Spymaster

CHAPTER 35

Harvath would have liked to have seen it for himself, but he never would have gotten there in time. Instead, he had Staelin describe, in detail, what was taking place.

Apparently, eight rather fit men had assembled outside, two abreast, and had run off in a column. Normally when runners go out in a group, it’s casual and they run in a pack. To run in formation was unusual. It suggested that structure and discipline were being imposed.

Harvath’s mind went back to what Nicholas had said about placing a deep-cover team of Spetsnaz operatives on the island. He also remembered what Nyström had said about Sparrman hiring from Eastern Europe. While the Swedes were excellent in English, he doubted they could tell a Russian from a Romanian or a Moldovan. If the GRU had a willing local, a farm would be a perfect place to hide a team of Special Forces soldiers.

Harvath told him to keep an eye on everything and that he’d be sending in Ashby and Barton soon to relieve them.

Signing off, he began formulating a plan. Eight potential Spetsnaz troops was not a fight he wanted to have. If they came out of the GRU’s unit, they were battle-tested and had seen plenty of action — most recently in places like Syria and Ukraine, if not as far back as Chechnya and Georgia.

Taking Sparrman at the farm might be too dangerous. Harvath and his team might have to snatch him on the fly, while he was in transit. That posed a whole other set of problems.

If Sparrman had been involved in Lars Lund’s accident, which Harvath had a pretty good feeling he was, then the man might be a lot more switched on than usual, paying close attention to whether he was under surveillance.

Harvath would need to identify the best possible location, as well as the best possible circumstances under which to grab him — all with having little to no surveillance on him.

This, of course, presupposed that Sparrman even left the farm at all. If he didn’t, if he was under the weather or was just some sort of recluse, Harvath was going to need to come up with a plan to go in and yank him out.

And no matter which route he took, Harvath would have to make his move before the window closed and Nyström set up his own surveillance and actively took over the case. He had only thirty-six hours left.

But the more Harvath studied the situation, the more problems he saw staring back at him. He wasn’t exactly being pummeled by the good idea fairy. It was going to be a long day.

Surveillance, like a lot of the work performed in the intelligence game, involved long periods of extreme boredom. The Sparrman farm assignment was a textbook case.

With the sunrise, Ashby and Barton had been able to provide Harvath with the makes, models, and colors of the vehicles parked at the entrance of the property. None were any shade of olive.

Other than that, no useful intelligence was produced. Nobody visited the farm. Nobody left the farm.

By late afternoon, Harvath and Haney were debating the risks of doing another, more aggressive drone flight. Harvath had already begun fleshing out an assault on the farm and needed more information to help plan their approach. They decided to wait until dark and then go out to check on the surveillance team.

When the time came, they filled a thermos they had found in the kitchen with hot coffee and headed out to the minivan. The Camry was with the surveillance team in case Sparrman left the property and offered an opportunity to be followed.

They all knew what Sparrman looked like. A Gotland newspaper had done an article about the farm two years ago and had run his picture with it. Harvath had made sure that everyone downloaded a copy to their phone.

There had been sporadic sightings of him throughout the day. His shock of almost orange hair was unmistakable. Sloane had started calling him the “Ginja Ninja.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” mused Haney, as he turned left onto the main road. “What are the chances the guy hops in his car to go meet up with his mom for church?”

“Church. Brunch. Paddle boarding. All we would need is an opening,” answered Harvath. “But our forty-eight hours expires tomorrow night.”

“Do you think that Nyström guy is going to start right up? Maybe he’ll wait until Monday.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Good point,” replied Haney. He, like Harvath, knew that as soon as the police took over, it would be extremely difficult to grab Sparrman.

Tonight was going to have to be the night. Harvath had already resigned himself to it. He had also, along with the rest of the team, resigned himself to the fact that the men who had been seen that morning going on their group run were indeed Spetsnaz operatives.

The thorniest issue for Harvath was how to get everyone in and out without raising the alarm.

Sparrman occupied the main house by himself, but had two very large dogs. From what Ashby and Barton had seen, they looked like Great Pyrenees. As soon as anyone got near the house, they were going to start barking. If that happened, the element of surprise would be lost.

Back when Harvath and Nicholas had been on opposites sides, Harvath had figured out how to get around the two guard dogs. He didn’t like punishing animals. They were only doing their job. Still, they had to be dealt with. As soon as he and Haney had checked in with the surveillance team and had completed their drone flight, they’d drive into town to get what he needed.