Spymaster

by Brad Thor

  * * *

  GOTLAND, SWEDEN

  The wrecking yard was attached to an auto body shop in a warehouse district on the other side of Visby. Harvath had already texted his team to give them an update. Pulling up to the gate, Chief Inspector Nyström removed a set of keys from his pocket and exited his vehicle.

  After unlocking the chain and throwing the gates open, he returned to the car.

  “You’ve got your own key?” Harvath asked.

  “Small island,” Nyström replied, putting the car in gear and driving forward. “This is my uncle’s business. When I work nights, I often drop by to make sure everything is okay.”

  Circling around to the back, they parked and got out. Nyström popped his trunk and removed a rather mediocre flashlight. “We’ll probably need this,” he said, clicking it on.

  Harvath slid his hand into his coat pocket and withdrew his tactical flashlight. When he depressed the tail cap, it produced a quick, intense strobe. “Mine’s better.”

  “Americans,” the Chief Inspector sighed, as he led Harvath to the back of the lot.

  When they arrived at the southwest corner, Nyström shone his flashlight across the wreckage of Lars Lund’s vehicle.

  It was a ten-year-old white Volkswagen Passat. The Chief Inspector had not been exaggerating. The damage was quite extensive. Seeing the state of the car for himself, Harvath could understand why the accident had resulted in a fatality. The question, though, was what had caused it.

  Circling the vehicle, Harvath examined every square inch under his flashlight. He stopped at the left rear quarter panel.

  It was in bad shape, just like the rest of the vehicle, but there was something else. It was a scratch, about three inches long, but in a completely different color from the rest of the car. It looked like some shade of olive, almost a military-style green.

  Not wanting to draw Nyström’s attention, he moved on. When he got to the other side of the car, he asked, “Did the vehicle crash through any guard rails?”

  The Chief Inspector shook his head. “It was open countryside.”

  “No livestock or property fencing?”

  “No. Only rocks, and trees, and grass. Why? Did you find something?”

  Harvath shook his head. “Just trying to wrap my head around all the damage.”

  Continuing his investigation, he proceeded slowly around the Volkswagen until he was done. Nothing, though, jumped out to him other than the olive-colored scratch.

  “I’m done,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Okay, then,” replied Nyström. “I’ll give you a ride back.”

  Walking back to the entrance, Harvath waited as the Chief Inspector reversed his car out, and then closed and locked the gates for him.

  Sliding back into the front passenger seat, he shut his door and they headed for the airport.

  “Do you have any idea where Mr. Lund was staying?” Nyström asked. “There was no hotel keycard among his possessions. Could he have been staying at the garrison without telling them the true purpose of his visit?”

  “It’s possible,” Harvath lied. The man in the hat was supposed to have arranged a safe house for all of them—someplace where they could interrogate their person of interest without being disturbed.

  Allegedly, the man in the hat also had their subject under passive surveillance. Cameras had been set up to monitor his coming and going. When Lund had hinted that he might take a more active role and start following him, to see where the subject went and whom he met with, Harvath had tried to dissuade him. You couldn’t do surveillance, at least not effectively, with just one person. It was too dangerous.

  Now the man in the hat was dead. After having looked the Passat over, Harvath was growing more convinced that Lund’s death hadn’t been an accident. Somewhere along the way, Lars Lund had screwed up and it had cost him his life.

  “How about you?” the Chief Inspector asked.

  Harvath, who had been processing all of the information, hadn’t caught the question. “I’m sorry. What was that?”

  “Did Mr. Lund make arrangements for you?”

  “He was going to set something up, but I don’t know where.”

  “I’ll have an officer reach out to the different hotels; perhaps we can find where he was staying.”

  Harvath nodded.

  “Will you be staying or returning to Brussels?”

  “I think we’ll be staying, at least until SHAPE decides what it wants to do.”

  “Of course. If, in the meantime, you need any help finding rooms,” said Nyström, “let me know. I’m sure we can assist you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Fishing a business card from his pocket, the Chief Inspector handed it to Harvath. “My cell phone number is on the back. If anything comes to mind that you think might be useful in our investigation, please call me. Day or night.”

  Harvath took the card and tucked it inside his jacket. He’d been toying with revealing the name of their subject. With Lund deceased, he was at a literal dead end. He didn’t know where to find him. He decided to take the police officer into his confidence.

  “There may be something,” he offered.

  Nyström kept his eyes on the road, but even in the dark of the car, it was obvious that his interest had been piqued. “What is it?”

  “I assume you have heard about the attacks on the three NATO diplomats?”

  “Yes. Most terrible.”

  “And the situation in Norway?”

  “Yes,” the Chief Inspector repeated. “The same group was allegedly involved there as well. The People’s Revolutionary Front. They had planned to sabotage military equipment, correct?”

  “Exactly,” said Harvath.

  “Is there some sort of connection to Mr. Lund or to Gotland?”

  “We don’t know,” Harvath lied, again. “But as you can imagine, in light of these attacks, NATO has adopted a much higher security posture. Part of our assignment here was to do a security assessment.”

  “What does that entail?”

  “Pretty basic stuff, really. Is Gotland safe for NATO personnel? Are there any anti-NATO elements here who may be connected to the People’s Revolutionary Front, et cetera.”

  “As far as the police are concerned, we are not aware of any anti-NATO groups here on the island. I’m sure people have opinions, but organized resistance? No. Back on the mainland might be a different situation, especially in and around Stockholm, but not here.”

  “That’s good to know,” replied Harvath. “There is, though, one person we have interest in.”

  “On Gotland?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is it?”

  “His name is Staffan Sparrman. Are you familiar with him?”

  The Chief Inspector pulled his car over to the side of the road and stopped. Turning to look at Harvath, he said, “I am going to give you one chance—that’s all—to tell me what the hell is going on. If you don’t, I’m going to place you and the rest of your people under arrest until we get all of this sorted out.”

  “Obviously, you’re familiar with him,” said Harvath.

  “Of course I am,” Nyström replied. “Staffan Sparrman is the son of Kerstin Sparrman, the Governor of Gotland.”

  CHAPTER 27

  * * *

  Based on the circumstances, Harvath was forced to unpack a lot more information for Nyström than he had intended. But to his credit, the Chief Inspector listened well, asked intelligent questions, and was forthright with information.

  Staffan Sparrman was in his late twenties and was known to have flirted with socialism while at university in Uppsala and for a short time afterward. This being Sweden, though, that didn’t mean much. Sweden was known as an extremely liberal country. And by all accounts, Sparrman had drifted away from politics.

  In fact, the man had become so apolitical that he even refused to work on his mother’s campaign for Governor. It was quite the scuttlebutt at the time and resulted in continuing
tension between them.

  Sparrman, instead, occupied himself with the management of the family farm left by his maternal grandparents. His father, who divorced his mother when he was a teen, lived back on the mainland. They did not have a very good relationship either.

  As if to add emphasis to his certitude that Sparrman had abandoned any affinity for socialism or communism, Nyström pointed to the fact that the young man even imported cheap farm labor from Eastern Europe, rather than hire—and pay—local Swedes.

  With each point he made, the Chief Inspector was only convincing Harvath that he had the right guy. Sparrman fit the profile of a Russian espionage recruit to a T.

  Yet, with all that Nyström had shared with him, there was one piece of information that he wouldn’t give up—where Harvath could find Staffan Sparrman.

  “I think it would be better if I go out and speak to him alone,” said the Chief Inspector.

  “And tell him what? That some American just landed and he’s got a bunch of questions?”

  “I’ll be a bit more subtle than that.”

  Harvath didn’t doubt it, but by the same token he didn’t like the idea of Nyström tipping his hand. “Why don’t we sit on this for a couple of days? Let my team surveil him while I gather some more information. SHAPE may want to involve the local garrison commander after all. There’s no rush here.”

  The Chief Inspector shook his head. “I have a fatal car crash involving a member of the Swedish armed forces. I have a NATO representative telling me a member of the Gotland community is a person of interest, possibly connected somehow to a string of attacks on NATO diplomats, as well as members of Norwegian law enforcement and the Norwegian military. And oh, by the way, the person of interest is the son of the island’s Governor.

  “I can’t help but move this forward. If I delay my investigation, it might look like I was giving Sparrman special treatment just because of who his mother is. I could lose my job over something like that.”

  The man was in a tough spot, Harvath understood that, but there had to be some sort of an accommodation they could come to. “You have to do something, I agree. But does it have to be direct confrontation? Couldn’t you open up a separate investigation and place him under surveillance for a couple of days? Technically, that wouldn’t be a delay. You’d be gathering evidence and would be able to document everything.”

  Nyström thought about that. “Technically, I suppose you are correct. There’s no evidence connecting Sparrman to the car accident. Your claim that he’s a person of interest in the anti-NATO attacks is new information, which, if we choose to pursue it, would constitute a new and separate investigation.”

  “There you go,” said Harvath.

  “But there’s just one thing,” said the Chief Inspector. “I report to a chain of command. We also have laws in Sweden regarding surveillance that must be followed.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I can’t do all of this in a bubble, by myself. I have to get permission.”

  Harvath had been around law enforcement long enough to know that there were plenty of things that cops did without permission. He doubted it was any different in Sweden. “Listen,” he said, “I understand the position you’re in, but think about this. What if there is a Russian network here and Sparrman is the only link we have to it? If you go in and start asking him questions, who knows what could happen? He could run. Or, worse still, he could do what he’s supposed to do and report your visit to his handler. At that point, his handler will have a decision to make—pull Sparrman out, kill Sparrman, or kill you.”

  Nyström grinned. “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “I’m telling you the truth. And you should be scared. The Russians are brutal. Killing a police officer would be nothing for them.”

  “How do we know they didn’t kill Lund and make it look like an accident?”

  “That’s precisely it,” said Harvath. “We don’t know. That’s why you can’t go paying Staffan Sparrman any visits. Beyond what I’ve told you, you don’t have cause. If he’s half as smart as I think he is, his internal alarm bells are going to start going off if you show up asking questions for no apparent reason.

  “I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but I am asking you, cop-to-cop, to not prevent me from doing mine. If Sparrman is working for the Russians, and if he is connected to these anti-NATO attacks, we can use him to climb the ladder and dismantle the entire network. But first, we need to find out what he’s up to.”

  Having laid out his case, Harvath took a breath and settled back into his seat. The ball was in the Chief Inspector’s court now.

  “Building a proper case,” said Nyström, “takes time. How much time would you need to carry out your assignment?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Where the starting line is. I could move a lot faster if I knew where to find Staffan Sparrman.”

  “And if you knew where Sparrman was, how much time would you need?”

  “Forty-eight hours. Tops.”

  Reaching across Harvath, the Chief Inspector opened his glove compartment and pulled out a pen and a pad of paper. He then drew a map of the island and identified the Sparrman farm.

  Tearing the sheet from the notebook, he handed it to him. “Forty-eight hours,” said Nyström. “That’s as much as I can give you. Then I take over.”

  • • •

  Across town, one of the two patrol officers who had met Harvath’s plane at Visby Airport used a side door to enter the hospital. Avoiding the intake desk at the emergency room, he made his way to a stairwell and headed down to the basement.

  There, he walked past the morgue to the hospital security office. The door was unlocked, and opening it, he stepped inside.

  Sitting in front of a bank of monitors, glued to his iPhone, was the sole security guard in the office.

  Looking up and seeing his visitor, he immediately pocketed his phone and stood, almost at attention. “Officer Johansson,” he said. “Good evening.”

  “Good evening, Lucas,” the officer replied. “Quiet night?”

  “So far,” the young man stated.

  “I can see that. Are you being paid to monitor your Instagram account or the hospital’s closed-circuit cameras?”

  Lucas hung his head. He had already failed the police entrance exam once. All he wanted to do was to become a cop. Now he had been caught shirking his professional responsibilities by an officer from the same department he wanted to join.

  He was convinced he had blown any chance of being hired until Officer Johansson said, “Never mind. I need a favor.”

  “Certainly. What is it?”

  Pulling a portable drive from his uniform pocket, the tall man handed it to the young security guard and said, “I need all your footage from the last hour.”

  “Why?” the guard asked, as he accepted the drive, found a cable, and attached it to his system. “Are you looking for someone?”

  Obviously I’m looking for someone, thought Officer Johansson. Goodness, this kid was a moron. How he’d even been hired by the hospital was beyond him.

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” Johansson said, ignoring his question.

  “How is it out on the street tonight?” asked the guard as he tapped several keys on his keyboard and isolated the footage the policeman had requested.

  “Can I trust you to keep this between us?” the officer replied, as the footage began to download.

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

  “We’re hunting a jewel thief.”

  “A jewel thief? In Visby?” the eager security guard asked, as the download neared completion. “Did you think he came here? To the hospital?”

  “What do you think?”

  The young man paused for a moment, thinking, and then replied, “Of course! That’s why you’re here.”

  “You’re going to make an excellent police officer one day, Lucas. You have a real nose for it. How much lo
nger on the download?”

  “Done!” the guard exclaimed, unplugging the device and handing it back to Officer Johansson.

  “When’s the next exam?” the cop asked.

  “Two months.”

  “Are you ready?”

  The guard grimaced.

  “Keep studying,” advised Johansson.

  “I will sir.”

  “Good.”

  When the officer got to the door, he turned and addressed the young man one last time. “A patient’s car was broken into in the parking lot tonight. Her bracelet was stolen. If you see or hear anything about our jewel thief, let us know.”

  And with that, Johansson left the security office and exited the hospital. He’d have to wait until his shift was over and he could establish a secure connection, but he had no doubt that his handler and Moscow were going to appreciate having video footage of the American.

  CHAPTER 28

  * * *

  KALININGRAD

  Oleg Tretyakov poured himself a glass of wine as he processed the recent spate of intelligence reports he had received. The first had been the most troubling. The cell on Gotland had been under surveillance. But as far as they knew, by only one person—an older man in his sixties.

  Staffan Sparrman had noticed him multiple times—both in his white Volkswagen Passat, and on foot. When the man had been on foot, he was particularly conspicuous because of his distinctive Alpine hat.

  The handler for the Gotland cell was one of Tretyakov’s most trusted lieutenants. The strategic importance of the Swedish island had made it imperative that he put his best man in charge. Ivan Kuznetsov was that man.

  Kuznetsov was brilliant, brutal, and beyond loyal. Had Tretyakov wanted, he could have also added the word “butcher” to describe him, as Kuznetsov had grown up in a family of butchers and had begun expertly butchering hogs at a young age.

  His knowledge of butchery, his brutality in dealing with Russia’s enemies, and his skill in using a knife had earned Kuznetsov the nickname “Kutznutzov.”

  His peasant upbringing, though, had always been a millstone around his thick neck. It had been a source of derision for others while he was in the military. He had no formal education to speak of, having left school in the fifth grade to work full-time for his family’s business. But, as the Russian Army freed him from his village and allowed him to see more of the world, he had educated himself through books—anything at all he could get his hands on.