Shadow of Doubt, page 29
“It’s parked outside.”
“Let’s go,” said Harvath, waving the pistol and motioning for the station chief to get up.
“Where are we going?”
“That’s none of your concern. I’ll explain when we get there.”
CHAPTER 61
There were countless, incredibly dangerous unknowns that Harvath needed to solve for. How many men would the Russians send? Four seemed to make the most sense. But what if they sent six? Or twelve?
What kind of pre-attack surveillance would they conduct? Would they attempt to send someone in to get the lay of the land and carry out a head count? Or would they launch into battle the minute they received the information?
Most important of all, could they even be relied upon to take the bait? Would Powell be able to sell it in such a way that the information wasn’t just probable, but irresistible?
The only way to secure the outcome he wanted on that last question was for Harvath to be absolutely clear to Powell what would happen to him if he failed.
Elovik was protecting one of the men responsible for his wife’s murder and Powell had been protecting Elovik. As far as Harvath was concerned, that put them all in the same category. He would gladly mete out the same punishment to the station chief that he planned on delivering to the Russians.
Though he was still wrestling with the idea of letting Powell walk away at the end of this with his life, it was the only way to get the man to turn in his best performance. And they were going to need it.
In essence, what Harvath was planning was one very intense piece of stagecraft, for which he was dreadfully understaffed.
He had achieved much more with much less at times in the past, but this was different. He had two of his guys lying in hospital beds and he was going to put them right in the path of an oncoming truck.
As Haney had only been under local anesthesia for his surgery, he was fully with it and was able to consent to the plan. Johnson, on the other hand, wasn’t one hundred percent there. He’d been slow to wake up. He was also on a bunch of pain medication.
Harvath didn’t like leaving those two to fend for themselves, but he didn’t have anyone who could sit in their rooms and pull guard duty. For his plan to work, he was going to need both Staelin and Preisler. He was also going to need an incredible amount of luck.
Despite Elovik’s background, the fact that he hadn’t accompanied his shooters to the ambush in the Bois de Boulogne told Harvath the guy was not very hands-on. He was more management than labor.
In one respect, that was a good thing. He wouldn’t be bunched up with his men if and when any bullets started flying. On the other hand, someone would have to keep eyes on him at all times. He was the reason all this was happening. If he tried to bolt the moment something happened, everything would be for naught. The team had come too far and had suffered too much to have that be the outcome.
Once Harvath had mapped out what he wanted to do, he and his teammates then had to allocate their remaining equipment.
They had burned through a lot of ammo at the ambush. Rolling into a renewed gunfight with such low stocks was asking for trouble. But, as Harvath had made clear, their only alternative was to abandon the mission. No one wanted to do that. And they knew that had Johnson been fully awake, he wouldn’t want it either. The team would have to conserve what ammo it had and make the best of their less-than-optimal situation.
What they did have going for them was the element of surprise. But, of course, that was exactly what they had thought going into their encounter with the Russians in the Bois de Boulogne, only to have the tables dramatically turned.
While they were always ready for anything, that was a twist they had not seen coming. If the team was honest, there had been a bit of operational arrogance at play; a belief that they had the upper hand and because of that, maybe they hadn’t had their eyes open wide enough. Though he doubted that being sold out by the CIA station chief was on anyone’s bingo card.
Nevertheless, they had to be prepared for everything to go sideways. The Russians were brutes, pretty low-level strategic thinkers, but they weren’t total morons. As soon as Powell contacted him, Elovik was going to be wondering if it was a trap. Was the CIA man being honest with him, or was someone, most likely Harvath, standing behind him with a gun to his head, telling him what to say? It was guaranteed that if the Russians took the bait, they were going to come in with their eyes wide open.
Harvath, however, would be ready for them—no matter what. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve, and he was prepared to use all of them. He wanted this to be over tonight. All of it.
It was a lofty order, but if the team did everything right, there was a chance—albeit slight—that they could pull it off.
They weren’t Harvath’s preferred odds, but he reveled in jobs no one else could do. Success, as he always said, was the only option. He owed it to himself, his team, and especially to Lara to see this through and make the Russians pay.
But in order to do that, he was going to have to do something he didn’t want to—relinquish control. He would have to trust his team with some of the hardest and most dangerous parts of this assignment. Everything came down to managing Powell and Elovik. If that part of the plan fell through, it all would fall through.
He was thinking again about “The Purloined Letter” and hiding in plain sight. He was also thinking about how the best lies were those that contained the most truth.
To trap Elovik, they were going to need to tell him a story that was all but impossible to refute; something that made so much sense, he’d be a fool to doubt it.
As he had stood in Powell’s apartment, holding the station chief at gunpoint, the lie had begun to form in Harvath’s mind. It was simple, which was another hallmark of a good lie. It also offered the most likely explanation of events, which Elovik would immediately recognize as being the most probable course that Harvath had taken. Once the pieces had been put in place, all that was necessary was for Powell to make contact with his paymaster.
They communicated, in English, through an encrypted messaging app that allowed Harvath to see both sides of the communication and script the station chief’s responses.
Posing as Powell, Harvath relayed the following: Of the five-man American tactical team, three had been killed in the ambush. Harvath and another surviving team member were seriously injured. They were receiving medical attention in Paris, from an off-the-books provider previously employed by the CIA. For five hundred thousand dollars, Powell would reveal their location.
After hitting send, Harvath sat back and waited for the military attaché’s response. It didn’t take long for the Russian to come back with a counteroffer.
The Kremlin, he claimed, was only interested in Harvath. He offered seventy-five thousand dollars, but Powell would have to snatch Harvath himself. Elovik wasn’t interested in launching another operation and potentially losing more men. He was already up to his eyeballs trying to figure out how the Russian ambassador was going to explain away a bunch of dead embassy employees in the Bois de Boulogne.
No deal, Harvath texted back. He’s wounded. This is your best chance to get him. Tell Moscow I get the full $500,000 or I walk.
It was a game of financial chicken. The Russians would expect Powell to play hardball. They also knew that Powell needed Harvath to be eliminated. If Harvath survived, Powell would never be safe.
Stand by, Elovik replied.
After what felt like an hour but in reality was twenty minutes, Powell’s phone vibrated with another text.
The embassy only has three hundred thousand dollars cash on hand, the military attaché texted. Moscow says take it or leave it.
Harvath sat back and let Elovik twist in the wind, wondering what Powell’s reply would be. Finally, he texted back, Deal.
The Russian’s response was immediate. Send me Harvath’s location, details on the doctor, etc. We’ll arrange your payment once we confirm his whereabouts and condition.
Harvath chuckled. They were either testing him or they really didn’t give Powell much credit. Only a fool would hand over prime intel hoping to get paid after the fact. Spies referred to it as the “prostitute principle.” In which the perceived value of services rapidly diminishes after said services have been rendered.
Negative, Harvath texted back. We do it in person. Café Apate. 13th arrondissement. One hour. Once the intel is confirmed, you hand over the money.
It was a ballsy move, but it backstopped the lie. It made Powell look nervous, perhaps even desperate. He had a good hand, and he was playing it for all it was worth. That was something the Russians would recognize and appreciate. Had the situation been reversed, Elovik and every one of his superiors would have done the same thing. When life gave you an opportunity, you took it.
Once the military attaché had confirmed the meeting, Harvath left Staelin in charge of Powell, exited the Clinique Saint-Raphael, and walked to Café Apate on the corner.
He took a seat at an outdoor table and ordered an espresso. When the waiter returned inside, he pulled out his own phone and texted Preisler, who had opened one of the clinic’s windows and was sitting behind Haney’s HK417 rifle.
Ready? Harvath’s text read.
Ready, Preisler replied.
Ok, then. Take your first shot. Light me up.
CHAPTER 62
Brunelle had ignored the first call from Gibert, as well as the second, letting them both go to voicemail. She was too busy and couldn’t be distracted right now. Whatever he was calling about could wait.
Then a text had come in telling her that it was urgent and that she needed to stop sending him to voicemail and to take his call.
Stepping out of the conference room she was in, she phoned him back. “What is it, Vincent?”
“I’ve got six dead Russians in the Bois de Boulogne. All embassy employees.”
“Jesus,” she replied, lowering her voice. “What happened?”
“A huge gunfight. Multiple calibers. Based on the corpses and the vehicles, our people are guessing hundreds of rounds were fired.”
“Who were the other shooters?”
“We don’t know yet. But get this, one of the Russians was found with a long gun, a couple of hundred yards away in the woods. We think he was a sniper of some sort.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Could be any number of things,” Gibert responded. “All the Russian diplomatic outposts are crime hubs. This might have been a drug deal gone bad.”
“Are you guys in la Crim seeing a lot of drug deals involving snipers?”
“Plenty of gangs and cartels have been recruiting vets. They pay a lot for their expertise. Small unit tactics and all that.”
“Okay,” Brunelle conceded, “but you’re not calling me because you think this is some drug deal gone bad. What is it about your crime scene that made you dial my number?”
“The cars,” Gibert stated. “There are four in total. All shot to shit. Two trace back to the embassy. The other two are a bit more interesting.”
“Interesting how?”
“Both were stolen. A blue Renault sedan and a blue Renault panel van. Guess where they were stolen from?”
“I have no idea,” said Brunelle.
“The same neighborhood as our burned-out Peugeot from Jadot’s murder.”
“That’s one hell of a coincidence.”
“Yeah, I thought so too. But it gets even more interesting. Each of the Renaults was outfitted with lights and sirens. The van had strobes mounted behind the grille and, in the sedan, we found a gumball.”
“They were made to look like police vehicles?” she asked.
“Correct. They were found on the side of the road in a cutout, not far from the Allée de Longchamp.”
“How are they parked?”
“In a straight line,” Gibert stated. “Fake police van, embassy car, embassy car, fake police sedan.”
“Were the Russians trying to make it look like they had a police escort?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Brunelle asked.
“Because the Renaults had bigger bullet holes than the embassy vehicles. We think those shots came from the sniper.”
“So, based on that, we can assume the fake police vehicles belonged to the opposing party.”
“Right now, I’d say that’s safe to assume,” the cop stated. “Which leaves us with two possible options. One, posing as police vehicles, the Renaults pulled the Russians over.”
“To what end?”
“To rip them off. They posed as cops to get the upper hand, shot all six of them, and then took the money or the drugs—depending on who was on what side of the deal.”
“Which doesn’t track,” said Brunelle, “because to have a sniper positioned in the woods, the Russians would have had to have known ahead of time where they were getting pulled over.”
“Agreed. And that brings me to option two. This was a prearranged meeting. The Russians, however, had decided to double-cross their fake police friends and staged an ambush, but got outgunned.”
“That’s much more believable, but why was the other party posing as cops and what does this have to do with the Russians who stole the burned-out Peugeot?”
“Now you know the real reason why I called you. I need your help.”
She was shocked, but surprisingly pleased, to hear him admit it. “I appreciate you calling me. Listen, I’m going to tell you right now that the Russians will want to control this internally. You’re likely to receive little to no cooperation from the embassy.”
“No kidding. None of the victims were carrying identification. Cell phones, yes, but ID no. As we don’t have all the scary Big Brother tools that you do, we could only use facial recognition from airport entries to identify them.”
“Send me whatever you have and I’ll get MoMo on it.”
“Speaking of which,” said Gibert. “Still nothing on the getaway car?”
“No,” Brunelle replied. “But something tells me that we have just gotten one step closer.”
CHAPTER 63
BETHESDA
“A what?” Maggie asked, as her boss dropped a stack of folders on the conference room table and made himself comfortable.
“A loyalty test,” Conroy repeated. “Can we get some coffee in here?”
After a staffer disappeared to fetch a carafe, Maggie said, “Expound on that.”
“It’s pretty simple. Regardless of the propaganda Peshkov and the Kremlin put out, Russia is getting its ass kicked in Ukraine. Nobody knows that better than the people closest to the top—Peshkov’s inner circle. That’s also where the biggest challenges to his power are likely to come from.”
“So, he brings everyone down to Cape Idokopas for what?”
“The world’s biggest fireworks show!” replied Conroy. “His own version of the Trinity test.”
“A light dinner, a little dancing, and then he just airdrops a tactical nuke over the Black Sea?”
“Exactly.”
“Did POTUS give you this idea?”
Conroy shook his head. “It came up in discussion with the national security advisor.”
“I think he’s been watching too many Godfather movies.”
“If you’ll pardon my French, it is the ultimate dick-measuring contest.”
“I don’t disagree,” Maggie replied.
“Peshkov will call it a ‘test’ but in actuality he’s throwing the West a don’t-fuck-with-me-in-Ukraine brushback pitch.”
“And conceivably, by doing it over the Black Sea, outside Turkish maritime claims, he wouldn’t be triggering a wider war with NATO.”
The more they discussed it, the more convinced Conroy was becoming. “Can you imagine an event like that?” he asked. “It would serve the same effect as a detonation in Ukraine, but Peshkov would reap the added benefit of forcing any of his would-be usurpers to watch. ‘Look at the power I have,’ he’d be telling them. ‘Challenge me and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.’ He could then put on a screening of Oppenheimer afterward and let everyone keep their goggles. The guy would be untouchable.”
Handing out atomic goggles as some sort of sick party favor was definitely in keeping with Peshkov’s profile. That said, Maggie wasn’t crazy about her boss falling in love with this theory. It was always dangerous to get too attached to any one idea and she decided she needed to throw a little cold water on it.
“Based upon the size of the device he chooses, the fallout could be limited to about a kilometer in all directions. The Turks, however, will go apeshit. They’ll never let another Russian vessel transit the Turkish Straits again. This would be across the board, including commercial ships, on top of the already current prohibitions in place against the Russian Navy. Peshkov would be a fool to do it. It would be absolutely devastating for Russia and would destroy all the work Moscow has done in building bridges with Ankara.”
“All right then,” said Conroy as the staffer came back in with the coffee. “I’ll make sure to let the national security advisor know that you’re a strong no on the possibility of a nuclear demonstration over the Black Sea.”
“Anything’s possible,” said Maggie. “I just think that on the list of probabilities, this one’s highly unlikely.”
The DDO poured himself a cup of coffee and offered one to Maggie, who declined.
“So, we’re still looking at a tactical nuclear weapon being detonated somewhere inside Ukraine. Is that the position we’re operating from?”
“At the moment, yes,” Maggie responded. “That’s where the evidence is pointing.”
“In that case, you’ll be glad to know that President Porter is taking your advice. He has lined up former high-ranking military figures for all the Sunday shows. He is also dispatching the secretary of state to Moscow to deliver an in-person warning. If you can give me the list of Peshkov influencers you think he should be meeting with, I’ll make sure it gets passed along.”
“Absolutely. In the meantime, I’ve got a follow-up report for you,” said Maggie, handing him a folder.
