by Brad Thor
“So it’s a continuity-of-government program. In essence, a backup. A fail-safe.”
The Norwegian nodded. “The ultimate fail-safe. In case of national emergency, it would be largely immune from oversight by Parliament. The thought was, if a patient has had a heart attack and needs to be rushed to the hospital for surgery, should politicians be slowing things down arguing about speed limits, or should those most intimately involved with the patient, the actual people in the ambulance, be making the calls?”
“Interesting. But that doesn’t explain why Holst was in the briefing. What involvement, if any, would she have regarding the death of Carl Pedersen?”
“Strategy Section was Carl’s idea.”
“Do you think it might be connected to his murder?” Hayes asked.
“Ivar is a careful man. It was likely just out of an abundance of caution that Holst was there. Strategy Section is a bit like your Red Cell teams. Part of their job is to think outside the box—to look for connections no one else is seeing.”
“Are you a member of it?”
“No,” said Sølvi. “At least not officially. Carl told me that my name’s on a list of intelligence officers who might be tapped in an emergency. My day-to-day portfolio, though, is outside of what they do.”
“How big a program is it? Approximately. How many people work there full-time?”
Sølvi smiled, pulled the champagne out of the bucket, and topped off both of their glasses. “I’ve probably already said too much. Besides, I believe you were about to tell me about Scot Harvath.”
Hayes smiled back. While they had been good friends, they still worked for allied yet separate intelligence organizations. As such, there had always been a good-natured push/pull between them. If, in the course of their friendship, one of them picked up something of benefit for her country, then so be it. That was icing on the cake. It wasn’t the primary reason they had become friends. They had become friends because they had liked and respected each other.
“Okay,” said the American, taking a sip of her champagne. “I’ll tell you what I told your colleagues at the briefing. Then, if you want to ask me questions, feel free.”
Sølvi got comfortable in her chair, took a sip of champagne, and nodded for her friend to begin.
“You’ve never met Harvath, have you?”
The Norwegian shook her head.
“I only met him once,” Hayes recounted. “Years ago. In Turkey. He was part of a SEAL team that conducted a hostage rescue operation. He was handsome. Really handsome. But cocky as hell. He single-handedly killed the hostage-takers and got the hostage out alive. I can’t go into operational specifics, but let’s just say that the equipment he was using was meant for very limited target engagement.
“His teammates were floored when they made entry and all the tangos were down. In my opinion, he got lucky. But as they say, it’s often better to be lucky than good.
“Fast-forward a couple of years, and he distinguishes himself while helping secure a maritime location for a U.S. presidential visit. To this day, I still don’t have the requisite ‘need to know’ as to what the threat was that Harvath uncovered, or how he diffused it.
“Suffice it to say that he impressed a lot of people, including the United States Secret Service—who brought him on board to help bolster their counterterrorism expertise at the White House. You heard about our previous President, Jack Rutledge, and his ill-fated ski trip to Park City, Utah?”
“Where all those agents were killed and he was kidnapped?” said Sølvi. “Of course.”
“Well, Harvath not only saved the President’s daughter, but he figured out who had taken the President, tracked him down, and took him back. One would think that would be the kind of guy you’d want to keep on your protective detail, but that wasn’t how President Rutledge saw it. Instead, Harvath was put back in the field, tasked with various nondisclosed covert activities from that point forward.”
“Black work?”
Hayes shrugged. “Could be, but again, I’m not in that loop. What I do know is that he eventually ended up at CIA doing contract assignments, before going to work for a good friend of Carl’s, who had established the Agency’s Counterterrorism Center, named—”
“Reed Carlton,” the Norwegian said, finishing her friend’s sentence for her.
“Exactly.”
“Carl liked to talk about them—a lot. He was fond of both Reed and Harvath.”
“Then you know,” Hayes continued, “how far back Reed and Carl went. All the way back to the Cold War.”
“Yes, they not only conducted multiple ops together, they were also good friends.”
“Do you know how they met?”
The Norwegian nodded. “While training the CIA-initiated ‘stay behind’ teams meant to conduct guerrilla warfare if the Soviets ever invaded Norway. According to Carl, part of his inspiration for Strategy Section came from his conversations with Reed.”
“I’m not surprised,” Hayes replied. “Having known them both, I can say those two were cut from the same cloth. They had similar views of where the world had been and where it was headed. And while many in Oslo and D.C. were looking in their rearview mirrors, expecting the next war to look like the last, these two were trying to wake people up and get them prepared. They were real visionaries.”
“Agreed. So what else did they have in common? What would have gotten both of them killed? And why does Harvath seem to be next on someone’s list?”
“We’re not sure they’re connected,” the CIA operative replied.
“Come on, Holidae. I know Carl was up to something with Harvath. He told me.”
“What, specifically, did he tell you?”
“A couple of months ago, when an anti-NATO terrorist group was carrying out attacks in Europe, Harvath had tracked a cell to Norway. Along with a Norwegian Police Security Service assault team, backed up by Norwegian Special Forces, he had gone in to take them down, but there had been an ambush. Several officers and soldiers were killed, and many more were gravely injured.
“Following a firefight, Harvath had chased down the surviving cell member. There had been another gunfight, Harvath had killed the guy, and had recovered valuable intelligence from the backpack he had been carrying. That intelligence had then been used to unravel a larger plot sponsored by the Russians.”
Hayes’s brow furrowed slightly, but only for a fraction of a second. “Was this in Carl’s reports?” she asked. “Or did he tell you privately?”
“He told me privately,” said Sølvi, who had noticed the change in her companion’s expression. “There’s not much in his reports—and I’ve read all of them. That means that whatever they were doing, he had been keeping most, if not all of it off-book. Normally when he did that, it was so that if anything went sideways, Russia couldn’t draw a straight line back to Norway.”
“A sound policy.”
“Carl was always three steps ahead.”
An awkward silence fell over the table. Hayes knew she owed her friend more and remained quiet as she debated what she had been authorized to reveal.
Per her training, Sølvi knew to wait and not to fill such pauses with talk.
Finally, Hayes broke the stalemate. “Suppose,” the CIA operative offered, “I do know what Carl had been up to with Harvath. If I gave you that information, what would you do with it?”
“What do you think I’d do with it? I’d use it to get to the bottom of who murdered him.”
“And once you got to the bottom? Then what?”
“I’d do my job.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” replied Sølvi, playing to Hayes’s rule-following nature, “that I’d turn it over to my superiors.”
The CIA operative leaned back in her chair, raised her champagne glass, and said, “Then I can’t help you,” as she took a long sip.
“Wait. What?” The Norwegian was confused.
“Sølvi, I know you. You want to aveng
e your mentor. My government wants to protect a valuable intelligence officer. Our goals are aligned.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Once Carl’s killer has been identified, the United States wants that intelligence first. If you hand it over to NIS, they’re going to sit on it. I know it and you know it. We have a mandate from the White House to put the pedal to the metal right now.”
“Why now? Why all of a sudden?”
“It’s complicated,” said Hayes.
“Is it ever not complicated in our business? Try me.”
“We no longer have the confidence that if a hostile nation moved on Norway, our citizens, much less our politicians, would support honoring our commitments under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. Americans are tired of war.”
Sølvi was stunned. “You’re saying that if we were invaded, the United States might stand back and do nothing? No ‘an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all NATO members’?”
“Believe me, I find it distasteful, but it’s possible.”
“It’s also pretty damn hypocritical,” she said, growing angry. “Since NATO’s founding in 1949, the Article 5 mutual defense pact has only been triggered once. One fucking time.”
“I know,” Hayes replied.
“By whom?” Sølvi demanded. “Who cried out, ‘We’ve been attacked and now NATO must come to our aid’?”
Hayes looked her in the eyes and answered, “America. Right after 9/11.”
“Exactly,” the Norwegian stated. “Three thousand people died. It was a horrible attack. The civilized world was sickened. And you know what? Norway was proud to fight alongside its American ally.
“Yet you’re telling me now—despite the Norwegian lives lost and blood spilled post-9/11—that if our country was invaded; if we had foreign soldiers in our streets, taking over our homes, burning our businesses, and usurping our government, that America ‘might not’ come to Norway’s aid?”
“Yes,” Hayes responded. “As terrible as that sounds, that’s what I’m saying. We’re in uncharted political waters. All of us. You know that. So we can either ignore reality, or deal with the facts as they are. The United States has chosen to deal with the facts as they are.
“America is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure none of us get dragged into war.”
“What precisely does that mean?”
“It means that we don’t let boils fester. When we find one, we go in and we lance it. We’re of the mind that an ounce of prevention costs a lot less than a pound of cure. This is what the new Cold War looks like.”
Sølvi took it all in. The world was changing, rapidly. Hayes had that right. Some of it was organic—a reaction to rapid advancements in technology and globalization. But some of it, because Norway had seen it firsthand, was the product of bad actors, skilled in propaganda and information warfare. They exploited divisions within countries, turning citizens against each other, against their government, and against their institutions. They were hell-bent on sowing chaos, distrust, and discord wherever they could.
One of the worst actors was Russia. And the only thing Russia hated as much as the United States was NATO. It saw each as a threat to its very existence and worked to undermine them both every day.
“And it’s only going to get more brutal,” the CIA operative added. “If Norway is going to survive, it needs a lot more Carl Pedersens—operatives willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. But those operatives will need to find ways to give Oslo plausible deniability because there are many things Norway would like to do, but strategically it just can’t. That goes double for punching back at Russia, if that’s who’s behind this.”
“So that’s what you’re offering me? Plausible deniability?”
“I’m offering you a chance to hunt down Carl’s killer. That’s what you want, isn’t it? All I am asking in return is that you give us a head start on whatever you uncover. Quid pro quo. I don’t care what you share with NIS, as long as my agency gets it first. Fair?”
Sølvi was being co-opted. If she said yes to this deal, she’d be placing the CIA ahead of her own organization—completely contrary to her oath.
By the same token, she was intrigued. She had no idea what information Hayes had, nor whether any of it would be helpful. The proof would be in the pudding.
“Okay,” she said, refilling their glasses and signaling the waiter to bring another bottle. “I’ll bite. What have you got?”
Taking a sip, the CIA operative scanned the patrons around them to make sure no one was listening. Once Hayes was confident that it was safe to speak, she said, “What I’m about to tell you goes no further. If you ever mention my name in connection with this intel, I’ll deny this conversation ever took place. Are we clear?”
Slowly, Sølvi nodded.
CHAPTER 15
CAMP DAVID, MARYLAND
Okay,” Lawlor said. “Walk me through it. Everything that had to do with Pedersen—and anyone who knew you were connected.”
Nicholas had turned the Laurel cabin, which was where most of Camp David’s official meetings took place, into a makeshift operations center. It had three conference rooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and a small presidential office.
Though the structure had been built under President Nixon in 1972, the main conference room boasted technology on par with the Situation Room back at the White House. There were not only multiple flat-panel monitors, capable of broadcasting television and live encrypted video feeds, but also large glass screens, which could display visuals such as maps or satellite imagery and be annotated by touch.
The glass screens were on tracks and could be slid in either direction, revealing a huge whiteboard bolted to the wall. Though Lawlor appreciated all the tech, he preferred the whiteboard—especially when brainstorming.
Nearby, a sideboard had been loaded with soft drinks, bottled water, a samovar of coffee, and an array of snacks.
As Harvath talked, Lawlor paced. In one hand he carried a green dry-erase marker, and in the other a mug of coffee. When a new name was mentioned, he added it to the whiteboard.
Once Harvath had finished speaking, Lawlor stood back, and looked at their list. He read it aloud, hoping that they had missed someone.
“Admiral David Proctor—NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Monika Jasinski of Polish Military Intelligence, and Filip Landsbergis of the VSD—Lithuania’s State Security Department. That’s it? That’s the entire cast of characters?”
“That’s it,” Harvath responded. “Those are all the people who knew about the op Carl and I ran.”
Lawlor referred to a file on the table. “Proctor is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and, among his many achievements, he has commanded Destroyer Squadron 21, as well as the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, has served as a special assistant to the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and ended up heading the Special Operations Command before taking over at U.S. Central Command. He was nominated for the SACEUR position by President Porter two years ago, and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Impressive résumé.”
Harvath agreed. “I knew him back when he was at SOCOM. He’s solid. President Porter spoke to him once. After that, only I spoke with the Admiral. No staff were allowed to listen in, nor were any brought into the loop.”
“Did Carl’s name come up?”
“Once or twice, but solely in the context of the mission.”
“Any chance that–”
Harvath held his hand up and cut him off. “Zero. The man is a bank vault.”
“Vaults can be cracked.”
“Not this one, and especially not over the name of an allied Intelligence officer. The Admiral was a fanatic about operational security. You can ask anyone he worked with at SOCOM or CENTCOM. He oversaw some of the biggest post-9/11 ops we have undertaken. Not a word ever leaked to the press or to our enemies. Like I said, he’s solid. Full stop.”
“And he recommended Jas
inski?”
“Correct,” said Harvath. “She had been billeted to NATO’s terrorism intelligence cell in Belgium. Admiral Proctor had tapped her personally. She legitimized my cover so I could be part of the raid on the cell in Norway. Afterward, Jasinski and I met up with Carl at Værnes Air Station in Stjørdal and debriefed him on the operation. There were some things with the cops and the Norwegian military that needed to be mopped up, but Carl told us he’d take care of them.”
“Do you think he may have mentioned you to them by name?” Lawlor asked.
“Carl? Not a chance. I was traveling under an alias and it had been provided to him. He wouldn’t have given me away.”
“What about once he returned to Oslo? Do you think he told anyone at NIS?”
“The Norwegian Intelligence Service knew better than to ask Carl too many questions—especially ones they didn’t want the answers to.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” said Lawlor. “Do you think he revealed your presence in Norway to anyone at NIS?”
“Officially?” Harvath replied. “No.”
“What about unofficially?”
“Unofficially, he could have been running an all-male review out of the NIS parking lot. The point is that the Old Man trusted him and so did I. Carl understood that our relationship functioned best as long as knowledge of it was kept limited. If he brought someone into his confidence, I have no reason to doubt his judgment. More importantly, if the killer we’re looking for came from inside NIS, why would they need to torture Carl in order to access his files, his phone, and the NIS database?”
It was a sensible argument and though Lawlor could come up with some thin reasoning as to why someone might, it would have been a waste of their time to pursue. So, he moved on. “Okay, let’s focus on Jasinski then,” he stated. “Do you think she spoke to anyone about you or Carl?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Harvath replied, “she was working on direct, classified orders from the SACEUR himself. Admiral Proctor had directed her not to discuss the operation with anyone else, not even her colleagues back at Polish Military Intelligence.”