Brad Thor Collectors' Edition #3

by Brad Thor

  He looked up to see if there were any cameras that might tell him how the shooter was pinpointing their locations and then his heart dropped into his stomach. The thermal imaging device.

  Ozbek clicked his transmitter in rapid succession. Nothing. He tried to raise Whitcomb once more, and when he received seven clicks to the tune of Shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits he knew that Whitcomb was dead. He also knew that he and Rasmussen were both sitting ducks. The shooter not only had the imaging device, he had Whitcomb’s radio. What he didn’t have, though, was their alternate frequency.

  Ozbek didn’t need to tell Rasmussen to switch freqs. He’d heard the same thing and was already on their alternate channel.

  “He’s got the imaging unit, doesn’t he?” whispered Rasmussen, his voice strained. He didn’t bother to ask about Whitcomb. He didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Yes,” replied Ozbek as he looked up at the bathroom mirror hanging on one hinge. Through its broken glass, he could see where the rounds had come through the drywall. “He’s firing laterally in four-to-six-inch patterns.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Ozbek needed to come up with something fast. If he and Rasmussen fired blindly into the hallway, their rounds would penetrate the apartments on the other side and very likely kill innocent people. If they sat there and did nothing, though, they were as good as dead and Dodd would get away.

  If only the shooter couldn’t see them.

  Suddenly, Ozbek knew what they had to do. “Raz,” he said over the radio, “is there a thermostat out there?”

  Rasmussen scanned the walls with his flashlight until he found it. “Yes.”

  “Can you get to it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you have for cover?” asked Ozbek as he turned on the cold water in the tub.

  “The couch.”

  “You’ve got to reach that thermostat. We need to get the heat up as high as possible.”

  Rasmussen studied the distance and gave the couch a nudge with his shoulder. It moved but only barely. He tried again, harder this time, and it moved a little bit more. On his third shove, bullets came through the wall all around him.

  Rasmussen yelled out loud as he planted his good leg and pushed the couch with all of his might. It moved more than he expected and shot off at an angle jamming up against a bookcase.

  Crawling behind the length of the couch, the injured CIA operative got his hands behind the bookcase and pulled as hard as he could, sliding it away from the wall, careful not to tip it over. Finally, he had it far enough out that he could snake behind it and reach the thermostat on the other side.

  Pushing himself up on his good leg, Rasmussen reached out as far as he could and flipped the temperature gauge as high as it would go.

  He dropped back to the floor as more rounds pierced the bookcase and drilled into the wall where he had just been standing.

  “It’s done,” said Rasmussen.

  “Hang in there,” replied Ozbek as he slipped fully clothed and with his body armor into the tub that was rapidly filling with bone-chilling water.

  There were multiple risks to what Ozbek was doing and he was aware of them all, but he was also aware that he had no choice. The key was in discerning the proper moment to get out of the tub.

  Even if the heating unit was only adequate, the small apartment shouldn’t take long to heat up. The longer he waited, the better chance he had of his plan working, but that held true for the shooter as well.

  Ozbek knew there was only so much of a drop in body temperature he could expect in a short amount of time, but every little bit would help. Being an older generation, the imaging unit had its limitations. Ozbek needed to get his temperature as close to the apartment’s as possible, thereby rendering his heat signature as near to invisible as possible. Once he did he would have to move fast.

  From the reports he was getting from Rasmussen, the shooter seemed to be focusing entirely on the wounded man. Three more waves of fire had come through the wall, splintered the bookcase, and slammed into the couch.

  The shooter had apparently given up on Ozbek for the time being. By taking out Rasmussen in the living room, he’d then be able to enter via the front door and take Ozbek out from inside the apartment.

  Ozbek knew they couldn’t wait any longer. “Raz,” he said into his mike. “How hot is it out there?”

  “I can’t see the thermostat, but it’s getting hot,” he replied.

  “Okay, I’m going off comms and coming out. Don’t shoot me.”

  “Roger that,” replied Rasmussen.

  Ozbek pulled out his earpiece and then submerged his head beneath the water for as long as he could.

  Breaking the surface, he quickly soaked a towel, draped it over his head, and slid out of the tub.

  CHAPTER 54

  Ozbek didn’t wait to see if the shooter was going to start firing at him. He knew that his body heat would begin rising soon.

  He rushed into the living room with his pistol up and at the ready. At the door, he crouched down and reached up with his left hand to grab the handle.

  When the door released, he pulled it back slowly, just enough to squeeze through, and then swung into the hallway.

  He found the shooter halfway down the hall with the thermal imaging unit pressed up against his face. Ozbek pulled his trigger. The man stumbled backward and as the imaging unit fell to the ground, Ozbek saw the face of Matthew Dodd.

  He pulled the trigger again, punching another two rounds into the man’s chest and sending him tumbling backwards.

  As Dodd fell, he squeezed the trigger of his own weapon, splintering the doorframe just above Ozbek’s head.

  Ozbek rolled back into the apartment and called for Rasmussen to come give him cover fire. Risking a peek into the hallway, he snapped his head back inside just as two more of Dodd’s rounds came blistering toward him.

  Ozbek waited a beat and then stuck his gun around the doorframe and pulled the trigger.

  Once more, he called for Rasmussen and once more he stuck his head into the hallway. This time, he saw Dodd racing into the rear stairwell. Ozbek fired, but the man disappeared from view.

  When Ozbek glanced back in the apartment and saw Rasmussen’s condition, he knew he had to get him medical attention soon. There was also Stephanie Whitcomb to consider. For all he knew, she could still be alive outside, barely clinging to life.

  Even so, Matthew Dodd was too damn close to let get away.

  Ozbek looked at Rasmussen and said, “I’ll be right back,” as he jumped up and charged into the hallway.

  He reached the rear stairs and took them three at a time. He landed hard on the first landing and peered around the corner. There was no sign of Dodd, and Ozbek launched himself down the next set of stairs.

  It wasn’t until he was almost at the second-floor landing that he noticed how dimly lit it was. Dodd had shattered the overhead lighting.

  Racing toward a field of broken glass, as well as a possible ambush, Ozbek grabbed the banister and tried to halt his forward trajectory.

  Losing his balance, he slid down the stairs sideways. He landed hard on the second-floor landing where the broken glass dug into his left leg and shoulder.

  Ignoring the pain, Ozbek swung his pistol down the next set of stairs and kept moving. When he got to the ground floor, he carefully opened the back door and stared out. There was no sign of the assassin.

  Ozbek wanted to continue the chase, but he had no idea in which direction the man had fled and he also had two operatives down.

  Pulling pieces of glass from his flesh, Ozbek hurried back up the stairs to Dodd’s apartment. He needed to get Rasmussen to a hospital and hoped to God that Stephanie Whitcomb wasn’t going to need to be taken to a morgue.

  CHAPTER 55

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  It was just before nine-thirty in the morning local time when the Bombardier jet touched down at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

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p; A Signature Flight Support representative met Harvath and Nichols at their plane. She helped steer them quickly through the private aviation passport control and customs area, and when the men politely declined complimentary breakfast and hot showers, she escorted them outside to where a gray Buick was waiting for them.

  The men threw their bags in the trunk and Harvath slid into the front passenger seat next to the driver, while Nichols climbed in back.

  “How was the flight?” asked Lawlor as he pulled away from the curb.

  “Beats a cold C-130 any day of the week,” replied Harvath as he peeled off his disguise and introduced Anthony Nichols.

  As they merged onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway, Harvath asked about Tracy.

  “The doctors at the American Hospital have been in touch with her surgeons back here,” said Lawlor. “They still have her under observation.”

  “Has the swelling gone down?”

  “Not as much as they would like. They’ve started her on a new medication.”

  Harvath didn’t like the sound of that. “Is she in any pain?”

  Lawlor shook his head. “Apparently, the pain is the one thing they have managed to get under control.”

  “Have you spoken with her?”

  “No, but someone from the embassy has. She’s hanging tough and not telling anyone anything.”

  Harvath looked out at the sailboats and other watercraft dotting the Potomac despite overcast skies. “How are the French authorities treating her?”

  “Her medical treatment is still first and foremost. But with three cops dead and a bunch of civilians killed and wounded at the bombing, there are certain elements pressing to be allowed to interrogate her.”

  “I suppose I can understand that,” Harvath admitted.

  “The sooner we accomplish things on our end,” replied Lawlor, “the sooner we can give the French enough to hopefully get Tracy released.”

  “Hopefully?”

  “You know what I mean,” grated Lawlor.

  The men rode the rest of the way in silence.

  Forty minutes later, Lawlor swung the car off the road and rolled to a stop in front of a nondescript, padlocked gate. “Do you want to do the honors?” he asked, holding up a key.

  Harvath took it and stepped out of the car. It was a bittersweet feeling to return home after all this time without Tracy.

  Harvath unlocked the gate and pushed it open wide enough for Lawlor to drive through.

  Pulling even with Harvath, Lawlor rolled down his window. “Do you want to get back in, or do you want to walk?”

  “I think I’ll walk,” said Harvath.

  He noticed the sign for his alarm company lying in the weeds and replanted it, then swung the gate shut behind him.

  He watched as Lawlor and Nichols disappeared down the winding, tree-lined drive and began walking.

  Bishop’s Gate, as the property was known, was a small, eighteenth-century stone church that sat on several acres overlooking the Potomac River, just south of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. It was the twin of a small church in Cornwall called St. Enodoc.

  Bombarded during the Revolutionary War because of its status as a haven for British spies, Bishop’s Gate lay in ruins until 1882, when the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI, secretly rebuilt it and turned it into one of the ONI’s first covert-officer training schools.

  Eventually the ONI outgrew the Bishop’s Gate location and the stubby, yet elegant church with its attached rectory was demoted to a document storage site before being cleared out and abandoned.

  As a token of his appreciation for everything Harvath had done for his country, President Rutledge had deeded Bishop’s Gate in its entirety to Scot in a ninety-nine-year government lease with a token rent of one dollar per annum. All that was required of Harvath was that he maintain the property in a manner befitting its historic status and that he vacate the premises within twenty-four hours if ever given notice, with or without cause, by its legal owner, the United States Navy.

  It had been more than fifty years since the Navy had any use for Bishop’s Gate other than as a file graveyard, yet Harvath had been overwhelmed by the president’s gift. Not including the garage, the unique house formed by the church and the attached rectory came to over four thousand square feet of living space. All Harvath had to do was make sure the grass was mowed and his dollar-a-year rent was paid on time.

  As he walked down the driveway, he was reminded of the president’s generosity and how much they had been through together over the years. Though he still harbored resentment over how he had been treated, he wondered if Tracy had been right. Maybe it was time to forgive Jack Rutledge and move on.

  Emerging from the final twist of the wooded drive, Harvath laid eyes on his house. Bishop’s Gate was even more beautiful than he remembered.

  Lawlor and Nichols were standing outside the front door waiting for him.

  “You’ve got a key,” said Harvath as he approached. “What are you standing out here for?”

  “It didn’t seem right,” said Lawlor. “It’s your house, after all.”

  Harvath took the key from Lawlor and unlocked the sturdy front door. As he walked in, he was greeted by the solid scent of stone and timber.

  Hanging on the wall in the vestibule was a beautiful piece of wood he had discovered in the rectory attic carved with the Anglican missionaries’ motto TRANSIENS ADIUVANOS—I go overseas to give help.

  He had discovered it on his first visit, and it had struck him as a sign that he and Bishop’s Gate were meant to be together. It was prophetically fitting for the career Harvath had chosen for himself.

  For a moment, he was reminded of why he had devoted his life to combating the terrorist threat to America at home and overseas.

  He was also reminded of Tracy and how rather than make him choose between her and aiding the president, she had selflessly removed herself from the equation. Harvath allowed himself a sliver of belief that maybe he could have both the career he wanted and a fulfilling family life.

  “What did you and Tracy do with Bullet?” asked Lawlor who had followed Harvath inside and interrupted his train of thought.

  Nichols asked, “Who’s Bullet?” as he admired the extraordinary old church.

  “Biggest dog you’ve ever seen in your life, even as a puppy,” replied Lawlor. “They call them Caucasian Ovcharkas. The Russian Military and the former East German Border Patrol loved them. Fast as hell, smart and incredibly loyal. Those things can weigh upward of two hundred pounds and they stand over forty-one inches at the shoulder.”

  Nichols let out a whistle of appreciation.

  “Finney and Parker have him,” replied Harvath.

  “Those guys are good pals,” said Lawlor with a laugh. “Dogzilla is probably eating them out of house and home.”

  “Where’d you find a dog like that?” inquired Nichols.

  Harvath looked up the stairs toward the bedroom he’d been sleeping in when Tracy had been shot and said, “Don’t ask.”

  Harvath wasn’t in the mood to discuss his odd acquaintance with a dwarf named Nicholas who dealt in the purchase and sale of highly classified information and who was known throughout the intelligence world as the Troll.

  “I put groceries in the fridge,” stated Lawlor. “Let’s get some coffee on and talk about what we need to do.”

  “Sounds good to me,” replied the professor.

  “I’ll be there shortly,” said Harvath as he walked away. He needed a few more minutes alone to gather his thoughts and process being home before he would be ready to talk about what would come next.

  CHAPTER 56

  Lawlor was a master with Tracy’s French press, something Harvath had never gotten the hang of. He didn’t know if it was because he was too lazy to bother with it or if he just liked watching Tracy go through the effort for him.

  Either way, by the time Harvath came into the kitchen, Lawlor was pouring three steaming cups of fresh coffee. He
took his and sat down at the table where Nichols and Lawlor joined him.

  Nichols was the first to speak. “So I understand that this is now my new home?”

  “For the time being,” replied Harvath as he took a sip of coffee.

  “What about all of my research materials? My books? My toothbrush even?”

  “Make a list and we’ll get it for you,” said Lawlor.

  Harvath held up his hand as he set his coffee cup down. “This guy Dodd is good, Gary, very good. We have no idea where he is or who he’s working with. He could have already left Paris and be on his way here for all we know. Professor Nichols needs to be protected ’round the clock.”

  Lawlor nodded. “You’re right,” he said. Turning back to Nichols he added, “Scot will get you everything you need. You and I will stay here.”

  “We also need to lay some ground rules,” said Harvath.

  The professor looked at him. “Like what?”

  “For one, no phone calls, no exceptions. Gary will set you up on a secure server for e-mails. Follow his protocols and don’t deviate.

  “Two, you are not to leave the property under any circumstances. If you want to take a walk, Gary or I will go with you. We need to know where you are at all times. Understood?”

  Nichols nodded.

  “Good,” said Harvath. “You can work in my study. Gary will get you settled in. In the meantime,” he added as he leaned over to his breakfront and removed a pad and pen from one of its drawers, “let’s get cracking on the list of things you need from your apartment as well as your office in Charlottesville. The sooner I get that trip out of the way, the better I’m going to feel.”

  Nichols was still working on his list when Harvath topped off his cup with more coffee and left him in the kitchen with Lawlor.

  Scot walked down the narrow stone hallway from the rectory and took one of the discreet side doors that opened into the little church.