Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(71)

Landsbergis nodded in agreement and accepted the pistol. But then his face became solemn. “I have to ask you something.”

Harvath had a feeling he knew where this was going, but he opened the barn door anyway. “Go ahead.”

“Back at my house, were you really prepared to torture me?”

Harvath didn’t flinch. “One hundred percent. And if the situation were reversed, Carl would have been too. As someone put it to me recently, the Russians are animals. Not the people, per se, but the people in power. And those who serve the people in power. You are on the front lines here. I’m sure you know that. And I’m sure that Carl told you that.”

“Repeatedly,” said the VSD man.

“You need to act like it. Every day. Every hour. Every moment. They’re coming for your country. They will get to pick the time and the place. The only thing you get to pick is how well prepared you’ll be. It sucks, and so is what we’re about to do, but it is what it is. Sometimes, the fight chooses us.”

Idling in the parking spot, he waited until S?lvi had pulled up, parked behind him, and joined them in the Land Cruiser.

The first thing she noticed was that Harvath had given Landsbergis his Glock back. “You two seem to be getting along well,” she commented.

“We’re all good here,” Harvath replied. “Now, let’s take a few minutes and discuss how this is going to go down.”

For the next ten minutes, he went over his plan, as well as the contingencies they’d need to execute if anything went wrong. As seasoned intelligence operatives, all three of them understood the risks.

When they were done with their discussion, Harvath put the Land Cruiser in gear and eased out into traffic. He wanted to do another drive-by of their objective.

The sun was setting and lights were already coming on inside. Pedestrians moved up and down the sidewalk. What they could see of the inner courtyard through the wrought iron gates was empty. If there were any vehicles present, they must have been down in the underground parking structure.

For all intents and purposes, it was quiet—which was exactly how Harvath had hoped to find it.

Turning right at the next intersection, he followed the street until he could make another right, and then found a parking space halfway up the block. Before they did anything else, he wanted to deploy the drone.

Getting out of the Land Cruiser he walked back to the rear of the SUV and popped the hatch. Checking the main battery sitting in the charger, he was disappointed. He had hoped it would charge faster. In the time since they had left the woods near Landsbergis’s house, only 12 percent of the power had been replenished. He was going to have to rely on the smaller battery.

Powering up the drone, he brought up its app on his phone and waited for the diagnostics to display. As soon as they did, he grew angry.

The smaller, backup battery only had 4 percent power. Whoever had used the drone last hadn’t fully recharged it before turning it back in.

Ultimately, it was his fault. As a SEAL, he had been trained to check all of his equipment before taking it into the field. Just because the CIA Director had personally handed everything to him didn’t mean Harvath was absolved of making sure each item was topped off and in perfect working order.

He was not going to be able to leave the drone on station overhead the way he had at Landsbergis’s. There just wasn’t enough power in either battery. He had just lost an incredibly valuable tool.

The best he was going to be able to do was to conduct an overflight now and hope to get a feel for the inner courtyard, as well as a look at the rooftop—along with the adjacent buildings—and maybe a peek in a few of the windows.

It would all be good reconnaissance material, more than he was normally used to having. But being blind while they were inside, just because the damn battery hadn’t been charged, galled him. That was the kind of simple mistake that could end up getting people killed.

Launching the drone, he got back into the Land Cruiser so that they could all watch the feed together.

Nicholas was also watching from his perch back in the U.S. It was more out of loyalty to Harvath than anything else. He knew the drone didn’t have enough juice to be part of the next phase, but on the off chance that he might notice something during the reconnaissance, he wanted to be there for his friend. Anything, no matter how small, that might lend Harvath an advantage was valuable.

The cameras around the building were way out of date—more for show than anything else. None of them had infrared capabilities. The only areas they’d be able to pick up were those that were strategically lit by security lamps bolted to the structure’s fa?ade. As long as the drone stayed out of the light, it would likely go undetected.

The small embassy compound, with its crumbling rooftop antenna array and rusted, oversized satellite dishes, looked like it had been frozen in time at the very height of the Cold War. If, at that moment, a couple of Soviet apparatchiks had stumbled into the courtyard for a smoke and a hit from a bottle of vodka hidden in the bushes, it would have looked absolutely normal.

Instead, all they saw were cobblestones, chipped plaster, and peeling paint. If real estate was all about location, location, location—that was definitely all that this place was about.

Harvath had the drone increase its altitude so they could get a better look at the roof. Beyond the aforementioned radio antennas and satellite dishes, there wasn’t much to see.