The Last Patriot

you work privately for the president.”

Nichols looked up at him but said nothing.

“You had a card in your wallet with his voice-mail number.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because,” replied Harvath, “only a handful of people have ever been given that number, and I’m one of them.”

“You work for the president?” asked Nichols.

“I used to. Now, I’m retired.”

“Then what’s this all about?”

“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” said Harvath.

“I can’t do that,” replied Nichols.

“Then you can tell the French police.”

“I can’t tell them either.”

Harvath puffed up his cheeks like a blowfish before slowly letting the air escape. “Then you’re in a very tough situation.”

Nichols’ mind was racing to find a way out of his predicament. “Call the president,” he said. “He’ll vouch for me. He’ll also tell you to let me go.”

“I’m sure he will,” chuckled Harvath. “The thing is, my girlfriend and I like to make sure all of our bases are always covered. We’re going to need you to explain to the French that she and I knew nothing about that bombing until it happened.”

“If you let me go,” implored Nichols, “the president will help you both. You can trust me.”

“I’m sure I can trust you,” said Harvath, reading the man’s face and seeing the truth, “but I don’t know that I can trust the president.”

“So you’d hand me over to the French police just to save yourselves?”

“Let me think about that,” replied Harvath as he paused less than a millisecond in thought. “Yes. Yes, we would.” Turning to Tracy, he said, “We’re done talking with this guy. Bring me the phone. I’d rather take my chances with the French police. Besides, we don’t have anything to hide.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” pleaded Nichols.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” said Harvath as he began dialing. “You had your chance.”

Nichols tried a different tack. He remembered back to when the president had given him that number and all the things he had said to him about being of such important service to his nation. Finally, he hit on something. Looking at Harvath he said, “If you were close enough to the president to have been given that number, then you must have been someone he trusted; someone who cared very much for your country.”

“I still do,” said Harvath, and then he switched to French and began speaking to someone on the other end of the phone.

Nichols was in a panic. If he got handed over to the French authorities, it would all be over. He had to make a choice-either spill it all to the man in front of him or save it for the very interested French police. He prayed to God he was making the right decision. “Stop. I’ll tell you everything. Just hang up the phone.”

“You’ve got five minutes,” said Harvath as he hung up on the automated, Paris version of Moviefone and looked up at Nichols. “I suggest you make this worth my while.”

Nichols waited, hoping his captors would loosen his bonds a bit more, but when they didn’t, he began talking. “The president has brought me on board to help him take down fundamentalist Islam.”

Harvath looked at Tracy with a smile and then back to Nichols. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Nichols shook his head.

“How could a professor of history be capable of anything even remotely resembling counterterrorism work?”

Nichols was about to answer when his hotel room window erupted in a hail of broken glass.

CHAPTER 12

Dodd’s men had jumped the gun, again. Their only job was to keep Nichols in their sights until the assassin could get there. Instead, the men had shot up Nichols’ hotel room from across the street.

The men had seen three figures through the draperies and fearing it was the French authorities, had decided to act. If Nichols broke and told them what he knew, there’d be no containing this thing. It was a rash decision, worse than the car bombing, but he realized the men had been left with little choice. That didn’t mean, though, he had to like the situation. Now he had to play clean-up and make absolutely certain that Nichols was dead.

As far as Dodd’s men could tell, no one had been left alive inside the hotel room. Dodd ordered one man to keep an eye on the hotel while the others sanitized the apartment they’d been using for surveillance. It wouldn’t take the French police long to figure out where the shots had come from and he wanted to be long gone before they got there.

Dodd crossed the street and walked into the lobby of the Hotel D’Aubusson. Everything appeared normal; the staff oblivious to what had transpired only moments ago upstairs. Dodd kept moving and strode right to the elevator.

As the car ascended, he removed a.45 caliber Heckler amp; Koch pistol from a holster at the small of his back. From a pocket in his Barbour jacket came a Gemtech suppressor, which he affixed to the weapon’s threaded barrel.

When the elevator doors opened, Dodd tucked the hand holding the pistol inside his jacket and stepped out into the hallway. Had the pistol been out and ready, he might have been able to get off a clean shot.

All he caught was a shadow of a figure as it disappeared into the far stairwell. Dodd raced for the stairs at his end of the hall and burst through the metal fire door. He pounded down with tremendous force, taking the stairs three and four at a time.

At the ground-floor level, he tucked his pistol back beneath his jacket and stepped out into the lobby. He searched for Nichols, but didn’t see him.

Crossing the lobby, Dodd reached the far stairwell and opened the door, but no one was there. How was that possible?

Then he realized how presumptive he’d been. Maybe whoever he’d seen hadn’t gone down, but rather up. But what was up? There was only the hotel’s pitched roof.

He took the stairs just as fast going up as he had coming down and considered stopping on the third floor to check Nichols’ room. Maybe Nichols was still there? Maybe, but he doubted it. Dodd didn’t believe in coincidence. If he found the person he’d seen entering the stairway, he’d find Nichols, he was certain of it.

Dodd kept moving, picking up speed as he rushed up the stairs-his body in exceptional physical condition. At the top floor he raised his pistol, eased open the door, and swung out into the hallway. Nothing.

He found the roof access, but it was locked. The only way Nichols could have made it through was if he’d had a key, which Dodd considered highly unlikely.

Taking the stairs back down, he checked each hallway for signs of his prey. Finally, he reached the third floor, and Nichols’ room.

There was broken window glass everywhere. Pieces of a shattered lamp littered the bathroom floor and there was blood in the sink, but that was it.

Whoever had been in this room had gone and they had taken Nichols with them.

Dodd began tossing the room only to be interrupted by a blaring alarm.

CHAPTER 13