Foreign Influence

by Brad Thor

  Harvath had had only intermittent e-mail contact with his boss since leaving for Europe three days ago. It was time to provide Carlton with a full debriefing, which was exactly what he did. When it was complete, he sat back and readied himself for the recriminations he was sure would follow.

  “So let me get this straight,” said the Old Man. “You trunked two Basque separatists, Tasered a madam and her bodyguard—after she kicked your tail—then bagged and dragged her to some French farmhouse where you threatened to disfigure her, then iceboarded a concierge, shot three hotel security guards, kidnapped the wife of one of Russia’s wealthiest mobsters, and are now sitting in a hotel in Marseille waiting for a callback from the man I sent you over there to apprehend. Is that about right?”

  “Pretty much. All except the part of me she kicked. It definitely wasn’t my tail.”

  “Very funny, smartass. Have you seen what happened in Paris?”

  Harvath changed his tone. “Yes.”

  “What am I supposed to tell DOD?”

  “Tell them I haven’t located the Troll yet.”

  “You want me to lie to them?”

  “Then don’t tell them anything.”

  “Which is it?” asked the Old Man.

  “Are you pulling my chain? Because I can’t tell.”

  “I could say the same thing to you. I sent you over there to pick up your little buddy and bring him back, not to be his designated hitter.”

  “He didn’t have anything to do with Rome, Reed.”

  “It doesn’t matter. DOD wants him.”

  Harvath tried to keep himself in check. His guilt over the second bombing had made him defensive. “I thought DOD wanted whoever was behind the attack.”

  “And the first rung on that ladder is your pal.”

  “I agree. But the second rung is Fournier, the third Leveque, and the fourth is Tony Tsui. We’re making progress.”

  “Tell that to the people in Paris.”

  Though Carlton probably didn’t mean it that way, the rebuke stung. “The Troll is a dead end. He had nothing to do with Rome. He was framed and the person who framed him is Tony Tsui. Tsui had prior knowledge of the attack.”

  “Do you think Rome and Paris are connected?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Harvath.

  “I didn’t ask you what you know, I asked you what you think.”

  “I think they’re connected.”

  “Me too.”

  There was silence between them. Harvath was the one to finally break it. “Would you have connected these dots any differently than I have?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to tell me my methods are too harsh?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think that I’m being too much of a cowboy?”

  “You’re doing exactly what I expected you’d do when I selected you.”

  Harvath laughed. “Are you telling me I’m predictable?”

  “I’m telling you that you’re a professional and you’re reliable. I trust your judgment. You’re the man in the field. If you have a choice between a flyswatter and a sledgehammer, would I rather you use the flyswatter? Of course. But that’s for you to decide. That’s your job. My job is to give you whatever you need to get things done.”

  “Well, what I need right now is more time.”

  “How much more?” asked the Old Man.

  “I’ll know better once I have a location for Tsui. In the meantime, tell DOD that we’re making progress.”

  “Body bags aren’t progress, Scot.”

  “I promise you,” said Harvath. “I’m going to find who did this and I’m going to make sure they never do it again.”

  “I agree with you. But first, give me something I can give DOD. If you can prove the Troll had nothing to do with this then bring me Tsui—alive. Do that and then we’ll be able to take the next step.”

  It was Sunday and the sun was just beginning to rise when Harvath’s phone rang. “I’ve got a location,” said the computer-modulated voice on the other end.

  “Where?”

  “Geneva.”

  “That’s terrific. How’d you find him?” asked Harvath.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when I pick you up. Be at the General Aviation terminal at the Marseille airport in two hours.”

  “What about customs in Switzerland?”

  “Already taken care of,” replied Nicholas.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  The white Learjet 45 touched down in Marseille and taxied to a revetment area near the General Aviation building. An attractive aviation services hostess walked Harvath to the plane. He was met at a set of air-stairs by the copilot, who offered to take his bag. Harvath politely declined and stepped aboard.

  Argos and Draco were the first to say hello. The dogs weren’t the only company Nicholas had brought with him. Surprisingly, Padre Peio had come along as well. He was dressed in a pair of tan trousers and a blue button-down shirt.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning, Father,” replied Harvath, dropping his pack on one of the forward seats. The Troll was lying on a leather couch toward the rear of the cabin. “You should have stayed in Spain. You’re not up for this.”

  “That’s exactly what I told him,” said Peio.

  “And yet here I am,” replied Nicholas as he reached for the intercom. “I want to get this over with.”

  Harvath looked at Peio. “You’ll forgive me, Father, but I would think that this is something you wouldn’t want to be mixed up in.”

  The priest smiled wistfully. “There is great evil in the world. I know that. Hundreds of people were killed yesterday. But I don’t believe that the answer is more killing.”

  “I wish it was that simple, Father.”

  “For God’s sake, Peio. Lighten up,” added the Troll. “You of all people should know what’s at stake here. When it comes to Muslim fundamentalists the only thing they respect is force. Imagine if Christian Europe had simply turned the other cheek at the Battle of Lepanto or the gates of Vienna. We’d be living in a much different world than we are now.”

  “But we’ve come a long way since the Battle of Lepanto.”

  “We may have come a long way, but they haven’t. To paraphrase Churchill, individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but Islam’s fanatical frenzy is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia is in a dog. It’s been over a hundred years since he spoke those words and yet there is still no more dangerous retrograde force in the world.

  “And before you give me that tired argument that the fundamentalists have perverted the faith, let me be perfectly clear on something. A religion must stand or fall on its own writings and holy books. The fundamentalists haven’t perverted anything. In fact, Osama bin Laden is the best practicing Muslim out there. He is practicing Islam exactly the way that violent nutcase Mohammed wanted it practiced.

  “It’s the world’s peaceful Muslims, the majority of the followers of Islam, who have perverted the faith. They have strayed. If Mohammed came back today you can bet there’d be hell to pay. He’d be lopping off heads left and right. And he’d have a lot of help too because in case you haven’t noticed, the largest killer of Muslims in the world isn’t us filthy infidels, it’s other Muslims. Fundamentalist Islam is booming, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  Peio turned to Harvath. “I’m here because I was concerned about Nicholas making this journey alone.”

  The Troll laughed as he activated the intercom and relayed instructions to the pilot. “Don’t believe him. He misses the intrigue. Don’t you, Father?”

  Harvath couldn’t help wondering if maybe that was true.

  CHAPTER 28

  Once the plane had reached its cruising altitude, Peio unbuckled his seatbelt and walked back to the galley. As he removed the trays of food that had been stocked for their flight, Nicholas explained to Harvath how he had tracked Tsu
i.

  “So in other words, you planted a Trojan horse in his computer system.”

  “A very expensive, extremely difficult to trace Trojan horse,” clarified the Troll. “He’s one of my key competitors, so I viewed it as an insurance policy. You can’t trust anybody these days.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Harvath. “Have you put one of these on my computer?”

  Nicholas looked sheepish. “When this is over, I’ll show you how to deactivate it.”

  Peio emerged from the galley and could tell from looking at Harvath that he wasn’t happy.

  “Everything okay here?” he asked.

  “Fine,” said Harvath as the priest set the food down. “Nicholas is going to buy me a new computer when I get home. A very expensive and extremely difficult to trace computer.”

  * * *

  When the Learjet landed in Geneva, it taxied to a small hangar where it was met by two Swiss customs officers in suits.

  Harvath watched through his window as the copilot deplaned and handed over their passports. The officials stamped each one, handed them back, and then disappeared.

  Once their passports had been returned, the three men deplaned and crossed the hangar to two waiting vehicles: a windowless panel van and a dark blue Range Rover. It had been decided that Peio would use the van to drive Nicholas and the dogs to the warehouse the Troll had rented, while Harvath would drive the Range Rover to the five-star Beau Rivage hotel they had traced Tsui to.

  With the airport only six kilometers away from the city, Harvath arrived at the hotel within fifteen minutes of leaving the hangar.

  It was an elegant, white stone structure in the tradition of the grand hotels of Europe. It sat on the Quai du Mont Blanc, facing the lake within sight of Geneva’s famous Jet d’Eau; a magnificent fountain which shoots an enormous plume of water over 450 feet in the air.

  Harvath valeted his car and checked into his room. He pulled out a Diet Coke and a jar of almonds from the minibar, then opened the laptop Nicholas had given him on the plane.

  According to the Troll, Tsui had used the hotel’s Wi-Fi service to plant viruses on the computers of multiple guests. Once the computers were infected, he could control them remotely, even after they had left the hotel. Without their owners being any the wiser, he used his network of zombie machines to covertly send and receive data without revealing his involvement.

  Tsui, though, had made one mistake. All of his cleverly hidden, sophisticatedly encrypted data came and went via the hotel’s Wi-Fi system. By accessing it and pushing small packets of data toward him, Nicholas believed his Trojan Horse would help them pinpoint the exact location Tsui was operating from. Or so he had hoped.

  Harvath opened the French windows that looked out across the lake, settled in at the desk, and dialed his cell phone.

  Nicholas answered on the second ring, his voice disguised as usual. “I didn’t get a chance to power the battery all the way up. This could take a while so make sure you plug the power cord in.”

  Harvath fished the cord from his pack and plugged the computer into the outlet. “Done,” he said as peered down at the Quai du Mont Blanc. “I don’t see the van. Where’s Peio?”

  “He’ll be there shortly. Now, I want you to log on to the system, open a browser window, and surf over to any site you like. I’ll take it from there.”

  Harvath did as he was instructed. After entering his room number and agreeing to the charges, he plugged in the URL for the midget and dwarf wrestling federation.

  “Very funny,” said the Troll, who was remotely monitoring the laptop.

  Glancing back out the window, Harvath saw the van pull up. “Peio’s here.”

  “Good,” replied Nicholas. “Turn up the TV and leave the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob.”

  “I’ll talk to you from the van.”

  Harvath stood up from the desk and closed the windows. Slinging his pack over his shoulder, he grabbed his Coke and his almonds and headed downstairs.

  Peio was finishing up a conversation with Nicholas when he climbed into the van and shut the door.

  “So where to?” asked Harvath as the priest ended the call and pulled away from the hotel.

  “Nicholas wants us to stay in the area. Once he pinpoints Tsui’s location, you’re going to have to move fast.”

  Harvath studied the man. “You do miss the lifestyle, don’t you?”

  “Maybe a little,” he admitted.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, motioning to several small grocery bags on the floor behind them. “I didn’t know how long we’d be out.”

  “I’m okay for now. Thank you.”

  A couple of blocks from the hotel a parking space opened up and Peio pulled in. He put the van in park, but left the engine running.

  Rolling down the window, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Harvath, who declined. The priest removed one from the pack, pulled out his lighter, and lit up.

  He took a deep drag and out of respect for his nonsmoking passenger, blew the smoke out the window. “I gave it up for Lent last year,” he said. “Put on twenty pounds almost overnight.”

  “Those things will kill you,” replied Harvath with a grin as he took a sip of his Coke.

  Peio smiled back. “My wife used to bother me all the time about my smoking. I quit once, for her.”

  “Didn’t take?”

  “I became so difficult to be around she begged me to take it back up again.”

  Harvath laughed.

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  The priest was silent for a moment. “Assuming I am correct in what you do for a living, it must be difficult finding the right woman; someone who understands the demands of your job.”

  “To be honest, Father, I found the right woman. She knows me better than anyone else in the world. She has no problem with what I do for a living. She not only supports me, she encourages me. She’s an exceptional person in that regard.”

  “Why do I detect a but?”

  Peio didn’t miss much. Harvath imagined he’d probably been a pretty good intelligence operative. “My personal life isn’t that interesting, Father.”

  “Everyone’s personal life is interesting, Scot. Yours I find particularly interesting. Tell me why you are hesitant. Were your parents divorced?”

  Harvath laughed again. “No. In fact, just the opposite. They were made for each other. After my father died, my mother never remarried.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the priest. “Is that your concern about marriage? Are you afraid something may happen to you and that you would leave this … I’m sorry, what is this woman’s name?”

  “Tracy.”

  “Are you afraid that if something happened to you that you would leave Tracy alone?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t want to die, but if that happened, Tracy is an incredibly resilient woman.”

  Peio looked at him. “So this is about having children.”

  Harvath couldn’t believe it. The man had put his finger right on it. At least he had until he added, “You’re afraid that the same thing that happened to you could happen to your children. If you died, you’d be doing exactly the same thing to them that your father did to you.”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Obviously, your father’s passing had a very profound impact on you. How old were you when he died?”

  “I was already out of high school,” said Harvath, “and if you don’t mind, Father, I’d rather not talk about this anymore.”

  “I understand,” said Peio as he took another drag on his cigarette and exhaled out the window.

  Harvath doubted it, but he let it go and the two men sat in silence for several minutes.

  “May I ask you how your father died?” said the priest.

  “He was a SEAL. He died in a training accident.”

  “Nicholas told me you had been a SEAL. Is that why?”

 
“I suppose that was part of it,” replied Harvath.

  “I think your father would be proud of you.”

  This was one of the biggest reasons Harvath hated conducting these types of ops with someone he didn’t know. What they were doing was akin to surveillance. It was grindingly boring to sit around and wait to be set loose on a target. The boredom got to some people faster than others and when it did, they always wanted to “chat.” And it was often about stuff that was entirely too personal.

  “With all due respect, Padre,” he said, “you don’t really know that much about me.”

  “Don’t I? I know you care for Nicholas. I know you care for Argos and Draco. I know you care for your country and I know you care for this woman, Tracy. You are a good man. Nicholas told me so and I can see it for myself. And no matter what has happened to you up to this point in your life, I want you to know that God wants you to be happy.”

  “Even if I want to kill all the Muslim fundamentalists in the world?”

  It took Peio a moment to ascertain whether Harvath was pulling his leg. “Let’s leave the fundamentalists out of this.”

  He was about to make a snappy remark that probably would have drawn the ire of the priest when his cell phone rang. It was Nicholas.

  “I’ve got him.”

  CHAPTER 29

  CHICAGO

  My wife called,” said Paul Davidson as John Vaughan slid back into the Bronco and handed a Styrofoam cup of coffee over to him.

  “Yeah?” replied the Organized Crime officer, pulling the passenger door shut. “What’d she say?”

  “She says she’s naming you in the divorce decree as well.”

  “Me? I only kept you out one night.”

  “Yeah, but today is punta Sunday.”

  “What the hell is punta Sunday?” asked Vaughan, vaguely recognizing the Spanish-sounding word.

  “Today’s the day, we, you know,” said Davidson awkwardly.

  “Are you serious? You only have sex with your wife on Sundays?”

  “And my birthday.”

  Vaughan started laughing.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” said Davidson, “but this is going to affect you too.”