Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 17

Eichel kicked the door shut behind him, threw his keys in a bowl on the dining room table, and dropped a large bag of takeout food onto the coffee table.

He hung his coat on a peg near the door and then walked into the kitchen. There was the sound of a fridge and a cabinet door being opened then closed. He returned to the living room with a tall glass and a large bottle of beer.

As soon as he had made himself comfortable on the couch, Harvath stepped from the bedroom.

Eichel almost had a coronary. “Scheisse!” he gasped.

Harvath pointed his Glock at him and told him to shut up.

“Who are you?” he asked. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to talk with you about Peter Roth.”

“I don’t know any Peter Roth,” said Eichel.

Harvath smiled. “That’s not what Jörg Strobl told me.”

“I don’t know any Jörg Strobl.”

“So that’s how this is going to go. Fine by me.”

Eichel watched as Harvath produced a roll of duct tape and approached the couch. The man was already perspiring, his heart beating rapidly. “You can’t do this!” he exclaimed.

“I am doing this.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

“I did,” Harvath said, “but you decided you wanted to play games. That’s fine by me. I like games.”

“I am a German citizen. You cannot do this to me.”

The fat man seemed hardly in a position to be telling anyone what he could or could not be doing.

When Harvath tried to secure his wrists, Eichel resisted, so he punched him in the mouth.

Tears immediately formed in the man’s eyes. “Why?” he moaned.

“You know why. And you should also know that this is only going to get more painful the more you resist me. Do you understand?”

Eichel didn’t reply, so Harvath struck him again.

“Okay. Enough. Enough. I understand.”

After securing the man’s hands, Harvath asked, “Who is Peter Roth?”

“I told you, I don’t—” Eichel began, but stopped when he saw Harvath balling his hand into a fist and cocking it back. “Okay, okay.”

“Okay, what? Who is Peter Roth?”

“He works for Lufthansa.”

“Who does he really work for?”

“I don’t know!” the man exclaimed.

Harvath punched him again, much harder.

Eichel spat a broken tooth onto the coffee table. “You have to believe me. I don’t know what any of this is all about.”

Harvath drew his fist back, and Eichel shut his eyes. But instead of punching him, Harvath grabbed him by his bound wrists and dragged him into the kitchen. The last thing he needed to do was break his hand repeatedly punching this idiot in the face.

He threw Eichel down on the floor and rummaged through the cabinets until he found what he was looking for.

Before the fat man could cry out, Harvath had the plastic bag over his head and had pulled it tight. Oxygen deprivation often did wonders for people’s level of cooperation, not to mention recollection.

Lying on top of his hands, Eichel was unable to reach up and claw at the plastic bag. As he writhed wildly on the floor, Harvath sat down on top of him, increasing the intensity of his suffocation.

When he felt the man had had enough, he gave it an extra three seconds and then pulled the bag off his head.

Eichel gasped, but couldn’t get any air into his lungs until Harvath got off his back. As soon as he did, the airport operations manager sucked in air like a thirsty man at a desert oasis.

No sooner had he started catching his breath than Harvath said, “That’s enough,” and began to put the bag over his head again.

Eichel shook his head vigorously from side to side. “No,” he managed to rasp.

“You had your chance when I asked you about Roth. But you wanted to be a smartass. This time the bag stays on twice as long.”

Eichel thrashed even harder than before. “Please!” he begged. “Please. Stop.”

Harvath knew this game. Begging him to stop was not the same as answering his question. Eichel knew it too. So, the bag went fully back over his head.

As soon as it did, he began screaming a name. “Malevsky!” he yelled. “Mikhail Malevsky!”

Harvath removed the bag and waited for the overweight German to begin to catch his breath. Then, rolling him into a seated position, he leaned him against the wall and said, “Who is Mikhail Malevsky?”

“He’s Russian.”

“No kidding,” Harvath replied. “Who is he?”

“He’s a businessman.”

“What kind of business?”

“I don’t know.”

Harvath grabbed a fistful of Eichel’s flabby jowls and twisted. “Tell me who he is, or I put the bag back on and it doesn’t come off.”

“Mafia!” he cried out. “Russian mafia.”

Harvath let go of his face. Russian mafia could mean anything. The Russian mob was full of Russian intelligence agents. Some were retired. Some were not. All of them maintained good relations with Moscow. It was the Kremlin, after all, that put the organized in Russian organized crime.

“Where do I find him?” Harvath demanded.

“You don’t. He’s very cautious. His security is the best.”

“We’ll see about that. How does he contact you?”

“He texts me a code,” Eichel replied. “I unscramble it and then do what it says.”

“What else do you do for him, besides manipulating Lufthansa’s crew roster?”

“Nothing. I swear.”

He was lying. Harvath reached for the plastic bag.

Eichel quickly added, “Sometimes, I helped move Herr Roth through certain parts of the airport.”

“To avoid security or passport control?”

“Yes.”

“What else?” asked Harvath.

“Sometimes it was to help him get to the private aviation area.”

This got Harvath’s attention. “How often did Roth fly private?”

“A handful of times a year.”

“Why not use Lufthansa?”

Eichel shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“When was the last time?”

“A few days ago.”

Harvath looked at him. “Where did he fly to?”

“Turkey,” said Eichel.

“Where in Turkey? Specifically.”

“Antalya.”