Page 25

McL EAN , V IRGINIA

W EDNESDAY

W ith a few minutes left on Haney’s shift, Harvath had appeared in the den and they conducted a quick debrief.

Other than the fact that the Ambassador’s cameras were dirty and in need of an upgrade, there was nothing significant to report.

Haney handed him the security tablet and went to close his eyes for a few hours.

Harvath set his latest mug of coffee on the end table to his left and, unslinging his Rattler, set it next to him on the couch.

Via the home’s automation system, all of the main lights had been turned off at 10 p.m., while certain accent lights had been dimmed, providing just enough illumination to see by. Had anyone been watching from outside, it would have appeared that Rogers had turned in for the night.

“Now the fun starts,” McGee had stated as the lights had gone out.

Harvath knew it was more gallows humor, but he didn’t find any of this fun.

He felt like they were all sitting ducks.

If they’d only had more manpower, he would have gladly spent the night in the woods, heat and mosquitos be damned, waiting for his chance to come up behind anyone dumb enough to approach the house.

Unfortunately, it was just the three of them and Ambassador Rogers.

Posting men outside was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

He took a few moments to get himself familiar with the tablet, which was connected to the home automation system.

The lighting, audio, video, and security systems could all be controlled via a simple interface.

The tablet also had full access to the web, which felt to Harvath like another Achilles’ heel.

He thought about shutting off the Wi-Fi but worried that might compromise his ability to access the features he needed, so he didn’t mess with anything.

In addition to trimming the trees back and not allowing the security system to touch the web, had Harvath been in charge, he would have also covered all the windows with ballistic film.

Though it would have been expensive to do the entire house, and it wouldn’t stop higher-caliber rounds like .

308 or .50 BMG, it would have provided an extra layer of protection, and it was the layers that often made the difference between life and death.

Regardless of how long they were going to be with the Ambassador, he was going to recommend that Rogers do all of them.

Watching the camera feeds was mind-numbingly boring, and despite the strength of the coffee, Harvath had to stand up every fifteen or twenty minutes just to keep himself from falling asleep.

Each time he got up, he did a set of push-ups, air squats, or dips—anything that got his heart pumping and his blood flowing.

He was looking forward to handing over the watch to McGee, but that wasn’t until 4 a.m., an hour and twenty minutes from now.

Even though the coffee wasn’t technically doing the trick, it still fulfilled a psychological need and he decided to top off his mug.

Picking up the tablet, he swiped to the screen with all the feeds shown, just like on the TV. He then carried it into the kitchen, and propped it up on the counter between the two coffee machines.

There was only a little coffee left in both pots. He emptied the remains of each into his mug and started two fresh batches. As he worked, he kept one eye on the tablet.

Haney had been absolutely correct about the condition of the cameras. Not only were the acrylic domes that covered them filthy, but several of them were also partially obscured by spiderwebs, which bounced back a hot white glare in their infrared mode.

Harvath was certain, if Rogers was willing to make the investment, that Nicholas could get a team out same-day to install the latest in AI-boosted cameras that could not only detect motion, but also follow objects and determine whether or not they were a threat.

But at the very least, he needed to get all of the existing cameras cleaned.

There was no telling how long it had been.

It was yet another recommendation he would make to Rogers.

With his mug in one hand, he reached for the tablet with the other, and that’s when it glitched. Again .

Setting his mug down, he tried to swipe through the different feeds, but they were all dead.

Quickly, he headed for the den to see if the cameras were still showing on the TV. Each feed had gone dark. All the boxes were still there, but nothing was showing inside any of them. As far as the outside property was concerned, Harvath and his team were officially blind.

With each second that passed, his certainty grew that the feeds weren’t coming back and that they’d been cut on purpose. Whatever had happened earlier had, in fact, been a test—someone probing.

Now that the cameras were down, they had to assume an attack was not only in the works, but in fact also imminent.

Activating his radio, Harvath said, “Break. Break. Break. Cameras down. Possible breach. Repeat. Cameras down. Possible breach. Prepare for contact. Repeat. Prepare for contact.”

As soon as his call went out, Haney and McGee reported in, and they activated their prearranged plan.

The first order of business was to get the Ambassador up and into his safe room. As Haney was on the second floor, that became his job.

McGee backed away from the windows and out of the living room, maintaining a position in the kitchen where he could still see everything.

Out of the care package that Nicholas had prepared, Harvath removed a small, all-weather case, opened it up, and pulled out a pair of tiny drones that looked like Dragonflies.

Powering them up, he did his best to stay hidden behind the drapes in the den as he cracked one of the windows, used his knife to cut a gash in the screen, and let them fly.

Closing and locking the window, he then headed to the kitchen to join McGee.

“Did you reboot the cameras?” he asked.

“Haven’t had time,” said Harvath as he pulled out his phone, which Nicholas had set up to act as a monitor for the tiny night-vision and thermal cameras mounted to each of the autonomous drones.

Unlike the Ambassador’s somewhat out-of-date security system, the Dragonflies were state-of-the-art. They would not just sit in one place waiting for movement—they would actively seek it out. If anything had breached the perimeter, they would find it.

“Friendly!” Haney announced in a loud whisper as he came down the back stairs and into the kitchen.

“How’s the Ambo?” Harvath asked.

“Locked up tight,” he replied, pivoting to the same question McGee had asked. “What’s with the cameras? Have we rebooted?”

Harvath nodded toward the tablet sitting on the counter and said, “Not yet. Be my guest.”

Haney took it and got to work, while Harvath watched the split-screen feed from the Dragonflies. It didn’t take long for them to detect and identify an intrusion.

The first thing the drones were programmed to do was to locate any other drones in their immediate vicinity and jam them. As soon as they were airborne, they found one and gave it a digital aneurysm, causing it to drop from the sky and crash to the ground below.

Next they scanned for human beings, and within seconds the first Dragonfly returned a hit.

“Jesus,” said Harvath, reaching for his tactical helmet and powering up his night-vision goggles. “We’ve got six hostiles, all of them armed, moving toward the house from the southeast.”

“Six?” McGee replied, his pistol out as he kept his eyes on the windows in the living and dining rooms. “That’s an insane amount of manpower for the Iranians to be sending.”

Harvath agreed and was about to say as much when the second Dragonfly picked up an additional threat.

“Hold up. We’ve now got two more,” he said, trying to zoom in to get a better picture.

“West side of the house. Moving through the woods. It looks like they’re carrying something. I can’t tell what it is.”

“Reboot complete,” Haney interjected. “But I don’t think it took. The cameras are still down.”

“Kill all the lights in here,” Harvath ordered.

Haney swiped over to the home-automation screen with the light controls and turned everything off.

As Harvath continued watching the feed from the Dragonflies, he put his helmet on and cinched up the strap. He was about to activate the optic on his weapon when he saw the two men to the west of the house step out of the woods and he finally recognized what they were carrying— a ladder .

“They’re going to go for the roof,” he stated as he turned to Haney. “Get the Ambassador out of the safe room. Now .”

Haney didn’t need to be told twice. Dropping the tablet on the counter, he charged back upstairs.

“I think I should have brought a bigger gun,” said McGee.

The man was an excellent shot. Harvath knew that about him. The size of his gun didn’t matter. “How many magazines do you have?”

“On me? Three. I’ve got two more in my bag in the den.”

“Go get them,” Harvath replied.

As McGee headed for the den, Harvath kept his eyes glued to the Dragonfly feeds.

The six-man team was nearly at the house. They moved in a tight, tactical “stack” formation, meaning that they had probably had some sort of military training. The two men with the ladder were getting closer as well.

Harvath couldn’t wrap his head around what he was seeing. Eight men? To take out a former government official, who, as far as anyone knew, didn’t even have a protective detail? It didn’t make sense. And what’s with the ladder?

They had to be going for the roof.

And in his mind, if they were going for the roof, it had to be because they wanted to hit the safe room. But how did they know about the room, much less its greatest vulnerability? And if they knew that piece of critical information, what else did they know?

He had his answer soon enough.

Suddenly the tablet on the counter came to life and the screen was a large number pad.

Harvath watched as the buttons were remotely activated and someone entered the Ambassador’s security code. The LED warning light went from red to green.

The alarm system was now off.