Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 4

Harvath had known this was coming. He didn’t want it, but it was inevitable. Dropping the bags on the couch, he walked out onto the balcony.

Lara Cordero was leaning against the rail with a glass of champagne in her hand. Her tight dress clung to her stunning body as a faint breeze moved her long, brown hair. She could have been a model for the cruise line. She looked gorgeous.

“How’d it go?” she asked, gazing across the Danube.

He hadn’t told her what he was doing, but she wasn’t stupid. He had been bombarded with calls and emails since they had arrived in Europe. He was also carrying a smartphone she had never seen before. She knew enough about him to put two and two together.

He had promised her a vacation last fall, right before a megalomaniac at the United Nations engineered a devastating, global pandemic. While it burned itself out, he and Lara had taken refuge in Alaska. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t exactly the getaway either of them had envisioned. A cruise along the Danube was much more like it — at least for Lara. Harvath had a secondary agenda, and that’s why he had suggested it.

Islamic terrorism had exploded in Europe. Americans had been killed. The United States had been unequivocal about what it expected its European allies to do. It was time for the gloves to come off. They were at war.

The terrorists hid among the very people they were slaughtering. They used the freedom and openness of the West to strike at soft targets like churches, cafés, restaurants, bars, transit centers, tourist attractions, sporting events, concerts, movie theaters, and schools.

They were not legitimate combatants. They were savages. To expect any mercy from the nations upon whom they preyed was the height of insanity. They respected one thing and one thing only — force.

Abubakar al-Shishani was responsible for a string of terror attacks in Paris that had killed multiple Americans. The fact that he moved about so openly in Vienna showed how little he feared any reprisal. Harvath had taken care of that, though.

It was meant to be a message to the rest of them. If they killed Americans, America would kill them. It didn’t matter where they were, or how long it took. Harvath was happy to be the messenger.

Moving in and out of Vienna via boat was too good an opportunity for Harvath to pass up. The cruise provided him with the perfect cover. It also provided him with a chance to have his cake and eat it too.

He and Lara were at a crossroads. They needed the vacation, but they needed it in order to sort out what was going to happen next.

The pandemic, though short-lived, had been brutal. It seemed everyone knew someone who had been impacted. That included Lara. Two of her superiors had succumbed. And because of it, she had been offered an amazing promotion.

The Boston Police Department wanted to elevate her from homicide detective to commander of the entire unit.

It was an incredible opportunity. But it meant she would have to remain in Boston.

In the hope that she might relocate, Harvath had been reaching out to his contacts in and around D.C. They were all feeling a similar pinch. They had lost exceptional people, but wanted to promote from within. The chance Lara was being offered wasn’t going to be matched anywhere else.

Although it killed him to admit it, it was the best decision she could make. He respected her sense of loyalty to a department that had always had her back, and to a city that she loved.

There were other factors at play as well. Her aging parents lived in the apartment right beneath hers. They were too old to leave Boston and start over. All of their friends were there. They were a tight family. The idea of Lara’s son growing up in Virginia without his grandparents just downstairs also didn’t sit well. If they couldn’t make the move together, she didn’t want to make the move at all.

Harvath understood. He loved her enough to want what was best for her — to accept the promotion. He also loved her enough to want their last trip together to be special.

His moving to Boston was pretty much a nonstarter. He couldn’t do his job long-distance. The CIA had him under contract now and the President demanded a lot of face time. With the country’s aggressive new stance on terrorism, he was only going to get busier.

It wasn’t an easy conclusion to come to. Ten years from now, or maybe even just five, his thinking might have been different. But not now, not at this moment. Too much was at stake.

The world was growing more dangerous. Some derided the American Dream. Not Harvath. He knew that the American Dream couldn’t survive without people willing to protect it. He had always put the country ahead of himself. He had done it as a SEAL, and had continued to do it in a variety of capacities ever since. That wasn’t going to stop, no matter how much it personally pained or cost him.

Right after Paris, he’d had a conversation with the President. In it, he shared his theory that there were wolves and then there were sheep. In order to protect the sheep, the nation needed sheepdogs, and that’s how he saw himself.

The President thought about it for several moments before sharing his own view. Yes, the United States needed its sheepdogs, but it also needed wolf hunters. That was how the President saw Harvath best helping to protect the sheep.

“We’re not going to wait for the wolves to come to us,” he had said. “We’re going to go to them, where they live, where they eat, where they sleep. We’ll hunt them with a ferocity the likes of which they have never seen. If they so much as look in our direction, we will take them out.”

It was one of the most powerful statements Harvath had ever heard. It hadn’t been made for the cameras or to score political points. It was the man’s core ideological belief. And it only served to deepen Harvath’s respect for him.

Take off the chains and let us go do our jobs. It was a statement made over and over again by spies and Special Operations personnel. Now Harvath was getting his chance. He didn’t intend to let it slip by.

Pulling the cold bottle of champagne from the bucket, he poured himself a glass.

“Can we at least enjoy Budapest together tomorrow before we have to fly home?” she asked, still facing out toward the river.

He walked over and wrapped his arms around her. Kissing the back of her neck, he was about to respond when his phone vibrated.