Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [59]
French news services were speculating whether the attacks were related to the bus bombing in Rome and placed the death toll in the hundreds. Though many of the victims were tourists, locals had also been killed. It was being described as the French 9/11.
Harvath stood at the foot of his bed still holding his backpack. He had no doubt this attack was tied to the Rome bombing. He also felt responsible. He knew he shouldn’t, but he did. The Old Man was going to be very angry. Harvath owed him a phone call, but before he spoke with his boss, he wanted to speak with Nicholas.
Setting his pack on the desk, he opened up the minibar. He grabbed a small bottle of whiskey, twisted off the metal cap, and poured it into a glass. Removing one of his clean cell phones, he powered it up and dialed the number for the Troll’s satellite phone.
“You heard about Paris?” Nicholas asked. Ever fearful of the NSA’s voice-printing capabilities, he was running the call through a special program on his laptop. The voice sounded robotic. There was a slight delay, along with an echo as it went up to the satellite and bounced back down.
“We were too late,” said Harvath.
“We couldn’t have stopped it.”
“We could have and we should have.”
“There are going to be more,” replied Nicholas. “Trust me. Let’s focus on stopping those. We cannot bring these people back.”
Harvath took a sip of his drink. “Tell me about Tony Tsui.”
“That’s who hired Leveque?”
“Yes. Who is he?”
“He is a second-rate, digital pimp. That’s who he is.”
“So you know him.”
“Unfortunately, I do,” answered the little man. “But this is all starting to fit. When the assassin he hired failed to report back in, he proceeded right to the next step in his plan.”
“Which was implicating you in the Rome bombing.”
“Exactly.”
“Why would he want you killed?”
“I’m his leading source of competition.”
“Tsui is in the intelligence business?” asked Harvath.
“Tsui is barely a step above a peeping Tom, and not a very high step either. He’s pure scum. He’d sell out his own mother if it meant a couple of bucks in his pocket. He has been trying to fish from my pond for years.”
“But why attempt to kill you now?”
The Troll was silent as he tried to fit the pieces together. “I sold him a piece of information recently.”
“How recently?”
“In the last year.”
“And that was the last time you communicated with him?”
“It’s not like the man is on my Christmas card list.”
Harvath took another sip of his drink. “What was the information you sold him?”
“Normally,” replied the Troll, “I don’t kiss and tell, but in this case I have no problem filling you in. It was the location of a secret military base in Mongolia run by the PLA.”
“What did he want with a secret base run by the Chinese military?”
“It was for a client.”
“Did he say who the client was?”
“As unprofessional as Tsui is, he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
Harvath was having trouble connecting the dots. “What’s the base used for?”
Nicholas exhaled loudly. “I’ve got no idea.”
“How about Tsui? Does he know?”
“Maybe. Maybe his client knows. All I brought to the party was the location.”
“And Tsui paid you for that information?” asked Harvath.
“Yes he did.”
“Any chance the information didn’t pan out and so he wanted to whack you out of revenge?”
Nicholas laughed. “That’s not how our business works. If the information had been bad, he would have demanded his money back. And I would have paid him. But he never asked. Which tells me that the information was solid.”
“So he tried to kill you to get you out of his way.”
“Or to keep me quiet.”
Harvath needed to fill in the blanks. “How many transactions have you done with Tsui over the years?”
“A lot.”
“And you never had any animosity? No problems at all?”
“There was plenty of animosity, but nothing that would rise to either one of us wanting the other killed. I told you, he’s a despicable character. But from time to time he proved a