Blowback by Brad Thor

academy at Quantico, the two cultures couldn’t have been more different. While the FBI focused on hiring lawyers and accountants, most DEA agents were ex-cops, or ex-military like Kampos. What’s more, they were the best close-range shooters in the business. In fact, the DEA was so good at close-quarters battle, or CQB as it was more commonly known, that they trained all of the president’s Marine One helicopter flight crews.
    When Harvath transferred from the SEALs to White House Secret Service operations, he’d been so impressed with the HMX-1 Nighthawks’ level of CQB proficiency that he had asked if he could train with them in his off time. Shooting, after all, was a perishable skill, and any law enforcement officer who carried a gun was always encouraged to log as much range time as he could-especially in his off time. The bottom line was that the more you fired your weapon, the better shooter you became, and that was certainly true in Harvath’s case, especially while Nick Kampos was his instructor.
    Harvath had learned a lot about the DEA, both on and off the range. What struck him the most was their dedication not just to their jobs but to each other. One of the guys told him a story about how they had turned a founder member of one of Colombia’s largest drug cartels and while they had him in a hotel awaiting a trial he was set to testify at, he regaled his two DEA protective agents with stories of what his immense wealth had been able to buy-local cops, state cops, judges, politicians, but never a single DEA agent.
    Though they had boots on the ground in fifty-eight countries around the world, including those of Kampos, who had put in for the Cyprus position just before Harvath left the White House, for some reason, the powers that be in Washington had never invited the Drug Enforcement Administration to sit at the big kids’ table when it came to sharing intelligence. This oddity had its pros and its cons, but for the most part, the DEA agents Harvath knew were okay with it. It meant they weren’t bound by a lot of the same rules, requirements, and restrictions as other federal agencies. It also meant, at least for right now, that Harvath had someone he could reach out to for help and be one hundred percent certain that it wouldn’t get back to Senator Helen Remington Carmichael.
    “If you don’t mind my saying so,” said Kampos as he put a little float atop each of their glasses, “you look like shit.”
    “Thanks a lot,” replied Harvath.
    “If the job’s gotten too much for you, maybe you ought to think about getting out.”
    “What are you, a career counselor now?”
    “Nope. I’m just a Wal-Mart greeter currently employed by the DEA.”
    “Get serious,” said Harvath.
    “I am being serious. If things ever get to the point where I don’t want to do the job anymore, I’m going to be the best damn greeter Wal-Mart has ever seen. But you didn’t come all this way to talk about my employment prospects. Why don’t we talk about why you’re really here.”
    “I’m visiting an old friend.”
    “Let me guess,” said Kampos. “A big fat guy who walks with a very pronounced limp.”
    “Hey, go easy on the limp,” responded Harvath. “That’s some of my best work.”
    “What could you possibly want with him?”
    Harvath tore off a piece of bread and dragged it through one of the dips the waiter had brought out. “He’s got some info related to a case I’m working on.”
    “The case you can’t talk to me about.”
    “Right.”
    “The one where you have to ask me to do your scut work for you because apparently you can’t go to anyone in DC.”
    “Right again.”
    Kampos looked at his old friend and said, “Scot, what are you into?”
    “Nothing illegal, I can promise you that.”
    “Can you? I haven’t talked to you in at least a year, and all of a sudden you pop up out of nowhere, balls-to-the-wall cloak and dagger, and ask me to run names for you on the QT because