The Last Patriot - Brad Thor [79]
Ozbek wanted to continue the chase, but he had no idea in which direction the man had fled and he also had two operatives down.
Pulling pieces of glass from his flesh, Ozbek hurried back up the stairs to Dodd’s apartment. He needed to get Rasmussen to a hospital and hoped to God that Stephanie Whitcomb wasn’t going to need to be taken to a morgue.
CHAPTER 55
WASHINGTON, D.C.
It was just before nine-thirty in the morning local time when the Bombardier jet touched down at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
A Signature Flight Support representative met Harvath and Nichols at their plane. She helped steer them quickly through the private aviation passport control and customs area, and when the men politely declined complimentary breakfast and hot showers, she escorted them outside to where a gray Buick was waiting for them.
The men threw their bags in the trunk and Harvath slid into the front passenger seat next to the driver, while Nichols climbed in back.
“How was the flight?” asked Lawlor as he pulled away from the curb.
“Beats a cold C-130 any day of the week,” replied Harvath as he peeled off his disguise and introduced Anthony Nichols.
As they merged onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway, Harvath asked about Tracy.
“The doctors at the American Hospital have been in touch with her surgeons back here,” said Lawlor. “They still have her under observation.”
“Has the swelling gone down?”
“Not as much as they would like. They’ve started her on a new medication.”
Harvath didn’t like the sound of that. “Is she in any pain?”
Lawlor shook his head. “Apparently, the pain is the one thing they have managed to get under control.”
“Have you spoken with her?”
“No, but someone from the embassy has. She’s hanging tough and not telling anyone anything.”
Harvath looked out at the sailboats and other watercraft dotting the Potomac despite overcast skies. “How are the French authorities treating her?”
“Her medical treatment is still first and foremost. But with three cops dead and a bunch of civilians killed and wounded at the bombing, there are certain elements pressing to be allowed to interrogate her.”
“I suppose I can understand that,” Harvath admitted.
“The sooner we accomplish things on our end,” replied Lawlor, “the sooner we can give the French enough to hopefully get Tracy released.”
“Hopefully?”
“You know what I mean,” grated Lawlor.
The men rode the rest of the way in silence.
Forty minutes later, Lawlor swung the car off the road and rolled to a stop in front of a nondescript, padlocked gate. “Do you want to do the honors?” he asked, holding up a key.
Harvath took it and stepped out of the car. It was a bittersweet feeling to return home after all this time without Tracy.
Harvath unlocked the gate and pushed it open wide enough for Lawlor to drive through.
Pulling even with Harvath, Lawlor rolled down his window. “Do you want to get back in, or do you want to walk?”
“I think I’ll walk,” said Harvath.
He noticed the sign for his alarm company lying in the weeds and re-planted it, then swung the gate shut behind him.
He watched as Lawlor and Nichols disappeared down the winding, tree-lined drive and began walking.
Bishop’s Gate, as the property was known, was a small, eighteenth-century stone church that sat on several acres overlooking the Potomac River, just south of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. It was the twin of a small church in Cornwall called St. Enodoc.
Bombarded during the revolutionary war because of its status as a haven for British spies, Bishop’s Gate lay in ruins until 1882, when the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI, secretly rebuilt it and turned it into one of the ONI’s first covert-officer training schools.
Eventually the ONI outgrew the Bishop’s Gate location and the stubby, yet elegant church with its attached rectory was demoted to a document storage site before being cleared out and abandoned.
As a token of his appreciation for everything Harvath had done