“Yes, we do,” replied Harvath, unashamed of his priorities. “What’s being done for Tracy?”
The president looked down at the update Lawlor had handed him before initiating the call. “She has experienced some swelling of the brain. That’s where the headaches have come from. The doctors think it may have been brought on by stress. They are starting her on medication and will keep her for observation.”
“What are you specifically doing to help her?”
“Everything I can,” said Rutledge, “and in exchange, I need you to help me.”
Harvath was silent.
Rutledge waited for him to respond and when he didn’t, the president said, “I know you disagree with the way I handled things and I know you hold me responsible for what happened. I can live with that. But what you need to understand is that I made my decisions, as I always have, based on what I believed to be best for our country.”
“People I care about were killed; even more were injured,” countered Harvath. “A terrorist with a vendetta against me was freed from Guantanamo and when he came after the people I care about, I was told to stand down and not do anything about it.”
“And for that I am truly sorry, but it was a choice I had to make. We need to move past it.”
“You’ll forgive me, Mr. President. I have a problem getting over things that fast.”
Rutledge’s blood pressure was starting to rise. “Do you want me to give you an order? Is that what this has to come down to? My God, if we can’t come together to fight these people what’s going to happen to our nation?
“Listen, you can dislike me all you want, but I know you dislike the enemy more. I also know that no matter how hard it has ever been, you’ve never said no when your country needed your help.”
Rutledge took a long pause before continuing. “Scot, my presidency has been underwater from the beginning. It has been overrun by fundamentalist Islam since the day I took office. I have been hobbled by an inept, PC, partisan Congress more concerned with covering their own asses than doing the heavy lifting that needs to be done for America.
“I have green-lighted more off-the-books operations than any president in history. Why? Because this Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, doesn’t have the guts to focus on the true threat our nation faces. They want to play their fiddles while Rome burns, but we’ve got a chance to be successful in spite of them.
“I have spent two terms in office unable to take my eye off the war with fundamentalist Islam. I have no delusions about my legacy as president. I know I won’t be remembered for much, if anything at all, and I can accept that. At this point, I’m beyond worrying or caring about it.
“But what I am worried about is doing everything I can with the limited amount of time I have left to help shore up our nation and weaken the enemy. No matter who succeeds me in this office, Democrat or Republican, they are going to get the shock of their life when they try to hit the ground running and realize that the best they can do is try to give up as little ground to radical Islam as possible. We have a chance to change that.”
Harvath studied the pistol sitting next to the computer. Beneath it was the list of hospitals he thought Tracy might be in.
He hated being put in this position and resented the hell out of everyone involved, including Tracy, for putting him there. But regardless of how he felt about Rutledge and what had gone on between them, he couldn’t turn his back on what needed to be done. At the end of the day, Harvath always did the right thing. It was who he was, no matter how many times he’d been kicked in the teeth for it.
Finally he replied, “What do you need me to do?”
Rutledge’s sense of relief was evident in his tone of voice. “First, we need to get you up to speed on everything that has happened including who we believe is targeting Professor Nichols.”
“And then?”
“Then we need to figure out how the hell we’re going to get you and that book out of the country and back home as quickly as possible.”
CHAPTER 49
Anthony Nichols had arrived in Paris on a commercial flight, and that was exactly how Rutledge had planned on getting him back to the United States. There had been no margin of error built into the plan in case things went wrong. It wasn’t how a proper operation was run, but Harvath couldn’t blame the president. Rutledge wasn’t an operator.
He was, though, extremely tight when it came to operational security. Normally, that was a good thing, but in this instance it meant that there were scant few resources he could tap for help.
After his last phone call with Gary Lawlor, Harvath had learned two things. The first was that Dr. Marwan Khalifa had been fully vetted by the president and neither he nor Lawlor believed the Koranic scholar had anything to do with the attempts on Anthony Nichols’s life. For now, Harvath was going to have to take them at their word.
The other thing was that President Rutledge wasn’t going to be able to get him and the professor out of the country any time soon. Harvath knew that the longer they remained in France, the greater their chances were of getting caught. He had to come up with his own plan and once he did, the first call he made was to Finney and Parker at the Sargasso Program.
“Yeah, we’ve got a cobbler in Paris,” replied Tim Finney. “But she doesn’t just play both sides of the fence, she plays both sides of the porch, the driveway, the front yard-”
“I get it,” interrupted Harvath. “How good is she?”
“Excellent and she charges like it too.”
“I’m going to need two passports right away, tonight.”
There was a loud noise as Finney pursed his lips and sucked in a big breath of air. “That’s going to be expensive.”
“I know,” replied Harvath. “Good, fast, and cheap-pick any two.”
“Do you want them to be U.S.?”
“No. The French are going to be scrutinizing American passports very closely. Make them Canadian. Entrance to France seven days ago. Medium amount of international stamps and travel visas, all to first- and second-world countries. We’ll also need a couple of credit cards. Brand doesn’t matter. We’ll take whatever blanks she has.”
“What about photos?” asked Finney.
“I’m going to get to work on those now,” said Harvath. “I’ll post them in the usual place along with aliases and physical descriptions.”
“Okay, I’ll get on this right away. I’ll have her put it on my account and we’ll settle up later. You do have access to funds, right?”
“Yes,” replied Harvath remembering the private account the president had established for Nichols. “I’ll make sure you get reimbursed.”
“It’s not that I don’t like you, Scot,” said Finney. “It’s just that we’re talking about some pricey work here.”
“Understood.”
“The passports will be left at a dead drop. As soon as they’re ready, she’ll let us know where you can pick them up. How about on your end? Anything else you need?”
Harvath prioritized the other items in his mind. “We’re going to need a private jet as soon as the passports are ready,” he said. “Preferably something with a discreet pickup service.”
“Destination?”
“Montreal for the flight plan, but once we’re safely on our way, we’ll need to change for D.C.”
“That’s doable,” said Finney.
“And one other thing,” replied Harvath. “I’ve got a problem bound and gagged in one of the staterooms that needs to be dealt with, but not until we’re gone.”
Finney didn’t like the sound of that. “Dealt with how?”
“Somebody just needs to open the cage and let him out. Chances are the cops will pick him up within half an
