Shadow of Doubt, page 2
Making himself as comfortable as possible, he placed the bags of ice where he had the most pain and then sipped his drink while the rest of the passengers boarded.
He hadn’t told anyone back at the Carlton Group where he was going. It wasn’t any of their business. If the world suddenly caught fire over the next week, he was content to let it burn. For the time being, he was out of the spy business.
Closing his eyes, he envisioned what awaited him in Norway.
Sølvi Kolstad had appeared at the lowest moment in his life and had given him a reason to live, something he hadn’t imagined would ever again be possible.
They were two shattered vessels—he broken by the murder of his wife, she abandoned by her husband because she couldn’t bear children. Yet what had felt like the end was actually the beginning, a form of kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting pieces of pottery back together with gold. They had merged their flaws, their loneliness, and their pain to create something beautiful, something stronger. And despite their age difference, with Sølvi several years his junior, they shared a lot in common.
Harvath had been a U.S. Navy SEAL, first with the cold-weather specialists of SEAL Team Two, and then with the storied SEAL Team Six. Sølvi had also served with an elite Special Forces unit—Norway’s all-female Jegertroppen. Both of them had eventually wound up in the espionage game.
Like him, she was a highly skilled operative and had made an exceptionally good spy. In fact, Harvath was willing to admit that she was smarter and even better at it than he was. His only advantage over her was that he had been at it for longer.
Unlike him, however, when a plum leadership position had become available inside the Norwegian Intelligence Service, she had jumped at the chance.
Promoted to deputy director status, Sølvi had been placed in charge of a top-secret program critical to Norway’s survival. If the Russians ever overran their shared border, her covert unit was responsible for standing up a shadow intelligence service.
She loved her new job. Her career was taking off and her future was filled with nothing but possibility.
Harvath, on the other hand, couldn’t bear the thought of ever coming out of the field only to ride a desk. He had been handpicked by the Carlton Group’s founder to run the organization after his passing, but had repeatedly turned the position down.
It wasn’t just the corporate bullshit and office politics he couldn’t stand—it was the fact that hanging up his cleats would mean that he had aged out. And as far as he was concerned, he wasn’t there yet. He could still do his job better than any of the younger operatives.
Did it require increasingly tougher workouts and a mix of performance-enhancing drugs in order to keep his edge? Sure, but in his world, there was no Marquess of Queensberry, no rulebook.
In fact, the Carlton Group had been created to level the playing field. It was a private intelligence agency—operating beyond the gaze of Congress—empowered to hunt down enemies of the United States who refused to respect the international order.
The idea was that if bad actors were going to choose to ignore the Geneva and Hague Conventions, then America needed a way to defend itself. Fighting with both your arms and legs tied behind your back wasn’t a winning strategy. That’s where Harvath came in.
The powers that be could let him off the chain, look in the other direction, and know that the job would get done.
It wasn’t a calling for a sadist or a maladjusted personality. You couldn’t have someone in the role who took pleasure in inflicting pain on others or who enjoyed breaking the rules simply for the sake of breaking them. The position required a person with a strong moral compass who only broke the rules when necessary. That was Harvath.
He lived by the SEAL maxims that the only easy day was yesterday and that when tasked with an assignment, success was the only option.
His personal motto was that there was no American dream without those willing to protect it.
More and more, however, he had begun to ask himself what his American dream looked like. Once he was ready to lay down his sword and remove his armor, what would life be like? What was there for him to look forward to?
The obvious answer, as the plane pushed back from the gate and taxied out to the runway, was Sølvi. Over oysters, a fabulous bottle of champagne, and a terrific view of the Oslofjord, he had proposed and she had accepted.
Yes, things had moved fast. But having known excruciating heartbreak, neither of them wanted to risk letting something so good slip away.
Since her job required that she work at NIS headquarters in person, he had spent the summer with her, burning through all of his vacation and sick days. It wasn’t until the Carlton Group had threatened to fire him that he had gotten serious about returning to work himself. And no sooner had he made that decision than his operations tempo had been pushed into overdrive.
Assignment after assignment rained down. In less than two months, he had been to Tajikistan, Afghanistan, India, Romania, Poland, and Ukraine. During that time, he had been unable to see Sølvi. And therein lay the biggest problem in their relationship—the intense demands of their careers. Something had to give.
Right now, though, he didn’t want to think about it. All he wanted was to see her, to touch her, to quiet their busy lives long enough to reconnect and reassure each other that they were doing the right thing and that what they had was worth making any sacrifice for.
As the plane roared down the runway, Harvath felt the familiar feeling of the stress leaving his body. It was like this every time he finished an assignment. Lifting off instantly helped him relax.
Within minutes, his exhaustion overcame him and he fell into a dark, dreamless sleep. But it didn’t last.
About an hour later, somewhere over the Baltic Sea, he was jolted awake by the sound of screaming coming from the rear of the aircraft.
CHAPTER 3
Harvath leaned into the aisle to get a look at what was going on back in the economy section. Flight attendants were trying to get control of an unruly passenger.
The man, who was in the rear galley, was largely obscured from view. But when Harvath caught a flash of one of his beefy, heavily inked arms, that flash was enough to identify him. He had seen him downing drinks in the airport bar before the flight.
Standing about six foot eight and weighing upwards of 275 pounds, the guy was a monster. He was also extremely agitated. Maybe someone had made the mistake of cutting him off. Maybe they had run out of peanuts. Or maybe the man was having some sort of a mental breakdown. None of that, however, was Harvath’s problem.
At least it wasn’t until the not-so-gentle giant punched one of the female flight attendants in the face and sent her crashing to the floor in a spray of blood.
The passengers screamed again.
If there had been any security officers on board, it was now officially time for them to get involved. Harvath waited, but when no one did, he knew he was going to have to serve as the cavalry.
Unbuckling his seat belt, he scanned the space around him for a weapon—anything that might help even up the odds.
He grabbed an in-flight magazine, which could be rolled up into a baton, and began twisting it as he stepped into the aisle.
As he did, he saw the other flight attendants in the back wrestling with the monster as they called out for help. He didn’t relish what lay ahead.
Knowing that this could be the beginning of a hijacking, with sleepers lying in wait to take out any passengers attempting heroics, he kept his guard up and scanned every face and every pair of hands as he moved toward the rear of the plane.
Before he could get to the galley, another flight attendant, this time a male, was struck with a devastating punch to the head and knocked to the floor.
Two passengers decided it was finally time to do something and, leaping from their seats, charged the tattooed combatant… with blankets.
Blankets? For what? To tie him up? To throw them over his head so he couldn’t see?
The only thing Harvath knew was that as brave as these paunchy, middle-aged guys were, they were going to get their asses kicked. Bad.
And he was right.
As soon as they entered the galley, the giant shoved the remaining flight attendants aside and kicked the first of the middle-aged men square in the chest. The blow knocked the wind out of the man, cracked his sternum, and dropped him right there.
The second man received one of the worst headbutts Harvath had ever seen. The blood gushed from his nose like a hydrant. As he blacked out and fell backward, he hit his head on the way down, hard.
It was at that moment, scanning for additional threats, that the monster locked eyes with Harvath. He paused, sizing him up.
Harvath stood five foot ten and a muscular 175 pounds. Though the giant outweighed and towered over him, he radiated the unnerving, icy calm of a man conversant with violence.
He put his left hand up and attempted to deescalate the situation. “Hey, it’s okay. Let’s just take a breath. Nobody else needs to get hurt.”
With his nostrils flaring and the whites of his eyes exposed, the giant resembled some sort of enraged bull. His chest heaved as he sucked in air.
It was hard to tell if he spoke English or if he even understood what Harvath was saying. Right now, though, he wasn’t attacking anyone. He was standing completely still. That was the right start.
“Do you want to sit down?” Harvath asked. “I’ll sit with you. Any place you want. How does that sound?”
There was a grunt from the heavily tattooed man as he balled his massive hands into fists. Things were going in the wrong direction.
Harvath remained calm and continued to try to dial down the situation. This wasn’t a hijacking. It was a troubled individual having some sort of a psychotic break. “Is there someone waiting for you in Oslo?” he inquired. “Someone you’d like to talk to? Your wife? Girlfriend?”
The man’s eyes narrowed and before he had even started moving, Harvath knew that he had crossed some sort of line. He had screwed up and triggered the guy into action. It was on.
Exploding across the galley, the giant charged. And when he did, Harvath was already two steps ahead.
Pivoting out of the way, he used the makeshift baton to deliver a strike to the man’s kidney.
The giant roared in pain. His knees buckled and he almost went down. Almost. Breaking his fall with his right hand, he pushed off the floor and lunged again.
Harvath waited until he got in close, threw his left hand toward the man’s eyes, and then drove the baton into his solar plexus. The giant stumbled.
Sidestepping out of his path, Harvath was certain the tattooed man was going all the way down this time, but he was mistaken. The giant regrouped and came at him again.
Even for a wide-body jet, the galley made for one of the world’s narrowest cage matches. Harvath wasn’t going to be able to keep slipping out of the man’s grasp like this. If the giant took him down to the ground, things were going to get ugly.
He had no choice but to increase the pain he was subjecting the man to; to deliver a blow that wasn’t fatal, but that was serious enough to take him out of the fight, at least until they could get the plane safely on the ground. With a guy this big, that usually meant one thing—going for his knees.
To do that, however, he was going to have to square up with him; stand face-to-face as he charged, which was exactly what Harvath did.
The giant thundered across the galley. Harvath held his hands up, palms out, as if signaling he didn’t want any trouble. Simultaneously, he focused on the man’s left knee and got ready to deliver a kick so hard, the man wouldn’t be able to walk without assistance for a long time.
But just as the giant got in range, he changed his attack. He lowered his head and bent over at the waist, as if to tackle his opponent, making it impossible to take out his knee. Harvath barely had time to react.
He knew he had to be ready to shoot his hips forward and drive his legs backward, out of the way, in order to prevent being taken down to the ground. It was a defensive technique known as a “sprawl.” The only problem was, Harvath had totally misread what his attacker was planning.
The giant wasn’t interested in taking out his legs. Instead, he wanted to use his upper body to hit Harvath, as hard as he could, right in his midsection. Which was exactly what he did.
It was like being struck by a freight train. Harvath was lifted off his feet and driven full-force into the emergency exit. But the giant didn’t stop there.
Using his meaty palm, he slammed Harvath’s head against the door. Harvath saw stars.
In response, he delivered a series of blistering punches to the giant’s ribs, one after another. None of them seemed to have any effect.
The giant again slammed his head into the door and this time, his vision began to dim. Harvath was in serious trouble. If he didn’t get out from under this guy, it was going to be game over.
Planting his feet, he tried to thrust upward and knock the giant off balance, but the beast didn’t budge.
Instead the man pulled Harvath’s head back once more and was preparing to pound it against the door when there was a loud, metallic thud.
Dazed, the giant paused. One of the flight attendants had bashed him with a coffeepot. Harvath knew it was now or never.
Using all his strength, he exploded, pushing his attacker off him and sending the man tumbling over backward into the middle of the galley.
Harvath leapt to his feet, but he’d had his bell rung to such a degree that his balance was temporarily off. He needed to place his hand against the wall to steady himself.
Shaking his head, he tried to clear his vision. He could see the flight attendant, but the giant was no longer where he had thrown him. He was on the other side of the galley.
It took Harvath a moment to realize what the man was doing, but when he did, only one word popped into his mind—Fuck—as he bolted back into action.
The man had deactivated the safety mechanisms on the opposite emergency exit door and was about to open it, when Harvath launched himself the final few feet, landed on the giant’s back, and put him in a rear naked chokehold.
Because the man was so big, Harvath had to modify his grip, but within seconds he reduced the blood flow from the man’s heart and had cut off the oxygen to his brain. The giant collapsed unconscious onto the floor.
Loosening, but not completely unlocking the chokehold, Harvath gave instructions to the flight attendants and nearby passengers. A man this big and this unstable was going to need a lot more than a pair of plastic flex-cuffs to keep him restrained until the plane landed.
Once he had been secured, Harvath released his grasp. Moving several feet away, he rested his forearms against his knees and took several deep breaths.
As the flight crew attended to each other, as well as the injured passengers, one of them offered Harvath a bottle of water. “Thank you,” she said.
Harvath accepted the water and nodded.
When he felt good enough to stand, he got up and headed back to his seat in first class. A group of economy passengers, eager for a piece of the action now that the actual danger had passed, had deputized themselves to keep an eye on the bound passenger until the plane landed.
After a pit stop in the lavatory to verify he wasn’t bleeding, he sat back down and asked for a fresh bourbon, along with a few more icepacks.
The pilots had decided that with the giant subdued, they didn’t need to divert and would land in Oslo as planned.
With that piece of good news, Harvath settled back in his seat, focused on his drink, and tried to relax.
* * *
When the plane landed, the pilot came back over the PA system to explain that airport police would be meeting the plane at the gate and that all passengers should remain in their seats.
It took six tactical officers to remove the giant from the aircraft. The passengers clapped and cheered as he was marched off.
But no sooner had he been led away than another officer boarded. After speaking with the lead flight attendant, he entered the first-class section and stopped at Harvath’s seat.
“Passport,” he said in an officious tone, holding out his hand.
Removing the document from his pocket, Harvath handed it to him, noting the three gold stars and two stripes on the man’s epaulets. Whoever the man was, he was very high in rank.
The officer checked the name and photo, and then, looking at Harvath, ordered, “Come with me.”
CHAPTER 4
Grabbing his bag from the overhead, Harvath followed the officer, stopping briefly at the main cabin door to receive additional thanks from the flight crew.
As he and the cop deplaned, they had to step aside to allow medical personnel to board and see to the injured.
But once they had passed, the officer didn’t lead him toward the terminal. Instead, he opened the door to the jet bridge stairs and took him down to the tarmac.
The air was chilly and awash with the smell of jet fuel. Two ambulances were standing by, as was a BMW X5 crisscrossed with thick neon yellow stripes, a lightbar, and the Norwegian word for police, Politi.
Harvath was about to ask whether he should sit in the front or the back, when the cop preempted him. Taking his bag, he opened the rear door, gestured for him to sit, and then closed the door once he was inside. After tossing Harvath’s bag in the trunk, the cop got behind the wheel, activated the lightbar, and, without saying a word to his passenger, took off across the airport.
Harvath had no idea what was going on. He wasn’t in handcuffs and hadn’t been patted down, so that was a minor check mark in the plus column.
On the other hand, he had been escorted off an airplane and was riding in the back of a police car being driven with its lights on by a cop who had not returned his passport.
This wouldn’t be the first time he’d been taken in for questioning by the Norwegian Police Service. In fact, somewhere in Sølvi’s apartment he still had the card of the lawyer who had previously gotten his passport back and had walked him out the door in record time. If this turned out to be anything more than the cops taking his statement about what had happened on the plane, he might need to call her to dig it up for him.
