Brad Thor Collectors' Edition #3

by Brad Thor

  “You’re going to waste all of my heat,” said Gallagher as he put the truck in gear and pressed on the gas to catch up with the vehicles in front of him.

  “It’s just until we clear the area.”

  “So,” said Fontaine. “How was the party? Did they serve tea?”

  For a moment, Harvath forgot about the throbbing in his lower back and the cold wind blowing through the window onto his face, and he laughed. “Yeah, they did. They also served up a nice juicy lead. I think we may know where Massoud and the Russian took Dr. Gallo.”

  “That’s excellent news,” replied Fontaine. “Are we going to go check it out, or do you want to hand this thing off to the higher-ups?”

  Harvath turned around to look into the backseat. “That depends on Mr. Daoud. We’d need his help for a little bit longer.”

  Fontaine put his muscular arm around the pudgy Afghan. “What do you say? It could be fun.”

  “I most certainly disagree about it being fun,” said the interpreter. “But that does not mean we cannot come to some sort of an arrangement.”

  “A diplomat and a capitalist,” said Fontaine. “You ought to think about running for office.”

  Harvath smiled as he turned back around in his seat and thought about rolling up his window. Suddenly, he heard the distinct, pressurized sound of gas releasing as a rocket-propelled grenade was launched.

  He had barely yelled the words, “RPG!” when everyone in the Land Cruiser saw the lead vehicle explode in a roiling fireball.

  CHAPTER 46

  THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “I know it’s hard for female agents to get dates, but please tell me that things haven’t gotten so bad that you’ve resorted to seeing Hutch.”

  After her meeting with Hutchinson, Elise had walked over to the White House to check the Secret Service duty roster and see if she could arrange for a couple more days off. Right now, with so many unanswered questions, she didn’t feel that she could rejoin the president’s detail and do her job effectively.

  Turning around to see who was talking to her, Elise Campbell discovered Matthew Porter, a forty-year-old agent on Terry Alden’s detail. He was a decent guy with two kids and an attorney wife at the DOJ who processed FISA warrants.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Elise.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Campbell,” said Porter, as he smiled and shook his head. “It’s written all over your face.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “C’mon. I saw you two canoodling in Lafayette Park.”

  “Me and Hutch?” stated Elise. “You’re crazy. Besides, who even uses the term canoodling anyway?”

  “Whatever it was,” said Porter. “It looked pretty serious to me.”

  “You’ve got an overactive imagination. It was nothing.”

  “Well, you’re a big girl. You can make your own mistakes, but Hutch? You can do so much better than that. In fact, Claire and I’ve got at least a dozen guys we could set you up with.”

  Elise looked him right in the eyes so he’d know she was serious. “Matt, there’s nothing going on between me and Hutch. We were talking shop.”

  “Sure,” said Porter as he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “Talking shop. Without being crude, that guy’ll nail anything that moves.”

  “News flash, Matt. That was crude.”

  Porter shrugged. “You know what? You’re right. It’s none of my business.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I just have to admit, I don’t know what women see in him. Especially girls like you.”

  “Girls like me,” repeated Campbell. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean women who are not only out of Hutch’s league, but out of his planet system.”

  It was an interesting remark, and since Porter had brought it up, one that Elise felt worth pursuing. “Women like the first lady?”

  Porter had a coffee cup in his hand and had made the mistake of just taking a sip. Though he tried to hold it in, he coughed the coffee back into his cup. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he laughed as he picked up a paper towel to wipe his mouth. “Hutch and Mrs. Alden? Now, that would be incredible.”

  Campbell looked around. At the moment, there was no one else in earshot. “So what did you mean then?” she asked.

  “I meant very good-looking women, like you,” Porter replied awkwardly. “Not that the first lady isn’t attractive, she’s just—”

  Elise put up her hand to stop him. “Setting aside the first lady for the moment, what other women were you referring to when you alluded to girls like me?”

  “I feel like I’m getting grilled by my wife.”

  “Don’t change the subject, Porter.”

  “All right, all right. Wow, you don’t have to be so touchy.”

  “I’m not touchy,” replied Elise.

  “I was just talking about some of the hot women Hutch has managed to land. I meant it as a compliment.”

  “Who are we talking about? Anyone I’d know?”

  “What are we, girlfriends all of a sudden?” asked Porter. “I didn’t come in here to gossip. I just want some coffee.”

  “Porter, you started this.”

  “Hey, you were the one in the park with the guy. And if you’ve got something going with him, that’s cool. Just be careful.”

  “Careful?” said Elise.

  Porter dumped his coffee out and reached for a new cup. “The last hot chick Hutch hooked up with ended up drinking herself into a stupor and slamming her car into oncoming traffic.”

  Campbell knew Hutchinson had been lying to her, but she still had trouble believing what she was hearing. “Are you talking about Nikki Hale?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yeah, I am,” said Porter, “and why are we whispering? Was she a friend of yours?”

  Elise shook her head. “No, she wasn’t.”

  “Good. For a second there I thought maybe I’d really put my foot in it.”

  “How do you know he hooked up with her?”

  “Because I saw the two of them the night of the accident.”

  “Together?” asked Elise.

  “No, they were down on the beach doing semaphore. Of course, together. Come on, Campbell.”

  Elise grabbed hold of Porter’s lapel and led him further away from the other agents in the room. “I want you to tell me everything you saw. Right now.”

  “You know what?” said the agent as he removed his colleague’s hand from his jacket. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I actually feel for the guy. Short of turning a woman gay, I can’t think of a worse thing that could happen. Let’s just forget I said anything, okay? Hutch has been through enough.”

  “He hasn’t even come close,” replied Campbell. “Not yet. Not by a long shot.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Elise Campbell had finished her conversation with Porter, left the White House, and was headed west on E Street, her BlackBerry pressed to her ear. “That’s exactly why I called you,” she said.

  “Elise, you saw the whole file,” replied Rita Klees from her office in East Hampton. “Why would we screen a drunk driving victim to see if they had sex before they died? Especially with the budget cuts we’ve suffered. We don’t do that. Not without a reason, and in this case there was no reason.”

  “So pull an inspection report out of one of your other files, or better yet, get me a blank one I can fill in myself.”

  “Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

  “Damn it, Rita. Help me out here.”

  “Elise, what you’re asking me for is—” began the detective.

  “Trust me,” said Campbell. “I’ll explain later. Just get that stuff for me. Please.”

  Before Klees could respond, Elise had already hung up. Though she hadn’t yet figured out how she was going to navigate the minefield she was about to enter, something in the back of her mind told her that she might have mad
e a decent detective after all.

  CHAPTER 47

  NANGARHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN

  Bullets began slamming into the Land Cruiser before the lead vehicle that had been hit by the RPG had even come back to the ground.

  Opening the driver’s-side door, Gallagher grabbed his rifle and dumped out with Harvath right on his heels. Fontaine leaped out the rear passenger door, pulling the interpreter with him.

  Harvath was trying to identify the firing positions of their attackers when all of a sudden Gallagher, who had been crouched behind the tire right next to him, yelled, “Cover me,” over the din of heavy machine-gun fire and ran for the middle vehicle.

  As soon as he took off, green tracer rounds began chewing up the dirt behind him. It was as if someone had a phosphorescent marker and was trying to draw a line to him.

  Angry as hell at his friend, but left with no other choice, Harvath rolled out from behind the left front tire of the Land Cruiser and began firing.

  Based on the tracer fire, Harvath could make out two distinct positions from which the belt-fed machine guns were being fired. When Gallagher had made it to the second vehicle, Harvath rolled back behind the tire, pulled out his NODs, and powered them up.

  He could tell by where the rounds were hitting that their attackers knew they were hiding behind the tires on the opposite side of the Land Cruiser. But, because their attackers were higher up the hillside, all they could do was shoot down. They couldn’t shoot through the tires or underneath the truck. Normally, Harvath would have seen that as a good thing. The only problem was that they had taken out the lead vehicle with an RPG. Two more and they could take out the middle vehicle as well as the Land Cruiser. The men had to do something, fast.

  Sliding his NODs on, Harvath looked at Fontaine, who had already done the same, and nodded. In unison, both men rolled out from behind their tires and began firing at their attackers. This time Harvath had the advantage of his night vision goggles and could see what they were up against.

  In the green glow of his NODs the steep slope on the other side of the road looked like an anthill, swarming with fighters armed with Kalashnikovs. There were at least seventy of them; maybe even eighty. These had to be Massoud’s men, and Baseer’s count had been right on the money. Harvath also figured he knew who had tipped them off. If that little shitbird Usman suddenly stood up on the hillside and waved, it wouldn’t have surprised Harvath at all.

  Firing the last round in his magazine, he rolled back behind his tire. They were pinned down. They needed to get away from the vehicles to a more defensible position.

  Harvath glanced over at Gallagher, who was pressed up against the rear of Fayaz’s SUV with Asadoulah and the chief elder pressed up right behind him. As the two Afghans took advantage of the limited cover provided by the rear passenger tire of the SUV, Gallagher balanced his LaRue sniper rifle on the truck’s back bumper and raked the hillside. As far as Harvath could tell, none of the other people in the vehicle had survived.

  “We need to get the hell away from these trucks,” Harvath yelled to Fontaine. “If they’ve got any more RPGs up there, we’re going to get smoked.”

  Fontaine nodded. “What do you want to do?”

  “About thirty meters down on this side of the road is an old mud hut. I saw it when we came in. It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than this.”

  “All right,” said the Canadian as he readied the interpreter to run. “I’ll stay here and provide cover fire.”

  “No,” replied Harvath as he inserted a fresh magazine into his MP5. “You’re not getting paid enough to bring up the rear.”

  “Then how about a raise?”

  “The Afghan capitalist got the rest of my money. Now take him and get over to Gallagher’s position. I’ll cover you.”

  “Roger that,” said Fontaine, who, after signaling to Gallagher what he was about to do, grabbed hold of the interpreter. “When I say go, I want you to stay low and run as fast as you can to that other truck over there. Do you understand?”

  Daoud nodded.

  “Okay. One. Two. Three. Go!”

  As the two men took off running, Harvath rolled back out and began firing again. From Fayaz’s SUV, Gallagher did the same thing, paying special attention to the two heavy machine-gun positions.

  When he had once again exhausted his ammo, he rolled back behind the tire, ejected the spent magazine, and inserted a fresh one. It didn’t take a military strategist to realize that even with very carefully placed shots, they were still going to need more ammo.

  After checking to make sure Fontaine and Daoud had made it safely, Harvath moved to the Land Cruiser’s rear passenger door and flung it open. Even on this side, it was riddled with the holes of bullets that had passed straight through from the other side.

  The seats were shredded, their springs visible in many spots. Harvath pulled the release and tried to flip down the seat nearest him, but it wouldn’t budge. Leaping back from the truck as another barrage of fire literally made it rock back and forth, Harvath hid behind the tire and questioned how much he was willing to risk to get that extra ammunition.

  It wasn’t a tough decision. Gallagher’s truck was a bullet magnet. If he climbed in there again to reach over the seats to get what he needed, he’d be cut to ribbons.

  And if the threat of another RPG hit wasn’t bad enough, Harvath had just been given another very compelling reason to get the hell away from the Land Cruiser. The gas tank had been ruptured and he could now smell gasoline.

  Moving up to the front tire, Harvath motioned to Gallagher and Fontaine that he was ready to roll.

  With his MP5 slung over his shoulder, he waited for their signal, and when it came, Harvath sprinted out from behind the cover of Gallagher’s SUV and ran faster than he had ever run before in his life.

  Despite the cover fire being laid down for him, the dusty road exploded in a hail of enemy gunfire, throwing rock chips and clumps of dirt high into the air. As the bullets snapped and whistled around him, Harvath could almost feel the heat from the tracer rounds chasing him like a lit fuse.

  As he skidded to a stop behind Fayaz’s SUV, it sounded like the world’s largest hornets’ nest had been stirred. All of the enemy gunfire was now being focused on this one rapidly deteriorating piece of cover. Though Harvath was out of breath, he knew they needed to move, now.

  He looked at Fayaz, Daoud, and Asadoulah and saw that they had stripped the dead security men in the SUV of their weapons and were now all armed. Three more guns in the fight. He hoped they were good shooters. With their limited supply of ammo, now was not the time to spray and pray. They were going to have to be dead-on tack-drivers.

  Looking at Gallagher, Harvath said, “You and Fontaine take the Afghans and get moving for that hut.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Gallagher said.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to create a diversion,” replied Harvath as he nodded toward Gallagher’s chewed-up Land Cruiser. “I hope your insurance is all paid up.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” said Gallagher, pointing at his leg. “I think you’re going to have to leave me here.”

  Harvath flipped up his NODs and looked down. A bullet had torn through Gallagher’s upper thigh and blood was pumping out of the wound. “I need a tourniquet!” Harvath yelled. “Now!”

  “There’s no time,” said Gallagher.

  “Bullshit there isn’t,” he replied. “Fontaine!”

  “Right here,” replied the Canadian, as he appeared with a length of seat belt he had cut out of the SUV.

  As they positioned Gallagher’s leg to get the makeshift device in position, he leaned forward and Harvath noticed that he had also taken a round through the top of his left shoulder.

  Gallagher must have seen the look on Harvath’s face as he leaned him back against the truck’s rear tire. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing. We need to get out of here.”
/>   Harvath pulled out a spent magazine, slid it through the seat-belt knot, and used it to tighten down the tourniquet. The old Marine grimaced in pain, but didn’t make a sound. Within seconds the bleeding had stopped.

  Harvath helped Gallagher lie down on his stomach for a superman carry. He placed Daoud between Baba G’s legs to carry them like a wheelbarrow and then motioned Asadoulah and Fontaine to each of his outstretched arms. Fontaine took Gallagher’s right arm because, as he would be required to hook his left arm under it to help carry the man, it would leave his right hand free for shooting.

  Shouldering his MP5 so he could use Gallagher’s LaRue, Harvath positioned himself against the SUV’s back bumper and gave the go command.

  In unison, the three men bent and picked up Gallagher, while Harvath began firing at Massoud’s men on the hillside. With Fayaz in the lead, they began running toward the mud hut.

  As they did, Harvath turned his attention away from their attackers and onto the leaking Land Cruiser.

  When the lucky round finally found its mark, the SUV exploded, sending a brilliant flash and a towering pillar of fire into the night.

  CHAPTER 48

  Whether Massoud’s soldiers knew where they were headed or not, Harvath and his team were dogged the entire way by wildly fired shots, many of which came incredibly close. Winston Churchill’s famous line notwithstanding, there was absolutely nothing exhilarating about being shot at, even if your enemy was missing.

  The run-down mud brick hut the team finally took shelter in only had three pockmarked walls and was missing its roof, but it was definitely a step up in the cover it afforded. Next to a stack of water-filled jerry cans there was nothing better at blast attenuation in the middle of nowhere than a thick mud wall.

  Making Gallagher as comfortable as possible, Harvath checked his wounds again. So far the tourniquet on his leg was working. It was the bullet through his shoulder he was most worried about. Gallagher’s breathing had become labored and Harvath was concerned that he had dropped a lung. Even so, he sought to reassure his friend. “You’re going to be okay,” he said.