The Last Patriot

by Brad Thor

  Now, their problem was how to apprehend their target. Snatching someone off a crowded public street in Riyadh or Medina was extremely complicated. In America, it was all but impossible. The target would either have to be coerced into their vehicle or forced into an isolated area where he could be taken out.

  Hamza was weighing the possibility of getting in close enough to use his knife when the subject suddenly turned.

  CHAPTER 59

  After doubling back, twice, Harvath began to believe he had imagined the whole thing. Nobody was on his tail.

  When he was within half a block of his SUV, Harvath checked his six one more time, and decided to go for it.

  With one hand on his remote key fob and the other gripped around the butt of his HK inside his bag, Harvath quickly closed the distance to his black Chevy Trailblazer.

  After checking the street for suspicious vehicles, he scanned the sidewalks in all directions and then approached his SUV. He checked the cars parked both in front of and behind his. Then, pretending like he was going to cross the street, he stopped short, popped the lock on his truck, opened the door and hopped in.

  As fast as he could, Harvath slid the key into the ignition and fired up the engine. His eyes flicked back and forth from the mirrors to the sidewalks on both sides of him. There was a white minivan coming from the end of the block behind him and he kept his eyes glued to it as he backed up his SUV in anticipation of vacating his parking spot.

  Behind the minivan was a blue Nissan, several car lengths back, which must have discovered someone else leaving their spot as the driver had come to a stop and had applied his right turn signal indicating his intent.

  Harvath waited for the minivan to pass him and then he turned his front wheels out toward the street and began to exit the space.

  No sooner had he done so than the blue Nissan slammed into the side of his SUV, thrusting its nose back into the space and pinning his door shut. Running up hard on his passenger side was a short, dark-skinned man in a windbreaker and blue jeans. As he ran, one of his hands disappeared beneath his jacket.

  Harvath got his head down just as a storm of bullets raked his Trailblazer.

  The shots were being fired one at a time, probably by the driver of the Nissan and probably via a semiautomatic pistol of some sort. These guys apparently hadn’t come loaded for bear. They were going to regret that.

  Harvath reached behind his seat, flipped up the lid on his Storm case and snatched his modified LaRue M4.

  By the time he was back, the guy in the windbreaker already had his weapon out and was firing rounds through his windshield. Harvath leveled his sights and returned fire.

  With the suppressor affixed, the weapon was amazingly quiet in comparison with the weapons his attackers were using.

  Harvath’s rounds found their mark and he put two tight groups into the chest and head of the man in the windbreaker. He then swung the weapon to his left.

  Jabbing the M4 through his broken window, Harvath ignored the rounds coming at him from the Nissan and depressed his trigger. When he hit the final round, he dropped his spent magazine and reloaded with a spare from the reserve carrier in record time.

  After whipping his head around in search of any additional threats, Harvath fired fifteen more rounds into his attackers’ vehicle and then exited the passenger side of his SUV.

  As he crept to the back of his Trailblazer, his head was on a swivel. Scan and breathe, he told himself. Scan and breathe. Don’t get taken by surprise.

  His weapon was up and in the firing position as he slipped out from behind his vehicle and approached the blue Nissan. All around him, UVA students were screaming and running for cover.

  When he drew even with the driver’s side window he saw that the driver had sustained multiple shots to his head and torso and was definitely dead.

  In the distance, Harvath could hear the staccato cry of approaching police cars. He opened the Nissan’s door and pulled the driver’s corpse out onto the street. He patted him down, but didn’t find any identification. He assumed it would probably be the same for his partner lying dead on the sidewalk.

  Harvath swung his head around once again and this time caught some imbecile with a camera phone actually trying to take his picture. Without even thinking, he raised his weapon and pointed it at him. “Drop it,” he ordered.

  The terrified student did as he was told.

  “Now get lost,” ordered Harvath.

  As he watched the idiot take off, he walked over and retrieved the phone. The sound of police cars was getting closer. Harvath didn’t have much time.

  Hopping in the still idling Nissan, he threw it in reverse and backed up enough to be able to get his SUV out. Then, careful not to leave any prints, he did a quick sweep of the car for anything that might tell him who these guys were or who they worked for—visors, center console, glove box; all of it was empty.

  After retrieving the man’s weapon, Harvath jumped out and used the camera phone he had confiscated to take two quick pictures of the driver and then one of the license plates.

  He repeated the process with the corpse in the windbreaker, who as he had suspected wasn’t carrying ID either, and then pitched the men’s guns into the back of his Trailblazer.

  Using two ratty towels he kept in back, he quickly wrapped them around his front and rear license plates and hopped into his SUV.

  Screaming out of the parking space, he put as much distance between himself and the University of Virginia as fast as he could.

  CHAPTER 60

  UM AL-QURA MOSQUE

  FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

  “What’s he doing here?” said Abdul Waleed as he walked into Sheik Omar’s office.

  Matthew Dodd, his face badly scratched, was sitting on the couch. “As sala’amu alaikum, brother,” he replied. Even though he’d been wearing the female CIA operative’s vest at his apartment when he’d been shot, his chest still hurt like hell. It was difficult to speak or breathe deeply.

  Waleed hesitated a moment and then replied, “Walaikum as sala’am.”

  “Our operation in Paris was unsuccessful,” stated Omar. “There are other problems as well.”

  Waleed’s eyes shot back to Dodd. This was not what he needed to hear right now. He had spent the morning getting grilled by the FBI about Nura Khalifa and Andrew Salam. His nerves were shot. Pointing his finger at Dodd, he said, “All of the problems have been your fault.”

  “Stop,” ordered Omar as he waved the director of FAIR to a chair. The sheik didn’t want another fight in his office. He’d already gone apoplectic with Dodd and his blood pressure was just now finally coming back under control. “When what we want doesn’t happen, we must learn to want what does.”

  More proverbs, thought Waleed. “Mahmood, the FBI know everything.”

  “Everything?” questioned the sheik. “I don’t think so. They know only what Andrew Salam has told them and Salam is a liar and a murderer.”

  “But even liars sometimes tell the truth,” replied Waleed, tossing a desert proverb right back into the imam’s lap. “I’m telling you the FBI believes what Salam is telling them.”

  “How can you know this?”

  “Because I saw it on every one of their faces. I heard it in their voices; in every one of their questions. They know what we have been doing. And what they don’t know, they assume and their assumptions are correct!”

  “Calm down,” said Omar. “We need to remember to believe what we see and lay aside what we hear.”

  Waleed shook his head in disgust. “We have underestimated them.”

  “They have no evidence. The American people will never allow a Muslim witch hunt. Islamophobia, remember?”

  “Omar, listen to me. The American people are not with us. They are afraid of us. But they are more afraid of being politically incorrect, and we have made that work for us. Make no mistake, though, there is a limit even to that, and we are getting very close to having overplayed our hand. If we
are not absolutely careful, absolutely vigilant, the tide of political correctness will turn against us.”

  The sheik laughed.

  “You think this is funny?” asked Waleed.

  Omar looked at the man. “You overestimate the people of this nation. They are soft and stupid. The reason political correctness and multiculturalism exists is because they are too lazy to hold others to what it once meant to be an American. This nation is dying and we are not the problem; we are the solution. Islam—true, pure Islam—is what will save America.”

  “If Paris was a failure, though, there may no longer be a true, pure Islam. Not as we know it at least.”

  “Paris was unsuccessful because we overreached,” said Dodd as he looked at Omar. “That is not going to happen anymore.”

  The inference was clear and Waleed found it quite bold. Dodd was blaming Omar for what happened in Paris. Looking at the sheik, Waleed said, “You mentioned other problems. What other problems?”

  “The CIA located my apartment in Baltimore,” replied Dodd.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that as a result, one of their operatives is dead and another is wounded. It will be chaos at Langley.”

  “What matters,” clarified Waleed, “is the timing of all of this. The information had to have come from Salam.”

  “But he had no idea who his handler was,” interjected Omar. “He believed he was working for the FBI.”

  “Abdul is right,” said Dodd as he tried to unravel it. “Somehow the authorities were able to make the connection. It had to have come from Salam.”

  “You need to disappear again,” stated Waleed. “Go anywhere. Just get out of the country and stay hidden.”

  Omar held up his hand. “Not yet. Not until his work here is done.”

  “What work? The professor who was assisting Marwan Khalifa? Anthony Nichols?” asked Waleed.

  The sheik nodded.

  “Let your talented Saudi operatives handle him. No, wait, I forgot. They’re the reason Salam is still alive in the first place.”

  Omar’s blood pressure was rising again. He didn’t need Waleed’s sarcasm. He was just about to rebuke the man when the telephone on his desk rang. Picking it up, he listened for a moment and then hung up. Reaching for his television remote he said, “There’s been a shooting at the University of Virginia. A bad one. Apparently, it is all over the news.”

  CHAPTER 61

  With the windshield missing and bullet holes on each side, Harvath knew he wouldn’t make it very far in his Trailblazer. After several minutes of driving, he discovered a heavily wooded access road that bordered the 573-acre Boar’s Head Inn Resort.

  Harvath pulled off the road and drove as far as he could into the woods before shutting down the engine. Sticking to the trees, he crept around the edge of the golf course until he reached the inn. The valets were extremely busy, and it didn’t take Harvath long to find what he was looking for.

  A queue of cars, with their keys in the ignitions, sat waiting to be parked. Harvath never liked doing things the hard way if he didn’t have to. Walking up to a green Volvo sedan like he owned it, Harvath slid inside, started it up, and pulled away from the inn.

  It took him a few moments to get his bearings and find the access road, but once he did, he drove straight to the spot in the woods where he had hidden his Trailblazer.

  Harvath took the license plates off his SUV and transferred everything, including all of the weapons, into the trunk of the Volvo and then carefully made his way home.

  “I’ll send a team down to pick up your car and have them drop the one you borrowed where it’ll be found,” said Lawlor as Harvath removed the last of his gear from the Volvo. “I’ll get to work on the police at UVA as well.”

  Harvath reached into his pocket and removed the memory card from the camera phone. “This has photos of the two men I shot,” he said as he handed it to Gary, “as well as a picture of their license plate.”

  “The car’s probably stolen, but we’ll run it anyway. Do you need anything else while I’m out?”

  Harvath shook his head.

  “Okay,” said Gary as he got into the Volvo. “I’ll requisition a car for you and be back by seven so you’ll have plenty of time to make it into D.C.”

  Harvath watched as Lawlor drove off from Bishop’s Gate. A visit to the White House was about the last thing he was in the mood for. He had not seen Jack Rutledge face-to-face since shortly after Tracy’s shooting and had no desire to see him now. It had been Harvath’s idea for Nichols to remain in seclusion and work on the missing Koranic texts at Bishop’s Gate. But to do that he needed Jefferson’s wheel cipher and the other documents the president had in his possession. And though Rutledge could have given them to Gary to bring back to Bishop’s Gate, the president had insisted that Harvath come and pick them up personally. It seemed that like it or not, Harvath was finally going to have to face Jack Rutledge.

  After checking on Nichols and giving him the flash drive as well as the other items he’d collected from his office at UVA, Harvath walked into the kitchen. Putting on water for coffee, he suddenly thought better of it and turned it off.

  He’d been on edge for the last several hours. His nerves were raw and his jet lag was kicking in. He didn’t need to be downing cups of coffee, what he needed was rest.

  Harvath headed upstairs and, ignoring the picture of him and Tracy on his nightstand, lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. He worked on quieting his mind and clearing it of all thoughts.

  Slowly he was able to disconnect until he finally stepped off the edge into a deep, dreamless sleep. He stayed in that state for several hours until he was awakened by the sound of Lawlor coming back down the driveway.

  Though his body fought him on it, Harvath dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom. He took a long, hot shower, letting the water beat down on his neck and shoulders.

  When he’d had enough, he threw the temperature selector all the way to cold and stood there for as long as he could. The shock was better than a double espresso.

  Climbing out of the shower, Harvath shaved, dried his hair and then picked out a suit. It might have been Saturday, but he was going to the White House to meet the president and he would dress appropriately.

  When he was dressed, he followed the smell of coffee down to the kitchen. Lawlor was working his magic again with the French press.

  “Any news on Tracy?” he asked.

  “No,” replied Lawlor as he handed him a cup. “But the two guys you laid out at UVA have come back with interesting backgrounds.”

  “Such as?”

  “Apparently, they’re Saudi nationals with several aliases. Some of the information suggests they may have been with Saudi Intelligence.”

  “Were these guys being run by the Saudis?” asked Harvath as he took a sip of coffee. “Or were they freelancers like Dodd?”

  “Based on the crown prince’s interest in what the president has been up to, we think the Saudis were running them,” said Lawlor. “My guess is that they were sitting on Nichols’ office and his apartment in case he showed up. I don’t think they followed you to UVA. I think they were already there.”

  “Me too,” said Harvath.

  Lawlor handed him a set of car keys. “Black Tahoe outside. I had the OnStar and the other GPS gear removed.”

  “Thanks.”

  Harvath slid the keys into his pocket and took his coffee cup with him into the church. After sliding back the altar, he walked down into the crypt and laid out two pistols, his tactical rifle, and a handful of frag grenades.

  While he didn’t plan on encountering any trouble on his quick round-trip to the White House, he’d felt the same way before leaving for UVA.

  But unlike his trip to UVA, this time, he was going to be bringing back a critical package and he had no intention of letting anyone but Anthony Nichols get their hands on it.

  CHAPTER 62

&nbs
p; THE WHITE HOUSE

  Carolyn Leonard met Harvath at the vehicle entrance on 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue. The president had instructed that Harvath be cleared all the way through and not searched. Knowing Harvath and the nature of the work he did for the president, Leonard assumed it was because he would be coming armed; probably heavily armed.

  After the retractable bollards had been lowered and Harvath had driven through, Leonard hopped in the passenger seat and rode with him through one more checkpoint before having him park between the Treasury Department and the East Wing on East Executive Drive.

  “Should I leave my nine iron in the car?” asked Harvath as he patted his side.

  “If it was up to me, yes, but the president has made it clear that you have a full pass. So it’s your call,” she replied as she climbed out.

  Harvath preferred to have at least one weapon under his control at all times. Not that anyone was going to break into his vehicle on the White House grounds and sabotage his gear, but being just a little bit paranoid was what kept people in his line of work alive. He decided to retain his sidearm.

  Leonard radioed that they were on their way in and Harvath walked alongside her across the street.

  It was a strange feeling being back at the White House. Harvath had spent many nights in the residence while on the president’s Secret Service detail and it was eerie how quiet the building could be—almost like a church.

  There was no staff visible as they made their way into the main elevator and Leonard pressed the button for the third floor. “Solarium?” ventured Harvath.

  The woman shook her head in response.

  When the elevator opened on the third floor, Harvath heard the crack of billiard balls and had his answer. Leonard led him across the central hall to the game room on the south side of the residence.