Page 87 of Edge of Honor

Carolan laughed. “We just got everything we asked for, so don’t be a pain in the ass. As soon as Director Price gets confirmation from the HHS secretary, we’ll be able to put everything in motion. In the meantime, we need to prep a script. When we reach out to Russell, the pitch has to be absolutely perfect. Zero room for error.”

While Fields took a certain pleasure in pulling her boss’s chain, she knew he was right. Weber’s shooting had probably already been reported far and wide across the sword-and-tree community of lost boys. They needed to expect that word had made it to Russell and that he would have his guard up.

That was why exploiting his son was so critical. It was the only weak spot Carolan had been able to identify. If they could use the little boy’s infirmity as a way to open the door, Russell might crack it enough to let them all the way inside.

A half hour after returning to the basement, Fields and Carolan had an update from Gallo. FBI Director Price had reached out to the secretary of health and human services. Their request had been approved. Thecomputer systems were in the process of being updated with the new information and the paperwork would be forwarded to the FBI as soon as it was complete.

In the meantime, Price asked that Carolan and Fields set aside the number two challenge coin for him and that number three be reserved for the HHS secretary.

The two FBI agents couldn’t help but shake their heads. After all the death and injury and destruction over the last couple of days, it was mind-boggling to see U.S. government agency heads preoccupied with challenge coins.

At the same time, if that was all it took to keep Price in their corner, but out of their hair, it was a bargain. When this was all over, they would design the coolest challenge coin the man had ever seen. In the meantime, they had work to do.

Now that they had the bait, they needed to place it on the hook, dangle it in front of Russell, and get him to bite.

However, years of experience had taught them both that getting a fish on the hook was one thing. Reeling it into the boat without your line breaking could be something else entirely.

CHAPTER 44

FAIRFAXCOUNTY

Harvath’s concerns about where Nicholas would fall on the Willis estate issue were well-founded. Their discussion had not gone well.

His friend’s bad mood had likely been compounded by his lack of sleep. When Harvath connected with him, he could hear the baby crying in the background until Nicholas stepped into his home office and shut the door.

The weariness in the man’s voice told Harvath many things—chief among them that Scot had been a crappy godfather and an even crappier friend. It was inexcusable that he hadn’t even thought to offer to come over with Sølvi to babysit. Nicholas and Nina were drowning and he could have easily tossed them a lifeline—especially after returning home rested and recharged from a six-month honeymoon.

He apologized to his friend and let him know that no matter what Nicholas decided to do regarding the Willis issue, he was going to pitch in and lend him a hand. It wasn’t a bribe. It was simply a matter of doing the right thing. Harvath didn’t usually drop the ball, especially not when it came to those closest to him, but he had and he needed to fix it.

Simply hearing those words had caused a shift in Nicholas. Harvath could see it in the man’s face via their encrypted video chat. His friend had taken a true interest in not only his well-being, but also his family’s. The cavalry was coming. Even if Scot and Sølvi couldn’t be there immediately, the offer of the lifeline had been extended.

It didn’t wipe out Nicholas’s reservations about the Willises havingbeen Carlton Group clients, but it did make him a little more receptive to Harvath’s arguments.

Wanting to use that shift to his advantage, Harvath believed he could win Nicholas fully over to his side by slowing everything down. He suggested they start with the personnel files McGee had already secured and see if Nicholas could uncover direct payments by Hale to the dead attackers from Ambassador Rogers’s house. Nicholas agreed to see what he could find. He made no promises beyond that.

Nicholas also made clear that he was drawing a bright line around the Willis estate. It was a line that Harvath was absolutely not allowed to cross. Nicholas not only had asked if Harvath had understood him, but had also made him repeat it back. Over the entire course of their friendship, Nicholas had never so firmly put Harvath on the spot like that.

After disconnecting the call, he returned to the kitchen to give McGee an update and to see if he had come up with any new developments.

“It’s going to take my source back at Langley a little bit of time,” he replied.

Harvath looked at his watch. A plan was forming in his mind and, regardless of what Nicholas ultimately decided, there were some very specific supplies he was going to need. There was a shop nearby where he could get them, but it would be closing soon. He invited McGee to join him.

USA Dive was a veteran-owned SCUBA shop about twenty minutes south of Harvath’s house. Calling ahead to make sure they had what he needed and wouldn’t close before he got there, he hunted down his own bag of dive gear, tossed it in the back of Haney’s Bronco, and they hit the road.

While Virginia was an extremely patriotic state year-round, all the additional red, white, and blue coming out in advance of this Fourth of July was especially noticeable.

It had always been Harvath’s favorite holiday. The story of the nation’s birth and, most importantly, its hard-won independence from Britain filled him with a deep sense of awe and pride.

He had especially been looking forward to this year’s celebration and to showing Sølvi what it truly meant to be American.

But with three attacks over as many days, with the Secret Service and the Central Intelligence Agency implicated, he was beginning to questionwhat America stood for and how so much could have changed in such a short amount of time.

Even if there was some malign, foreign threat at work, how had it been able to find so many willing American conspirators? By almost every single metric, America remained the envy of the world. In a nation defined by its freedom, its prosperity and its abundance of opportunity, how do you find citizens willing to attack and kill their fellow countrymen and women?

None of it made any sense to him.

None of it made any sense to McGee either. “We’re living in the greatest nation in history,” he said. “I’ve heard it said that if you were a soul in heaven, and could choose any time and any place to be born—not knowing anything else about what your circumstances would be—you would choose right here, right now. Our ancestors would marvel at how incredibly good we have it. Yet people seem angrier and more pissed-off than ever before.”

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