“Where are you going?” the Russian asked, one eye on the match.
“To the little girls’ room.”
The man looked at her, puzzled.
“The toilet,” she explained.
“Oh,” said Nikolai, embarrassed, returning his attention to the TV. “Okay.”
Picking up her phone, she headed for the ladies’ room.
Once inside, she made sure she was alone, and then unscrewed the pump for one of the soap dispensers. Removing the spring, she screwed the pump head back on and then uncoiled the piece of wire.
Pulling up Harvath’s message on her phone, she texted him back: Outside in 90 seconds.
Good copy, Harvath replied. We’ll be waiting.
Stepping out of the ladies’ room, she approached the breaker box, opened the cover, and threw the breakers. Instantly, the restaurant was plunged into darkness. All the TVs cut out, as did the music.
Shutting the box, she threaded the piece of wire from the soap dispenser through the area meant for a lock and twisted it as quickly and as tightly as she could. It wouldn’t prevent someone from opening it, but it would slow them down.
Leaving the circuit breaker, she moved as fast as she could in the darkness to the kitchen.
Gotland was an island, and as with most islands in Europe, its inhabitants were used to suffering power outages. As a wave of annoyed groans rolled across the establishment, the staff hunted for flashlights while customers activated the lights on their phones. Jasinski made it into the kitchen right before a beam swept over her.
Taking out her own phone, she activated the flashlight and used it to light her way to the side exit. She was moving with such purpose that no one in the kitchen bothered to question who she was or what she was doing.
Pushing through the door, she ended up in a narrow gangway between O’Learys and the building next door. Seeing the gate at the end, she ran for it.
She was only steps away when her eyes zeroed in on the chain and padlock. She’d seen enough security theater in her lifetime not to assume it was locked. Besides, if the restaurant caught fire, the gangway would be a death trap.
Getting to the gate, she gave the chain a tug. It was definitely locked. Shit.
The gray Camry had just pulled near the entrance. She could see its taillights. Pulling out her phone, she called Harvath.
“Back up ten feet,” she told him when he answered. “I’m in the gangway, but the gate is locked.”
“Can you climb over it?” he asked, as he relayed the instructions to Chase to back up.
The gate area was covered by a metal roof. It was likely meant to serve as a space where deliveries could be made and inventoried without threat of the elements. Jasinski examined the space, but wasn’t hopeful.
The gate came up nearly to the underside of the roof. There wasn’t enough room to squeeze in between. There wasn’t enough room to go under it either. Think, she challenged herself once again.
The only thing in the gangway besides her and the locked gate were stacks of plastic crates used to haul beer bottles. They were her only hope of getting out.
She was halfway through stacking them when Harvath materialized and began yanking on the gate. It didn’t budge for him either.
“Hurry,” he said, as he disappeared from view.
Hurry? she repeated to herself. Did it look to him like she was taking her time?
Starting with the highest column—the one that would allow her to hop onto the roof—she stacked the crates in descending columns, forming a makeshift staircase.
It didn’t have to be pretty, and it wasn’t. It only had to work. Fortunately, many of the crates were already stacked up against the wall. All she had to do was drag them out and get them into place.
With the last one set, she began her rickety climb. But no sooner had she begun than there was an angry voice from behind her in the gangway.
“Stop!” it demanded. The voice belonged to Nikolai.
When the lights went out, he must have come looking for her, and now he had found her, trying to escape. Running down the gangway, he charged toward her, shouting and cursing in Russian.
She tried to move faster, but the crates were unstable and wobbled on the uneven cobblestones of the alley. The quicker she moved, the more unbalanced everything became.
The Russian had reached her staircase now and was kicking and ripping away the crates like a madman.
He reached for the last stack of them a fraction of a second before she leaped onto the roof. Jasinski knew she was going down before gravity had even taken hold of her.
But before she could fall, she felt something grab her arm. Looking up, she saw Harvath, who had climbed onto the roof from the street.
“Give me your other hand,” he said.
Reaching toward him, she did, and he pulled her the rest of the way up.
“We’ve got to move,” he said, pointing to the other side of the roof and the sidewalk below it. “Hurry up and jump.”
Jasinski moved as quickly as she could to the opposite edge, lay down on her stomach, hung her legs over, and dropped to the pavement.
Looking through the gate, she could see that Nikolai had already run back inside. He would be on the sidewalk in seconds.
“Get in the car,” Harvath ordered as he jumped down. “I’ll catch up with you.”
She did as he instructed and her door wasn’t even closed before Chase peeled out. Out the rear window, she could see Harvath running up the street in the opposite direction.
“Where’s he going?” she asked, as Chase pulled a hard right turn.
“He changed his mind. He’s disabling their vehicles. We’re picking him up at the next corner.”
Accelerating up the street, Chase barely tapped the brakes to take the next turn.
When they got to their rendezvous point, they could see Harvath running toward them, with the Russians in hot pursuit.
“Reach behind you and open the rear passenger door,” said Chase.
Unbuckling her seat belt, she leaned back and threw the door wide open. Seconds later, Harvath leaped in.
“Go! Go! Go!” he commanded, slamming his door shut.
Lying on the backseat, he focused on catching his breath as Chase punched the accelerator and got them the hell out of town.
CHAPTER 42
* * *
KALININGRAD
The Rome bombing, despite his concern about moving it up, had gone off perfectly. It was exactly what his superiors back in Moscow had needed to see. It had also garnered wall-to-wall media attention.
The fuse had been lit. Tretyakov could stop right now and everything would probably take care of itself. But that would be leaving too much to chance. He didn’t believe in trusting things to chance—especially for something this important. There were still many more things to be done.
Chief among them was getting to the bottom of what NATO knew, and what their level of preparedness was. Because the haystack fell partially within his jurisdiction, he was one of several people charged with finding those needles.
Any intelligence operatives who delivered intel to Moscow that proved helpful for its Baltic invasion would be able to write their own ticket. They would not only receive rank advancement and state acknowledgement, but they would also be positioned to reap incredible financial benefits. Just as the punishment for failure could be extreme, so could the rewards for success. Sometimes, as much as he hated to admit it, the underpinnings of capitalism made sense.