Brad Thor Collectors' Edition #3

by Brad Thor

  Past the bobbing and weaving heads of the crowd in front of him, Harvath noticed three French national policemen standing near the exit. One of them appeared to be scanning the faces of the crowd and referring to a sheet of paper in his hand at the same time.

  The gunman saw them too. He tightened his grip on the book dealer’s arm and pressed his gun even harder into Harvath’s back as he said, “One false move and I will kill both of you before the police even realize what’s happening.”

  There was no question in Harvath’s mind who he would rather take his chances with. He only hoped the French police were looking for him and that the piece of paper one of the cops was carrying had his photo on it.

  As they got closer to the exit, the crowd in front of them began to thin out and the police began checking the faces of the people nearest to Harvath. Knowing that the gunman couldn’t see his face, Harvath started rapidly moving his eyes in hopes of capturing their attention.

  Glancing to his left, he saw that sweat was pouring down the bookseller’s face and that he was shaking. Either he was growing more petrified of their abductor, or there was something else going on with him. It didn’t take long to discover what it was.

  As Harvath and the book dealer approached the police, the officer with the paper recognized them. He checked one more time and then alerted his colleagues, one of whom instantly got on his radio.

  Harvath thought for sure he was the one they’d recognized, but when the men drew their weapons they yelled for René Bertrand to stop.

  The gunman wasted no time. Pointing his Heckler & Koch pistol around Harvath’s right side, he fired several shots in rapid succession as all hell broke loose in the lobby of the Grand Palais.

  CHAPTER 26

  Harvath spun and drove his elbow into the gunman’s solar plexus. As the assassin fell backward, Harvath drew his weapon and looked over just in time to see René Bertrand running back into the hall.

  All three cops were down. Two of them were bleeding out and Harvath feared they weren’t going to make it. The third was on his radio, calling for backup.

  As people ran screaming in all directions, Harvath had to make up his mind. His priority was the book dealer and after one more glance at the gunman, he took off after him.

  Twenty yards ahead, he could see Bertrand, but because of the crowd he couldn’t close the distance. He felt like the proverbial salmon swimming upstream. Raising his weapon into the air, he fired a shot.

  Instantly, the crowd parted and Harvath raced after the book dealer. Bertrand took a sharp left, banging his shoulder into a large bookcase and knocking it over.

  Harvath leapt over the spill of books and kept on, pushing people out of his way as he ran. He had to remind himself to scan and breathe, scan and breathe. He had no desire to be taken by surprise again.

  Less than ten yards away from Bertrand, he noticed what he was running toward—an emergency exit.

  As the book dealer neared the door, Harvath fired two shots into the frame and yelled for him to stop. Bertrand might have been foolish, but he wasn’t an idiot. He stopped right where he was.

  In the blink of an eye, Harvath was on him. Securing his weapon, he grabbed the book dealer by the collar and punched him hard in the gut with his other hand.

  As Bertrand doubled over, Harvath kicked open the fire door and dragged the man outside.

  At Cours La Reine, Harvath stopped a 1970s Renault, pulled its teenage driver out, shoved René Bertrand in, and sped off across the Pont Alexandre III bridge back toward the barge.

  After ditching the car several blocks from the Quai de la Tournelle, Harvath screwed the sound suppressor onto the end of his Taurus for effect and warned the book dealer what would happen to him if he didn’t cooperate. The two then covered the rest of the distance to the Sargasso safe house on foot, stopping repeatedly to duck into doorways as police cars sped past.

  When they reached the péniche, Harvath opened the door of the wheelhouse and shoved René Bertrand down the stairs.

  Nichols, who was in the galley brewing tea, and Tracy, who was lying on the couch, were both startled by the commotion.

  “Professor,” said Harvath as he slammed Bertrand into a chair at the dining room table, “I need you to find me some rope. There’s probably some up on deck.”

  “Right away,” said Nichols as he turned off the stove and disappeared up the stairs.

  Tracy swung her feet onto the floor and asked, “This is our rare-book dealer I presume?”

  “It certainly is,” replied Harvath.

  Tracy studied him. His skin was pale to the point of almost being translucent, and he was drenched with sweat. Though he kept licking them, his lips were dry and cracked. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing. Yet,” said Harvath. “I think our pal here is pretty tight with Harry Jones. Aren’t you, René?”

  “He’s a heroin addict?” asked Tracy.

  “Who had the French police looking for him at the Grand Palais. That’s why you’re so paranoid, isn’t it, René?”

  The book dealer refused to look Harvath in the eye.

  “What happened?” said Tracy.

  Harvath pulled up a chair and kept his eyes glued to the book dealer’s as he spoke. “René and I were just on our way out of the exhibition hall to discuss our transaction when his 3:30 showed up and stuck a gun in my back.”

  Tracy was stunned.

  “Apparently, René’s clients are very protective of him,” continued Harvath. “Anyway, whoever this guy was, he was marching us toward the front door when the cops spotted René and yelled for him to stop. The guy behind me fired at them and now two of the cops are probably dead and the third was wounded pretty badly.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “Our friend René thought it would be a good idea to sneak out one of the emergency exits, and I concurred. Someone was kind enough to lend us a car, which we ditched a couple of blocks away, and here we are.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t you the cops were looking for?” asked Tracy.

  As Harvath was about to answer, Nichols came down the stairs with a length of rope. “Got it,” he said.

  Harvath accepted the rope and began binding the book dealer to his chair.

  Nichols blanched, remembering his experience at the hotel. “Are you going to torture him?” he asked.

  “It’s going to feel like torture,” replied Harvath, “but I’m not going to lay a finger on him. As soon as he’s ready, Monsieur Bertrand is going to tell us everything we want to know. Aren’t you, René?”

  Bertrand remained silent.

  Harvath patted him down and found what he was looking for. In the man’s left breast pocket was an oversized silver cigarette case. Harvath opened it up and placed it on the table where the book dealer could clearly see it. He knew the stress of the Grand Palais had pushed Bertrand over the edge. Now, only inches away, was the heroin his body was crying out for.

  CHAPTER 27

  UM AL-QURA MOSQUE FALLS CHURCH,

  VIRGINIA

  “Of course I’m angry,” said Abdul Waleed as he paced. “We agreed it would look like a murder/suicide. But Nura Khalifa is dead and Andrew Salam is still alive!”

  Sheik Mahmood Omar stood from behind his ornate desk crafted of Damascus steel and gestured toward a carpet in the center of the room with large silk pillows. A tea tray had been set upon a cloth known as a sufrah. “We learn little from our successes, but much from our failures,” offered the imam as he sat down.

  “Maybe you don’t understand,” responded FAIR’s chairman as he took a seat across from him. “Salam is going to tell the police everything, if he hasn’t already. The FBI is probably already involved. Either way, somebody is going to come and question me.”

  Sheik Omar raised a polished serving pot and poured Arabic coffee into two, small handleless cups. The heady aroma of coffee mixed with cardamom and saffron filled the office.

  “And what will they learn?”
asked Omar.

  Waleed wondered if the imam was losing it. “What will they learn? Where should I start?”

  Handing his guest the traditionally half-filled cup, the sheik stated, “While the words are yet unspoken, you are master of them; when once they are spoken, they are master of you.”

  “Enough Bedouin proverbs, Mahmood. We need to have a plan.”

  Omar took a sip of his coffee. “The evidence planted at their homes and at your offices is still there?”

  Waleed nodded.

  “The security cameras were not functioning at the memorial?”

  “Correct,” said Waleed.

  “Then we don’t need to do anything. We have left enough to convince the authorities that Nura was meeting with Salam to tell him that their affair was over. She was ashamed at having debased herself before marriage and was going to beg her family for forgiveness. Salam decided that if he couldn’t have her, then no one would.”

  “You underestimate the FBI.”

  “Do I?” asked Omar. “A woman is tragically murdered; a Muslim woman from the FAIR offices. There is evidence pointing to a spoiled relationship between her and the man who killed her. Unless you do something foolish, the investigation will end there.”

  “And what about Salam? What about his story? What about the training he received? What about my personal connections to him?” demanded Waleed.

  “When the FBI asks you about those, you admit to them. You met Salam when he started attending this mosque. He was bright, charming, and extremely creative. That’s why you hired his P.R. firm to work on FAIR’s public and media relations. He worked closely with Nura and you suspected something more than just business might be going on between them, but you never knew for sure. She was very discreet about her private life—”

  Waleed interjected, “But what about the man Salam believed to be his handler? And what about the evidence on us Salam was amassing?”

  “His handler made sure Salam turned over everything each time they met. He was taught never to keep any information that could compromise him.”

  Waleed shook his head.

  Omar set down his coffee cup. “Would you rather that the real FBI had gotten to Nura and turned her? Or any of the others we have working for us?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Operation Glass Canyon was a brilliant idea, and our benefactors in Saudi Arabia are quite pleased. By infiltrating ourselves, we’re better equipped at discovering outside attempts from Zionist groups or agencies like the FBI or DHS trying to penetrate our organizations. We also often receive better information from our spies than our most loyal people. McAllister & Associates has paid for itself several times over and is a profitable venture in more ways than one.”

  “But Salam is in jail. Do our benefactors know that?”

  The imam shrugged his shoulders. “For every glance behind us, we have to look twice to the future. We’ll find someone to replace him. Life will go on.”

  Waleed wished he shared the sheik’s confidence. “I still think Salam knows too much and is a danger to us. He has been well trained. His story will sound too real.”

  “How well trained is he, really? All of the tradecraft he learned could have come from books.”

  “He’ll lead them to Islamaburg,” countered Waleed.

  “Where he and other young Muslims learned how to shoot and defend themselves. So what? No laws were broken there. Trust me, Abdul, the trail is going to go cold very fast.”

  Waleed plucked up a bite-sized sweet from the tray and shoved it in his mouth. He always seemed to eat more when he was under stress. “What have you heard from Paris?”

  Mahmood Omar chose his words carefully. There was no need to upset Waleed any further. “Things are progressing.”

  “So our problem still hasn’t been taken care of?”

  The sheik smiled reassuringly. “I have every confidence it will. Every delay has its blessings. Al-Din will be successful in Paris and then we can put all of this behind us.”

  When his audience with Omar was over, Abdul Waleed exited the mosque and headed for his car. As he crossed the street, he reminded himself to remain calm. Both the FBI and the D.C. Metro police would most likely want to ask him questions. He had thought about having some of FAIR’s attorneys present, but Omar had cautioned him against it. He felt it would look too suspicious.

  He needed to contact the office to see if any law enforcement agencies had called yet, or maybe had even dropped by unannounced. Omar had warned him to expect them to show up without warning to examine Nura’s desk, computer, and other belongings.

  Waleed climbed in his car and fished his ear bud from one of the cup holders. As he turned the ignition, he slid his cell phone from the plastic holster at his hip and turned it on. Omar had a thing about cell phones ringing in the mosque. He saw it as a personal affront to Allah. In fact, the only thing he disliked more than cell phones was dogs.

  On that point, he and Waleed were in complete agreement. Cell phones were a necessary evil in modern life, but he had always agreed with the Islamic injunctions against dogs. They were impure, absolutely filthy animals and Mohammed had rightly forbade Muslims from keeping them as pets.

  After plugging in his headset, Waleed pulled away from the curb and dialed his office.

  The man had no idea that Steve Rasmussen had remotely accessed Andrew Salam’s phone in the evidence room at the D.C. Metro Police Headquarters and had downloaded its contents.

  Once Rasmussen had retrieved Waleed’s mobile number, Ozbek had been able to “hot-mike” his phone—a novel form of electronic surveillance which allowed him to remotely power up the phone and activate its microphone. He and Rasmussen had heard the entire conversation with Sheik Omar.

  It was the first solid lead the CIA operatives had. The covert forays into Dr. Khalifa’s home and office at Georgetown had been absolute busts.

  Ozbek was now on his phone issuing orders to the rest of the DPS. “That’s right,” he said. “I want the entire team focused on Paris. Everybody. Right now. We’ll meet in the conference room for an update in an hour.”

  As he hung up the phone, Rasmussen looked at him and said, “None of the intelligence we just gathered will ever be admissible in court.”

  Ozbek knew his colleague was right.

  “We’ve probably also just screwed the FBI on a major part of their investigation too.”

  That thought had crossed Ozbek’s mind, but he didn’t want to think about it. Instead, he turned his anger on Rasmussen. “This is twice now that you’ve informed me that I’ve stepped over the line. I get it and I don’t want to hear it again, okay? The more I hear his name come up, the more my gut tells me this al-Din was an Agency hitter.

  “Mahmood Omar and Abdul Waleed are dedicated Islamists that the FBI should have taken down a long time ago. Our country is at war and our job is to prevent the enemy from winning. And before you give me a speech about upholding the Constitution, I want you to take two seconds and think about what would happen to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights if America ever became an Islamic nation.”

  “I’m not saying any of that,” replied Rasmussen. “Relax.”

  “I know you’ve got your pals at the Bureau. They’re good people. But when you’re fighting against assholes who only punch below the belt, you need to have a few people on your side who don’t give a fuck about the Marquess of Queensberry.”

  “Listen,” said Rasmussen. “I agree with you. There’s no such thing as a fair fight. I understand that.”

  “But?”

  “No buts. We get paid to make sausage. Nobody wants to watch it being made. They only care about how it tastes.”

  “So we’re good?” asked Ozbek.

  “We’re good,” said Rasmussen as he stood. “I’ll see you in the conference room in an hour.”

  Ozbek watched him leave and hoped that if this thing got any uglier that he’d be able to count on him.

  CHAPTER 28
<
br />   PARIS

  Harvath made René Bertrand watch as he swabbed a spoon from the galley with hand sanitizer and then removed a small chunk of heroin from the man’s “cigarette” case.

  The drug smelled faintly of vinegar as he placed it on the spoon and added a tiny squirt of water from the book dealer’s syringe. Harvath then used Bertrand’s lighter to heat the mixture from underneath and pulled the stopper out of the syringe to act as a stir.

  When it was ready, he dropped a small, wadded up piece of cotton into the center of the spoon. The cotton ball was the size of a tic-tac and functioned like a sponge; sucking up the entire mixture.

  Bertrand’s previously dry mouth was wet with anticipation and his eyes were glued to Harvath’s every move.

  After cleaning the stopper, Harvath inserted it back into the syringe. He placed the needle in the center of the cotton and drew the stopper back ever so slowly. Though the process was designed to filter out any undesirable particles from the mixture, it also served to hone Bertrand’s craving.

  Even though he’d done so on multiple occasions, Harvath wasn’t a fan of torturing people. It had its place, but as far as Harvath was concerned it was only called for after all other reasonable alternatives had been exhausted. René Bertrand’s obvious drug problem had provided him a perfect alternative to torture.

  Although there probably would have been some who claimed that what Harvath was doing to the man right at this moment actually was torture, they’d be wrong. Harvath knew what real torture was and this wasn’t it. This wasn’t anywhere near it.

  Harvath pulled up the right sleeve of the book dealer’s suit jacket and then rolled up his shirt sleeve. Swabbing his arm with another piece of cotton that had been soaked with hand sanitizer he said, “We’ll dispense with the chitchat, Monsieur Bertrand. You have something I want. The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you and Aunt Hazel here can start dancing, understand?”