The Last Patriot

But things had changed and Fi

Routing through a series of anonymous proxy servers, Harvath tapped into one of his VoIP accounts and dialed Gary’s cell phone back in D.C.

The man answered on the first ring. “Lawlor,” he said, a faint metallic hum to his voice.

Harvath cleared his throat. “Gary? It’s Scot.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. You’ve got every police officer, gendarme, and intelligence operative in France looking for you right now. Do you know that?”

“Popularity is a real pain in the ass,” replied Harvath.

Lawlor chuckled for a moment and then was serious again. “You’ve got big problems, my boy.”

“You wanted me to call you so you could tell me things I already know?” The words came out harsher than Harvath had intended, but he made no effort to pull them back.

“A bombing this morning. A shooting in the afternoon. What do you have pla

“How about a stampede at a local mosque?”

“Don’t jerk me around,” replied Lawlor.

“Fine, I’ll come up with something else,” said Harvath. “What do you want?”

“You drop off the grid for months. No good-byes, no nothing. Just left your BlackBerry and credentials behind along with a smartass note that says gone fishing and now you’ve got the nerve to act like I’m interrupting your vacation.”

Harvath fought back the urge to defend himself and instead tried to think of Tracy. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have contacted you.”

“You’re damn right you should have,” replied Lawlor. “You’re lucky the president feels beholden to you. No other operative would have been allowed to just disappear the way you have.”

“You could have found us any time you wanted. We’ve both been using our own passports.”

“Give me a break, Scot. Tracking you has been like playing whack-a-mole. One day you pop up on the grid entering a foreign country and then there’s nothing for three weeks or a month till you pop up someplace else just long enough to cross another border and get your passport sca

He was right. Harvath and Tracy had not gone completely to ground, but the only trail they had been leaving to follow was dust. “I needed some time off to think.”

“Well, time’s up. You have to get back to work,” said Lawlor. “The president needs your help.”

Harvath reminded himself to keep the volume of his voice under control. “I don’t work for him anymore. And with all due respect, I don’t work for you either.”

“In that case, you can have all the time you want to think. French prisons are very lonely places-especially for a foreigner.”

“The bad-cop routine doesn’t really work with me, Gary. You should know that.”

“And you should know that the evidence the French have on you does not look good. It could take a couple of years before the investigation into all of today’s events is complete and the case against you is finally brought to trial. You might get your day in court, but under their antiterrorism laws, you’re going to sit in a cell counting the months until it comes. And while you sit there, it’ll be as an American tied to a bombing that killed multiple French citizens and a shooting that resulted in the deaths of three French cops. It’s not going to be like shacking up at the Ritz.”

Harvath started to speak, but Lawlor plowed right over him. “And what about Tracy? Do you want to put her through the same thing? Is that the kind of man you are?”

“Let’s leave Tracy out of this,” said Harvath.

“Too late. She’s in it. Just as deep as you are. Probably even worse now. Are you even aware that the French have taken her into custody?”

Harvath’s stomach dropped. He wasn’t surprised, but it didn’t make having it confirmed any easier to take. “Where?” he asked.

“She showed up at a Parisian hospital about an hour ago and turned herself in.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s undergoing a medical evaluation,” replied Lawlor. “The police have her under guard.”

Harvath was quiet for a moment and then said, “How did you find out about it?”

“The French have video of you at the bombing and the shooting at the Grand Palais. Because of your involvement the president brought me in to help contain things.”

“What about Tracy?” asked Harvath, more concerned about her welfare than his own. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“They’re going to arrest her, book her, the whole deal, but her medical treatment is their first priority. She’s undergoing a CAT scan now.”

“Where? What hospital?”

“No way,” replied Lawlor. “You wouldn’t get within two blocks of it.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

Lawlor knew he was right, but that wasn’t the point. “Okay, you could get to her, but it’s not worth the risk, not right now. She’s being taken care of. As head of DHS’s Office of International Investigative Assistance, the president has me helping the French coordinate their investigations into the bombing and the shooting at the Grand Palais.”

“I want to talk to her at least.”

“Not a chance. For all intents and purposes, she’s in French custody now, and just because she happens to be in a hospital doesn’t mean she magically gets afforded any more special treatment than if she was in a jail cell. Besides, I already tried to call her. The French cops took the phone out of her room. They claim they don’t want her colluding with anyone.”

“That’s nuts. You know we had nothing to do with any of this,” said Harvath.

“Well, the French have lots of video that makes them believe otherwise.”

“Rutledge has to help us out of this,” demanded Harvath. “Or at least, Tracy. He owes her that much.”

“We’ll talk about the president in a minute,” said Lawlor. “First I want you to take me through everything that has happened. From the begi

Harvath’s old life had sucked him back in so far he couldn’t even see daylight. With Tracy now in French custody, there was nothing he could do to fight it anymore. He took a deep breath, readjusted himself in his seat to help take some of the pressure off of his battered ribs, and started to speak.

CHAPTER 44

METROPOLITAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

“There are a lot of photos in there,” said Aydin Ozbek. “Take your time.”

“Nope,” replied Andrew Salam, turning the laptop around. “That’s him.”

“You’re sure?” asked Rasmussen.

“Positive. That’s the man who recruited me.”

Ozbek looked at Rasmussen and then turned his eyes back to Salam. “I know you’ve been through this extensively with the FBI, but we need you to go through it with us once more. We need to know how you communicated with him. When and where did you meet? Did he ever come to your home, your office? Did you ever go to his home or office? All of it.”

“You know who this guy is, don’t you?” asked Salam. “He’s CIA, isn’t he?”

“Let’s just take this one step at a time,” said Rasmussen.

“Fuck one step at a time,” retorted Salam. “You know I’m telling the truth. My recognizing this guy proves it.”

He studied the faces of the men sitting across from him. There was something about all of this that he couldn’t quite grasp. Then suddenly, it hit him. “Holy shit. My handler is your assassin, isn’t he? He and al-Din are the same person. That’s why you’re back here talking to me.”

“We don’t know any of that for sure,” replied Rasmussen.

Salam laughed. “All along, the FBI has been panicked that he was one of theirs and now it turns out he’s one of yours.”

“We’re still putting this together-”

Ozbek interrupted his colleague. “The man you ID’d in that photo is Matthew Dodd. He faked his death and disappeared a little over five years ago.”