Black Ice

by Brad Thor

  They studied shops and storefronts, looking for CCTV cameras while noting businesses that went out of their way to attract Chinese customers. Based on jammed tour buses alone, it became apparent very quickly that they would have no problem blending in here.

  After doing two drive-bys of the hotel, they pulled in at the far end of the parking lot and took their time selecting a spot. They wanted to check out as many of the parked cars as possible. This was the perfect place to watch the front door and all of the comings and goings. If there was a surveillance team outside, they needed to know that.

  Convinced that the coast was clear, they chose a parking stall and shut down the engine.

  Stepping out into the chilly air, the men stretched their backs and legs. They had been driving for hours, stopping only to refuel. Two of the men lit up cigarettes. Another walked to the water’s edge to look out over the fjord. The fourth and final man busied himself for several minutes in the backseat and then in the trunk. Once he was finished, he began unloading their luggage.

  As soon as each man had been married up with his bags, the team headed into the hotel.

  * * *

  Across the street, Chase Palmer lowered his binoculars. The Kirkenes town hall sat on a hill and its parking lot afforded an excellent view of the Thon Hotel. They had relocated there after deciding it wasn’t the best of ideas to sit in the hotel lot all day. Eventually, someone was going to notice.

  “What do you suppose was taking so long in the backseat and then the trunk?” he asked.

  “It looked like he was repacking some of the bags,” Sloane replied, scrolling through the photos she had taken. “Are those Finnish license plates?”

  Chase raised his binoculars again. “I think so.”

  “Four Chinese guys from Finland. Interesting.”

  “Maybe the car’s a rental and they just picked it up at the airport.”

  “Maybe,” said Sloane, “but those guys were stretching like it had been a much longer ride.”

  “So? Maybe they’re reindeer spotters. Four nature nerds on the trip of a lifetime. First, they check out the herds in Lapland, then they come over to see what the Norwegians have.”

  “They didn’t look like nerds to me. There was something unsettling about them.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” she considered. “They looked hard. Switched on. Like they were taking in everything around them without appearing to look like they were taking everything in. Plus, the way they slowly rolled through the lot? It was like they were checking out all the cars before deciding whether or not they were going to stop and go in. It just felt a little odd. Not how tourists would act.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, send the plate and photos to Nicholas,” Chase suggested. “It’ll give him something to do. Let’s see if he digs up anything.”

  Sloane nodded, pulled the SD card out of the camera, reinserted it into her laptop, and sent their colleague all of the information.

  “Well, that was fun,” she said after setting her camera back up. “Now what?”

  “More fun. We continue to wait.”

  CHAPTER 34

  After finishing their coffees and saying goodbye to Hilde, Mercer drove Harvath to the team’s safe house. Holidae had found them an excellent spot. In Norwegian, it was called a småbruk, or small farm. It was close enough to town but off the beaten path. The less attention they drew, the better.

  Spending time with Mercer had been interesting. Harvath wasn’t exactly sure what to take from it. Was Mercer who Harvath was going to be twenty years from now? Or was Harvath headed down the path of Reed Carlton, destined to take ever-younger operatives into the field, push the limits, and never let up on America’s enemies?

  He envied Mercer his time running and gunning with the Old Man. That was something he had never gotten to do. By the time they had met, Carlton had long since retired from fieldwork.

  What did give him hope was Mercer’s relationship with his wife. It gave him hope that there was a future with Sølvi. He had been concerned about how everything was going to work out. His conscience hadn’t been eased by the idea that some publicity-hungry Norwegian MP could get him banned from reentering the country.

  He couldn’t think about that now. He had to trust that Holidae, as she had assured him, would take care of Astrid Jensen. What he needed to take care of was his mission.

  Entering the house, he found Nicholas and the dogs in a downstairs room that had been set up as their tactical operations center.

  “What have we got?” he asked, greeting Argos and Draco, then taking a chair and sitting down.

  “The phones from the dead Russians back in Oslo have been a zero. So has their pocket litter. Sloane and Chase, though, photographed four possible suspects arriving at Han’s hotel a little over an hour ago.”

  “You’ve got my attention. What do we know about them?”

  Nicholas slowly scrolled through the photos as he narrated. “The Finnish license plate on their car traces back to a fake Internet company in Helsinki.”

  “Interesting,” said Harvath. “What about the suspects themselves?”

  “That’s where it starts to get good,” the little man replied. “We actually have one of them on our radar.”

  “For what?”

  “Between 2010 and 2012, the CIA lost nineteen of its spies in China—some of them deeply placed inside the Chinese government. It was a breach worse than what Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen revealed to the Russians. Some of the CIA assets were murdered; others were sent to prison.”

  “I remember that one was quite publicly executed,” said Harvath. “Shot him right in the head in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building.”

  “Pour encourager les autres,” Nicholas quoted, using the French expression for an action carried out to discourage dissent or rebellion.

  “It certainly didn’t make recruitment any easier over there.”

  “Which was the point. China is already one of the hardest places in the world for us to recruit intelligence assets. The assassinations and jailings were meant to send a very clear message to anyone who might even contemplate working for the CIA. If you do, your life is over.”

  “What amazes me,” said Harvath, “is that the Agency still doesn’t know how it happened. They don’t know if they had, or still have, a mole, if the covert communications channel used to message the assets was compromised… It all remains a massive unsolved mystery.”

  Nicholas nodded. “They had to burn everything down and rebuild their China operation from scratch. It continues to be some of the most protected and sensitive intelligence gathering they do—maybe even the most protected and sensitive.”

  “So what does that have to do with the man in that picture?”

  “The man in that picture, like Han, works for the Ministry of State Security in Beijing. He ran the wet-work team that assassinated the CIA’s spies in China. The spy shot in the government courtyard? That man was the shooter. He pulled the trigger. I think it’s safe to assume that the other three men with him are in the same line of work.”

  Harvath was of the same opinion. “Why are they materializing here? Why now?”

  “Does it matter?” Nicholas asked. “These guys aren’t management. They’re labor. They’re the brute squad. They do one thing and one thing only—they kill people.”

  “Okay, then who are they here to kill?”

  “Without giving it too much thought, I’m guessing they’re here to kill you.”

  “Me?” Harvath blurted.

  “They might not specifically know that you’re the target, but they know someone is onto Han and their job is to make sure nothing gets in Han’s way. That means you.”

  “What are the rules of engagement here? Has a determination been made on this guy?”

  “As in kill or capture?” asked Nicholas, who then shook his head. “He’s a paid killer. No intelligence value. He goes where they
send him. His boss back at the Ministry of State Security is the one the Agency would like to get their hands on. That’s the person Langley thinks could help them unravel how so many of their spies got exposed.”

  “So no one cares what happens to this guy?”

  “Nope. Not a soul. But I say that with all the customary caveats about not creating an international incident, not exposing and potentially jeopardizing our operation, and so forth. If you could shove him over a balcony or feed him to a polar bear without anyone being the wiser, I’m sure there’s more than a few people back at the Central Intelligence Agency who’d make sure you never paid for a drink again.”

  “It would be fitting if he met his end in the courtyard of a government building,” said Harvath.

  “If nothing else but pour encourager les autres.”

  Harvath filed that away. “If they’re here to back up Han—which, after what happened in Oslo, makes sense—do we have any better understanding of what Han is up to?”

  “Based on his skill set, the powers that be back in D.C. firmly believe this has to do with sabotage. The only strategic target in this part of the country is the GLOBUS 3 radar system at Vardø. The fact that Han is working with Sarov, whose background is with the GRU, bolsters that opinion. This is an operation of military importance.

  “Add to it the fact that Russia’s Northern Fleet appears set to conduct some sort of naval movement, and the level of certitude back home goes even higher.”

  “But certitude about what?” asked Harvath. “Are the Chinese and the Russians planning something and Han is just here to do research? Or are they about to push the button and Han is here to carry it out?”

  “I think you only need to look to what went down in Oslo, as well as the wet-work team that just showed up,” replied Nicholas. “If this was some sort of pre-attack surveillance operation, Moscow and Beijing would have already pulled the plug. The fact that they haven’t tells me that they’ve come too far to turn back. They have invested too much. I think we’ve got a front-row seat to the main event.”

  “I don’t disagree. How are you coming with getting Han’s room number at the Thon?”

  “That’s proving a little difficult. We pushed another phishing attack at them, but they didn’t bite. Our best bet is to wait for the night auditor to come on duty and try again. They’re basically glorified accountants and usually so busy, you can sneak things past them.”

  “What time are we talking about?” asked Harvath.

  “Sometime after ten p.m. Even better if we do it after midnight when the auditor is in the thick of his or her duties.”

  Harvath didn’t like having to wait that long. There was no telling if Han would even still be residing in the hotel tonight. They needed to come up with a better plan.

  “There’s got to be something else we can do,” he said.

  “If you have any other ideas, I’m all ears,” Nicholas said.

  That was the problem: Harvath didn’t have any other ideas. While he might have free rein to hit the wet-work team if the opportunity presented itself, his primary focus was on surveilling Han and ascertaining what he and the Russians were up to.

  He was about to suggest setting up some sort of surveillance on Sarov, when both his phone and Nicholas’s lit up. It was a message from Sloane and Chase. Han was on the move.

  CHAPTER 35

  The best thing Han had going for him was that it was summer and there were plenty of tourists around. However, Kirkenes wasn’t Oslo. There were only so many places he could duck into and out of in order to make sure he wasn’t being followed.

  He did have a serious advantage, though. Two members of the Chinese wet-work team were following him on foot—to make sure his trail was clean—while the other two followed in their car. Sloane and Chase had a hell of a time keeping him in sight.

  They switched back and forth every two blocks until reinforcements arrived. Once Johnson and Preisler were on the scene, it made it easier to rotate people in and out.

  Not knowing what to expect, Harvath had sent the pair on ahead while he, Haney, and Staelin loaded their vehicle with weapons and equipment. Nicholas remained back at the safe house, ready to facilitate any support they might need.

  Harvath had made sure that everyone knew about the presence of the wet-work team and to be on their guard. The last thing he wanted was for them to get the drop on any of his people.

  He also didn’t want some gunfight erupting in downtown Kirkenes. The political cost of something like that—not to mention the potential loss of civilian lives—was too steep. Unless the Chinese fired first, he wanted to do everything he could to avoid it.

  Based upon the report Sloane and Chase had given when Han had first left his hotel, he looked every inch the Chinese tourist—dark trousers, dark Polo shirt, windbreaker, white tennis shoes, and a backpack.

  Harvath’s assumption had been that the backpack contained additional items of clothing to help alter his appearance as he walked around the village, trying to shake anyone who might be on his tail. Interestingly enough, no one saw him so much as unzip his jacket.

  Perhaps having additional manpower running countersurveillance for him put him at ease. Or maybe, in order to draw in any potential pursuers, he wanted to make it look like he had let his guard down. Harvath was all too clear on what the wet-work team was capable of doing if they detected that Han was being followed.

  So, if he wasn’t using the backpack for disguises, what was it for? Was it the ultimate tourist accessory? Or was he carrying something? Harvath would have given a month’s pay to find out.

  He also would have given a month’s pay to have identified what room Han was registered in back at the Thon Hotel. To have Han out on the street along with the entire wet-work team was a gift from the gods. It was a shame that they couldn’t exploit the situation—even if it meant being a man down so that one of the team members could be over there.

  Han was taking his own sweet time. He had already visited three souvenir shops as well as a candy store. Harvath was beginning to wonder if he was just killing time until a meeting later in the day or maybe even that evening. That was when he turned a corner and vanished, just as he had done in Oslo.

  “Did he walk into another store?” Harvath asked, pressing his earbud deeper into his ear so as not to miss anything that might be said.

  “Negative,” replied Johnson, who had been tailing Han up to that moment. “It’s all houses along this block.”

  “What about vehicles?”

  “I see a white Volkswagen camper van almost at the intersection, preparing to turn left.”

  Harvath, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of their SUV, looked at Haney and said, “Don’t lose them. Go.”

  Staelin informed them that the two wet-work members had just been picked up by their colleagues, still in the same car from the hotel.

  “We’ll pick you up at the next corner,” said Harvath. “Everyone else, get back to your vehicles and fall in behind us. Let’s see where this party is headed.”

  The fact that Han and his colleagues were no longer on foot gave Harvath hope that something was about to happen—something that would explain what they were up to. The sooner he could get to the bottom of things, the sooner he could get back to Oslo. He had no desire to stay in Kirkenes one second longer than he had to.

  At the next corner, Staelin got himself into the backseat and they continued on, with Harvath cautioning Haney not to get too close. Wherever Han was headed, the wet-work team would be going as well. But until Harvath saw their car, he wouldn’t be certain they weren’t on a wild-goose chase. He alerted the team and told them to be on the lookout as well.

  Even in places with mild winters, paved roads could be a pain in the ass to maintain. Above the Arctic Circle, it was a true challenge. Consequently, the number of roads and highways in the region was limited.

  At an intersection up ahead, the car carrying the wet-work team swung in behind the campe
r van and followed as it drove onto the main route out of town. Harvath and his team had caught a nice break. Mingling with other vehicles, they merged their three SUVs onto the E6 Highway, essentially camouflaged and unremarkable.

  The challenging E6 was one lane in each direction and considered the northernmost highway in all of Europe.

  About four miles outside of Kirkenes, they hit a roundabout and continued following the E6 as it wound its way deeper into the Arctic.

  Nicholas fed them updates as they traveled, trying to puzzle together where Han and his colleagues were headed.

  It wasn’t until they hit a roundabout in Varangerbotn and branched off onto European route E75 that they figured it out. They would be taking this road to its very end—the town of Vardø, home to the GLOBUS radar system.

  CHAPTER 36

  While the drive from Kirkenes to Vardø was beautiful, with plenty of views of the Barents Sea, Harvath decided to use it to close his eyes and grab some sleep. The only shut-eye he’d gotten was on the short plane ride up from Oslo. Haney would wake him up if he was needed for anything.

  He’d been trained to go for days without sleep, but only if absolutely necessary. Even if he could get only ten minutes here or an hour there, it was much better than nothing. He knew his own limitations and how far he could push it. Knocking off for even a little bit now would greatly improve his performance.

  He also hadn’t realized how tired he was. Settling back in his seat, taking care not to aggravate his ribs, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

  When he awoke, it was because Staelin was leaning forward from the backseat and giving his shoulder a shake. “Rise and shine, princess,” the man said.

  Harvath straightened up, rubbed his eyes, and tried to get a fix on their position. “Where are we?”

  “They exited the highway,” Haney replied. “We’re on some coastal road now.”