After a short run of the table, Harvath scratched and handed control over to the president.
“I’ve been waiting for this meeting for a long time,” said Rutledge.
Harvath leaned on his cue and took another sip of his Diet Coke. Though he made up his mind to let bygones be bygones, the air was still thick with tension. “I know you have, sir,” he replied.
“Scot, I need to tell you in person how sorry I am for what happened. If I had known any harm was going to come to you or the people you care about, I would have warned you.”
“Mr. President,” Harvath began, but Rutledge stopped him.
“I made a deal with terrorists,” he continued, “and you personally suffered because of it. Though they violated the nature of the agreement, I still held you back from getting involved and protecting those around you. That was wrong, and I take full responsibility.
“You have proven yourself time and again to this administration and to your country. I have repeatedly told you what an asset you are, yet when my back was against the wall I shunned your help and forced you to decide between protecting the people important to you and being labeled a traitor and I’m sorry for that.”
After his phone call with the president from Paris, Harvath hadn’t expected the subject to be brought up again. The president’s humility spoke to the strength of character that Harvath had always admired in him.
Rutledge came around to Harvath’s side of the table and extended his hand once more. “I only want you to take it if you truly accept my apology.”
Harvath didn’t need to think about it and he didn’t need to hear any more. Firmly and without hesitation, he gripped the president’s hand and forgave him.
“Good,” said Rutledge as he lined up his next shot. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I can give you what you came for.”
CHAPTER 63
Aydin Ozbek sat in his house alone with the lights out and only a bottle of Maker’s Mark to keep him company. It had been one of the worst days of his life.
Rasmussen’s gunshot wound was more serious than he had thought. Without the tourniquet pants he would have bled out and died in the apartment. He was lucky to be alive.
Then there was Stephanie Whitcomb. Her throat had been slashed ear-to-ear. When Ozbek found her, she was already dead. There was nothing he could have done to save her.
Her body lay in the back of his truck under a blanket while he transported Rasmussen to the nearest level one trauma center and dumped him at the Emergency Room entrance.
It was cold, but necessary. Raz would have done the same thing had the situation been reversed. It was better if only one of them was compromised and had to deal with all the BS that came with seeking treatment for a bullet wound. It was also better that the Denali with Stephanie Whitcomb’s body in back not be discovered either.
Bruce Selleck, the NCS Director, had gone absolutely ape shit when Ozbek had called him and explained why he needed to see him at Langley as soon as possible.
When he showed up and Ozbek told him what had happened, Selleck gave him the ass-chewing of his life. Ozbek deserved it. He had overstepped his authority in a big way. They had one dead operative and another in the hospital, and the entire undertaking threatened to burn the agency to the ground.
Running ops on American soil was completely forbidden. It didn’t matter what the prize was. Ozbek had colossally fucked up.
The Agency had to bullshit the hospital on Rasmussen’s gunshot wound to avoid an investigation and deal with Whitcomb’s murder and what to do with her body. The woman had a family, friends. She couldn’t just vanish. Besides, that wasn’t how the CIA liked to do business.
Selleck debriefed Ozbek himself and then sent his “good for nothing” ass home and told him not to come back to work until the Agency decided what it was going to do with him.
As if that wasn’t enough, there was a message waiting for Ozbek on his voice mail when he got back to his house. It was the vet. Shelby had succumbed to her cancer and had passed away. Ozbek was crushed.
Though there was nothing else he could have done for his dog, he hadn’t wanted her to die without him. He had been selfish in making her hang on this long. He should have ended her suffering days, if not weeks, ago.
And though he knew it was shallow to dwell on his dog’s passing, the pain he felt was simply training wheels for having to deal with Stephanie’s death.
The shock from it all was starting to wear off and he had no intention of facing the guilt over her murder by himself. That was why the Maker’s Mark sat on the table in front of him.
He had already passed through the first stage of grief-denial.
Then came the anger stage. Ozbek was masterful at that one. He had a lot of anger and he wasn’t stingy with it. It was misplaced, he knew, and Selleck almost punched his lights out for trying to project some of it in his direction rather than at himself.
From anger, Ozbek moved to the third phase-bargaining, except his deal making with God had a vengeful twist. He offered God anything He wanted, as long as Ozbek could be allowed to settle the score with Matthew Dodd.
By his third drink, he had become quite persuasive and was actively engaging God out loud, iterating point by point why he should be given the opportunity to kill an animal like Dodd, when his phone rang.
“You sound terrible,” said one of Ozbek’s DPS operatives named Beard. “Did I wake you up or something?”
“Or something,” replied Ozbek. “What’s going on?”
“Two things. We put tripwires on Marwan Khalifa’s e-mail accounts like you asked and we just got a hit.”
Ozbek set his drink down. “Inbound or outbound?”
“Outbound.”
“So he’s alive.”
Beard paused a moment. “That’s the second thing. The Italians have ID’d Khalifa’s body with the dental records we sent them. He’s dead. They’re positive.”
“So what’s with the e-mail?” asked Ozbek.
“Somebody appears to be using it to pose as him.”
“Pose how?”
“Apparently,” replied Beard, “Khalifa had an appointment on Monday morning at the Library of Congress. Whoever’s posing as Khalifa has moved the appointment up to tomorrow in Annapolis.”
“You’re sure this wasn’t some e-mail that was typed previously and somehow was just delayed in being sent?”
“Nope. There have been two exchanges in the last hour.”
“Who is he communicating with?” asked Ozbek.
“Anthony Nichols.”
“No,” said Beard. “You’re the only one.”
“Keep it that way,” replied Ozbek.
“What are you going to do?”
“Never mind,” he ordered. “Just get me copies of everything right now.”
“Right away,” replied Beard.
Ozbek hung up the phone and screwed the cap back on his bottle of Makers Mark.
