cathedral on the Calle de la Tenderia he walked into a small Basque restaurant and chose the same table he had taken on his previous trip, two back from the window, and sat down.
Making himself comfortable, he glanced over the menu and ordered some food. There was no telling how long it was going to be before, or if, the tobacconist would make his move.
CHAPTER 7
Because of the tobacconist’s age, Harvath had counted on his being a traditional Spaniard
