Brad Thor Collectors' Edition #3

by Brad Thor

  “Yeah, we’ve got a cobbler in Paris,” replied Tim Finney. “But she doesn’t just play both sides of the fence, she plays both sides of the porch, the driveway, the front yard—”

  “I get it,” interrupted Harvath. “How good is she?”

  “Excellent and she charges like it too.”

  “I’m going to need two passports right away, tonight.”

  There was a loud noise as Finney pursed his lips and sucked in a big breath of air. “That’s going to be expensive.”

  “I know,” replied Harvath. “Good, fast, and cheap—pick any two.”

  “Do you want them to be U.S.?”

  “No. The French are going to be scrutinizing American passports very closely. Make them Canadian. Entrance to France seven days ago. Medium amount of international stamps and travel visas, all to first- and second-world countries. We’ll also need a couple of credit cards. Brand doesn’t matter. We’ll take whatever blanks she has.”

  “What about photos?” asked Finney.

  “I’m going to get to work on those now,” said Harvath. “I’ll post them in the usual place along with aliases and physical descriptions.”

  “Okay, I’ll get on this right away. I’ll have her put it on my account and we’ll settle up later. You do have access to funds, right?”

  “Yes,” replied Harvath, remembering the private account the president had established for Nichols. “I’ll make sure you get reimbursed.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like you, Scot,” said Finney. “It’s just that we’re talking about some pricey work here.”

  “Understood.”

  “The passports will be left at a dead drop. As soon as they’re ready, she’ll let us know where you can pick them up. How about on your end? Anything else you need?”

  Harvath prioritized the other items in his mind. “We’re going to need a private jet as soon as the passports are ready,” he said. “Preferably something with a discreet pickup service.”

  “Destination?”

  “Montreal for the flight plan, but once we’re safely on our way, we’ll need to change for D.C.”

  “That’s doable,” said Finney.

  “And one other thing,” replied Harvath. “I’ve got a problem bound and gagged in one of the staterooms that needs to be dealt with, but not until we’re gone.”

  Finney didn’t like the sound of that. “Dealt with how?”

  “Somebody just needs to open the cage and let him out. Chances are the cops will pick him up within half an hour. By that point, I don’t care what he does or says.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “Only if you’re a bag of heroin or a fashion editor.”

  “Okay,” said Finney. “I’ll have someone check in on him once I know you’re out of French airspace. That’s it, then?”

  “That’s it,” replied Harvath.

  Two hours later, Harvath was back aboard the péniche. With him was a digital camera he had lifted off a tourist near Notre Dame and several plastic bags filled with items he and Nichols would need to disguise themselves.

  Once they had taken each other’s picture in front of a plain white wall, Harvath uploaded them to the draft folder he used to communicate with Parker and Finney. He’d already provided names and physical descriptions for the bogus passports. Now, all they could do was wait.

  An hour later, Harvath heard from Ron Parker. “The car will be there to pick you up at 0500. Your private charter to Montreal is all booked.”

  “What about the dead drop for the passports?” asked Harvath.

  “Your driver has been instructed to take you to the Paris Marriott Champs-Élysées. The bell captain’s name is Maurice. You give him the James Ryan alias from your new passport and he’ll hand over two suitcases. Inside are dirty clothes and assorted toiletry items just in case somebody decides to give you a closer look. One of the bags has a piece of yarn tied to the handle. Inside, you’ll find an envelope with the passports.”

  Harvath had to hand it to him, Parker and Finney thought of everything.

  When they arrived at the Marriott Champs- Élysées shortly after five a.m., Harvath found the bell captain, gave him the James Ryan name as well as fifty euros, and retrieved the bags.

  Back in the car, he removed the passports and looked them over. Finney’s cobbler was a true artist. The documents were impeccable.

  He committed his stamps and visas to memory and then quietly quizzed Nichols to make sure he had done the same.

  At Paris–Le Bourget Airport, they were met by a representative from the charter company who saw to their bags and accompanied the pair to passport control.

  Harvath had instructed Nichols to appear tired and disinterested. He had cut the professor’s hair very short and had him shave off his beard. His face had been darkened with toner while Harvath wore a new wig and glasses. He also now sported a mustache.

  The passport control officer took his time studying their documents. Harvath grew concerned and debated whether he could subdue the officer and still be able to get Nichols on board the plane and take off. They were the only ones there at the moment and Harvath gave himself fifty-fifty odds of being successful.

  Thankfully, he didn’t have to do anything. The jet rep was on a first-name basis with the officer and chided him into hurrying it up. With a dismissive wave of his hand, the officer stamped the passports and handed them back.

  Within five minutes, they were on board the aircraft, and as the main door was closed, Harvath breathed a sigh of relief. Ten minutes more, with well deserved drinks in hand, the pair was airborne and headed for the States. The hardest part, though, was leaving Tracy behind.

  Harvath had been against it, but he knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it. To his credit, the president had already started the diplomatic wheels rolling. It was now Harvath’s turn to perform.

  As the ground disappeared beneath the Bombardier Global Express XRS jet, Harvath left Nichols on the couch and walked back to the sleep suite in the aft cabin. Lying down on the bed, he closed his eyes and tried to rest. He had a very bad feeling that things weren’t over yet—not by a long shot.

  CHAPTER 50

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  SATURDAY

  Matthew Dodd’s balls weren’t simply big, they were enormous. Fooling the CIA into thinking you’d been killed was one thing, but living within fifty miles of Langley was the absolute height of hubris and Aydin Ozbek was positive that it was exactly what would lead to Dodd’s downfall.

  The assassin had been very careful about covering his tracks, but not careful enough. Most of the dead drops and meeting places Dodd had established with Salam while posing as his FBI handler were in and around Baltimore. That had gotten Ozbek to thinking.

  Why Baltimore? The most logical answer was because Baltimore was not D.C. There were too many people who could have recognized Dodd there. What’s more, Salam had ID’d Dodd directly from his CIA service photo which meant that Dodd had never disguised himself when they were together. The assassin was smart enough to know that few disguises held up under close scrutiny over long periods of time. So the more Ozbek thought about it, the more Baltimore made sense. Not only was it close to D.C., but it was probably easier to get lost in than anywhere else within an hour’s drive.

  At the DPS office, Ozbek had his team map all of the dead drop locations and all of the rendezvous points Salam could ever remember having been to. There were a couple of dead drops in D.C., but those were only set up for emergencies.

  The prevalence of activity in the Baltimore area made Ozbek certain that it was Dodd’s main base of operations. He had to be living somewhere close by.

  Though he held out little hope of finding him, Ozbek ran title searches under Dodd’s name and any known or suspected aliases, including his Muslim name, Majd al-Din. When those came up empty, Rasmussen half joked that it wouldn’t have been beneath the assassin to buy something under the names of Sheik Omar, Abdul Waleed, or even An
drew Salam himself. Those names turned out to be busts as well, as were any real estate holdings titled under any of Omar’s mosques, FAIR, or the McAllister & Associates front.

  More than likely, Dodd was renting something under a false name they didn’t know of, which made it all but impossible to trace him.

  Or so they had thought.

  It was Stephanie Whitcomb who had suggested they dredge the credit bureaus and Web-based tenant screening services. If Dodd was renting, unless he was living in an absolute fleabag, his landlord would have run a background check on him.

  Their search resulted in three hits in the Baltimore area. Two belonged to a pair of female roommates who were interns at the Foundation on American Islamic Relations and the third was a man named Ibrahim Reynolds who listed the Um al-Qura Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, as his employer.

  A little further digging revealed that the original Ibrahim Reynolds, whose name and social security number were bogusly listed on the rental application, had died at two months old in San Diego, California. It was the break they had been looking for.

  And as a reward, Ozbek had decided to let Whitcomb come along when they hit Dodd’s apartment even though Rasmussen had been dead set against involving her.

  Had Ozbek been able to see what was coming, he would have agreed.

  CHAPTER 51

  As far as any of them knew, Matthew Dodd was still in Paris. At least he had been as of the shooting the previous day. Nevertheless, they weren’t taking any chances.

  Just before 4 a.m., Ozbek pulled his black GMC Denali over to the sidewalk and dropped off Whitcomb. Once she was out, he pulled away and headed west.

  The apartment they believed belonged to Dodd was in the southeast part of Baltimore just north of the Fells Point area. And though they all thought it, none of them commented on the irony of the neighborhood being known as Butchers Hill.

  Since it was assumed an attractive young woman would be less suspicious, Whitcomb was given the job of surveilling as much of the area as possible before Ozbek and Rasmussen went into the apartment.

  They picked a spot at the top of the street where she could have an unobstructed view of his apartment, yet would be concealed if anyone looked out the window in her direction. She was using Ozbek’s own thermal imaging system, which despite being an early generation, would still allow her to “see” through several inches of concrete.

  Her encrypted Motorola radio was outfitted with a bone mike that she inserted in her right ear. They looked like the earpieces newscasters or Secret Service agents wore and were much less obvious than throat mikes.

  The radio was activated by a small transmitter button that Whitcomb wore around her left index finger and which she had covered with a Band-Aid. This would be a totally silent operation. Similar to a SWAT team entry, communication would be facilitated by clicks from the transmitter button.

  While Whitcomb got into place, Ozbek and Rasmussen waited in the Denali a block away. Rasmussen thought about raising his objection to bringing Stephanie along again, but decided to let it go. Ozbek was the boss, and he wasn’t going to change his mind. Oz had explained to Whitcomb that what they were doing was off the books and technically against the rules, but she’d agreed to come along anyway. She was not only an action junkie, she was a big girl and could make up her own mind as to what she did and didn’t want to do.

  Nevertheless, Rasmussen wasn’t exactly thrilled to be part of an ever-widening band of lawbreakers from the CIA. The Agency had had enough trouble with its image of late. It didn’t matter that what they did, they did for the greater good. The press and a majority of the morons in Congress were constantly busy tearing them new assholes and painting them as monsters.

  Rasmussen’s thoughts were interrupted when Whitcomb clicked that she was in place and that the apartment and the street were all clear.

  Unable to find a parking spot anywhere, Ozbek positioned his Denali in front of a hydrant and cut the engine. He and Rasmussen hopped out, and casually made their way toward the three-story brick building.

  Half a block before they got to the entrance, they turned right and headed into an alley.

  At the rear entrance of the building, Ozbek removed a lock pick gun while Rasmussen unholstered his .45 caliber HK USP tactical pistol and affixed its suppressor.

  It took Ozbek less than a minute to open the door at which point he removed his Beretta 92 FS, attached its suppressor as well, and stepped inside.

  The apartment believed to be Dodd’s was on the top floor facing the street. Ozbek signaled Rasmussen, who headed into the main hallway toward the front stairs.

  Ozbek counted to ten and then crept up the moldy back stairwell.

  As he neared the third story, he depressed his own transmit button for a final sit rep from Whitcomb.

  She toggled back the all clear just as a gloved hand dropped in front of her face and clamped down across her mouth.

  CHAPTER 52

  Dodd sank the straight razor in deep and drew it in one fluid slash across the woman’s throat, severing both her carotid arteries and her wind-pipe.

  Quickly, he disconnected her bone mike and transmitter.

  As the woman bled to death, the assassin lowered her body to the ground and stripped off her shirt to get to her bulletproof vest. It wouldn’t be a perfect fit, but it was better than nothing.

  She carried a Glock 19, a sound suppressor, and two additional mags, but no identification whatsoever. Though Dodd couldn’t be certain, he felt confident that she was CIA. The only question was how many others had she come with?

  After putting on her bloodstained vest, Dodd clipped the woman’s radio to his belt, inserted the earpiece, and wrapped the transmit button around his own left index finger.

  As he zipped up his jacket, he studied the thermal imaging device. It was a nice piece of equipment, expensive. Whoever this woman was, Dodd was now even more convinced that she was CIA. The only reason you didn’t carry ID was if you were working undercover and nobody but CIA would be working undercover with gear like this. This kind of device screamed high-end law enforcement or intelligence operation.

  Dodd raised it to his eyes and studied his apartment. He counted two heat signatures inside. Slowly, he scanned the rest of the area.

  Three people was an odd number to be traveling with, even for the CIA. If it hadn’t been for the illegally parked vehicle he’d seen when coming back from the airport, he might never have noticed the woman surveilling his apartment.

  Dodd knew most of the cars in his neighborhood, which made the ones that didn’t belong there stand out even more. The black Denali had Virginia license plates and had been parked in front of a hydrant. Everyone on Butchers Hill knew how tough it was to find parking, they also knew how merciless the police were in ticketing and towing. Whoever owned that vehicle was obviously a newcomer to the neighborhood or in a big hurry.

  What also had caught Dodd’s attention was that a light rain had fallen at some point during the evening. All the cars had dry spots underneath except for the Denali, which meant that it had been recently parked. Holding his hand above the warm hood was the only confirmation he needed.

  The assassin retrieved the long straight razor he carried in his shaving kit. It didn’t take him long to find and dispose of the spotter. Now it was time to eliminate whoever was inside his apartment.

  Certain that his adversary felt that they had the outside covered, Dodd crossed the street and headed for his front door. Tucking the imaging device under his arm, he screwed the suppressor onto the Glock and slid the spare magazines into his waistband so he could get at them quickly if he needed to.

  Dodd unlocked the front door and slipped inside. He knew every creak in every stair up to his apartment and ascended like a ghost.

  He kept his eyes peeled for any portable intrusion detectors that may have been placed along the stairwell, but saw none. Near the final landing, he raised the imaging device to his eyes and once more searched for the
forms inside his apartment. He found them just as he set foot on the third floor.

  Moving into the hallway for the best possible shot, Dodd leveled his weapon at the drywall and began pulling the trigger.

  CHAPTER 53

  Ozbek had no idea what had happened until he heard Rasmussen yell, “I’m hit,” and then things all around him started exploding.

  He leapt into the bathroom and dove into its cast iron tub just as rounds began pinging off of it. Whoever was shooting at them was doing so with a suppressed weapon and was firing right through the drywall. Activating his bone mike, he said, “Raz, how bad are you hit?”

  “Bad,” replied Rasmussen. “Motherfucker shot me in the leg! It’s bleeding all over.”

  Both men were wearing low profile cargo-style pants by Blackhawk Industries that included a revolutionary integrated tourniquet system. “Clamp it,” ordered Ozbek, though he knew Rasmussen was probably already doing it.

  He could hear Rasmussen shout from the other room as he lifted the flap on his pants and spun the carbon fiber bar that tightened a cord in the fabric around his upper thigh and cut off the blood flow. The pants had been designed to help minimize loss of blood and get you back in the fight as fast as possible. Everyone on Ozbek’s team wore them and had trained with them extensively.

  Ozbek was about to confirm that Rasmussen had activated the tourniquet when he heard another series of rounds drill into the apartment.

  “Son of a bitch,” groaned Rasmussen over his mike.

  “Take cover,” ordered Ozbek.

  “I did,” his colleague replied. “This asshole knows exactly where I am.”

  Ozbek was about to climb out of the tub when silenced rounds started pinging off it yet again. How the hell does he know exactly where we are?