Foreign Agent: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  The explosion of apps like Uber and Airbnb had been a godsend in his line of work. No matter what hat he wore—assassin, terrorist, spy—he didn’t need a complicated support network of safe houses, cars, and dead drops. And many of the things he did need, especially in America, were only a click away.

  The credit cards and bank accounts he used wound through false holding companies and addresses around the globe that were empty, or simply didn’t exist. Trying to track him based on his financial activity was useless. The GRU had created a maze of blind alleys and dead ends.

  And considering what Baseyev was about to undertake, they fully expected the Americans to pick every single transaction apart. But by then, it would be too late. The damage would already be done.

  • • •

  The distance from the Manassas airport to downtown Washington, D.C., was only thirty miles, but it took almost two hours in traffic.

  Baseyev had the Uber driver drop him at the Marriott Marquis on Massachusetts Avenue. It was adjacent to the convention center where he said he was attending a conference for human resource managers.

  In the lobby, he found a bellman and checked his bag in their temporary luggage storage. He then exited the hotel through another entrance.

  Somehow, he had thought Washington, D.C.—the seat of American power—would feel different. He had expected to be awed. He wasn’t.

  Turning right, he walked down New York Avenue. One thing he was struck by was how many cameras there were. Cameras were excellent for solving crimes, not necessarily for preventing them.

  With that said, software had gotten to the point where computers could tell if a bag had been left unattended, or could be directed to find things like a “man on a yellow bicycle.” Computers were not going to stop what he had planned.

  At 15th Street, New York Avenue ended and Baseyev stepped onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Instantly, he could feel an electricity course through his body.

  The defenses, the countermeasures, the things most normal people would never notice, were all around him now. The lengths to which the Americans had gone was ridiculous. All this to protect one man. One building.

  But that man and that building were both symbolic—facts not lost upon Baseyev.

  When he had drawn even with it he had to stop and look. The awe was there now. The White House and all it represented was staring right back at him through its wrought iron fence. It was dramatic.

  A tourist standing nearby asked him to take her family’s photo. He declined, politely, and began walking again.

  Four blocks later, he removed his phone and checked his GPS. Looking up, he saw the building he was headed for.

  Not too close and not too far. It was just right.

  By the time the United States figured out what it had been used for, he would be long gone.

  CHAPTER 36

  BERLIN, GERMANY

  Mikhail Malevsky had identified his handler as Viktor Sergun. Whether or not that was Russian for big fucking headache, Harvath wasn’t sure, but that’s exactly what the man was.

  Colonel Viktor Sergun was Russia’s military attaché to Germany, based out of the Russian Embassy in Berlin.

  Malevsky had also confirmed that Sergun was also Sacha Baseyev’s handler. The GRU routinely placed operatives as military attachés in order to garner them protected, diplomatic status. If they were caught engaged in espionage, the worst a host country could do was to kick them out.

  Sergun, though, had been involved in much more than espionage. He had been involved in terrorism—including the murder of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and his protective detail.

  In Harvath’s book, that voided him—just as it had Malevsky—of any protections whatsoever. The call, though, wasn’t his to make. It had to come from D.C.

  Going after Sergun meant raising the stakes again, dramatically. The Russians could consider it an act of war.

  While they could have attempted the same argument over Malevsky, it would never stick. Not when the Germans had an investigation going into his organized crime practices and the United States had enough to paint him as a mobster as well. Sergun, though, was another matter.

  Harvath had worked his way up the chain to get to Sergun. All he had to implicate the Colonel, though, was the coerced confession of Malevsky, the aforementioned mobster.

  Russia could deny everything and paint Malevsky as a criminal who had gotten caught and would say anything to make a deal.

  It would be a mistake for any of it to be made public, and the United States didn’t intend to. Harvath had been tasked to work outside the system—any system—and that’s what he would continue to do.

  Once the word came back from D.C., Harvath set his own wheels in motion. They would have to move fast. If Sergun didn’t know Malevsky had gone missing, he soon would.

  After cleaning up the barn, they ditched the State Police vehicle and anonymously tipped Bavarian law enforcement on where they could find their officers. Then Harvath and Herman drove their own cars to Berlin.

  Harvath spent the entire six-plus hour drive on his phone, engaged in encrypted conversations with the United States. He’d been away from any source of news and had no idea that ISIS had released a video of the Secretary of Defense being attacked. Pulling off into a rest area, he and Herman watched it together.

  Feelings of guilt washed over him anew. It was all connected. Somehow he was a factor in the equation. He was certain of it.

  Beyond pissed off, he got back in his car and got back on the Autobahn. For a while, he couldn’t talk to anyone. Hearing that the Secretary and his detail had been assassinated was tough enough. Seeing it was gut-wrenching.

  He let himself marinate in his anger for a while longer and then forced his mind to get refocused on what he needed to do. It wasn’t easy. The anger ate away at him like acid.

  Getting back on the phone, he tried to let the demands of figuring out a strategy divert his attention. Slowly, a plan began to come together.

  But even as it did, there were elements too sensitive to be discussed—even via encrypted communications. Those would have to wait until he arrived in Berlin and could speak with the CIA station chief directly.

  One of the other issues Harvath had to figure out was what to do with Eichel and Malevsky—both of whom were making the trip in the trunk of Herman’s BMW. They couldn’t be released. Yet hanging on to them was not only a security risk but also a major pain in the ass.

  As he neared Berlin and saw signs for the airport, a possibility took root in his mind. A lot would have to happen between where he was now and what he was thinking about.

  Looking in his rearview mirror he saw Herman flash his high beams. Harvath moved over to let him pass.

  Herman had been on his phone for a good chunk of the drive too. He didn’t want to keep the prisoners at his home in Berlin. That was a no-go. He promised Harvath he’d find them another location. And he had.

  Harvath followed him off the motorway and into an old, east-side neighborhood called Friedrichshain. When the wall went up in 1961, the boundary between the U.S. and Soviet sectors had run right along its edge. In World War II, Friedrichshain had been one of the most heavily bombed areas of the city, as the Allies targeted its factories.

  Now it was a funky neighborhood filled with young people and artists. There were cafés, pubs, and clubs, mobile phone stores, bank branches, and apartment buildings. For all its gentrification, it still had pockets of derelict and abandoned buildings. It was one of those buildings that Herman had been able to secure.

  With bars over the windows and its walls covered with graffiti, the building appeared to have once housed a produce distributor. As soon as Herman pulled into its loading area, there was the sound of a winch being engaged and the rolling steel service door beginning to rise.

  Inside were four rough-looking men dressed in bla
ck combat boots, jeans, and the black nylon flight jackets popular with the skinhead crowd.

  These men weren’t skinheads, though. They had tight, military-style haircuts and wore black tactical watches. If Harvath had to lay odds, his guess would be that they were former commandos, just like Herman.

  He followed the big BMW inside and parked next to it. Getting out, he joined his friend.

  Herman shook hands with the men and then introduced Harvath.

  Their names were Adler, Kluge, Bosch, and Farber. They had been members of Herman’s old counterterrorism unit, and now worked for his private security company. With the assignment growing more dangerous, and complex, Herman thought it would be a good idea to have a few more hands on deck.

  Three of the men—Alder, Kluge, and Bosch, would have fit in anywhere in Europe or the United States. Farber, though, stuck out.

  He had dark skin, dark hair, and very dark eyes. He looked like he would have been right at home on the streets of Riyadh or Tehran. “How’s your Arabic?” Harvath asked.

  “Bismillah al rahman al Rahim,” he replied. In the name of God, most Gracious, most Compassionate.

  Harvath knew the phrase. Every chapter in the Quran, except for the ninth, began with it.

  “Ash-hadu an laa ilaaha illallah,” he continued. “Wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah.” I bear witness that there is no god except Allah. And I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.

  Herman looked at Harvath and smiled. “Not bad, eh? German-Jewish father and Lebanese mother. They met in Hamburg.”

  Not bad at all. In fact, his Arabic was excellent. Perfect for what Harvath had planned. As long as witnesses bought it, that was all that mattered. Whether or not the Russians would buy it was something else entirely.

  Harvath glanced at his watch. He was meeting the CIA’s Berlin station chief at a bar. It was only a few kilometers from the embassy and he wanted to get there first. There were a couple of things he and Herman needed to go over, though, before he could leave.

  The man named Bosch gave them a quick tour of the building. There wasn’t much to see.

  Two defunct walk-in coolers would be used to house the prisoners. They were virtually soundproof and could be locked from the outside.

  A system of tiny, wireless cameras had been placed around the inside of the structure, as well as outside on the perimeter. They would be monitored around-the-clock.

  Two offices had been set up with cots and sleeping bags. The toilets worked and there was even a shower, though no hot water. They’d have to rough it.

  Once the tour was complete, they established a procedure for communications. Then Harvath left the building.

  • • •

  Walking the streets of Berlin, he felt an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. A lot of blood had been spilled here—by him and because of him. One of Herman’s people had even been killed.

  Harvath didn’t like that the Russians had drawn him back. No matter how badly they were punished, they kept returning for more. Their expansionist desire to reconstitute the glory of the Soviet Union was as bad as the Islamists wanting to re-create their caliphate.

  It reminded Harvath how necessary it was to confront both. Without a counterbalance, he had no doubt the world would descend into darkness and chaos.

  But what was Russia’s play now? What did Salah, ISIS, Sacha Baseyev, Sergun, and the others have to do with it? What was the endgame?

  Arriving at number 4 Mansteinstrasse, Harvath hoped to get some answers.

  As he pushed open the door of the Leydicke pub and stepped inside, it was like walking back in time—right into the heart of the Cold War itself.

  CHAPTER 37

  The E. & M. Leydicke had been owned and operated by the Leydicke family for more than one hundred years. It was a traditional German pub—dark with heavy oak tables and lots of carved wood. Its most significant feature, though, was barely visible.

  Behind the bar was a beer stein. Its base was wrapped with a piece of barbed wire. The wire had been cut in the middle of the night from the Berlin Wall itself.

  The words Für die Sicherheit was inscribed upon it. For the security. It was the motto of an elite, highly classified American black ops unit that had been stationed in Berlin during the Cold War.

  The members posed as everyday Berliners. Across the city, they had hidden weapons, gold coins, explosives, and radio equipment. If the Russians had ever overrun the wall, it had been their job to launch guerilla warfare.

  The Leydicke had been the team’s unofficial headquarters. As part of his initiation, each operative was required to sneak up onto the wall using night-vision goggles, snip a piece of barbed wire, and return without being caught by the Soviets.

  Each man then received his own, numbered stein with his piece of barbed wire wrapped around the base. Hellfried Leydicke, the bar’s owner, received his own special mug as a thank-you for supporting the unit.

  As far as Harvath knew, there were still items buried in the basement and sealed up behind the plaster walls. The entire establishment was a living time capsule.

  When Harvath had last come to Berlin, it was to rescue one of the team members. Though years had passed and the unit had been shut down, it had been reactivated. In the process, a good friend of Harvath’s—a man who had been like a second father to him—had been taken hostage.

  A complicated trail of clues had led him to number 4 Mansteinstrasse and Hellfried Leydicke—a short, balding man with wire-rimmed glasses, a gut that hung over his apron, and a wildly unkempt mustache.

  He had a reputation as a man not to be trifled with and was extremely rough with patrons he believed were not drinking enough.

  On the first day Harvath had arrived, Leydicke had given him a tough time. He pretended to have no idea what Harvath was talking about or whom he was looking for. Everything changed, though, as soon as Harvath pointed out the stein, and recounted its significance.

  Looking around now, he was disappointed. Leydicke was nowhere in sight. The pub was half full. Mostly locals, taking up all the spots at the bar.

  Harvath found a small table tucked in the back. It had a halfway decent view of the front door, but more important, would allow for a private conversation.

  Though it was what he wanted, he knew better than to order a cup of coffee. He asked for a beer and if Herr Leydicke was in.

  “Nein,” his server replied, before heading off to get his drink. It was good to see that their customer service standards hadn’t changed.

  Once the server returned with his beer, Harvath settled in to wait for the station chief to show up.

  • • •

  Helen Cartland appeared twenty minutes before their appointed rendezvous. She walked in, removed the hat she had been wearing, and began to scan the pub.

  She was an attractive woman in her late forties with short brown hair and a hip sense of style. In boots and a moss-green hunting jacket, she came off as more British than American.

  Stopping at the crowded bar, Cartland ordered a glass of white wine and took her time. She had seen Harvath, but she wasn’t in any hurry to approach. She was a professional. She wanted to get a good feel for the room and who was in it before she joined him.

  Five minutes later, she picked up her glass and walked over.

  “I’m sorry, but did we meet last year in Munich, at Oktoberfest?” she asked.

  Harvath studied her for a moment. “I think we did. It was in the Käfer tent, wasn’t it?”

  Cartland nodded. “May I join you?”

  “Please,” he replied, standing, as she took the seat across from him. Once she was seated, he thanked her for coming.

  “Washington didn’t give me much choice. Would you like to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” said Harvath.

 
“Why don’t we start with who you are?”

  “You can call me Phil.”

  Cartland paused, then replied, “Phil.”

  She obviously didn’t believe him. That didn’t matter. She didn’t need to know his real name. The less she knew, the better.

  “Okay, Phil,” she continued, “I assume you’re a green badger of some sort?”

  Green badger was a term used to describe outsiders hired by the CIA. Harvath nodded.

  “Corporate or independent contractor?” she asked.

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “It might help me understand the scope of this.”

  Harvath drained the last sip of his beer and held up the empty glass when the server went by. “You want another?” he asked, pointing at her wine.

  She shook her head.

  Harvath indicated to the server that only he needed a new drink and then turned his attention back to the station chief.

  The CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence and its National Clandestine Service were full of contractors. Many of them were even Agency alums who had retired, only to return on special contracts that paid tons more.

  “You looking to jump ship?”

  “Me?” she replied, her voice kicking up an octave. “Just curious. That’s all.”

  She was interested. That was dangerous. There was nothing wrong with someone thinking ahead career-wise. A station chief doing it openly with a stranger, though, was unsettling.

  Harvath shifted the conversation to the reason they were there. “What can you tell me about Sergun?”

  Cartland rattled off his dossier from memory. “Divorced. Well educated. Fifty-eight years old. No children.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  She shook her head.

  “Boyfriend?”

  “No romantic involvement in Berlin that we know of.”

  “How about an address?”

  Cartland removed a package of cigarettes from her purse and placed them on the table. “There’s an SD card in there. It has the whole work-up we did on him when he got posted here.”