Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(91)
She used predetermined online auction sites, placing obscure items up for bid, which would trigger alerts to the client in question. It was the modern equivalent of old-school tradecraft, back when coded messages used to be placed in the classified sections of newspapers around the world. Even today, in the age of modern technology, the simplest solutions were often still the best.
That didn’t change Harvath’s problem, though. How could they know that she wasn’t holding out on them? That she didn’t have another way to reach the client? That she might send out a warning?
In short, there was no way they could know. Their only option was to lock her up—physically or professionally.
Physically meant exactly what it sounded like—they could tie her up, put a bag over her head, and stash her away until they nailed her client.
Professionally it meant offering her something so valuable that she wouldn’t dare jeopardize it by sending out an alert.
Needless to say, Nicholas was an instant fan of operation “bag-over-the-head.”
Harvath, though, didn’t want to wait around for an extraction team to show up in order to move her to a safe house and sit on her. Depending on where they came from, that could take a while—even if they used The Carlton Group’s Quick Reaction Force.
As soon as the information on the Contessa’s client provided a lead, he wanted to be wheels up. Thankfully, back in the United States, Lawlor had agreed with him.
In fact, Lawlor had gone so far as to suggest calling in a favor from the Italians and to have them ready to raid her villa with a terrorism, espionage, or sex-trafficking warrant—anything that would allow Italy to cut her off and throw her in a hole for the next seventy-two hours.
With that said, nothing was supposed to happen until Harvath gave the green light. Which was why it was so startling to suddenly have four plainclothes gunmen in the hallway.
“Contact right!” S?lvi yelled as they began firing at her. “They’re coming up from the cellar!”
One of the alarm codes had been a distress code. Cops or a security company would have come in through the front door, not up from the basement. In fact, he hadn’t even seen an entrance down there. There had to have been some hidden door, which only reinforced that she had double-crossed them.
He was about to ask Nicholas if he knew what the hell was going on, when he saw the Contessa lunge for something. That something was yet another hidden pistol.
Harvath pulled his Sig and shot her twice.
“What are we going to do here?” S?lvi shouted from the door.
“Engage!” Harvath yelled back.
As he rushed to join her, he grabbed a flashbang from his pack, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the hall.
“Flashbang!” he yelled, as he and S?lvi pulled back to be protected from the flash, as well as the concussion wave.
Once the device detonated, they swung around the door frame and laid down fire—S?lvi high and Harvath low.
They drilled all four men, filling them with rounds.
Ducking back into the room, they dropped their mags. Harvath slammed home a fresh one, while S?lvi did the same after grabbing one from the pack.
Over his earbud, Nicholas was demanding to know what had just happened. Harvath told him to stand by.
First, they checked the Contessa. She was dead and already headed toward room temperature.
Cautiously, they swung into the hall and approached each of the gunmen. Harvath checked them for pulses, but they were dead too.
Studying them, it was obvious that these weren’t cops or security guards sent by an alarm company. They were relatively well dressed, with expensive shoes and gold jewelry. They looked more like mafia, pulled from a party at a local nightclub. And based on Montecalvo’s Sicilian roots, it wouldn’t have surprised Harvath to learn that she had recruited her own militia—even if she’d had to import them from Sicily.
He gave Nicholas a quick SITREP and then repeated to S?lvi the words that had been said to him in Key West only days ago when his teammates had rescued him, “Time to go.”
“Wait!” Nicholas said, over his earbud. “Check her computer screen. Is she still logged in?”
Harvath looked at it. “Yes.”
“Okay, before you leave, I need you to do something.”
CHAPTER 43
With five bodies stacked up at the Contessa’s, Harvath wanted to put as much distance between them and Sirmione as quickly as possible. S?lvi concurred.
After setting Nicholas up so he could remotely delete the footage from the CCTV cameras, they picked up all of their brass, wiped down anything they may have touched, and returned to their hotel.
There, they packed their things, left a tip for the housekeeper, and, using the back stairs, disappeared.
They lingered in town only long enough for S?lvi to pilot the boat back to the marina, tie it up, and drop the keys in the mailbox of the charter office.
The return journey to Aviano was going to be a little over two and a half hours. And while it would have been a safe idea to go someplace new and unpredictable, the air base was the most secure. S?lvi offered to drive so that Harvath could work his phone.
His first call was to Admiral Proctor to arrange discreet access back onto the base, a place to hole up, and an aircraft once they knew where they were headed next. Proctor told him he would get it taken care of and ping him back as soon as he had everything set.