Brad Thor - Blowback

The police were less than two blocks behind when Alcott finally got a hit, and the headlights, taillights, and horn of a black BMW 7-series sedan started going crazy. Immediately, Alcott pushed the panic button again and shut down the alarm.

Having seen the proficient way she drove her MG, Harvath had little doubt Jillian could handle the big BMW. Skidding to a halt beside it, he helped her slide off the motorbike and then told her to meet him on the other side of the bridge outside the village

Once she was in the car with her head down, Harvath took off, the police just turning the corner behind him.

Having been through most of the streets in Ristolas already, he had a pretty good idea of where and how he could shake the gendarmes from his trail.

Racing into the heart of the village, he did two circles around the communal fountain, giving the police plenty of time to at least gain sight of the taillight on the much faster motorbike he was driving, before shooting down one of Ristolas’s most crooked thoroughfares.

Revving the high-performance bike into the red zone, Harvath released the clutch and rocketed ahead, putting as much distance between him and the police as possible.

Approaching the deadly ninety-degree turn Harvath remembered from his first pass, he locked up the brakes and laid a skidding trail right up to a low stone wall overlooking an Alpine meadow far below.

The large bike took forever to stop, and for a split second, Harvath thought he was going to be thrown right over the wall along with it. As the front tire slammed into the stones, narrowly missing the iron bench overlooking the valley, Harvath jumped off, flipped open the gas cap, and muscled the bike the rest of the way over. As it fell to the ground far below and burst into flames, he removed his helmet and tossed it as close as he could to the burning wreckage.

He then took off the provincial police parka, stuffed it in a nearby trash can, and ran to meet Alcott at their agreed-upon rendezvous point.

WASHINGTON PLAZA HOTEL

WASHINGTON, DC

Brian Turner had spent enough time with the CIA to know that continuing to meet Senator Carmichael at his apartment was probably not a very good idea. The smart thing to do was to no longer hold any of their meetings in the same place twice. He also had to make sure he picked a hotel where the senator could come up to his room straight from the parking garage and not be seen in the lobby. The chic yet affordable Washington Plaza was the perfect choice. If Carmichael decided she felt amorous after their meeting, they could spend the evening together and order room service, and she could still sneak out via the garage later on with no one the wiser. If she didn’t feel like staying, Turner could still take advantage of the magnificent room he had overlooking one of the best outdoor hotel pools in DC and troll the Plaza’s very funky bar, known as one of the hottest young pickup spots in town.

Having arrived well in advance of the senator, Turner decided to kill a little time downstairs in that self-same bar. Ordering his favorite drink, a double-dirty Absolut martini with extra olives, he settled back and listened as one of his all-time favorite albums, Mothership Connection by Parliament, played overhead. God, he hated DC, but moments like this, when he found a slice of culture in the vapid city, almost made it worth living there.

Halfway through his third martini, Turner looked at his watch and realized he’d lost track of time. Throwing a fifty-dollar bill down on the table, he zipped out of the bar and hopped an elevator up to his room.

As the doors opened, he prayed to God he wouldn’t see Carmichael in the hallway waiting for him, and thankfully, he didn’t. Opening the door to his room, Turner had just enough time to take a leak and rinse his mouth out with one of the complimentary bottles of Listerine before he heard the senator’s familiar rap on the door.

“Good evening, Helen, “He said with a smile as he showed Carmichael into the room.

“What the fuck’s going on, Brian?” she replied as he closed the door. “I thought we were only going to communicate via e-mail from now on.”

Feeling no pain, Turner’s smile never wavered as he replied, “For normal communications, that would make sense, but tonight I have something special to show you.”

Carmichael ignored the seat her young lover offered her and instead chose to remain standing in the center of the room. “So what is it?”

“I don’t even get a kiss?” asked Turner as he held out his arms, the liquor getting the better of him. “I’m going to start thinking that you don’t care about me anymore.”

“Are you drunk?” demanded the senator. “I can’t fucking believe this. I came all the way down here and you’re shit-faced.”

“Helen, please,” said Turner, bobbing his head a little too much as he accentuated his words.

“Please what?” she asked. “Why am I here, Brian?”

Turner smiled again and did a little dance. “Because I have discovered something that will be the final nail in Scot Harvath’s coffin. The coup de grace, if you will.”

Close to heading for the door, Carmichael decided to slow down and hear the young CIA man out. Sitting on the edge of the room’s king-size bed and crossing her legs, she replied, “So what do you have for me?”

Turner held up his finger, as if to say, I’ll be right back, and disappeared into the suite’s dressing area, where the closet and room safe were. A moment later he reappeared waving a thin folder in the air. “I told you the proof was out there somewhere.”

“Proof of what?”

“That the president really has been using elements of the intelligence community for his own personal hit squad.”

Carmichael couldn’t believe her ears. “What did you find?”

“After-action reports, “He said proudly as he handed her the dossier. “After-action reports for off-the-books, black ops assignments that supposedly never existed.”

“How’d you get your hands on these?” asked the senator as she flipped through the pages. “Nobody just leaves intelligence like this lying around.”

“It was hardly lying around,” said Turner, feeling cocky. He was doing exactly what he needed to do to seal a position in her cabinet. He was proving himself indispensable. “Basically, it all comes down to having the right access and the correct knowledge. I’ve been at the agency long enough to develop both.”

The senator tried to mask how excited she was to get her hands on such valuable information. As she continued reading, she asked, “And Scot Harvath played a role in these off-the-books assignments?”

“They allude to someone who I definitely believe is Harvath,” replied Turner.

“How about the president? Can we tie him to any of these operations?”

“Not yet,” said the CIA man, “but once I can put Harvath in the picture, I think we’ll have the president as well.”

“How much longer?”

“If things continue to pan out, I think we’re only talking a matter of days. Possibly by the end of the week.”

The senator thought about the press cycle, her hearings, and the announcement she was going to make that both the president and his chief of staff had been served. This additional information was exactly what she had been counting on. “Whatever it takes,” she said, “do it. And do it fast.”

ITALY

With the French police hopefully searching the valley beneath Ristolas for their bodies, Harvath pulled a map from the glove box and plotted the shortest possible route into Italy.

As France and Italy were both EU member countries, the only thing stopped at their respective border these days was the occasional truck. Even so, Harvath still wanted to be careful and chose a narrow, low-profile route that wound its way through the Alps and eventually deposited them in the Piemonte region’s Po River Valley-not far from where Hannibal ’s army engaged the first Roman legions.