The Last Patriot

by Brad Thor

  As they approached, Harvath studied the president’s detail agents standing at their posts outside—one male, one female. Harvath didn’t recognize either of them. They gave him the same considered once-over he had bestowed many times upon Rutledge’s visitors as a Secret Service agent. He knew that they lived by the maxim: Be polite to everyone you meet, but have a plan of how to kill them. It was a habit Harvath still employed to this day.

  “Excuse me, Mr. President,” said Leonard as she knocked on the game room door. “Scot Harvath is here.”

  Rutledge, his sleeves rolled up and his tie discarded, leaned his cue against the Brunswick pool table and replied, “At last, somebody who can hold their own in here. How are you doing, Scot?”

  “I’m fine, sir,” said Harvath as he met the president halfway and they shook hands.

  “Would you like a beer?” asked Rutledge, as Leonard left the room and closed the door behind her.

  Harvath tapped his hip, indicating he was carrying his weapon.

  “Watching your waist?” joked the president as he walked over to a small refrigerator and opened its door. “How about a Diet Coke?”

  “That would be great,” replied Harvath. “Thank you.”

  Rutledge pulled out a can of Diet Coke for Harvath and a bottle of St. Pauli Girl for himself and opened them up. He handed the can to Harvath and clinked his bottle against it. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” Harvath replied.

  “Did you know that President Lincoln was a confessed billiards addict?” asked the president.

  “No, I didn’t,” replied Harvath, who had played pool once or twice with Rutledge on the road, but never in the White House game room.

  “Lincoln called it a health-inspiring, scientific game that lends recreation to an otherwise fatigued mind. Why don’t you choose a cue and we’ll lag for break.”

  Harvath took a sip of his Diet Coke, removed his jacket, and then selected a cue. He beat the president just barely on the lag and was given the honor of the break.

  They settled on a straight game of eight ball. Harvath had learned a long time ago that the key to a clean break was the same as a good shot off the golf tee. It was all about a smooth backswing and clean follow-through.

  Drawing the cue back farther than most in order to put extra power into his shot, Harvath struck the cue ball and sent it rocketing forward. There was an impressive crack as the cue met the other balls, sending three spinning into pockets.

  After a short run of the table, Harvath scratched and handed control over to the president.

  “I’ve been waiting for this meeting for a long time,” said Rutledge.

  Harvath leaned on his cue and took another sip of his Diet Coke. Though he made up his mind to let bygones be bygones, the air was still thick with tension. “I know you have, sir,” he replied.

  “Scot, I need to tell you in person how sorry I am for what happened. If I had known any harm was going to come to you or the people you care about, I would have warned you.”

  “Mr. President,” Harvath began, but Rutledge stopped him.

  “I made a deal with terrorists,” he continued, “and you personally suffered because of it. Though they violated the nature of the agreement, I still held you back from getting involved and protecting those around you. That was wrong, and I take full responsibility.

  “You have proven yourself time and again to this administration and to your country. I have repeatedly told you what an asset you are, yet when my back was against the wall I shunned your help and forced you to decide between protecting the people important to you and being labeled a traitor and I’m sorry for that.”

  After his phone call with the president from Paris, Harvath hadn’t expected the subject to be brought up again. The president’s humility spoke to the strength of character that Harvath had always admired in him.

  Rutledge came around to Harvath’s side of the table and extended his hand once more. “I only want you to take it if you truly accept my apology.”

  Harvath didn’t need to think about it and he didn’t need to hear any more. Firmly and without hesitation, he gripped the president’s hand and forgave him.

  “Good,” said Rutledge as he lined up his next shot. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I can give you what you came for.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Aydin Ozbek sat in his house alone with the lights out and only a bottle of Maker’s Mark to keep him company. It had been one of the worst days of his life.

  Rasmussen’s gunshot wound was more serious than he had thought. Without the tourniquet pants he would have bled out and died in the apartment. He was lucky to be alive.

  Then there was Stephanie Whitcomb. Her throat had been slashed ear-to-ear. When Ozbek found her, she was already dead. There was nothing he could have done to save her.

  Her body lay in the back of his truck under a blanket while he transported Rasmussen to the nearest level one trauma center and dumped him at the Emergency Room entrance.

  It was cold, but necessary. Raz would have done the same thing had the situation been reversed. It was better if only one of them was compromised and had to deal with all the BS that came with seeking treatment for a bullet wound. It was also better that the Denali with Stephanie Whitcomb’s body in back not be discovered either.

  Bruce Selleck, the NCS Director, had gone absolutely ape shit when Ozbek had called him and explained why he needed to see him at Langley as soon as possible.

  When he showed up and Ozbek told him what had happened, Selleck gave him the ass-chewing of his life. Ozbek deserved it. He had overstepped his authority in a big way. They had one dead operative and another in the hospital, and the entire undertaking threatened to burn the Agency to the ground.

  Running ops on American soil was completely forbidden. It didn’t matter what the prize was. Ozbek had colossally fucked up.

  The Agency had to bullshit the hospital on Rasmussen’s gunshot wound to avoid an investigation and deal with Whitcomb’s murder and what to do with her body. The woman had a family, friends. She couldn’t just vanish. Besides, that wasn’t how the CIA liked to do business.

  Selleck debriefed Ozbek himself and then sent his “good for nothing” ass home and told him not to come back to work until the Agency decided what it was going to do with him.

  As if that wasn’t enough, there was a message waiting for Ozbek on his voice mail when he got back to his house. It was the vet. Shelby had succumbed to her cancer and had passed away. Ozbek was crushed.

  Though there was nothing else he could have done for his dog, he hadn’t wanted her to die without him. He had been selfish in making her hang on this long. He should have ended her suffering days, if not weeks, ago.

  And though he knew it was shallow to dwell on his dog’s passing, the pain he felt was simply training wheels for having to deal with Stephanie’s death.

  The shock from it all was starting to wear off and he had no intention of facing the guilt over her murder by himself. That was why the Maker’s Mark sat on the table in front of him.

  He had already passed through the first stage of grief—denial. This can’t be happening raced through his mind repeatedly as he drove Stephanie Whitcomb’s body back to Virginia.

  Then came the anger stage. Ozbek was masterful at that one. He had a lot of anger and he wasn’t stingy with it. It was misplaced, he knew, and Selleck almost punched his lights out for trying to project some of it in his direction rather than at himself.

  From anger, Ozbek moved to the third phase—bargaining, except his deal making with God had a vengeful twist. He offered God anything He wanted, as long as Ozbek could be allowed to settle the score with Matthew Dodd.

  By his third drink, he had become quite persuasive and was actively engaging God out loud, iterating point by point why he should be given the opportunity to kill an animal like Dodd, when his phone rang.

  “You sound terrible,” said one of Ozbek’s DPS operatives named Beard. “Did I wa
ke you up or something?”

  “Or something,” replied Ozbek. “What’s going on?”

  “Two things. We put tripwires on Marwan Khalifa’s e-mail accounts like you asked and we just got a hit.”

  Ozbek set his drink down. “Inbound or outbound?”

  “Outbound.”

  “So he’s alive.”

  Beard paused a moment. “That’s the second thing. The Italians have ID’d Khalifa’s body with the dental records we sent them. He’s dead. They’re positive.”

  “So what’s with the e-mail?” asked Ozbek.

  “Somebody appears to be using it to pose as him.”

  “Pose how?”

  “Apparently,” replied Beard, “Khalifa had an appointment on Monday morning at the Library of Congress. Whoever’s posing as Khalifa has moved the appointment up to tomorrow in Annapolis.”

  “You’re sure this wasn’t some e-mail that was typed previously and somehow was just delayed in being sent?”

  “Nope. There have been two exchanges in the last hour.”

  “Who is he communicating with?” asked Ozbek.

  “Anthony Nichols.”

  It has to be Dodd, thought Ozbek as he stood up so fast he almost knocked his table over. He’s posing as Khalifa so he can draw Nichols out. “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “No,” said Beard. “You’re the only one.”

  “Keep it that way,” replied Ozbek.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Never mind,” he ordered. “Just get me copies of everything right now.”

  “Right away,” replied Beard.

  Ozbek hung up the phone and screwed the cap back on his bottle of Maker’s Mark.

  Not only did the Lord work in mysterious ways, he thought to himself, but He was also incredibly fast. He would have made an exceptional CIA operative.

  CHAPTER 64

  Harvath returned to Bishop’s Gate and found the professor in his office. “You’re still up?” he asked.

  “Lots to do,” replied Nichols, who then nodded at the manila envelope and soft canvas bag Harvath was carrying.

  Approaching the desk, Harvath set the envelope down, opened the mouth of the bag, and withdrew a beautiful wooden box similar to the one the Don Quixote had been kept in at the Bilal Mosque in Paris.

  It was crafted from the same hardwoods and included Thomas Jefferson’s inlaid initials. Harvath set it on the desk. “The president said you would know how to open it.”

  “One of Jefferson’s many secrets,” replied Nichols as he delicately went to work. He noticed Harvath admiring the box. “A piece of art, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” said Harvath.

  “Are you familiar with puzzle boxes?”

  “I had a few of them as a kid,” he replied. “My father and I even made a couple of our own together. Nothing as beautiful as this, though.”

  “What was he like?” asked the professor as he slowly unlocked one of the side pieces and then proceeded to the next link in the sequence.

  Harvath smiled. “He was tough as hell. But my mother and I knew he loved us—a lot.”

  “He passed away?”

  “A while ago,” said Harvath. “Just after I got out of high school. He was a SEAL instructor. He died in a training accident.”

  The professor looked up from the box. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “So am I.”

  Moments later, Nichols depressed the inlaid initials and tilted open the lid. The interior of this box was lined with velvet and upon it sat Jefferson’s wheel cipher.

  Nichols removed the device, set it reverently upon the desk next to the Don Quixote, and then, almost as an afterthought, handed the box to Harvath to examine.

  For several minutes, neither of the men spoke. At last, Harvath broke the silence. “So you’ve got everything you need now. It should be simple from this point forward,” he said as he handed the puzzle box back to the professor.

  Nichols laughed. “We’ve come a long way, but I’ve learned that nothing about Thomas Jefferson is ever simple. He has been referred to as the Great American Sphinx. It’s one of the best descriptions I ever heard of him. The same author also made a brilliant comment that when you study Jefferson’s face on the nickel he always looks to the left. As a Democrat, I take great pride in that.”

  This time Harvath laughed. Though they had met under less than ideal circumstances, he had grown to like the professor a lot.

  “Anything new on Tracy?” he asked.

  Harvath shook his head. “Not really.”

  “I’m sorry to have dragged you both into this.”

  “It’s not your fault. What matters now is that you decipher the Sphinx’s code,” said Harvath with a grin. “If he really did discover missing texts from the Koran and those texts could help moderate Muslims to reform Islam, we need to find them.”

  “Speaking of which,” replied Nichols, “I received an e-mail from Marwan Khalifa.”

  There was that name again, thought Harvath. Even though the president had vouched for him, Harvath had his reservations. “What did he want?”

  “He just got back from the project he was working on overseas. We were supposed to meet Monday at the Library of Congress to put our heads together on everything, but Marwan thinks he has found something useful in his research and wants to meet tomorrow instead.”

  Harvath was apprehensive. “Where?”

  “That’s the thing. Marwan is worried that someone may be following him. He doesn’t want to come into D.C. He doesn’t even want to go home. He’s staying in a hotel and wants to meet near there; where he knows the area and feels comfortable.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Annapolis.”

  Harvath knew Annapolis pretty well. “Where exactly does he want to meet?”

  “In typical Marwan fashion,” said Nichols, “he has chosen a location rich with symbolism and more than a hint of irony.”

  CHAPTER 65

  ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

  SUNDAY MORNING

  The United States Naval Academy was located across the Severn River from the Naval Surface Warfare Center along the banks of the Chesapeake Bay.

  Referred to by some as The Boat School or Canoe U, The Academy, as it was more appropriately called, was the undergraduate college responsible for educating future Naval and Marine Corps officers. It was also home of the Navy football team.

  Though Harvath had done his undergrad work at the University of Southern California he had been to the academy a handful of times. On three of those occasions, he had eaten at the academy’s private Officers’ & Faculty Club. At the end of each meal he had walked east across the street and down a simple brick pathway to admire the oldest military monument in the United States.

  Known as the Tripoli Monument, it was sculpted in 1806 to commemorate the heroes of the first war against the Barbary pirates. Echoing seventeenth-century allegorical style it was made of the same Italian Carrera marble used by Michelangelo. Its central feature was a tall “rostral column” identical to the one used in Rome’s Colosseum. It was studded with the carved prows of enemy ships and capped with a majestic American Eagle.

  The square pedestal upon which the column rested depicted the turbaned heads of Islamic pirates.

  Around the outside of the monument were a winged angel representing Fame and a female scribe representing History recording the deeds of the brave American heroes who fought against the Muslims. Commerce was shown honoring the heroes’ role in preserving America’s right to trade unmolested by the Muslim pirates in the Mediterranean, and finally a maiden with two young children at her feet represented America.

  Upon the monument were carved the names of six heroes, cited by Congress for their gallantry, who took brave action on “the shores of Tripoli” against the Muslim pirates before Tripoli’s “pasha” finally relented.

  It was a moving tribute to the brave Americans who stood toe-to-toe with Muslim fundamentalists. Befor
e being moved to the academy, the monument had actually stood in front of Congress. There were many, including Harvath, who thought it should be moved back there as a reminder to the nation’s elected officials of the true nature of the enemy America faced today and the need to stop putting politics and political correctness above principles.

  As optimistic as Harvath tended to be, he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell the monument would ever be relocated back to Congress. In fact, there was a movement being spearheaded by a high-ranking Muslim Pentagon official named Imad Ramadan to have it destroyed because it was “offensive” to Muslims and more particularly to Muslim sailors of the U.S. Navy. Ramadan claimed it was beneath the country’s dignity to denigrate Muslims in such a fashion.

  Harvath had met Ramadan twice while working at the White House and had thought he was full of shit. From what he could remember, the man had been born somewhere in the Middle East and had immigrated to America for college, after which he spent two decades with the Air Force before joining the Department of Defense. Though his position involved defense affairs, the only affairs he seemed concerned with were those of Muslims—American or otherwise.

  He had come as part of a Pentagon delegation to discuss Muslim outreach programs with the president, who had been wise enough to distance himself from the groups Ramadan was trying to get invited into the oval office for cozy photo ops.

  Like many Islamic apologists, Ramadan seemed to be in a state of perpetual outrage. Coming on the heels of his orchestrating the firing of the Defense Department’s Islamic jihad specialist for telling the truth about Islam and how it inspires violence, his call to tear down the Tripoli monument rang absolutely hollow. The majority of the people engaged in the war on terror wondered how this Islamist in sheep’s clothing was able to keep his job, especially at a place like the Pentagon. The running joke was that if Ramadan had his way, pretty soon you wouldn’t be able to make it past the E ring without first taking a foot bath.