The Apostle

She had hit the nail on the head and all three of them knew it. Harvath looked at the president, who replied, “Mrs. Gallo is a good friend of mine, and I want to do everything possible to get her daughter back.”

Harvath looked back down at the file. “It says here that Mrs. Gallo offered a sizable ransom, but it was turned down.”

“Ten million dollars,” stated the media titan.

It was an incredible amount of money.

“They’ve made it very clear,” said Alden, “that they’re interested in one thing and one thing only-the release of Mustafa Khan.”

“So what is it exactly you want me to do?” asked Harvath.

“Give him to them,” replied Gallo.

Harvath looked up at her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she said. “We want you to travel to Afghanistan, snatch Mustafa Khan out of that prison in Kabul, and exchange him for my daughter.”

CHAPTER 8

“This is a pretty dangerous operation we’re talking about,” said Harvath.

“And from what I understand,” replied Gallo, “you’re not exactly allergic to getting your hands dirty.”

“Pardon me?” he said, not sure he was hearing this woman correctly.

“Are you having a problem understanding me, Mr. Harvath?”

“I think I might be.”

Gallo looked at the president and rolled her eyes.

Harvath was growing increasingly displeased with what he sensed was going on here. Friend and major donor or not, it was completely out of bounds for the president to have read a civilian in on his background.

Alden recognized what was happening and tried to clear the air. “Mrs. Gallo was part of my transition team. She has top-secret clearance. To the degree I felt was necessary, she has been filled in on your background.”

“Mr. Harvath,” continued Gallo. “I’m not looking to hire a clown to make balloon animals at a child’s birthday party. I need an experienced operator who can and will do everything necessary to bring my daughter back alive.”

Harvath marveled at the irony of it all. Gallo had rallied the media behind Alden’s candidacy. She and others like her in the “news” industry were anti-U.S. military, anti-extreme interrogation tactics, anti-Gitmo, and pro-terrorist rights on a daily basis. Now she not only needed, but wanted the help of exactly the kind of person she vilified in her papers and on her television stations. Even more ironic was that she had sought out the help of a president who had run on scaling back his nation’s “overaggressive” military and who didn’t know the first thing about the military, intelligence, or foreign policy.

But the icing on the cake was that they both appeared to want Harvath to reprise his previous job, the one Alden had just eliminated. It was everything Harvath could do not to laugh out loud. None of the sheep ever wanted a sheepdog around until one of them spotted a wolf. By then, it was often too late.

Even though he had never met Julia Gallo, he felt sorry for her. From what he could tell of her file, she was a good person, dedicated to serving others, who had gone to Afghanistan to make a difference. Harvath knew the Taliban all too well and what they did to their prisoners. For her sake, he hoped that she actually could be rescued.

Harvath looked at the president. He already knew what the answer to his next question would be, but he had to ask it anyway. “If I do accept this assignment, what kind of support can I expect from the White House?”

Alden paused before replying. “Unfortunately, none.”

Harvath had figured as much.

“The United States government,” continued the president, “ca

Harvath was quiet. He had spent the better part of his adult life hunting down and killing terrorists, not breaking them out of prisons. It flew in the face of almost everything he stood for. Even so, he knew that Julia Gallo shouldn’t be made to suffer just because he disliked the terms of her release.

Gallo sensed hesitancy and tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. “According to what I’ve been told, you’ve operated in Afghanistan before, correct?”

“I have,” answered Harvath.

“And you’ve got contacts there.”

“A few.”

“Enough to get my daughter back?”

“Nothing’s ever a slam dunk,” replied Harvath. “A lot will depend on the situation on the ground.”

Stephanie Gallo placed her cup and saucer on the table. “Let’s talk money.”

Harvath was uncomfortable with the idea of haggling over the value of saving an American citizen’s life. That said, he did know he was being asked to do a very dangerous job that few were as qualified as he to carry out.

He also knew that putting together the kind of team he’d need in Afghanistan wouldn’t be cheap.

“It’s going to be expensive,” he stated as he tried to come up with a rough number in his head.

“What are we talking about?” the media maven asked.

“The right people, weapons, vehicles, intel? It’ll run into the six figures very quickly.”

Without blinking an eye, Gallo replied. “I’ll give you five hundred thousand dollars up front and another five hundred thousand when you get my daughter back. As far as expenses are concerned, I’ll have two million dollars wired to a bank of your choosing within the hour. Do we have a deal?”

Harvath looked at the file in his lap and studied the photos of Julia Gallo and her slain interpreter once more. Closing the folder’s cover, his eyes met Gallo’s and he gave her his answer.

Half an hour later, after sorting out as many of the details as possible, Harvath climbed back aboard the Super Puma helicopter and lifted off. On the other side of the estate, Elise Campbell, the young Secret Service agent who’d been standing post outside the door to the study, had just finished her shift.

As she watched the helicopter rise above the trees and recede into the distance, she wrestled with what she was about to do. Making sure no one was within earshot, she punched a number into her cell phone and raised it to her ear. When the call co

CHAPTER 9

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

FRIDAY

Stephanie Gallo removed the first hurdles to Harvath’s assignment with nothing more than a handful of phone calls. Via a relationship with the board of the international aid organization her daughter worked for, she arranged for Harvath to be listed as a new volunteer and paved the way for an expedited visa for him from the Afghan embassy in D.C.

When Gallo returned Harvath’s passport, it was accompanied by a large amount of American currency, which he sewed into the bottoms of his two suitcases.

Gallo arranged to fly him on her Dassault Falcon 7X long-range jet from D.C. to Dubai, and though the aircraft could have easily taken him on to Kabul, he declined. He wanted to attract as little attention to himself as possible when he arrived in Afghanistan. He had even dressed down. In addition to jeans and a long-sleeved Under Armour shirt, he wore a pair of Asolo hiking boots and a low-key Blackhawk Warrior Wear jacket system.

He boarded his Kam Air flight for Kabul in Dubai, and as he passed the cockpit, he picked up the unmistakable odor of “Russian aftershave.” The former Soviet pilots who made the hop from the UAE to Afghanistan were notorious for their drinking problems. Harvath hoped the man’s drinking wouldn’t impair his ability to fly the plane.

He spent an extra couple hundred bucks for first class, which meant that his armrests were held together with blue duct tape instead of gray and that five out of a possible twenty screws bolted his seat to the floor instead of the three the poor folks back in coach had.