Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [16]
“No. Whatever happened, it took place inside a closed hangar. The passenger and his dogs deplaned with a large Storm case on wheels, entered the hangar, and then about ten minutes later returned without the case, reboarded the plane, and instructed the pilot to take him back to Naples.”
“What? No aluminum briefcase full of cash handcuffed to his wrist?”
Carlton looked at Harvath. “I’m not going to beat around the bush with you, Scot. We both know who this is.”
“I know who you think it is.”
“You’re telling me this isn’t the Troll?”
Harvath closed the file. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“And how can you be sure?”
“First of all, he sells information, not military-grade explosives. And secondly, he’d never conduct an operation like this himself. He’d use an intermediary; a cutout. Somebody is obviously trying to set him up.”
Carlton thought for a moment. “I know he helped you track down the man who shot Tracy.”
“Only after I’d erased all of his data and emptied out all of his bank accounts.”
“So there are no underlying loyalties I need to worry about between you?”
On the surface, it was a fair question. The Troll was all about money. He lacked integrity and often worked with terrorist organizations. He had taken advantage of an al-Qaeda attack on New York, which killed thousands of Americans, including one of Harvath’s best friends, to steal information from a top-secret, U.S. data-mining operation.
At the same time, though, Harvath felt sorry for him. Not only had he been born a midget, but his parents had abandoned him as a child; selling him to a brothel in Russia where he’d been starved, beaten, and forced to perform unutterable sex acts. It was difficult for Harvath to admit that he felt pity for the little man.
The pair had worked together, and Harvath had respected the Troll’s love for animals, particularly his dogs. He also respected his ability to glean information. Though he should have seen him as reprehensible, no different from the many men who operated on the wrong side of the law whom he’d been tasked with tracking down and killing over the years, he couldn’t. Despite his flaws, Harvath had come to like him.
“What I want to know,” said the Old Man, keying in again on Harvath’s hesitancy, “is if I assign you to find him, can you carry it out?”
Harvath studied the file folder, knowing what his answer should be, but instead of answering he asked a question of his own. “Is there an order for him to be terminated?”
“Would that make a difference?”
“Maybe.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t take this assignment.”
“So they do want him dead,” stated Harvath.
“Actually, they’d prefer captured, but they’ll accept dead. Considering your history together, I thought you’d want to be the one to make the choice.”
Which option did his boss think Harvath would exercise? He studied the man’s face, but couldn’t tell.
“Why isn’t the CIA spearheading this?” he finally asked.
“Ever since the Agency snatched that radical cleric in Milan, they’ve been persona non grata in Italy.”
Like everyone else in the intelligence world, Harvath knew the story. Though the Italians denied ever giving their blessing to the operation, the CIA claimed that all of the appropriate authorities had been filled in on the plan. According to the Agency, they had been granted permission to grab the al-Qaeda-aligned cleric in Milan. As part of their extraordinary rendition program, he was then flown to Egypt where, after being released two years later, he went public with stories of how he had been tortured by Egyptian interrogators.
While it wasn’t exactly great PR, what was unforgivable was that the fifteen CIA operatives involved had used their real names during the operation to rack up hotel loyalty points. To make matters worse, they had also used their personal cell phones. It was beyond embarrassing.
“Do we have anyone in Italy working the bombing?”
“Besides a nonofficial cover operative or two the Agency secretly still