by Brad Thor
It was likely that Gashi would need surgery to remove the bullets from his left knee and shoulder, but that was so far down Harvath’s list that he couldn’t have been bothered to care. Hell, where Gashi was ultimately headed, he didn’t have a lot of need for healthy knees and shoulders.
Harvath was more concerned with making sure Nyström was covered. Carl Pedersen had already reached out to a colleague at MUST. He replied that, though Harvath’s operation hadn’t been officially sanctioned, if it truly had disrupted a Russian cell intent on promoting a Russian invasion of Gotland, they could handle the cleanup.
He had also said that if the Russians had been involved in killing Lars Lund, and if Harvath had exacted revenge, the Swedish government would probably give him a medal. If not, MUST definitely would.
Of course, MUST would need all the evidence, as well as the names of those involved—especially the Swedish nationals collaborating with the Russians.
Harvath didn’t have a problem with MUST having any of the information. They would do the right thing with it. His biggest concern was making sure that Nyström was properly recognized and not thrown under the bus for his involvement. From what Pedersen had told him, MUST was going to make sure Nyström came out on top.
They were already launching a team from Stockholm to come over and deal with the beach house, the dead Spetsnaz operatives, and the prisoners. All the prisoners, that was, except for one. Harvath and the team were taking Gashi back with them.
The MUST team would also be arranging to bring back Lars Lund’s body. There was talk of a search for Russian weapons caches on the island, which probably would take place after MUST interrogators were able to spend some time with the surviving Spetsnaz operatives.
From there, they would concoct a narrative and decide how the story would play out. Harvath, though, would already be off of Gotland and on to the next chapter—all within the promised forty-eight hours.
How quickly that next chapter would be written was now the biggest question. Dominik Gashi had not proven to be very cooperative.
Harvath’s standard operating procedure with injured detainees was that they were not to be given any pain medications if they refused to play ball. Gashi was refusing to play ball.
Harvath had seen his kind before. He was a hard, seasoned Russian operative. It wouldn’t be easy breaking him. In fact, it would take a lot of work. So Harvath had decided to bring in a specialist to speed things up. He would be flying into Brussels later that day. All they had to do was to make sure Gashi remained stable until the man got there. Harvath felt confident that they could do that.
What he wasn’t so confident about was taking off. According to the pilots, the fog didn’t look as if it was going to lift any time soon. In fact, it was forecast to get worse.
That opened up a whole new bunch of problems for the team. The longer they stayed in Sweden, the greater their chances of getting rolled up by the local authorities. Just because a MUST team was coming over to sanitize everything didn’t mean they’d go to bat for the Americans. Truth be told, they were counting on Harvath and his team to be long gone before they got there. That was what Harvath wanted, too.
Their only option was to get to the airport, board the jet, and hope to get a break in the weather that might allow them to take off. Harvath had already contacted the pilots and told them to begin their preflight checks. He wanted to be wheels-up at the very first opportunity.
As they began to make ready at the wrecking yard, Jasinski pulled him aside. She was understandably nervous, especially considering how she had lost her husband. “Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Can we fly in this weather?”
“Our pilots are exceptional. If they say we can do it, we can do it.”
“And if not?”
“Then we wait,” said Harvath. “We’re not going to take any unnecessary risks. Trust me.”
Jasinski wanted to trust him, but she didn’t believe for a second that if it were a fifty-fifty shot, that he wouldn’t push the crew to get the plane off the ground and up into the air. Though she was nervous, she tried to put her fear aside and focus on the task at hand.
The MUST team had transmitted instructions on how they wanted the prisoners secured. On Nyström’s behalf, they would reach out to his uncle and confirm that no one was coming in before Monday morning. It would be disastrous if an employee showed up and called the cops, or even worse, let the prisoners go.
They took pictures and created dossiers on each one, so that the MUST team would know who they were dealing with when they arrived. Then, after giving the men some water and a chance to relieve themselves, they secured them in a storage room, threw a tarp over the damaged police cruiser, and headed for the airport.
Harvath broke his rule about pain medication and decided to sedate Gashi. It would make him more compliant and less likely to cause a scene at the airport.
Pulling the minivan right up to the jet’s airstairs, Staelin and Haney lifted the man out of the back and carried him on board. The fog was so murky, they were confident that no one had seen anything.
Loading up the rest of their gear, they all climbed aboard, and the plane taxied out to the runway. There it sat, waiting for the fog to lift.
This was always the part that gave Harvath the most concern. Being at the mercy of a control tower produced a certain amount of anxiety in him. You could do everything right, but if the police or some other actor came and yanked you off the plane before takeoff, that was it. It was over.
The pilots were already well aware of how he felt. Though he didn’t let Jasinski overhear, he had told them that the moment they saw an opportunity, they were to take it. He wanted to get out of Sweden as soon as possible. The minutes were ticking away.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, bringing up a topic that had been on his mind all night.
“Sure,” Monika replied. “What is it?”
“When Johansson had me in the equipment shed, how did you know I was in trouble?”
“I didn’t. Not really. I just had a feeling.”
“And that’s why you had the gun?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Call it a sixth sense. Call it luck. I don’t really know. I just had a feeling something wasn’t right. Maybe I heard him pull up at the property. Maybe because you saved my life, we’re connected somehow.”
“Maybe,” Harvath replied, closing his eyes and trying to relax.
• • •
They sat quietly on the tarmac for almost an hour before a chime rang through the cabin. It was followed by the engines winding up. Finally, the fog had partially lifted and the pilots were going to make a go of it.
Harvath watched Jasinski as she snuck a worried glance out her window and then tightened her seat belt.
Moments later the massive engines roared to life and the jet went screaming down the runway. Airport buildings were barely visible as they went racing past.
The plane lifted off the ground and soared up and into the foggy night sky. They had done it.
With altitude, the air began to clear. Banking out over the Baltic Sea, the pilots pointed the plane south and headed for Brussels.
Harvath closed his eyes, but as the stress of escaping Sweden began to recede, a new pressure replaced it.
Would they be in time to stop the next attack?
CHAPTER 52
* * *
SIRKECI RAILWAY STATION, ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Turkey was at the political crossroads of West and East. It was not only a NATO member, but also had the second-largest army within the organization.
Positioned on Syria’s northernmost border, Turkey had been unhappy with the “solutions” America was pushing in the country. In particular, it didn’t like at all the idea of a thirty-thousand-member “border force” composed of Kurdish fighters, whom Ankara saw as terrorists.
For its part, America had been concerned about how Turkey was drifting ever closer to authoritarianism. An attempted coup two year
s earlier had given the current nationalist President an excuse to consolidate power and conduct a purge, jailing many of his opponents—including teachers and intellectuals. Anyone who had spoken out about him had been imprisoned.
He had been particularly ruthless in regard to the military, firing any officers he felt were too pro-West. Hundreds of military envoys to NATO were recalled. Many fled rather than be thrown in jail. Those who replaced them mirrored the President’s thinking when it came to a collective dislike of NATO.
It wouldn’t take much to collapse Turkey’s relationship with NATO, leading to its withdrawal. That was why Oleg Tretyakov had decided to launch his Istanbul attack next.
Inflaming the Turks would not only drive a deeper wedge between them and the West, but would also drive them deeper into the arms of Russia.
The Russian President had been involved in a major charm offensive with the Turkish President. By all accounts, it had been working. Spectacularly so.
Turkey had invested tens of millions of dollars in multiple Russian air-defense systems. The purchase sent shockwaves through NATO, as the Russian system was incompatible with their systems. What’s more, Turkey would have to import Russians to run the new systems and, worst of all, would likely be sharing highly classified information about the NATO air-defense systems with their Russian counterparts. It was a very, very bad development. Turkey was an anti-NATO tinderbox—all it needed was the correct spark.
The best part for Tretyakov’s plan was that Turkish nationals with deep anti-NATO sentiments were not difficult to find. In fact, there had been an abundance of them. The greatest challenge was to find competent cell members with the right skills. The bombs Tretyakov wanted were difficult to build. They were even more difficult to transport and conceal. But difficult did not mean impossible.
His GRU team had successfully recruited a handful of highly qualified young Turkish men. With degrees in chemistry, physics, and electronics, they took to the technological aspects of the job quite easily.
Tretyakov’s biggest fear was that when it came time to plant the bombs, the young men would have a crisis of conscience, and would back out, unwilling to expose civilians to death and dismemberment. That was why the cell leader position had been such an integral component.
The man chosen was a Russian patriot of incomparable magnetism. He could have even the most hard-hearted cynic eating out of his hand and committed to his cause in an afternoon.
The young men had no clue that they were being manipulated by a foreign actor. They believed NATO was a blight on their country and that this attack would drive NATO out. By driving it out, the President of Turkey would then be unshackled. He would be free to create a perfect society for the Turkish people.
It was pure propaganda, of course, but it was a message that resonated with the young men. One which they wanted and needed to hear. It was much easier to blame Turkey’s problems on NATO rather than on the Turks themselves.
So, in a small house in an Istanbul slum, the materials for the bombs were collected and the bombs assembled.
The work was nerve-wracking, requiring painstaking attention to detail. The hours were long and the home was stifling. The men were forbidden to speak with friends or family members, especially toward the end, lest they give the plot away. In fact, they weren’t even aware of the final target until the last minute.
In order to protect the operation, the bombers had been required to conduct surveillance on multiple locations. There was a list of things the cell leader had instructed them to look for and to study.
When they returned from reconnaissance missions, he would quiz them for hours, testing how thorough they had been in their observations. Sometimes, he would even follow and surveil them himself—using his observations to further critique their performance. This had the added benefit of letting the men know that they were constantly being watched. Fear, in its many forms—even fear of failure—was a powerful motivator, and the Russians were experts in wielding it with surgical precision.
On the day the attack was to take place, the cell leader gathered the men together and finally revealed their target.
The Sirkeci railway station, once the terminus for the famed Orient Express, would be jammed with travelers returning to the city after a long weekend. Looking at a floor plan of the terminal, the cell leader discussed the best locations to plant their devices in order to maximize the damage.
As they went over the details of the operation, the cell leader studied them—their body language, facial expressions, tones of voice, and what they said. He searched for any indication that even just one of them was having second thoughts. There was no such indication. The operation was a go.
Carefully, they went through their final checks and packaged the devices. Most went into suitcases. Some went into backpacks.
Their target was the Marmaray subway platform beneath the train station, where the density of travelers would be the greatest.
At the appointed time, the men headed out in their separate directions. They would all be converging on the platform at the same time, but by different means—some via connecting trains, others on foot.
Oleg Tretyakov had wanted redundancy. If one of the bombers was delayed or captured, or his device failed to detonate, he wanted to make sure that there were multiple backups.
Each of the bombers had also been given deceptive pocket litter. If any of them were discovered by police and searched, evidence on their person would suggest a completely different target. This would put police into overdrive, and fritter away their resources as they rushed to a completely incorrect location, hoping to prevent any other bombers from striking.
At one point, Tretyakov had contemplated creating a cadre of red herrings—a separate cell of useful idiots, meant to get captured and completely cut off from the real bombers. He had abandoned the idea, though, as being too complex, and actually more likely to fail. There was also the very real prospect that even providing false clues could cause the entire city to go on high alert. Simple was better. So the members of the lone cell had been dispatched.
According to the plan, they would all converge at 4:58 p.m. Based on their traffic analysis, that gave them enough time to get in place, plant their devices, and leave just as they detonated.
Using the example of the train bombings in London and Madrid, the cell leader had taught them the importance of tradecraft, and what exactly to do, and not to do. They had practiced over and over again until everything was second nature. When word had come from Tretyakov that it was time to execute, the cell leader had every confidence his men were ready to go.
At two minutes before five o’clock, the polished, brightly lit subway system was packed. Men, women, and children were returning home from spending an afternoon or the weekend outside the city. It was an unusually pleasant day along the Bosporus. There had been plenty of sun and above-average temperatures.
Now, as the travellers trudged back to Istanbul, many carrying suitcases, backpacks, or messenger-style bags, their thoughts were on tomorrow and the start of the workweek. Very few were paying attention to what was going on around them.
Even fewer noticed the suitcases and backpacks that had been left along the crowded platform, or inside the packed train cars.
As the bombs detonated, they tore through everything—flesh, bone, steel, tile, and concrete.
Aboveground, buildings shook violently. Some thought it was an earthquake. Not until smoke began to billow out of the subway entrance did people begin to realize the horror of what had just happened.
CHAPTER 53
* * *
NEW YORK CITY
It was Sunday and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations was quiet. The offices were located in a building at First Avenue and Forty-fifth Street right across from the main UN building, which ran along the East River.
Ambassador Rebecca Strum received the three Baltic States Ambassadors in her private conference room. Her staff had catered a light brunch.
Arrayed along the credenza was an assortment of pastries, meats, cheeses, fresh fruit, and quiche. There were also two large carafes of coffee—one regular, one decaf.
As the Ambassadors prepared their plates, they made small talk. Normally, this kind of talk was about the weather, what plays or exhibits they might have taken in over the weekend, or what new restaurants they had visited. This weekend, though, hadn’t been normal.
The Ambassadors had been in their respective offices working, practically around the clock. On Friday, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia had come under a variety of cyberattacks—more than the normal probes they were all used to. As the weekend had progressed, the efforts against their governments had escalated. The situation was so concerning that by Sunday morning they had requested an urgent meeting with the U.S. Ambassador.
Strum had her assistant usher all the aides out of the conference room and then closed the heavy wooden doors behind them. She wanted this conversation to be absolutely private.
An hour earlier a countersurveillance team had completed its sweep of the office and had deemed it clean. Picking up a special remote, she pressed a button that closed the heavy draperies, followed by another button, which activated the room’s countermeasures. Cell phones had been left outside the room as well. They were now secure and could chat at will.
Pouring coffee, they chose seats at the conference table and sat down. The Estonian Ambassador started things off. “Starting Friday, we saw a surge in attacks against our banking and health-care industries. We have several hospitals that have been locked out of their electronic medical records systems and an entire portion of southern Estonia where ATMs went offline.”
“The situation in Lithuania is similar,” said its Ambassador. “Though the focus has been on our energy resources. Rolling blackouts have been occurring in our major cities and multiple natural gas plants have been taken offline.”
The Latvian Ambassador spoke last. “While our cybersecurity experts have seen probes in all of these areas—especially in regard to newspapers and the websites of our political parties—our issue is less cyberwarfare and more information warfare. Friday afternoon, embarrassing information—I believe the Russians call it kompromat—was released about our President and an alleged affair from two years ago, with a member of Parliament. There was video, obviously shot in some hotel room, as well as still photos. The leakers are promising to release more tonight.
