The Last Patriot

Standing up, Harvath saw the tactical rifle sitting on the counter. The magazine had been removed and placed alongside it, as well as the round that had been in the chamber. Very strange.

Harvath snatched up the round and tucked the magazine into his back pocket so the weapon couldn’t be used against them. He then rejoined Ozbek, and the two men swept the rest of the house.

Arriving at the study, Harvath knew that whoever had broken in was now long gone. The desk that Nichols had been working at was almost completely bare. All of the papers, Nichols’ laptop, his notes, as well as Jefferson’s puzzle box with his wheel cipher had vanished. The only things remaining were a stack of general reference books on Jefferson.

Harvath didn’t need to see any more to know what had happened. Matthew Dodd had found his house. The only question he had at this point was how.

It would have to wait, though. Harvath left Gary with Ozbek and Nichols, grabbed a flashlight, and headed outside. The materials that had been taken were beyond priceless. Even though he was certain Dodd was long gone, maybe he had left behind some sort of clue. With so much at stake, Harvath couldn’t just let him vanish.

Harvath swept the grounds until he found an area of bent grass and underbrush where the assassin must have been hiding. It was perfectly clean and devoid of anything useful.

Harvath traced the man’s path back toward the main road to the spot where he must have tapped into the Bishop’s Gate alarm system. While Harvath could have someone out to dust for prints, he doubted Dodd would have been careless enough to leave any. Besides, he didn’t need some technician telling him what he already knew. Matthew Dodd had broken into his home, he was certain of it. The information Harvath most needed was where Dodd had gone.

Harvath kept searching until Gary’s ambulance arrived, but he didn’t find anything else. Dodd had disappeared.

With the theft of all the Jefferson material, Harvath and his colleagues, not to mention America, had been dealt a staggering setback.

CHAPTER 74

UM AL-QURA MOSQUE

FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

D

odd had gone to great pains to try to explain to Sheik Omar that professional assassins did not kill indiscriminately. They killed only when necessary. But it was an exercise in futility. Though Omar was a devout and exceedingly intelligent man, he was incapable of grasping subtlety.

He and Waleed hated nonbelievers more than anything else-and this included Muslims who didn’t follow their purist interpretation of the Koran. Nonbelievers were considered kuffar and deserved to die.

Waleed was more pragmatic and would have understood the dangers inherent in trying to stumble through a dark house he wasn’t familiar with to attempt to kill everyone there. Neither man, however, would have understood why Dodd chose to strike a target across the back of the head with the butt of his pistol rather than kill him. So instead, he lied.

Sheik Omar sat at his desk, spinning the wheels of Thomas Jefferson’s cipher device, which rested upon the Don Quixote. “What about the others inside the house? Are they dead?”

“With the time I had available it wasn’t feasible,” replied the assassin.

Waleed stopped leafing through the pages. “You had all night.”

“I could have had two nights. It still would have been very problematic.”

Omar raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Whoever these men are, they are highly trained operatives.”

“Even so,” interrupted Waleed.

Dodd raised his voice and rolled right over him, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand what situational awareness means.”

“They had no idea you were coming. You said so yourself.”

The assassin had never liked Abdul Waleed. Nothing would have made him happier than to crush the man’s windpipe. “Killing a professional takes much care and attention to detail, especially when you intend to kill him on his own ground. Too many things can go wrong if you aren’t properly prepared.”

“So by your own admission, it isn’t impossible,” stated Waleed as if he had scored a decisive debating point.

Dodd turned his gaze to Omar. “We have everything now. They have nothing. That was my assignment and I completed it.”

“No,” said Waleed from the couch. “Your assignment was-”

“Be quiet,” ordered Omar raising his hand. He shifted his eyes from the wheel cipher to Dodd. “The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.”

The assassin looked at him. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, you cannot remove from their minds what they have already learned. Don’t assume that because you have taken away their material that you have taken away their will. They’ll keep going.”

Dodd tried to interrupt, but Omar stopped him. “How do you know they even need this material anymore? Maybe they already have everything necessary to locate the final revelation.”

The assassin didn’t need to look at Waleed to know the man was gloating.

“We need to know,” said Omar, “beyond any doubt that the threat has been completely neutralized.”

“What do you want done?”