CHAPTER 63
BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN
“If this guy’s not at the gate,” said Harvath into his cell phone, “I’m gonna cut Khan loose.”
Seven thousand miles away in Langley, Virginia, CIA operative Aydin Ozbek tried to put his friend at ease. “My guy is already there waiting for you. Don’t worry.”
Hoyt motioned to the cooler on the backseat.
“And nobody searches the car either,” added Harvath.
“For f*ck’s sake, Scot. You’re driving onto an American military base in the middle of a war zone. If they want to search your car, they get to search your f*cking car.”
“You know what, Oz? You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. We’re going to turn around and hand Khan over to the Afghans.”
“All right, all right. No inspection. I’ll let them know. Now, are there any last-minute bites at the apple I need to bend over for?” asked Ozbek.
“Let me think a minute,” said Harvath. “Considering how I’m giving you, and by you I mean the Agency, one of the highest-ranking al-Qaeda operatives since Khalid Sheik Mohammed—”
“Whom, I believe, you stole from the Afghan government,” Ozbek clarified.
“Hey, if you don’t want him.”
“Scot, you know we want him. We also know that the Afghans didn’t really catch him, so we consider him fair game.”
“Okay,” said Harvath. “What happens after you’re done with him?”
“When we’ve wrung him out like a damp dishcloth? We’ll arrange for the Afghans to recapture him.”
“That’s good enough for me. That plus a month’s worth of drinks at a bar of my choosing in the D.C. area.”
Back at Langley, Ozbek began laughing. “Feel free to grab my dick and shake the money tree.”
“Oz, you and I both know you’re going to jump at least two pay grades because of this. If I want to drink Macallan 1926 you’re buying.”
“For a month? You’re out of you’re f*cking mind. I’ll buy you a case of Johnnie Green and we’ll call it even.”
“Johnnie Blue and I want it on my doorstep by the time I get home.”
“Deal. Now drive onto that base and surrender that prisoner so I can go home and beg American Express to raise my credit limit.”
“And all of the deals we made with the Afghans get honored, right?”
“Yes,” said Ozbek. “I will see to it personally.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Oz,” said Harvath. “These people risked everything for us. If we don’t live up to our end, we deserve all the problems they can cause for us, and believe me, even small villages like theirs can cause problems.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Oz, these villages have lived with the Taliban. They know them and they can be huge treasure chests of intel; don’t let the ‘failure factory’ f*ck this up.”
“I’m going to make sure these villages get taken care of. The projects they want are within the scope of the budgets that have been proposed for their province. Everything is good.”
“I gave them my word,” said Harvath. “So I am going to make sure every single project happens.”
“Scot,” said Ozbek. “You’ve already blown half the budget for these projects on cell phone minutes. Would you just hump to Bagram and dump the prisoner already?”
Ten minutes later, Hoyt drove the Land Cruiser up to a little-used gate on the far side of the air base.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” asked one of several American soldiers at the guard booth armed with very atypical weapons.
“We seem to be a bit lost,” replied Hoyt. “Is this the road to Sea World?”
As the sentry smirked, Harvath leaned across his friend and, using the front name for the Agency’s air transport unit, said, “We’ve got a perishable cargo delivery for Polar Air.”
The sentry nodded and, stepping back inside the guardhouse, raised the gate and lowered the bollards.
Thanking the guards, Hoyt smiled and drove forward. Thirty yards inside the base they were greeted by a tall man with short, dark hair in blue jeans and a TAD Gear jacket. “You must be Norseman,” he said, using Harvath’s call sign as Harvath rolled down his window. “My name is Jude.”
Harvath smiled, “Nice call sign. The patron saint of lost causes. Well, it just so happens that I have someone who is a follower of a very major lost cause here with me.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Harvath pointed at Hoyt and said, “He thinks the Dolphins are definitely going to go to the Super Bowl this year.”
The man in the blue jeans didn’t laugh. “Where’s the other guy?”
“Oh, that guy,” replied Harvath. “We’ve got him wrapped up in a rug in the back.”
Opening the rear passenger door, Jude hopped in and said, “Hang a left at the first road and keep going until I tell you to stop.”
“Are we going to see Shamu?” asked Hoyt, who loved to f*ck with humorless intel people. When Jude didn’t respond, Hoyt put the Land Cruiser in gear and started driving.
Jude led them to a dark aircraft hangar where several men in blue jeans helped unload Mustafa Khan from the back of the SUV.
“Don’t forget to read him his Miranda rights,” yelled Hoyt. When Jude didn’t respond, he added, “On second thought, f*ck it. Who cares, right?”
Harvath put his hand on Hoyt’s shoulder and he drove the car out of the hangar and made his way across the tarmac and over to the Craig Joint-Theater Hospital.
Parking the Land Cruiser, he and Harvath pulled out the enormous Igloo cooler that had been spray-painted on the side with a red cross and the words, Rush: Human Blood Plasma.
As he was less than thirty miles north of Kabul, Hoyt had already been to see Gallagher multiple times since he had been admitted and knew exactly how to get to his room.
As he entered, he identified the other soldiers in the room and said, “Fell out of a jeep. Fell off a ladder changing a lightbulb. Slipped taking a piss. And our own Baba G, who apparently broke off his dick jerking off.”
A chorus of “F*ck you!” erupted in the room, complete with multiple middle-finger salutes.
“I’m sorry,” responded Hoyt defiantly. “We only brought beer for warriors.”
Once again the “F*ck you” chorus rose until Hoyt waved his arms to calm the men down. “Okay, okay,” he admitted. “This isn’t exactly the paper-cut ward. There may be one or two warriors sucking up some easy medical leave within these four walls, but as I’m not a guy to point fingers, I ain’t saying nothing.”
Harvath bumped Hoyt out of the way and introduced himself around the room, meeting three Army Rangers and a Green Beret.
He blamed not having come to the hospital earlier on having to mop up after Gallagher and killing another forty-plus Taliban, which roused cheers throughout the room.
“Tom, I think all of these men deserve a beer,” said Harvath, upon which Hoyt flipped open the lid of the cooler and delivered cold beer to everyone.
Baba G smiled. “How’s your back feeling?” he asked.
“Not great,” replied Harvath.
“You still taking those Motrin even though I warned you to be careful?”
“I’ve upped it,” said Harvath, holding up his bottle of beer. “Vitamin M and vitamin B.”
Gallagher pulled a plastic bag from beneath the pillow propping him up and said, “I had one of the nurses pick this up in PX for you.”
“I should have guessed,” said Harvath as he pulled a PEZ dispenser with a Marine Corps drill instructor’s head out of the bag.
“Now, while you’re frying your liver and kidneys you can think of me.”
Harvath laughed and opened his beer. “To a successful mission,” he said as he raised his bottle.
There was a television on in the corner running a story about President Alden’s resignation and the swearing in of the VP as the new commander in chief. One of the Army Rangers raised his beer and said, “To the United States of America.”
With that, all of the men in the room raised their bottles and in unison said, “To the United States of America.”
Acknowledgments
This part of the book is where I get to thank all of the people who make it possible. At the top of my list are you, my wonderful readers. Thank you for your letters, emails, participation on the BradThor.com forum, your appearances at my signings, choosing my novels for your book clubs, and for turning so many of your family, friends, and coworkers on to my work. Nothing builds a successful author like good word-of-mouth and you all have been incredibly generous to me. Thank you.
The next V.I.P. group I want to thank are the fabulous booksellers who have been supporting me since my very first book. From Peoria to Paris and San Antonio to S?o Paolo, whether you are a national chain, an independent, an online retailer, a warehouse club, or any other type of bookseller, please know that you have my deepest appreciation for everything that you have done and continue to do for me.
My literary agent par excellence, Heide Lange, of Sanford J. Green-burger Associates, Inc., is hands-down the best agent on the planet. An author could not hope to have a more dedicated, principled, and enthusiastic powerhouse in his camp than Heide. Thank you, Heide, for all that you do for me.
I have called Simon & Schuster’s Atria and Pocket Books home since my very first novel. There’s a reason for that. They are not only the best people in the publishing business, they have become like family to me. My deep gratitude goes to the brilliant men and women in the Atria/Pocket sales staff, the Pocket/Atria art and production departments and the Simon & Schuster Audio family. Thanks as well go to Lisa Keim and Michael Selleck, as well as Laura Stern, Sarah Branham, Mellony Torres, and Irene Lipsky.
My editor, Emily Bestler, is the type of editor whom authors dream of someday working with. I have been fortunate enough to have been with her since my very first novel. Not only is Emily brilliant and incredibly talented, but she is funny as hell and keeps me laughing so hard that it can be easy to forget that what we do is called work. Thank you, Emily.
Carolyn Reidy, Louise Burke, and Judith Curr are the titans who captain the S&S, Pocket, and Atria ships. Thank you for your ongoing support, wisdom, and, most of all, friendship. It is truly a joy to be working with all of you.
David Brown, or “Conan the Publicist,” as I like to refer to him, is the best P.R. person I have ever met, and I appreciate him more than I think he will ever know. Thank you for everything, David.
I also want to thank Jennifer Linnan, Alex Cannon, and the rest of the fabulous team at Sanford J. Green-burger Associates for all that they do for me all year long.
Now for my thanks to the people so intimately involved with the writing of this novel.
This novel would not have happened if not for the man it is dedicated to, James Ryan (not his real name). If you want to know whether or not our country has real-life Scot Harvaths out there in the field, away from the flagpole, taking the fight to our enemies, the answer is yes. Do we need more of them? Do they need to be better equipped and better funded? Do they need better leadership? Do they need better management? Do they need more respect and less red tape and bureaucracy? Do we need to better trust them to slip off into the dark of night to do the jobs which so desperately need to be done? Yes, yes, and yes ad infinitum.
I chose the Orwell quote at the beginning of this novel as my way of honoring James Ryan for how invaluable he has been to me throughout the writing process. I chose to dedicate the novel to him, though, because of how invaluable he has been to this nation. I have a love and admiration for this American patriot that I will never be able to fully express, as there is so much of who he is and what he does that cannot be spoken of. Suffice it to say that he personifies American exceptionalism and that never in my life have I been more honored than the first time he called me friend.
Once again, my very good friend and patriot Scott F. Hill, PhD, was a key sounding board and wellspring of creativity in writing this novel. Whenever I have a new idea for a novel, he is the first person I turn to. The example he continues to set as a selfless American and one of the best friends a person could have is a daily reminder to me of the good mankind is able to achieve in this world. Thank you for all of your help and thank you for everything you continue to do in service of our great nation.
I round out the literary triumvirate so crucial to this novel with my dear friend and patriot Rodney Cox. Rodney’s tactical expertise, excellent sense of humor, and deep military experience in Afghanistan were key resources I drew upon repeatedly throughout the writing process. Thank you for everything, including equipping me for my trip to Afghanistan and for making sure we continue to turn out the world’s most formidable warriors. We’re looking forward to seeing you and Steph real soon.
My family and I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Tim Lynch and Walter Gaffney. You gentlemen know what you did for me, and I am deeply grateful. Thank you.
I also want to thank my friend Glenn Beck. Congratulations on your success and thank you for everything you, Kevin, Chris, Stu, Dan, and everyone else have done for me. Nice guys do finish first, and you and your team have proven it.
I also want to thank the key group of warriors who not only influenced and assisted in the writing of this novel, but are also very good friends: Chuck “Eagle Eye” Fretwell, Steven Bronson, Jeff Chudwin, Shawn Dyball, Thomas Foreman, Frank Gallagher, Rob Hobart, Steve Hoffa, Carl Hospedales, Cynthia Longo, Ronald Moore, Chad Norberg, Gary Penrith, Rob Pincus, the real Roper 6-9, Jonathan Sanchez, and Mitch Shore—as well as all the people out there who asked that they not be named in this book, for their own safety. Thank you for all you do for us. Stay safe.
For their invaluable assistance I am also indebted to Chief A. M. Ja-cocks, Jr.—Virginia Beach Police Department, Captain Edwin Ecker—East Hampton Town Police Department, Michael Foreman—Point Blank Solutions, Steve Tuttle—TASER International, the National Executive Institute Associates (NEIA), the Major Cities Chiefs (MCC), the Major County Sheriff’s Association (MCSA), author Kathy Reichs, Jason Kohlmeyer, Esq., Stephanie Dickerson, Tom and Geri Whowell, and John Giduck (who provided several key back office elements for my trip to Afghanistan).
In Washington, D.C., I continue to be grateful for the assistance of my friends Patrick Doak and David Vennett.
Friends Richard and Anne Levy always do the voodoo that they do so well with the assistance of a beguiling young woman known from Kolkata to Kowloon simply as Alice. Thank you for everything. We’ll see you in Munich.
Thank you to all the members of BradThor.com forum, aka the Thorum. There are too many of you to thank by name, but please know that I appreciate you all so much and love conversing with you online every day.
My attorney, Scottie Schwimer, continues to amaze with his magical powers in Hollywood. In a town where beauty is only skin-deep, Scottie’s beauty and talent go right to the bone. Thank you for all you do for me, my friend.
Finally, none of this would be possible without my gorgeous wife, Trish. I cannot count the nights and weekends she backed me up at home so I could stay in my office and get this novel completed. For those of you who want to know the secret to a happy marriage, marry someone kinder, smarter, funnier, and more patient than you are. You will never regret it. I know I haven’t….
Thank you, my love.
I’ll be back next year with an all-new Scot Harvath adventure. In the meantime, I highly recommend reading the authors of the International Thriller Writers Association. Visit their website at www.ThrillerWriters.org.