The Last Patriot

Harvath had acted quickly. His first instinct had been to grab both Tracy and Nichols and get out of the hotel as quickly as possible, but he knew better. The shots had been fired from a suppressed weapon, most likely from a building or rooftop across the street.

With the hotel room’s sheer draperies drawn, the shooter couldn’t have had a very good picture of what was going on in the room. Even so, he had taken the shot anyway. In fact, he had taken several. Whoever these people were, they seemed quite intent on making sure that Nichols and anyone else with him be taken out.

First the car bomb and now the shooting. Someone was trying very hard to kill Anthony Nichols, and Harvath wanted to know why. But before he did that, he had to get all of them to someplace safe.

While the shooter had probably packed up and taken off already, Harvath had to operate under the assumption that the threat still remained and that it might very well be closing in on them. Complicating matters was the fact that he was unarmed and the only backup he had was Tracy, who was also unarmed. Thankfully, none of them had been wounded in the shooting. Things could have been worse, much worse.

They avoided the elevator and ran into the stairwell closest to Nichols’ room. Harvath fought the urge to race all the way to the lobby. Whoever was gunning for them could have posted men down there. Instead, Harvath had them descend one level and enter the second-floor hallway.

There they saw signs pointing toward the hotel’s conference room and Harvath headed for it.

Inside, a large U-shaped table had been set for an afternoon session with pads of Hotel D’Aubusson paper, ballpoint pens, and pitchers of water. At the back of the room was a sign marked Sortie de Secours, Exit.

The door opened onto a service area with a narrow set of stairs that led into the bowels of the hotel.

When they got to the bottom, they moved quickly through the basement. The whole time, none of them spoke.

A small service elevator brought them up to the receiving area at the south corner of the building. It was as far from the front of the hotel as they could get without going outside.

Near the door, Harvath discovered a clutch of chairs that sat among a handful of discarded cigarette butts. Atop a nearby time clock were stacks of matchbooks from the hotel bar. Must be the employee smoking lounge, he said to himself.

Scanning the loading area, Harvath got an idea that he thought might help cover their escape.

He dragged a large metal trash bin filled with newspapers and other paper products into the center of the room. Into it he dropped several oily rags he’d found in the corner.

Wrapping the last of the rags around a broom handle, he then tossed Tracy the matches and held his makeshift torch out for her to light.

Once it was going, he tilted it into the trash bin and set the contents on fire. It took a few moments, but soon the room was filled with thick gray smoke. Seconds later, the hotel fire alarm went off.

They stayed in the receiving area for as long as they could. When it became too difficult to breathe, Harvath opened the door and they exited onto Rue Christine.

People were already spilling out of the nearby shops and businesses at the sound of the alarm to see what was going on.

Tracy took Nichols by the arm, turned left, and headed away from the hotel toward Rue Des Grands Augustins. Harvath crossed to the other side of the street and hung back to make sure they weren’t being followed.

They met up at the corner and moved quickly to Place St. Michel. There, they hid themselves among the throngs of tourists who clogged the narrow streets around Rue St. Severin.

Harvath kept Tracy and Nichols moving as he doubled back three more times over the next twenty minutes. When he was convinced no one was on their tail, he purchased an international calling card and found a telephone.

They needed to get off the streets as soon as possible. Harvath had no desire to go back to his hotel, and checking into a new one was too risky. They needed someplace safe; someplace where nobody would know who they were or why they were there.

For that kind of anonymity, there was only one person Harvath trusted enough to call.

CHAPTER 14

“Port de la Tournelle,” said the voice on the other end of the phone, “lower quai, facing the Ile Saint Louis.”

Ron Parker was director of operations for a private intelligence organization known as the Sargasso Intelligence Program. Its chairman and founder was a successful hotelier and former no-holds-barred fighting champion named Timothy Finney. Harvath had a long history with both of them and he trusted them with his life. They were also the unofficial dog-sitters for Harvath’s Caucasian Ovcharka, Bullet, whom he had left with them when he and Tracy had decided to leave the country six months ago.

Sargasso was one of several heavily guarded, highly secretive programs Finney ran behind the scenes of his private, five-star Elk Mountain Resort outside Telluride, Colorado. Much like private military corporations augmenting American forces in different hot spots around the globe, Finney had decided to do the same thing, but in the intelligence arena. He had been after Harvath for years to come to work for him.

It was a tempting offer. Sargasso’s elite client list read like a who’s who of the American intelligence community. Not only did Sargasso collect and analyze information, they also developed assets, fielded operatives, and ran operations around the world. They were a first-class outfit, run by two patriots who put their love of country above their bottom line and in doing so had become more successful than they ever could have imagined.

The key to their success was giving their people every tactical and operational advantage needed to get the job done. To that end, Sargasso had been developing a string of safe houses around the world, including one in Paris.

“I know you wanted to get away from the St. Germain area,” Parker added, “but it’s the best we can do for you.”

Harvath memorized the rest of the information, thanked his friend, and hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, he, Tracy, and Nichols arrived along the Seine and laid eyes on the Sargasso safe house. She was known in French as a peniche-a sleek, decommissioned barge-which had been painted jet black. He found it just a bit ironic that the Arab World Institute-an organization created to disseminate information about Arab cultural and spiritual values-was headquartered just above the boat at street level.

Harvath punched a code into the recessed keypad near the wheelhouse and the lock released with a hiss. The door was very heavy, and Harvath guessed that it had been armor-plated. He rapped on one of the windows as he stepped inside and noticed that they were not made out of actual panes of glass, but heavy sheets of bulletproof Lexan. Finney and Parker had done an excellent job up-armoring their barge.

Down a short flight of steps were a kitchen, three staterooms with baths, and the main living and dining space. Harvath excused himself and headed toward the main cabin in the stern.

He closed the door behind him and crossed to a built-in bookcase. Running two fingers along the top, he found the hidden hasp and pushed down. A section came forward on hinges and Harvath opened it the rest of the way. Inside was an airtight plastic Storm case. Harvath lifted it out and placed it upon the bed.

The case held a loaded.45 caliber Taurus 24/7 OSS pistol with a sound suppressor and two spare magazines. There was also a small manila envelope with ten thousand euros in cash. The Sargasso program was prepared for any eventuality.

Harvath divided the gear amongst his coat pockets and then put the empty case back where he’d found it.

After powering up the stateroom’s laptop and sending an encrypted message to Finney and Parker to let them know they’d made it safely aboard the peniche, he rejoined Tracy and Nichols in the living area.

Nichols was sitting on the couch with a bag of ice clutched against his jaw with one hand and a glass of Scotch