Outside the room, Jillian, Claudia, and Horst Schroeder listened as Harvath worked over his prisoner. He had to administer his blows very carefully. The first punch to the mouth was the only one he could allow himself to the man’s face. He’d been dreaming about that shot for years, but going forward he would have to keep himself under control. If he marked Rayburn up too much, the man would be of no use to them.

Spitting another mouthful of blood onto the floor, Rayburn looked up at Harvath and said, “If you’re going to kill me, why not just get it over with?”

“Always looking for the easy way out, aren’t you?” replied Scot as he hit the man again, this time in the solar plexus, knocking the wind from him.

As Rayburn struggled to regain his breath, Harvath began asking questions. “Where’s Emir Tokay?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rayburn, doubled over and gasping for air.

Harvath waited until the man’s breath had returned and then grabbed his chin with his hand and jerked his head upward so he could look into his face and ask the question again. “Where’s Emir Tokay?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” repeated Rayburn.

The man was lying, and Harvath knew it. It was written all over his face, which Scot now let go of and then slowly walked to the other side of the room. “I know you’re lying to me, Tim. I can see it in your face.”

“What do you see? A facial expression that lasted for only a fraction of a second and gave away my guilt? That’s a bunch of Secret Service bullshit.”

“Bullshit or not, I’ve also seen footage of Tokay’s kidnapping in Bangladesh. You should have been wearing a mask, or at the very least have chosen a better spot to pick him up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There was a new security camera on the bank across the street. When your goons opened the back door of the car door to stuff Tokay inside, the camera captured a perfect picture of you sitting on the back seat.”

Rayburn was silent.

“No snappy comeback?” asked Harvath.

“That was never my area of expertise, “He said finally. “You were always the wiseass.”

“It’s a little late to be flattering me, don’t you think?”

“See, you can’t help yourself, you never could. That’s your problem. You say whatever pops into your head and you allow yourself to blindly follow the flag. I’ve never seen anybody gobble up the duty, honor, and country bullshit the way you do.”

“That goes to show that I found something in the job other than just a paycheck. If you’re trying to insult me, you’ll have to try a lot harder than that. I’m proud of my service to my country.”

Rayburn spat out another gob of blood and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” said Harvath.

“You. You’re a fucking recruiter’s wet dream. Truth, justice, and the American way. You’ve been fed it so long, you don’t know what anything else tastes like. Step away from the red, white, and blue party line and you’ve got no idea who the fuck you are.”

“And you do?”

“You’re goddamn right I do. You and I are exactly alike.”

Harvath crossed back over to Rayburn’s chair and was about to crack him right in the jaw, but held himself back. “You and I are nothing alike.”

“The hell we aren’t, ”the man responded. “You’ve spent your entire career in both the SEALs and the Secret Service on the razor’s edge of being discharged. You’re a smart guy, but nobody ever seems to appreciate how smart, especially when you decide to six-gun things on your own.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You forget I was one of your instructors. I read your Navy jacket from cover to cover, and I watched the way you operated right up until I left the Secret Service. You may be skilled, but you never belonged with either organization. You’re too smart for them and it drives you crazy being told to sit on your ass when you know how things should be done. Welcome to life working for the government. Your superiors may have called you reckless, but that isn’t it. There’s a borderline brilliance to the way you operate, but none of them will ever see it. It’s only a matter of time before you do something that leaves them with absolutely no choice but to turn you loose-the same way they turned me loose-and then you’ll see that you and I are exactly the same. We’re defined by what we do. And trust me, once you make peace with that, you’ll be a much happier person.”

“What are you, a fucking psychologist now? You got drummed out of the Secret Service for helping assassinate a foreign dignitary.”

“Really?” replied Rayburn. “Then how come I’m not locked up in some prison somewhere?”

“You really believe your own bullshit, don’t you? The reason you’re not locked up in some prison somewhere is because you hid the evidence so deep, nobody was able to ever find it.”

“I’m surprised at you, Scot. Of all people, I would have thought that you would have been willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“Why? Because we had a few beers together back in Beltsville? Because we had been partners once? Fuck you. I’m tired of listening to your bullshit,” said Harvath as he wrapped his hand around Rayburn’s throat. “I’m going to ask you one more time, and I warn you, the more you lie to me, the harder I’m going to squeeze. Where’s Emir Tokay?”

SEVENTY

SWITZERLAND

Rayburn might have been a tough nut to crack, but there was something about Harvath choking off the oxygen to his brain that caused him to be extremely forthcoming. He admitted that not only was he in the employ of the Aga Khan, but in fact he was the man’s head of security. When it came to Emir Tokay’s kidnapping, Rayburn also came clean. He confessed that he had been involved and that he had orchestrated the kidnapping under direct orders from the Aga Khan himself. Emir Tokay was still alive, and Rayburn drew a detailed schematic of where in Château Aiglemont he was being held.

Other than that, Harvath didn’t get much more out of him. Either Timothy Rayburn was the world’s greatest liar, or he really was limited in his knowledge of the Aga Khan’s involvement with the Islamic Institute of Science and Technology and Hannibal ’s mystery weapon. Rayburn acknowledged that, per his boss’s orders, he had organized Donald Ellyson’s archeological expedition in the Alps and was its paymaster, but had no idea what the man was looking for. He claimed that until Marie Lavoine had contacted him over a year later, he had no idea that her husband, along with Maurice and Dr. Ellyson, had disappeared.

No matter how many times Harvath tried to trip him up, he couldn’t. There wasn’t a single crack in any of Rayburn’s stories. Yes, he had kidnapped Tokay, but he had no idea what the Aga Khan wanted with him. Yes, he knew the Aga Khan was involved with the Islamic Institute for Science and Technology, but he had no idea to what extent. As Rayburn so eloquently put it, all of those raghead groups were the same as far as he was concerned. His employer seemed to enjoy having an ex-Secret Service officer as his head of security. It made him feel safer. That said, Rayburn claimed the Aga Khan didn’t completely trust anyone, even his head of security. Half the time, Rayburn said his boss seemed to take a perverse pleasure in treating him like a mushroom, i.e., keeping him in the dark and feeding him shit.

Two hours later, it was Harvath who finally cracked. He was exhausted and it was obvious that they weren’t going to get anything further out of Rayburn. What they needed to focus on now was recovering Emir Tokay and, if possible, getting their hands on the Aga Khan and doing whatever was necessary to make him talk.

Though Rayburn requested some water and an opportunity to use the facilities, Harvath turned out the lights and left him tied to his chair while he went in search of someplace to get a little rest. In just under five hours, the team would have their final briefing before lifting off for Château Aiglemont.