Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(32)

“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, S?lvi 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 S?lvi, 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.

“S?lvi, I know you. You want to avenge 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.”

S?lvi 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?” S?lvi 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.”

S?lvi 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?”

S?lvi 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.