Takedown

He knew that his was a quiet, thankless profession that could only be lived in the shadows, but he was growing very tired of being at the mercy of partisan hacks and career politicians who sought advancement by stomping on the backs of true patriots guilty of nothing more than a deep love for their country.

He was so fed up with all the crap that he’d recently presented his boss, Gary Lawlor, with a.50-caliber bullet wrapped in red tape. The bullet was designed to take out targets at extremely long distances and Lawlor understood that it represented Harvath, who was constantly being sent on missions overseas to take out terrorists. The red tape was self-explanatory.

The job might have been a bit more palatable if it afforded him time to pursue any semblance of a personal life. Most of his buddies, even his former teammates from the SEALs, were pretty much married off and starting families. Though he didn’t necessarily want to start one of his own tomorrow, it would be nice to see a point in his not-too-distant future where his career would allow him to. Of course, that presupposed finding a woman who would want to start one with him as well. Most, he found, were unable to put up with the demands of his job, which regularly sounded the death knell in his burgeoning relationships. There’d only been one woman he’d ever been able to see himself actually making a full go of it with. She was even prepared to uproot her life and move to DC to be with him, but in the end, the demands of his job had made it impossible.

The bright side of everything, if you wanted to call it that, was that if he decided to go through with leaving government service, he was not at a loss for job offers from the private sector. In fact there was one job in particular Harvath was thinking very seriously about taking-an instructor position with a world-renowned tactical training center in Colorado called Valhalla. What haunted him, though, was the fear that once he entered the private sector he would no longer be able to look in the mirror and still consider himself a patriot.

That said, it was still a decision he had to make and he knew that it would undoubtedly weigh heavily on his mind over the upcoming holiday weekend.

Rounding a bend in the otherwise deserted country lane, Harvath’s attention was drawn to more pressing matters as his vehicle was met by a police roadblock.

A smile began to metastasize across Sayed Jamal’s face. The terrorist clearly saw his salvation at hand. No matter who Scot Harvath was and what American agency he worked for, he could not legally take him from Canada against his will. This was about to end up very badly for the United States. The American had been a fool to ever remove him from the trunk. Had he left him there, the man very likely could have driven straight across the border without ever being searched. Sayed knew that it was only a matter of moments now before he would be free and then he would tell every reporter he could find about his terrible ordeal at the hands of the imperialist Americans.

Slowly approaching the roadblock, Harvath kept his cool.

“Can I see your license and registration, please?” asked a machine gun-toting officer in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform when Harvath rolled down his window.

Harvath made a show of patting his pockets and replied, “I was so excited about coming to Canada I must have forgotten to bring them.”

The officer looked around the vehicle and then said, “We get that a lot. Who is your passenger?”

“Help me!” screamed Jamal, sensing this was the only chance he was going to get at freedom. “I have been taken against my-” he continued, but was cut off when Harvath slammed his elbow into the man’s mouth.

“Don’t mind him,” said Harvath, well aware that the Royal Mounted Police not only didn’t carry machine guns, but also didn’t patrol Canada’s borders. “He’s just a little moody. It’s his time of the month.”

“Yeah,” replied the officer. “I can see the tampons.”

“I think he’s just nervous about crossing into the States.”

“I would be too,” said the CSIS agent posing as a Mountie. He then waved for the roadblock vehicles to clear the road and added, “Especially if I’d been responsible for killing and wounding all those American military personnel.”

Jamal’s bloodied face went pale. The Canadians were in on it.

“We just wanted to make sure you got your man,” said the agent. “Anything else about the operation we should know?”

“You’ll want a team to sweep his apartment. He’s got a lot of bombmaking materials in there, but other than that, it was pretty smooth.”

“Okay, then,” said the man as he tapped the roof of Harvath’s car. “Thank you for visiting Canada. Have a safe trip home.”

“We will,” said Harvath, smiling and giving a little wave as he drove away.