Foreign Influence_A Thriller Read online

  Harvath brought his mind back to the business at hand and answered the man’s question. “A colleague of mine is supposed to e-mail me some suggestions. Can I get back to you on that?”

  “Certainly,” said Leveque. “What about your yacht charter? If you can tell me which day you would like to go out, how many people, how long you’d like to go, and what kind of a vessel you are interested in, I can get started on that right away.”

  “I’d like to go tomorrow for a half day. There will just be four of us, and I’d like to have lunch served. As far as the vessel, I’d like a motor yacht at least seventy meters in length. Oh, and we’d like to swim.”

  “Of course. Tomorrow should be a beautiful day for swimming. I’ll get started right away on this for you.”

  Harvath gave Leveque his room number and headed upstairs. After tipping the bellman, he put the stopper in the tub, turned on the tap, and called room service.

  Fifteen minutes later a waiter knocked on the door and was shown in. Harvath tipped him and told him he could leave the table on wheels in the middle of the room.

  Next, he called down to the valet and asked to have his car brought around. He then began filling the tub the rest of the way with the ice the waiter had brought.

  He tossed the buckets into the closet, moved the table out of the way and, once everything else was ready, called down to Leveque. The concierge was only too happy to personally bring Harvath an Ethernet cable for his laptop and help him retrieve the e-mail his colleague had sent with restaurant suggestions in Antibes.

  When Leveque’s knock fell upon his door, Harvath was ready. He opened it with a smile and showed the concierge in. Once the door had closed behind him, Harvath sprang.

  The punch took the Frenchman completely by surprise and he staggered backward, knocking over a lamp and hitting his head on the coffee table as he fell to the floor.

  Grabbing him by the back of his collar, Harvath dragged him into the bathroom and dropped him next to the tub. He wrapped one hand around the concierge’s throat and used the other to pull the Glock from underneath his shirt.

  “Make one noise and I will kill you. Do you understand me?” he asked, the barrel of the weapon pressed against Leveque’s head.

  The man nodded slowly, the terror evident in his eyes.

  “Good,” replied Harvath. He pulled the pistol away and then slammed it into the side of his face, breaking the man’s jaw. “That was for Dominique Fournier’s son.”

  Leveque wanted to cry out in pain, but Harvath squeezed his throat so hard no sound was able to escape. “Now we’re going to go ice fishing. Let me know if you see anything.”

  With that, Harvath raised the concierge up and over the side of the tub backward so that his head went into the water upside down.

  Filling the tub with ice and submerging the victim in this fashion intensified the psychological trauma. A spinoff of waterboarding, it was known colloquially as iceboarding and was based on a concept called “cold calorics” that could manipulate and irritate brainstem reflexes.

  The sensation of being drowned was bad enough, but the layer of ice and the intense cold of the water compounded the experience. It also succeeded in better muffling any screams the victim might make. The only drawback was that if you weren’t wearing gloves, which Harvath wasn’t, your hand got cold very quickly.

  Leveque’s legs thrashed wildly and Harvath brought the butt of his pistol down hard into the man’s crotch before pulling his torso back out.

  The concierge vomited out both his mouth and nose and Harvath shoved him back over the side of the tub and under the water once more.

  The thrashing started all over again and Harvath held him under for what must have seemed like an eternity to Leveque.

  Finally, he pulled him out of the water again and asked one question. “Who hired you to kidnap Dominique Fournier’s son?”

  “I don’t understand what you are talking about.”

  “Wrong answer,” said Harvath as he plunged the man back into the water. This time he let Leveque stay down a long time.

  The Frenchman flailed wildly until Harvath pulled him back up. Once out, he vomited again and his body heaved for air.

  “Listen to me, Leveque,” said Harvath. “Scumbags who target children don’t deserve to live. I want to kill you so bad I can taste it. The only way you’re going to walk out of this bathroom alive is if you tell me who hired you to kidnap Dominique Fournier’s son right now.

  “As a matter of fact, screw that,” he added as he tipped the man backward again. “I’m going to give you some more time underwater to think about it.”

  “No,” croaked the concierge. “Please. His name is Tony Tsui.”

  “I’ve never heard of him. Who was the girl you forced Fournier to place inside her operation?”

  “Tony set all that up. I was just a middleman.”

  Harvath had figured as much. “What was her name?”

  “I don’t know. I was just the go-between. Tony handled everything. I just passed the information to Dominique.”

  Harvath was about to ask another question when he felt the cell phone he was carrying vibrate. It was one of the clean SIM card phones from the safe house in Madrid, the one he was using to communicate with Nicholas.

  “I’ve got a name,” he said as he connected the call and raised the phone to his ear.

  “You’ve got to get out of there,” said the Troll. “I just learned the entire hotel is wired. The new owner is a blackmailer. He’s got mics and cameras in every room.”

  “But I swept the room when I got in,” said Harvath.

  “As does every guest who knows even a little bit about security. This is all new equipment they’re using. You’ve been blown. There is a security team about to kick down your door. Get out of there now!”

  CHAPTER 21

  Harvath heard the soft click of his door being opened and tightened his grip around Leveque’s throat. Quietly, he pulled the concierge to his feet. He then got behind him and, placing his pistol in the small of the man’s back, clamped his left hand down around Leveque’s mouth.

  If the luxurious lobby was an indication of the “money is no object” approach of the hotel’s billionaire owner, Harvath had to assume his security team was going to be top-notch as well. Any hope that they might be nothing more than sides of beef in dark suits was dashed when they chose to enter his room quietly instead of breaking down the door.

  Harvath assumed the men now entering his room were very well trained, either former FSB operatives, or Spetsnaz—Russian special operations soldiers.

  He had his answer the minute they stepped all the way into his room. Their weapons were drawn, but they weren’t in any tactical formation. At worst, these were FSB. At best, they actually were slabs of beef in dark suits. In the end, it didn’t matter. Harvath was the only person with any cover. Whether he’d agree or not, the concierge was earning his $1,000 tip.

  The only weapon Harvath had was his Glock. The three security operatives facing him all had ear pieces and he assumed they were getting a play-by-play from someone somewhere in the hotel who was watching via their hidden-camera system.

  “Put the gun down,” said the lead security agent in heavily accented English. “Now.”

  Harvath kept Leveque between him and the three Russians at all times as he shuffled toward his backpack. If he could get to it, he might have a chance of getting out of this.

  “Stop moving and put gun down!,” the same man yelled.

  Harvath talked as he moved, careful to remain hidden behind Leveque. He doubted any of these apes could get him with a headshot, but he didn’t want today to be the day one of them got lucky. “Listen, I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Stop and put gun down now or we shoot.”

  That made three warnings. Harvath doubted there would be a fourth. Tucking his Glock in the back of Leveque’s waistband, he removed his cell phone, flipped it open, and held it up so the security men coul
d see it. “I have a bomb.”

  The lead security man laughed. “There is no bomb.”

  Lowering the phone, Harvath slid it back into his pocket. As he drew his Glock he shoved Leveque at the security team and said, “You’re right.”

  His first two shots kneecapped the lead security agent. Hitting the floor, he rolled to the right and drilled the second agent in the hand and the third in the shoulder. With Leveque in their way, none of the Russians were able to fire. Harvath gave a small prayer of thanks that they were professional. Had they been strictly gangster muscle, they would have filled the room with lead and sorted out the dead once the smoke cleared.

  Grabbing his pack, Harvath charged for the door. He fished a Guardian Protective Devices pop-and-drop pepper fog canister and activated it in the hallway before running to the stairs.

  He knew that his every move was being watched and that the rest of the security team was being activated. They would know exactly where he was and, because this was their home turf, exactly how to get to him. The only thing he could do was put as many obstacles in their path as possible. And the best way to do that was to activate the fire alarm.

  As it began blaring, he charged for the lobby. He encountered a security team of two. He fired close enough to scare the hell out of them, but not anywhere near enough to hurt them. They retreated momentarily back in the direction they had come.

  The next team was waiting just beyond the chaos of the lobby. With the fire alarm and shots fired, guests ran in every direction. There were four security men between Harvath and the cars outside.

  He saw a young woman hiding behind one of the couches in the lobby and he grabbed her. She screamed as he pushed her forward and tried to lash out at him. As soon as he had his pistol up underneath her chin she stopped.

  “I promise I won’t hurt you, but you’ve got to cut that out and cooperate.”

  He had no idea if she spoke English or not, but she seemed to understand. Shoving her toward the door, he encountered no resistance.

  Harvath hoped that the security men outside were as professional as the ones upstairs had been. As he stepped through the doors with his hostage, the men exchanged quick remarks and lowered their weapons as they backed away.

  Looking for his car, Harvath saw that it was blocked in by two large Bentleys. Idling in the drive was a Saleen S7. While the paint job was a little flashy for his taste, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  Pushing his hostage through the driver’s side into the cramped cockpit, he pulled down the gull wing door and took off.

  Even though he didn’t need to look in his rearview mirror to see what was going on, he did so anyway. Commands were being shouted as the security team scrambled for their vehicles.

  “You’ve made a big mistake,” said the woman sitting next to him. She had a thick accent.

  “It probably won’t be my last.”

  “Don’t be so sure. You’ve stolen something very valuable.”

  Harvath gripped the steering wheel and turned hard onto the street at the end of the drive. “At $400,000, you’d think this car would corner a bit better.”

  “I’m not talking about the car,” said the attractive blonde as she buckled her seatbelt. “I’m talking about me.”

  “And who are you?”

  “My name is Eva, but it’s my husband’s name you should be concerned with.”

  Downshifting, Harvath took another tight turn and accelerated. Knowing the Russians, they wouldn’t call the police. Just like the thieves infamously dropped from the helicopter out in the ocean, they’d want to handle him personally. The thing was, Harvath was in no mood to go swimming.

  The security men were going to come after him hard. But fast was going to be a little tough for them. They were creatures of habit, trained to follow orders. It wouldn’t occur to them to grab several of the guests’ sports cars. Instead, they’d pile into their heavily armored SUVs and wend through the narrow streets of Antibes as fast as their enormous tanks would allow.

  Hitting the Boulevard du Littoral south toward Cannes, Harvath tried to focus on the traffic and not the tanned, toned legs projecting from the woman’s exceptionally short skirt next to him. “I don’t even want to know your husband’s name,” he said as he overtook the car in front of them. “As soon as we’ve put enough distance between us and the men from the hotel, I’ll let you out.”

  “That’s going to be difficult,” said Eva as she produced what looked like an iPod Nano.

  “Your husband monitors you with a tracking device?”

  “He’s very jealous,” she said. “And very insecure.”

  “Okay, I’ve changed my mind. Who’s your husband?”

  “Nikolai Nekrasov.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “The Russian billionaire? Owner of the Hotel du Cap.”

  Now he knew why the guards had been so quick to lower their weapons. “Sorry,” he replied. “Doesn’t ring a bell, but in all fairness to your husband, I’ve fallen behind on my Forbes lately.”

  Eva smiled. “So this isn’t a kidnapping?”

  “No.”

  “That’s too bad.” Rolling down the window, she tossed out the device. “That should buy us a little time. If you’re hungry, I have a friend who runs a wonderful restaurant in Cavalaire-sur-Mer.”

  Either this woman was extremely unhappy with her husband or this was the world’s quickest case of Stockholm Syndrome on record. “Maybe I can take a rain check,” he said, looking into his rearview mirror. He could see the Russian security team weaving in and out of traffic behind him. They had to be insane to be driving like that in those kinds of trucks. They were going to get people killed.

  “That’s too bad,” the woman said. “Nikolai hates Cavalaire-sur-Mer, but I think it’s very romantic. Something tells me you would enjoy it.”

  Harvath didn’t doubt it. “Maybe another time,” he said as he pulled into the oncoming lane and accelerated. The closer they got to Cannes, the heavier the Saturday-evening traffic became.

  Drivers honked and flashed their brights, but he kept going before a truck forced him back onto his side.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror again and couldn’t see the security men. Not yet, at least. The momentary satisfaction he felt evaporated when his passenger said, “It looks like Nikolai is taking you very seriously.”

  Harvath looked to his left and saw a red EC135 Eurocopter tracking parallel with them over the water.

  “Your husband is very persistent, isn’t he?”

  “He doesn’t like sharing his things,” she said, placing her hand on the inside of his thigh.

  She quickly pulled it back and gripped the edges of her seat as Harvath slid between two cars with just inches to spare.

  Now that there was a helicopter involved, there was only one way he could disappear and to do it, he’d need cover.

  Turning to Eva, he said, “I need a favor.”

  “That depends,” she replied.

  When Nikolai Nekrasov’s armored Denalis thundered into Cannes, they came to a screeching halt at a café on the Avenue du Petit Juas. As the hotel helicopter hovered above, Mrs. Nekrasov recovered from her ordeal over a glass of Montrachet. The American who had tortured the hotel’s concierge and shot three of its security staff was nowhere to be seen.

  CHAPTER 22

  CHICAGO

  Javed Miraj, the Pakistani mechanic from the Crescent Garage, turned out to be an excellent source of information.

  He explained in detail how Ali Masud, the shop’s bookkeeper, had been instructed to create a new logbook and to leave out the vehicle the police were searching for.

  When asked why, the mechanic’s response was very simple. Not only were Fahad Bashir, the Crescent’s owner, and Ali Masud from the same village in Pakistan, but so was the driver who had run down Alison Taylor.

  In Pakistan, loyalty followed a very strict hierarchy: family first, then village, and then tribe. The rules were even stricter
abroad. It was a firmly held us against them mind-set.

  Davidson asked the mechanic if he knew where the original logbook was. Miraj had no idea, but strongly suspected it had been disposed of. Fahad Bashir and his son, Jamal, were smart. Once they were committed to doctoring the logbook, he was certain they wouldn’t leave behind any information that could incriminate them.

  Vaughan was more concerned with nailing the driver than the men of the Crescent Garage, but this was where Javed Miraj’s usefulness as an informant started to break down.

  Yes, he had worked on the cab in question. He even ID’d the piece of black plastic that had been recovered at the scene which turned out to be part of the plastic header from above the radiator. He described how he had replaced the hood and a side mirror and had pulled a new windshield, complete with a Chicago City sticker, from one of the damaged cabs in the lot behind the garage.

  The driver had been nervous and upset. He had offered to pay double to get the work done right away. The mechanic had been pulled off another taxi to work on the Yellow Cab. It was a small shop and he couldn’t help but hear how the man had sustained the damage. At that point, though, the information flow from the mechanic practically dried up.

  Understandably, he couldn’t remember the cab number. He saw lots of cabs every day. Cataloging the numbers was Ali Masud’s job. All he could remember was that it was a four-digit number with a three in it.

  He was able to provide a description of the driver and even coughed up a first name, but a dark-skinned Pakistani named Mohammed in a city like Chicago probably wouldn’t do much to winnow down the haystack.

  As the mechanic had no Chicago family that would be looking for him, Vaughan and Davidson decided to let his coworkers think he’d been arrested. After cleaning up his road rash they drove him down to the Department of Revenue and searched every four-digit cab license with a three in it until their eyes were bleeding and they had come up with their man, Mohammed Nasiri.