Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 33

Three kilometers later, the Rolls-Royce pulled off to the side of the road. Its two rear tires were flat.

During the traffic stop, Herman and Anna had each shoved a specially milled screw into the tire on their side. The screws had a hollow shaft and a hole in the head to let the air out.

Once the Rolls-Royce had fallen behind, they pulled off on a side road, put a hood over Malevsky’s head, better secured him with duct tape, and placed him in the trunk.

When they got back to the barn, Harvath was ready for them. Eichel sat naked, bound to the chair he had been bound to previously, surrounded by the plastic sheeting. The only windows in the barn had been covered over with black garbage bags.

Eichel was illuminated by four pairs of 1,000-watt, tripod-mounted work lights. Despite their blinding-white light, they did little to warm the drafty old structure. Equal measures of fear, exhaustion, and cold were causing Eichel to tremble. That was what Harvath wanted.

Anna had driven the police vehicle back inside the barn so that it couldn’t be seen from outside or overhead. She wanted to stay, but it was going to get ugly.

Malevsky would be harder to break than Eichel. It wasn’t the kind of thing Anna needed to see.

Her assistance in the traffic stop had been invaluable. She had done a perfect job. Right now, though, the best thing she could do was to return to Frankfurt. Harvath would take things from here.

They said their goodbyes inside the barn. Walking her out to her car would only have been asking for trouble.

He liked her — and that bothered him. It bothered him because she was married. And not only was she married, but her husband was critically ill. It wasn’t right.

It also bothered him because he felt disloyal to Lara. Their situation was in flux, but it wasn’t necessarily over.

He shook his head at that thought—not necessarily over. What else could it be? She had chosen her career and he had chosen his. It meant two different cities — Boston and D.C.

Could it work? Anything was possible. Would it work? That was the real question.

If your career was the central force in your life, the thing that defined you, how much time were you going to allocate to a long-distance relationship, regardless of how much you loved that other person?

Supposedly, love conquered all, but would it counter countless security checkpoints, delayed flights, and all that time spent in travel?

Being in a relationship that was geographically undesirable didn’t seem to make much sense. It would be one thing if it were temporary — a holding pattern while the parties figured out how to end up in the same city.

But Harvath and Lara had already been through that. In fact, they had been transitioning out of it. Now they had been dragged back into it.

There was a lot to be said for having the person you loved close. Being able to walk into the kitchen and just see their face. Spending a Sunday morning doing nothing but reading the paper together. A Saturday night watching an old movie in front of the fire.

People needed what they needed. And they usually needed it when they needed it. Getting together every other weekend — if they were lucky — plus vacations, wasn’t a relationship. At least, it wasn’t the kind he was looking for.

Harvath loved Lara. He didn’t, though, love the idea of loving her from a distance. As a couple, they were moving backward.

“She has good instincts,” said Herman.

Harvath had been standing at the barn door, watching Anna leave. His friend’s voice brought his attention back.

“With the right training, she’d probably make a halfway decent operative,” Herman continued. “She’s being wasted at the Bundespolizei.”

There was a lot of promise in Anna Strobl, on multiple levels, but Harvath didn’t want to think about that. Not right now. He needed to focus on Malevsky.

Drawing Herman out of earshot of their captives, he explained how he intended things to go.

Once everything was set, they pulled Malevsky from the trunk of the police car.

Harvath nodded and Herman pulled the hood from the Russian mobster’s head. Malevsky blinked several times trying to get his eyes adjusted.

He looked from side to side. He saw the other prisoner, naked and restrained to a chair. He was shivering and had a hood over his head. Malevsky was nonplussed and stared daggers at his captors.

Harvath walked over and tore the duct tape off his mouth in one quick rip. As soon as he did, Malevsky started cursing him in Russian. Harvath waited for him to finish.

But Malevsky didn’t finish. He was only just getting started. Harvath spoke some Russian but not as much as he would have liked. He could pick up a few foul words here and there. The rest he just guessed at via the mobster’s tone.

When he couldn’t get a rise out of Harvath in Russian, he switched to German. Here, Harvath was a little stronger linguistically but not by much. Herman, though, found the man’s threats amusing and chuckled at some of the more creative ones.

Harvath drew back his fist and punched Malevsky in the mouth as hard as he could.

There was a spray of blood and the force from the blow knocked the Russian over backward in his chair. His head cracked against the floor.

Harvath let him lie there while he found a towel and wiped off his hand. He was setting the tone. He wanted Malevsky to know that he could keep this up as long as he wanted. He was in no hurry.

The man grunted something that he couldn’t make out. “English, please,” said Harvath.

“Fuck your mother.”

Harvath smiled. It would be a real battle of wills with this guy. He was a street thug. All he understood was brute force. He would talk, it just came down to how much suffering he was willing to endure before he did.

“You are a dead man,” Malevsky added. “Dead.”

He drew the word out as if that would make it more frightening. He had no idea who he was talking to. That was about to change.

Harvath perused a line of tools he had sitting on a long table. He stopped at the ball peen hammer Herman had purchased and picked it up. It had a bright yellow handle and a black rubber grip. He tested its weight. “Left or right knee?” he asked.

“Fuck your mother!” Malevsky spat.

Harvath turned the hammer sideways and ran it along the outside of the Russian’s left leg. When he found his knee, he bounced the hammer against it a couple of times.

Malevsky wound up to issue another Fuck your mother, but Harvath was faster.

With lightning speed, he swung the hammer and shattered the man’s knee.

The Russian screamed at the top of his lungs. Tears flooded from his eyes and down his face.

Harvath returned the hammer to the table and said, “Tell me about Sacha Baseyev.”

Malevsky let loose with another string of curses in Russian.

Harvath indicated for Herman to tip the mobster back upright in his chair. When he was sitting up, Harvath repeated the question.

“You are a dead man,” Malevsky replied. “Dead man.”

“Have you ever been to Iraq, Mr. Malevsky?” said Harvath, looking over his tools.

“Fuck you!”

Harvath paused. Then he smiled and went back to selecting his next tool. “Many years ago, a Russian diplomat was kidnapped. The Iraqi government tried for a week, but couldn’t locate him. The Russian embassy brought in a team of ‘specialists.’ Men, I would imagine, like you.

“They quickly figured out who one of the kidnappers was and went to his house. Of course, the kidnapper wasn’t there, but his family was. They grabbed one of the men. It was his brother, I believe. And then they drove off.

“An hour later, the Iraqi family heard a knock on the door. When they opened it, there was a small box sitting there. Inside, they found the brother’s ear.

“One piece of the brother — his nose, a finger, his lips, the other ear, was delivered every hour until the Russian diplomat was released.

“The Russians had been able to do in one day what the Iraqis couldn’t do in an entire week.”

Harvath stopped at a straight razor and picked it up from the table. “How many of your body parts would it take for your family to cooperate?”

A flash of panic rippled across Malevsky’s face. It had only been there for a fraction of a second before he got it under control and masked it. But the micro-expression—the tell—had manifested itself nevertheless.

That gave Harvath an idea.