Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(90)

He decided to punch in the code. Instantly, the beeping stopped.

“We’re in,” he said, over his earbud to Nicholas. “No dogs. No guards. Nothing so far.”

Once his colleague had acknowledged the transmission, Harvath had everyone stop while he pulled out the drone and launched it from the courtyard. This way, if and when trouble did show up, they’d have eyes on it.

Harvath relocked the oak doors and the Contessa directed her “guests” across the courtyard to an Arabesque entryway which gave way to the main portion of the villa. At a set of tall glass doors that looked to be hundreds of years old, Harvath found the corresponding key on her ring and opened them.

Entering the house, the woman nodded toward another alarm panel that was beeping. “Same code, but backwards,” she said.

Harvath entered the digits and as the panel fell silent, he took a look at the place. Nicholas obviously had his reasons for disliking her, but it certainly couldn’t have been because she lacked taste. Her home was quite stylish.

The décor looked like a cross between Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia. There were low-slung couches covered with pillows in an array of colors and fronted by ornate, hand-carved, antique tables. Sheer white muslin draperies were offset by potted palms. Large lanterns made of hammered metal hung at different heights from the ceiling. Somewhere, deeper in the villa, came the sound of another fountain.

“My office is that way,” said the Contessa, pointing with her chin down a long hallway to the right.

“In a minute,” said Harvath, as he unslung his pack and transitioned to his short-barrel rifle. “I’m going to take a look around first.”

Montecalvo looked like she was about to say something, but S?lvi cut her off. Gesturing with her pistol to a nearby chair, she said, “Take a seat.” After which, she looked at Harvath and added, “Keep your eyes peeled for ninjas.”

“Try not to shoot her while I’m gone,” he quipped back before turning and disappearing down the hall.

The house, with all of its closets, nooks, crannies, and other potential hiding places, felt like it took forever to clear. Finally, after checking out the cellar, he returned to his Norwegian counterpart and gave her the all clear.

“Now we can go to your office,” said S?lvi, gesturing with her pistol again.

The Contessa stood up and led the way. S?lvi followed her and Harvath brought up the rear, constantly checking their six.

He had already been inside the woman’s office and had swept it for weapons and other potential hazards. There had been another Beretta, like the one she had brought to the boat, mounted under her desk, as well as a “baby” Glock 26 in a lower drawer.

On the off chance he had missed anything, he had rearranged her computer monitor, as well as her wireless mouse and keyboard, so that she’d have to work from the other side of the desk. If she had been contemplating something stupid, it would be a lot harder now.

Dragging over a side chair, he set it in front of the desk and told her to sit down. He then handed S?lvi his rifle and had her watch the hallway while he cut the Contessa loose and relayed to Nicholas that they were ready to go.

Back in the United States, the little man prepared to return to Montecalvo her most prized piece of intelligence—one of the gems that he had stolen from her.

Though Nicholas could have sold it for a fortune, he had kept it as an insurance policy. It was pure blackmail gold; an explosive Get Out of Jail Free card implicating some very powerful people in a serious scandal.

And while it had been worth more to him sitting in his digital vault than he ever could have cashed it in for, he owed Harvath his life. It was time to play this card.

To facilitate the exchange, they set up a virtual meeting on the Dark Web. There, they traded files and took time to authenticate what each had been sent.

Each file contained a fail-safe; a sort of digital self-destruct feature. Only when both had agreed that the deal was satisfactory, could they exit the meeting with what the other party had given them.

In exchange for the return of the prized piece of intelligence Nicholas had stolen from her, the Contessa had handed over what Harvath and S?lvi wanted—the file on the person who had purchased the information about Carl and Harvath. That was who they were looking for. That was their assassin. Harvath was certain of it.

“What she sent looks good,” Nicholas said. “It will take me a little time to run it all down, but it appears authentic.”

“Are you happy with what you received?” Harvath asked the Contessa.

“Yes,” the woman replied.

“Okay, we’re good on this end too,” he stated over his earbud.

The next part of the puzzle, though, introduced a new problem—how to make sure that after they left, the Contessa didn’t tip off her client.

Allegedly, she didn’t even know who the client was. She had never met him and the encrypted means of communication he used were constantly changing. Normally, he contacted her when he wanted something. That was what he had done in regard to Harvath. In return, she had put the blanket word out to her “collectors” that she was looking for anything they had on the American. Kovalyov, it turned out, had something very valuable. And he had been paid well for that information, in no small part because she had been paid extremely well.

With each client, she had developed a unique follow-up protocol—a way she could alert them if anything else bubbled up that she thought they might find interesting. Because clients burned even encrypted email addresses after each transaction, she needed another way to ping them.