Foreign Influence (20 page)

Ressam was certain that at any moment someone would point him out and yell, “That’s him! He’s the one who placed the bag at the Greek restaurant.”

It was a foolish fear. Nobody was looking at him at all. Everyone was rushing to the scene of the blast. All of the other restaurants were emptying out as people ran to see what had happened. They were like moths, drawn to the flame. In the distance, he could already hear sirens.

As he neared the restaurant, he could see the carnage firsthand. Tables were overturned, windows were blown out, bodies were everywhere. And there was blood.
Oh, so much blood!
Blood that had been shed for Allah and all of the world’s Muslims. God was indeed great. So great indeed.
Allahuakbar
, he thought.
Allahuakbar.

And then he began saying it. Quietly at first, but raising his voice as he moved closer to the crowd that now numbered at least two hundred people.

“Allahuakbar!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

People heard the Islamic war cry and screamed, but it was too late. Samir Ressam took his finger off the detonator and completed his masterpiece.

CHAPTER 26
 

Harvath had wanted to put as much distance between himself and Cannes as possible. Despite playing dumb with the man’s wife, he knew who Nikolai Nekrasov was. Considering all of his ties to organized crime, it didn’t surprise him one bit that he had a lowlife like Gaston Leveque working for him.

At the Palais des Festivals, Harvath had pulled into the underground parking garage where he had earlier left his Citroën. After having wiped his prints from the Saleen, he had grabbed his pack, turned over the keys, and had said good-bye to Eva Nekrasova.

At the ticket booth, she had blown him a kiss and had roared away toward the center of town. Harvath had let two cars pull out after her and had then exited the structure. Looking up, he had seen no sign of Nekrasov’s helicopter and so had pointed his Citroën toward Marseille.

He made the drive in under two hours and took a room at the Sofitel near the Vieux Port. The valets seemed distracted as did the front desk staff when he checked in.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“There has been a series of suicide bombings in Paris,” the clerk replied.

The minute he got into his room, he turned on the TV. There had
been bombings at major tourist attractions across the city. Footage was being played of the devastation at the Eiffel Tower, along the Champs Élysées, at Montmartre, and near Notre Dame. The facts were still sketchy, but there was talk of primary and secondary detonations. It was a favorite tactic of Islamic terrorists to detonate a primary device in order to draw in further victims and first responders, and to then detonate a second, more powerful blast.

French news services were speculating whether the attacks were related to the bus bombing in Rome and placed the death toll in the hundreds. Though many of the victims were tourists, locals had also been killed. It was being described as the French 9/11.

Harvath stood at the foot of his bed still holding his backpack. He had no doubt this attack was tied to the Rome bombing. He also felt responsible. He knew he shouldn’t, but he did. The Old Man was going to be very angry. Harvath owed him a phone call, but before he spoke with his boss, he wanted to speak with Nicholas.

Setting his pack on the desk, he opened up the minibar. He grabbed a small bottle of whiskey, twisted off the metal cap, and poured it into a glass. Removing one of his clean cell phones, he powered it up and dialed the number for the Troll’s satellite phone.

“You heard about Paris?” Nicholas asked. Ever fearful of the NSA’s voice-printing capabilities, he was running the call through a special program on his laptop. The voice sounded robotic. There was a slight delay, along with an echo as it went up to the satellite and bounced back down.

“We were too late,” said Harvath.

“We couldn’t have stopped it.”

“We could have and we should have.”

“There are going to be more,” replied Nicholas. “Trust me. Let’s focus on stopping those. We cannot bring these people back.”

Harvath took a sip of his drink. “Tell me about Tony Tsui.”

“That’s who hired Leveque?”

“Yes. Who is he?”

“He is a second-rate, digital pimp. That’s who he is.”

“So you know him.”

“Unfortunately, I do,” answered the little man. “But this is all starting
to fit. When the assassin he hired failed to report back in, he proceeded right to the next step in his plan.”

“Which was implicating you in the Rome bombing.”

“Exactly.”

“Why would he want you killed?”

“I’m his leading source of competition.”

“Tsui is in the intelligence business?” asked Harvath.

“Tsui is barely a step above a peeping Tom, and not a very high step either. He’s pure scum. He’d sell out his own mother if it meant a couple of bucks in his pocket. He has been trying to fish from my pond for years.”

“But why attempt to kill you now?”

The Troll was silent as he tried to fit the pieces together. “I sold him a piece of information recently.”

“How recently?”

“In the last year.”

“And that was the last time you communicated with him?”

“It’s not like the man is on my Christmas card list.”

Harvath took another sip of his drink. “What was the information you sold him?”

“Normally,” replied the Troll, “I don’t kiss and tell, but in this case I have no problem filling you in. It was the location of a secret military base in Mongolia run by the PLA.”

“What did he want with a secret base run by the Chinese military?”

“It was for a client.”

“Did he say who the client was?”

“As unprofessional as Tsui is, he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

Harvath was having trouble connecting the dots. “What’s the base used for?”

Nicholas exhaled loudly. “I’ve got no idea.”

“How about Tsui? Does he know?”

“Maybe. Maybe his client knows. All I brought to the party was the location.”

“And Tsui paid you for that information?” asked Harvath.

“Yes he did.”

“Any chance the information didn’t pan out and so he wanted to whack you out of revenge?”

Nicholas laughed. “That’s not how our business works. If the information had been bad, he would have demanded his money back. And I would have paid him. But he never asked. Which tells me that the information was solid.”

“So he tried to kill you to get you out of his way.”

“Or to keep me quiet.”

Harvath needed to fill in the blanks. “How many transactions have you done with Tsui over the years?”

“A lot.”

“And you never had any animosity? No problems at all?”

“There was plenty of animosity, but nothing that would rise to either one of us wanting the other killed. I told you, he’s a despicable character. But from time to time he proved a useful and lucrative source. We flowed information both ways if the price was right. And we never let price prevent us from making money.”

It sounded to Harvath as if Tsui and Nicholas deserved each other. They were a couple of gossiping old ladies who talked trash behind each other’s backs but would sit down and have coffee to trade gossip about everybody else if they got the chance. The only difference was that the “gossip” they traded in was the stuff of state secrets and the kind of dirty laundry that brought politicians, business titans, and even countries to their knees.

Harvath swirled the liquid in his glass. All signs pointed to Tsui, but he wanted to be sure. “Who else could have framed you with the Italians?”

“The pope himself could have done it.”

“I’m going to assume that you’re exaggerating. You haven’t actually crossed the pope, have you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Nicholas. “Leveque gave you Tsui’s name and I’m going to bet he didn’t do so willingly.”

“No, it was under significant duress,” replied Harvath.

“Then you need to ask yourself how confident you are in what Leveque told you. Personally, Tsui makes perfect sense. He knows enough about me and what he doesn’t know, he most likely has the means to find out.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Enough to make him very uncomfortable,” said Nicholas.

“I want to pay him a visit. How soon can you get me an address?”

“It’ll probably take me a few hours.”

“Get started and call me back when you have something.”

After hanging up, Harvath downed the remainder of his drink and opened the minibar for a second. Though his ego was more bruised than his body, he was still sore from the beating he had taken from Dominique Fournier. But it was nothing compared to the beating he knew he was going to take from Reed Carlton.

After a couple of sips of his second whiskey, he picked up the phone and dialed.

CHAPTER 27
 

Harvath had had only intermittent e-mail contact with his boss since leaving for Europe three days ago. It was time to provide Carlton with a full debriefing, which was exactly what he did. When it was complete, he sat back and readied himself for the recriminations he was sure would follow.

“So let me get this straight,” said the Old Man. “You trunked two Basque separatists, Tasered a madam and her bodyguard—after she kicked your tail—then bagged and dragged her to some French farmhouse where you threatened to disfigure her, then iceboarded a concierge, shot three hotel security guards, kidnapped the wife of one of Russia’s wealthiest mobsters, and are now sitting in a hotel in Marseille waiting for a callback from the man I sent you over there to apprehend. Is that about right?”

“Pretty much. All except the part of me she kicked. It definitely wasn’t my tail.”

“Very funny, smartass. Have you seen what happened in Paris?”

Harvath changed his tone. “Yes.”

“What am I supposed to tell DOD?”

“Tell them I haven’t located the Troll yet.”

“You want me to lie to them?”

“Then don’t tell them anything.”

“Which is it?” asked the Old Man.

“Are you pulling my chain? Because I can’t tell.”

“I could say the same thing to you. I sent you over there to pick up your little buddy and bring him back, not to be his designated hitter.”

“He didn’t have anything to do with Rome, Reed.”

“It doesn’t matter. DOD wants him.”

Harvath tried to keep himself in check. His guilt over the second bombing had made him defensive. “I thought DOD wanted whoever was behind the attack.”

“And the first rung on that ladder is your pal.”

“I agree. But the second rung is Fournier, the third Leveque, and the fourth is Tony Tsui. We’re making progress.”

“Tell that to the people in Paris.”

Though Carlton probably didn’t mean it that way, the rebuke stung. “The Troll is a dead end. He had nothing to do with Rome. He was framed and the person who framed him is Tony Tsui. Tsui had prior knowledge of the attack.”

“Do you think Rome and Paris are connected?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Harvath.

“I didn’t ask you what you
know
, I asked you what you think.”

“I think they’re connected.”

“Me too.”

There was silence between them. Harvath was the one to finally break it. “Would you have connected these dots any differently than I have?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell me my methods are too harsh?”

“No.”

“Do you think that I’m being too much of a cowboy?”

“You’re doing exactly what I expected you’d do when I selected you.”

Harvath laughed. “Are you telling me I’m predictable?”

“I’m telling you that you’re a professional and you’re reliable. I trust your judgment. You’re the man in the field. If you have a choice between a flyswatter and a sledgehammer, would I rather you use the flyswatter? Of course. But that’s for you to decide. That’s your job. My job is to give you whatever you need to get things done.”

“Well, what I need right now is more time.”

“How much more?” asked the Old Man.

“I’ll know better once I have a location for Tsui. In the meantime, tell DOD that we’re making progress.”