Foreign Influence_A Thriller Read online

  He made excellent progress and, despite his recent milestone birthday, felt that he was in better shape and better equipped than he had ever been before. Even so, he’d recently begun to notice that it was taking him slightly longer to bounce back from injuries. The job was a dream come true, but he knew he couldn’t keep doing it forever. At some point, maybe ten years from now, maybe fifteen, things were going to change. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life kicking in doors and shooting bad guys in the head.

  Carlton had been ready to put Harvath in the field, but before he could begin, Harvath had asked for permission to conduct the Iraq operation. The Old Man had agreed and through the DOD had greased Harvath’s passage into Iraq, seeing to it that he had everything he needed.

  With the Iraq operation complete, the Old Man had given him a couple of days off before the real work was to begin. He had suggested time with Tracy. Harvath had told him he’d think about it.

  He was on his second beer, still thinking about it and gazing absentmindedly across the water when his phone vibrated. He took it out and checked the display. It was an international call, but the country code was 34—Spain. Figuring it had to be one of his guys who was using a Spanish cell phone company to get better calling rates out of Iraq, he took the call.

  The minute he heard the heavily accented voice on the other end, he realized he had been wrong. “Mr. Harvath?” said the voice.

  “Who’s this?”

  “I’m a friend of Nicholas.”

  “Nicholas?” repeated Harvath. “Nicholas who? How’d you get this number?”

  The man ignored the question. “He says you share an affinity for the same breed of dog.”

  Immediately, Harvath’s mind was drawn to his dog, Bullet. A Caucasian Ovcharka, or Caucasian sheepdog as the name translated, Bullet was named after an old friend of his, Bullet Bob, who had been killed during a terrorist attack on New York City. Ovcharkas were exceedingly fast, fiercely loyal, and absolutely vicious when it came to guarding those closest to them, which was why Bullet was with Tracy up in Maine.

  The name Nicholas now registered. Harvath’s dog had been left on his doorstep as a thank-you cum peace offering from a dwarf who dealt in the purchase and sale of highly sensitive and often highly classified information. Though commonly referred to as the Troll, the little man had told Harvath he preferred his friends to call him Nicholas.

  Harvath had reached a certain détente with Nicholas, but describing it as friendship would have been stretching the definition of their relationship. In fact, if he never saw or heard from the little man again it would be fine by him.

  “What do you want?” asked Harvath.

  “Someone tried to kill Nicholas,” said the voice.

  “You reap what you sow. He probably deserved it.”

  The man pushed forward undeterred. “The bombing in Rome two days ago—”

  “Does he know something?” interrupted Harvath. He had heard about the bus explosion and the horrible loss of lives before leaving Iraq. It was all over the news.

  “He says he needs to talk to you about it.”

  “Does he know who was behind the attack?”

  There was a pause as the man seemed to gather his thoughts.

  “I want to speak with Nicholas,” Harvath said finally.

  “He’s not in a condition to talk. Not right now.”

  “Well, when he is, tell him to call me back.”

  Harvath was about to hang up when the man stated, “He needs to see you in person.”

  “I’m not comfortable with that.”

  “Mr. Harvath, you’re going to be presented with evidence, false evidence, implicating Nicholas in the attacks. In fact, two black SUVs have just pulled into your driveway.”

  Harvath looked up toward his house. “Why should I believe you?”

  “I’m just the messenger,” replied the voice. “Nicholas is the one you need to speak to. He can help you track down who did this, but he needs you to come to him, and to come alone.”

  Harvath didn’t like it. It felt wrong, and that little voice in the back of his mind that never lied and had always helped to keep him alive was telling him to be very, very careful. “The only thing this offer’s missing is a dark alley,” he said.

  “Someone wants your government to believe Nicholas was involved. Ask yourself why. Review the evidence, and if you decide you want the truth, be in the old town of Bilbao the day after tomorrow. Behind the Cathedral in the Calle de la Tendería is a tobacconist. Ask the man there for cigarettes named after Nicholas’s dogs and you’ll receive instructions on what to do next.

  “And Mr. Harvath? Please hurry. Nicolas believes there may be more attacks in the works.”

  Harvath was about to interject when the call was disconnected. From up near the house, he could just make out the sound of several car doors slamming.

  CHAPTER 5

  CHICAGO

  Burt Taylor had just come back from the hospital cafeteria, and his wife, Angela, was next to their daughter’s hospital bed when trauma surgeon, Dr. Dennis Stern, walked into the room.

  It had been ten days since the hit-and-run. Alison Taylor had suffered severe brain damage, as well as multiple broken bones, severe lacerations, and internal bleeding.

  Her parents had driven in from Minnesota as soon as they’d received the news. For the first few days, neither of them had left the hospital. Now, they spent the days together with Alison and took turns spending the night by her bed.

  “Have the Chicago Police come up with anything?” asked Stern as he finished his examination.

  Mr. Taylor had trouble keeping his anger in check. “Not a damn thing.”

  Normally, Mrs. Taylor would have called him on his cursing, but in this case she agreed with his choice of words. The police had been less than satisfactory.

  “It’s like they aren’t even interested in finding the guy,” continued Taylor. “They quote stats for annual hit-and-runs as if we’re supposed to just accept what happened to Alison as a consequence of living in Chicago. It’s ridiculous.”

  “I agree with you,” said Stern. “Most cops mean well, but the CPD is overworked. This city’s deficit is like a black hole. It just keeps sucking more and more into it, and it leaves the cops with less and less to work with.” He could see the anger building in Burt Taylor’s eyes. “But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be doing everything they can to find the person who did this to your daughter.”

  “You’re damn right.”

  “I think you should have someone working this for you from the inside.”

  “Working this from the inside?” repeated Taylor incredulously. “Isn’t that what the detectives assigned to Alison’s case are supposed to be doing?”

  “Technically, yes. But like any big-city police force, the CPD has a large bureaucracy. That doesn’t excuse how your daughter’s case is or isn’t being handled. It’s just a fact. Again, the majority of cops at the CPD are good people. They’re just swamped with murders and rapes and shootings and all of it.”

  Angela Taylor brought the trauma surgeon back to the matter at hand. “What do you mean by someone working for us from the inside?”

  “Lots of cops moonlight,” replied Stern. “Many do security. But they also do other things. I’ve done a lot of tactical medicine with the SWAT team and have a friend who is now over in the department’s Organized Crime Division. He happens to be a lawyer and he moonlights taking cases.”

  Burt Taylor looked at him. “So you’re telling me that if we want our daughter’s case to get the attention it deserves, we’ve got to pay someone off? What the hell kind of police department is your city running?”

  The surgeon put up his hands. “Absolutely not. What I am suggesting is that you meet with him, talk about what happened, and share your frustration over the lack of progress by the CPD. He might be able to help you.”

  “I’m afraid I’m confused as well,” added Mrs. Taylor. “Once the police
find who did this, the city or district attorney will bring charges, won’t they?”

  “Correct. It’ll be the state’s attorney,” said Stern. “But I want you to understand, I’m not trying to sell you anything. You’re either going to like John and want to work with him or you’re not. He wouldn’t be acting as a Chicago police officer; he’d be acting as an advocate for Alison and your family. He’d be your attorney, and his role would be to push the CPD’s investigation. He’d also launch his own investigation so that you can not only nail the person who did this and have the state’s attorney bring him up on criminal charges, but you’ll also have a person you can sue in civil court for damages.

  “That’s what I mean by having someone working for you on the inside. He knows how the CPD works. Even though he’ll be wearing his lawyer hat, the fact that he’s also a cop will bring a lot of pressure to bear on the investigation.”

  Burt Taylor thought about it for several moments. After looking at his wife, he turned back to Dennis Stern and said, “How do we get in touch with him?”

  They met at an out-of-the-way restaurant not far from the hospital in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood along Taylor Street.

  Sergeant John Vaughan was sitting at a table in the corner, his back to the wall, with a view of the front door. It was just after eleven a.m., and the restaurant was empty. He noticed Burt Taylor through the window before he even entered.

  The hostess showed him to the table and John stood to shake his hand. “I’m very sorry about what happened to your daughter.”

  “Thank you,” said Taylor as he released the man’s hand and took a seat. Vaughan was in his late thirties. He wore a brown suit with a green tie. His dark hair was cut short and he had eyes that moved around the room. “Are you expecting someone else?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Vaughan. “I don’t come to this neighborhood a lot. It’s nothing personal.”

  Taylor didn’t know what to make of him. So far, he wasn’t very impressed. “Dr. Stern thinks you may be able to help us.”

  “Dennis is a good man.”

  It was an odd reply. “You’re a police officer, but not a detective, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you are a lawyer.”

  “I am,” he responded.

  Taylor paused, waiting for some sort of a sales pitch as to why he should hire him, but nothing came. Whatever this man was, he was definitely no salesman. “Setting aside your relationship with Dr. Stern, why should I consider hiring you?”

  “Well, it depends on what you want.”

  “We want to find the driver of the taxi who ran down our daughter.”

  “Good, because that’s what I want too.”

  Finally, Taylor saw a spark in the man.

  Vaughan continued. “Are you familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? You know, categories of needs that have to be met before a person can start focusing on achieving the needs of the next category?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, when it comes to cops, detectives in particular, that’s pretty much BS. There are two types of cases that will always get solved—the easy ones and the ones where there is so much pressure grinding down on the investigators that they absolutely have to climb out of the ring with a victory.”

  “So which one is Alison’s?”

  “Unfortunately, neither. There are more than five thousand Yellow Cabs in this city and the only witnesses to the crime were so inebriated, their testimony is worthless. So that scratches your daughter’s case from the easy category. And let’s face it, if this was an easy case, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here.

  “As far as crushing the investigators with pressure, unless you have a very close relationship with the mayor, our police superintendent, or your daughter is some sort of notable personality, there’s just not going to be enough pressure to make this case a priority and get it solved.”

  Taylor was confused. “Then where does that leave us?”

  John Vaughan smiled. “It leaves you with me.”

  “And what would you do differently?”

  “For starters, I’d do the job the detectives were supposed to. I’d investigate the entire incident from front to back.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’d follow up on any leads and see where they take me.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s how it’s done,” said Vaughan.

  “Officer, how many hit-and-run cases have you ever investigated?”

  “To be honest with you, none.”

  “How many violent crimes?”

  There was a pause, so Taylor added, “Give or take.”

  “Two or three,” responded Vaughan.

  Taylor was beginning to feel that this had all been a waste of time. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-five.”

  “And exactly how long have you been an attorney?”

  “Six months, sir.”

  “Six months? When the heck did you get out of law school, yesterday?”

  “Actually, four years ago.”

  Taylor was now completely convinced that he had wasted his time. “It took you that long to pass the bar?”

  “No. I took a four-year leave to fight in Iraq.”

  Taylor wondered if maybe he had the man. “What branch of the service?”

  “The Marine Corps.”

  “You’re a Marine?”

  “Yes, sir. I worked in intelligence and helped shape our counterinsurgency strategy.”

  After several moments of silence Taylor said, “Do you believe you can help with my daughter’s case?”

  “I wouldn’t waste your time, sir, if I believed otherwise.”

  Waving the waiter over, he replied, “Then let’s order some lunch and talk about what you can do for my family.”

  CHAPTER 6

  VIRGINIA

  Coming up from the dock, Harvath decided to stay out of sight until he knew what was going on.

  He cut across his neighbor’s property and used a stand of trees for cover. Peering toward his house, he saw two blacked-out Suburbans parked in his driveway. Either Nicholas had someone watching his house, or he had access to real-time satellite imagery. Knowing the little man’s skills, he suspected it was the latter.

  A small contingent of hard men in crisp suits with earpieces stood near the vehicles, their heads on swivels. They definitely hadn’t come to sell Girl Scout cookies. Harvath wished he’d taken his .45 down to the dock with him.

  As he watched, one of the men spoke into a microphone at his sleeve. When the passenger door of the second vehicle opened, Reed Carlton stepped out and Harvath relaxed.

  He was a tall, fit man in his mid-sixties with a prominent chin and silver hair.

  “You really should call first, Reed,” said Harvath as he slipped from behind the tree line and took Carlton’s security team by surprise.

  “Sorry about that,” said the Old Man as Harvath met him in the driveway and the two shook hands. “Something has come up. Can we talk inside?”

  “As long as you’re okay with casual Monday,” replied Harvath, referring to his shorts-and-no-shirt look.

  The older man nodded and followed him inside. After pulling a shirt from the hall closet and putting it on, Harvath directed his new boss to the kitchen.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Please,” said Reed as he sat down at the kitchen table and placed his briefcase next to him. “I understand Iraq was a success.”

  “Not for the little boy who died.”

  “I was sorry to hear about that.”

  Harvath didn’t reply. He kept his back to the man, pulled two large mugs out of the cupboard, and set them on the counter.

  “I haven’t read your full debrief yet,” continued Carlton. “Did you go through with the whole thing?”

  There was silence, and the Old Man waited. Finally, Harvath said, “All of it.”

  While Carlton was a master at psychological operations
, this assignment had been Harvath’s from start to finish. He had dubbed it Paradise Lost. The idea was to shake any other al-Qaeda cells who might be considering the kidnapping and torture of children. Upon each terrorist body at the safe house was left a black envelope. Inside the envelope was a detailed account, in Arabic, of horrible things supposedly done to the men before they had been killed. Placed into the mouth of each terrorist had been a pickled pig’s foot from a jar that Harvath had brought with him from the U.S.

  The idea of the notes in the black envelopes was to send a message to all of the other terrorists preying on children in Iraq. They would not die martyrs’ deaths. They would not go to Paradise. They would be defiled before their god. They would be unclean and unworthy. And to make sure the point was driven home, the pickled pigs’ feet were placed into the mouth of each of the corpses.

  It was a derivative of the Colombian necktie, and Harvath was confident word of it would spread quickly, its meaning clear.

  Carlton changed the subject. “You heard about Rome?”

  Harvath filled the coffee cups and brought them to the table where he sat down. “I did. Twenty American college students.”

  “Plus their teacher, the bus driver, and eleven others who had the misfortune of being near that bus when it detonated at the Colosseum. Current count has over forty wounded.”

  He shook his head. “Do we have any leads?”

  Reaching into his briefcase Carlton withdrew a folder. “The Italians are investigating a rumor about four Muslim men trying to purchase military-grade explosives in Sicily. The same kind used in the attack in Rome.”

  Sicily could mean only one thing. “They think the Mafia’s involved?”

  “That’s what they thought at first. And considering the fact that the Cosa Nostra did over two billion dollars in illicit-weapons trafficking last year, it makes sense to start with them.”