by Brad Thor
Whether or not he returned to some bar at the southernmost point of the United States to drown himself was yet to be seen. What mattered at the moment was making sure that Proctor and Jasinski were exactly the people he believed them to be. Until he had that question answered, nothing could move forward.
A chorus of clocks ticked away upon the wall, marking the passage of time from different zones around the world. Harvath kept his eyes closed and listened, as he continued to drink his coffee. No matter what he did or didn’t do, the world still kept turning.
There was a commotion from somewhere down the hall, a flurry of activity. “They’re here,” he said to himself, opening his eyes.
Standing up, he prepared to meet his guests. It was going to be an uncomfortable reunion.
David Proctor was the epitome of the Navy maxim “High speed, low drag.” He had left his protective detail outside. They didn’t even come in and do a sweep. He had no aides, no entourage. He came exactly as the President had asked, alone—except for Monika Jasinski. Colonel Mitchell showed them to the conference room.
They had not been told with whom they would be meeting. All they had been informed of was that it was in regard to their disruption of recent terror attacks against NATO diplomats.
The flashes of recognition on their faces were immediate. Harvath held out his hand and introduced himself before anyone could blow his cover. “Admiral Proctor, I’m Donovan Brenner. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
Harvath shook his hand and then turned to Jasinski and repeated the introduction.
The Base Commander pointed out where everything was, and made sure his guests knew to pick up the conference room phone and to personally contact him if they needed anything. Once he had exited and had shut the door behind him, the questions started. Jasinski spoke first.
“Donovan Brenner? You’re not using that Stephen Hall, NATO alias anymore?”
“Not on this assignment. It all came together very fast. Everything had to be brand-new.”
“Assignment?” said Proctor, drawing out the word. “What’s with all the subterfuge? What’s going on, Scot?”
So far, the read he was getting on each of them was good. Proctor and Jasinski had been surprised to see him. The surprise had melted into happiness, but had quickly turned to concern. He had already made up his mind to pull no punches and to drop the news as soon as he was comfortable that he had registered their baselines.
“Carl Pedersen was murdered.”
“What?” responded Jasinski, shocked. “When?”
“A week ago. Maybe more. They found him at his weekend place outside Oslo.”
“Who killed him?” Proctor asked, better at keeping his composure, but still obviously taken aback.
“Why don’t you get some coffee and we’ll all sit down.”
Silence filled the room as they filled their mugs. Harvath hadn’t been wrong. This was an uncomfortable reunion.
Someone needed to tear the bandage off. Admiral Proctor decided to be that someone.
“Scot,” he said, “what you’ve been through is unspeakable. We just want you know that we are very sorry for your losses.”
Jasinski nodded. “If there’s anything we can do for you. All you have to do is say it.”
“Thank you,” Harvath responded.
He could feel the breath leaving his body, like water being sucked away from a beach before a tsunami. The anguish was building up inside him. He needed to shut it down.
“The best thing for me right now,” he added, “is not to talk about it—any of it.”
The Admiral was a compassionate man. “Understood,” he said. And that was that. It wasn’t spoken of again.
They gathered together at the head of the table, a sign of their friendliness for each other and solid relationship.
Once they were settled in and ready to restart the conversation, Harvath picked back up where he had left off.
“He was found by a neighbor. He had already been dead for several days. About four to be specific. But leading up to his murder, he had been tortured. When the killer finally finished him, it was with one round through his heart.”
“Jesus,” said Proctor, the word coming in a whisper.
Jasinski’s hand covered her mouth.
“No physical evidence has been recovered,” Harvath continued. “The Norwegians have been turning over every stone. They have no leads whatsoever. Except for one.”
“What is it?” Jasinski asked.
Raising his right index finger, Harvath pointed at himself. “Me.”
“You?” said Proctor. “I don’t get it.”
“During the time they believe Carl was being tortured, files were accessed not only on his phone and laptop, but also within the NIS database. All of them had to do with me. They believe the killer was compiling a dossier.”
“How many people even knew about your relationship with Pedersen?”
“Outside this room? Not many.”
“Wait a second,” Jasinski interjected. “You’re not here because you think we had something to do with this, are you?”
“Does the President think we were involved?” Proctor added.
Harvath shook his head. “I made it crystal clear back home that neither of you would have ever been involved in something like this.”
“Good.”
“With that said, I need to know if either of you may have mentioned Carl to anyone. Did his name appear in any of your reporting? Anything like that?”
“Reporting?” said Jasinski. “What reporting? We didn’t even take notes. And in case you don’t remember, I had no idea what kind of operation I had been sent on when I linked up with you. I went because the Admiral told me to. I reported to him and him only. I didn’t even tell my own government about it.”
Harvath believed her. One hundred percent.
“Scot,” Proctor assured him, “if someone linked you to Carl, it wasn’t through us. We kept the entire operation locked down, airtight. If you’ve got a leak, it’s someplace else.”
Harvath believed the Admiral as well. Neither one of them had directly betrayed Carl, nor did it appear as if there was an ancillary contact he needed to track down and question.
Ever the perceptive intelligence officer, Jasinski sensed that Harvath was holding out on them. It was just a feeling, but it was pretty strong. There was something he wasn’t telling them.
“Why would someone target Carl in order to build a dossier on you?” she asked.
“I’m not completely certain.”
“Rarely is anyone in our line of work completely certain. But let’s put that aside for a second. You’re holding out on us. I’m more than sure. I’m positive. What’s the rest of the story?”
She was really good—which was why he had enjoyed working with her. She had a solid moral compass, but wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty if she had to. Sometimes, in their line of work, the ends did justify the means. They were paid to save lives and protect their nations from foreign aggression. Occasionally, it was necessary for the bad guys to be shown what lengths they were prepared to go to in order to meet those goals.
“Three nights ago someone tried to kill me,” stated Harvath.
Proctor’s eyes widened. “The same person who killed Carl?”
“We’re not sure. We don’t even have a positive ID on the body.”
“At least you got him before he could get you.”
Harvath shook his head. “I shouldn’t even be here. He had me. Dead to rights. The only thing that saved me was a warning from the Norwegians and my team finding me before he could pull the trigger.”
Jasinski looked at him. “So if you didn’t recognize him, someone must have sent him, right? And I can guess who.”
“Who?”
She laughed, thinking that he was joking. “Well, it certainly wasn’t the Tibetans. After all the damage you have done to the Russians? And I’m just talking about everything that happened before they
kidnapped you. Then there was that cascade of mayhem that happened after and—”
“Cascade of mayhem?” Harvath interrupted.
“Come on, Scot. I read reports and connect dots. That’s part of the job. A few weeks after you were rescued, key figures around the Russian President Peshkov began dropping dead—including his son.”
“From what I read in the papers, his son overdosed.”
“That’s part of the job, right?” she countered. “To make it look like an accident. Except a bunch of connected ‘accidents’ quickly begin to look like an orchestrated campaign. It wasn’t random. It wasn’t dumb luck. And it wasn’t a coincidence. It was you. I knew it then and I’m even more certain of it now. In fact, I’ll go on record and say that I’m completely certain.”
Resting her case, Jasinski leaned back in her chair, raised her mug, and took a sip of coffee.
Admiral Proctor didn’t waste the moment. Looking at Harvath, he said, “You asked for our best person. Now you know why I sent Monika.”
Harvath never doubted that she was their best person. He had known it from the beginning. He also knew that she was trustworthy. So was Proctor.
“Supposedly, there’s a contract out on me. A big one,” he confessed. “One hundred million dollars. To make it even more interesting, it wasn’t just given to one assassin. It was offered to a pool. Whoever gets to me first, gets the prize money.”
“And I thought my week was off to a bad start.”
Jasinski not only had the natural talent for their line of work, but she also had the requisite sense of humor.
“So let me get this straight,” said the Admiral. “You don’t know who killed Carl. You don’t know who tried to kill you. And behind all of this, there’s allegedly a one-hundred-million-dollar contract. Does that about sum it up?”
“That about sums it up,” said Harvath, nodding.
“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in a bunker somewhere? They can’t kill you if they can’t find you. Isn’t there anyone else who can get to the bottom of this?”
It was the argument Gary Lawlor had made. That he was only making it easier on the people out there who were competing to kill him. And this was a key point upon which he had disagreed. The hardest target to hit was a moving target. It was the guy who sat still, the stationary target, who would be easier to pick off.
“I was the architect of everything that led up to Carl’s murder,” Harvath admitted. “That makes me responsible for what happened to him.”
Proctor shook his head. “The person who killed him is responsible. Not you.”
“With all due respect, Admiral, he was tortured by someone trying to get to me. The way I see it, if it hadn’t been for me, he’d still be alive. That’s why I’m here. I know every detail of what we did together. There isn’t someone else we could have put in the field who would have been able to process and sort the information the way I can.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable argument. In fact, based on everything the Admiral knew about him, Harvath probably was the best person for the job. That didn’t mean, though, that he wasn’t concerned for him. If there really was a one-hundred-million-dollar bounty on his head people would be selling out their own family members to get to him.
“So,” Proctor relented, “how can we help?”
“For right now, you’ve already done it. By clearing me to land here, arranging my flight to Lithuania, and having a car waiting—that’s all the help I need.”
“I did that, though, because I had orders from the SecDef. I didn’t know ‘Brenner’ was actually you.”
“And as long as we keep that a secret amongst us, everything else will be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I may need even more help, but it’ll depend on how everything unfolds.”
The Admiral smiled. “If it involves violating Russian airspace, providing close air support, or repositioning highly specialized aircraft to get you out, you know who to call.”
“I do,” said Harvath. “And by the way, I remain very grateful.”
“Why the hell would you go back to Lithuania?” Jasinski asked, changing the subject. “What thread could be that important?”
“It was our launching point for Kaliningrad—and was the last place Carl and I ever saw each other. There are a couple of leads there I want to run down. If I’m right, I’ll be on top of Carl’s killer in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
Harvath looked at her. “Then we should say our goodbyes here, because that means he’s going to be on top of me.”
CHAPTER 25
OUTSIDE VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
After wrapping up his meeting, Harvath had Williams drive him to the Chièvres PX to pick up food for his flight to Šiauliai. Proctor and Jasinski had offered to take him out for a meal, but he declined. He wasn’t in the mood to be social. His head was in the game, and that’s where it needed to stay.
When the C-130 Hercules was ready for takeoff, Williams pulled up as close as he could to the enormous aircraft and helped Harvath transfer his gear.
Once everything was stowed, they shook hands, Harvath thanked him, and they wished each other well.
As he boarded and found a seat, an aircrew member handed Harvath a pack of foam earplugs. Normally on missions, he brought his own. This time, though, someone else had put together his kit and he had forgotten to ask for them. The noise level in the four-engine turboprop cargo plane could be quite high. Thankfully, this crew had thought ahead. That wasn’t always the case. He had been on plenty of ops where if you weren’t prepared, you were out of luck.
The nylon webbing seats bolted to the fuselage were a far cry from the plush leather seats of the C-37B he had crossed the Atlantic on, but all that mattered was the destination, not the journey.
He rolled his earplugs and stuck them in as the C-130 thundered down the runway and lifted off. Once it was level, he unpacked his lunch and ate. He had thought about picking up a six-pack to bring on board, but had decided against it. All he needed was some overzealous MP at Šiauliai smelling beer on his breath and preventing him from driving off the base. He had too much work to do and time was of the essence.
While Landsbergis was his ultimate target, he wanted to pay Lukša, the Lithuanian truck driver, a visit first. If he really had been beaten up by the Russians, Harvath wanted that intel straight from the horse’s mouth. He wanted to confront Landsbergis having assembled as much information as possible.
Besides, going to speak with Lukša wasn’t too much of a detour. According to Nicholas, he lived in a working-class suburb of the capital. And considering the extent of his injuries, Harvath felt relatively certain the man wouldn’t be tough to track down. In fact, he would have been surprised if he wasn’t laid up at home, watching TV, and being taken care of by his wife.
Landing at Šiauliai, he was met by an Air Force officer who checked his ID and handed him the keys to a black Toyota Land Cruiser, idling on the tarmac. No further words were exchanged. After Harvath had loaded his gear, he plugged Lukša’s address into his GPS, headed for the nearest gate, and exited the base.
The first thing he noticed was a sign for a popular attraction called the Hill of Crosses, about twelve kilometers northeast of town. It had popped up when he had been online researching the best route to Vilnius. From what he understood, it was a small hill covered by a vast collection of over 200,000 wooden crosses. Like the Lithuanians themselves, some were plain, some were very ornate. A pilgrimage site dating back to the nineteenth century, it was meant to symbolize resistance to Russian rule.
It was a noble part of the country’s heritage—a solid, passionate part of its DNA. But like the human body, sometimes DNA could become corrupted and that corruption could bring forth incredible sickness, even death.
Heading southeast of town, Harvath made himself and Šiauliai a promise. He already knew what he was going to do to every person he tracked dow
n who was responsible for Carl’s death. In addition to putting each of them in the ground, no matter where in the world he was, he would send Šiauliai a cross to place upon its hill.
In a warped, messed-up way, he’d at least be leaving something behind—a legacy of sorts—his own little family of wooden crosses.
* * *
Like a lot of espionage work, the drive to Vilnius was dull and uneventful. Halfway there, he noticed a farmer’s market, and pulled off the highway.
Lithuania might no longer be part of Russia and the old Soviet Union, but Russia and the old Soviet Union were still very much a part of Lithuania. Neighbors still took an unhealthy interest in what other neighbors were doing, strangers were regarded with suspicion, and gossip spread faster than a fire in dry grass.
Harvath knew that the moment he appeared in the truck driver’s neighborhood, tongues were going to wag. He couldn’t control that. What he could control was what the neighbors were whispering. That was why he didn’t intend to hide his presence. In fact, he wanted to be as obvious as possible about why he was there and who he was going to see.
Just like a private investigator throwing on a utility worker’s reflective vest to get a closer look at a house, Harvath figured—human nature being what it was—that he could run a version of the same ruse; give the neighbors something not to be suspicious of.
He paid for his purchase, returned to the Land Cruiser, and got back on the highway. There was still over an hour left to go.
With the endless road unfolding in front of him, he could sense his jet lag trying to kick in. Rolling down the window, he turned on the radio to help him focus and stay awake.
Sandwiched between countless Europop offerings and local folk music channels, he found one playing American classic rock—on vinyl, no less, with all of the original hisses and pops.
