“Director Jameson, I warn you that you are walking a very, very fine line. I can assure you that when I speak, I am speaking for the vice president, who, per the cabinet’s invoking of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, is now acting president and commander in chief. Agent Harvath is to be suspended, period. Understood?”
Harvath knew he had nothing to lose and decided he wasn’t going to let this pip-squeak get the last word. “You’ve got more to worry about than me, you know.”
“You just won’t disappear, will you? Of course we have more to worry about than just you,” replied DaFina.
“A lot more. First, you’ve got a leak somewhere. Someone with some pretty substantial access. Those kidnappers had help. High-level help. And then-”
Against his better judgment, Lawlor tried to save him. “Scot, shut it.”
“Agent Lawlor, with all due respect, I’m going to listen to what Agent Harvath has to say, because I guarantee you these will be the last words he ever utters in his capacity as an active Secret Service agent. So,” continued DaFina as he made his way around the table so he could stand right above Harvath, “what else do you have to say? You couldn’t possibly dig your grave any deeper than you have already. Or could you?”
Standing above him was an obvious power play, meant to intimidate, but Scot Harvath wasn’t easily intimidated. In fact, the move pissed him off. He wasn’t an idiot, and he’d been trying to couch what he was planning to say as diplomatically as possible, but his anger was building and quickly getting the better of him. He fought hard to keep it under control.
Harvath had swiveled his chair to the right as DaFina approached and leaned slightly back, assuming a relaxed, nonthreatened posture. “Mr. DaFina-”
“That’s Chief of Staff DaFina to you, Harvath! Get it right. You know, it’s all starting to become clear to me how this whole thing happened. Some of the people around here might be impressed with your SEAL background, but it doesn’t impress me. You fucked up big time as the advance man. The whole Secret Service fucked up, and I don’t give a rat’s ass that you saved the president’s daughter.
“The president is gone, and I don’t need to go looking far and wide for somewhere to lay the blame. It’s sitting right here in front of me.” DaFina punctuated his next remark by poking Harvath in the shoulder with his pudgy finger. “So, if you’ve got something to say, then say it, because your career is finished!”
Harvath snapped. Grabbing DaFina’s finger, he stood up from the chair and gave the finger a good twist, making DaFina’s arm go limp, and then bent it behind him. He raised DaFina’s hand upward toward the back of his neck and leaned forward to speak into his ear. “Yeah, I’ve got something to say. First, your mother should have taught you not to point at people, especially a SEAL. There’s nothing that pisses me off more than when people point at me. It’s not very polite. Second, you and your boss are playing a very deadly game. His no-negotiating-with-terrorists line doesn’t fool anyone, especially me. You know what?”
DaFina winced in pain.
Harvath continued, “Your little call to the Syrians didn’t fool me either. It was plain to everybody in this room. Your boss is going to milk this thing for all it’s worth. And, if the president isn’t returned alive, he’ll have a one hundred percent approval rating when he bombs whomever you guys finger as the ones responsible. There’s nothing the American people like more than an all-out bombing run. Having accomplished that, your boy will be a shoo-in for president in the next election. This whole thing stinks!”
Scot let DaFina go and turned to walk toward the door. As he did, he noticed the chief of staff cock his arm back with an open hand as if he intended to slap him. Spinning, Scot just missed DaFina’s blow and brought his fist up in an uppercut to the man’s jaw. With a crack, the punch landed and blood spurted from DaFina’s mouth as his teeth clamped together, catching part of his lip.
Immediately, DaFina’s hands flew to his face as he staggered backward. Jameson waited a beat and then fished out a handkerchief and handed it to him. When DaFina saw the blood, his rage was for real. “Harvath, if you had even a prayer of surviving before, it’s gone now. You are through!”
Turning to the group, DaFina said, “Do you see what he did to me?”
This time, it was the normally quiet and reserved FBI director Sorce who spoke first. “Yeah, I saw it clear as day. You tried to strike Agent Harvath when he wasn’t looking, and he turned just in time. Looked to me like he was raising his hand to protect himself and your chin got in the way. Simple case of self-defense, as I’m sure everyone in the room will agree.”
“Self-defense? Self-defense! That’s bullshit, and you know it. What about when he grabbed my finger and twisted my arm behind my back?”
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t see that, but poking Agent Harvath is technically assault, and anything he did would have been in self-defense.”
A very pissed-off DaFina glowered at the other men and said, “And I suppose you all agree with Director Sorce?”
No one said anything; they just sat stone-faced.
“All in all,” continued Sorce, “your conduct is very unbecoming for a chief of staff, even a vice presidential one. I’d hate to think what the media would do with this if it got out.”
“Look at my lip! I can feel it beginning to swell. What am I going to say to people?”
“Well, you can say what we used to say back in Chicago when a suspect got a little roughed up. You slipped.”
DaFina gathered his folder, and when he was a safe distance away and had his hand on the doorknob, he spat, “This is not over, Harvath. You are going down. I promise you.”
34
There was no telling how long he had been lying on the cold concrete floor of Senator Snyder’s basement. What he did know was that he ached all over and couldn’t stop shivering from the waves of cold that tortured his naked body.
André had always considered himself to be in very good shape. Being a junior associate D.C. lawyer who specialized in international finance didn’t exactly require a hard body, but being in superlative health had always been his choice. To balance his regime of weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise, and also to give his mind something positive to focus on during the bleak D.C. winters, he had taken up yoga two years ago. It was a nice way to get his heart rate up when he couldn’t get to the club or it was too dreadful outside to run. He’d never had any idea that it would one day save his life.
The hog-tie position Snyder had left him in would have immobilized most, but not André. From the beginning, his focus had been on controlling his mind and his breathing, trying not to let fear overtake him. The cords around his ankles and wrists tore into his skin, but he put the pain out of his mind and tried to focus on staying calm. The rag stuffed in his mouth threatened to gag him with every breath, but he knew, on a logical as well as a very primal level, that he couldn’t give in to the urge to vomit.
With his arms drawn so tightly behind his back, any movement hurt. After struggling against his bonds several times, only to have his mind race uncontrollably ahead to what lay in store for him when the senator returned, André lay still. He assessed the situation. In his opinion, the greatest thing he had going for him, besides that he was still alive, was that he wasn’t bound even more restrictively. Despite the pain, he could move if he really wanted to. And he did.
He realized that he didn’t need his arms, legs, or his wrists to move. If he used only his pelvis and his chest, he could shuffle in a two-step inchworm process. First, lift my chest and slide it to the right, and then lift my pelvis and follow.