The Apostle

“Wait a minute,” said Elise. “What was the first lady doing in the guesthouse?”

“She and the president had had an argument that evening over something. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what it was about. All I know was that when I came on duty, he was still in the main house and she had moved to the guesthouse.”

“Okay, so you tracked down Hale and brought her back there.”

“No,” said Hutchinson. “She was with the president at that time, so I left word with Max to send her to the guesthouse whenever they were finished.”

“Then you went back and reported to the first lady.”

“Correct.”

“And how did Mrs. Alden take that piece of information?” asked Campbell.

“Not well,” said Hutchinson. “She grabbed a glass and a bottle of wine and went upstairs.”

“When did Nikki Hale get there?”

“About a half hour later.”

“What happened then?”

“I brought her up to Mrs. Alden’s room and left them alone.”

“Were you the only agent posted to the guesthouse?”

“There were other agents on the grounds outside,” said Hutchinson.

“But you were the only one inside,” clarified Campbell.

“That’s right.”

“Did you hear anything or see anything after that?”

Hutchinson was slow to respond. “Mrs. Alden asked if I would bring a glass upstairs for Ms. Hale.”

Elise looked at him askance. “That’s somewhat inappropriate, isn’t it? You’re there to protect her, not wait on her. Did you say no?”

“No, I didn’t,” said the man with a shake of his head.

“Why not?”

“Because it wasn’t a big deal, all right?”

Elise couldn’t help but feel that Todd Hutchinson had grown a bit too close to the first lady. Nevertheless, she let it slide. “So,” she continued, “now Mrs. Alden and Nikki Hale were up there drinking together?”

“Apparently.”

“Do you think the first lady was trying to get her drunk?”

“I think she was trying to get to the bottom of Hale’s relationship with her husband. She probably thought the wine would help,” replied Hutchinson. “You know what they say. In vino veritas.”

“In wine there is truth.”

Hutch nodded.

“Then let’s suppose the first lady was trying to loosen Hale up to get at the truth,” she said. “Did you hear any arguing? Anything like that?”

“Not at first.”

“So they did argue.”

“Yes.”

“How long into their meeting was it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Twenty minutes, maybe a half hour.”

“Did you overhear any of the specifics?”

“No, I was downstairs. It was just a lot of raised voices.”

“Then what happened?” asked Elise.

“Hale came down the stairs and walked right out the front door. That was it.”

“That was it? Didn’t you think maybe you should try to stop her from leaving?”

“Why should I? I didn’t have any way of knowing how much alcohol she had consumed. Besides, I’m not paid to conduct field sobriety tests. I’m paid to protect Mrs. Alden.”

“And fetch wineglasses for her.”

“Fuck you, Campbell.”

“You couldn’t have at least radioed one of the agents at the gate?” she asked.

“How the hell should I have known she was going to get in her car? She could have been going back into the main house to ask Stephanie Gallo to put her up for the night so she didn’t have to drive back to wherever she was staying. Listen, from what I understand, Nikki Hale had a lot of experience holding her liquor. She didn’t tumble down the stairs or weave on her way out the door. Could she have been drunk when she left? Sure. Was it my duty to know? Absolutely not.”

“Does the president know all of this?”

“I would imagine the first lady filled him in,” said Hutchinson.

Elise tried to think of something else to ask him, but her mind was blank. She was missing something, but she couldn’t figure out what.

More confused than when she had started, she felt that she should wrap things up and let Hutchinson get home. She could think of only one other thing to ask him. “You said the president and the first lady had been fighting. Did he come to the guesthouse that night?”

“Yes,” he said. “After Hale left.”

There was something about his answer that bothered her. It came quickly-too quickly, and came off rehearsed. And as he was speaking, he turned back to look at the statue, and Elise thought she detected a telltale microexpression.

“So, what happened?” she asked. “Did they fight some more? Did they make up? What?”

“Nothing happened,” Hutchinson replied, and there the microexpression was again. This time she was certain of it. He was lying about something. That had to have been why he had looked away from her.

Elise watched his face closely and pressed her point. “What do you mean nothing? Something must have happened.”

Hutch turned back and looked her square in the eyes. “By the time the president arrived, the first lady had passed out.”

CHAPTER 41

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN

Back at the cordon, Daniel Fontaine made two phone calls, and within fifteen minutes, Captain West had been given orders to allow the former JTF2 operative to leave the village with whomever he wanted. As his superiors failed to provide him with an excuse to give the inbound Americans if they happened to show up in the middle of this Canadian-sanctioned exodus, West encouraged Harvath and company to move quickly.

They compared the captain’s maps with the one the shura had given them, which included the layout of the village and the location where Asadoulah had seen Julia Gallo. Convinced the information was reliable, Harvath gave the order for everyone to mount up. Including the elders’ security detail, they numbered fifteen people.

Anticipating at least two checkpoints on the way into Massoud’s village, Fayaz, the chief elder, rode shotgun in Gallagher’s Land Cruiser with one of his men at the wheel. Harvath, Gallagher, and Fontaine rode in back, their patoos pulled up high to help disguise their faces.

The rest of the men, including Asadoulah and Daoud the interpreter, who had agreed to come along for an additional fee, were divided between another SUV and a severely beaten-up pickup truck.

By the time the small convoy drove around the roadblock and out of the village, the sun had already disappeared from the sky. And as it did, the temperature began to drop.

As the shura had predicted, they encountered precisely two checkpoints on the way into Massoud’s village. Before each of them, Harvath watched as Fayaz removed a special SIM card from his pocket and used it in his cell phone to make calls to notify the elders of the opposing shura that they were coming and should be allowed to pass through the checkpoints. He was a clever old man. Using different SIM cards clearly demonstrated that he wasn’t as provincial as he looked and that he took his own operational security very seriously.

Thanks to the phone calls, at each checkpoint the speeding convoy was waved right through and not asked to stop. So far, so good.

Crumbling rock walls and the occasional abandoned mud brick building were the only signs that they were actually headed toward a populated settlement. Other than that, the landscape was completely desolate.

When they had driven as close as they dared with Harvath, Gallagher, and Fontaine, the convoy stopped. The three men hopped out of the Land Cruiser, quickly gathered the weapons and supplies they needed from the back, and with Daoud and Asadoulah in tow, signaled for the convoy to take off again. The drop had worked like clockwork, and the vehicles were moving again in less than sixty seconds.

Gallagher wasn’t thrilled about relinquishing control of his SUV, but there was no other choice. It was now completely dark, and at the speed with which the vehicles had zoomed through the checkpoints, the men ma