Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(31)

“How big a program is it? Approximately. How many people work there full-time?”

S?lvi 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.”

S?lvi 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 S?lvi. “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 S?lvi, 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.”