Path Of The Assassin

Forty-five minutes to get to Dulles? It was bullshit. Obviously Morrell had timed it so it would be impossible for Scot to get there before they took off. It was also obvious that Morrell and the rest of his group had no intention of fully cooperating with him. They were going to do the bare minimum to cover their asses and to hell with Scot Harvath. Well, they had another thing coming.

Harvath dialed Gary Lawlor’s office at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in D.C. and crossed his fingers that the man was at his desk. He was and answered on the first ring, “Lawlor.”

“Gary, it’s Scot Harvath.”

“What’s up?”

“It looks like we’ve got a lead on Abu, Jr.”

“So, I heard. Where are you?”

“At my apartment.”

“Your apartment? Why the hell aren’t you scrambled and out at Dulles already?”

“I just got the call.”

“You what?”

“Morrell just called me.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am very serious. Listen, I need your help. It’s obvious these guys are not playing ball with us. Morrell called me at the very last minute, knowing I wouldn’t be able to make it to Dulles before they took off. He’ll say he called me as soon as he could, but you and I both know that’s BS. I need to be on that flight, Gary. If they’re going to take this guy down, I have to be there.”

“Hold on a second,” said Lawlor, who withdrew a chart from the credenza behind him. “Do you know Inova Hospital in Alexandria?”

“Yeah, it’s on Seminary about four blocks west of I-395. Why?”

“How long would it take you to get there?”

“I could probably be there within fifteen minutes.”

“Hold the line again,” said Lawlor as he put Scot on hold and made another call. When he came back on just over a minute later, he had good news. “I called Mitch Norberg at Quantico. They’re going to fly in a Sikorsky S-76 to the hospital helipad. It’s made up to look like a Life Flight bird. It’ll be waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Gary. I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything, just nail that bastard. And remember what I said before about getting along with Morrell? Forget it. We might all be on the same team, but that doesn’t seem to mean much to these people. Keep your eye on them. I wouldn’t trust Morrell or his boss further than I could bowl them.”

* * *

The look on Rick Morrell’s face when Harvath walked into the United Airlines maintenance hangar with ten minutes to spare was priceless.

“What the hell’s he doing here?” said one of the SAS men. “I thought he wasn’t supposed to make it.”

Harvath looked around at the assembled crew. “Well, the gang sure seems to be all here. Sleazy, Slimy, Drippy, Dopey, and even…hey, what’s up, Doc?”

The man who had been taking Harvath’s blood pressure on the plane back from Jerusalem and whose eye Scot had dotted was still sporting two butterfly bandages. Now, he simply gave Harvath the finger and walked away.

“Now that we’re all reacquainted,” Morrell broke in, “let’s get on with it.”

The United Airlines security, maintenance, and engineering staff, as well as several representatives from Boeing, finished touring the group, explaining everything they could about the specially modified 747-400. The aircraft was identical to the one that had been hijacked.

In an attempt to keep up with the growing competition from Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways, United had decided to outfit their planes with numerous perks for business and first-class travelers. Besides the standards of video-on-demand, high-speed Internet access, massages, facials and manicures, there was an upper-deck lounge complete with a fully stocked bar and short-order kitchen, as well as a workout facility with showers on the lower-deck level. It seemed the hotter the competition, the more passenger friendly the “Friendly Skies” became.

When the tour was complete, Harvath, Morrell, and the rest of the team buckled into the overstuffed leather seats inside the lounge behind the flight deck, and the 747-400 was towed out of the hangar and onto the tarmac.

The engines growled to life, and minutes later the enormous craft was cleared and roaring down the runway. Harvath glanced at the 747-400 fact sheet he had been given when he arrived late on the tour and was awed by the statistics. The tail height of the 747-400 was six stories, each wing weighed 28,000 pounds and measured 5,600 square feet-an area large enough to park forty-five medium-sized cars. The “flexible” cabin layout allowed for changes in class and seating configuration in only eight hours and changes of lavatory and galley locations in forty-eight. The Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk could have been performed within the 150-foot economy-class section.

After the aircraft had leveled off at its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet and the captain had turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign, Rick Morrell called his twelve-man team to order.