Foreign Agent Read Online Free Page B

short answer was no . He wasn’t ready to head to the airport. He wanted to chase Lara up to her room, lock the door, and pretend he hadn’t said yes to Brussels. But he couldn’t do that. He had given his word.
    Harvath usually enjoyed traveling by private jet, especially on something as luxurious as a Dassault Falcon 5X. But even its dramatic skylight failed to impress him today.
    He mixed salt, sugar, and ground aspirin into a tall glass of tomato juice over ice. It tasted horrible.
    After downing another, he stretched out on the white leather couch with a large bottle of water.
    The CIA used an encrypted app that only allowed him to watch the Anbar video and view the image files once. It was more than enough.
    ISIS was an Islamic death cult trying to usher in an apocalypse. The larger they grew, the more depraved they became.
    Their ultimate goal was to meet the infidel in Dabiq, a tiny village in northern Syria. After a decisive ground battle, the Muslim messiah would return. Or so the ancient prophecy went. Harvath was willing to bet that the prophet Mohammed had never envisioned nuclear weapons.
    If it were up to Harvath, he’d let the nukes fly. After dropping leaflets warning residents to flee, he’d flatten Dabiq and then Raqqa, the ISIS capital. There’d be no ground battle. There’d only be fields of glass. The ISIS savages were not worth another drop of American blood.
    But it wasn’t up to Harvath. It was up to the President of the United States, who, for the moment, had a different plan.
    He wanted to know how the SAD team in Iraq had come under attack. How had ISIS known they were there?
    Harvath had gathered the intelligence for the operation. He was the one who had identified and pinpointed the high value ISIS target. The information had come from his contacts. Now thirteen Americans were dead.
    The CIA had launched an immediate investigation. They learned that Ashleigh Foster had been in a relationship with one of the SAD team members. She had convinced two girlfriends from the Embassy to join her for the weekend and party at the safe house. Phone records, texts, and emails all backed it up. It was a case of extremely bad judgment across the board. The ISIS attack, though, was another matter.
    The jihadists had come ready for the fight. They had not only overwhelmed the SAD team but had also downed two CIA helicopters. They knew exactly what they were up against. They’d even brought a video crew. Had they known the women were going to be there too?
    All of this was what Harvath had been tasked with figuring out. And square one was in Brussels.
    • • •
    The city was more than twenty-five percent Muslim, and its most concentrated Islamic neighborhood was Molenbeek. Sitting on the wrong side of the canal, it boasted more than two dozen mosques.
    It also boasted one of Harvath’s best contacts—a contact who had suddenly gone dark.
    Either Salah Abaaoud was in trouble, or Harvath had been double-crossed.
    If he’d been double-crossed, there wasn’t a hole deep enough for Salah to hide in. Harvath would find him. It was what he did.
    Salah was a doctor with a storefront practice. Everyone in Molenbeek knew him. He was the unofficial mayor of the neighborhood. He settled disputes, helped new Muslim immigrants navigate the Belgian welfare system, pulled bad teeth, and even arranged marriages.
    He was a generous contributor to local mosques and charities, drove a bright red BMW, and always had tickets to the best sporting matches.
    By all outward appearances, Dr. Salah Abaaoud was a successful man. No one in the neighborhood had any clue about his criminal past. Even the Belgian government was in the dark.
    Back in the Middle East, Salah had made a fortune as a smuggler. Leveraging his position as a doctor, he had exploited Red Crescent, UN and a host of other medical relief missions and convoys. He smuggled everything, from stolen antiquities, drugs, and weapons, to people. It was the weapons,