CHAPTER 41
If his cell phone hadn’t rung, Harvath could have easily slept another several hours. Fumbling for the device on his nightstand, he activated the call and brought the phone to his ear. “Harvath,” he said, looking for his watch to see what time it was.
“Scot?” asked a woman’s voice on the other end. “It’s Riley. Did I wake you up?”
“No,” he lied, sitting up in bed and trying to focus. “I’m still trying to beat back the jet lag. What’s up?”
“I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“For Massachusetts.”
Harvath knew who she was talking about, but not what. “I don’t understand.”
“His condition. Remember when I told you the Tasers weren’t designed for what you wanted to do?” she said.
“But it worked.”
“It did, but I thought it was just dumb luck, or maybe the hand of God, I don’t know, but I wasn’t ready to believe you could restart someone’s heart with a Taser-no matter how many times you zapped him. Well, we’ve been running tests here and it turns out that our patient has something called WPW or Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. It has to do with having an extra, abnormal electrical pathway in the heart. Symptoms often don’t appear until people are in their teens or early twenties. It can cause rapid heartbeat and in more serious cases sudden death.”
“So what’s his prognosis?”
“We’ve performed a catheter-based procedure known as ablation. It should correct the problem.”
“That’s great news,” said Harvath, and he meant it. They were overdue. “Does he have any brain damage?”
“Not so far as we can tell.”
“When will you be able to restart the interrogations?”
“Soon,” she replied.
“How’s Chase?”
“All things considered, pretty good. The bullet did chip his humerus, though.”
“Impossible, Chase doesn’t have a humorous bone in his body.”
“Very funny.”
Harvath liked flirting with her and could picture her rolling her eyes. “He’s going to live, though, right?”
“First, this wasn’t a life-threatening injury,” said Riley. “In fact, I think your duct tape field dressing posed more of a risk to him than anything else.”
“Most doctors think my duct tape bandages are cool.”
“Those doctors probably had nurses to assist them. Your duct tape idea may be clever, but it’s a pain to remove, especially for the patient.”
“He’s a big boy, trust me. He tells me all the time. You didn’t hurt him.”
“You asked about his injury,” she replied, trying to steer the conversation back to where it had been. “There appears to be a little wrist drop due to some radial nerve injury, but if he does the requisite physical therapy, everything should be fine.”
“What do you mean by wrist drop?”
Riley took a breath and then said, “He’s a bit limp-wristed.”
Harvath laughed. “Please tell me that’s how you’ll write it up for his medical file.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Yeah, it is. That file follows you for life.”
She ignored him. “Anyway, I thought you’d want the update.”
“I appreciate it. Thank you.”
“I guess that’s it, then.”
Harvath was picturing her in his mind and didn’t want to let her go just yet. He liked the sound of her voice. “Who’s going to head up the interrogation once it gets started?” he asked, hoping to extend their conversation a little bit longer.
“I haven’t seen them yet,” said Riley, “but apparently the Agency flew in a couple of specialists last night. They’re ready to go as soon as the medical team gives the all-clear.”
“They’re good people. Some of the best. They’ll do a good job.”
“They couldn’t be any worse,” she said.
“Than who?” asked Harvath.
“Chase.”
“Chase? What are you talking about?” asked Harvath. “He tried to start the interrogation already?”
“No, but he asked if I had access to ketamine.”
“Horse tranquilizer?”
“That’s one of its uses. In humans it’s highly hallucinogenic. Chase showed me a pair of special-effects contact lenses he had with him that could make a person’s eyes look like the devil. He wanted to pump the patient full of ketamine and freak the hell out of him in hopes of getting him to talk.”
Harvath laughed again. “I guess that’s one way of doing it.”
“You would actually endorse that kind of thing?”
“For some backwater Taliban member living in a cave in Waziristan, maybe, but not for this patient. I think Chase was just pulling your leg.”
“I might be inclined to believe you if he didn’t actually own a pair of those contacts,” replied Riley.
“He’s young and aggressive. He’ll learn.”
“In the meantime, I’m not letting him near the ketamine.”
“Probably a good idea,” said Harvath, who sensed their conversation was winding down.
“I’ve got to get back. I’ll call you if I learn anything new.”
“I appreciate it. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”
“Sure thing,” she replied. “Stay safe.”
“You, too,” he answered and then disconnected the call and set the phone back on his nightstand.
She didn’t have to call him. She could have had the Old Man or even Chase do it. He was glad that she had contacted him personally.
Harvath sat there propped up in bed and debated whether he should try to grab some more sleep. Though the quality of what he’d been able to get so far was marginal at best, he’d still been out for ten hours. What he needed now was some exercise.
Getting out of bed, he got dressed in a pair of shorts and an Atomic Dog T-shirt. A creature of habit, he tucked a loaded Taurus 9mm Slim semiautomatic into a belly band and headed downstairs.
He bypassed the coffeemaker and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. After hydrating, he pulled on his running shoes and stepped outside. It was a perfect day, sunny and with a light breeze.
His house was a small, renovated eighteenth-century stone church known as Bishop’s Gate that stood on several acres of land overlooking the Potomac River, just south of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. During the Revolutionary War, the Anglican reverend of Bishop’s Gate had been an outspoken loyalist who had provided sanctuary and aid to British spies. As a result, the colonial army had attacked the church, inflicting grave damage.
It lay in ruins until 1882, when the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI, was established to seek out and report on the enormous post-Civil War explosion in technological capabilities of other foreign navies. Several covert ONI agent training centers were established up and down the eastern seaboard to instruct Naval attaches and military affairs officers on the collection of intelligence and the finer aspects of espionage.
