Harbor eighteen months before.
“Though Eaton, like O’Bannon and his Marines, returned home a hero he always felt that Jefferson had sold him out. He never knew of the Marines’ covert operation and the real reason for attacking Derna.
“An interesting footnote is that after the victory, Prince Hamet presented Lieutenant O’Bannon with a scimitar used by his Mameluke tribesmen in appreciation of his courage and that of his Marines. This is the model for the saber the Marines still carry to this day.”
Harvath stood up, set the puzzle box on the desk, and walked over to place another log on the fire. “Even as a Navy man,” he said, “I’m willing to admit that the Marines have an impressive lineage.
“What’s interesting, though, is that I’ve never heard about the covert operation at Derna.”
“Nobody has,” replied Nichols. “Not even Congress. I just decoded Jefferson’s writings about it. Per his orders, the Marines took the secret with them to their graves.”
“So what about the item they were sent to retrieve from the governor’s palace in Derna? What happened to it?”
The professor swept his hand over his notes and replied, “That’s the mystery we need to unravel.”
CHAPTER 70
“We now know,” said Nichols, “that what lay within the governor’s palace had been created by al-Jazari, had something to do with Mohammed’s final revelation, and had supposedly been there since Cervantes was a prisoner in neighboring Algiers. We also know that O’Bannon’s Marines succeeded in finding it and bringing it back to Thomas Jefferson. What it specifically was and what happened to it from there is what we need to find out.
“And,” said Nichols as he looked over the desk cluttered with books and papers, “the answer lies somewhere in here. I hope.”
Harvath smiled at him. “Then you’ll find it. In the meantime, I’m cooking tonight. Do you want to eat with us in the kitchen, or are you going to eat in here?”
The professor thought about it for a minute. “I’m going to keep working.”
“Understood. I’ll bring a plate in for you.”
“And some coffee please,” said Nichols as Harvath left the study.
Lawlor was sitting at the kitchen table with Aydin Ozbek when Harvath walked in. “While I don’t mind another set of experienced hands,” said Gary, “what this operation really needs is a lawyer.”
“That rough at UVA, huh?” replied Harvath as he walked over to the fridge and started pulling things out.
“Nothing compared to Paris, but it was still rough. The cops were plenty pissed off.”
“Any word on Tracy?”
“Someone from the embassy is staying in the room with her now.”
Harvath set a head of lettuce on the counter and turned. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, the French were just getting a little overzealous in wanting to question her. Some of them feel she’s had enough time to rest and be on her pain medication and that there’s no reason she shouldn’t be talking. Her doctors don’t like it, though. They don’t want her exposed to any stress until they can completely get the brain swelling stopped. The French authorities were getting a bit too pushy, so the doctors tried to bar them from her room. When that happened, the French threatened to move her out of the American Hospital to another that would be more cooperative.
“Tracy’s doctors reached out to the embassy and they now have someone in her room around-the-clock to run interference and act as a buffer.”
“Do you think that’s going to work?” asked Harvath, concerned for Tracy.
“For now, yes.”
Harvath didn’t want to ask about later. He just wanted Tracy back home. He found the iPod he had used before Tracy bought him the bigger and better version he’d left behind in his hotel room in Paris and dropped it into the audio station near the stove.
Tracy loved listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D when she cooked. He was tempted to play that now, but knew it wouldn’t do much to brighten his mood. He needed something else; something more upbeat.
Scrolling through his list of artists, he pulled up the Zapp Band, and as “More Bounce to the Ounce” began to play, he started cooking and tried to forget about his problems for a while.
Later, once dinner was finished and all the dishes had been cleaned and put away, Harvath brought up one last point of business for the evening. After learning everything he had about Matthew Dodd, he thought it made sense to post a watch. Lawlor and Ozbek agreed and Harvath divided up the shifts. He would go first, then Ozbek, and then Lawlor.
With everything decided, Lawlor took Ozbek upstairs to get him settled while Harvath made his rounds. He closed the drapes in the study and restricted Nichols to a small desk lamp.
Moving through the rest of the rectory as well as the church, Harvath made sure all the doors and windows were firmly closed and locked, then he set the alarm and settled in for his shift.
There were about a thousand things he would have liked to have done on his laptop, but he didn’t want to ruin his night vision. He needed to be able to sit inside his dark house and look out the window and discern things unimpeded. The laptop would have only hampered his ability to see and also would have silhouetted him in the glow of his screen making him a prime target if anyone wanted to take a shot at him. Not a smart thing to do.
Instead, Harvath sat quietly in the dark with his LaRue M4 across his lap, and thought about everything that had happened.
At the end of his watch, he woke Ozbek and passed the figurative baton. He filled him in on the alarm system and then checked on Nichols. The professor was several cups into the pot of coffee Lawlor had brewed for him and didn’t show any signs of slowing down any time soon.
After brushing his teeth with nothing more than a small night-light to illuminate the bathroom, he took one final look out the windows before going to bed.
He had absolutely no idea that out in the darkness, a pair of eyes was staring right back at him.
CHAPTER 71
Even though he knew he couldn’t be seen, Matthew Dodd didn’t move a muscle; he didn’t even breathe. With his night vision monocular pressed up against his eye, he studied Scot Harvath until the man stepped back from his window and disappeared from view.
Dodd lowered his monocular and looked at his Omega. It was just past the hour. The men inside were apparently taking shifts. That was fine. He could wait.
Leaning against a tree at the edge of Scot Harvath’s property, Dodd retrieved a bottle of water from his backpack and took a long swallow.
In his mind, he replayed the last conversation he’d had with Sheik Omar. Despite the man’s past assurances that he would allow Dodd to handle the problem as he saw fit, Omar had tried to take control again. He wanted Nichols killed and if that meant killing the man who was protecting him, as well as any civilians who happened to get in the way, then so be it. Delicacy and finesse were alien to him.
Dodd had tried to explain that killing Nichols wouldn’t solve their problem. Jack Rutledge would simply find someone else to do the work. They needed to gather intelligence. They all knew what Mohammed’s lost revelation was rumored to contain. They also knew that if it was revealed, true, pure Islam would cease to exist.
The focus now needed to be on how much Nichols knew and how close he was to discovering the prophet’s
