When the info about the Wegelin amp; Company account came, he was happy to make plans for Switzerland. But the email about the attempted attack on the Bucket changed all of that. Harvath couldn’t be in two places at once. Roussard had returned to America, and Harvath knew his only chance of stopping him before his last and final plague was to return there, too.
But, actually, maybe there was a way he could be in two places at once.
The Troll had gladly arranged for Harvath’s jet. Not only did he need him to remove the threat of Philippe Roussard, but if he wanted to live, he also needed Harvath to see him as an ally.
For his part, Harvath was driven by the same two things since the beginning-a desire to prevent anything further from happening to the people he cared about, and a desire to make Philippe Roussard and whoever was behind him pay for what they had done.
Before leaving Brazil, Harvath had contacted an old friend in Switzerland. It seemed ironic that with Meg Cassidy’s wedding only days away, he was now turning for help to one of the other good women he had pushed out of his life.
Claudia Mueller was a lead investigator for the Swiss Federal Attorney’s Office and had helped him rescue the president when he’d been kidnapped and secretly held in her country. Harvath had enlisted her assistance on one other occasion, a dangerous assignment that had involved not only Claudia, but the man who was now her husband, Horst Schroeder-a police special tactical unit leader from Bern.
Before she could act on Harvath’s latest request, there were a series of things she needed from him, not the least of which was a video statement from the Troll, complete with all the information regarding Abu Nidal and the bank account he had established for his daughter at Wegelin amp; Company. If what Harvath was telling her was true, and she had every reason to believe it was, this was something she wanted to secure a warrant for and do by the book.
In spite of what everyone thought about the Swiss banking system, the world had changed since 9/11, even for them. They had no desire to help terrorists launder or hide money. Claudia felt confident that she could secure the proper paperwork to compel the bank to give her the information that Harvath needed. The only part she couldn’t guarantee was how long it would take. It could be a matter of hours, or depending on the judge, it could be a matter of weeks.
Considering that lives were at stake, she hoped it would be the former.
Before hanging up, Claudia had joked that this was the first time Harvath had ever asked her for a favor that didn’t involve putting her life in danger. While getting a Swiss bank to part with its records wasn’t exactly easy, it was definitely easier than having somebody shoot at you.
The joke had made Harvath smile. Claudia was a good woman. She also knew him well enough not to be surprised when he told her there was a second favor he needed, and that it was going to be slightly more dangerous than her trip to the bank.
With the majority of the Swiss operation entrusted to Claudia and a small percentage to the Troll, Harvath had proceeded to a private airport outside São Paulo to meet his plane.
The entire time, he was wrestling with a very bad feeling as he put together a picture of who might be behind Philippe Roussard. Of course, there was the very real possibility that Roussard had access to his mother’s account at Wegelin amp; Company, but that wouldn’t explain who had gotten him out of Gitmo. There was more to this. There was someone else involved.
The Troll had been thinking the exact same thing, but their shared conclusion was impossible. Harvath had been there the night Adara Nidal was killed, and he had seen her die.
Chapter 102
Though Harvath was traveling on his German passport as Hans Brauner and could go anywhere in the world he wanted, he had been marked a traitor, which made him a man without a country, and what was worse, he had absolutely no idea where he should be going.
In Roussard’s twisted countdown, the Bucket of Blood might have been meant for the final two plagues, but Harvath doubted it. He had a very bad feeling there was still one attack to go, and that it would represent the plague in which the waters were turned to blood.
Harvath tried to run through all of the people he knew who lived on or near water. He had grown up in California, spent a significant amount of time in the Navy, and lived on the East Coast for the last several years; the list was long. It was so long, in fact, that Harvath couldn’t keep track of all the names inside his head and had to find a pen and paper to write them all down.
It was a hopeless task. There was no telling where Roussard was going to strike next. The U. S. Ski Team facility in Park City and the Bucket of Blood in Virginia Beach were almost as random as Carolyn Leonard, Kate Palmer, Emily Hawkins, and his dog. They were all significant to him, but they were not people or places he would ever have anticipated being attacked.
After the jet had made its descent into Houston ’s Intercontinental Airport and Harvath had made his way through passport control and customs, he proceeded to the private aviation business center.
The first thing he did, after building his layers of proxy servers, was to plug in his ear bud and make hospital calls. Finney’s security teams were still in place and Harvath spoke with their captains. Ron Parker had updated each of them on the failed attack in Virginia Beach.
As a precaution, the team watching Harvath’s mother had her moved to another room, which didn’t face the street. From a car bomb perspective, Tracy was already protected.
Harvath spoke with her father, who told him that they had run additional tests and the results weren’t good. The new EEG suggested further decreased brain activity, and they had been attempting to wean her off the ventilator without any luck. Tracy was still not able to breathe on her own. There was a double downside to that, as not only could she not breathe on her own, but as long as she was on a ventilator there was still no way to conduct a full MRI to look for the exact cause of her coma and the true extent of the damage.
There was a tone of fatalism in Bill Hastings’s voice that Harvath didn’t like. “This is not what Tracy would have wanted,” he said. “All these tubes and wires. The ventilator. Remember Terri Schiavo?” Bill asked. “We had talked about her once, and Tracy told us she would never want to live like that.”
Bill and Barbara Hastings were Tracy’s parents and her next of kin, so that gave them the power to make medical decisions on Tracy’s behalf, but it sounded as if they were considering throwing in the towel.
As long as Tracy was alive, there was still hope that she might pull through, and Harvath told them so.
Bill Hastings was not as optimistic. “If you’d spoken to the doctors, Scot. The neurologists. If you’d heard what they had to say, you might feel differently.”
The man didn’t have to say it. Harvath knew he and his wife were seriously considering removing their daughter from life support. He asked them not to do anything until he could come back and be there. It seemed like a reasonable request. Though he and Tracy hadn’t been together long, their relationship was intensely close and committed.
The elder Hastings ’s response took Harvath completely off-guard. “Scot, you’re a good man. We know you cared for Tracy, but Barbara and I feel this is a family decision.”
Cared? They were talking about her as if she were already dead. Immediately, Harvath knew what he had to do. He’d find a way to get into the hospital without being apprehended. He had to. He had to be with Tracy and more important, he needed to speak with Tracy ’s father, man-to-man.