Foreign Influence_A Thriller Read online

  Harvath fished the cord from his pack and plugged the computer into the outlet. “Done,” he said as peered down at the Quai du Mont Blanc. “I don’t see the van. Where’s Peio?”

  “He’ll be there shortly. Now, I want you to log on to the system, open a browser window, and surf over to any site you like. I’ll take it from there.”

  Harvath did as he was instructed. After entering his room number and agreeing to the charges, he plugged in the URL for the midget and dwarf wrestling federation.

  “Very funny,” said the Troll, who was remotely monitoring the laptop.

  Glancing back out the window, Harvath saw the van pull up. “Peio’s here.”

  “Good,” replied Nicholas. “Turn up the TV and leave the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob.”

  “I’ll talk to you from the van.”

  Harvath stood up from the desk and closed the windows. Slinging his pack over his shoulder, he grabbed his Coke and his almonds and headed downstairs.

  Peio was finishing up a conversation with Nicholas when he climbed into the van and shut the door.

  “So where to?” asked Harvath as the priest ended the call and pulled away from the hotel.

  “Nicholas wants us to stay in the area. Once he pinpoints Tsui’s location, you’re going to have to move fast.”

  Harvath studied the man. “You do miss the lifestyle, don’t you?”

  “Maybe a little,” he admitted.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, motioning to several small grocery bags on the floor behind them. “I didn’t know how long we’d be out.”

  “I’m okay for now. Thank you.”

  A couple of blocks from the hotel a parking space opened up and Peio pulled in. He put the van in park, but left the engine running.

  Rolling down the window, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Harvath, who declined. The priest removed one from the pack, pulled out his lighter, and lit up.

  He took a deep drag and out of respect for his nonsmoking passenger, blew the smoke out the window. “I gave it up for Lent last year,” he said. “Put on twenty pounds almost overnight.”

  “Those things will kill you,” replied Harvath with a grin as he took a sip of his Coke.

  Peio smiled back. “My wife used to bother me all the time about my smoking. I quit once, for her.”

  “Didn’t take?”

  “I became so difficult to be around she begged me to take it back up again.”

  Harvath laughed.

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  The priest was silent for a moment. “Assuming I am correct in what you do for a living, it must be difficult finding the right woman; someone who understands the demands of your job.”

  “To be honest, Father, I found the right woman. She knows me better than anyone else in the world. She has no problem with what I do for a living. She not only supports me, she encourages me. She’s an exceptional person in that regard.”

  “Why do I detect a but?”

  Peio didn’t miss much. Harvath imagined he’d probably been a pretty good intelligence operative. “My personal life isn’t that interesting, Father.”

  “Everyone’s personal life is interesting, Scot. Yours I find particularly interesting. Tell me why you are hesitant. Were your parents divorced?”

  Harvath laughed again. “No. In fact, just the opposite. They were made for each other. After my father died, my mother never remarried.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the priest. “Is that your concern about marriage? Are you afraid something may happen to you and that you would leave this … I’m sorry, what is this woman’s name?”

  “Tracy.”

  “Are you afraid that if something happened to you that you would leave Tracy alone?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t want to die, but if that happened, Tracy is an incredibly resilient woman.”

  Peio looked at him. “So this is about having children.”

  Harvath couldn’t believe it. The man had put his finger right on it. At least he had until he added, “You’re afraid that the same thing that happened to you could happen to your children. If you died, you’d be doing exactly the same thing to them that your father did to you.”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Obviously, your father’s passing had a very profound impact on you. How old were you when he died?”

  “I was already out of high school,” said Harvath, “and if you don’t mind, Father, I’d rather not talk about this anymore.”

  “I understand,” said Peio as he took another drag on his cigarette and exhaled out the window.

  Harvath doubted it, but he let it go and the two men sat in silence for several minutes.

  “May I ask you how your father died?” said the priest.

  “He was a SEAL. He died in a training accident.”

  “Nicholas told me you had been a SEAL. Is that why?”

  “I suppose that was part of it,” replied Harvath.

  “I think your father would be proud of you.”

  This was one of the biggest reasons Harvath hated conducting these types of ops with someone he didn’t know. What they were doing was akin to surveillance. It was grindingly boring to sit around and wait to be set loose on a target. The boredom got to some people faster than others and when it did, they always wanted to “chat.” And it was often about stuff that was entirely too personal.

  “With all due respect, Padre,” he said, “you don’t really know that much about me.”

  “Don’t I? I know you care for Nicholas. I know you care for Argos and Draco. I know you care for your country and I know you care for this woman, Tracy. You are a good man. Nicholas told me so and I can see it for myself. And no matter what has happened to you up to this point in your life, I want you to know that God wants you to be happy.”

  “Even if I want to kill all the Muslim fundamentalists in the world?”

  It took Peio a moment to ascertain whether Harvath was pulling his leg. “Let’s leave the fundamentalists out of this.”

  He was about to make a snappy remark that probably would have drawn the ire of the priest when his cell phone rang. It was Nicholas.

  “I’ve got him.”

  CHAPTER 29

  CHICAGO

  My wife called,” said Paul Davidson as John Vaughan slid back into the Bronco and handed a Styrofoam cup of coffee over to him.

  “Yeah?” replied the Organized Crime officer, pulling the passenger door shut. “What’d she say?”

  “She says she’s naming you in the divorce decree as well.”

  “Me? I only kept you out one night.”

  “Yeah, but today is punta Sunday.”

  “What the hell is punta Sunday?” asked Vaughan, vaguely recognizing the Spanish-sounding word.

  “Today’s the day, we, you know,” said Davidson awkwardly.

  “Are you serious? You only have sex with your wife on Sundays?”

  “And my birthday.”

  Vaughan started laughing.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” said Davidson, “but this is going to affect you too.”

  “Me?” he repeated. “How the hell could this possibly affect me?”

  “You’ll see. Trust me.”

  Vaughan rolled his eyes and peeled the lid off his coffee. Examining the logs from the dispatch computer in Nasiri’s cab, he had discovered a pattern. The Pakistani driver picked up fares in a certain part of the city at regular times of the day. As that area was nowhere near his apartment, there had to be another reason Nasiri favored it.

  On a hunch, Vaughan cross-referenced the pickups with Muslim prayer times and his hunch paid off. Nasiri was picking up fares after he had gone to pray. The only problem was that there were no official mosques within the entire eight-block radius they were looking at. The keyword, though, was official.

  With one phone call, Davidson was able to learn that there were unofficial, makeshift mosqu
es and prayer rooms all across the city. Normally they were hiding right in plain sight. People just didn’t know what to look for, such as an abundance of taxicabs in front, papered-over windows, Arabic writing, or the word Masjid written somewhere on the facade.

  Once Vaughan and Davidson found out, it took them several hours, but they finally located what they believed to be Mohammed Nasiri’s mosque.

  Unlike American places of worship, Vaughan knew that it wasn’t unusual for mosques, especially those frequented by fundamentalists, to be used to plot attacks, store weapons, and give sanctuary to terrorists.

  “Anything else happen while I was gone?” he asked.

  Davidson pretended to consult his notebook. “Muammar Gaddafi dropped bin Laden and Zawahiri off for Sunday school, Jimmy Hoffa pulled up with a stack of union ballots in Arabic, and Amelia Earhart has been circling overhead with this really cool banner that says Islam is the bomb.”

  Vaughan shook his head. “Hey, don’t take it out on me. My wife’s not happy either and I’m sure it goes double for my kids. I normally cook pancakes on Sunday.”

  “How old are they?”

  “My wife would tell you her age is none of your business, but the kids are five and seven. How about you? Do you have children?”

  “No. Just two extremely high-strung miniature Dobermans who piss the carpet if I shut the refrigerator too loud.”

  “I hate tiny dogs.”

  “Do you mind?” asked Davidson, his head pulled back. “You’re talking about my kids here.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Forget about it. I don’t like tiny dogs either. Can you picture what I look like walking those little apartment rats when the wife is under the weather?”

  Vaughan chuckled.

  “How about you?” continued Davidson. “Do you have any animals?”

  “We’ve got a lab mix.”

  “Mixed with what?”

  “Pit bull.”

  “Now that’s a man’s dog.”

  “That’s what Mrs. Vaughan tells me,” he said as he opened up a bag and offered Davidson a doughnut. “Sorry. They didn’t have any turkey or tofu sausage.”

  “I’ll let my wife know to add you to the wrongful death suit as well,” he said, reaching into the bag. “Which one has the Crestor sprinkles?”

  Vaughan was about to laud the health benefits of doughnuts when his eye caught movement across the street. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Me neither. They’re all glazed. There’s not a single chocolate one in the whole bag. Who goes for doughnuts and doesn’t bring back at least one chocolate?”

  “I’m not talking doughnuts. Check out the guy who just got out of that car across the street.”

  Davidson looked up as a fat man with a long gray beard and dark sunglasses was helped out of a car by two younger men. He looked to be in his late sixties and was dressed in traditional Muslim clothing with a length of fabric wrapped around his prayer cap.

  “Look at his hands,” said Vaughan.

  “Holy hand job, Batman. Where’d he get those back-scratchers?” exclaimed Davidson as he saw the man’s two stainless steel hooks.

  “Probably not from baking cupcakes.”

  “You can say that again. Don’t they cut off hands for stealing over there?”

  “The Saudis do, and sometimes the Taliban. It’s definitely an Islamic thing, but I’ve got a feeling this guy’s a different story,” said Vaughan.

  “Lose a hand and you end up becoming an instructor. Isn’t that what you said?”

  Vaughan nodded.

  “Judging by this guy’s qualifications, he must be teaching a Ph.D. course.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” said the Organized Crime officer as he put the lid back on his coffee cup.

  “Maybe we should hand this over to the Joint Terrorism Task Force now.”

  “And tell them what? While looking for our hit-and-run cabbie we saw a man with hooks for hands? Everything from Nasiri’s apartment is poisonous tree.”

  Davidson knew he was right. “But if what we think is going on, actually is going on, we can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

  “I agree. We need to do something, but the last thing we can afford to do is to be spotted. If that happens, everyone will scatter and this thing will go deeper underground. We’ve got one thread we’re hanging on by and if we lose it, there’s no telling how badly this will end.”

  The Public Vehicles officer shook his head. “I wonder if this was why 9/11 didn’t get stopped.”

  “We’re not going to let another 9/11 happen. I don’t care what we have to do. But the one thing we can’t do is continue to sit here in your Bronco. We need a better surveillance vehicle.”

  “The PI company I moonlight for has one,” said Davidson as he pulled out his cell phone.

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

  “Because I don’t like using it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It has a certain feature that’s a real pain in the ass.”

  “It gets hot and stuffy and begins to stink like every other surveillance vehicle?” asked Vaughan.

  “No, not at all. This thing is wall-to-wall luxury. It’s like riding in a limo.”

  “So then what’s the problem?”

  Davidson turned on the ignition and put the Bronco in gear. “You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 30

  GENEVA

  Harvath didn’t like flying blind. They should have had much more information before moving on Tsui. They didn’t even have a description. All Nicholas could tell him was that Tsui was Asian, possibly Taiwanese. That was it. He didn’t even have any idea how old he was, though based on their interactions, he believed he was young; mid to late twenties, tops.

  He had tracked Tsui’s signature to the servers at the University of Geneva. Once through the university’s security protections, he narrowed the location down to a lab in the Computer Sciences department.

  Tsui had been very careful in covering his tracks. If it wasn’t for the Trojan horse Nicholas had planted in his system, they never would have even gotten this close. There remained, though, one problem. “I can’t find a student or a faculty member anywhere in Geneva with the name Tsui,” said the Troll.

  “First things first,” replied Harvath as Peio drove the van across the river toward the university. “Are you sure everything terminates in this lab? It doesn’t get routed out again to Taipei, or Shanghai, or something like that, does it?”

  “No. That’s as far as it goes. Unless.”

  The Troll’s voice trailed off. “Unless what?” asked Harvath.

  “Unless it’s a digital dead drop.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning his traffic gets dumped onto a drive of some sort that gets physically collected and then rebroadcast from another location.”

  Harvath thought about that. “Either way there has to be a human being involved and that human being has to have access to this lab.”

  “Yes, as far as I can tell.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll start.”

  Many of the university’s buildings were southwest of Geneva’s old town. Once they had located the building that housed the lab, Peio found a place to park. Harvath watched the foot traffic come and go and then exited the van and walked off campus. A couple of blocks away, he found what he was looking for.

  The bar was noisy and crowded with students who were not paying attention to their belongings. He was in and out in less than five minutes.

  He walked back with his backpack slung over his shoulder, and using the access card he had just liberated, entered the building Tsui’s data was being fed in and out of. He found a directory and located the lab he was looking for. Students came and went. No one paid him much attention.

  When he arrived at the lab, its door was locked. He tried his access card, but it didn’t work. After checking the hallway to make sure no one was coming, he removed a set of lockpick tools from
his pack. Harvath preferred lockpick guns, but was able to get the door open in a respectable amount of time.

  Slipping inside, he closed the door quietly behind him. The room was nothing special and exactly what he had expected. Rows of tables with computers faced a long wall at the other end of the room complete with blackboards, a retractable projection screen, a lectern, and a desk. Off to the right-hand side was a pod of offices.

  Harvath made his way forward. There were at least fifty computers in the room, any of which could have been the one designated to send and receive Tsui’s message traffic.

  At the front of the room, Harvath saw that a message had been taped to each of the blackboards. It was written in French and English. It was dated one week ago and listed funeral arrangements for Professor Lars Jagland, as well as an announcement to his students that classes would resume with his teaching assistant on Monday. There was no explanation as to how the man had died, but Harvath had a pretty good feeling it wasn’t an accident.

  The door to the offices was unlocked and Harvath walked through. He studied the nameplates and decided to start with Jagland’s.

  His office was clean and sparsely decorated. Bookshelves and a small desk took up much of the room. There were no photos and no personal effects anywhere. On the wall near the window were two blank spots where artwork must have once hung.

  Harvath took out his cell phone and stepped behind the desk. Dialing Nicholas, he fired up Jagland’s computer.

  “What have you got?” asked the Troll.

  “There are about fifty desktop computers in the lab. There was also a notice about funeral services for a Professor Lars Jagland. Does that name ring a bell with you?”

  “No, but I’m running it now. While I do that, I want you to ping the e-mail address I gave you.”

  “It’s asking me for a password before it will allow me on the system,” replied Harvath.

  “Hold on. Let me see what I can do.”

  “There’s three other offices here. If you want me to check those computers, I’ll probably also need passwords for them. But something tells me, Jagland is our guy.”