Page 61 of Edge of Honor

Rogers smiled. “Deal.”

“What about supplies?” Harvath asked.

“The house is pretty well stocked, but if you and the Ambassador give me a list, I can go out later and get anything you need.”

McGee seemed to have it all figured out and so they made small talk as they walked out onto the dock and took in the view.

He gave them a quick rundown on the boat, explained where the keys were hidden, and then led them back to the house, where Haney had taken it upon himself to whip up breakfast. They could smell the bacon cooking before even stepping inside.

Eager to get cleaned up, the Ambassador asked which bathroom he could use and McGee walked him upstairs.

By the time the ex–CIA director returned to the kitchen, Harvath and Haney were already drinking coffee and had poured a cup for him.

With Rogers upstairs taking a shower, it seemed the right time to discuss next steps. They had some pretty serious choices to make.

CHAPTER 30

One thing is for damn sure,” said McGee, taking a sip of his coffee. “Those weren’t fucking Iranians at Rogers’s house.”

Harvath nodded in agreement. “Which begs the question,whowere they andwhywere they after the Ambassador?”

“And why so many of them?” added Haney. “Not to mention, who brings a ladder to something like that?”

“Someone with inside information,” McGee replied.

“And now we’re at the heart of this thing,” stated Harvath. “The guy at the top of the ladder had a circular saw and other breaching tools in his pack. There’s no question in my mind that they were going to cut through the roof and down into the ceiling of Rogers’s safe room.”

“Then what?” asked Haney. “Make it look like he slipped in his tub? While there’s a gaping hole above his master bedroom closet?”

“Mike’s right,” said McGee. “If the deaths of the SecDef and the SecState are connected; if the Ambassador reallyisnext on some sort of kill list, then style-wise, this a pretty major departure.”

“And,” Haney continued, “why assume Rogers is going to beat you to the safe room at all? You’re hitting his house at three in the morning. Wouldn’t you expect him to be asleep?”

“Probably,” said Harvath.

“And if you’re skilled enough to shut down his cameras and turn off his alarm, shouldn’t you be able to open a door or a window without waking him up?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then why go the roof route?”

It was a fair question and Harvath had only one answer: “Because Bob’s right, these guys had insider information. It’s exactly the op we would have run. If we knew our target had a safe room, we would have come equipped to rip through it and pull the guy out.”

“But they didn’t come to pull him out. They came to kill him. Would it have made any difference where they caught him?”

“Probably not.”

“Then, if Rogers is right about the demise of his colleagues, how would the killers have made this death track?”

“High-end home invasion gone bad,” said Harvath. “It’s the only thing I can come up with that makes sense. Disabling cameras, disabling the alarm, knowing about the safe room—that kind of attention to detail is all par for that course. Burglars at that level normally have an inside source and my guess is that some sort of evidence would have ended up being planted to frame the housekeeper. An untraceable payment to an account in her name would have surfaced, or they would have found a bunch of unexplained cash hidden somewhere in her house.”

“And the cops would have believed that?”

“You saw his house. Rogers was a very successful attorney before going to work for the government. He stepped away from a highly respected law firm, but he didn’t stop being a partner and having equity. I think it’s totally believable that he’d be a target for that kind of home invasion. Whether or not it would spook the other high-ranking officials involved with the Soleimani hit is another question. Personally, I think they might discount it and continue to whistle past the graveyard.”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t,” McGee interjected.

“Except for Bob,” Harvath clarified, picking up his coffee and taking a sip.

---