Harvath eased up on the pressure. “Now, I know you’ve already been told this, but I’m going to repeat it. What I was doing in the UAE is none of your business. Do you understand that?”
The ambassador glared at him until Harvath made ready to press his wrist again.
“I understand,” said Conrad. “Totally.”
“Good,” Harvath replied. “One more thing. You are an insult to the people you are supposed to be leading. In fact, you’re an insult to anyone who has ever chosen a career of service to the United States. There are a lot of people out there risking a hell of a lot more than you to keep our country safe. When you insult the people working for you, you’re insulting all of us.
“We do what we do because we believe in something outside ourselves; something bigger. If you’re lucky enough to stay in the Foreign Service, and you ever get asked again to help a fellow American, your only answer is going to be yes. Do you understand me? Because that’s your fucking job. Not throwing parties, not riding camels, not rubbing elbows with oil-soaked sheiks just so you have some cool pictures to show off. Your job is about serving the nation, our nation. Got it?”
Harvath cranked down on his wrist to drive the point home and the ambassador nodded even faster as tears formed at the corners of his eyes from the pain.
Standing up from the bed, Harvath prepared to let go of the man’s wrist, but stopped. “By the way,” he added. “If I ever hear of you bullying any of your staff ever again, Leslie, I’m going to come find you and I’m going to tear both of your arms out of their sockets. Are we clear?”
The man kept nodding until Harvath let go of his wrist.
After using the lavatory, Harvath returned to his seat. When he passed by the ambassador, the man was pretending to be asleep. He didn’t look at Harvath for the rest of the flight.
• • •
When the G650 finally landed at Andrews Air Force Base, Harvath remained seated as the ambassador and his people deplaned. Bringing up the rear was the security agent who had pretended to be asleep while Harvath had dressed down the ambassador. He paused next to Harvath’s seat and both men locked eyes. Harvath wondered if the Diplomatic Security Service agent was going to admonish him for his less-than-professional behavior.
Instead, the agent smiled and held out his fist. Harvath gave him a bump and the man deplaned. Nothing else needed to be said. Probably everyone at the embassy in Abu Dhabi had wanted to do what Harvath had done on this flight. Very few things are as uplifting as seeing a bully get punched in the nose.
Once the ambassador’s team had deplaned, Lydia Ryan boarded. “Nice plane,” she said. “How was your flight?”
“Center seat. Crying baby,” Harvath replied as he got up and started passing the bags forward. “Give me some good news. Where do we stand on everything?”
Ryan moved aside as members of her crash team came aboard and accepted the luggage. “So far, we’re a bust on the six engineering students. We don’t have any record of them leaving the country, so we assume they’re still here. The FBI is interviewing everyone who had any contact with them via the internship program.”
“What about the phones? They were each given one and told to turn it on when they arrived.”
“Lots of people turn on their phones when they land, especially at a busy international airport like Houston’s. The NSA has compiled a list of all the phones turned on, in and around the airport, on that day. They’re trying to winnow it down now.”
“So other than that,” Harvath replied, “we don’t have anything. Nothing at all.”
Until recently, Ryan had known Harvath only by reputation. Then she had worked with him. Bureaucrats and politicians were afraid of him precisely because of the traits that made him successful. He couldn’t be put in a box and told what to do. He operated outside the box and wouldn’t stop until he had achieved whatever task had been set for him. She had zeroed in on his fear of failure almost immediately. He was one of the most driven people she had ever met.
Ryan was about to say something when a member of the crash team poked his head back in the cabin and said, “We’re good to go.”