The Last Patriot

“Well think about this. You’re in the shit way up past your eyeballs, and so is Tracy. I don’t think we’ve got a rope long enough to throw to you. You might want to put your pride on the back burner and think of someone other than yourself for a minute. Gary Lawlor and President Rutledge might be the only people who can help untangle this mess.”

Finney was right, but Harvath was hardheaded enough to not want to admit it.

When he didn’t reply, Parker took the microphone back and said, “I’ll get back to you as soon as we have something. In the meantime, get yourself cleaned up.” Then the feed from Sargasso went dead.

CHAPTER 43

Harvath had always had a good relationship with Gary Lawlor. The former FBI deputy director had been a close friend of the Harvath family for almost as long as Scot could remember. And when Scot’s father, a SEAL instructor, had died in a training accident in California, Gary had become like a second father to him.

When President Rutledge had decided to mount the Apex Project to battle terrorists on their own terms, he wooed Gary away from the Bureau to put him in charge. Though they often butted heads in their attempts to get results, Scot and Gary worked well together.

Even so, Harvath had not spoken with Lawlor since he and Tracy had left D.C. To a certain degree, he felt guilty about that. Gary had always been there for him and his mother. He was tough, but also fair, and had pulled Harvath’s bacon out of the fire too many times to remember. Harvath owed him a lot more than a phone call right now.

It was just one of those things that had gotten away from him. The longer he put off calling, the harder it was to do it. Gary was a real by-the-book kind of guy. Though his job was to be as unconventional as the terrorists he was charged with hunting, there was still an ingrained sense of due process and fair play that had been instilled in him over his lifelong career at the FBI. He had gotten better about it, but only because he’d learned to save his questions until Harvath was done with an assignment or to not even ask them at all.

Scot had known that when he did finally reconnect with Lawlor, the conversation wasn’t going to be about the weather or the places he and Tracy had visited. He wasn’t much for BS. Harvath knew Gary would stick him with tough questions about when he was coming back and what he was planning on doing in the future. That was probably one of the biggest reasons Harvath had been avoiding him. Until he had answers, the last thing Scot had felt like facing was questions.

But things had changed and Finney was right. Whatever message or marching orders Lawlor might have for him from the president, Harvath had no choice but to shelve his animosity and put Tracy’s welfare first.

Routing through a series of anonymous proxy servers, Harvath tapped into one of his VoIP accounts and dialed Gary’s cell phone back in D.C.

The man answered on the first ring. “Lawlor,” he said, a faint metallic hum to his voice.

Harvath cleared his throat. “Gary? It’s Scot.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. You’ve got every police officer, gendarme, and intelligence operative in France looking for you right now. Do you know that?”

“Popularity is a real pain in the ass,” replied Harvath.

Lawlor chuckled for a moment and then was serious again. “You’ve got big problems, my boy.”

“You wanted me to call you so you could tell me things I already know?” The words came out harsher than Harvath had intended, but he made no effort to pull them back.

“A bombing this morning. A shooting in the afternoon. What do you have planned for this evening?”

“How about a stampede at a local mosque?”

“Don’t jerk me around,” replied Lawlor.

“Fine, I’ll come up with something else,” said Harvath. “What do you want?”

“You drop off the grid for months. No good-byes, no nothing. Just left your BlackBerry and credentials behind along with a smartass note that says gone fishing and now you’ve got the nerve to act like I’m interrupting your vacation.”

Harvath fought back the urge to defend himself and instead tried to think of Tracy. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have contacted you.”

“You’re damn right you should have,” replied Lawlor. “You’re lucky the president feels beholden to you. No other operative would have been allowed to just disappear the way you have.”

“You could have found us any time you wanted. We’ve both been using our own passports.”

“Give me a break, Scot. Tracking you has been like playing whack-a-mole. One day you pop up on the grid entering a foreign country and then there’s nothing for three weeks or a month till you pop up someplace else just long enough to cross another border and get your passport scanned.”

He was right. Harvath and Tracy had not gone completely to ground, but the only trail they had been leaving to follow was dust. “I needed some time off to think.”

“Well, time’s up. You have to get back to work,” said Lawlor. “The president needs your help.”