Page 106 of Edge of Honor

Laying them all on the table, he put his own mask on and donned the rubber gloves, before opening the cooler and removing its contents.

“The Carlton Group has a special relationship with a facility over in Malta,” said Harvath as he began soaking the strips of cloth. “The doctor who runs it came up with an interesting chemical compound that can be very helpful with difficult interrogation subjects.”

“Is it some kind of truth serum?”

He nodded. “Once the strips of cloth are saturated, they go into this pocket at the front of the hood. When the hood is placed over Hale’s head, he’ll be inhaling the fumes. As they enter the nasal passages, they head straight for a precise part of the brain—the amygdala; specifically the fear center. No matter how big and badass you are, this breaks you. And it does it in a matter of hours, not days.”

“So why didn’t you just start with it?”

“Because it’s pretty dangerous,” Harvath replied. “And there’s a lot about it we still don’t understand.”

“But you’ve used this before.”

“Normally, the doctor from Malta administers it. I’ve only done it solo once.”

McGee looked at him. “And?”

“The guy had a heart attack,” said Harvath, nodding at the device Tyson had dropped off. “That’s why I had the Admiral borrow one of the AED defibrillators from the yacht club for me. The chemical-to-cloth ratio can be a bit tricky to dial in.”

“What if the guy has a grabber and we can’t revive him?”

“We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.”

Finishing his prep work, Harvath returned the chemicals to the cooler and put his balaclava back on.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” McGee replied as he rolled down his own balaclava.

Together they entered the storage room and fired up the intense floodlights, which were pointed directly at Hale’s face.

Snatching off the hood that Hale had been wearing, Harvath took out his knife and cut away enough of the duct tape to remove the headphones from the man’s head. There was no point in asking him any questions, as his ears would have been ringing too loudly from the music to have heard them.

Placing the new hood, with its chemical-infused strips, over Hale’s head, he pressed his fingers against the man’s carotid and took his pulse.

Now it was simply a waiting game.

Because of his size, Hale had been difficult to dose. Instead of a couple of hours, it had taken nearly five to get the result that Harvath had been aiming for.

But when the compound finally kicked all the way in, the man was reduced to a state of almost abject terror. His heart rate climbed so high that Harvath was concerned that he had overdone it and that the man’s heart was going to explode right there in his chest. It was like trying to catch a falling knife.

Harvath watched Hale heaving for breath and struggling against his restraints. Looking at McGee, he said, “Get the AED ready.”

If he had to drive the man into cardiac arrest to get what he wanted, then that was what he was going to do.

Leaning in, he began to aggressively interrogate Hale, physically assaulting him with open-handed strikes when the man even so much as hesitated to answer a question.

When he had him right where he wanted him, he posed his two biggest questions: what was the next attack and who was he working for.

The answers were incredible. Harvath couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

CHAPTER 54

Removing the hood, Harvath put the headphones back on, duct-taped them in place, and covered Hale’s head with his original blackout hood.

Instead of German death-metal music, Harvath now piped in white noise and allowed the man’s nervous system to stabilize.

Stepping out of the storage room, he joined McGee at the staircase.