by Brad Thor
Harvath didn’t, so they talked about everything else but.
Approaching the main gates for Elk Mountain, Finney radioed ahead to the guardhouse that he was coming in “plus one.”
Though the guards knew their boss and his vehicle by sight, they still stopped the Hummer, recorded its arrival, checked it over thoroughly, and then waved it on through. Harvath had always been impressed with the level of security at Elk Mountain.
At the main lodge, Finney stopped to pick up his director of operations, Ron Parker. He was a lean man with a goatee, in his late thirties, who stood about five-foot-ten.
Climbing into the backseat, Parker removed a Coors from the cooler, reached around, and punched Harvath in the left arm. “Good to see you,” he said.
Looking up, he could see Finney’s raised eyebrows in the rearview mirror. “What?” he asked.
“Do you think that behavior is appropriate?” replied Finney.
Parker leaned between the front seats as he popped the top from his beer and asked, “It’s your other shoulder that got messed up, right?”
Harvath nodded. “My left’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Parker smiled, sat back, and took a long pull from his beer.
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” replied Finney. “Right?”
“Listen,” said Parker, “as of ten minutes ago I’m off-duty. And what I do on my personal time is my business.”
“Then you’re fired. I’ll have the pink slip on your desk in the morning.”
Parker took another swig of beer. “Super, I’ll place it on the spike with all the rest of them.”
Both Finney and Parker were notorious for their professionalism, but as Harvath had gotten to know them he realized that they made an important distinction. They took their careers and what they did at Elk Mountain very seriously, but they never took themselves too seriously, especially when in the quiet company of good friends.
Finney looked over and saw Harvath smile. “It’s good to have you back.”
“Not much has changed, has it?” said Harvath.
Finney thrust his beefy hand into the backseat and motioned to Parker to hand him a beer. “We doubled all the locks on the wine cellar after your last visit, but other than that, no.”
Parker and Finney limited themselves to one beer each. Finney had his finished in two swallows, just as they arrived at yet another checkpoint. This time, they were all required to present photo identification. The guards were dressed in Blackhawk tactical gear, like the ones at the main gate, but in addition, these guards had been issued body armor and were openly carrying weapons.
Harvath knew that the men at the front gate were also strapped; they just kept their iron out of sight. Here, though, Finney’s people were making a very clear show of force. Two men carried H&K 416s, while a third held a highly modified Benelli twelve-gauge and never once took his eyes off the passengers in the Hummer. Harvath had no idea where Finney was getting his guards, but he seemed to be doing a damn good job.
As they pulled away from the checkpoint and drove toward the Sargasso facility, Harvath asked, “Ex SWAT?”
“Special Forces, actually,” replied Parker.
Harvath laughed dismissively. “C’mon.”
“He’s one hundred percent serious,” said Finney.
“Doing guard duty?”
“Guard duty is only one of the things they do here,” answered Parker. “They’re on a rotation, so it’s a shift everyone has to pull each month.”
“I know what those guys make in the private sector. You’ve got some very expensive gatekeepers.”
Finney smiled. “And worth every penny of it.”
“But make no mistake,” added Parker. “They’ve got it pretty good here. We’ve got an excellent bonus and compensation package that far outpaces what these guys would be pulling in anywhere else.”
Harvath looked at Finney, who added, “We don’t even advertise for them anymore. They come to us.”
The SUV came to a stop in front of the poorly lit entrance of what looked like an old mineshaft.
Harvath was about to ask where they were when he saw a faded sign hanging over the opening that proclaimed Sargasso Mining Company. He was looking at the understated entrance to Finney’s hot new intelligence venture.
Chapter 11
O ne hundred feet down the sloping tunnel that led into the Sargasso shaft, Harvath half-expected a tour guide with an authentic miner’s headlamp or a bearded, dust-covered, suspender-wearing actor to appear and regale them with stories of the Old Lucky Seven Mine. At 101 feet, Harvath’s attitude changed.
He had to give Tim Finney credit. They weren’t greeted by a stainless-steel, pneumatically sealed, hi-tech, James Bond-style door. Instead, it was a door composed of five aged wooden planks with splintered crosspieces that looked ready to fall off its hinges.
A rather unremarkable sign was nailed to it that stated Danger. Keep Out.
Finney produced a set of keys and unlocked a rusted padlock that kept a heavy iron chain in place across the door. He continued to lead down a wide, rough-hewn passageway. The trio followed a set of tracks that Harvath figured must have once been used to haul supplies in and gold out.
The large tunnel continued sloping gently downward. After another hundred feet the tunnel widened and a series of lights could be seen up ahead.
When they got there they were greeted by another brace of guards. Though they looked just as serious as the last set of guards, these men simply waved them along.
“They get a couple hundred feet below ground and your guys start to slack off, don’t they?” Harvath joked.
Finney and Parker both smiled. “You have no idea how many passive security checks you have gone through on the way down here,” said Parker. “Not only have your body temperature and heart rate been monitored since entering the mine, but we know if you’re carrying any sort of weapon, explosives, powders, liquids, or gels on your person as well.”
“Everything except whether I’m wearing boxers or briefs,” stated Harvath.
“We’ve got that too,” replied Finney as he pretended to consult the earpiece attached to his radio. “Apparently, it’s a blue thong with the words Go Navy embroidered in sequins.”
Harvath grinned and gave him the finger. They kept walking until they arrived at a miners-style elevator. Finney raised the grate and they all stepped inside. Removing a keycard from his pocket, Finney swept it through a magnetic reader and then presented his right thumb and pupil for biometric verification. Once he had been approved, the elevator began to descend.
It came to a stop at the bottom of the shaft, where they were met by a low-exhaust Dodge Ram pickup specifically designed for subterranean driving.
As the truck’s driver took them deeper into the mine, Finney explained the purpose of the Sargasso program. “We’ve had teams visit us from Fort Bragg, Camp Perry with the CIA, as well as Fort Story with the SEALs, and they all love the training here, but at the end of the day, no matter how good their people are, their success or failure comes down to one critical component—intelligence.
“That gave me an idea, and I started making a few phone calls to people I know back east. We hear a lot about the high attrition rates in the special operations community as operators leave the armed forces and go to work for groups like Blackwater or Triple Canopy where they can make a hell of a lot more money. What you don’t hear about are the attrition rates in the intelligence community.
“I never had any desire to run a private military company, per se. But a private intelligence company, now that’s something completely different, and it seemed to dovetail well with what we were already doing here.”
Harvath held on to the headrest in front of him as they hit a series of potholes. Once the surface had smoothed out, he asked, “I understand how Valhalla and Site Six make money for you, but how do you make money with your own intelligence company?”
“We do it in tw
o ways,” replied Finney. “First, I don’t have to focus on the entire world. I focus solely on the sweet spots where the most action is happening. All the terrorism and terrorist-related intelligence that we gather and analyze is from areas where the U. S. government is backlogged and overloaded.
“Second, there’s no congressional oversight of what we do. We have a lot more latitude in our operations. There are agencies willing to pay a lot of money for us to gather intel for them. As far as our ops tempo is concerned, we’re double the volume of where Ron and I projected we’d be by this time. We can’t get guys out of the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the like fast enough to come work here.”
Harvath shook his head. Finney was amazing.
The truck came to a stop before a final checkpoint in front of what looked like a pair of heavy blast doors. Once they had been waved through, Finney led the way into the heart of the Sargasso Program’s Operations Center.
It wasn’t at all what Harvath had expected. The minute they stepped inside, they left the feeling of being in a mine hundreds of feet beneath the surface behind them. If Harvath hadn’t known better, he would have sworn he was in some cutting-edge development think tank on the Microsoft campus.
Gone were the caged bulbs strung along the rough-hewn walls. They had been replaced with sophisticated fixtures recessed at the edges of the ceiling that replicated bright, outdoor light. The floors were polished granite and the offices were walled in with sheets of soundproofed glass, the opacity of which could be dialed up or down based on the occupant’s desired level of privacy.
Impossibly slim, high-definition monitors suspended on the glass acted like windows to the outside world. As they passed scenes of Alpine Switzerland, the Bolivian rainforest, and a spit of rocky coastline from Maine, Finney explained that employees were allowed to choose their own “view” from a database of digital backdrops from around the world. It was just one of the many small touches Finney had created to make his employees’ time below ground as pleasant as possible.
At the end of the next hallway, the group turned left and arrived at an office where the virtual window displayed a river with jagged mountains in the background. In the midground a man in waders was fly fishing. The sound of river water gently moving by played from a hidden speaker somewhere in the room.
“Tom should be right back,” Finney said in regard to the office’s absent occupant. “We can wait in here for him.”
On top of the polished chrome desk was a neatly arranged stack of files, a lone silver pen, and a pad of Post-it notes. Whoever this guy was, he either didn’t have a lot to do or was extremely well organized. Based on what Finney had told him, Harvath figured it had to be the latter.
He had turned his attention to the virtual window and was admiring the scene when Tom Morgan entered the office. “That’s the Snake River,” said Morgan as he set a paper coffee cup and his laptop down on his desk. “One of the finest dry fly rivers in the world.”
“This particular spot is just outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Island Park, isn’t it?” asked Harvath as he turned around.
“You’ve fished the Snake, then.”
Harvath nodded. “Both the Henry’s and the South Fork. In fact I think I’ve fished that exact spot,” he added as he pointed over his shoulder at the screen. It was a scene he recognized immediately.
He’d been planning to take Tracy there that fall to teach her how to fish. The summer crowds would be gone, the leaves would be turning, and the mountains would be gorgeous. He’d already reserved a small cabin at a place called Dornans just inside Grand Teton National Park. He wondered now if they’d ever be able to go anywhere together again.
“I love the Snake, but there’s some pretty good fishing around here in Colorado. That’s part of the reason I took this job,” said Morgan, pulling Harvath’s mind back to the here and now.
Harvath acknowledged the remark with a knowing smile as Tim Finney made formal introductions. Tom Morgan was ex-NSA and somewhere in his late sixties. He wore glasses, had a mustache, and walked with a limp—the result of a field operation gone bad, which he never discussed.
After a lifetime of suits and ties at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, Morgan had embraced Elk Mountain’s somewhat casual dress code. Tonight, he was wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and a tweed sport coat. He appeared very fit for his age. When he spoke, there was a slight New England accent to his words, and Harvath placed him as a native of Rhode Island or New Hampshire.
“Tom’s the reason I asked you to come out,” said Finney as they all sat down.
This was the part Harvath had been waiting for. “What have you got?”
Morgan didn’t mince words. “I think we’ve located the Troll’s lockbox.”
Harvath looked at him, his eyebrows arching. “Everything?” he asked.
Morgan looked at him and replied, “Bank accounts, data deposits, everything.”
Chapter 12
S o the way we see it,” said Finney as Tom Morgan wrapped up his presentation and closed his laptop, “we’ve got this little runt’s nuts in a vise. The only question is how hard do you want to squeeze?”
Harvath was impressed. Finney and his Sargasso Intelligence Program had been able to do what the United States government wouldn’t or couldn’t do. They had located the Troll’s stock-in-trade, his highly classified data.
It wasn’t a tough decision for Harvath to make. The Troll had helped Al Qaeda carry out the attacks on New York City.
Then there was the whole matter of Tracy.
Looking at Finney, Harvath said, “I want you to squeeze so hard his eyes roll back into his fucking head.”
The Warlord nodded at Morgan, and the former NSA employee picked up his phone and dialed. The Troll’s field of play was about to be dramatically upended.
Chapter 13
ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL
T hree hours southwest of Rio de Janeiro by car, or forty-five minutes by private helicopter, was the hottest getaway in Brazil, the bay of Angra dos Reis.
Known for its warm waters, white-sand beaches, and lush vegetation, Angra dos Reis, or simply Angra as it was called by those in the know, boasted 365 islands—one for every day of the year. Angra was a mystical place, its breezes laden with the scent of exotic tropical flowers that intoxicated its visitors.
Upon its discovery by Portuguese naval officers in 1502, one of the officers wrote home saying that they had discovered paradise.
Angra was indeed a paradise. The kind of paradise one could easily get lost in. And lost was exactly what the Troll had wanted to be, though not without certain creature comforts.
The private island he’d leased was a half mile long and a quarter mile wide. It was known as Algodão. It boasted a helipad, speedboat, and accommodations rivaling the greatest luxury hotels in the world. Though it could easily sleep eighteen, at present there were only three souls ashore—the Troll and his two snow-white Caucasian Ovcharkas, Argos and Draco.
Weighing close to two hundred pounds each and standing over forty-one inches at the shoulder, these giant animals were the dogs of choice for the Russian military and former East German border patrol. They were exceedingly fast and absolutely vicious when it came to protecting their territory. They made the perfect guardians for a man who stood just under three feet tall and had very powerful enemies—many of whom were his clients.
The Troll lived by the motto that knowledge didn’t equal power; it was the precise application of knowledge that equaled power. He had also learned very quickly that it could also equal incredible wealth.
It was in following this motto that the Troll had made a substantial living for himself dealing in the purchase, sale, and trade of highly classified information. Each piece on its own had a certain value, but the skill—the art if you will—was in knowing how to join together just the right tidbits to create a true masterpiece. That was where the Troll excelled in his profession. It was quite amazing, especially for someone whose prospects in life
had been seen as so dismal that even his parents had given up on him.
When it became obvious the Troll was not going to grow any further, his godless Georgian parents made no attempt to find a suitable loving home for their son, nor did they try to find even a half-decent orphanage. Instead, they abandoned the boy, selling him as if he were chattel to a brothel on the outskirts of the Black Sea resort of Sochi. There, the boy was starved, beaten, and made to perform unutterable sex acts that would have shamed even the Marquis de Sade himself.
It was in the brothel that the Troll learned the true value of information. The loose-lipped pillow talk of the powerful clients proved a goldmine once he had learned what to listen for and how to turn it to his advantage.
The whores, most of them life’s castoffs as well, felt a kinship with the dwarf and treated him well. In fact, they became the only family he ever knew, and he repaid that kindness by one day buying their freedom. He had the madam and her husband tortured and then killed for the inhuman cruelty he had spent years suffering at their hands.
From the ashes of his youth, the Troll rose a fiery phoenix armed with a cutthroat business acumen and a gluttonous appetite for the best of everything in life.
In his palm-thatched living room, he cradled a glass of Château Quercy St. Emilion Bordeaux between his two small hands as he stared through the villa’s glass floor at the colorful starfish and vibrant sea life playing in the illuminated water below. He had indeed come a long way since the brothel in Sochi. But was it far enough?
Draco looked up as his master slid off his chair and padded across the room in his handmade Stubbs & Wootton Sisal Pajas. Argos remained in a deep sleep, still recovering from the wound he had suffered in Gibraltar. It was good for all of them to get away from his estate in the rainy Scottish Highlands. The weather was much more agreeable in Brazil. It was also a safer place.
Though few knew of Eilenaigas House, he would not feel safe there for some time. After what his clients had done in New York City, he knew the Americans were quite literally out for blood. He’d seen it for himself firsthand in Gibraltar. If he lived to be a thousand, he would never forget the horrifically macabre death the American operative Scot Harvath had visited upon Mohammed bin Mohammed. It was something no sane man could have ever devised. Yet it was perfect. Mohammed had deserved it a million times over, especially for the sadistic acts he had visited upon the Troll as a young boy in that brothel near the Black Sea.