The Last Patriot

The suitcase and briefcase had come next, then a trip to one of Paris’s ubiquitous art supply stores. With a visit to a used-book store and a computer equipment shop, his foray was complete and he had returned to the barge.

From his e-mail server, Nichols downloaded the high-resolution Don Quixote scans that Bertrand had sent him. They consisted only of the cover and the first five pages, but it would have to do. Playing with several different types of paper and the new printer Harvath had purchased, they got their work product as close to the real thing as possible.

Judicious use of the small oven in the galley added just the right patina of age to their decoy. Though it wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, it didn’t have to. It only had to allow Harvath to get out of the mosque without anyone knowing he’d made a switch. How to create the proper distraction, though, had turned out to be the hardest part of their pla

It was Tracy who had come up with the idea and she had given Harvath instructions on how to best retrofit the device as well as the suitcase to match his needs. An auto supply store on the outskirts of Paris was his last stop before finally finding the cab that brought him to Clichy-sous-Bois.

It wasn’t the most foolproof plan in the world, but no operation was ever one hundred percent airtight. You always had to leave room for the unexpected. Considering that they had little time and even less resources, it was their best hope.

Harvath doubted the members of the Bilal mosque would frisk him, but he didn’t want to be carrying a weapon if they did and decided to go unarmed. If he was caught with a gun, it would have instantly blown his cover and their chance at the book would be lost.

It was in wrestling with how to play up his role as a nerdy and somewhat naïve academic that they hit upon the perfect way to pull off their plan.

Now, as Harvath approached the mosque door, he took a breath and focused on what he needed to do. Once he stepped inside that door, there would be absolutely no turning back.

CHAPTER 34

The first thing Harvath noticed upon entering the mosque was its sad state of disrepair. Though the congregation had done its best to spruce the place up, nothing could hide the fact that they were worshipping in an old warehouse that probably should have seen the better end of a wrecking ball twenty years ago. Whoever the founders of the mosque were, they obviously weren’t getting any of Saudi Arabia’s free-flowing cash; probably because the Bilal Mosque’s version of Islam wasn’t “pure” enough for their Wahhabist wing nuts.

Harvath despised the extremist Saudi state religion, Wahhabism, and how the Saudis zealously exported their poison around the globe, supporting it with billions of dollars every year.

Right behind the Wahhabis were the radical Deobandis, who controlled over fifty percent of the mosques in Great Britain and counted among their most devoutly faithful Afghanistan’s notoriously evil Taliban regime.

Militant, orthodox Islam, be it of the Wahhabist, Deobandi, or any other flavor, was the biggest ideological problem the world faced. Muslims made up a majority in sixty-three countries around the globe. And of the thirty major conflicts under way in the world, twenty-eight involved Muslim governments or communities.

While people outside of Islam spoke of the need for it to reform, next to nothing was being done on the inside of Islam-where the commitment and desire really mattered. If Thomas Jefferson had been successful in discovering lost Koranic texts and if those texts could uncouple Islam from its militant, supremacist tendencies, then the entire world needed those texts now more than ever.

Harvath’s thoughts were interrupted by a middle-aged, bearded man wearing gray trousers and a black cardigan sweater.

“As sala’amu alaikum,” said the man, extending his right hand.

“I’m sorry,” replied Harvath, careful to remain in character. “I don’t speak French.”

The man smiled. “It means, Peace be upon you. And it is not French; it is Arabic.” His English was accented, but understandable.

“Oh,” said Harvath, feigning ignorance as he returned the smile and shook the man’s hand. “Thank you.”

“How may I help you?”

“I am looking for Monsieur Namir Aouad, the mosque director?”

“And you have found him,” said Aouad. “You must be Professor Nichols’ assistant from the University of Virginia.”

“Kip Winiecki,” said Harvath recycling an old alias.

The mosque director pointed at Harvath’s rolling suitcase. “Do you plan on staying with us long?”

Harvath looked at the suitcase and laughed politely. “No, sir. Professor Nichols has me booked on a flight home tonight. He wants me to begin getting things ready for the arrival of the Don Quixote.”

Namir Aouad was charming. Harvath had to remind himself to remain on his guard.

“I was surprised when Monsieur Bertrand told me that Professor Nichols would not be coming himself,” remarked Aouad. “For something of such great value, doesn’t the professor want to authenticate it in person?”

It was a question Harvath had been prepared for. “Novels in the picaresco style of the late sixteenth century are not exactly the professor’s forte.”

“Which is why he selected you?”

“Precisely,” replied Harvath as he pushed the glasses he was wearing back up his nose.

Whether the mosque’s director was suspicious of the response or not, he didn’t let on. “You can leave your bag here,” said Aouad. “No one will touch it.”

Harvath didn’t doubt him, but he needed it with him. “I have some materials in it I may need while examining the book.”

“As you wish,” said the man as he gestured toward his office.

Harvath followed. Along with the glasses and wig he had purchased, Harvath had adopted a slightly stooped posture. He completed his hopefully disarming disguise by placing a stone in his right shoe, which gave him a pronounced limp. Right now, Scot Harvath looked like anything but a counterterrorism operative.

Aouad’s office was fronted by a traditional Islamic door-shorter and wider than those normally found in the West. The door seemed to be one of the only upgrades that had been made.

Inside, the office looked much like Harvath imagined it had for more than sixty years, the main furniture consisting of a cheap metal desk at one end and two metal chairs. A somewhat rusty gooseneck lamp sat atop the desk and aided the sputtering fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling above.

Along the walls were pieces of art that incorporated Koranic verses proclaiming the glory of Allah. A collection of scratched bookcases contained multiple volumes of the Koran, the Hadith, and other Islamic texts. There was a computer, a printer, a telephone, steel file cabinets, and all of the other equipment one would expect to find in almost any kind of office.

“May I offer you tea?” asked Aouad.

“Yes, please,” replied Harvath. “Thank you.”

As the mosque director walked around his desk and picked up the phone, he motioned for Harvath to take a seat.

Harvath left his suitcase near the door and walked over to one of the chairs. French was his second language. He had learned it in grade school under the strict tutelage of the nuns of the French order of the Sacred Heart and he listened now with interest as Aouad requested the tea as well as two additional men.

It wasn’t necessarily an unusual request, especially considering the circumstances, but what bothered Harvath was the way Aouad had looked right at him when he’d asked for the two men. It was an odd tell.

Moments later, two large men knocked and entered Namir Aouad’s office. The fact that one of them was carrying a diminutive tea tray did nothing to quiet the alarm bells that began going off in Harvath’s head.