The Last Patriot

“They had no idea you were coming. You said so yourself.”

The assassin had never liked Abdul Waleed. Nothing would have made him happier than to crush the man’s windpipe. “Killing a professional takes much care and attention to detail, especially when you intend to kill him on his own ground. Too many things can go wrong if you aren’t properly prepared.”

“So by your own admission, it isn’t impossible,” stated Waleed as if he had scored a decisive debating point.

Dodd turned his gaze to Omar. “We have everything now. They have nothing. That was my assignment and I completed it.”

“No,” said Waleed from the couch. “Your assignment was-”

“Be quiet,” ordered Omar raising his hand. He shifted his eyes from the wheel cipher to Dodd. “The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.”

The assassin looked at him. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, you cannot remove from their minds what they have already learned. Don’t assume that because you have taken away their material that you have taken away their will. They’ll keep going.”

Dodd tried to interrupt, but Omar stopped him. “How do you know they even need this material anymore? Maybe they already have everything necessary to locate the final revelation.”

The assassin didn’t need to look at Waleed to know the man was gloating.

“We need to know,” said Omar, “beyond any doubt that the threat has been completely neutralized.”

“What do you want done?”

Handing over everything that had been taken from Bishop’s Gate the sheik said, “You need to solve this riddle and make sure the final revelation is never found.”

Dodd reached out for the items, but as he tried to take them, Omar hung on to them just a moment longer. “Make sure there are no mistakes,” he added as he let them go.

CHAPTER 75

“Explain to me why Jefferson didn’t just come right out and say what this thing was and where it was hidden,” asked Ozbek as they drove south toward the last person who might be able to help them.

Nichols didn’t answer. He was in a state of shock. Sitting on his lap was the folder he had taken to bed last night. Inside were two centuries-old documents-all that remained of his research. One looked like a blueprint and the other a mechanical schematic of some sort. The writing on each was only partially decoded. Had the professor left them in the study, they, like the wheel cipher and the Don Quixote, would be gone as well and they would have had nothing at all to go on.

The professor was reliving in his mind how he had been on his way back to the study after only a couple of hours of sleep when he had found Gary Lawlor on the kitchen floor. Ozbek had to repeat his question two more times before he got his attention.

“Excuse me?” replied Nichols.

“Why didn’t Jefferson just spell everything out? Why go to all this trouble?”

“He had a lot of enemies.”

“Including Congress,” added Harvath, “who went back to an appeasement policy of paying off the Muslims once Jefferson left office.”

“What was the last phrase you decoded?” asked Ozbek.

Opening the folder, Nichols fought back the car sickness that always overtook him when he tried to read while driving and replied, “It says that the prophet’s final revelation lies with the scribe.”

“With the scribe,” repeated Harvath unenthusiastically from the front seat. “Not his scribe?”

Nichols shrugged. “It says the.”

“So what does that mean?” asked Ozbek. “Was that Jefferson’s way of saying the secret died with Mohammed’s scribe?”

“Without the wheel cipher and the rest of my notes,” he replied, “it could mean anything.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Based on the little we have, I can’t be sure.”

“But what we can be sure of,” stated Harvath, “is that it won’t take Dodd very long to figure out where we’re going. They have all of it now-your computer, your notes, the wheel cipher, everything.”

“If this even means anything,” replied Nichols as he held up the folder.

Harvath wasn’t listening. His mind had drifted to Gary. Together with Ozbek, they had supported his neck and had log-rolled him to assess his injuries. Head wounds were notorious for the amount of blood they produced, but even so, when Harvath saw that the man hadn’t been shot, but merely clubbed, he was shocked. Harvath couldn’t understand why, especially after considering all of the people that Dodd had already murdered, Gary hadn’t been killed.

Shortly before the ambulance arrived at Bishop’s Gate, Gary regained consciousness. Having the good sense to be glad that he was still alive never occurred to him. He was too pissed off that Dodd had been able to sneak up on him. He may not be a spring chicken, but he was very good at what he did, and Harvath could tell he was embarrassed. The last thing Gary ever would have wanted to appear was old. In the world of counterterrorism, operators needed to possess both brains and physical ability. Any suggestion that you weren’t up to snuff in either department was cause for concern, and Gary knew it.

Within minutes of coming to, he wanted to take control. Though both Ozbek and Harvath assumed he had a skull fracture, he pushed them away and struggled to sit up. Gary was at his best managing difficult situations.

He demanded a full rundown of what had happened. Harvath knew better than to deny him.

Once he had a picture of what they believed had taken place and he understood the extent to which their operation had been compromised, he started issuing orders. Chief among them was the edict that Harvath would not ride to the hospital with him. Time was everything at this point.

Harvath knew he was right. The only question was what their next move should be.

Having finally discovered the small tracking device after sweeping his Denali, Ozbek was very much in favor of throwing hoods over the heads of Sheik Omar and Abdul Waleed, dragging them back to Harvath’s, and applying pressure until they gave up all that they knew.

The idea did have a certain appeal to it, Harvath had to admit, but they were going to get only one chance to confront those two. He preferred to relegate kidnapping them to Plan B. Right now, the best possible outcome would be to get to the prize before Dodd. Hooking the jumper cables up to Omar and Waleed could very easily buy Dodd the time he needed to beat them to Mohammed’s final revelation. And once that happened, regardless of what Omar and Waleed might tell them, the chances were very good that Dodd would disappear and along with him the revelation.

Harvath swung out from behind the slow moving car in front of them and pushed down hard on the accelerator.

CHAPTER 76

Susan Ferguson, the curator for Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, met them a quarter mile past the estate in the circular blacktop drive of the International Center for Jefferson Studies. She was a tall, attractive brunette in her early forties casually dressed in blue jeans and a fleece with a walkie-talkie clipped to her waist.

When the professor climbed out of the truck, the two shared an affectionate hug. “It’s good to see you, Anthony,” said Ferguson.