by Brad Thor
Hutchinson grabbed the back of his neck with his right hand and lowered his eyes to the floor.
“You’ve got thirty seconds, Hutch,” said Campbell.
“It was a mistake,” he said, walking over to his couch and sitting down. “She came on to me. I guess that should have told me right there how wasted she was.”
“So you were with her,” said Elise.
Hutchinson nodded.
“You left Mrs. Alden alone?”
“No.”
Campbell remained standing and looked down at him. “You’re not making any sense.”
“The president’s detail was with her.”
“How is that possible? You said Alden didn’t show up at the guesthouse until after Hale had left that night.”
“I lied.”
Her read of him had been right. “What else did you lie to me about?”
Hutchinson raised his eyes. “I don’t want to lose my job, Elise.”
“Right about now, I’d say that’s the least of your problems.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Tell me what happened that night.”
Hutchinson took a deep breath. “Nikki Hale had been upstairs at the guesthouse with the first lady—”
“Drinking.”
“Yes. After a while, things got heated and they began arguing. Right about then, the president showed up.”
“What happened?”
“He went upstairs, and the argument got worse. Nikki stormed out of the room. She was mad as hell. The first lady yelled at the president to make up his mind. Either Nikki was history or she was.”
“So they were having an affair?”
Hutchinson nodded. “As Nikki came down the stairs, she had a few choice words for both of them. Alden had left his agents outside. I was the only one in the guesthouse. He saw me and told me to take Hale to her car and make sure she got the hell off the estate.”
“Did the president know she was drunk?”
“He and Mrs. Alden both did, but they didn’t care. They wanted her gone.”
“And you had an opportunity to take advantage of her,” said Campbell, the disdain evident in her voice.
“No, I wanted to find her a ride home,” Hutchinson replied. “I was walking her back to the main house, and the kiss just happened. She was pissed off at Alden and she wanted to get back at him. I shouldn’t have let it happen. It was unprofessional.”
“About as unprofessional as putting a woman that intoxicated into her car and sending her off into the night,” said Campbell.
“I told you. I was trying to find her a ride.”
She didn’t believe him. He would have done anything the Aldens asked him to and now she knew why he’d been allowed to stay on the first lady’s detail.
“I’m serious,” Hutchinson continued. “We were on our way to the main house when Alden came up behind us. Nikki had left her purse behind. Alden was still fuming and he flung it at her. They began arguing again. I tried to tell him that we needed to get her a ride home and he told me to return to my post or he’d have me fired.”
“And you chose to follow orders instead of stopping Alden from sending that girl off drunk to kill herself and the Coleman family.”
Once again, Hutchinson lowered his eyes to the floor.
There were a million things she wanted to say to the pathetic excuse for a man sitting in front of her, but she couldn’t bear the sight of him anymore. Besides, he wasn’t the one she needed to settle this with. The man she needed to confront was President Robert Alden.
CHAPTER 54
NANGARHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN
Even though Reshteen had lined the space with blankets, Harvath and Fontaine lay in the bed of his truck freezing to death. They were also dangerously close to running out of time. For their plan to work, they had to get in and get out of the camp before sunrise.
They had been hidden beneath a mountain of carefully stacked gear, which had then been lashed down with ropes. As the truck fishtailed up the icy roadway, it hit pothole after pothole and Harvath began to worry less about being discovered and executed by one of Massoud’s soldiers and more about being crushed beneath the ton of Taliban cargo swaying above them.
Theirs was one of three trucks making the supply run up to Massoud’s outpost. The Taliban commander had ordered up enough supplies for two weeks. If they didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, it was unlikely they’d get another chance.
Remembering the evil eye he’d received from the old, black-turbaned man in Surobi, he knew that no matter how authentic their clothing, there was no way he and Fontaine could pass close inspection as villagers from Dagar. Coming in sight unseen was their only bet. Harvath prayed that Massoud’s sentries would be like most soldiers standing post overnight—cold, bored, and hungry.
The security setup along the road was similar to that leading into Massoud’s village and involved two checkpoints.
When Harvath felt the truck coming to a halt at the first stop, his heart began to quicken and his hands tightened around his MP5. Next to him, he knew Fontaine was readying himself as well. Neither dared speak and they both knew what they would have to do if they were discovered.
Their bodies tense, each of the men listened for any indication that suggested the sentries suspected something was wrong. Despite the bitter cold, Harvath could feel the sweat forming on his skin as the adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream.
He heard Reshteen roll down his window and speak to the Taliban sentries. This was the first and one of the most dangerous hurdles.
Harvath listened as the Afghan did exactly what he had been told to do. Showing the sentries the box on the seat next to him, he offered them some of the hot tea, warm nan bread, and kebabs he had prepared before leaving Dagar.
There was a lull that seemed to last an eternity. Harvath couldn’t tell if the sentries suspected a double-cross or were just examining the contents of the box trying to decide what they wanted.
While the optimist in him said the sentries would take the food and allow the trucks to pass without inspection, the pessimist told him to get ready because all hell was about to break loose.
Suddenly the voices resumed and there was laughter. Harvath’s inner optimist had been correct. He felt his tension dissolve, but only by a matter of degrees. While the optimist in him had been right this time, it was by listening to the pessimist and always being ready for the worst to happen that one stayed alive.
One of the sentries pounded on the roof of the cab and the trucks were allowed to pass.
At the next checkpoint the scene was repeated. Hot tea was poured into cups, bread and kebabs were handed out by Reshteen, and the supply trucks from the village were once more allowed to pass uninspected.
While Harvath should have been relieved, at the moment he didn’t have that luxury. They were about to roll into the middle of a snake pit. Harvath had given Fontaine every excuse to stay behind in Dagar with Daoud, but the Canadian had refused. In fact, he had accused Harvath of selfishly trying to hog all the fun for himself. The remark had made Harvath laugh. Forty to one odds was not what he would call fun. Forty to two was only slightly better. The one thing they had on their side was that, at least for now, no one knew they were coming.
The truck bumped and jostled along for another five minutes before the steep road finally leveled off. When it swung to the left, stopped, and then slowly reversed, Harvath once again tightened his grip around his MP5 and made ready. They had arrived.
CHAPTER 55
Reshteen backed his truck up to the door of the small mud brick building that functioned as the camp’s kitchen. His two cousins parked their trucks on the opposite side to act as a screen and provide Harvath and Fontaine with as much concealment as possible.
Climbing out from behind the wheel, Reshteen stretched and walked casually into the cookhouse to make sure it was empty. Pushing open its heavy wooden door, he removed a box of matches and lit one of the o
il lamps that hung inside. The room was just as it had been left following the first heavy snow the year before.
Stepping back outside, Reshteen called his cousins over and they set to work freeing Harvath and Fontaine from the bed of his truck.
When they had moved enough crates, the men slipped out one at a time and disappeared into the cookhouse.
The cousins continued unloading supplies while Reshteen set up two gas cook stoves and quickly warmed up more tea and nan bread. Filling his pockets with cups and wrapping the bread in a heavy cloth, he exited the kitchen and set off to soften the ground for Harvath and Fontaine.
Fifteen minutes later, he returned. Motioning for Harvath to hand him the sketch of the camp he had drawn back in Dagar, he marked on it where the camp’s interior guards were posted and how many of them there were in each group. Harvath counted three groups of three. Nine men. The rest were still asleep.
Harvath pointed at the small storage building that Reshteen had said would be the best place to hold Julia Gallo, and the Afghan man nodded and drew a dark circle around it with his pencil. That was still their primary target. It also, according to Reshteen, did not have a guard posted outside it. Considering the Taliban’s habit of relying solely on a sturdy, lockable door, Harvath wasn’t surprised, but nevertheless he pointed to all the guard positions on the piece of paper and then back at the storage hut and said, “Na?”
“Na, Taliban,” he replied.
That was all Harvath needed to hear. Checking his weapons, he tucked his MP5 beneath his patoo, and with Fontaine right behind him, he stepped out of the cookhouse into the cold mountain air.
The two men walked with their heads down and mimicked the slow, shuffling Afghan gait.
The camp was not that large and all of the guards on duty were aware of the supply truck’s arrival. Being greeted by Reshteen with hot tea and warm nan was an act of hospitality that had not only put them somewhat at ease about the strangers in their midst, but had given Harvath and Fontaine reason to get much closer to them than would normally have been allowed.
Expanding upon the ruse they had used at the checkpoints, Reshteen visited each group of guards, handing out tea and nan and promising to send men back with hot kebabs. The hope was that if Harvath and Fontaine were seen, it would be assumed they represented the kebab wagon making its rounds.
Harvath and Fontaine understood the limits of the ruse all too well. They needed to act as quickly as possible.
Reshteen had shown them on his sketch where the Taliban normally set up their latrine. It was a long trench on the side of the camp away from the buildings. Even though the forty-plus men had not been there long, they didn’t need a map to find it. Their noses led them right to it.
The trench from last year was still filled with ice and snow that had only partially melted. That didn’t seem to bother the Taliban, who simply urinated and defecated right there as if it was a perfectly suitable latrine.
Harvath and Fontaine tried to ignore the smell as they lay down next to it and readied themselves for the next step.
There had been no way to know how many guards Massoud would have posted. Reshteen had said that Massoud normally had men walking the camp, but had never bothered to count how many. He simply had had no reason to.
Though Harvath’s original intent had been to come up and ascertain if Julia Gallo was here, he had also decided that if she was, and he could get her out, that’s what he was going to do. If it meant he had to kill a few more Taliban in the process, he had no problem doing that.
Harvath traded Fontaine his MP5 for Gallagher’s sniper rifle and got comfortable while Fontaine powered up his NODs and slipped them on so he could function as a spotter.
Flipping down the legs of the weapon’s bipod, Harvath then flipped up the scope covers, wrapped his hand around the grip, and got his shoulder comfortable against the stock.
“Ready when you are,” whispered Fontaine. “Are you getting enough light through the scope?”
While Harvath would have preferred engaging their targets at a much closer range, the chance that someone might hear even the suppressed report of the rifle and raise the alarm was just too great. The other problem was that they were not going to be able to get anywhere close to the building they hoped was holding Gallo without encountering at least one set of guards. And while Harvath had no problem using a knife and getting his hands dirty, the guards were all out in the open. Sneaking up on them would be next to impossible.
“The light’s good enough,” said Harvath. “Let’s go.”
Fontaine guided Harvath as best he could and when Harvath was ready, he exhaled and gently applied pressure to the trigger.
His first Taliban target dropped like a stone, and Harvath quickly readjusted and took out his two colleagues. The first man went down instantly as well, but the next man took two shots before he fell to the ground.
Fontaine tsk’d out loud over the need to take a second shot on the third Taliban. Harvath ignored him.
“Group two,” he said as he adjusted his position and reoriented himself.
“One shot, one kill this time,” said Fontaine.
Harvath raised his middle finger and readjusted his shoulder against the stock. “Call ’em,” he said.
Fontaine did, and Harvath took the three men down in rapid succession, all with bullets through their heads.
Handing Fontaine back the rifle, Harvath pulled out his NODs, powered them up, and slipped them on. Once the men had their weapons hidden beneath their patoos, they made a line straight for the storage building.
They were traversing open ground on what remained a relatively bright night. If any of Massoud’s men had decided to step outside for a breath of fresh air or a visit to their luxury toilet facilities, that would have been the end of everything. Providence, for the moment, appeared to be on their side.
They made it across the open ground without being seen. Creeping up on the structure, Harvath saw it was windowless, just as Reshteen had said it was. Harvath took a step back and studied the outside of the door. A heavy wooden peg held the lock in place.
With one hand still wrapped around the grip of his MP5, Harvath leaned in toward the door and listened. Not a sound came from the other side.
Reaching down, he gently pulled the peg free. As it came out, Harvath exposed his weapon fully and Fontaine did the same. And then, just as they had done in Massoud’s village, Fontaine positioned himself to open the door so Harvath could immediately sweep inside.
Harvath took a deep breath and then nodded.
Fontaine drew back the handle, pulled open the door, and Harvath, weapon up and ready, rushed in.
CHAPTER 56
The room was tiny. So tiny, in fact, that Julia Gallo could not even stretch all the way out. Instead, she sat on the dirt floor with her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around them while she balanced her head upon her knees.
Other than the two wool blankets Zwak had brought her, the only other item in the room was a plastic bucket she was expected to use for her bodily functions. Upon hearing the door slide open, only her heart twitched, the rest of her body was too sore to move.
“Julia,” said a voice in the darkness. “Julia Gallo.”
Julia was certain that she was dreaming. Either that or she was finally losing her mind. Besides Zwak, only one other person had been to see her, and he had spoken English with a thick, almost Eastern European accent to ask her four very strange questions about her past. The man had then asked her other questions about Zwak and the boys who had accosted her, but this was definitely not his voice. This voice sounded American. It sounded like home.
Bending down, Harvath lifted the woman’s head from her knees and looked at her face. Even through his goggles, with her hair wrapped in her hijab, he could tell it was her. “Julia,” he repeated. “My name is Scot. Your mother sent us to get you. We’re here to take you home.”
Home. She didn’t want to allow herself to believe it. “Ho
me?” she said. The men’s faces were disguised by something, almost as if they were wearing masks.
“Yes,” replied Harvath as he slipped a hand underneath her arm and helped her to stand. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”
Gallo quickly realized that she wasn’t dreaming; this was in fact real. “Yes,” she stammered. “I think so.”
“Good. You must remain absolutely quiet and do everything I tell you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Julia.
Harvath looked at Fontaine, who had slipped into the room behind him and closed the door. “We’re ready to go.”
Fontaine nodded and turned around and cracked the door. Glancing outside, he quickly popped his head back in and said, “We’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” asked Harvath.
“We’ve got one of Massoud’s guys making a beeline straight for us. What do you want to do?”
“Maybe he’s going to one of the other structures.”
“Negative,” said Fontaine. “He’s on his way here and he’s going to see that bolt is missing.”
Harvath unslung his MP5, handed it to Fontaine, and pulled out his knife. “I’ll take him when he comes in. You protect Dr. Gallo.”
“Roger that,” replied Fontaine, as he gently maneuvered Julia into the corner and then stood between her and the door.
No sooner had they done that than Harvath heard footsteps outside. There was the sound of a hand on the outside of the door and then silence. Whoever was out there had discovered that the peg that held the door closed was missing.
Whether the person was hesitant or confused, seconds passed and nothing happened. Finally, the door began to creak open.
Harvath tightened his grip on the knife and prepared to strike.
The door opened farther and as it did, fading starlight and the dying rays of the moon spilled in. As it opened more, the figure of a man holding a rifle was cast in silhouette.
