Brad Thor Collectors' Edition #3

by Brad Thor

  “So what you’re telling me is that one of the Agency’s finely tuned Lamborghinis all of a sudden developed engine trouble?”

  Rasmussen knew where Ozbek was going. “Doesn’t make much sense, I know.”

  “You and I have both called in air strikes,” replied Ozbek. “I usually make sure my math is right on the money.”

  “Agreed,” replied Rasmussen as he slid one of the files from his stack and handed it to his colleague. “That’s why I thought you might want to see this. It’s the incident file along with the investigation’s findings.”

  Ozbek took his time reading through it. When he was done, he closed it and handed it back. “How come our department doesn’t have a file on this guy?”

  Rasmussen held up his hands. “As far as the Agency is concerned, the guy’s dead. Selleck said that if we wanted, he’d have the Predator footage pulled and we could watch it ourselves. Apparently, it’s pretty convincing.”

  Ozbek shook his head. “Let me see his personnel file.”

  Rasmussen handed it to him.

  The first thing he looked at was Matthew Dodd’s official CIA photo. “The guy’s definitely got Ernst and Young written all over him,” he said.

  Rasmussen raised a hand to his mouth and wiggled his fingers. “All the better to slip into your country undetected, my dear.”

  “What’s behind door number three?” asked Ozbek as he finished leafing through Dodd’s dossier and pointed at Rasmussen’s final folder.

  “Nura Khalifa’s uncle, Dr. Marwan Khalifa. Naturalized American citizen of Jordanian descent, a founder of Georgetown University’s Ph.D. program in Islamic studies, and one of the foremost experts on the textual history of the Koran. He also teaches in Georgetown’s Department of Arabic, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and the Departments of History, Theology, and Government,” replied Rasmussen as he handed the file over.

  “That’s one hell of a résumé.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Where is he now?” asked Ozbek as he flipped through the folder.

  “The answer to that question might not be exactly what we want to hear.”

  Ozbek looked up from the file. “Why not?”

  “Salam was telling us the truth about Dr. Khalifa working on a project for the Yemeni Antiquities Authority. The thing is, he wasn’t in Yemen. He was in Rome at the Italian State Archive Services.”

  “So at least we know where he is.”

  Rasmussen held up his hand. “Five days ago, they had a fire.”

  “Khalifa’s dead?”

  “According to my contacts at the Italian Internal Security Agency, the police in Rome have four unidentified bodies, all pretty badly burned. I’ve got our people working on trying to locate Khalifa’s dental records in the States. Once we’ve got our hands on those, we’ll shoot them over, but at this point it doesn’t look good. One CFLR staff member says that Dr. Khalifa had been working late the night of the fire and no one has seen him since.”

  “What was he working on? What were you able to find out?”

  Rasmussen nodded. “The Yemenis had uncovered stacks of old parchments and scraps of varying documents dating back to the seventh and eighth centuries. They supposedly were some of the earliest pieces of the Koran.

  “The Yemenis brought Dr. Khalifa in to authenticate them. Because they don’t have any decent facilities in Yemen, he’d gotten their approval to transport the find to Rome so that all of it could be photographed and preserved.”

  “Did any of it survive?”

  “It’s all gone.”

  “So that’s it? Old bits of the Koran? That’s what he had been working on? That’s what his niece thought made him a threat to Islam?”

  Rasmussen referred back to his notes. “Dr. Khalifa was working closely with the deputy assistant director of the Italian State Archive Services. He’s the one who told the police that Khalifa was working late the night of the fire. Anyway, this guy, Alessandro Lombardi, claims that Dr. Khalifa was very excited about the find because he had discovered intriguing inconsistencies between the Koranic parchments from Yemen and the Koran that Muslims worldwide use today.”

  “What kind of inconsistencies?” asked Ozbek.

  “Lombardi says Khalifa didn’t elaborate much. But what he did say was that several of the things he had found supported another project he was working on. It was based on some story about the prophet Mohammed having a final revelation that never made it into the Koran and that he had been assassinated to keep it quiet.”

  “Whatever this final revelation is,” said Rasmussen, “it’s supposedly enough to turn the whole religion on its ear. Mohammed shared it with his apostles, but some of them didn’t like it and apparently bumped him off. Mohammed knew he had been poisoned, so he summoned his chief scribe and recounted the final revelation to him in hopes that it would survive.”

  “And?”

  “According to Khalifa, the scribe was hunted down by the men who had poisoned Mohammed. They found the final revelation hidden beneath the scribe’s robes. They burned it and then chopped the scribe’s head off.”

  “End of story,” said Ozbek.

  “Not quite,” replied Rasmussen. “What the scribe was carrying was a copy. The killers never located the original.”

  “But Khalifa found it?”

  Rasmussen shrugged. “Supposedly, his partner on this other project thought he had a line on it.”

  “Then, presuming Khalifa is dead, he might not have been the only target. Do we have a name for his partner?” asked Ozbek.

  “Nope.”

  “E-mails? A research organization he or she belonged to? Anything?”

  Rasmussen shook his head. “Lombardi said that Khalifa kept everything on his laptop.”

  “Which let me guess,” said Ozbek, “was with him the night of the fire.”

  “According to Lombardi, it was.”

  Ozbek stood up and began pacing. “What about at Georgetown? Did Khalifa have a desktop computer in his office? What about his university e-mail account? How about his house? Phone records?”

  Rasmussen looked at his colleague. “All stuff we can’t have access to without permission.”

  “Steve, hold on. Nura Khalifa’s boss, Waleed, along with Sheik Omar, began asking a lot of questions about her uncle’s work, which is considered by the more hardcore Islamists to be threatening. Next thing we know, Omar has allegedly hired an assassin to remove a serious threat to Islam, and shortly thereafter it looks like the uncle has died in a fire? Does any of this look a little too coincidental to you?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “Neither do I,” replied Ozbek.

  “That still doesn’t change the fact that the CIA is prohibited from carrying out domestic operations.”

  “If you’re not comfortable—”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t comfortable,” replied Rasmussen.

  “Good. How long will it take to get everything I just asked for?”

  “Including sending teams in broad daylight to Georgetown and Dr. Khalifa’s residence? Several hours at least.”

  “Okay,” said Ozbek as he pulled out the piece of paper with Andrew Salam’s cell phone number written on it and handed it to Rasmussen. “That’ll give us time to start working on Plan B.”

  CHAPTER 23

  PARIS

  The International Antiquarian Book Fair was held every year in the Grand Palais, one of the most striking buildings in Paris. Constructed for the 1900 World’s Fair, the classical palace was topped by a dramatic series of glass and steel domes. It was intended as a monument to the glory of French art and had long been one of Scot Harvath’s favorite exhibition halls. Today, though, he wasn’t so sure.

  The Grand Palais had some of the best security guards in the world. Its basement housed its very own National Police station charged with protecting the exhibitions, as wel
l as the vendors themselves. The annual gathering of rare-book dealers from around the world drew enormous crowds and showcased thousands of rare objects from thirteenth-century manuscripts and maps of the first Viking explorers, to the manifesto of the surrealist movement and a letter written by Niccolò Machiavelli on the publication of his book The Prince. It was the most important event of the year for professional and amateur bibliophiles alike. And somewhere in the building was a man who unknowingly held the key to disarming the greatest threat to Western civilization. All Harvath had to do was find him.

  It was a feat much easier said than done as the rare-book dealer they were searching for, René Bertrand, was a “floater,” an independent who worked the exhibition floor without a booth of his own. All they had to go on was a meeting time and place where Nichols was to present his final offer for the Jefferson Don Quixote. Bertrand had definitely stacked the deck in his favor.

  Even with Nichols’ help, the chance of finding the man among the massive crowds was slim at best. Nevertheless, the trio had to make the attempt.

  The glass ceilings of the Grand Palais gave visitors the impression of walking through the world’s largest greenhouse. The overcast sky above matched Harvath’s mood. Every time he saw a police officer, he discreetly steered Tracy and the professor in another direction. They couldn’t be too careful. There was no way of knowing if the French police were looking for them already or not. But that wasn’t the only thing weighing on Harvath.

  Before leaving the péniche, he’d allowed Nichols to check the balance of the bank account the president had established for him. No new deposits had been made. They had precious little to bargain with.

  Published more than four hundred years ago, only eighteen first-edition copies of Don Quixote were known to exist worldwide. Hailed as the first “true novel,” a first-edition Quixote was quite literally worth more than its own weight in gold.

  The group spent the next twenty minutes surreptitiously weaving their way through the crowd.

  Fifteen minutes before the rendezvous time, Harvath told Tracy and Nichols to stay put and did a quick sweep of the area. When he came back, they were gone. Something wasn’t right.

  Immediately, Harvath went into a state of heightened alert. His mind was full of questions as his hand slid beneath his coat and gripped the butt of his Taurus pistol. Had the people who’d targeted Nichols gotten to them? Was it the police? Was he next?

  He fought to keep his heart rate and breathing under control. Quickly and quietly, he did another sweep. Forty-five seconds later he found them behind a booth sitting on a bench. Nichols was holding a cup of water in his left hand while his right arm was around Tracy’s shoulders.

  “What happened?” asked Harvath as he forced his eyes away from Tracy and kept scanning the area.

  “I’m fine,” she replied.

  “She’s not fine,” said Nichols. “She’s sick.”

  “I’m fine,” Tracy repeated.

  Harvath looked at her. “Is it the headaches?”

  “She needs to see a doctor,” Nichols interjected.

  “I don’t need a doctor. Would you two cut it out?”

  Time was running out. “Can you stand up?” asked Harvath.

  “Give me a minute,” said Tracy. “I’m just a little dizzy. It’ll pass.”

  They didn’t have a minute. Harvath needed to make a difficult call.

  Reaching into his pocket, he peeled off several euro notes and shoved them into Nichols’ hand before Tracy could object. “Get her back to the boat and stay with her,” he ordered. “Don’t use the phone or the computer until I get back. Do you understand me?”

  Nichols nodded. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get that book,” said Harvath as he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  CHAPTER 24

  When René Bertrand appeared at the appointed time, he wasn’t hard to spot. Even in the quirky world of rare-book dealers, Bertrand was a real character.

  The flamboyant dandy in a white three-piece silk suit stood about five-foot-seven. The only thing thinner than his emaciated frame was the pencil-thin mustache that hovered above his almost nonexistent upper lip. His hair was parted on the left and slicked back with some sort of pomade while a pair of gray eyes darted nervously back and forth beneath two overly manicured eyebrows. A pocket watch on a gold chain sat nestled inside his vest pocket. On his feet, the rare-book dealer wore a pair of highly polished black and white spectators while a brightly colored handkerchief billowed from his breast pocket.

  There were dark circles under his eyes, and given his overall physical appearance, Harvath wondered if there was more to Bertrand’s paranoia than just being in possession of one of the world’s most valuable books.

  Harvath waited as long as he dared and then finally approached the man. “Monsieur Bertrand?”

  “Yes?” the book dealer replied in heavily accented English.

  Harvath had run through how he was going to play this. Nichols had explained that Bertrand was very careful. He had shown the professor only copies of the first few pages of the Don Quixote with its dedication from Cervantes to the Duke of Bejar, a phrase in Latin that read “After the shadows I await the light,” and of course the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson.

  Bertrand was certainly not going to be carrying the book with him. It would be kept someplace safe until a price had been settled upon and he had received his money.

  “I work with Professor Nichols,” said Harvath.

  “And why is he not here?”

  “He’s getting the rest of your money together.”

  René Bertrand smiled, his teeth stained from a lifetime of cigarettes and coffee. “That is very nice, but he has yet to make me an offer I can accept.”

  Harvath noticed that Bertrand was perspiring. “Are you feeling okay, Monsieur?”

  The smile never wavered. “The offer, please?” he asked.

  “We are prepared to beat the competitive offer by one hundred thousand.”

  “Euros?” asked Bertrand.

  “Naturally,” Harvath replied. “I also have been authorized to give you this,” he said as he tapped the outside of his jacket. “Ten thousand euros cash, right now, in exchange for just ten minutes of your time?”

  “Ten minutes of my time for what?”

  Now it was Harvath’s turn to smile. “For me to explain why you should close the bidding and why the University of Virginia is the right home for this very special book.”

  The book dealer’s heavy-lidded eyes narrowed. “And I get to keep the ten thousand no matter what?”

  Harvath nodded. “No matter what.”

  “May I see the money, please?” asked Bertrand.

  Withdrawing the envelope from his inside pocket, Harvath discreetly opened the flap and showed him the stack of bills. “Perhaps we can find a café nearby?”

  Bertrand loved dealing with universities, especially American universities. In his experience, they always had much more money than sense. “There’s a café not far from here,” he responded. “I need to use the facilities anyway. Let’s make it quick. I have a meeting with your competition in thirty minutes.”

  In espionage, operatives learn to discern and then play to a subject’s vulnerabilities. For Harvath, René Bertrand, to employ a very bad pun, was like an open book. He stood to make a lot of money from his role in the sale of the Don Quixote, but ten thousand euros for ten minutes of his time was a sweetener the man couldn’t say no to. Espionage was often part con game. The surest way to get people under your control was to ask them to do you a favor.

  And that’s exactly what Harvath had done. Now, for his plan to work, he needed to get Bertrand out of the building.

  The ten thousand euros was nothing more than bait, and the book dealer had taken it. No doubt he saw Harvath as a fool, but he was about to learn who the fool really was.

  The pair worked their way up the crowded main aisle to the front of the Gran
d Palais. They were about two hundred feet from the entrance when Harvath felt something hard pressed into the small of his back.

  At the same time, a man leaned in toward his ear and warned, “Do anything stupid and I’ll pull this trigger and sever your spine.”

  CHAPTER 25

  He had appeared out of nowhere; not exactly a difficult feat at such a crowded exposition, but Harvath should have sensed his approach. He should have been more on his guard.

  The man’s English was perfect. Immediately, Harvath ruled him out as being French. He could have been security for Bertrand, but somehow Harvath doubted it. He hadn’t yet done anything to the book dealer that would have required such a reaction. He had been waiting until he got him outside and away from the exhibition hall for that, which left only one other option.

  The man must have been Bertrand’s other buyer for the Don Quixote. “The competition” as the book dealer had put it, whom he was supposed to be meeting in thirty minutes.

  Whoever this mystery man was, he had a gun to Harvath’s back. And regardless of how angry Harvath was at being taken by surprise so easily, he had no choice but to follow the man’s orders.

  With his free hand, the gunman grabbed René Bertrand by his reedlike arm, flashed his weapon, and drew the rare-book dealer up against Harvath as he shoved the pair forward. Bertrand was terrified and barely able to utter, “You.”

  Harvath’s mind raced for a solution: some way to distract the man behind him and grab his gun, but there was little he could do. They were in the center of a horde of people slowly shuffling their way toward the exit. He could practically feel the breath of his assailant against the back of his neck. Harvath barely had any space between himself and the people in front of him. Hoping for a space to open up in front of him and at the same moment chaos to be created as a distraction was asking for a miracle. But a miracle was exactly what happened.