BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN
“If this guy’s not at the gate,” said Harvath into his cell phone, “I’m gonna cut Khan loose.”
Seven thousand miles away in Langley, Virginia, CIA operative Aydin Ozbek tried to put his friend at ease. “My guy is already there waiting for you. Don’t worry.”
Hoyt motioned to the cooler on the backseat.
“And nobody searches the car either,” added Harvath.
“For fuck’s sake, Scot. You’re driving onto an American military base in the middle of a war zone. If they want to search your car, they get to search your fucking car.”
“You know what, Oz? You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. We’re going to turn around and hand Khan over to the Afghans.”
“All right, all right. No inspection. I’ll let them know. Now, are there any last-minute bites at the apple I need to bend over for?” asked Ozbek.
“Let me think a minute,” said Harvath. “Considering how I’m giving you, and by you I mean the Agency, one of the highest-ranking al-Qaeda operatives since Khalid Sheik Mohammed-”
“Whom, I believe, you stole from the Afghan government,” Ozbek clarified.
“Hey, if you don’t want him.”
“Scot, you know we want him. We also know that the Afghans didn’t really catch him, so we consider him fair game.”
“Okay,” said Harvath. “What happens after you’re done with him?”
“When we’ve wrung him out like a damp dishcloth? We’ll arrange for the Afghans to recapture him.”
“That’s good enough for me. That plus a month’s worth of drinks at a bar of my choosing in the D.C. area.”
Back at Langley, Ozbek began laughing. “Feel free to grab my dick and shake the money tree.”
“Oz, you and I both know you’re going to jump at least two pay grades because of this. If I want to drink Macallan 1926 you’re buying.”
“For a month? You’re out of you’re fucking mind. I’ll buy you a case of Johnnie Green and we’ll call it even.”
“Johnnie Blue and I want it on my doorstep by the time I get home.”
“Deal. Now drive onto that base and surrender that prisoner so I can go home and beg American Express to raise my credit limit.”
“And all of the deals we made with the Afghans get honored, right?”
“Yes,” said Ozbek. “I will see to it personally.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Oz,” said Harvath. “These people risked everything for us. If we don’t live up to our end, we deserve all the problems they can cause for us, and believe me, even small villages like theirs can cause problems.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Oz, these villages have lived with the Taliban. They know them and they can be huge treasure chests of intel; don’t let the ‘failure factory’ fuck this up.”
“I’m going to make sure these villages get taken care of. The projects they want are within the scope of the budgets that have been proposed for their province. Everything is good.”
“I gave them my word,” said Harvath. “So I am going to make sure every single project happens.”
“Scot,” said Ozbek. “You’ve already blown half the budget for these projects on cell phone minutes. Would you just hump to Bagram and dump the prisoner already?”
Ten minutes later, Hoyt drove the Land Cruiser up to a little-used gate on the far side of the air base.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” asked one of several American soldiers at the guard booth armed with very atypical weapons.
“We seem to be a bit lost,” replied Hoyt. “Is this the road to Sea World?”
As the sentry smirked, Harvath leaned across his friend and, using the front name for the Agency’s air transport unit, said, “We’ve got a perishable cargo delivery for Polar Air.”
The sentry nodded and, stepping back inside the guardhouse, raised the gate and lowered the bollards.
Thanking the guards, Hoyt smiled and drove forward. Thirty yards inside the base they were greeted by a tall man with short, dark hair in blue jeans and a TAD Gear jacket. “You must be Norseman,” he said, using Harvath’s call sign as Harvath rolled down his window. “My name is Jude.”
Harvath smiled, “Nice call sign. The patron saint of lost causes. Well, it just so happens that I have someone who is a follower of a very major lost cause here with me.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Harvath pointed at Hoyt and said, “He thinks the Dolphins are definitely going to go to the Super Bowl this year.”
The man in the blue jeans didn’t laugh. “Where’s the other guy?”
“Oh, that guy,” replied Harvath. “We’ve got him wrapped up in a rug in the back.”
Opening the rear passenger door, Jude hopped in and said, “Hang a left at the first road and keep going until I tell you to stop.”
“Are we going to see Shamu?” asked Hoyt, who loved to fuck with humorless intel people. When Jude didn’t respond, Hoyt put the Land Cruiser in gear and started driving.
Jude led them to a dark aircraft hangar where several men in blue jeans helped unload Mustafa Khan from the back of the SUV.
“Don’t forget to read him his Miranda rights,” yelled Hoyt. When Jude didn’t respond, he added, “On second thought, fuck it. Who cares, right?”
Harvath put his hand on Hoyt’s shoulder and he drove the car out of the hangar and made his way across the tarmac and over to the Craig Joint-Theater Hospital.
Parking the Land Cruiser, he and Harvath pulled out the enormous Igloo cooler that had been spray-painted on the side with a red cross and the words, Rush: Human Blood Plasma.
As he was less than thirty miles north of Kabul, Hoyt had already been to see Gallagher multiple times since he had been admitted and knew exactly how to get to his room.
As he entered, he identified the other soldiers in the room and said, “Fell out of a jeep. Fell off a ladder changing a lightbulb. Slipped taking a piss. And our own Baba G, who apparently broke off his dick jerking off.”
A chorus of “Fuck you!” erupted in the room, complete with multiple middle-finger salutes.
“I’m sorry,” responded Hoyt defiantly. “We only brought beer for warriors.”
Once again the “Fuck you” chorus rose until Hoyt waved his arms to calm the men down. “Okay, okay,” he admitted. “This isn’t exactly the paper-cut ward. There may be one or two warriors sucking up some easy medical leave within these four walls, but as I’m not a guy to point fingers, I ain’t saying nothing.”
Harvath bumped Hoyt out of the way and introduced himself around the room, meeting three Army Rangers and a Green Beret.
He blamed not having come to the hospital earlier on having to mop up after Gallagher and killing another forty-plus Taliban, which roused cheers throughout the room.
“Tom, I think all of these men deserve a beer,” said Harvath, upon which Hoyt flipped open the lid of the cooler and delivered cold beer to everyone.
Baba G smiled. “How’s your back feeling?” he asked.
“Not great,” replied Harvath.
“You still taking those Motrin even though I warned you to be careful?”
“I’ve upped it,” said Harvath, holding up his bottle of beer. “Vitamin M and vitamin B.”
Gallagher pulled a plastic bag from beneath the pillow propping him up and said, “I had one of the nurses pick this up in PX for you.”
“I should have guessed,” said Harvath as he pulled a PEZ dispenser with a Marine Corps drill instructor’s head out of the bag.
“Now, while you’re frying your liver and kidneys you can think of me.”
Harvath laughed and opened his beer. “To a successful mission,” he said as he raised his bottle.
There was a television on in the corner running a story about President Alden’s resignation and the swearing in of the VP as the new commander in chief. One of the Army Rangers raised his beer and said, “To the United States of America.”
With that, all of the men in the room raised their bottles and in unison said, “To the United States of America.”