Brad Thor - The Last Patriot

People were already spilling out of the nearby shops and businesses at the sound of the alarm to see what was going on.

Tracy took Nichols by the arm, turned left, and headed away from the hotel toward Rue Des Grands Augustins. Harvath crossed to the other side of the street and hung back to make sure they weren’t being followed.

They met up at the corner and moved quickly to Place St. Michel. There, they hid themselves among the throngs of tourists who clogged the narrow streets around Rue St. Séverin.

Harvath kept Tracy and Nichols moving as he doubled back three more times over the next twenty minutes. When he was convinced no one was on their tail, he purchased an international calling card and found a telephone.

They needed to get off the streets as soon as possible. Harvath had no desire to go back to his hotel, and checking into a new one was too risky. They needed someplace safe; someplace where nobody would know who they were or why they were there.

For that kind of anonymity, there was only one person Harvath trusted enough to call.

“Port de la Tournelle,” said the voice on the other end of the phone, “lower quai, facing the Ile Saint Louis.”

Ron Parker was director of operations for a private intelligence organization known as the Sargasso Intelligence Program. Its chairman and founder was a successful hotelier and former no-holds-barred fighting champion named Timothy Finney. Harvath had a long history with both of them and he trusted them with his life. They were also the unofficial dog-sitters for Harvath’s Caucasian Ovcharka, Bullet, whom he had left with them when he and Tracy had decided to leave the country six months ago.

Sargasso was one of several heavily guarded, highly secretive programs Finney ran behind the scenes of his private, five-star Elk Mountain Resort outside Telluride, Colorado. Much like private military corporations augmenting American forces in different hot spots around the globe, Finney had decided to do the same thing, but in the intelligence arena. He had been after Harvath for years to come to work for him.

It was a tempting offer. Sargasso’s elite client list read like a who’s who of the American intelligence community. Not only did Sargasso collect and analyze information, they also developed assets, fielded operatives, and ran operations around the world. They were a first-class outfit, run by two patriots who put their love of country above their bottom line and in doing so had become more successful than they ever could have imagined.

The key to their success was giving their people every tactical and operational advantage needed to get the job done. To that end, Sargasso had been developing a string of safe houses around the world, including one in Paris.

“I know you wanted to get away from the St. Germain area,” Parker added, “but it’s the best we can do for you.”

Harvath memorized the rest of the information, thanked his friend, and hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, he, Tracy, and Nichols arrived along the Seine and laid eyes on the Sargasso safe house. She was known in French as a péniche -a sleek, decommissioned barge-which had been painted jet black. He found it just a bit ironic that the Arab World Institute-an organization created to disseminate information about Arab cultural and spiritual values-was headquartered just above the boat at street level.

Harvath punched a code into the recessed keypad near the wheelhouse and the lock released with a hiss. The door was very heavy, and Harvath guessed that it had been armor-plated. He rapped on one of the windows as he stepped inside and noticed that they were not made out of actual panes of glass, but heavy sheets of bulletproof Lexan. Finney and Parker had done an excellent job up-armoring their barge.

Down a short flight of steps were a kitchen, three staterooms with baths, and the main living and dining space. Harvath excused himself and headed toward the main cabin in the stern.

He closed the door behind him and crossed to a built-in bookcase. Running two fingers along the top, he found the hidden hasp and pushed down. A section came forward on hinges and Harvath opened it the rest of the way. Inside was an airtight plastic Storm case. Harvath lifted it out and placed it upon the bed.

The case held a loaded.45 caliber Taurus 24/7 OSS pistol with a sound suppressor and two spare magazines. There was also a small manila envelope with ten thousand euros in cash. The Sargasso program was prepared for any eventuality.

Harvath divided the gear amongst his coat pockets and then put the empty case back where he’d found it.

After powering up the stateroom’s laptop and sending an encrypted message to Finney and Parker to let them know they’d made it safely aboard the péniche, he rejoined Tracy and Nichols in the living area.

Nichols was sitting on the couch with a bag of ice clutched against his jaw with one hand and a glass of Scotch from the barge’s well-stocked bar in the other. Tracy was at the varnished kitchen counter holding an orange bottle of prescription medication.

Harvath slid into the galley beside her and quietly asked, “What are those? Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she replied as her hand closed around the bottle of painkillers. “They’re just for headaches.”

She shook two tablets into the palm of her hand and popped them into her mouth. “Excuse me,” she said as she nudged Harvath out of the way to get to the refrigerator.

Reaching inside, Tracy removed a small bottle of Evian, unscrewed the cap, and took a long swallow.

“Since when have you been taking the pills?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said as she brushed past him and walked into the seating area. “Really, I’ll be fine.”

The headaches had come and gone ever since she’d left the hospital, but they had been mild and Tracy had a very high threshold for pain. The bottle was half-empty, and he wondered how long she had been hiding the severity from him.

It was a talk they would have to have later. Right now, he needed to focus on Nichols. Removing a bottle of Evian for himself, Harvath joined Tracy on the short couch across from the man who’d been the target of both a car bombing and a sniper attack all in the space of one day.

As they had already explained to the professor who they were, formal introductions were not necessary.

“So, Mr. Nichols,” said Harvath. “Let’s talk about what you and the president are working on and why someone apparently wants you dead.”

“It’s a long story.”

Harvath fixed his eyes on him. “Try to make it short.”

“Why don’t you start with how you and the president got together in the first place?” said Harvath.

Nichols knew that he had no choice but to comply. His mind was drawn back to the night he was summoned to the White House to meet with the president. “The president said he had read several of my books and had selected me because of my expertise as a Thomas Jefferson historian.”

“Selected you for what?”

“To act as his archivist to help organize his papers and other things for his presidential library.”

“Isn’t that what the National Archives is supposed to do?” asked Tracy.

“That’s correct, but most presidents have someone on their staff or someone they bring in from the outside go through the materials before the National Archives comes in. It allowed me to come and go from the White House and the residence without arousing any suspicion.”

“Suspicion over what?” asked Harvath.

Nichols took a deep breath. “In the wake of 9/11, the president sought to comfort a grieving nation, but he also needed comfort. More importantly, as he explained it to me, he needed guidance. And he found it in a White House diary Thomas Jefferson had kept during his presidency.