Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

The team meeting was held in an old library off the living room, which Nicholas had set up as his operations center.

From the carpets and drapes, to the furniture and light fixtures, the villa looked like it hadn't seen a decorator since the late 1970s. Harvath grabbed a seat on one of the orange Togo sofas as Ashby and Palmer, the team's youngest members, walked in.

While Palmer was ex–Delta Force, Ashby was the only person in the group, besides Nicholas, without a Special Operations background. She'd racked up more confirmed kills in Afghanistan than most male soldiers and had wound up on an Al Qaeda hit list. Fearing for her life, as well as the propaganda victory it would give the enemy, the U.S. Army had denied her request to be sent to Iraq and had pulled her from combat. As soon as she could quit, she did, and was scooped up by the Carlton Group's founder. He knew an exceptional operative when he saw one.

Harvath said hello to them and then Nicholas called the meeting to order.

"You want the good news first?" Nicholas asked. "Or the bad news? You're the team leader, so it's your call."

Harvath definitely didn't like the sound of that. "There's more bad news?" he asked.

Palmer nodded. "We took a small drone with us and were able to get a look at Tsybulsky's property. As you can imagine, for a guy with more money than God, it's wired tight. Very heavy security. Lots of cameras. The whole thing's fenced and the driveway's gated. We're guessing that there's probably a bunch of other things we couldn't see, but should assume are present, such as ground sensors and other motion detection systems."

"There were also fur missiles," Ashby added, referring to Tsybulsky's dogs. "We counted at least three. They looked like Belgian Malinois."

"Could be worse," Haney deadpanned. "There could be a moat."

"Filled with alligators," said Staelin.

Harvath ignored them. "What's the good news?" he asked.

"Tsybulsky has a yacht in the port of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat," Palmer continued. "A sixty-three-foot-long Lamborghini Tecnomar he named Hermes . They're getting ready to go out tonight."

"Where?" replied Harvath.

"Monaco," said Ashby. "The crew is all muscled-up Russians, but one of them was very flirty and happy to chat. He said their boss has a standing card game on Tuesday nights at the Casino de Monte-Carlo. They travel there by boat and the casino sends a car to pick him up at the dock."

"Did the crew member say how long they're normally gone?"

"Not in so many words. But he did invite me back for drinks tonight. Said they're heading out from Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat around six o'clock and will probably be back around eleven."

"Do we know who's going with him?"

"No, we didn't get that far. He had to get back to work," she said. "Besides, I didn't want to make him suspicious by asking too many questions about Tsybulsky."

"Smart," Harvath replied. "Good call. Okay, so we know where Tsybulsky is going to be tonight and we know his mode of transportation. What about Inessa? Do we have anything else on her?"

Despite his request, Holidae Hayes had been able to come up with very little on the woman. She had no arrest record. She had never served in the Russian military. All Holidae could find was that Inessa was listed as the chairman of several shell corporations based out of Cyprus.

"No, nothing," said Nicholas. "She may be going to the casino with Tsybulsky. She may be going out somewhere else. She may be staying home and packing for Russia. We don't know."

"Does Grechko have a way to contact her?" a voice asked from the corner of the room. It was Peter Preisler, a former MARSOC Marine who had been a heavy hitter in the CIA's paramilitary detachment known as Ground Branch.

"He's got a cell number for her. Conceivably, he could call or text," Harvath replied.

"Do we know if Tsybulsky monitors her communications?"

"That's unclear."

"Have we looked at her social media?" Ashby asked. "Is there anyone she follows who we might be able to use as a cutout to pass on a message?"

It was an excellent idea and Harvath could kick himself for not having thought of it sooner. He wasn't a social media guy and didn't think in those terms.

Pulling out his phone, he texted a name across the room to Nicholas. "See if you can find any connections between them," he said when the little man's phone chimed.

Looking at Ashby, he remarked, "You're a regular good idea fairy today. Tell me what else you're thinking."

"If we can get Inessa out in public, even if she has bodyguards, which she probably will, all we need her to do is to make a trip to the ladies' room. It's not the most romantic location to reconnect, but it's the only place she'll get a few moments of privacy. Then, it's up to Grechko. He's going to have to make his case quickly."

"Let's put ourselves in that moment," Harvath responded, playing it out. "What comes next?"

"That depends on how she replies," Ashby conceded. "Just because she agrees to a clandestine rendezvous, doesn't mean it's a fait accompli. She could simply be there to say goodbye, once and for all. If that's what she does, if she says no, then obviously we let her leave the ladies' room and it's over."

"And if she says yes? If she's willing to ditch Tsybulsky?"

"Then we're off to the races and it's a whole new ballgame. But for everything to work, we have to go to the end and work our way backward. Have you given any thought as to how you want to make her disappear?"

"I've had a bunch of ideas," Harvath replied, somewhat flippantly. "My current favorite is creating a month out of thin air to cruise the back alleys and drug dens of Marseilles in hopes of finding a body, about her size, that I can match the dental work, and then burn to a crisp in a house fire or car crash."

"In other words, you've got nothing."

"Yet."

Another voice in the meeting spoke up. This time it was Kenneth Johnson. "Why not just kill Tsybulsky? Hard for him to come looking for Inessa if he's dead."

The man wasn't wrong. Harvath had to give him that. And even though Johnson could be a bit overzealous at times in how he responded to threats, there was a simplicity to his logic.

At the same time, it was possible that if Tsybulsky were killed and Inessa vanished, it might appear as if she had been involved. Peshkov could decide that he wanted one of his intelligence agencies to dig into it and they might attempt to hunt her down. That would completely negate S?lvi's deal with Grechko. The Russian defector had been clear. He wanted things handled in such a way that no one would ever come looking for Inessa.

That meant that Harvath was back to square one. Without a woman's burned body, he was out of luck. They needed to keep thinking.

After twenty minutes of going around in circles, the subject of alligators came back up, and Harvath adjourned the meeting. Designing an operation by committee wasn't getting them anywhere. That said, something had begun tapping at the back of his mind.

Once everyone had filed out of the library, Nicholas waved Harvath over to his desk.

"What have you got?"

Turning his ruggedized laptop around, the little man showed him. "You were right. Nikolai Nekrasov's wife, Eva, is friends with Inessa on Facebook and Instagram."

"So now we've got a cutout we can use. We just need to decide on the right message."

"Are you sure Eva will cooperate?" Nicholas asked.

"I spared her husband's life."

"Which she asked you to do for the sake of their children. She also let you keep half of the hundred-million-dollar bounty he'd placed on your head. I imagine both Mr. and Mrs. Nekrasov would like you to remain in their review mirror."

Harvath smiled. "Believe it or not, Eva has a soft spot for me. I was very clear to her shitbag husband that if he ever mistreated her again, or mistreated one of the kids, I'd be back. I'm kind of their guardian angel. We'll consider my unannounced visit a welfare check."

"You're going to go see her in person?"

"I need to get the full download on what she knows about Inessa, as well as Tsybulsky. At this point, she may be the best source of information we have."

Nicholas let out a long, slow exhalation of air. "Since I'm not going to be able to change your mind, who do you want to take with you?"

"Nobody," Harvath replied. "I'm going alone."

"If Nekrasov gets the chance, he'll kill you."

"Then I better make sure he doesn't get the chance."

The little man shook his head. "What do you need from me?"

"I need one of the cars and an encrypted cell phone."

"Anything else?"

Harvath put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Keep an eye on S?lvi while I'm gone. And make sure everyone is ready to roll by the time I get back."

"Roll where? We don't even have a plan yet."

"Are the Brits still training some of the Ukrainian commando units at Poole?"

"Yes, the Special Boat Service is. Why?"

"I've got an idea," he replied, tapping his temple with his index finger. "If I'm right, there may be a way out of this. And, believe it or not, we may have Johnson to thank for it."

After providing Harvath an encrypted phone and a set of keys to the black Range Rover Palmer and Ashby had been using, he wished his friend good luck. He had no idea what Harvath was about to do, but he had a bad feeling it was going to be very dangerous.