by Brad Thor
He closed the door behind him and crossed to a built-in bookcase. Running two fingers along the top, he found the hidden hasp and pushed down. A section came forward on hinges and Harvath opened it the rest of the way. Inside was an airtight plastic Storm case. Harvath lifted it out and placed it upon the bed.
The case held a loaded .45 caliber Taurus 24/7 OSS pistol with a sound suppressor and two spare magazines. There was also a small manila envelope with ten thousand euros in cash. The Sargasso program was prepared for any eventuality.
Harvath divided the gear amongst his coat pockets and then put the empty case back where he’d found it.
After powering up the stateroom’s laptop and sending an encrypted message to Finney and Parker to let them know they’d made it safely aboard the péniche, he rejoined Tracy and Nichols in the living area.
Nichols was sitting on the couch with a bag of ice clutched against his jaw with one hand and a glass of Scotch from the barge’s well-stocked bar in the other. Tracy was at the varnished kitchen counter holding an orange bottle of prescription medication.
Harvath slid into the galley beside her and quietly asked, “What are those? Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” she replied as her hand closed around the bottle of painkillers. “They’re just for headaches.”
She shook two tablets into the palm of her hand and popped them into her mouth. “Excuse me,” she said as she nudged Harvath out of the way to get to the refrigerator.
Reaching inside, Tracy removed a small bottle of Evian, unscrewed the cap, and took a long swallow.
“Since when have you been taking the pills?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said as she brushed past him and walked into the seating area. “Really, I’ll be fine.”
The headaches had come and gone ever since she’d left the hospital, but they had been mild and Tracy had a very high threshold for pain. The bottle was half-empty, and he wondered how long she had been hiding the severity from him.
It was a talk they would have to have later. Right now, he needed to focus on Nichols. Removing a bottle of Evian for himself, Harvath joined Tracy on the short couch across from the man who’d been the target of both a car bombing and a sniper attack all in the space of one day.
As they had already explained to the professor who they were, formal introductions were not necessary.
“So, Mr. Nichols,” said Harvath. “Let’s talk about what you and the president are working on and why someone apparently wants you dead.”
“It’s a long story.”
Harvath fixed his eyes on him. “Try to make it short.”
CHAPTER 15
“Why don’t you start with how you and the president got together in the first place?” said Harvath.
Nichols knew that he had no choice but to comply. His mind was drawn back to the night he was summoned to the White House to meet with the president. “The president said he had read several of my books and had selected me because of my expertise as a Thomas Jefferson historian.”
“Selected you for what?”
“To act as his archivist to help organize his papers and other things for his presidential library.”
“Isn’t that what the National Archives is supposed to do?” asked Tracy.
“That’s correct, but most presidents have someone on their staff or someone they bring in from the outside go through the materials before the National Archives comes in. It allowed me to come and go from the White House and the residence without arousing any suspicion.”
“Suspicion over what?” asked Harvath.
Nichols took a deep breath. “In the wake of 9/11, the president sought to comfort a grieving nation, but he also needed comfort. More importantly, as he explained it to me, he needed guidance. And he found it in a White House diary Thomas Jefferson had kept during his presidency.
“President Rutledge had believed that fundamentalist Islam was an enemy the likes of which no other American president had ever experienced before, but he was wrong.”
With those words, it dawned on Harvath. “Because Thomas Jefferson was the first American president to have gone to war against fundamentalist Islam.”
Nichols nodded. “The tradition of keeping a private, presidential diary was begun by George Washington and was known only to successive American presidents and their naval stewards. Rutledge had gone to the diaries after 9/11 to seek guidance from his predecessors and that’s where he encountered Jefferson’s experience with fundamentalist Islam.
“Jefferson was convinced that one day Islam would return and pose an even greater threat to America. He was obsessed with the subject and had committed himself to learning everything he could about it.”
Harvath was struck by how prescient Jefferson had been.
“It was in going through Jefferson’s diary,” said Nichols, “that Rutledge discovered something extraordinary.”
CHAPTER 16
Most Americans were unaware of the fact that over two hundred years ago, the United States had declared war on Islam, and Thomas Jefferson had led the charge. For that reason, Professor Nichols felt it important to set the backdrop for what he was working on.
“At the height of the eighteenth century,” he began, “Muslim pirates were the terror of the Mediterranean and a significant swath of the North Atlantic. They attacked every ship in sight and held the crews for exorbitant ransoms. The hostages were subjected to barbaric treatment and wrote desperate, heart-wrenching letters home begging their governments and family members to pay whatever their Mohammedan captors demanded.
“These extortionists of the high seas represented the Islamic nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers—collectively referred to as the Barbary Coast—and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to the new American republic.
“Before the revolutionary war, U.S. merchant ships had been under the protection of Great Britain. When the U.S. declared its independence and entered into war, the ships of the United States were protected by France. Once the war was won, America had to protect its own fleets.”
“Hence the birth of the U.S. Navy,” added Tracy.
Nichols shook his head. “It didn’t happen as quickly as you might think. Beginning in 1784, seventeen years before he would become president, Thomas Jefferson left for Paris to become America’s Minister to France. That same year, the United States Congress sought to appease its Muslim adversaries by following in the footsteps of European nations who paid bribes to the Barbary States, rather than engaging them head-on in war.
“But then, in July of 1785, Algerian pirates captured two American ships and the Dey of Algiers demanded an unheard-of ransom of nearly $60,000.
“It was extortion, plain and simple, and Thomas Jefferson, now U.S. Minister to France, was vehemently opposed to any further payments. Instead, he proposed to Congress the formation of a coalition of allied nations who together could force the Islamic states into perpetual peace.”
The plan sounded all too familiar to Harvath, who remarked, “A coalition of the willing?”
“Quite,” said Nichols, “but Congress was disinterested in Jefferson’s plan and decided to pay the ransom.
“In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Great Britain to ask him by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved American citizens.
“He claimed that the right was founded on the laws of their prophet and that it was written in the Koran that all nations who didn’t acknowledge their authority were sinners, and that it was not only their right and duty to make war upon these sinners wherever they could be found, but to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim slain in battle was guaranteed a place in Paradise.
“Despite this stunning admission of premeditated violence on non-Muslim nations, as well as the objections of numerous notable Americans, including George Washington, who warned that caving in was both wrong and would only further embolden t
heir enemy, the United States Congress continued to buy off the Barbary Muslims with bribes and ransom money.
“They paid Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers upwards of one million dollars a year over the next fifteen years, which by 1800 amounted to twenty percent of the United States government’s annual revenues.
“Jefferson was disgusted. To add insult to injury, when he was sworn in as the third president of the United States in 1801, the pasha of Tripoli sent him a note demanding an immediate payment of $225,000 plus $25,000 a year for every year thereafter. That was when everything changed.
“Jefferson let the pasha know, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his demand. The pasha responded by chopping down the flagpole in front of the U.S. Consulate and declaring war on the United States. Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers immediately followed suit.
“Jefferson had been against America raising a naval force for anything beyond coastal defense, but having watched his nation be cowed by Islamic thuggery for long enough, he decided that it was finally time to meet force with force.
“He dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean to teach the Muslim nations of the Barbary Coast a lesson they would never forget. Congress authorized Jefferson to empower U.S. ships to seize all vessels and goods of the pasha of Tripoli and also to ‘cause to be done all other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would justify.’
“When Algiers and Tunis—who were both accustomed to American cowardice and acquiescence—saw that the newly independent United States had both the will and the might to strike back, they quickly abandoned their allegiance to Tripoli.
“Nevertheless, the war with Tripoli raged for four more years and flared up once more in 1815. The bravery of the United States Marine Corps in these wars led to the line ‘to the shores of Tripoli’ in the Marine hymn and they would ever after be known as ‘leathernecks’ for the leather collars of their uniforms that prevented their heads from being chopped off by Muslim scimitars when boarding their ships.
“Islam, and what its Barbary followers justified doing in the name of their prophet and their god, disturbed Jefferson quite deeply. America had a tradition of religious tolerance, in fact Jefferson himself had coauthored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, but fundamentalist Islam was like no other religion the world had ever seen. A religion based upon supremacism whose holy book not only condoned but mandated violence against unbelievers was unacceptable to him.
“As I mentioned, one of Jefferson’s greatest fears was that someday this brand of Islam would return and pose an even greater threat to the United States.”
“He was definitely ahead of his time on that one,” remarked Tracy.
“Long before leaving for France,” Nichols continued, “Jefferson had committed himself to learning everything he could about the tenets of Islam and also about how its radical, warlike doctrine could be defeated without another shot ever being fired.”
“Which is why he owned a copy of the Koran,” added Harvath.
“Perhaps,” said Nichols. “But it has also been suggested that Jefferson’s copy of the Koran may have been purchased in 1765 while he was studying law at the College of William & Mary. It’s possible he was studying it as a legal text or for comparative religion purposes. We don’t know for sure.”
“Is that the same Koran a Muslim congressman used for his swearing-in ceremony a couple of years ago?” asked Tracy.
“Yes, it was. You see, Jefferson wasn’t anti-Islam. He was anti-Islamist. There’s a distinction. He didn’t give a damn whether his neighbor claimed there were twenty gods or no God, as long as the man neither picked his pocket nor broke his leg. Fundamentalist Islam, though, picks pockets and breaks legs and that’s why Jefferson had to find a way to stop it. He was the father of the separation of church and state, after all.
“But the underlying problem with fundamentalist Islam is that it is both political and religious. It teaches that the two cannot be separated. The Islamists believe that man-made laws are inferior and must be replaced with God-given Islamic or sharia law and that all governments worldwide should be Islamic.”
“I wonder how that would go over in Washington,” said Harvath.
“Probably not very well,” replied Nichols. “Coupled with the mandate that violence be wreaked upon all unbelievers until they capitulate to Islam’s yoke, fundamentalist Islam is anathema to everything Jefferson stood for. That’s what makes his discovery even more exciting.”
“Then you believe he found something?” asked Harvath.
Ever so slowly, Anthony Nichols nodded.
CHAPTER 17
METROPOLITAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Andrew Salam was sick and tired of talking. Ozbek could see it in his face the minute he walked into the D.C. Metro interrogation room. The man had been repeatedly grilled since being arrested. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot. He looked tired, he looked angry, and he looked hungry. What he didn’t look like, though, was a killer.
He appeared to be of Pakistani descent, with dark skin, dark hair, and brown eyes. He was around five-foot-six, five-foot-seven, max. He had a thin scar that ran through his left eyebrow.
“Have you had anything to eat today?” asked Ozbek.
Salam shook his head. “Only some stale coffee.”
Ozbek waved Rasmussen over. “Tell us what you want and my partner will go get it for you.”
“Seriously?” asked Salam, his eyes brightening a bit.
Ozbek nodded. He learned a long time ago that the most productive way to start an interrogation was to build rapport by trying to give the prisoner something he wanted.
Once Rasmussen had left to get the food, Ozbek asked Salam how he had been recruited.
The man took a moment before replying. It was obvious that he was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that he had been duped. Finally, he replied, “It seemed so real to me. Just like out of a movie. Three years ago I was on my way to my internship at the Near Eastern section of the Library of Congress when this guy approached me, flashed his FBI credentials, and asked if I could be free for lunch.”
“And you said yes.”
Salam nodded.
“Then what happened?” asked Ozbek.
“We met later that day. I ate and he talked.”
“What was his name?”
“Sean Riley,” the man replied.
“So what did you and Sean Riley talk about?” asked Ozbek.
“Like I said, he did most of the talking. But the subject was the growing threat America faced from both Islamic extremist ideology and legal ‘Islamism.’ ”
“Meaning political Islam,” clarified Ozbek.
“Right,” replied Salam. “Riley described an active campaign by Muslim extremists to destroy Western civilization from within—quietly, peacefully; even legally. He explained how they were working to destabilize America and ultimately replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic sharia law.”
“And that bothers you?”
“Of course it does. It should bother every American. And it’s already happening. They have brought about women-only classes and swimming times at taxpayer-funded universities and public pools. Christians, Jews, and Hindus have been banned from serving on juries where Muslim defendants are being judged. Piggy banks and Porky Pig tissue dispensers have been banned from workplaces because they offend Islamist sensibilities. Ice cream has been discontinued at certain Burger Kings because the picture on the wrapper looks like the Arabic script for Allah. Public schools have been pulling pork from their menus. Women have been beaten, strangled, and killed by their husbands, brothers, or fathers for ‘dishonoring’ their families. It’s death by a thousand cuts, or sharia inch-by-inch as some refer to it, and most Americans have no idea this battle is being waged every day across America.
“By not fighting back, by allowing groups in particular like FAIR to obfuscate what is really happening, and not insisting that the Islam
ists adapt to our culture, the United States is cutting its own throat with a politically correct knife and helping to further the Islamists’ agenda.”
“And that’s why this Sean Riley wanted to recruit you? To take the fight to the Islamists?” asked Ozbek.
“Exactly.”
Ozbek had seen a chilling collection of classified evidence before it was made public in a terrorism financing trial in Dallas which laid out the Islamist agenda to take over the United States. The evidence contained a detailed strategy memo from the Muslim Brotherhood—the oft-cited parent organization of Hamas and al-Qaeda which was intimately tied to FAIR—laying out steps for how the U.S. Constitution and Western civilization could be destroyed from within and replaced with sharia law.
Ozbek remembered the words of an audiotape he’d heard played that detailed the Brotherhood’s paranoia about “securing the group” from infiltration by “Zionism, Masonry … the CIA, FBI, etc.” so that they could detect any outside monitoring and get rid of any such enemies.
The FBI had already floated a cursory theory of theirs to Ozbek and Rasmussen that Salam’s job was just that—to discover where American Islamist organizations were vulnerable and to infiltrate them in order to shore them up. The only thing was that Salam didn’t know it. He’d been purposely kept in the dark.
“Why did they pick you for this assignment?” asked Ozbek.
“I asked Riley the same thing,” replied Salam. “He said my thesis caught his attention.”
“What was it about?”
“It was about how the Islamists were slowly creating a specialized victim status for themselves whereby discussion of Islam, as well as their motives for Islamic supremacism, were quickly becoming no-go topics. I entitled it The Quiet War and paid special attention to how the Islamists had realized that they could further their agenda by playing upon Americans’ natural distaste for racism. They did it by creating a label that smacked of bigotry and which could be applied to anyone who called into question their true loyalties, motivations, religious texts, or ultimate end game—Islamophobia.”