CHAPTER 56
Cordero’s partner arrived at the staging area about ten minutes after she and Harvath got there. The SWAT team already had surveillance on the warehouse and were putting together their entry plan in consultation with the FBI. A restaurant supply company had been kind enough to allow them to pull their vehicles inside its building in order to avoid detection.
Mixed in with the uniformed SWAT team members were a handful of plainclothes operatives. With their short haircuts and muscled builds, none of these guys looked like run-of-the-mill folks from the neighborhood. None of them would be able to walk up to the warehouse. They’d have to hit it fast and hard before anyone inside knew what was happening.
If the men inside were the caliber of professional that Harvath suspected they might be, they were going to put up one hell of a fight. The SWAT team needed to know what they were potentially going up against.
Harvath took advantage of a break in their briefing to pull the team commander aside and share his concerns. The man listened to what he had to say, thanked him, and then updated his officers.
As they continued with their planning, one of their spotters radioed in. So far, the warehouse was dead. They had even managed to get an operator up on the roof near the skylights where the metal thief had allegedly seen everything, and there was still no sign of activity inside. It was too quiet. Either the thief had lied, or somehow the men inside knew they were coming.
The SWAT team’s greatest concern was the safety of the hostages. Not knowing where they were being held made the officers’ job incredibly difficult. The moment the team made entry into the warehouse, if they didn’t move fast enough, it was a very real possibility that the kidnappers would kill the hostages. Balancing officer safety against the two innocent lives they believed might be inside was like dancing on a knife blade. There was only one good outcome and no shortage of bad ones.
The commander was meticulous and refused to rush anything. He called in additional assets and did everything he could to maximize their surveillance. Finally, he made the call. It was time to hit the warehouse.
After one last check of their radios, weapons, and equipment, the SWAT team mounted up.
The owner of the restaurant supply company offered the plainclothesmen use of one of his vans. The fact that it belonged to a local business so close by would hopefully divert any suspicion away from it. This of course was based on a dangerous assumption—that the men inside the warehouse hadn’t already noticed they were under surveillance and were not waiting to engage any threat, plainclothes or otherwise, foolish enough to enter the structure.
Harvath had been on enough building takedowns to know that while time would slow down for the men on the team, for everyone else things were going to happen very rapidly. He told Cordero and her partner to get ready to move.
They exited the restaurant supply company and decided to drive Sal’s Crown Victoria to the warehouse. He had two Rubbermaid bins on the backseat filled with gear, one of which he moved onto the floor to give Harvath a place to sit. Cordero climbed in front. As soon as the FBI agents were in place and the SWAT team had departed the restaurant supply company, they followed.
Sal turned up his radio so they could listen to the takedown in real time. When he was half a block away from the warehouse and had it in sight, he pulled to the curb. This was close enough. If bullets started flying, they’d be sitting ducks out front.
“Keep it running,” said Harvath, as he noticed the man reaching for his ignition.
Sal nodded and they stayed glued to the radio.
The team practiced excellent communications discipline. Messages were transmitted via predetermined brevity codes. Finally, the warehouse doors and windows were breached, flash-bangs were tossed inside, and the SWAT team members made their rapid entry.
Harvath’s entire body was keyed up. Was this it? Had they tracked down the Sons of Liberty?
He hated being outside in a car, half a block away. He wished he was on the entry team, hell, he wished he was leading the entry team into the warehouse.
After what seemed like an eternity, more thorough communications started crackling across the radio as room after room of the warehouse was searched and found to be empty.
With the raid and then the secondary sweep of the warehouse complete, the team leader relayed the message “The building is secure.”
Sal put his vehicle in gear and they drove up to the front of the warehouse as a handful of SWAT operatives came out the front door. The FBI agents on scene had already begun going in.
Harvath looked at one of the SWAT team members as he passed and the officer shook his head. “No HUTS,” he said, which Harvath knew stood for no hostages, no unknowns, no tangos, and no shooters. The raid had been a bust.
The team leader met them inside. “The crates are here,” he stated, “but that’s it.”
“Where are the crates?” Cordero asked. The man pointed the trio to the back of the building.
The crates had been collapsed and leaned against the wall, as if someone was considering taking them along but then had second thoughts. In another room, where a length of chain hung from the wall, one of the FBI agents had found a woman’s blouse. It smelled terrible and was spattered with blood.
“Do you have Betsy Mitchell’s blood type in your file?” the female detective asked.
“If it’s not,” said Harvath, “they should be able to get it pretty quickly.”
She turned to her partner. “Where’s your camera?”
“Out in the car.”
“I don’t want to wait for the CSTs to get here. I want to get pictures, I want to do our drawings, and then let’s start bagging things up for analysis. Okay?”
“Fine by me,” said Sal. “We’ll need to coordinate the Bureau folks and set up a canvass in case anyone else around here saw anything, plus we should see if we can get a better description of the men the metal thief says he saw.”
“What can I do?” asked Harvath.
“Do you have any forensics experience?”
He shook his head. “Not much.”
“Then I have the perfect job for you,” she replied. “Go out to the car and bring those two Rubbermaid bins in.”
“Then what?”
“Then you’re really going to prove your worth to this investigation.”
“How?” he asked.
“You’re going to find us coffee somewhere in this neighborhood.”
CHAPTER 57
To his credit, Harvath not only didn’t mind going out for coffee, he actually found some and it wasn’t half bad. He returned with three cups in a cardboard tray.
The evidence techs still hadn’t arrived yet, but Cordero had made a significant find.
“Check this out,” she said, holding up a clear plastic bag. Inside, there was a piece of black card stock the size of a business card. On one side, printed in blood red, was a skull and bones with a floating crown. On the other side were the words I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.
It was followed by the letters S.O.L.
“I think that’s a line from John Hancock,” said Harvath.
Sal held up his smartphone. “Correct. Part of the speech he gave on the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre.”
“Why is it printed on a card? And why leave it here?”
“Maybe it was left by accident,” said Cordero.
“Where’d you find it?”
“Behind where the crates were stacked up against the wall.”
She had a point. Maybe it had been left by accident. One thing was for certain, though: finding this warehouse was a huge breakthrough. At least he hoped it would be.
“What else have you been able to find?” he asked.
“Other than that card and the blouse,” replied the female detective, “nothing.”