Brad Thor: The Last Patriot

They both looked at him.

“He sure fights like a history professor,” Tracy said finally as she stripped the cord from the lamp and tied Nichols’ hands behind his back.

Harvath helped carry him to a chair, where they threaded his arms over the back and secured his feet to the legs with drapery ties. Tracy found a bathrobe hanging on the back of the bathroom door and used its belt as a gag.

Once they had him secure, Harvath checked the hall to make sure no one had heard the commotion. Confident that they were safe, he hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, turned on the television set, and prepared to interrogate the man named Anthony Nichols.

Harvath pulled up a chair and placed it in front of Nichols. He was not happy at the thought of having to interrogate him, but he’d been left with little choice. This was all supposed to be part of his old life; the life he had given up in order to begin anew with Tracy. But here he was.

Though Harvath tried to ignore it, he had a deep-seated fear that he would never really be free of his old life. It would follow him like an overzealous bill collector and haunt him until the day he died.

He’d been lucky for a while; happy. But then the specter of his past had found him sitting in a Paris café with the woman he loved, minding his own business, and decided to pull up in a bomb-laden Mercedes and say hello.

Even so, Harvath wasn’t ready to give up yet. Once he got the information he and Tracy needed from Nichols to clear themselves in the bombing, he could go back to trying to live a different life; a life that would make him happy, which meant putting as much distance between himself and his old ways as possible.

As Nichols began to come around, Harvath lightly slapped his face to get him to focus. Tracy knew the game and sat behind Nichols where she couldn’t be seen.

When Harvath felt the man had regained enough of his senses he said, “I’m going to start by telling you three things that are true. I want you to listen very carefully as your life depends on remembering them.”

Nichols’ eyes were slow to focus, but then suddenly went wide with fear as he realized what was happening. He tried to move, but was bound to the chair too tightly. His face paled and his breathing became rapid.

“One,” said Harvath, continuing. “I know a lot more about you than you think I do. Two, I will only ask my questions once. If at any point you lie or refuse to answer me, I will break a bone of my choosing. And three, if you attempt to cry out for help at any point, I will cause you a pain so intense that you will beg me to go back to breaking your bones.

“Now if you understand me, I want you to nod once for yes .”

Nichols nodded repeatedly.

Harvath placed his hand atop the man’s head to stop him. “I said once for yes. Pay attention, or things are going to get ugly very fast.”

When Harvath removed his hand, Nichols nodded once and stopped.

“Good,” said Harvath. “I’m going to take your gag off now. Remember, the only sounds I want to hear coming out of your mouth are the answers to my questions. Do you understand?”

Nichols nodded once for yes.

Harvath nodded and Tracy undid the man’s gag. Nichols opened and closed his mouth and then worked his jaw from side to side.

Though Harvath had hit him pretty hard, the man’s jaw didn’t seem to be broken. “What’s your name?” asked Harvath.

The professor spoke slowly. “Anthony Nichols.”

“Where are you from?”

“The United States. Charlottesville, Virginia.”

So far so good. “How’d you get into this room?”

Nichols looked at him. “With my key card.”

“Your key card was in your wallet,” stated Harvath, “and you left your wallet behind.”

“The hotel gave me two. I had the other in my trouser pocket.”

Silently, Harvath chastised himself for the mistake. He should have anticipated that. “Who do you work for?” he asked.

There was a slight pause before Nichols said, “The University of Virginia.”

During his time with the Secret Service, Harvath had been trained to detect microexpressions, subtle facial cues and body movements that suggested a subject was under stress caused by lying or an intent to do harm.

Both the pause and a shift of Nichols’ eyes told Harvath the man wasn’t being completely honest with him. “Who else do you work for?”

“ Who else ? What do you mean?”

Nichols was stalling, trying to buy time while his brain raced to come up with an appropriate answer, and Harvath knew it. This guy was not an operative. Even the greenest of field agents would have been much better trained. This guy was a civilian.

Looking at Tracy, Harvath instructed, “The gentleman obviously needs to be convinced that we’re serious. Put the gag back on him. I don’t want anyone to hear him scream when I go to work on him.”

Nichols started thrashing against his restraints as he tried to turn his head to see what Tracy was doing behind him. “No, no, no. Please don’t hurt me,” Nichols shouted. “I work for the White House.”

The man’s eyes dropped with shame at his admission and Harvath waved Tracy off with the gag. “You mean you work privately for the president.”

Nichols looked up at him but said nothing.

“You had a card in your wallet with his voice-mail number.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because,” replied Harvath, “only a handful of people have ever been given that number, and I’m one of them.”

“You work for the president?” asked Nichols.

“I used to. Now, I’m retired.”

“Then what’s this all about?”

“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” said Harvath.

“I can’t do that,” replied Nichols.

“Then you can tell the French police.”

“I can’t tell them either.”

Harvath puffed up his cheeks like a blowfish before slowly letting the air escape. “Then you’re in a very tough situation.”

Nichols’ mind was racing to find a way out of his predicament. “Call the president,” he said. “He’ll vouch for me. He’ll also tell you to let me go.”

“I’m sure he will,” chuckled Harvath. “The thing is, my girlfriend and I like to make sure all of our bases are always covered. We’re going to need you to explain to the French that she and I knew nothing about that bombing until it happened.”

“If you let me go,” implored Nichols, “the president will help you both. You can trust me.”

“I’m sure I can trust you,” said Harvath, reading the man’s face and seeing the truth, “but I don’t know that I can trust the president.”

“So you’d hand me over to the French police just to save yourselves?”

“Let me think about that,” replied Harvath as he paused less than a millisecond in thought. “Yes. Yes , we would.” Turning to Tracy, he said, “We’re done talking with this guy. Bring me the phone. I’d rather take my chances with the French police. Besides, we don’t have anything to hide.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” pleaded Nichols.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” said Harvath as he began dialing. “You had your chance.”

Nichols tried a different tack. He remembered back to when the president had given him that number and all the things he had said to him about being of such important service to his nation. Finally, he hit on something. Looking at Harvath he said, “If you were close enough to the president to have been given that number, then you must have been someone he trusted; someone who cared very much for your country.”

“I still do,” said Harvath, and then he switched to French and began speaking to someone on the other end of the phone.