Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(62)



Putting it in gear, he engaged his turn signal and checked his mirrors. As he was pulling out, he caught a glimpse of the old woman. She was walking away, but appeared to have been writing something. He couldn’t be certain. When he turned to look over his shoulder, she was no longer visible.

Had she made a note about him? Had she taken down his license plate number? Even if she had, what was she going to do with the information? Call the police and rat him out for parking on a permit-only street without a permit? Maybe she wanted to have his vehicle “on file” in the event she saw it parked illegally again and wanted to make a federal case out of it.

Whatever it might be, he didn’t see the harm. The cops had better things to do, and he didn’t plan on ever coming back. Besides, according to his GPS, it was a twenty-four-minute drive to Landsbergis’s house. he wanted to be there long before the man got off work and returned home.

In a perfect world, Harvath would have had the complete element of surprise. This, though, wasn’t a perfect world.

He felt certain that the moment he walked out the door the truck driver was going to call Landsbergis. He would inform him that Harvath was in Lithuania and had been to see him. Everything that they had talked about would be relayed to the VSD man. At that point, Landsbergis would have a choice to make. He could either face Harvath or he could run.

What the intelligence operative chose to do would dictate what plan Harvath put into action.

On the list of things he had asked Nicholas to do, at the very top was to lay down a series of digital tripwires. If Landsbergis chose to run, Harvath wanted to know. And not only did he want to know, but he wanted to be able to follow him—to track his every move. That way, he could choose the exact time and the exact place to confront him and carry out his revenge.



* * *




Landsbergis lived in a sleek modern house in a trendy gated community known as Laurai. The security was more show than anything else.

Surrounded by forest, Harvath had already identified an old logging road where he could park the Land Cruiser and hike in on foot.

Once he got to where he wanted to be, he pulled off into the woods. Climbing out of the SUV, he took in a deep breath of the fresh, pine-scented air. It reminded him of the time he and Lara had spent in the wilds of Alaska.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to linger for a moment in the memory, to feel her—as if she was right there next to him.

Exhaling, he put her back in the iron box, shoved it to a far corner of his mind, and began unpacking his equipment.

Though it was still daylight, the first thing that went into the top section of his backpack were a pair of night vision goggles. He had no idea what time Landsbergis would be home, nor what time he would be returning to the Land Cruiser. As far as he was concerned, the night vision equipment was a must.

Also a must was the extremely compact SIG MCX Rattler. When its minimalist stock was folded against the short-barreled rifle’s frame, the weapon was only twenty three inches long. The pack had a hidden sleeve with a magnetic closure that allowed rapid deployment of the Rattler if the situation warranted.

Into the main compartment and some of the side pockets, he placed extra magazines, a small medical kit, one of his Tasers, zip-tie-style flex cuffs, and several other odds and ends. The backpack wasn’t exactly light, but considering the amount of gear he was transporting, it was reasonable. In his SEAL days, he had rucked much heavier loads. This was nothing.

Cinching the pack tight, he set it down in the cargo area of the SUV and opened a small black Storm case. Nestled in the Pick N Pluck foam inside was a compact drone. Harvath took it out and, as he expanded its arms, walked with it back to the road.

Powering it up, he synced it to his phone and brought up the precise coordinates for Landsbergis’s house. After selecting from a drop-down menu what he wanted the drone to do, he set it on the road, took a step back, and pushed the button on his phone to activate its mission.

While he was a firm believer in the maxim that nothing could beat old-school tradecraft, he loved how rapidly technology had advanced. The tiny, autonomous drone could do everything except provide him with close air support. And even that was a feature he was sure was on its way in the not too distant future.

What surprised him the most was how whisper-quiet the geeks at DARPA had been able to make it. Gone was the loud, distinct buzz so common in the early versions operators had taken into the field. This model you could barely hear unless you were standing right underneath it, which could be easily corrected by taking it to a higher altitude or positioning it off at an angle.

Having his own “eye in the sky” was an incredible advantage. As he picked his way through the woods toward the house, the drone would be monitoring the entire area for any sign of movement. And with its infrared camera, it would allow him to pick up any heat signatures that might suggest hostile actors lying in wait.

Walking back to the Land Cruiser, he shouldered his pack, and locked the SUV up tight. Then, after checking the video feed from the drone, he struck off again for the house.

As he walked, he thought about the different approaches he might take with Landsbergis. There was a lot he didn’t know about the man—and that put him at a disadvantage. He was likely going to have to wing it and go with his gut. And while he had a good gut, he didn’t like being relegated to that as his only option.

When you didn’t know much about a subject, a proper interrogation could take time, lots of it.

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