Near Dark: A Thriller (17 page)

J
ULLOUVILLE-LES-
P
INS

F
RANCE

R
estaurant La Promenade was a short drive from Paul Aubertin’s house and had a fabulous view. From it, he could look out onto the Granville rocks and the Chausey archipelago.

La Promenade was a wonderful family restaurant with a
menu du marché
that changed daily. Today, they were offering pan-fried solettes with mashed potatoes, basil, and asparagus.
Aubertin ordered a bottle of Sancerre to go along with it and as he basked in the 1930s Belle Epoque setting, he tried to make sense of his project.

True to his word, Trang had allowed him to run everything the way he had wanted, and with no strings attached.

As he had been taught back in Belfast, he had taken his time and had done his research.

He hadn’t planned on getting his hands dirty
on this one, at least not right out of the gate, but his trip to Norway had been unavoidable. It was too good a lead, too rich with potential intelligence to leave to anyone else.

He had seen some tough, crusty old bastards in his day, but Carl Pedersen of the Norwegian Intelligence Service took the prize. Jesus, could he withstand a beating. And to be fair, not just a beating, but some of the
worst torture Aubertin could put on him. Whoever this Scot Harvath was, he hoped he knew what a loyal friend he’d had in Pedersen. Right until the end.

But as nobly as the Norwegian had resisted, as bitterly as he had
fought back the pain, it was all for naught. No one came to rescue him and Aubertin got what he wanted eventually. Though he had told the NIS man repeatedly that it would be easier
if he would just cooperate, Pedersen had been quite stubborn.

With the information he had accessed, Aubertin had put together a dossier and then had gone searching for Harvath.

Aubertin didn’t like operating in America—not if he didn’t have to. Their relationship with Great Britain’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies was too tight. Instead, he had hoped to pick up a lead on Harvath from
Europe. The information broker he went to for these things hadn’t disappointed him. Though it had cost a small fortune, the investment had been worth it.

From what he got from Pedersen, it was a quick jump to the next rung on the ladder. As soon as his information broker secured Harvath’s credit card information, Aubertin began tracking all of it, along with his cell phone.

The usage was spotty,
but it had put him squarely in the Florida Keys—first at an exclusive resort called Little Palm Island and then in Key West.

Aubertin had compiled a list of accomplished contract killers. The decision he needed to make was who to set loose first. More important, who could get the job done and not be a pain in the ass to kill once it was all over.

He had decided to offer it to a Belgian he had
worked with in the Foreign Legion. The man was very competent. But more important, Aubertin knew what his weak points were, knew where he lived, and knew how to get to him after the job was complete.

The man had been given a handful of days to conduct his surveillance and decide on the time and place to eliminate the target.

Based on their communications, it should have happened three days ago.
There had been no word from the Belgian since. Considering the dangers inherent in their line of work, Aubertin had to assume the worst.

This put him in a very difficult situation. He’d had a solid lead and now it had been lost. Harvath had not turned his phone back on, had
not used a credit or ATM card, nor had his passport been used to exit the United States and enter another country. Yet,
his source could no longer find him in Key West. The same went for all of the known aliases he had been able to come up with.

The Belgian must have spooked him and Harvath had gone to ground. It was now going to be a much bigger challenge to track him down.

The problem with a man like Harvath was that he had experience finding people who didn’t want to be found. He likely had a whole bag of
tricks to keep him off the radar.

At some point, though, he was going to need help. That was the key. If Aubertin could figure out to whom he would turn, then he might be able to pick up his trail.

To do that, he would have to map out all the important people in Harvath’s life—all of the people he might go to. It was a Herculean task. And if Harvath was smart, which Aubertin knew he was, he’d
avoid the most obvious ones. In fact, there was a good chance he might go to an enemy—someone no one would ever think he would turn to.

Aubertin’s head hurt. The double and triple crosses that existed in this game could be madness-inducing. It was like standing in a funhouse hall of mirrors trying to discern reflection versus reality.

There was also the problem of Trang’s client—the person who
had ultimately put up the money and had ordered the contract. Apparently, they were growing angry with how long the operation was taking.

Whoever this person was, they were threatening to pull the contract if results didn’t happen soon. What’s more, they had also hinted at serious, physical reprisals.

Trang, already nervous because of the double crosses they had planned, decided to extend his
stay in Paris. Returning to his home in Vietnam—the spot where Andre Weber had opened the contract and had paid him his fee, didn’t seem like a great idea right now.

Aubertin needed to get results. To do that, he’d have to clear his mind. That’s why he had come to La Promenade. If he didn’t come up with a plan by the time lunch was over, he’d take a walk along Jullouville’s beach. Sometimes,
he did his best thinking when he wasn’t thinking.

He was already on his second glass of wine when the waiter brought out his entrée. The baby Dover sole looked, and smelled, delicious.

It struck him that he had never asked how the local fishermen caught them. He assumed it was with a net, but he was more interested in what artistry, what skill was necessary to trap these highly prized specimens.

Did you have to go deep? Or were they closer to the surface? Near shore? Or far out into the English Channel? It was almost laughable how little he understood about a simple subject and a food he so regularly enjoyed.

But thinking about it had the effect of focusing his mind even more keenly on Harvath.

He didn’t realize that’s what had happened until he was preparing to pay his bill.

That
was when it hit him. That was when he knew how he was going to flush Harvath out into the open.

H
arvath had spent the next twenty minutes talking with the truck driver. Initially, he had been stunned that a seasoned intelligence operative like Landsbergis hadn’t been using a cutout to run Lukša. But when the truck driver explained their relationship, it made sense.

Lukša had been friends with Landsbergis’s uncle and the pair had been smuggling contraband for decades.

Not wanting
to involve a family member, especially one as unreliable as his alcoholic uncle, Landsbergis had first recruited Lukša for a small operation. It was a trial run of sorts and had gone off without a hitch. From then on, Landsbergis called whenever he needed something. He always paid in cash and the truck driver only dealt with him. He had never met nor had he interacted with anyone else at the
VSD.

The more Lukša spoke of what a good man Landsbergis was, the harder it was to reconcile the fact that he was the one who had sold Carl out. He was the only other person in the loop, though, and despite having had an excellent initial introduction to the Lithuanian intelligence operative, Harvath steeled himself for what had to happen now.

After collecting some more information, he left
the truck driver’s house and headed back to where he had parked his Land Cruiser.

Nearby, an old woman was walking a small, mixed breed dog. It looked like a little white dachshund with a Labrador face and spotted ears.
Harvath had never seen anything like it and he did something he never should have done—he smiled.

What he should have done was ignored the woman, kept his head down, and kept
moving. The moment he smiled, the woman started speaking to him in Lithuanian—peppering him with questions. When she pointed at his SUV and the note he had left on the dashboard, he began to get the gist of what she might be asking. She was one of the neighborhood busybodies and was curious who he had been to see.

As Russian was one of Lithuania’s three official languages, Harvath mumbled a couple
of barely passable phrases and pointed to his watch, signaling he was late, as he kept moving toward his vehicle.

Whether the woman bought it or not, he didn’t care. He just wanted to get out of there without creating a scene.

Arriving at the Land Cruiser, he opened the door via its keyless entry feature and slid into the driver’s seat. After texting Nicholas a quick, encrypted update, he entered
the address he’d been given into his GPS and fired up the vehicle.

Putting it in gear, he engaged his turn signal and checked his mirrors. As he was pulling out, he caught a glimpse of the old woman. She was walking away, but appeared to have been writing something. He couldn’t be certain. When he turned to look over his shoulder, she was no longer visible.

Had she made a note about him? Had
she taken down his license plate number? Even if she had, what was she going to do with the information? Call the police and rat him out for parking on a permit-only street without a permit? Maybe she wanted to have his vehicle “on file” in the event she saw it parked illegally again and wanted to make a federal case out of it.

Whatever it might be, he didn’t see the harm. The cops had better
things to do, and he didn’t plan on ever coming back. Besides, according to his GPS, it was a twenty-four-minute drive to Landsbergis’s house. he wanted to be there long before the man got off work and returned home.

In a perfect world, Harvath would have had the complete element of surprise. This, though, wasn’t a perfect world.

He felt certain that the moment he walked out the door the truck
driver was going to call Landsbergis. He would inform him that Harvath was in Lithuania and had been to see him. Everything that they had talked about would be relayed to the VSD man. At that point, Landsbergis would have a choice to make. He could either face Harvath or he could run.

What the intelligence operative chose to do would dictate what plan Harvath put into action.

On the list of
things he had asked Nicholas to do, at the very top was to lay down a series of digital tripwires. If Landsbergis chose to run, Harvath wanted to know. And not only did he want to know, but he wanted to be able to follow him—to track his every move. That way, he could choose the exact time and the exact place to confront him and carry out his revenge.

Landsbergis lived in a sleek modern house
in a trendy gated community known as Laurai. The security was more show than anything else.

Surrounded by forest, Harvath had already identified an old logging road where he could park the Land Cruiser and hike in on foot.

Once he got to where he wanted to be, he pulled off into the woods. Climbing out of the SUV, he took in a deep breath of the fresh, pine-scented air. It reminded him of the
time he and Lara had spent in the wilds of Alaska.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to linger for a moment in the memory, to feel her—as if she was right there next to him.

Exhaling, he put her back in the iron box, shoved it to a far corner of his mind, and began unpacking his equipment.

Though it was still daylight, the first thing that went into the top section of his backpack were
a pair of night vision goggles. He had no idea what time Landsbergis would be home, nor what time he would be returning to the Land Cruiser. As far as he was concerned, the night vision equipment was a must.

Also a must was the extremely compact SIG MCX Rattler. When its minimalist stock was folded against the short-barreled rifle’s frame, the
weapon was only twenty three inches long. The pack
had a hidden sleeve with a magnetic closure that allowed rapid deployment of the Rattler if the situation warranted.

Into the main compartment and some of the side pockets, he placed extra magazines, a small medical kit, one of his Tasers, zip-tie-style flex cuffs, and several other odds and ends. The backpack wasn’t exactly light, but considering the amount of gear he was transporting, it was
reasonable. In his SEAL days, he had rucked much heavier loads. This was nothing.

Cinching the pack tight, he set it down in the cargo area of the SUV and opened a small black Storm case. Nestled in the Pick N Pluck foam inside was a compact drone. Harvath took it out and, as he expanded its arms, walked with it back to the road.

Powering it up, he synced it to his phone and brought up the precise
coordinates for Landsbergis’s house. After selecting from a drop-down menu what he wanted the drone to do, he set it on the road, took a step back, and pushed the button on his phone to activate its mission.

While he was a firm believer in the maxim that nothing could beat old-school tradecraft, he loved how rapidly technology had advanced. The tiny, autonomous drone could do everything except
provide him with close air support. And even that was a feature he was sure was on its way in the not too distant future.

What surprised him the most was how whisper-quiet the geeks at DARPA had been able to make it. Gone was the loud, distinct buzz so common in the early versions operators had taken into the field. This model you could barely hear unless you were standing right underneath it,
which could be easily corrected by taking it to a higher altitude or positioning it off at an angle.

Having his own “eye in the sky” was an incredible advantage. As he picked his way through the woods toward the house, the drone would be monitoring the entire area for any sign of movement. And with its infrared camera, it would allow him to pick up any heat signatures that might suggest hostile
actors lying in wait.

Walking back to the Land Cruiser, he shouldered his pack, and locked the SUV up tight. Then, after checking the video feed from the drone, he struck off again for the house.

As he walked, he thought about the different approaches he might take with Landsbergis. There was a lot he didn’t know about the man—and that put him at a disadvantage. He was likely going to have to
wing it and go with his gut. And while he had a good gut, he didn’t like being relegated to that as his only option.

When you didn’t know much about a subject, a proper interrogation could take time, lots of it.

Lukša, the truck driver, was less difficult because he had already been broken. Thanks to the interrogation the Russians had subjected him to, he had no desire for a repeat. He had put
up very little resistance and had cooperated quickly. Landsbergis, on the other hand, might be something else entirely.

What confused Harvath about this whole thing was that Carl had trusted the Lithuanian.
Really
trusted him. Pedersen knew, going in, how dangerous it could be for Norway if the Russians discovered what he had done. Helping Harvath get in and out of Kaliningrad to snatch one of
their top people was a big deal. And it was just as big a deal for Landsbergis and Lithuania.

Yet both men had gone along with the plot. They had supposedly taken great care to make sure that their involvement, and thereby the involvement of their nations, wasn’t discovered. But in the end, just as with the truck driver, perhaps the Russians had gotten to Landsbergis. Maybe they had found a pressure
point so excruciating that he had broken.

Outside of morbid curiosity, it really didn’t matter to Harvath what that pressure point was. Granted, it was important that if Landsbergis was the leak, he answer for what he had done and reveal what was so important that it was worth trading Carl’s life for.

He doubted it would be anything too sophisticated. In the end, the Russians weren’t subtle
when it came to this stuff. They were brutish thugs and their default setting was to resort to brutish tactics. Taking the time to develop a menu of clever extortion options wasn’t really part of how they did business anymore. There were exceptions, of course, but that took higher-level thinking, something very much in short supply in post-Soviet Russia. The Great Game, as it was once known, had ended
at about the same time the Wall had come down.

It was now a different age with different players and much different rules. These days, it was less high-stakes chess, and more short-term checkers. A crude, even simplistic analogy to be sure—but probably one that was overly generous to the Russians. After all, even checkers demands obedience to a set of rules and, at the most basic level, appreciation
for strategy.

Harvath’s own strategy was simple. He planned to confront Landsbergis and ferret out what he knew about Carl’s death. If he had been the one who gave him up, Harvath would extract the details, and then put a bullet in him. If everything went according to plan, he’d be done and on his way out of the country by midnight.

Checking the drone feed, he pressed on toward the house, choosing
his steps carefully, just as he had been trained. The gated community wouldn’t have gone to the effort to place sensors, or worse, in the woods, but there was no telling what Landsbergis might have done.

Two hundred meters from the property, Harvath pulled his phone back out and retasked the drone.

It had been flying high overhead, looking for heat signatures and any signs of motion. He now
wanted it to look directly inside the house. Because it was a big glass box, the assignment was a piece of cake.

None of the window treatments had been drawn and the drone was able to peer into multiple rooms on every side. There was no sign of life.

Harvath increased the drone’s altitude and placed it back into surveillance mode. Then, he inserted an earbud and called Nicholas.

Their conversation,
like their texts, was encrypted and, via an added layer of security, their voices were also distorted. It gave a weird, otherworldly feeling to their back-and-forth. They sounded like a couple of robot hostage-takers discussing a ransom. While the drone technology may have come a long way, the communications technology Nicholas was using left a bit to be desired.

“How’s your view?” he asked when
the little man answered.

“Not bad,” said Nicholas, watching the drone footage back in the United States. “Nice place our guy has.”

“Maybe crime
does
pay,” Harvath replied. “We’ll find out. In the meantime, what about the alarm company?”

“The whole community uses the same one. It’s the Lithuanian version of ADT. I’ve already accessed his account. When you’re ready to make entry, let me know.”

“Roger that. Stand by.”

He didn’t believe anyone was home, but out of an abundance of caution double-checked his pistol and then unslung his pack and removed the Taser, so that he could have it handy.

Taking another deep breath, he reshouldered his pack and crept forward.

When he got to his next waypoint, he announced, “One hundred meters out.”

“Good copy,” Nicholas responded. “Norseman, one
hundred meters out.”

Norseman had been the call sign given to Harvath as a SEAL. Like most military call signs, there was a funny story behind it.

With his blue eyes and sandy-brown hair, Harvath looked more Germanic than Nordic. The nickname hadn’t come from any special attachment he’d had to the Vikings, but rather his penchant for dating Scandinavian flight attendants who flew in and out
of LAX.

Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes—they’d all been gorgeous. Something else, though, about them had been rather telling. None of them had been U.S.-based. They had all been based back in Scandinavia. Like him, they were unavailable, except for short, carefree bursts. It was only as he had gotten older and more mature, that he had begun to realize the futility of dating women so geographically
unavailable.

It didn’t mean that he had lost his appreciation for Scandinavian women—not by a long shot. He had always found them incredibly sexy, incredibly confident, and tantalizingly independent. There was no drama and no bullshit with them. They told you how it was, one hundred percent of the time. And when it came to sex, they were amazing—no guilt, no inhibitions, and no problems communicating
what they enjoyed.

Every one of the women he had dated had been smarter than him—and he was pretty sharp. As much as they had loved the United States, they all knew better than to trade their careers for some cocky young SEAL, off to God only knew where for God only knew how long.