Spymaster

CHAPTER 55

“Do you want the good news first? Or the bad news?”

Harvath hated conversations that began this way. “I’ve had a rough couple of days. I could use some good news. Let’s start with that.”

Dr. Matthias Vella was an unassuming man in his fifties — slim, with dark hair and glasses. He buckled his seat belt as they pulled out of the airport. The enormous amount of equipment he had brought with him on the private jet barely fit inside the team’s van.

A PhD in psychiatry and neurochemistry, Vella ran a privately contracted black site. It was located in a windowless, subterranean facility on Malta, nicknamed the Solarium. Their business was top-secret interrogation and high-value detainee detention.

Vella’s specialty was the study of the neurological processes of interrogation. He was particularly interested in what could be done via chemical and biological means to speed it up.

Removing a folder from his briefcase, he opened it and said, “We ran your guy past our Russian friend Viktor Sergun.”

“Did he recognize Gashi?”

“Immediately. But his name isn’t Dominik Gashi and he isn’t a Kosovan refugee. His name is Ivan Kuznetsov. He’s a GRU operative.”

“Anything else?” asked Harvath.

Vella shut the folder. “A little bit of his military background, some of the previous operations he has run for the GRU. Nothing particularly valuable.”

Harvath had been correct. Their prisoner did work for Russian military intelligence. That was an important confirmation. Having a name was a good step forward. He would put Nicholas on it as soon as they arrived back at the compound.

The fact that Sergun could only provide modest background information on Kuznetsov, though, was a disappointment. Harvath knew that the more material Vella had, the better and faster the interrogation would proceed.

“What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news,” said Vella, “is that you’re handing me a subject with multiple bullet wounds, who has maybe been stabilized.”

“So?”

“So remember what happened in Syria?”

Harvath did remember. He had tried to remotely conduct an interrogation using Vella’s techniques. The subject had an underlying heart condition and had died during it.

“What about it?” Harvath asked.

Vella rolled his eyes. He knew Harvath wasn’t this obtuse. “Come on, Scot. You know why we do a full medical workup before we start one of these things. Heart rates spike, adrenal production goes into overdrive, cortisol levels skyrocket. The stress response is just off the charts. Kuznetsov might not be able to handle it.”

“What are you proposing?”

“I’m going to have to dial it back — a lot. At least initially, until I see how much he can handle. In other words, there’s going to be a delay.”

“How much of a delay?” asked Harvath.

“Depending how much of the formula I can administer, it could be days. Maybe a week.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“I’m giving you a worst-case scenario,” replied Vella, who caught himself and said, “Actually, death is the worst-case scenario. What I’m giving you is a potential timeline.”

Harvath knew that a lot of what Vella did was still in its infancy. It wasn’t something that could be widely studied and peer reviewed. It was, in essence, a dark art that wasn’t talked about or shared.

He had brought the man in to speed things up, not to coddle their prisoner and slow things down. But at the end of the day, Vella was here because he was a professional, with a very specific set of skills, which Harvath respected. What’s more, Kuznetsov’s death would certainly bring things to a halt.

“Do what you have to do,” he told the doctor. “But do it as fast as you can. We’re running out of time.”

When they pulled back into the compound, Harvath called the team out to help Vella unpack and to move all of his equipment into the main building. They then drew up a shift schedule for guarding the property and assisting in the interrogation.

With those tasks complete, he returned to the guesthouse to check on Nicholas and give him the limited dossier that Vella had prepared on their prisoner, Ivan Kuznetsov.

“Did you bring any of the things I asked for?” said Nicholas without turning around.

“They were out of time and money at the store, but I was able to find you a lead,” he replied, setting the folder on his desk.

The little man stopped what he was doing on his computer to take a look at it. “This isn’t a lot to go on.”

“We’ve got a real name. That’s more than we had a half hour ago. See what you can do.”

Saluting, Nicholas turned back to his computer, opened a new screen, and went to work.

Harvath grabbed one of the encrypted laptops the little man had set up and carried it to his room. It was early afternoon back in the States and he thought he would try to reach Lara.

He shot her an email, then plugged his earbuds in and opened the video conferencing program The Carlton Group used.

Moments later, a screen appeared with her face in it. She was at home, in their study, wearing one of the low-cut sweaters he loved. Her long hair was swept to one side. She looked gorgeous.

“Hey,” he said. “What are you up to?”

Lara adjusted her laptop so he could see the TV and the news coverage of the Istanbul bombing.

“Should I even ask where you are?” she said, turning the laptop back around.

He smiled. She not only understood him, she understood what he did, and that he couldn’t always talk about what he was up to.

“Nowhere near Turkey,” he replied. In the background, he could see that she had a fire going in the fireplace. “That cold back home?”

“Cold enough. And overcast. How about where you are?”

“Could be worse. How are things at home?”

“Good,” she replied. “We miss you.”

Harvath smiled again. “I miss you, too. Where’s Marco?”

“Taking a nap. He woke up way too early this morning.”

“What’d you do for breakfast?”

“I offered to make pancakes, but he said he didn’t want ‘mommy’ pancakes, he wanted ‘Scot’ pancakes. So we had eggs instead.”

“Tell him I’ll cook up a huge stack when I get back,” he responded.

“Any idea when that will be?”

Harvath shook his head. “Hopefully, soon.”

Lara appeared about to reply when she heard something and turned to look over her shoulder. “Speak of the devil,” she said, turning back to the camera. “Guess who I think just woke up.”

Harvath laughed. It wasn’t the first time Marco had interrupted an intimate moment. “Go check on him. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Before I let you go, I talked with Lydia last night.”

“About what?”

“I called to catch up and she told me Reed isn’t doing well, that he’s getting worse.”

The gravity of the situation was evident in Harvath’s voice. “I know,” he replied. “She told me, too.”

“Promise me we’ll go see him when you get back.”

“I promise.”

Marco could be heard in the background calling for her.

“I love you,” she said, blowing him a kiss. “Stay safe.”

“I will. I love you, too,” he answered, as she logged off.

For a moment, he sat there, just looking at the blank screen. In his mind, he pictured her path from the study to the small guest bedroom they had converted for Marco. He really did miss them both. He missed the Old Man as well. He felt the guilt again of not being there for him, but he also hoped the Old Man would understand the importance of what he was doing and why he needed to do it.

Over the next couple of minutes, he allowed his thoughts a little freedom before putting them in a far corner of his mind and walling them off.

Hopping back over to his email, he checked to make sure there were no requests from Ryan. He didn’t see any.

Opening a new message, he sent her a quick update to let her know that Vella had arrived, that he was proceeding with “caution,” and that Nicholas was running down the name they had gotten from Sergun. He told her he’d update her with more information when it became available. After reading it over, he hit Send.

Having checked in with his home and office, he had a decision to make. He could go downstairs and check back in on Nicholas, go across to the main building and check on Vella, or leave them both alone and trust them to do the jobs they were being paid to do. He chose the last option and to have confidence in his people.

“Hire the best and set them loose,” the Old Man had once said to him. “Don’t be a pain in the ass unless you have to be. Let people know what you expect of them, and then get out of their way. Allow them to surprise you.”

It was good advice. And while some of it had sounded like a string of platitudes from a motivational seminar, the Old Man knew how to manage people.

Though he could be gruff at times, there wasn’t a single person who wouldn’t go to hell and back for him. That was the kind of loyalty he inspired.

Committed to leaving his team alone, he set his laptop aside on the bed and picked the book about Hemingway’s being a Russian spy back up from his nightstand.

Whether it contained any secrets about the Russians that might be valuable today was anyone’s guess.

What he hoped it would do was take his mind away for a while and give it a chance to rest. He had learned long ago how to make tough decisions under pressure, but sometimes, when he stopped thinking about things was when breakthroughs occurred.

Operating on only a few hours of sleep, he made it through about two chapters before his eyes got so heavy that he couldn’t keep them open and he was out.