Jasinski responded in kind. “Clear!”
Reluctantly, Harvath added his assessment. “Clear!” Dominik Gashi was not here.
Rapidly, they searched chests and wardrobes, under the couch, and inside the tiny bathroom. There was no sign of the man.
There was, though, a sign that he had recently been there. Seeing a bright blue kettle sitting on the stove, Harvath reached out and placed his hand above it. It was still warm. Gashi had been here, and not that long ago.
He gestured Ashby and Jasinski over to show them what he had found. Each of them touched the kettle, and then, nodding, they fanned out and conducted a renewed search.
“Friendlies,” Palmer said over the radio as he and Staelin arrived at the front door.
Knocking twice, they waited for a response, and when Ashby gave the all clear, they entered.
Looking up from her search, she pointed at the kettle on the stove, indicated it was still warm, and then went back to what she was doing.
“I think I’ve got something,” Harvath said from upstairs in the sleeping loft.
Inside a small cubby he had found a key rack. On it was an assortment of keys, each with a brightly colored plastic tag. Inside each tag was a piece of paper with what looked like an address. One of the pegs was empty.
Explaining what he had found, Harvath slung his Rattler and went back to his search. He was looking for any information about Dominik Gashi and what he was doing on Gotland.
Minutes later, as Staelin was scanning the man’s bookshelves, it was Chase who called out, “I may have something.”
Harvath came to the railing. “What is it?”
“It looks like a ledger.”
“What kind of ledger?”
“A property ledger. There’s a chart here with multiple addresses. Then there are dates last visited, status, repairs needed, that kind of thing.”
“Read out the addresses,” said Harvath as he went back, pulled the keys off the rack, and lined them up on the bed.
As Chase read off the addressees, he discarded the corresponding sets of keys. At the very end, he was able to identify the property to which the matching set belonged.
Pulling out his cell phone, he looked it up on his mapping app and then called Nyström.
“Yes,” the Chief Inspector said. “I know it. There are a lot of houses on that stretch of beach. Some are quite close together. But at this time of year, it’s normally quiet. Those are almost entirely summer cottages.”
Harvath, convinced that he knew where Dominik Gashi had gone to ground, asked Nyström for a favor—a big one.
“I don’t think I can do that,” the Swedish police officer answered.
“We don’t have a choice,” replied Harvath. “Beyond the public safety concern, if you don’t, everything we have done up to this point is worthless. And we also will have handed the Russians a huge leg up.”
Nyström, as was his custom, took several moments to consider what Harvath was asking of him. Each of the American’s requests seemed to be more involved and more dangerous than the last.
Finally, the Chief Inspector said, “I’ll do it, but only on one condition.”
Harvath wasn’t a fan of conditions, but he also wasn’t in a position to say no, especially not now. “What is it?”
“After this, it’s over. All of it. You and your team get on your plane and are gone. Before sunrise.”
Harvath had no idea if he’d be able to live up to that kind of promise or not. There was no way he was leaving Gotland without Gashi in tow, but he needed to humor Nyström. In an attempt to prolong the Chief Inspector’s cooperation, Harvath agreed. “We’ll be gone by sunrise. You can count on it.”
“I’ll try to pull together what you asked for,” the man replied. “Meet me in a half hour.”
Harvath hung up the phone and immediately began forming Plans B, C, and D. He had very little faith that what they were about to attempt was actually going to work.
CHAPTER 48
* * *
As far as beach houses went, the tiny rental near the village of Nyhamn was not at all what Harvath had expected.
When the sun was up, it probably had a million-dollar view of the ocean. But in the dark, it resembled a double-wide trailer with a long, covered porch and a smattering of cheap outdoor furniture.
By the time Chief Inspector Nyström got to the rendezvous location, Haney had already done multiple drone passes over the target.
“What is the situation?” Nyström said as he climbed out of Johansson’s squad car, dressed in a patrolman’s uniform.
“All quiet,” Haney replied. “No movement inside.”
“Where are your people?”
Using a still from the drone, Harvath marked the locations on his tablet and then asked, “Were you able to get what I asked for?”
Nyström tilted his head toward the backseat of the cruiser.
Harvath opened the door and removed a duffle bag. Dropping it on the lid of the trunk, he unzipped it and inventoried the contents. There was a regulation police uniform, boots, duty belt, cap, and jacket. There was also body armor.
“Were you able to get the other item?”
He nodded and knocked on the side of the trunk.
Harvath cleared his gear off the lid and opened it. He ignored Johansson, who was still lying inside, and grabbed the plastic case.
The Chief Inspector still hadn’t decided what to do with Johansson. Fortunately, Johansson was off-duty when Harvath caught him. Neither he nor his patrol car, which was a take-home vehicle, would be missed until tomorrow night.
Closing the lid, Harvath put the case on the trunk and opened it up. Inside was a tear gas launcher with several canisters.
“I am hoping we don’t need that,” said Nyström.
“Me too,” replied Harvath. Latching the case, he handed it to Haney and told him, “Get this to Sloane and then hustle back.”
The Marine accepted the case and struck off into the pines on the side of the road, disappearing into a gathering mist.
“What do we know about the nearby houses?” the Chief Inspector asked.
Picking up his tablet from where he had laid it on the roof of the patrol vehicle, Harvath pulled up another photo. “There are four of them. As far as we can tell, they’re all empty. But, if we did have to go hot and a round over-penetrated and exited our target house, there’s a possibility it could enter any one of them.”
“Based on your conversation with Martin Ingesson, I overheard that you were a Navy SEAL?”
Harvath nodded.
“I assume you were taught to control your rounds?”
“It’s not my rounds I’m worried about,” he replied. “Dominik Gashi, or whatever his real name is, may have Sparrman’s Spetsnaz operatives in there. It doesn’t take much to get those boys into a gunfight. And when they’re triggered, they don’t give a damn where their rounds go.”
Nyström took one of his long, pregnant pauses as he tried to figure out the best course forward. “How do you know the other houses aren’t occupied?”
“No lights on inside, no cars outside. We looked through the windows using IR and thermal.”
“There’s no cars outside the target house either.”