Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [49]
“That’s too bad,” the woman said. “Nikolai hates Cavalaire-sur-Mer, but I think it’s very romantic. Something tells me you would enjoy it.”
Harvath didn’t doubt it. “Maybe another time,” he said as he pulled into the oncoming lane and accelerated. The closer they got to Cannes, the heavier the Saturday-evening traffic became.
Drivers honked and flashed their brights, but he kept going before a truck forced him back onto his side.
He glanced in the rearview mirror again and couldn’t see the security men. Not yet, at least. The momentary satisfaction he felt evaporated when his passenger said, “It looks like Nikolai is taking you very seriously.”
Harvath looked to his left and saw a red EC135 Eurocopter tracking parallel with them over the water.
“Your husband is very persistent, isn’t he?”
“He doesn’t like sharing his things,” she said, placing her hand on the inside of his thigh.
She quickly pulled it back and gripped the edges of her seat as Harvath slid between two cars with just inches to spare.
Now that there was a helicopter involved, there was only one way he could disappear and to do it, he’d need cover.
Turning to Eva, he said, “I need a favor.”
“That depends,” she replied.
When Nikolai Nekrasov’s armored Denalis thundered into Cannes, they came to a screeching halt at a café on the Avenue du Petit Juas. As the hotel helicopter hovered above, Mrs. Nekrasov recovered from her ordeal over a glass of Montrachet. The American who had tortured the hotel’s concierge and shot three of its security staff was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER 22
CHICAGO
Javed Miraj, the Pakistani mechanic from the Crescent Garage, turned out to be an excellent source of information.
He explained in detail how Ali Masud, the shop’s bookkeeper, had been instructed to create a new logbook and to leave out the vehicle the police were searching for.
When asked why, the mechanic’s response was very simple. Not only were Fahad Bashir, the Crescent’s owner, and Ali Masud from the same village in Pakistan, but so was the driver who had run down Alison Taylor.
In Pakistan, loyalty followed a very strict hierarchy: family first, then village, and then tribe. The rules were even stricter abroad. It was a firmly held us against them mind-set.
Davidson asked the mechanic if he knew where the original logbook was. Miraj had no idea, but strongly suspected it had been disposed of. Fahad Bashir and his son, Jamal, were smart. Once they were committed to doctoring the logbook, he was certain they wouldn’t leave behind any information that could incriminate them.
Vaughan was more concerned with nailing the driver than the men of the Crescent Garage, but this was where Javed Miraj’s usefulness as an informant started to break down.
Yes, he had worked on the cab in question. He even ID’d the piece of black plastic that had been recovered at the scene which turned out to be part of the plastic header from above the radiator. He described how he had replaced the hood and a side mirror and had pulled a new windshield, complete with a Chicago City sticker, from one of the damaged cabs in the lot behind the garage.
The driver had been nervous and upset. He had offered to pay double to get the work done right away. The mechanic had been pulled off another taxi to work on the Yellow Cab. It was a small shop and he couldn’t help but hear how the man had sustained the damage. At that point, though, the information flow from the mechanic practically dried up.
Understandably, he couldn’t remember the cab number. He saw lots of cabs every day. Cataloging the numbers was Ali Masud’s job. All he could remember was that it was a four-digit number with a three in it.
He was able to provide a description of the driver and even coughed up a first name, but a dark-skinned