Blowback

Grabbing a stool from one of the workbenches, he knocked the remaining pieces of glass from the windowpane as the sound of Sotheby’s security guards racing down the hallway could be heard. Reaching for the best handhold he could, Harvath pulled himself up and out of the window.

The fierce rain was being driven horizontally by the wind, and it tore at him like sheets of nails. It was all Harvath could do to hang on. The sloped roof was slick with rain and an accumulation of Paris grime. Realizing he was going to need both hands, Harvath reluctantly tucked the H amp;K back into the holster at the small of his back, sucked up the pain from his ribs, and scrambled upward.

As he reached the top of the roof, the parapet exploded in a hail of gunfire and Harvath lost his grip. He came sliding downward on the slimy tiles, grabbing frantically for any sort of handhold he could find. Clawing at the sloped surface, he was finally able to stop his precipitous slide.

Harvath struggled his way back up the roof. When he arrived beneath the parapet, he steadied himself and drew his pistol. He grabbed hold of the ledge and swung himself up and over the top. Rolling along the flat surface, he took cover behind a large stone chimney. He listened for any sign of Alomari, but all he could hear was the raging of the storm. Taking a deep breath, he tightened his grip around the pistol and sprang from his hiding place.

All of the roofs of the block’s buildings were connected, and through the driving rain, Harvath could make out the silhouette of Alomari no more than fifty yards away. With no civilians this time blocking his line of fire, Harvath didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger five times in quick succession and on the last round saw Alomari spin, as if he’d been hit in the back, and go down.

Harvath began to advance, ready to finish the job, when he heard voices behind him. The Sotheby’s security guards were scaling the roof, and there were the sounds of police sirens closing in on the street below. He had no choice. Though he didn’t like it, he had to get out of there. Spotting what looked like an access door two rooftops over, he took off at a sprint.

THIRTY-FIVE

WASHINGTON, DC

Growing up in South Philly, one thing Neal Monroe was not was a punk. He had learned early on to mind his own business and never anyone else’s. At the same time, his grandmother had brought him up as a good Christian and someone who knew the difference between right and wrong. And what his boss, Senator Carmichael, was doing was wrong. There were no two ways about it. That was why he had put the call in to Charles Anderson, tipping him off that Carmichael was on Scot Harvath’s trail. While Monroe didn’t know Harvath personally, he had learned enough about him over the past three days to know he didn’t deserve what the senator was preparing to do to him, all in her pursuit of the White House.

Contacting the president’s chief of staff, especially when he was of the opposing party, was tantamount to committing political suicide, but Neal Monroe didn’t care. He had come to Washington for one thing-to make his country a better place-and promised himself that no matter what, he would always do the right thing. If Carmichael knew what he was doing, there was no question she’d fire him. There was also no question that he probably would never find another job in DC either, but at least his conscience would be clear.

As an African American, Monroe liked to joke with the other two minority staffers in the senator’s office-a young Asian woman named Tanya, and George, a Hispanic guy who grew up in Neal’s neighbor-hood-that they formed the perfect little Rainbow Coalition right there in Carmichael’s office, demonstrating how worldly and open-minded she thought she was. Though the senator didn’t intentionally mean to be patronizing, she always was whenever she asked them how “their people” might feel about a specific issue or piece of legislation she was working on. Tanya was so removed from her Asian heritage that she was the first one to ask for a fork every time they ordered Chinese, and though George put on a good show of being of Mexican descent, he couldn’t speak a word of Spanish.

The bottom line was that Carmichael only saw what she wanted to see, and in slow-roasting Scot Harvath over an open flame, she saw her ticket to the White House. Maybe it was that his distaste for his boss had been simmering for so long that it was bound to bubble over onto the stove at some point; maybe it was because he had put himself through college on the GI bill and saw Harvath as a fellow soldier; or maybe it was just the Christian thing to do, but however you cut it, Neal Monroe didn’t care if he lost his job or not. At the end of the day, he wanted no regrets.

Once he had called Rutledge’s chief of staff, Neal felt totally absolved of any further responsibility. But all of that changed when he discovered how the senator was getting her information.