The Last Patriot

CHAPTER 57

Even though it was Saturday, Harvath hadn’t been able to find parking right away. Like any college campus, street parking at UVA was on a first-come-first-served basis. As a result, he ended up having to park several blocks away from the Corcoran Department of History.

He didn’t mind. After the drive down, it felt good to get out and stretch his legs. It also felt nice to be on a university campus again. He was surprised to see how busy and vibrant it was even on a weekend.

After a short walk, Harvath arrived at a three-story brick building called Randall Hall. Nichols’ office was on the second floor, and Harvath used the keys the professor had given him to let himself in. He was quite surprised at what he found. It was a lot different than he had expected.

Instead of vintage academia, the décor was quite stylish. The furniture was sleek and modern. Oil paintings of early American scenes were interspersed with tasteful black-and-white photography. Nichols was turning out to be somewhat of an iconoclast.

The focal point of the room was a stunning, dark wooden Bauhaus desk positioned in front of the windows with a ribbed leather desk chair and matching blotter. A vintage 1930s black Bakelite telephone retrofitted for modern use sat next to a sleek Apple computer. The desk was polished to such a shine that Harvath could actually see his reflection in it.

Wooden file cabinets ran the length of one wall while bookshelves ran the length of the other. There were the requisite historical texts one would expect to find in the office of a Jefferson scholar, as well as tomes by leading Democratic authors from the last several decades. Removing a couple of them, Harvath noticed that many had been signed. It was an impressive collection.

He tracked down the two Jefferson volumes the professor had asked for and slid them into his bag.

In the far corner of the room, just as Nichols had said it would be, was his blue KIVA-brand athletic bag with a tennis racquet and info on UVA’s Snyder Tennis Center sticking out of it. Though Nichols claimed he was the only one with keys to his office, Harvath had worried that his choice of a hiding spot for his flash drive might have been a little too attractive for thieves.

Unzipping the main compartment of the bag, Harvath removed a pair of shorts and a Clinton/Gore T-shirt, and then found what he was looking for.

Pulling the plastic lid off a can of tennis balls, he dumped them into his hand. He had to give the professor credit. In practice, it actually was a rather ingenious way to hide his flash drive. Harvath probably never would have looked there. He found the razor-thin incision in the last ball and ripped it the rest of the way open.

The flash drive had fit perfectly inside. So snug was it that someone could have bounced the tennis ball and not even heard the device rattling within. Harvath removed the drive and slid it into his pocket. He had at least a two-hour drive in front of him and he still needed to swing by Nichols’ house to pick up his clothes, as well as some other items. Exiting the professor’s office, he pulled the door shut and locked it behind him.

Once outside, Harvath headed toward the central part of campus where his SUV was parked.

He entered the dramatic, colonnade-lined commons known as the Lawn. At the very top was the Rotunda, the architectural and intellectual heart of UVA, which Jefferson had designed himself and based upon the Pantheon in Rome.

The thought of the Pantheon brought back a flood of memories for Harvath. The last time he had seen it he’d almost been killed.

With that realization, a strange feeling washed over him. It took him a moment to realize that the feeling had nothing to do with cheating death all those years ago in Italy. It had to do with right here and right now.

As the hair on the back of his neck stood up, Harvath’s hand slid into his bag and searched for the butt of his Heckler & Koch.

Somebody was following him.