Blowback by Brad Thor

The DEA, having been duped by the Moroccans, had nothing substantial they could charge Kalachka with, and were forced to stand down. Kalachka, though, had been wronged and intended to inflict maximum damage on the Moroccans who had set him up. Two months after checking out of the hospital, Kalachka sent the lead DEA agent a file three inches thick, which led to the absolute ruin of the Moroccans’ organization.
    The entire experience was unusual at best, but even more unusual was the friendship it spawned-a friendship between the man with the limp and the man with the scar. The relationship had actually served Harvath well on more than one occasion. Not that Ozan Kalachka was generous with information. Kalachka was the epitome of the word profiteer. The man never made a single move that didn’t somehow benefit him first and foremost. That said, Kalachka exhibited something that could only be loosely described as a sort of paternal fondness for Harvath. When all was said and done, the man liked him, and to a certain degree, Harvath felt the same way in return.
    “Fixer” was the best way to describe Kalachka and what he did for a living. He brokered everything from arms and real estate deals to crooked foreign elections, banana republic revolutions, and assassinations many felt were too difficult or too politically sensitive to attempt. Even the Israelis had employed Kalachka at one time.
    Though Israeli Kidon agents had carried out the hits, Kalachka was the person who had blueprinted the assassinations of all the members of Black September-the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Israelis hired him again in a consulting capacity in 1976 and were rewarded with the successful recovery of Israeli hostages from Entebbe, Uganda.
    In an attempt to broaden his revenue base, Kalachka, it was said, had offered his services to the United States on two separate occasions and both Presidents Kennedy and Carter had turned him down. Kennedy had said no to Kalachka’s suggestions for taking out Castro in lieu of what would become known as the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and Carter had passed on Kalachka’s ideas for how to successfully recover the American hostages from Tehran. Despite the affinity of several other countries for Kalachka’s talents and abilities, the United States had never warmed to him.
    As far as Harvath was concerned, though, as long as Kalachka was helping to organize the assassinations of known terrorists and overthrow corrupt regimes, he was okay. His dealings in the black-market arms trade were among the gray areas that were easier to look at in light of the good he’d done elsewhere.
    Kalachka was one of the few people he had ever met who not only knew who he was, but made no apologies for it. No matter how charming and cordial on the outside, the real Ozan Kalachka was a ruthless creature who worked the very outermost fringes of what was legal and would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. The hundred-thousand-dollar question at the moment, though, was what did Kalachka want from him?
    Closing his eyes, Harvath tried to put the question out of his mind and was immediately burdened by something else. If Carmichael was successful in dragging him into the media spotlight and destroying his career, what was he going to do with the rest of his life? Depending on how bad a number the senator did on him, he might or might not be able to go into the private sector as a consultant.
    Regardless, if Carmichael forced him into the spotlight, there would always be a bull’s-eye painted on his back, and no career other than what he was doing right at this very moment would ever be satisfying for him. Harvath had spent most of his adult life in service to his country and had no desire to see that change.
    For the time being, though, he had very little control over his situation. He had to trust that people like Gary Lawlor, the president, and even Chuck