The Last Patriot

The CIA operative rolled his eyes. It was a stupid question. “Ah, that whoever recruited him wasn’t really an FBI agent?”

“But what if he was an intelligence operative who just worked for another agency?”

Ozbek picked up his pen and tapped it on his desk blotter. “The FBI would be able to get whatever they wanted from DEA, DHS, DOJ.”

“But not CIA. Not without asking us first.”

“Whoa,” cautioned Ozbek. “Maybe the Bureau’s okay with flashing pictures of their people at Salam, but there’s no way in hell we’re going to do that. We can’t.”

“That’s exactly what I said. No dice.”

“So why are we even talking about this?” asked Ozbek, who was anxious to get back to work.

Whitcomb drew the file folder out from under her arm. “The Bureau guys are smart. They came up with a compromise.”

“Like what?”

“They brought Salam an Identi-Kit and just sent over this composite,” she said as she pulled a page from her folder. She held it up for Ozbek to see. “They want to know if we can search our databases for any candidates that might be a match for this guy.”

Even with Whitcomb standing across the room in his doorway, Ozbek recognized the likeness immediately. Matthew Dodd’s face wasn’t one he was ever going to forget.

CHAPTER 41

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS

Harvath hit the ground with Big Bird’s two-hundred-ninety-plus-pound frame right on top of him. Aouad must have discovered his switch of the Don Quixote.

With the briefcase still clenched in his right hand, Harvath swung at the giant’s head, but was a second too slow. Big Bird raised his left arm and blocked the blow, forcing Harvath to swing with his other hand.

He connected with the man’s jaw, but his attacker barely even flinched. As Harvath pulled back for another strike, Big Bird unloaded with both of his enormous hands.

The man drove two quick punches into Harvath’s ribs, knocking the wind out of him. As Harvath gasped for air, he kept trying to use his legs to lift his body up, but with Big Bird sitting on top of him, it was like being pinned underneath a truck.

The giant threw another combination of punches that sent an intense wave of pain radiating throughout his body.

Harvath responded with another left and connected once again with the man’s head, but it had no effect whatsoever. It was like trying to melt an iceberg with a hairdryer. Still fighting for breath, Harvath took another shot to his ribs as he tried to figure a way out.

Thinking he might have noticed a weakness when he had first tried to clobber the giant with his briefcase, Harvath drew it back and swung again.

Sure enough, as Big Bird raised his arm to block the case, he lowered his head beneath the level of his arm and that was all that Harvath needed to see. He absorbed two more blows before he could launch his counterassault.

Summoning what few reserves of strength he had left, Harvath let the briefcase fly.

This time, when Big Bird raised his forearm and lowered his head, Harvath was ready for him.

As the man’s head came down, Harvath’s came up and the pair met with a sickening crack of bone against cartilage. There was a spray of blood as Harvath tore open a wound that ripped through the top of Big Bird’s beak and into his forehead.

The giant roared in pain as his hands flew to his face and Harvath wasted no time in going to work on him.

With his breath coming in such shallow gasps, Harvath had trouble gathering his strength. Pulling the briefcase back, he took advantage of the fact that the giant’s eyes were flooding with blood and couldn’t see what was coming.

The briefcase nailed the man square in the temple. His hands dropped from his face and he sat there for what was only a second or two, but what for Harvath felt like an eternity, before he slowly keeled over to his right and collapsed into the center of the street, unconscious.

Harvath struggled to roll out from underneath the man, but as he did, he was greeted by a new vision just as terrible. Whistles was coming right at him with a pipe in his left hand.

Sitting up with the briefcase clasped to his chest, Harvath tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t obey. Trying to get Big Bird off of him had been like doing a million squat thrusts and his legs were like rubber. The best he could manage was a feeble scoot on his ass toward the other side of the street.

When his back hit a parked car, he knew that was as far as he was going to go. Even if Whistles was only half the fighter Big Bird was, Harvath was a dead man.

If only he had brought a weapon with him. A knife, pepper spray, anything would have been better than nothing at this point.

When Whistles saw that Harvath couldn’t stand, he smiled. His mouth was filled with bad teeth and though he knew it was impossible, Harvath almost thought he could smell the man’s rancid breath from across the street.

There was no doubting the giant’s intentions as he drew back his pipe and ran forward into the street.

The situation was close to hopeless, but Harvath refused to go down without a fight-even a half-assed one.

As he drew back one of his legs to deliver a kick to the man’s knee, there was a scream from off to his left and two flashlights rushed toward him.

At first, Harvath thought it was the police. The f word floated to the forefront of his mind, but evaporated in a haze of tire smoke and a squeal of brake pads as the trunk of Moussa’s taxicab slammed into Whistles.

The young Algerian had the rear passenger door open and was yelling for Harvath to get in before the giant’s body even hit the ground.

Harvath staggered inside and collapsed on the rear seat, his briefcase still clasped in his right hand.

Moussa reached back and after closing the door, sped down the street and into the night.

CHAPTER 42

As they drove back to Paris, Moussa asked nothing more than where Harvath wanted to be taken. The man probably had a lot of questions, but to his credit he kept his questions to himself and allowed Harvath to close his eyes and rest.

Per his passenger’s instructions, Moussa headed his cab for the Ile Saint-Louis. They came in via the Pont Marie and maneuvered through the tiny streets down the Rue Boutarel to the Quai d’Orleans. From there, Harvath had a clear view across the Seine to the peniche that functioned as the Sargasso safe house. He asked Moussa to pull over.

Handing two thousand euros over the seat, Harvath said, “This should cover the repairs to your taxi.” He then reached for the door handle. “Good-bye, Moussa. Thanks for your help.”

The young Algerian turned to say something, but his passenger had already exited the cab.

Harvath walked down to the water, slid the Don Quixote into a plastic bag he found