Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [61]
“Me too.”
There was silence between them. Harvath was the one to finally break it. “Would you have connected these dots any differently than I have?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell me my methods are too harsh?”
“No.”
“Do you think that I’m being too much of a cowboy?”
“You’re doing exactly what I expected you’d do when I selected you.”
Harvath laughed. “Are you telling me I’m predictable?”
“I’m telling you that you’re a professional and you’re reliable. I trust your judgment. You’re the man in the field. If you have a choice between a flyswatter and a sledgehammer, would I rather you use the flyswatter? Of course. But that’s for you to decide. That’s your job. My job is to give you whatever you need to get things done.”
“Well, what I need right now is more time.”
“How much more?” asked the Old Man.
“I’ll know better once I have a location for Tsui. In the meantime, tell DOD that we’re making progress.”
“Body bags aren’t progress, Scot.”
“I promise you,” said Harvath. “I’m going to find who did this and I’m going to make sure they never do it again.”
“I agree with you. But first, give me something I can give DOD. If you can prove the Troll had nothing to do with this then bring me Tsui—alive. Do that and then we’ll be able to take the next step.”
It was Sunday and the sun was just beginning to rise when Harvath’s phone rang. “I’ve got a location,” said the computer-modulated voice on the other end.
“Where?”
“Geneva.”
“That’s terrific. How’d you find him?” asked Harvath.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when I pick you up. Be at the General Aviation terminal at the Marseille airport in two hours.”
“What about customs in Switzerland?”
“Already taken care of,” replied Nicholas.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The white Learjet 45 touched down in Marseille and taxied to a revetment area near the General Aviation building. An attractive aviation services hostess walked Harvath to the plane. He was met at a set of air-stairs by the copilot, who offered to take his bag. Harvath politely declined and stepped aboard.
Argos and Draco were the first to say hello. The dogs weren’t the only company Nicholas had brought with him. Surprisingly, Padre Peio had come along as well. He was dressed in a pair of tan trousers and a blue button-down shirt.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning, Father,” replied Harvath, dropping his pack on one of the forward seats. The Troll was lying on a leather couch toward the rear of the cabin. “You should have stayed in Spain. You’re not up for this.”
“That’s exactly what I told him,” said Peio.
“And yet here I am,” replied Nicholas as he reached for the intercom. “I want to get this over with.”
Harvath looked at Peio. “You’ll forgive me, Father, but I would think that this is something you wouldn’t want to be mixed up in.”
The priest smiled wistfully. “There is great evil in the world. I know that. Hundreds of people were killed yesterday. But I don’t believe that the answer is more killing.”
“I wish it was that simple, Father.”
“For God’s sake, Peio. Lighten up,” added the Troll. “You of all people should know what’s at stake here. When it comes to Muslim fundamentalists the only thing they respect is force. Imagine if Christian Europe had simply turned the other cheek at the Battle of Lepanto or the gates of Vienna. We’d be living in a much different world than we are now.”
“But we’ve come a long way since the Battle of Lepanto.”
“We may have come a long way, but they haven’t. To paraphrase Churchill, individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but Islam’s fanatical frenzy is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia is in a dog. It’s been over a hundred years since he spoke those words and yet there is still no more dangerous retrograde force in the world.
“And before you give me that tired argument that the fundamentalists have perverted the faith, let me be perfectly clear on something. A religion must stand or fall on its own writings and holy books. The fundamentalists haven’t perverted anything. In fact,