Yaqub was anxious, but tried to cover it. He looked around. “All of this for just one man?”
Harvath’s visage was like stone. “Not just any man, Ahmad. This is for you. This is what happens when you kill Americans. We come for you. We never forget. We never stop hunting. Sooner or later, we find you.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, the frigid water nearing his genitals. Yaqub tried to rise up onto the balls of his feet.
The SEALs holding him by the arms forced him back down. His body began to shake from the cold. It was time for Harvath to increase the pressure.
“I want you to remember my face, Ahmad. For the few minutes you have left alive, I want you to study it. After you’re dead, we’re going to defile your body and dump it into the ocean, they way we did to Sheik Osama, in order to make sure you don’t go to Paradise. Then I’m going to visit your family.”
He paused to watch the expression on the terrorist’s face before continuing. “Your wives, your children . . . I’m going to torture them and then I’m going to kill them. All of them,” said Harvath. “And then I’m going to visit your father, your mother, your four brothers and your two sisters and their families in Saudi Arabia. They’ll meet deaths even more horrific than yours. And as each of them writhes in pain, as they beg death to come and take them, I’ll make sure they know that it was you who brought that misery upon them.”
Yaqub’s lips were beginning to turn blue and his teeth had started chattering. “I curse you and your entire country. You and your American arrogance. You are doomed.”
Harvath stepped forward and drove his fist into the terrorist’s chest. When the Saudi doubled over in pain, Harvath signaled for the SEALs to release him, and then he grabbed the back of his neck and plunged Yaqub’s head beneath the water.
CHAPTER 6
* * *
* * *
Harvath held the terrorist there until the air had left his lungs and he was struggling for his life. Breaking Yaqub meant breaking his ideological willingness to die. He had to want to live more than he wanted anything else.
When Harvath finally yanked the man’s head out of the water, the Saudi terrorist drew in huge gulps of air and then started vomiting. Harvath waited for the vomiting to stop, and then shoved his head back under the water.
A few moments later, he pulled him out, allowed him to partially catch his breath, and then plunged him back down. He repeated this process several more times.
When he next pulled the Saudi’s head from the water, he did so with a demand. Once the man quit heaving and could hear him well enough, Harvath said, “I’m going to give you one chance, Ahmad. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, we’re going to open the valves all the way, fill the rest of this compartment with water, and we’re all going to watch you drown.”
Yaqub shook his head as he coughed and sputtered.
“Then, just as I promised, I’m going to visit your family.”
The terrorist shook his head even more vigorously before vomiting up more seawater.
Harvath waited, his blue eyes like two cold pieces of ice as he bored his gaze into Yaqub’s. “You have something I want,” he said. “If you give it to me, I’ll let you live and no harm will come to your family. Do you understand me?”
Yaqub nodded.
“I know about the coming attack, Ahmad. All of it. And I know you’re a part of it.” Harvath watched the man again for a moment before continuing. “I know Ismail Kashgari came to you for assistance. Correct?”
Yaqub nodded.
“Why?”
“Men,” the terrorist mumbled.
“How many men?”
“Six,” said Yaqub.
“To do what?” Harvath demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Harvath slapped him. “You’re lying to me, Ahmad. You know what happens to your family if you lie. Now tell me about the attack.”
“I don’t know,” he insisted, the water now up to his chest. “It was a trade.”
“What do you mean trade?”
“I helped him get men and he paid me.”
Harvath studied him. “You know the target, though, don’t you?”
“America. Yes.”
“That’s why you helped him.”
“Yes,” Yaqub replied.
“But you never asked about the attack? You weren’t curious? I don’t believe it.”
The man vomited again. The water was nearing his shoulders. His teeth kept chattering and Harvath had to strain to understand him. “He would not