Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(5)

The Old Man, despite having Alzheimer’s, was a walking history of the espionage business. He knew where all the top secret “bodies” were buried. Lydia and Harvath had taken turns sitting with him, recording every piece of valuable information he had stored in his brain before it all slipped away.

When his capacities began to fail and he started revealing some of his sensitive exploits to his housekeeper and friends who would call up or drop by to check on him, Harvath decided it was time to silo him.

Carlton’s fondest memories had been of spending summers at his grandparents’ cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. It was off-season and easy for Harvath to find an available home for rent. As the oldest memories were usually the last to disappear, he thought it would be a comfortable and familiar place for Carlton.

With the President’s approval, a team of Navy corpsmen—all with top secret clearance—was detailed to the Old Man. On rotating shifts, there was always one in the house. Harvath flew up to see him as often as possible.

He had just returned from a particularly harrowing assignment overseas, during which he had made up his mind about what he wanted. While he couldn’t promise that he would retire from fieldwork anytime soon, he knew that he loved Lara and her son and would for the rest of his life.

Following a romantic meal, he had walked her down to the dock and had proposed. She had lovingly and excitedly accepted.

Knowing that the Old Man was slipping away, Harvath had asked her to elope with him. He wanted to get married at the cottage, quietly, by his bedside. Ryan would be their witness.

Lara knew how much Reed Carlton meant to her fiancé. She had come to love him like a father as well. Including such a special man in such a special moment was the right thing to do. And so, she had agreed.

To keep it under wraps—until they could do a big church wedding with Lara’s family, his mom, and all their friends present—they hired a local judge to conduct the ceremony in private.

Everything had been perfect. The Old Man had even been more engaged and energetic than they had seen him in long time.

Harvath couldn’t have asked for anything more. The walks around the lake with Lara, the laughter, the lovemaking; those couple of days—from the secret wedding until the attack—had been the happiest he had ever known. Then it had all come crashing down.

After the murders, the torture, his escape, and fighting his way across a frozen foreign landscape to freedom, much of who he had been was stripped away.

Since the funerals, his colleagues had backed off, showing their respect by giving him space and letting him grieve.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been keeping tabs on him. He figured it had to have been somebody from the office. They were more than just coworkers, they were family. And spies, after all, never stop spying—especially on each other.

They all knew where he had been staying. In fact, a colleague had done him a favor by shipping a suitcase full of his clothes down to Little Palm Island in advance of his arrival.

But now that he had decamped for Key West, he’d be harder to find. Harder, but not impossible.

He still had his phone, which never left the room and which he only turned on to scroll through photos, old texts, and voice messages from Lara. Lest anyone catch him while the phone was on, he had it set to “Do Not Disturb,” disabling the chime and sending any new calls straight to voicemail.

Once his unpacking was complete, he had spent the next several days making the rounds of local watering holes until he finally settled on one. Not that his standards were particularly high. They weren’t. All that mattered was that the air-conditioning was cold, the bar quiet, and the clientele a particular class: hard-core, professional drinkers who just wanted to be left alone.

The place he ultimately selected was a quintessential dive bar. Dimly lit, with blacked-out windows, its air was redolent of urinal cakes, spilled beer, and wasted lives.

Nobody paid him any attention. In fact, no one had given him so much as a second look. It was the perfect hole in the wall to continue his slow-motion suicide.

And though he could have continued to drink top-shelf as he had at Little Palm Island, he instead went for the worst stuff they had. He wanted it to burn all the way down. He wanted to torture himself. Glancing around, it was pretty obvious that he hadn’t cornered the market in self-loathing.

Imagining the backstories of the people he was drinking “with” didn’t take too much creativity. All of them had been drawn to the southernmost point in the U.S. by something. There were probably more than a few failed marriages, failed businesses, and outstanding warrants in the room. Anything was possible. They didn’t call Key West a “sunny place for shady people” for nothing.

The bartender was an attractive woman in her forties. Twenty, even ten years ago, the top bars on the island would have been cutting each other’s throats to hire her. She was not only sexy, but she was also adept at slinging drinks. More importantly, she knew when, and when not, to make conversation.

When it came to Harvath, she could tell that he was not looking to talk. He was polite, and tipped well, but he kept to himself.

He came in every day with a newspaper he barely read, sat in the same scarred booth where he ordered the same drink over and over, as he stared toward the front door. It was as if he was waiting for someone. But whoever that someone was, they never came.

She felt sorry for him. He was handsome, close to her age, and a man who obviously needed to be put back together. She had always been drawn to guys who were screwed up. “Broken Bird Syndrome” a friend had once called it.