by Brad Thor
When he caught up to his fellow evacuees, he looked at the father and asked in French where the exit was.
The man shrugged and gestured around the narrow passageway with palms upturned.
The time for Harvath to get away was now, while chaos still reigned inside the mosque. Having switched the real Don Quixote with the fake he, Nichols, and Tracy had created, all that mattered was that he get it out of Clichy-sous-Bois and back to the barge.
He realized that if there was an exit at the back of the mosque, most of the people running in that direction would get out that way. That made chances pretty good that Harvath could exit the back of the bathhouse and get somewhat lost in the crowd as they all spilled out into the neighborhood.
The only problem was that the shooter was probably thinking the exact same thing. Though he’d have less cover going out the front door, it was the option that made the most sense.
Making his way through the hammam, Harvath found the reception area and the front doors. He checked for any signs that they were wired to an alarm system. The last thing he wanted to do was draw any more attention to himself.
As he began to unlock the doors, he decided to remove the Don Quixote from the false bottom he’d created in his briefcase and tuck it into the waistband of his trousers.
He was in the process of balancing the briefcase on the door handles when a noise from behind caused him to turn.
As he did, he was hit in the chest and blown through the doors.
CHAPTER 40
CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY,
VIRGINIA
“So that’s it?” asked Aydin Ozbek as he gripped his telephone. “He just kept the camera and said nothing?”
The CIA operative listened to Carolyn Leonard for a few more moments in dismay. The call was winding down as Stephanie Whitcomb poked her head inside Ozbek’s office. He held up his index finger indicating he was almost finished.
“Yeah, I understand,” he said into the telephone. “I appreciate your trying. If you come across anything, please let me know.”
After hanging up, Ozbek turned his attention to Whitcomb, who stood in the doorway with a folder tucked under her arm. “What’s up?” he asked.
“The FBI agents interrogating Andrew Salam want to access some of our database information.”
“Why?”
“The more they talk to him, the more they believe that maybe he didn’t kill that woman at the Jefferson Memorial,” she said.
“No kidding. I told them the same thing, but what’s that have to do with accessing our databases?”
“Using Salam’s description of his handler, they pulled photos of their own people going back twenty-five years, loaded them onto a laptop and worked them into a digitized mug book.”
“And they got nothing,” replied Ozbek.
Whitcomb looked at him. “What does that tell you?”
The CIA operative rolled his eyes. It was a stupid question. “Ah, that whoever recruited him wasn’t really an FBI agent?”
“But what if he was an intelligence operative who just worked for another agency?”
Ozbek picked up his pen and tapped it on his desk blotter. “The FBI would be able to get whatever they wanted from DEA, DHS, DOJ.”
“But not CIA. Not without asking us first.”
“Whoa,” cautioned Ozbek. “Maybe the Bureau’s okay with flashing pictures of their people at Salam, but there’s no way in hell we’re going to do that. We can’t.”
“That’s exactly what I said. No dice.”
“So why are we even talking about this?” asked Ozbek, who was anxious to get back to work.
Whitcomb drew the file folder out from under her arm. “The Bureau guys are smart. They came up with a compromise.”
“Like what?”
“They brought Salam an Identi-Kit and just sent over this composite,” she said as she pulled a page from her folder. She held it up for Ozbek to see. “They want to know if we can search our databases for any candidates that might be a match for this guy.”
Even with Whitcomb standing across the room in his doorway, Ozbek recognized the likeness immediately. Matthew Dodd’s face wasn’t one he was ever going to forget.
CHAPTER 41
CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS
Harvath hit the ground with Big Bird’s two-hundred-ninety-plus-pound frame right on top of him. Aouad must have discovered his switch of the Don Quixote.
With the briefcase still clenched in his right hand, Harvath swung at the giant’s head, but was a second too slow. Big Bird raised his left arm and blocked the blow, forcing Harvath to swing with his other hand.
He connected with the man’s jaw, but his attacker barely even flinched. As Harvath pulled back for another strike, Big Bird unloaded with both of his enormous hands.
The man drove two quick punches into Harvath’s ribs, knocking the wind out of him. As Harvath gasped for air, he kept trying to use his legs to lift his body up, but with Big Bird sitting on top of him, it was like being pinned underneath a truck.
The giant threw another combination of punches that sent an intense wave of pain radiating throughout his body.
Harvath responded with another left and connected once again with the man’s head, but it had no effect whatsoever. It was like trying to melt an iceberg with a hairdryer. Still fighting for breath, Harvath took another shot to his ribs as he tried to figure a way out.
Thinking he might have noticed a weakness when he had first tried to clobber the giant with his briefcase, Harvath drew it back and swung again.
Sure enough, as Big Bird raised his arm to block the case, he lowered his head beneath the level of his arm and that was all that Harvath needed to see. He absorbed two more blows before he could launch his counterassault.
Summoning what few reserves of strength he had left, Harvath let the briefcase fly.
This time, when Big Bird raised his forearm and lowered his head, Harvath was ready for him.
As the man’s head came down, Harvath’s came up and the pair met with a sickening crack of bone against cartilage. There was a spray of blood as Harvath tore open a wound that ripped through the top of Big Bird’s beak and into his forehead.
The giant roared in pain as his hands flew to his face and Harvath wasted no time in going to work on him.
With his breath coming in such shallow gasps, Harvath had trouble gathering his strength. Pulling the briefcase back, he took advantage of the fact that the giant’s eyes were flooding with blood and couldn’t see what was coming.
The briefcase nailed the man square in the temple. His hands dropped from his face and he sat there for what was only a second or two, but what for Harvath felt like an eternity, before he slowly keeled over to his right and collapsed into the center of the street, unconscious.
Harvath struggled to roll out from underneath the man, but as he did, he was greeted by a new vision just as terrible. Whistles was coming right at him with a pipe in his left hand.
Sitting up with the briefcase clasped to his chest, Harvath tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t obey. Trying to get Big Bird off of him had been like doing a million squat thrusts and his legs were like rubber. The best he could manage was a feeble scoot on his ass toward the other side of the street.
When his back hit a parked car, he knew that was as far as he was going to go. Even if Whistles was only half the fighter Big Bird was, Harvath was a dead man.
If only he had brought a weapon with him. A knife, pepper spray, anything would have been better than nothing at this point.
When Whistles saw that Harvath couldn’t stand, he smiled. His mouth was filled with bad teeth and though he knew it was impossible, Harvath almost thought he could smell the man’s rancid breath from across the street.
There was no doubting the giant’s intentions as he drew back his pipe and ran forward into the street.
The situation was close to hopeless, but Harvath refused to go down without a fight—even a half-as
sed one.
As he drew back one of his legs to deliver a kick to the man’s knee, there was a scream from off to his left and two flashlights rushed toward him.
At first, Harvath thought it was the police. The f word floated to the forefront of his mind, but evaporated in a haze of tire smoke and a squeal of brake pads as the trunk of Moussa’s taxicab slammed into Whistles.
The young Algerian had the rear passenger door open and was yelling for Harvath to get in before the giant’s body even hit the ground.
Harvath staggered inside and collapsed on the rear seat, his briefcase still clasped in his right hand.
Moussa reached back and after closing the door, sped down the street and into the night.
CHAPTER 42
As they drove back to Paris, Moussa asked nothing more than where Harvath wanted to be taken. The man probably had a lot of questions, but to his credit he kept his questions to himself and allowed Harvath to close his eyes and rest.
Per his passenger’s instructions, Moussa headed his cab for the Ile Saint-Louis. They came in via the Pont Marie and maneuvered through the tiny streets down the Rue Boutarel to the Quai d’Orléans. From there, Harvath had a clear view across the Seine to the péniche that functioned as the Sargasso safe house. He asked Moussa to pull over.
Handing two thousand euros over the seat, Harvath said, “This should cover the repairs to your taxi.” He then reached for the door handle. “Goodbye, Moussa. Thanks for your help.”
The young Algerian turned to say something, but his passenger had already exited the cab.
Harvath walked down to the water, slid the Don Quixote into a plastic bag he found in a trash can, and then ditched the briefcase. Being careful to remain in the shadows, he watched the barge for the next twenty minutes.
During that time, he did a lot of thinking. Foremost in his mind was the question of who the people were on Anthony Nichols’ tail and how they had tracked Harvath to the Bilal Mosque. He planned on making it one of the first questions he asked the professor once he returned to the boat.
When Harvath was convinced that everything appeared okay, he crossed the river by the Pont de la Tournelle and observed the barge for several more minutes from the other side before finally descending to the quai.
Harvath slipped inside the wheel house and quietly descended the stairs. He found René Bertrand right where he’d left him, tied to the dining room chair. His head was slumped forward and he appeared to be either asleep or passed out. Nichols was in the galley with his back turned and Harvath caught him by surprise.
“You scared the life out of me,” he said as he turned around, his hand clasped to his chest. “Did you get it?”
Harvath held up the plastic bag. “How’s Tracy?” he asked.
Nichols drew a deep breath and set the mug he was filling with hot water onto the counter. “She’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean she’s gone?” demanded Harvath as he abandoned the galley and headed toward his stateroom.
Flipping on the lights, his eyes were drawn to the empty bed. He pushed open the bathroom door only to find it empty as well. “How long?” he asked as he heard Nichols pad into the room behind him.
“At least an hour,” he responded.
“Did she say where she was going?”
“She said she needed to see a doctor and that you would understand.”
Harvath set down the book and then opened the false panel and removed the box containing the pistol.
Nichols sensed what Harvath was thinking and added, “She also said she didn’t want you coming after her.”
“Every police officer in this city has our pictures by now,” said Harvath as he withdrew the weapon and tucked it into his waistband. “How far do you think she’s going to get?”
“Probably not far and I think she knows that. I also think she feels that she was only slowing you down by staying here.”
“You do, huh?” Harvath replied rudely.
“Scot, her headaches were worse than she was letting on,” stated Nichols.
“So you’re a doctor now?”
“She didn’t want to put you in a position of having to decide between her and what we need to accomplish.”
Harvath looked at Nichols. “What we need to accomplish?” he repeated.
“She said you weren’t going to be happy about it.”
“You know what? Don’t tell me what my girlfriend thinks or feels anymore, okay?” snapped Harvath as he crossed to the tiny desk, fished the headset out of its drawer, and powered up the laptop.
The professor realized they were done talking and quietly backed out of the room.
Harvath chose an e-mail address from the host of anonymous accounts he maintained and sent a message to both Ron Parker’s cell phone and his desktop.
It took some time before he appeared in the video chat room.
“You look like shit,” said Parker as he came on line from the Sargasso conference room in Colorado. He was in his late thirties, about Harvath’s height with a shaved head and a dark goatee.
Parker was normally a wiseass until he understood the severity of a situation, so Harvath ignored the remark. “What took you so long?”
“I was doing a training exercise with SEAL Team 10 on the other side of the property, and my Ducati only moves so fast. What’s up? Your message said it was urgent.”
“Tracy’s gone.”
Parker straightened up and leaned forward into his camera. “What happened?”
“She left while I was out. She said she needed to find a doctor.”
“For what? Is she injured?”
“She’s had headaches. Bad ones, apparently.”
“What do you mean apparently?” asked Parker. “You don’t know?”
“She didn’t want me to know,” replied Harvath. “She’d been taking painkillers under the radar.”
“If you sit tight, she’ll probably come back in a bit. Don’t worry.”
“Ron, I am worried. Every cop in this city has to be looking for us. You’ve got contacts here that I don’t. How quickly can you find out where she is?”
The video chat room was not as fast as Harvath would have liked and it took a moment for Parker’s response to be piped back.
“I’ll reach out to my guys now, but Tracy could be anywhere—a hospital, a doctor’s office. I’ll try my embassy sources first. We’ll see if anyone contacted them looking for a referral.”
“No,” replied Harvath. “No one from the embassy. I want this kept off their radar screen.”
Parker adjusted his camera so Harvath could see the owner of the Sargasso Intelligence Program, Tim Finney, who was sitting off to his side.
Finney was a former Pacific Rim shootfighting champion now in his early fifties who towered over Harvath by at least seven inches and rang in at an impressive two hundred fifty pounds of solid muscle. He had intense green eyes and, like Parker, his head was completely shaved—a similarity that Harvath had often attributed to Finney’s resort having the world’s laziest or most uncreative barber. But despite his size and his reputation as an absolutely ruthless, no-holds-barred fighter in the ring, Finney, like Parker, was one of the best friends an honest man could ever have.
Finney held up a pink telephone message sheet while Parker said, “Gary Lawlor is looking for you. He’s called twice already. He says he has a message from the president.”
“Why would he call you two?”
Finney took the microphone away from Parker and said, “Don’t be an idiot, Scot. He knows damn well there’s only two numbers you dial when you’re in trouble and since his phone hasn’t been ringing, it isn’t hard to figure that you reached out to us. Now what should we tell him?”
“How much does he know?”
“He knows you’re in Paris.”
“How does he know that?” asked Harvath.
“He says that’s what the president wants to talk to you about.”
Harvath had told Nichols
not to make any calls or to use the computer while he was gone. He wondered if the professor had disobeyed him. He doubted it. More than likely, the French had already ID’d him and had contacted the president. Either way, things were now even more screwed up than before.
“Gary asked if we were putting you up,” continued Finney, “and how he could contact you.”
Harvath had no desire to hear what the president had to say. “What’d you tell him?”
“We told him that if we heard from you, we’d tell you to check in with him.”
“Did he buy it?”
Finney put his hands up. “I’ve got no idea, Scot. He’s your boss.”
“Was my boss,” clarified Harvath.
“Whatever. Why don’t you call him and ask him yourself?”
“I’ll think about it,” he lied.
“Well think about this. You’re in the shit way up past your eyeballs, and so is Tracy. I don’t think we’ve got a rope long enough to throw to you. You might want to put your pride on the back burner and think of someone other than yourself for a minute. Gary Lawlor and President Rutledge might be the only people who can help untangle this mess.”
Finney was right, but Harvath was hardheaded enough to not want to admit it.
When he didn’t reply, Parker took the microphone back and said, “I’ll get back to you as soon as we have something. In the meantime, get yourself cleaned up.” Then the feed from Sargasso went dead.
CHAPTER 43
Harvath had always had a good relationship with Gary Lawlor. The former FBI deputy director had been a close friend of the Harvath family for almost as long as Scot could remember. And when Scot’s father, a SEAL instructor, had died in a training accident in California, Gary had become like a second father to him.
When President Rutledge had decided to mount the Apex Project to battle terrorists on their own terms, he wooed Gary away from the Bureau to put him in charge. Though they often butted heads in their attempts to get results, Scot and Gary worked well together.