Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [20]
Ramirez held his gaze for a moment and then dropped her eyes back to the report she’d been using as an excuse to ignore him. “Have a nice evening, counselor.”
CHAPTER 9
BILBAO
WEDNESDAY
Harvath spent a good portion of the morning doing additional reconnaissance on the tobacco shop. Just after ten a.m., he stepped away from the tour group he was shadowing and with both his Glock and Taser handy, entered the shop.
The old man behind the counter didn’t even bother looking up.
“Do you have Argos and Draco brand cigarettes?” he asked in Spanish, using the names of the Troll’s two dogs.
“Three Euros,” the old man replied, reaching under the counter and producing a pack of Fortuna Lites.
Harvath gave him the cash, pocketed the cigarettes, and exited the store. He conducted what felt like his hundredth SDR of the day and when he was confident he wasn’t being followed, walked into a small hotel he had identified earlier and headed into its café. Taking a table near the back, he ordered coffee. Once the waiter had walked away, he pulled out the pack of cigarettes and examined it.
It had a plastic wrapper, but had been opened from the bottom and re-sealed. Harvath peeled off the plastic and opened the package at the top. It was stuffed with tissue paper. After removing the paper, he withdrew a car key rubber-banded to a prepaid parking receipt. In addition to the name and address of the parking facility, someone had written C-11.
Harvath remembered having joked that the only thing the Troll’s offer was missing was a dark alley. It would seem that he hadn’t been creative enough. A dark parking structure was much more apropos.
The underground garage was on the other side of the river. It took Harvath about fifteen minutes to walk there, fifteen minutes for reconnaissance, and another five to locate the car. So far, so good.
He found a structural column and used it for cover as he depressed the button on the remote. The lights flashed. The door unlocked.
After thoroughly checking the vehicle for explosives, he tossed in his backpack, climbed into the driver’s seat, and started the car. He reversed out of the space, drove up two levels, and after using the prepaid receipt, exited the facility.
He drove through several neighborhoods before finally pulling over and looking for a clue as to where he was supposed to go next.
Inside the glove compartment were a portable GPS device, a window mount, and cigarette adaptor. After powering up the GPS, he toggled to the screen with pre-loaded routes and saw it contained one destination labeled “Nicholas.”
It appeared to be a village in the Basque Pyrenees. According to the GPS, the drive was five hours and forty-three minutes. Harvath kept his gun where he could get to it.
Incredibly, he found a radio station playing the American funk classic “Pass the Peas” by Fred Wesley, and turning up the volume, he pointed the car toward the Autopista and stepped on the accelerator.
Fifteen kilometers outside of Bilbao, he noticed he was being followed.
CHAPTER 10
The immediate exits outside the city offered only bad neighborhoods, and the shoulder of the highway was equally dangerous. Harvath decided to wait.
As long as they weren’t trying to overtake him and run him off the road, he was fine. The problem lay in whether or not there was an ambush waiting somewhere up along the route; somewhere he could be forced off the road and everything could be made to look like an accident.
It seemed a bit over the top, especially when they could have arranged for something to have happened to him in Bilbao, but maybe they had another scenario in mind. All Harvath knew was that he didn’t like being followed. He needed to find out who these people were and what they wanted. Fifty kilometers later, an opportunity presented itself.
Gunning the car, he sped off the Autopista and raced down the exit road to the service area. The parking lot was crowded and Spaniards coming or going from their cars gesticulated wildly