Free The Athens Solution: A Short Story by Brad Thor Page B

foot on board.
    The Pentagon considered it one of the most exciting, and dangerous, pieces of technology ever developed.
    Forty-eight hours prior to Ambassador Avery’s assassination, a mobile version of the device had been stolen. Shortly thereafter, an unidentified organization contacted the U.S. embassy and offered one chance to buy it back. With the blessing of the White House, Avery and his people had put together a hasty recovery operation.
    The President of the United States was furious—and not just with the terrorists. He couldn’t believe that in a country of only eleven million, the Greeks couldn’t lay their hands on what every Western intelligence agency agreed was a terror cell of no more than ten to fifteen people. The “Athens Problem,” as it had become known in intelligence circles, had been a problem for too long, and the president wanted it stopped.
    Adding to the mission’s urgency, the CIA had just learned that 21 August had a buyer for the device—an unidentified Iranian national, and the transaction was going to take place any day. Harvath had been sent to Greece to recover the mobile device as quickly as possible, and by any means necessary.
    As a Navy SEAL, and now as a covert counterterrorism operative for the U.S. government, Harvath had spent the better part of his professional life pulling a trigger. One of the sadder truths he had learned was that there were a lot of people in the world who needed to be killed. He tried to remind himself that more often than not, the people on the receiving end of his lead-tipped missives were beyond being reasoned with. They posed serious threats to the stability and safety of the civilized world and had to be taken out.
    Tonight, though, Harvath had his doubts. There were too many unanswered questions, starting with why Avery had been outside the security of the embassy with such a light guard. Only two DS agents? On an assignm ent like that? In Athens, of all places, especially considering its history?
    In his briefing in D.C., he had pushed back on the CIA’s intel so many times, his boss pulled him out in the hallway so he could give him a thorough dressing-down. Harvath, though, didn’t care. The dots didn’t connect cleanly enough for him, certainly not cleanly enough to take a man’s life. Nevertheless, he had his orders.
    Glancing at his Kobold tactical wristwatch from his place in the grass, he wondered where the hell his target was. Papandreou should have been here by now.
    Suddenly, the sound of the ocean crashing on the rocky beach below was replaced by the sound of tires crunching down the villa’s long gravel drive. Harvath leaned into his rifle and pressed himself flatter against the damp earth.
    A blue Land Rover rolled to a stop before the large double doors of the house. When the driver’s door opened, Harvath peered through his scope, but it was no good. He couldn’t see the man’s face.
    “Norseman, have you ID’d the target?” said a voice over his headset, thousands of miles away in the White House Situation Room.
    “Negative,” replied Harvath. “Stand by.”
    Straining through the scope, Harvath tried to get a positive identification.
    “Norseman, satellite is giving us only one, I repeat, one individual in that vehicle. Can you confirm the subject’s identity? Do we have our man?”
    Command-and-control elements in the rear always wanted to know everything that was going on in the field. Harvath, though, couldn’t give them a play-by-play and pay full attention to his assignment, so he gave them the field operative’s polite equivalent of shut the hell up . “Clear the net,” he commanded.
    The chatter on his headset fell silent, and Harvath watched as the driver exited the vehicle. From where he was positioned, he’d have to wait until the man came around the Land Rover and made it to the double doors of the villa before he had a clear view of his face.
    “Ten seconds until subject ID,” said Harvath, more