Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 3

Scot Harvath wasn’t trying to hide. He expected to be seen. That was the plan. Be brief. Be bloody. Be gone.

There would be handwringing by the Austrians, of course. But the politics of the assignment weren’t his concern.

The White House had been crystal clear. Either the Europeans dealt with their problem, or the United States would.

Harvath sat in a corner of the Café Hawelka. A suppressed Beretta rested beneath a newspaper in his lap. Art posters covered the faded walls. The place smelled like chocolate and stale cigarettes.

Taking a final sip of his coffee, he stood and set the newspaper on the table.

His target was sitting with another man, near the window. Both were in their early thirties. Neither looked up.

Approaching the table, Harvath said only, “Paris.” Then, placing the suppressor under the man’s jaw, pulled the trigger.

Even though the Beretta was suppressed, the shot was still audible, and the man’s brains splattered across the café window were extremely visible.

Patrons screamed and knocked over tables and chairs in a rush to escape. Others sat frozen, either in shock, or out of self-preservation — hoping not to attract the shooter’s attention.

The CIA Director wanted a Rembrandt—big, bold, and unmistakable. Harvath had delivered.

Exiting via the rear of the café, he took off his cap, disassembled the weapon, and slid everything into his pockets.

Six blocks away, he walked into the Hotel Sacher. Tipping the coat check girl, he reclaimed his overcoat and shopping bags. He then used the men’s room to clean up and change clothes.

He stood at the sink and washed his hands. There would be multiple descriptions of him given to police. None of them would be accurate. The bystanders had been transfixed by the violence and the speed at which it had happened.

His waiter would remember only that he was a white male, maybe in his thirties, who had quietly placed his order in German.

If they were able to track him all the way to the Hotel Sacher, the coat check girl might describe him as handsome. He doubted that she’d be able to add, “Five-foot-ten, sandy-brown hair, and blue eyes,” to her description. Either way, he’d already be gone.

Outside the hotel, he had the doorman hail him a cab for the main train station. There, he laid a false trail by purchasing a ticket for Klagenfurt, a village near the border.

Exiting the station, he walked a few blocks to a nearby U-Bahn platform and hopped on the subway for six stops.

He poked around an obscure Vienna neighborhood for twenty minutes, then found a cab to take him to Ristorante Va Bene near the river. Confident no one was following him, he sat outside and had a beer.

He was cutting it close. The ship would be leaving soon. He needed that beer, though.

More than the beer, it was the five minutes of quiet he needed. Five minutes to get his head out of one game and into the next.

He hadn’t run an operation this way before. Trying to serve two masters was never a good idea. It didn’t matter how smart you were. You were begging for something to go wrong. And when things started going wrong, mistakes started piling up, along with the bodies.

He looked down at his watch. So much for five minutes of peace. Pulling some cash from his pocket, he threw back the rest of the beer, paid his bill, and left.

It was just over a mile to the Port of Vienna. Along the way, he tossed the Beretta and then the suppressor into the Danube.

He retrieved the Ziploc bag he had taped beneath a Dumpster with his passport, key card, and other personal effects. Putting everything back in his pockets, he ran one more mental check as he patted himself down. He didn’t want to get caught with anything tying him to what had happened at the café.

Stepping onto the ship’s gangway, he presented his embarkment card and smiled at the crew. They put his shopping bags onto the belt of the X-ray machine and had him walk through the magnetometer.

In the four days he had been on the ship, he had noticed a hundred ways a terrorist or other bad actor could wreak havoc. None of them involved sneaking something through the magnetometer or the X-ray machine.

Receiving the “all clear,” the crew handed him his items and welcomed him back aboard. One cheerful staffer began to ask if he had enjoyed his time ashore, but he was halfway across the lobby before she could finish.

Arriving at his stateroom, he paused at the door and listened. Nothing. Fishing out his key card, he let himself in.

It was dark. He began to reach for the light, but stopped himself. The sliding glass door was open. A figure was standing on his balcony.