The FBI Director held up his hand. “First of all, you’re assuming he’s a professional.”
“I’m not assuming anything,” Harvath replied. “Based on what we’ve already seen, Deng has proven that he is a professional. The question is, why is he here? Has anyone looked into when he bought his airline ticket?”
The Director looked through his notes and found the information. “Two days ago.”
“Last-minute. Just like Tommy Wong,” said Harvath. “That’s a huge risk. They know we scrutinize last-minute purchases. He would have needed a cover story in case immigration asked him anything at LAX. You should tell your people to triple-check any stories they come across at his poultry plant.”
“What kind of stories?”
“An accident, a failed piece of machinery, a client backing out of a major deal. That sort of thing.”
The FBI Director made a note on his pad.
“Why do you think he took the risk?” the President asked.
Harvath thought about it for a moment. “Everything should be on autopilot at this point. You don’t do anything that risks exposing the operation unless something has gone very wrong. I think that’s what’s happened. Something has gone upside down and the Chinese have sent in a pro to straighten it out.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I think the Nashville cell is probably compromised.”
“Compromised how?” asked McGee.
Harvath shrugged. “You know this game as well as I do. It could be anything. Did someone get cold feet? Is the cell being blackmailed? Do they need to get rid of a body? Did a key piece of equipment fail? Whatever it is, it isn’t good news for them. But if we handle this right, it could be good news for us.”
Silence settled over the room as the directors for National Intelligence, CIA, and FBI all turned and looked at the President.
The President looked at Harvath. “In your estimation, what do we need to do to handle this right?” he asked.
Harvath studied each of the faces gathered around the table. “Off the record?”
President Porter nodded.
Looking over at Carlton, Harvath asked, “How soon do Sloane and Chase land?”
The Old Man glanced at the Situation Room clock and said, “Twenty minutes.”
CHAPTER 32
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* * *
FBI Director Erickson didn’t like a single thing Harvath had proposed. His entire plan was dangerous, outside the law, and just too damn risky. He offered to put all of the resources of the FBI at his fingertips, but Harvath said no.
In Harvath’s estimation, he not only knew the enemy better than Erickson, he also knew the Achilles’ heel of the law enforcement system. He had the utmost respect for the FBI, particularly its Hostage Rescue Team, which was world-class, but he knew what would happen if Erickson and his G-men succeeded in capturing Deng.
They would hold off on Mirandizing him in the hopes that the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, could squeeze the information they needed out of him. HIG had been created by the previous administration to interrogate terrorism suspects immediately after arrest in order to gain intelligence that would head off an attack and help round up accomplices.
HIG teams were staffed with FBI, CIA, and DoD personnel, as well as linguists, professional interrogators, and terrorism analysts. All of them were good, solid, experienced people, but all of them were bound by a very specific set of rules. Harvath wasn’t bound by anything.
If Deng was half the professional he appeared to be, even the best HIG team wasn’t going to get anything out of him. But he was putting the cart in front of the horse. Before HIG could question Deng, the FBI would have to apprehend him.
You could be the best dogcatcher in history, but it wouldn’t amount to much on the day you had to catch a panther. When that happened, you wanted somebody around who not only knew how to track a big cat, but knew how to think like one—somebody who knew what to do just in case the panther turned the tables, and began tracking you.
More important, you wanted someone who understood the number-one rule of tracking a top predator—there are no rules. That’s what made a panther a panther and that’s why the President wanted Harvath to go to Nashville.
By the time he arrived at Reagan National, Sloane and Chase’s plane had already been diverted from Dulles and touched down. They met up at Signature Flight Support, a fixed-base operator, or FBO as it was known, on the general aviation side of the airport. Bob McGee had arranged