was a narrow piece of flexible, clear plastic tubing about eighteen inches long. “You’re like Felix the Cat with that bag. You got that bicycle I wanted for Christmas all those years ago, too?”
“This is going to be better than Christmas. Just watch.”
“We’re not going to get a flashover with that stuff, are we? I don’t want to light this guy Stark up like a Christmas tree unless we absolutely have to.”
Wise shook his head. “This is the best stuff the military has ever fielded. Burns like a mother, but it’s not flammable.”
“Whose idea was the hose? Yours?”
“It was actually their idea. Believe it or not, the inspiration was hotels. Some asshole bangs on your door at three in the morning, you slip the hose under the door, spray this into the hallway, and suddenly it’s filled with pepper mist and a very inhospitable place to be. We, though, are going to do the opposite.”
McGee smiled. “Smoke him out of his room into the hall. I like it.”
Wise looked up at Ryan. “You good to go?”
She nodded.
“Okay, let’s go.”
The contents of the envelope would only keep Stark busy for so long. It was a page from the Wall Street Journal with three letters crossed out in pencil. Whether or not the team still used the same code, it didn’t matter. It would take Stark fifteen minutes at least to figure the message out and to check the online dead drop where further instructions would be waiting.
It had been one of the team’s emergency protocols, intended to be used only when their primary and alternate codes had been compromised, and for that reason she had hoped it would work. The one thing that was for certain was that Stark would be in a hypervigilant state of alert. That’s why it was so important that Wise’s plan worked.
Readying their gear, they gave everything one last quick check and stepped out of the stairwell. The coast was clear. They moved rapidly down the carpeted hallway and took their positions outside Stark’s door.
When Ryan and McGee returned his thumbs up, Wise worked the tube underneath the door and then depressed the button, releasing the mist of pepper spray into the room.
Stark started coughing in less than a minute. Within two minutes he had opened the window, which was when Wise pumped an even thicker mist into the room. Stark was really hacking now.
They heard him tear a towel from the bar in the bathroom and begin running the water in the sink. Moments later, they noticed a shadow pass across the peephole. Even if the man could focus, he wouldn’t have seen anything in the hall. Wise, McGee, and Ryan were all crouching down, off to the sides, out of sight.
Used covertly, pepper spray was very disorienting. If you weren’t standing in the middle of a riot or had someone aiming a can at you, its effects were very unsettling and hard to attribute. Your mucous membranes dumped, your eyes drained buckets of water, and your throat, lungs, and eyes burned like crazy.
With the wet towel pressed against his face, Stark unlocked his door and leaned out to see what the hell was going on.
That was when McGee nailed him with the Taser.
CHAPTER 62
The first person Harvath saw as he came to was Cordero’s partner. The man’s lips were moving but no sound was coming out. Harvath could hear what he thought was the rustle of the detective’s Boston PD nylon windbreaker. He soon realized that it was the rush of blood pounding in and out of his ears.
As the detective’s voice became discernible, it was accompanied by a loud ringing.
“Are you okay?” Sal yelled.
The man might as well have been yelling across the Charles River. Harvath could barely make out what he was saying, but he got the gist of it. He nodded and waved him off as he sat up and looked for Cordero.
It smelled like gasoline and burnt flesh. There were fires burning everywhere. The ground was littered with bodies and broken glass.
Sal was about to leave him and Harvath reached out and grabbed his arm. “Is she okay?” he asked. “Where’s Lara?”
A triage area had been set up near a row of ambulances. EMTs were working their way through the dead and wounded, assessing who needed immediate care, who needed immediate transport, and who was beyond being helped. Through his blurred vision, he could just make out Cordero, who was being examined.
The male detective waved over one of the other