Shadow of Doubt, page 11
Not one to ever turn down a freebie, Gibert sauntered over to examine the selection. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked pointing to one of the bottles.
Powell nodded. “You’ve got a good eye. Pappy Van Winkle. One of the best American bourbons you’ll ever taste.” Uncorking the bottle, the station chief poured some into a Glencairn glass and handed it to him.
Gibert swirled the bourbon to help aerate it. Then, after taking a moment to appreciate its rich color, he brought the glass to his nose and inhaled. The aromas were amazing. It was now time to taste.
Taking his first sip, he allowed the warm liquid to cover his palate. The taste was incredible; better than he had imagined it would be.
“What do you think?” Powell asked.
“Marvelous,” Gibert replied.
“That’s the ten-year,” the station chief replied. “And you’re right, it is absolutely marvelous. Best thing I’ve ever tasted. The ambassador is a huge Pappy fan as well. He keeps a bottle of the 23 at his residence, which he breaks out for V-VIPs. Crossing my fingers that someday I’ll make the cut.” Smiling, he turned to Brunelle and asked, “What can I get for you?”
“Thank you, but I’m okay,” she replied, still in business mode.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Positive.”
“Shall we sit then?” Powell asked.
After pouring a small portion of the bourbon for himself, he took a seat on the sofa facing his guests. “Director General de Vasselot asked me to help in any way I can. So what can I do for you?”
Brunelle had made it clear to Gibert in the car that she would be doing the talking and that he should follow her lead.
“Are you familiar with a French national named Jean-Jacques Jadot?” she began.
Powell nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“Are you aware that he was found murdered this morning?”
“Yes. It’s absolutely terrible.”
Brunelle studied him. “How did you learn about it?”
“Most U.S. embassies employ a retired high-ranking police officer as a liaison. Ours put the word out as soon as he heard. Jean-Jacques and I were actually supposed to meet for breakfast this morning. He never showed.”
“Did you report this to the Paris Police, DGSI, anyone?” Gibert asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I felt it was premature.”
Gibert looked at him. “Premature? How so?”
The station chief chose his words carefully. “Jean-Jacques was a friend. He was also a colleague. I had a lot of respect for him. With that said, I don’t know anything about who killed him or why. Injecting myself into the story, especially before I had more information, could have brought unwanted attention to the embassy. It’s our policy to avoid that kind of thing.”
“Did you and Monsieur Jadot often meet for breakfast?” Brunelle asked, taking back control of the conversation.
“No. If we saw each other, it was normally over drinks,” he replied.
“Whose idea was it to meet for breakfast?”
“It was Jean-Jacques’s. He was at his cottage in Brittany over the weekend and reached out. He said he needed to talk about something and asked if I could be available first thing this morning. I told him he didn’t have to wait, that we could talk over the phone if he wanted, but he turned me down. He said that it had to be in person.”
“And you didn’t find that a little unusual?”
“Maybe,” said Powell. “But that was Jean-Jacques. He was old-school.”
“How so?”
“He was a spy’s spy. Moscow Rules and all that. Don’t call when you can write and don’t write when you can meet in person. That was one of his favorite maxims.”
“Then you believe he wanted to meet with you in order to discuss something intelligence-related?”
“I don’t know what he wanted,” Powell replied.
“Whatever it was,” Gibert interjected, “it was obviously important because he wanted to see you first thing. Was he having romantic problems? Money problems?”
“We didn’t discuss those things.”
“I thought you said you were friends.”
“We were friends,” the station chief responded. “But those weren’t the kinds of things we talked about. Jean-Jacques was a confirmed bachelor. I never heard him discuss women, or men. He didn’t talk about money either. With an apartment in the Marais and a cottage in Brittany, I figured he was doing fine.”
“So what did you talk about?” Brunelle inquired. “As friends.”
Powell thought for a moment. “He talked a lot about climbing. He enjoyed sports. History was also another favorite subject. And movies. He loved American movies.”
“Did you ever discuss business?”
“Define business.”
“Your work as intelligence operatives.”
“On occasion. As appropriate.”
“Did you first meet each other here in Paris?” she asked, testing his truthfulness.
The station chief shook his head. “No. In Beirut. We were both stationed there at the same time.”
“From what I understand, Jadot was recalled. He didn’t finish out his time in Beirut.”
“Correct.”
“Do you know why?”
Powell swirled the bourbon in his glass. “Jean-Jacques discovered that the French ambassador had been turned by the Russians.”
Brunelle looked at him. “He was absolutely certain of that?”
“One hundred percent. But when he transmitted the information back to Paris, there was quite a bit of foot-dragging. The ambassador was extremely well-connected. If he was outed, it was going to cause a lot of headaches and a lot of embarrassment for the Élysée Palace.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, while he waited for an answer, Jean-Jacques kept sending updates to headquarters, along with ideas on how they might take advantage of the ambassador having been compromised. His ultimate desire was to double the ambassador back against the Russians. But failing that, he wanted to limit the classified material the man was receiving and possibly even start feeding him bogus intel in the hopes that it would be passed along to Moscow.”
“And was he successful?”
Once more, the station chief shook his head. “The DGSE was getting ready to send a special counterintelligence team to Beirut to handle the situation. Jean-Jacques believed that they were going to quietly remove the ambassador and do any necessary damage control. When he yet again confronted headquarters about it, they accused him of insubordination and brought him home. Shortly after Jean-Jacques arrived back in Paris, the ambassador died by suicide.”
“You seem to know a great deal about the situation,” said Brunelle. “How is that?”
“Beirut is a big city, but it’s a small town when it comes to expats, especially those in our line of work. The DGSE and the CIA cooperated on several intelligence-gathering assignments. That’s how Jean-Jacques and I became friendly. At the end, when he was being recalled, he was pretty angry. He was also concerned.”
“About what?”
“He was worried that the French ambassador might not be the only one who had been compromised. The deeper he dug, the more convinced he was that he was correct. If the ambassador wasn’t removed, if he was left in his position, Jean-Jacques was concerned what kind of damage could be done going forward.”
“So he read you in?”
“Yes,” said Powell, taking a sip of his drink. “He didn’t trust anyone at the DGSE or at the embassy any longer, but he trusted me and asked me to keep an eye on things.”
“Did you or Monsieur Jadot ever confront the ambassador?”
“No, neither of us did.”
“Then what pushed him to suicide? The timing seems incredibly coincidental.”
“I agree,” the station chief replied. “According to Jean-Jacques, the ambassador had no known history of depression or suicidal ideation. His thinking was that if the Russians had indeed compromised other people working for the French government, maybe one of them had leaked Jean-Jacques’s reports back to Moscow. If the Russians learned that the DGSE was on to the ambassador, maybe they murdered him and made it look like a suicide.”
“Why not just murder Jadot instead?” Brunelle asked.
“I think by that point, considering all the reports he had sent back to headquarters, the cat was already out of the bag. It was probably just easier to murder the ambassador, make it look like a suicide, and cut their losses. But you’re not incorrect. I think part of the reason Jean-Jacques told me everything was in case he ended up dying, especially if it was under suspicious circumstances, at least someone would still be alive to pursue the truth.”
“Perhaps that’s why he wanted breakfast with you this morning,” she said, thinking out loud. “Maybe he needed to share something with you in case anything happened to him. Any idea what that might have been?”
“Might have been?” Powell replied. “Sure, I have an idea. But without additional information, without evidence, it would only be speculation.”
“Speculation,” Brunelle offered, “is just another word for hypothesis. It’s ninety percent of what we do at this stage.”
Once again, the station chief chose his words carefully. “After returning from Beirut, Jean-Jacques was preoccupied with the possibility that the Russians had turned other people in the French government, including inside the intelligence services.”
“Do you know if he ever found any proof?”
“Every time I saw him, he was pulling on a new thread, yet he never seemed to have uncovered anything. At least nothing he ever shared with me.”
“Did he have any enemies that you know of?”
“Anybody who’d been in the game as long as Jean-Jacques probably made a lot of enemies. He absolutely hated the Russians. I’m guessing it was probably mutual.” There was a pause before Powell added, “Speaking of which, can you confirm for me how he was murdered.”
“We purposefully haven’t made the information public yet.”
“We heard it was an ice axe.”
Brunelle shot Gibert a look. She had no doubt the CIA station chief had gotten that information from his own contacts within the DGSE, possibly from the very men Gibert had allowed access to the crime scene.
“That’s correct,” she conceded, “but I would ask that you please keep it confidential.”
“It’s almost too on the nose,” Powell mused.
“Excuse me?”
“If it was the Russians who killed him, it’s rather unimaginative, regardless of Jean-Jacques’s love of history. Or maybe I’m totally wrong. Maybe it was designed to send a message.”
“I’m sorry,” Brunelle replied. “I’m not following you. What are you talking about?”
“August 1940. When Stalin decided Trotsky had become too much of a threat, he sent an assassin to kill him. The weapon the assassin used was an ice axe.”
CHAPTER 19
NICE, FRANCE
TUESDAY
Nice Côte d’Azur was the third-busiest airport in France, handling almost three million passengers a year. Even its glitzy VIP terminal experienced a constant churn of arriving and departing flights. It was the perfect place to go overlooked, which was exactly what Harvath wanted.
Grechko had put him in an untenable position. Dangling one of the people responsible for his wife’s murder, but refusing to give up that person until Harvath did something for him, left him with few options.
He also had Sølvi to consider. For her to be successful, she needed Grechko to be cooperative. And for him to be cooperative, he wanted Inessa to be “rescued.” The larger question, however, was whether that was what Inessa wanted. Harvath had his doubts.
Inessa Surkova was, to use the most charitable word available, a courtesan. She traded sex for money—and had done so on several occasions with Grechko. For his part, Grechko had not only willingly given her money, he had also fallen in love with her. He said she felt the same about him, which in Harvath’s experience was what most men who fell for hookers or strippers said. The fact that Grechko’s feelings might be unrequited wasn’t his problem.
His problem was putting the two of them together long enough for Grechko to make his case and then, if Inessa agreed, helping her disappear. A task that was going to be much easier said than done.
On top of all of this was Holidae Hayes, the CIA, and their threat to both freeze him out of his off-the-books bank account and to come after him for taxes and penalties.
If he walked away from the account and never touched it again, there was zero chance they could ever tie him to it. But he had no intention of walking away from it. That money was his. He had more than earned it.
The irony that the money had come from a Russian oligarch in Antibes, only twenty kilometers down the coast from where they had just landed, was not lost on him. Nor was the fact that Inessa was being “kept” by a different Russian oligarch a mere twenty kilometers up the coast from where they now were, in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
In a different time and under different circumstances, it might have made interesting grist for a comedic opera, but neither Nikolai Nekrasov, who had previously put the largest bounty in history on Harvath’s head for killing his godson, nor mining oligarch Arkady Tsybulsky, who had installed Inessa as his mistress, were men to be trifled with.
Both were close friends of President Peshkov, exceedingly dangerous, and absolutely ruthless. They owed their fortunes and their positions in life to cold-blooded, cutthroat acumen and were driven by a thirst for power, lust, and greed.
Capable of incredible cruelty, they took pleasure in the suffering and misfortune of others. Harvath had no problem helping karma catch up with either of them. And, if he was able to help magnify their pain in the process, he was more than happy to do it.
After a brief discussion at the cottage in Norway, both he and Sølvi had agreed on what needed to be done. Once they had worked out the details, Harvath had contacted Holidae Hayes, who arrived an hour and a half later in a blacked-out Mercedes sprinter van with a small, heavily armed security team she had handpicked herself.
By 10 p.m., they were all tucked safely away inside the U.S. Embassy compound back in Oslo, the framework of their deal having been hammered out on their drive up.
Sølvi would remain in control of Grechko’s debriefing. Harvath and the Carlton Group would be in charge of security. The CIA would provide logistical support, including helping smuggle Grechko out of Norway, a safehouse in the South of France, clean passports, and any other items that might prove necessary. In exchange, the CIA would be allowed to remotely observe Grechko’s debriefing and ask questions via Sølvi.
While not perfect, it was the arrangement that offered the best possible outcomes for all involved.
As part of his mission planning, Harvath had asked Hayes to provide him with everything the Agency had on Arkady Tsybulsky, as well as satellite imagery of his estate on the tiny peninsula of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. He also asked for anything they could dig up on Inessa Surkova.
Overnight, Hayes set them up in a part of the compound where they wouldn’t be seen by any staff. One of the security team went out for Chinese food.
When it was time to turn in, Harvath and Sølvi were given an office together and Grechko got one across the hall. The rollaway beds Hayes had scared up weren’t the most comfortable in the world, but they were definitely better than army cots. Not that anyone much cared. They were all exhausted and fell asleep almost instantly.
The next morning, Hayes and her team accompanied the trio to the Oslo airport, where Chief Inspector Borger, the police officer who had previously escorted Harvath off his flight from Poland, was waiting for them in his car outside the private jet terminal.
Hayes exited the van and walked over to him. When he rolled down his window, she handed him three freshly minted U.S. passports. Rolling his window back up, he drove off to get everything processed. He hadn’t asked the passport holders to present themselves.
Once Borger had gone, Hayes texted the pilots of the jet that the CIA had coordinated. When the pilots texted back that they were ready for boarding, Hayes and her team escorted Harvath, Sølvi, and Grechko out to the plane.
Hayes waited on the tarmac for Borger to return with the passports. As soon as she had them in hand, she thanked the cop, headed up the airstairs, and delivered them to their new owners.
There wasn’t any prolonged goodbye. With their friendship having iced over, there wasn’t much to say. It was a business transaction and this current phase was complete. Hayes wished them good luck and, along with the security team, deplaned. They were on their own.
The flight from Oslo to Nice took just under three hours. The trio cleared customs and passport control in a private lounge at the Nice Côte d’Azur VIP terminal, much the same way as Harvath had when he first arrived in Norway. And as he had done then, he helped himself to a strong cup of coffee, some snacks, and all the packs of pain medication that were in the sundries drawer.
When he received a text that their ride was waiting out front, he gathered everybody up and they headed outside.
There, standing next to a black Audi S8, was one of his Carlton Group teammates, Mike Haney.
Like everybody else on the team, Haney was usually a wiseass—gallows humor being a prerequisite for their line of work. As ex–Special Forces operatives, the compulsion to make fun of each other, as well as the dangerous situations they found themselves in, had been developed early in their military careers and honed to perfection going forward.
But when the situation called for seriousness and professionalism, as it did now, every member of the team could be counted on to deliver.
This wasn’t a game. They were on the clock. Grechko was a Russian defector with information that was expected to be of great value to Norway, NATO, and the United States. The Carlton Group was here to keep him safe, to support Sølvi in debriefing him, and to carry out whatever assignments Harvath deemed necessary.
