Spymaster

CHAPTER 51

The team met back at the wrecking yard. After the rental house had been compromised, Nyström had agreed to let Harvath and his people use the office there as a secure location until they left Gotland. Neither his uncle nor any employees would show up there until Monday morning.

Harvath had a lot of loose ends to tie up. What’s more, he was only going to get one shot. If he screwed up, he wouldn’t be able to come back and fix them later. It would be too late. He needed to think. In fact, what he really needed was coffee.

Hopping into the Camry, Chase left the yard and drove back to the gas station minimart — one of the few twenty-four-hour places on Gotland — and returned with supplies. They had left the rental house so quickly that no one had packed up the kitchen.

With a cup of hot coffee in his hand, Harvath sat at a battered worktable jotting down notes.

Under the heading of “Absolutely Unbelievable” was the fact that Johansson had survived the shootout. Multiple rounds had pierced the trunk of the police cruiser, but not a single one had touched him. God must have intended for the corrupt cop to a do a very lengthy prison sentence.

Then, in his own category, was Sparrman. He had been trussed up with Flex-Cuffs, hooded, gagged, and left in the minivan up the road from the beach house. At some point, very soon, his mother was going to start looking into what had happened to him.

On top of the treasonous twosome, there were the three surviving Spetsnaz soldiers — also bound, hooded, and gagged at the wrecking yard.

Harvath hadn’t decided what to do with any of them yet. Right now, the only captive whom Harvath cared anything about was Dominik Gashi. Gashi was the key to the next level.

Fortunately, Harvath’s shots had been well-placed and none of Gashi’s injuries was life-threatening. The wounds probably hurt like hell, which was okay, but more important, the Russian would survive. Staelin had done an excellent job of patching him up.

It was likely that Gashi would need surgery to remove the bullets from his left knee and shoulder, but that was so far down Harvath’s list that he couldn’t have been bothered to care. Hell, where Gashi was ultimately headed, he didn’t have a lot of need for healthy knees and shoulders.

Harvath was more concerned with making sure Nyström was covered. Carl Pedersen had already reached out to a colleague at MUST. He replied that, though Harvath’s operation hadn’t been officially sanctioned, if it truly had disrupted a Russian cell intent on promoting a Russian invasion of Gotland, they could handle the cleanup.

He had also said that if the Russians had been involved in killing Lars Lund, and if Harvath had exacted revenge, the Swedish government would probably give him a medal. If not, MUST definitely would.

Of course, MUST would need all the evidence, as well as the names of those involved — especially the Swedish nationals collaborating with the Russians.

Harvath didn’t have a problem with MUST having any of the information. They would do the right thing with it. His biggest concern was making sure that Nyström was properly recognized and not thrown under the bus for his involvement. From what Pedersen had told him, MUST was going to make sure Nyström came out on top.

They were already launching a team from Stockholm to come over and deal with the beach house, the dead Spetsnaz operatives, and the prisoners. All the prisoners, that was, except for one. Harvath and the team were taking Gashi back with them.

The MUST team would also be arranging to bring back Lars Lund’s body. There was talk of a search for Russian weapons caches on the island, which probably would take place after MUST interrogators were able to spend some time with the surviving Spetsnaz operatives.

From there, they would concoct a narrative and decide how the story would play out. Harvath, though, would already be off of Gotland and on to the next chapter — all within the promised forty-eight hours.

How quickly that next chapter would be written was now the biggest question. Dominik Gashi had not proven to be very cooperative.

Harvath’s standard operating procedure with injured detainees was that they were not to be given any pain medications if they refused to play ball. Gashi was refusing to play ball.

Harvath had seen his kind before. He was a hard, seasoned Russian operative. It wouldn’t be easy breaking him. In fact, it would take a lot of work. So Harvath had decided to bring in a specialist to speed things up. He would be flying into Brussels later that day. All they had to do was to make sure Gashi remained stable until the man got there. Harvath felt confident that they could do that.

What he wasn’t so confident about was taking off. According to the pilots, the fog didn’t look as if it was going to lift any time soon. In fact, it was forecast to get worse.

That opened up a whole new bunch of problems for the team. The longer they stayed in Sweden, the greater their chances of getting rolled up by the local authorities. Just because a MUST team was coming over to sanitize everything didn’t mean they’d go to bat for the Americans. Truth be told, they were counting on Harvath and his team to be long gone before they got there. That was what Harvath wanted, too.

Their only option was to get to the airport, board the jet, and hope to get a break in the weather that might allow them to take off. Harvath had already contacted the pilots and told them to begin their preflight checks. He wanted to be wheels-up at the very first opportunity.

As they began to make ready at the wrecking yard, Jasinski pulled him aside. She was understandably nervous, especially considering how she had lost her husband. “Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Can we fly in this weather?”

“Our pilots are exceptional. If they say we can do it, we can do it.”

“And if not?”

“Then we wait,” said Harvath. “We’re not going to take any unnecessary risks. Trust me.”

Jasinski wanted to trust him, but she didn’t believe for a second that if it were a fifty-fifty shot, that he wouldn’t push the crew to get the plane off the ground and up into the air. Though she was nervous, she tried to put her fear aside and focus on the task at hand.

The MUST team had transmitted instructions on how they wanted the prisoners secured. On Nyström’s behalf, they would reach out to his uncle and confirm that no one was coming in before Monday morning. It would be disastrous if an employee showed up and called the cops, or even worse, let the prisoners go.

They took pictures and created dossiers on each one, so that the MUST team would know who they were dealing with when they arrived. Then, after giving the men some water and a chance to relieve themselves, they secured them in a storage room, threw a tarp over the damaged police cruiser, and headed for the airport.

Harvath broke his rule about pain medication and decided to sedate Gashi. It would make him more compliant and less likely to cause a scene at the airport.

Pulling the minivan right up to the jet’s airstairs, Staelin and Haney lifted the man out of the back and carried him on board. The fog was so murky, they were confident that no one had seen anything.

Loading up the rest of their gear, they all climbed aboard, and the plane taxied out to the runway. There it sat, waiting for the fog to lift.

This was always the part that gave Harvath the most concern. Being at the mercy of a control tower produced a certain amount of anxiety in him. You could do everything right, but if the police or some other actor came and yanked you off the plane before takeoff, that was it. It was over.

The pilots were already well aware of how he felt. Though he didn’t let Jasinski overhear, he had told them that the moment they saw an opportunity, they were to take it. He wanted to get out of Sweden as soon as possible. The minutes were ticking away.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, bringing up a topic that had been on his mind all night.

“Sure,” Monika replied. “What is it?”

“When Johansson had me in the equipment shed, how did you know I was in trouble?”

“I didn’t. Not really. I just had a feeling.”

“And that’s why you had the gun?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Call it a sixth sense. Call it luck. I don’t really know. I just had a feeling something wasn’t right. Maybe I heard him pull up at the property. Maybe because you saved my life, we’re connected somehow.”

“Maybe,” Harvath replied, closing his eyes and trying to relax.

They sat quietly on the tarmac for almost an hour before a chime rang through the cabin. It was followed by the engines winding up. Finally, the fog had partially lifted and the pilots were going to make a go of it.

Harvath watched Jasinski as she snuck a worried glance out her window and then tightened her seat belt.

Moments later the massive engines roared to life and the jet went screaming down the runway. Airport buildings were barely visible as they went racing past.

The plane lifted off the ground and soared up and into the foggy night sky. They had done it.

With altitude, the air began to clear. Banking out over the Baltic Sea, the pilots pointed the plane south and headed for Brussels.

Harvath closed his eyes, but as the stress of escaping Sweden began to recede, a new pressure replaced it.

Would they be in time to stop the next attack?