by Brad Thor
She found a friend who quickly taught her basic skills such as typing, taking dictation, and running a desktop computer. A relative helped her phony up a résumé with a couple of sources back in Sicily who would vouch for her if the embassy ever called. After a cursory background check, she was invited in for an interview and hired on the spot.
It was obvious from the beginning that Montecalvo had zero experience and Mila, an older but very attractive member of the secretarial pool, took her under her wing. The two quickly became close friends—taking meals together, going out on the weekends, even setting each other up on dates.
What eventually became clear was that there were all sorts of people who took their clothes off for money. Mila was sleeping with various embassy employees, picking up bits and pieces of sensitive information—either through pillow talk or going through their pockets and briefcases after they fell asleep. She would then sell the information via a tidy little network she had built.
Most of it went to Western intelligence agencies based out of other embassies. Sometimes, it went to the Cosa Nostra. It had all sounded dangerous and very appealing, not to mention lucrative. Soon enough, Montecalvo was working for Mila. And when Mila returned to Russia, Montecalvo took over—and then some.
She upped her collection of information, using bolder and more sophisticated techniques. But soon, things got too hot to handle. Moscow was concerned that they had a mole in their midst in Rome.
Luckily for Montecalvo, she picked up this piece of intelligence just as the hunt was about to get started, and was able to quietly wind down her operation.
In the end, it turned out that there actually was a mole. A Russian military attaché had been recruited by British intelligence. Moscow had laid a trap and he had walked right into it. He was recalled to Russia and never seen nor heard from again.
It was enough to sour Montecalvo on being based inside the embassy. It was too dangerous. With her expertise, she figured she could be just as successful, if not more, by going private.
So after a reasonable amount of time had passed, she tendered her resignation and began her new career.
She plumbed the shadows of the sex work trade and hired a selection of attractive young girls, and boys, which she set loose on the diplomatic, political, and private industry sectors of Italy. She was both madame and spymaster. And, in addition to collecting sensitive intelligence, she also began collecting compromising intelligence.
Many of the trysts she helped orchestrate had ended up being quite valuable. Even in a country known for being the home of amore, it was amazing what powerful figures would agree to do, trade, or pay to keep their indiscretions hidden.
One thing was clear, Montecalvo was absolutely ruthless. She had been a competitor of Nicholas’s back in the day. He had done business with her a handful of times. He did not care for her at all. In fact, he had suggested the “o” in Contessa should be replaced by another vowel, which would render a much more appropriate title.
Nicholas promised to put together a file on her and have it ready by morning. They debriefed for a few more minutes and then ended their call.
When Harvath got off the phone, even in the dimly lit Land Cruiser, Sølvi could see that he was wiped out.
“If you want to get some sleep, go ahead. I’ve got this,” she said. “Norwegian women are usually very good drivers.”
Harvath smiled. He knew she had heard the entire call with Nicholas, and yet she had chosen to make a joke—right out of the gate.
Her twisted sense of humor was a sign of high intellect. That was a good thing. Harvath had always been attracted to smart women.
Lara had been smart, brilliant even. She could give as good as she got and they used to constantly make jokes back and forth with each other.
That was one of the things he missed the most about her. He missed the joy she brought him.
To have that much laughter ripped from your life was like having a limb shorn off. It was probably a heavily contributing factor as to why he had fallen into such deep despair. Lara had “gotten” him.
She had understood him—not only who he was as a man and as a professional, but also what made him smile. Inside and out, she understood him better than anyone he had ever been with. It had been a phenomenon he’d never thought possible. And once he had lost it, believed it could never be possible again.
“Thanks,” he replied. “But I need to stay awake and make sure you do everything right. How’s our speed?”
Sølvi smiled. He was an incredible smartass. She liked that. “I keep trying to set the cruise control, but every time I do, liquid splashes the windscreen.”
“Tell me about your tattoo,” said Harvath. “The Rousseau quote.”
“Sartre.”
“Right. Sartre. What does it say?”
“None of your business,” she answered.
“Interesting. Does it say that in the original French, or did you have it translated into Norwegian?”
“As if either would make a difference for you.”
“What are you saying? That I can’t appreciate nuances between French and Norwegian?”
“We have a joke in my country,” she began, stifling another smile.
“I can’t wait for this. Go ahead.”
“What do you call someone who speaks three languages?”
“Trilingual,” Harvath replied.
“Very good. How about someone who speaks two languages?”
“Bilingual.”
“And someone who only speaks one language.”
“I give up.”
As the smile broke out and spread across her face she said, “American.”
It was a good joke. Not completely accurate, but a good joke nonetheless.
“Du er søt,” he responded, in his limited Norwegian, “men du skal ikke skue hunden på hårene.” You’re cute, but you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
“Well, look who speaks Norwegian. What else can you say?”
He knew only a handful of words and phrases. Some of them were absolutely useless.
“Å stå med skjegget I postkassa,” he replied. The rough translation was standing with your beard in the postbox. It usually referred to ending up in a dumb situation that you had cheated or snuck your way into.
“Å stå med skjegget I postkassa?” she repeated, with a laugh. “Not bad. I’m glad to see at least one SAS flight attendant taught you something.”
Harvath looked at her.
She glanced back at him with a glint in her eye before returning her attention to the road. “Carl may have told Reed about my tattoo,” she responded, “but you should know that Reed told Carl some personal things about you too. Remind me, where does the call sign Norseman come from?”
Touché, thought Harvath. She knew exactly where it had come from. “Why do you think they never introduced us?”
It was a good question, but one for which she really didn’t have an answer. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Carl was protective. He had a thing about compartmentalization.”
Maybe, thought Harvath. But he had a growing feeling that it might have been something else.
Maybe their mentors knew their protégés all too well. Maybe they knew that once they had been introduced, they wouldn’t be able to pry them apart.
They chatted the rest of the way to Šiauliai, asking lots of questions, but being careful not to go too deep or too personal. Each wanted to know more about the other, but instinctively they knew there was pain on the other side and they moved cautiously.
At the air base, they unloaded their gear, grabbed something to eat, and stepped aboard their plane. This time, there weren’t any earplugs. The ride was loud and cold. Even Harvath, who was a pro at falling asleep anywhere, failed to get much shut-eye.
When the C-130 touched down at the NATO air base at Aviano in northern Italy, both Harvath and Sølvi were exhausted. A vehicle was waiting for them, and though they had been offered showers and a hot mea
l, Harvath wanted to get moving. Sølvi had agreed.
Hopping into their boxy brown Jeep Renegade, they had gotten on the road. It was a three-plus-hour drive to Lake Garda and Montecalvo the “information broker” Kovalyov had confessed to working with. Returning the favor from earlier, Harvath had taken the wheel.
There was no small talk, no witty back-and-forth during this drive. No sooner had they loaded the Jeep and discreetly rolled off the base than Sølvi was asleep in the passenger seat.
She had turned onto her right side, facing the window. He kept stealing glances at her, though knowing he needed to pay attention to his driving.
As his eyelids got heavier, he cracked his window and turned on the radio—not too loud, just loud enough that he could hear the music in order to help himself stay awake.
Nicholas had made a reservation for them at a hotel in Sirmione overlooking the lake. Judging by all of the cars, he hadn’t been kidding when he had said he had found them the last room in town. Tourist season was in full swing.
Lake Garda was the largest lake in Italy and Sirmione was a narrow promontory that jutted two miles out into the crystal-blue water from the lake’s southern shore. It was known for the thirteenth-century castle and winding cobblestone streets of its Old Town. It had been a refuge of tranquility for opera singer Maria Callas decades ago, before it had become such a mega destination.
As he eased to a stop in front of the hotel, Sølvi slowly opened her eyes and asked, “Are we here?”
“We’re here,” said Harvath.
She wanted to help him with his gear, but he told her not to worry. Checking in, he accompanied her to the room to make sure everything was okay, then came back downstairs, found a luggage cart, and, after parking, unloaded all his stuff, and headed back up to the room.
He had been gone only ten minutes, but she was already in bed, sound asleep. Grabbing the spare pillow and blanket from the closet, he made himself comfortable on the couch.
He texted Nicholas to give him a SITREP, then plugged his phone into its charger. Lying back on the pillow, he closed his eyes. Moments later, he was asleep as well.
CHAPTER 38
TUESDAY
Harvath awoke to the sound of the doorbell ringing. Sitting up, he looked at the time. It was after nine a.m.
Wearing a white bathrobe, her hair still wet from a shower, Sølvi had stepped out of the bathroom and had already answered the door.
A room service waiter in a white jacket and black tie was standing in the hall next to a cart adorned with silver cloches, baskets of bread and pastries, a carafe of ice water and one of juice, a large pot of coffee, glasses, cups, linens, and other assorted breakfast accoutrements.
The waiter thanked Sølvi for opening the door, and with a polite bow offered for her to go first, and stated that he would follow her into the living room.
Once inside, he asked where she wanted breakfast set up. “How about on the balcony?”
“Perfetto,” the waiter replied. Perfect.
While they prepped everything outside, Harvath slipped into the bathroom, splashed some water on his face, and brushed his teeth.
By the time he rejoined Sølvi, the waiter had already gone.
“Coffee?” she asked as he stepped onto the balcony and pulled out his chair.
“Yes, please.”
Sitting down, he put his napkin in his lap and lifted up his cloche.
“I tried to get you the most American breakfast they had,” she said. “Scrambled eggs, bacon, roasted potatoes. No Texas toast, though. Sorry.”
Harvath smiled and accepted the cup of coffee she had poured for him. “Thank you. And not just for the coffee. Thank you for everything back in Vilnius—with Simulik and the Russians. I should have said something last night.”
“It’s okay. You’re welcome.”
“When did you order all of this?”
“After I got back from my run.”
“You’ve already been on a run?”
She smiled. “You looked so søt while you were sleeping. I didn’t have the heart to wake you. I figured you needed the rest.”
“You’re like a Norwegian ninja. I didn’t hear anything.”
“That’s a Norwegian woman for you. Silent and deadly. Make sure you take care.”
Harvath smiled back and after a sip of coffee began his to eat his breakfast. “How was your run?”
“Educational. You’ll never imagine whose villa I ran past.”
“So many possibilities. Let me guess. The Contessa’s?”
“Exactly. She has a very nice home, by the way.”
“How’s the security?”
“Better than we’ve seen with either Landsbergis or Simulik.”
“Meaning?” he asked.
“She lives in Old Town, close to the castle. There are a lot of architectural restrictions. The cameras she has placed are subtle. You almost don’t even notice them if you’re not sure what to look for.
“In addition to the cameras, there are passive measures like walls, landscaping deterrents, and lighting. She’s actually done a good job. Her villa is low-profile, for a villa, but highly secure.”
“Guards? Dogs?”
“None that I saw or heard.”
“I’d like to get the drone up to do a little more reconnaissance,” said Harvath. “Does that seem doable?”
“There were a couple of guys flying drones out over the water. I asked them what the rules were and if they’d had any pushback from locals. They said per Italian regulations, it’s supposed to be line of sight and no higher than seventy meters.
“They admitted, though, that they’ve been flying up and down the peninsula—out of sight and up over one hundred meters—and nobody has complained. People just seem to have gotten used to drones being in all the tourist spots. And, with everyone on their phones, it’s practically impossible to tell who’s flying versus just scrolling.”
Harvath liked that. They’d be able to hide their drone right in plain sight. That brought him back to the Contessa’s security system.
“What else would you need to see in order to make a final assessment of the security system?”
Sølvi thought about it for a moment. “Ideally, I’d like to know what all the measures are, where the sensors are placed, if the property is being monitored remotely, if so by whom, are there human eyeballs—if any at all—on those cameras or is it AI, how does the feed go to the alarm company—hardwired, cellular, or both, if an alarm is triggered is it silent, and finally, who responds—private security or police, and what’s the response time? And that’s just for starters.”
“Did you have all that intel when you broke into Landsbergis’s house?”
“No, but his system was much less sophisticated.”
“Okay,” said Harvath as he excused himself from the table, went inside to grab his phone, and came back onto the balcony.
Thumbing out a text to Nicholas, he listed everything Sølvi had just asked for. Then, looking up at her, he asked, “What if we don’t take her in the house?”
The Norwegian shook her head. “You can’t take her in town. There’s too many tourists. Even on my run, first thing in the morning, I had to weave in and out of people. Maybe if we came back in February.”
“We’re not coming back in February. This is happening now.”
“I know. I was being sarcastic.”
Harvath smiled and took another bite of food. “Let’s pull the lens back a bit. What are our specific goals?”
“Simple,” said Sølvi. “We know Kovalyov sold the Contessa information about Carl and his involvement with you in the Kaliningrad operation. The question is what she did with that information. Did she reveal it or sell it to anyone? If so, who?”
That was it in a nutshell. And, if the Contessa was anything like Nicholas, he knew she was going to be obsessed with not only her personal security, but also the security of her data. People in their line of work made some serious enemies. They
also took some serious measures to protect themselves. Harvath didn’t want to stumble into an Indiana Jones–style situation where if he stepped on the wrong floor tile in the entry hall, he got a poisoned dart in the neck.
He doubted the Contessa had poisoned darts and a huge rolling boulder that would come chasing after him, but he also didn’t want to find out what her version of those things might be.
Had they more time, he would have set up extensive surveillance, developed a list of possible characters, and then would have tried to turn someone like a housekeeper or a cook.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have the luxury of time. It just wasn’t in the cards for them. They needed to get to Montecalvo ASAP.
“What if there was a way to get her outside the villa and away from the Old Town?” he asked.
The Norwegian thought about it for a few seconds. “And then what?”
“Then we grab her, put a bag over her head, and interrogate her.”
“Where would we do that? A public park? An alley somewhere? Maybe a parking garage?”
Harvath looked out over the vast expanse of water and replied, “No. On a boat.”
Sølvi followed his gaze. It was a bit half-baked, but not terrible. Once they had her out on the lake, they could keep moving. And with the roar of a motor, no one was ever going to hear her—even if she screamed her head off.
“Okay,” the Norwegian said. “Tell me more.”
“We work backward from heading out into the center of the lake. Where, onshore, do we load her onto a boat? Once we have that nailed down, we go backward even further and figure out where we intercept her.”
“So we need someplace quiet, without a lot of witnesses.”
“Exactly,” replied Harvath, opening up a map of the area on his phone and turning it around so they both could study it. “Our best plan would be to do it in the evening.”
“As in tonight?”
He checked his watch. “If we can get everything pulled together in time, yes.”
