Harvath imagined a lot of things could have that effect—even field work. He wasn’t ready to concede that point. Not yet at least.
After drying off, he wrapped the towel around his waist and stood at the sink as he lathered up his face and began to shave.
The face staring back at him as he looked in the mirror was the same face that it had always been. And while it may have aged a little, in his mind he was frozen in time at right around twenty-four years old.
There were, of course, at least a good two decades between that fantasy and reality. However, this was who he was. This was what he knew how to do. And despite his preference to operate alone, he had been reminded that he still worked well with a team. He was also pretty good at leading one.
But did that mean he was ready to take over for the Old Man? Rinsing off his razor, he took another look at himself in the mirror.
The idea that he could ever fill the shoes of someone like Reed Carlton was absolutely crazy to him. It was one of the biggest reasons he had said no when the Old Man asked him to become Director of The Carlton Group. He was not only afraid of failing at it, he was also afraid of taking on the additional responsibility, only to let Carlton down. That would probably be the most difficult thing to deal with—his disappointment.
Of course, simply saying no to the position had disappointed the Old Man, but on the scale of letdowns, Harvath figured it was a lot better than his taking over the entire organization only to screw it all up. The Old Man had invested too much of his time, money, and energy into it.
For some strange reason, that hadn’t seemed to bother Carlton. “If it goes, it goes,” he had said, like some Stoic philosopher. “But I don’t think you’re capable of screwing it up. At least not that badly,” he had added with one of his wry smiles.
Carlton had a certain confidence in him that Harvath didn’t have in himself, at least not in that way. Harvath was supremely confident in everything that he did. It was the absolute unknown of running an organization like The Carlton Group that he had found so daunting. He wasn’t sure he would have confidence in others.
But the one big plus, the biggest plus actually, would be being home—if he chose and she agreed—with Lara. That was something that held a lot of appeal for him. With Lara and her son, Marco, he could finally put down roots and have the family he had always said he wanted.
But for a guy who told himself that was what he wanted, he really was spending a lot of time in the field.
In a way, he was sowing his operational oats. Some of the jobs had just been too good to turn down. Some had been so difficult and so dangerous that he didn’t feel right giving them to anyone else. It was also a great way to avoid taking that next step at home.
That mindset was going to have to change. He couldn’t keep taking all the most challenging assignments. Even if he was that twenty-four-year-old he saw staring back in the mirror at him, eventually he would break. Nobody could keep going at the pace he was on. It didn’t matter how improved he felt his body to be. He was using injections to stay in the game.
And while the game was one of skill, it also involved a large degree of luck. At some point the odds caught up to you. And when that happened, all the luck in the world wouldn’t be enough to save you.
For now, he prayed the odds would remain in his favor—just until he could complete this assignment and get his team safely back home. Then, he’d have to finally take a good, long look at everything else and decide what he wanted to do.
Splashing cold water on his face, he quickly brushed his teeth, got dressed, and headed to the kitchen.
It smelled as if Nicholas had grilled sausages. He was about to ask, when he noticed the little man paying rapt attention to one of the television monitors.
There were pictures of fire and billowing columns of black smoke. First responders were carrying injured people out into the street.
“What is it?” Harvath asked. “What happened?”
“Istanbul,” he replied. “Multiple bombs at a subway station.”
Turkey had a lot of political problems, but something told him that might not be what this was about.
If this was the Russians, they had picked a perfect target to hit with an anti-NATO PRF strike. No other member of the alliance was more precariously perched. Turkey had one foot out the door already, and Harvath chastised himself for not seeing this coming. It made excellent sense.
It also scared the hell out of him. The death count was going to be enormous. If this was what they had chosen to follow Rome with, what else did they have up their sleeve?
“Looks like a lot of women and children, too,” Nicholas added. “Families. The Turkish government is going to go ballistic.”
As they should, thought Harvath. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Within the last half hour.”
He had known better than to think that nothing could knock the Rome bombing out of the news cycle. The devastation from both attacks would now be run in split screen on news stations around the world.
Watching the carnage only recommitted him to his purpose. Every fiber in his being wanted to walk across the motor court to take a pair of red-hot tongs to Dominik Gashi. He knew that would be the wrong move.
Gashi, like everyone else, would eventually break. As a GRU operative, though, which Harvath highly suspected he was, he would dribble out enough false intelligence to keep them chasing their tails for weeks, if not months. They didn’t have that kind of time.
It was better to leave it to a professional, someone more skilled in the science of interrogation than he. Blunt force would only get them so far.
The Carlton Group’s specialist was landing shortly and would quickly extract the most reliable intel Gashi had. Harvath’s anger, for the time being, would have to be put on hold.
Plating a couple of sausages, he also poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. “Can we turn that off?” he asked as he began eating. It wasn’t that he couldn’t stomach it, it was that he needed a break from all of it for five minutes.
Nicholas obliged him and powered down the monitor. “I heard from Ryan,” he said, changing the subject.
Harvath had meant to call her, but had been so tired when they got back in that he had sent her an email instead. “What did she want?”
“She said the U.S. Ambassador to the UN had an emergency meeting with the Ambassadors for Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia this morning. They all came under a variety of cyberattacks on Friday. The attacks have grown much worse over the weekend.”
“That means the Russians are getting ready to invade. We don’t have much time.”
The little man nodded. “Lydia wants a bow around my operation ASAP.”
Nicholas had not only come up with an amazing hack, but with Harvath’s help, had also created a tiny spy network of his own.
There was something poetic about using a man known as the Troll to disrupt the Troll Factory. His plan was to expose all of the Russians engaged in cyberoperations against the Baltics—real names and photos, as well as every fake website and social media account attached to them. It would be the ultimate cyber takedown.
“When do you think you’ll have everything?” asked Harvath.
“My guy in St. Petersburg should have the last of it out tonight.”
It had been a brilliant plan, but a huge undertaking. And it had cost a fortune. Nicholas and Ryan had gone round and round on the expense.