Black List

CHAPTER 13

Padre Peio had only left the table once, to get an ashtray, and had motioned for Harvath to keep talking, which he did. When he finished, the priest exhaled a cloud of smoke and leaned back in his chair.

“I am deeply sorry for the loss of your colleague,” said Peio. “I will pray for her, as well as the other men you were forced to kill.”

The idea of Peio praying for Riley’s killers didn’t sit well with him at all, but Harvath kept that to himself.

“Now then,” continued the priest, “what else can I do for you besides provide sanctuary? I assume you want to make contact with your superiors?”

“I do.”

“Considering your circumstances, using a telephone, at least from here, is out of the question.”

“Agreed,” replied Harvath. “It would be too easy to trace. If I had access to a computer, though, I could route it so that it looks like I’m someplace else entirely. Is there one here that I can use?”

“There is. I’ll speak to your host and see what I can do.”

Twenty minutes later, Harvath was sitting in the main house in front of a small laptop. After laying a long digital trail through servers in multiple countries, he accessed his Skype account. Clicking on Reed Carlton’s icon in his contact list, he typed a message the Old Man would recognize, letting him know that he had gone to ground and that Riley had been killed. Am on the road. My companion couldn’t make the trip.

It was all he needed to say. Carlton was pretty much glued to his Skype account. If he wasn’t communicating with his people in the field via computer, he was doing it on his smartphone. Harvath sent the message and then sat back and waited. Forty-five minutes later, he was still waiting.

The Old Man’s icon showed that he was online, yet he still hadn’t responded. The only thing he could think of was that he had to be in a meeting of some sort. But with the time change, it didn’t make any sense. He didn’t like it, but he had no choice but to continue waiting.

An hour later, Peio knocked on the open door and asked, “Everything okay?”

Harvath shook his head. “No word yet.”

“It is the middle of the night back in the U.S.”

“I can’t reach Nicholas either and he’s always online.”

“I haven’t been able to contact him either,” said the priest.

“Since when?”

“Since yesterday. I reached out to him when I heard you were looking for me.”

“Via cell phone or the Web?” asked Harvath.

“The Web,” replied Peio.

Harvath went back into his contact list to check Nicholas’s Skype status. It showed him as being off-line. Nicholas was never off-line. Something was wrong.

Scrolling through his contact list he pinged one of the other operators he worked with at the Carlton Group, a man named Coyne. His icon showed him as being online, but he wasn’t responding. Harvath decided to call him on Skype. Clicking on the number, he activated the call and listened to it ring until it went to voice mail.

He then tried another operator, a man named Moss, and had the same results. Working his way down the list, he reached out to the two dozen or so other operators. Not a single one of them answered. Something definitely wasn’t right. In fact, something was very wrong.

Peio could see the look on Harvath’s face. “What is it?”

“I can’t reach anyone. Not on their Skype accounts. Not on their mobile phones. Nothing.”

“Could there be a reason?”

Harvath was sure there was a reason, but the only one that came to mind was so unfathomable that he didn’t want to even think about it. But he had to. There was no such thing as coincidence, not in his line of work. He had to assume that something very bad had happened. “I need to get back.”

“To the States?”

“Yes. Now. As soon as possible.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” asked Peio. “You have no idea what you might be rushing back to.”

The man had a point. He could be rushing right into a trap. That said, he couldn’t just sit still. He had to do something.

He was running options through his mind when a chime rang from the computer and a message from the Old Man suddenly appeared on his screen. Received your message. Are you okay?

Peio had heard the chime and saw the expression on Harvath’s face change. “What is it?”

“The Old Man just responded,” stated Harvath as he keyed in his response to Carlton. Am okay. No damage.

There were a million things he wanted to tell his superior, but he knew better than to do that, even on Skype. Instead he waited.

Moments later, the Old Man typed, Are you somewhere safe?

Yes.

Good. Stay there. Wait for further communication.

It was just like the Old Man to tell him to sit and wait, without giving him any further information. The fact that he didn’t ask where Harvath was or try to move him to one of the other Carlton safe houses was a bad sign. The organization must have been very deeply penetrated.

Roger that, Harvath replied.

Do not communicate with anyone else, the Old Man added. Not until I figure out what is going on. No one.

That was a prohibition Harvath should have expected. Technically, he had already “communicated” by reaching out to the other team members, but there was nothing he could do about that and decided to keep it to himself.

He wanted to ask what, if anything, the Old Man knew about the Paris attack, but he knew better. Carlton had contacts everywhere and had probably already been in touch with French intelligence. The fact that he wasn’t asking for any details at this point spoke volumes. When he wanted Harvath’s report, he’d ask for it. In the meantime, Harvath would do as he had been instructed.

Understood, he typed and then watched as the Old Man’s icon changed from green to gray, indicating that he had logged off.