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F AIRFAX C OUNTY

H arvath had texted ahead to let McGee know he was on his way back, but via the water, and along with Admiral Tyson.

He wanted to give McGee the opportunity to make himself scarce.

It was bad enough that he had roped a civilian into his plan.

He didn’t need Tyson to know that the ex–CIA director was a part of it too.

After tying up the boat at the end of the dock, he led the Admiral up to the house, got some coffee going, and then sat him down in front of the TV in the living room.

Once he was sure Tyson had everything he needed, he walked to the bottom of the driveway, where McGee was in his car just finishing up a call.

“Any updates?” Harvath asked as the man rolled down his window.

“Nicholas and I just set a time to meet. I’m on my way to see him now. How’s Admiral Cocktail?”

Harvath smiled. “Admiral Tyson will be fine. I offered to put on the Golf Channel for him, but he wanted to watch the President’s address instead.”

McGee looked at his watch. “I forgot all about that.”

“At this point, we probably know more than he does, so you’re not missing anything.”

“True,” the man replied. “Listen, before I go, do you want a ride down to the club to pick up the Bronco?”

Harvath nodded. “That was going to be my next question for you.”

“Hop in.”

Climbing in the passenger side, Harvath closed his door, and McGee rolled out of the darkened driveway.

“We should probably talk about ROEs for tonight,” the ex–CIA director said as he made a left on the road and headed for the MVYC.

Establishing rules of engagement had been on Harvath’s mind as well.

“Hale’s people at the estate are operating in their capacity as private security. They’re there to defend the Willis family. We can’t use lethal force.”

“Those were my thoughts too.”

“In this scenario, as far as they’re concerned, we’re the bad guys.

They can engage us with lethal force. I’ve got no idea how many, if any, of these guys moonlight on the dark side for Hale.

I’m not taking a father or a husband away from some family just because they may have answered the wrong want ad. ”

“So tonight, you’re Casper, the friendly ghost.”

“I’ll be a ghost all right,” said Harvath. “But I won’t be so friendly once I get my hands on Hale.”

“Understood. Which brings me to my next question. Are you sure you don’t want backup once you’re on the estate?”

Harvath shook his head. “Just knowing I have the cavalry on the other side of the hill is all the backup I need,” he stated, adding, “That, and you having my beacon in place on time.”

“It’ll be in place. Don’t worry.”

“If not, I hope you’ve got a ton of trash bags with you because there’s going to be pieces of me all over the place.”

“It’ll be there,” McGee once again promised. “In the meantime, is there anything else you need me and Nicholas to pick up?”

Harvath smiled. “Undoubtedly, I’ll think of a million other things once my feet hit the water, but right now, we’re good.”

Up ahead was the club and he pointed to the area where he had parked Haney’s Bronco.

As McGee pulled up behind, Scot reached over and shook the man’s hand.

“I know it’s not as much fun as fishing or house-sitting, but I appreciate all your help.”

The ex–CIA director chuckled. “True, but hopefully it’ll make for a good story someday.”

Getting out of the car, Harvath had just closed the door when McGee rolled down the passenger-side window and said, “Word of advice. I read Hale’s file all the way through. You’ve been through a lot of scrapes but so has he. Be careful.”

“Copy that,” Harvath replied. “Keep an eye on Nicholas for me. He hasn’t been sleeping lately and could turn out to be an even bigger threat than Hale.”

Smiling, McGee pulled away as Harvath got into the Bronco and headed back to the house.

After parking in the driveway, he headed inside to check on Tyson. He found the Admiral right where he had left him. The President’s address was complete, and a cable news panel was discussing what little information there was to parse.

Harvath refilled the man’s mug full of coffee, checked to see if he needed anything else, and let him know he’d be back and forth getting things ready for their boat trip.

Grabbing a headlamp, he made multiple trips, carrying all his dive equipment down to the dock and loading everything aboard Pier Pressure .

Once that task was complete, he walked over to the church, unlocked the door, and headed down into his gun room.

Wanting to make sure that Haney and McGee had every possible advantage should they come under attack again, he had left all of his weapons and equipment with them and was now starting from scratch.

As far as Harvath was concerned, gearing up for a water insertion was a completely different animal.

What could get wet, would get wet. Anything else needed to be placed in a dry bag.

And even then there was only so much he could physically swim with to shore.

He began laying equipment on the center table piece by piece.

Removing a waterproof night-vision monocular from its case, he inserted fresh batteries and put it through the same testing process he had recently run his night-vision goggles through.

Confident that it was in good working order, he found the flip-up head-mount assembly that went with it, which would allow him to wear it like a headlamp, and set both items on the table.

Next up was a little something the techs at Taser had been working on. Called the Neptune , it was a fully submersible, six-shot energy weapon. Grabbing a holster, an extended power magazine, and an additional six-shot cartridge, he added those to the table as well.

Along with it went one of his favorite fixed-blade knives—a Gerber LMF II Infantry with a rubberized handle, and a fully waterproof tactical light with multiple beams.

Everything else, including a suppressed Glock 19 and four spare magazines, a battle belt, a small blowout trauma kit, boots and BDUs, and an additional tourniquet went into his dry bag.

The Glock was coming along as a very last resort. As discussed with McGee, he wasn’t headed to the estate to harm anyone. It was the same reason he wasn’t bringing a rifle. His job was to be a ghost—get in and get out without any of the personnel knowing he had been there.

There was also the issue of getting off the estate if his primary means of exfiltrating failed.

While he could get back in the water and swim downriver, he would need a way to transport Hale.

His answer was an extremely small, inflatable dinghy.

It came tightly rolled in its own compact dry sack and, via an adaptor, could be inflated from the air left in his SCUBA tank.

It wasn’t exactly a process he’d want to attempt under fire, but if guns were blazing and he was rushing toward the Potomac, chances were pretty good that he would have already ditched Hale.

It wasn’t the worst backup plan he’d ever come up with. It also wasn’t the best. But it was a plan nonetheless, and considering how little they had to work with, it was better than nothing.

Going through all the gear two more times, he bagged everything and carried it upstairs.

Next on his list was to prep the small storage room off his gun room.

As the room was all stone, he had to get clever with how he attached the heavy plastic sheeting.

For the work lamps, he ran extension cords from the nearest outlet.

And though it would have been nice to be able to fully adjust the temperature in the space, that simply wasn’t an option.

The church basement had never been intended to serve as a black site.

When all of his work was complete, he carried everything else down to the boat and then returned to the house to check on Admiral Tyson. He was still in the living room, watching TV and drinking coffee.

Retreating to his office, he hopped online and checked the latest data from the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System.

On a small pad, he noted the water temperature, the speed and direction of the current and the wind, the wave heights, and the time of the tides.

Then, pulling out a nautical chart and laying it on his desk, he located the shoreline in front of the Willis estate and worked upriver to the point where he wanted Tyson to drop him.

Switching back to his computer, he pinpointed both sets of GPS coordinates and wrote them down. It was time to give the Admiral his pre-mission briefing.

He brought it all into the kitchen, laid it out on the table, and had the man come join him.

Coffee, and time away from the yacht club bar, seemed to have served Tyson well. The man was much improved—his eyes no longer glassy, his speech no longer slurred. He paid attention and asked a handful of good questions.

Once the briefing was over, Harvath went upstairs to get into his bathing suit and load the GPS data into his Garmin tactix watch, which was charging next to his bed.

After texting McGee to make sure he was en route, he grabbed a pair of flip-flops from his closet and returned to the kitchen, where he found the Admiral ready to go.

Together they made sure the house was all locked up, Harvath set his alarm, and they walked down to the dock.

Once Pier Pressure was fired up and Tyson gave him the command, Harvath cast off the lines. Helping ease the boat off his dock, he then hopped aboard and they began cruising up the Potomac.

The Admiral punched the coordinates for the drop-off point into his GPS while Harvath got into his wetsuit and readied all his gear.

Looking out over the water, he realized there was something else he should have asked McGee to pick up for him—the biggest shot of penicillin he could lay his hands on. The Potomac, although better than it had been a decade ago, was filthy.

It was even worse after a heavy rain when sewage and other polluted runoff ended up in the river. Harvath figured he should be grateful that he was doing his swim tonight. Storms were in the forecast Friday—right in time for the NATO Summit.

Wrapping up his gear prep, he joined Tyson at the helm.

“Five minutes out,” the man said, his tone flat, eyes fixed on the dark ribbon of the Potomac stretching ahead.

Harvath flashed him the thumbs-up and turned his focus back to the river, helping scan for logs and debris.

The men didn’t say much. Harvath appreciated the quiet. He needed to get his head in the game. Something easier said than done.

So many things still didn’t make sense. Not the attack at the Naval Observatory. Not the attack at Ambassador Rogers’s house. And not the attack on S?lvi’s motorcade. They were all mysteries to him; serious questions in search of equally serious answers—answers he hoped he was closing in on.

Soon enough, the boat slowed to a crawl, its engines’ hum quieting to a low murmur.

They were about five hundred yards from shore and something in the stillness of the water made the moment feel suspended, as if time itself had paused, waiting for something to happen.

As Tyson killed the engines, Harvath texted McGee, who confirmed that he and Nicholas were in place. The operation was a go.

Walking to the stern, Harvath donned his SCUBA equipment and checked the readout on his Garmin. It was time to get wet.

Thanking the Admiral one final time for his help, he placed the regulator into his mouth and did a backward roll off the port side.

Once he was in the water, Tyson handed him his dry bag with the rest of his equipment, as well as the sack containing the dinghy.

With a few powerful kicks of his fins, Harvath separated from the boat and allowed the current to start carrying him toward the Willis estate. As it did, he focused on all the things that needed to go right over the next hour.

If a single one of them went wrong, the entire operation would be shot. And if the operation ended up shot, there was a very good chance that he would be too.