midnight, he was here to make sure the Nashville cell carried out its assignment. There were countless reasons an intelligence operative might hole up in a hotel room. There also was another possibility—Deng might not even be in the room. He might have used the hotel simply to receive his FedEx, and once he picked it up, had covertly left the premises. That was the first thing Harvath wanted to ascertain.
Turning on the TV, he sent Sloane to the peephole, called the front desk, and asked for the manager. When she got on the phone, he told her they were ready to go and explained what he wanted her to do.
The housekeeping crew had already gone home for the night. What’s more, the hotel had a strict policy of respecting their guests’ Do Not Disturb signs. If Deng had stayed at the hotel before, he might very well know both of these things. Sending a maid to his room for turn-down service could make him suspicious. That wasn’t something they wanted.
As Harvath waited, he listened as the manager picked up another phone and dialed Deng’s room. The sound of it ringing could be heard from across the hall.
It rang several times and finally went to voice mail. When it did, the manager left the message Harvath had instructed her to leave. It was time for the next step.
The manager had been reluctant to place one of her staff in harm’s way. Harvath had reassured her that he and his partner would be right across the hall, watching the entire thing. While he could have sent Chase, all it would have taken was one question about the hotel that he couldn’t answer and Deng would have been on to him. That, in Harvath’s opinion, was an even more dangerous risk. The hotel engineer would be fine.
A couple of minutes later, Sloane signaled that she could see the engineer in the hallway. Walking up to Deng’s door, he knocked loudly, saying, “Engineering.”
When there was no response, he pulled out his key card, opened the door, and once again announced himself.
Removing a rubber wedge from his pocket, he propped the door open and walked inside. If he saw Deng, the hotel engineer had been told to explain that the room below had water dripping down and he had come to investigate the possible source of the leak. The engineer was only inside for a few moments before stepping back into the hall and knocking on Harvath’s door.
“Nobody’s there,” he said as Sloane opened up.
“Thank you,” she replied. “We’ll take it from here.”
Handing the engineer back his wedge, Harvath stepped inside Deng’s room while Chase monitored the CCTV feeds downstairs and Sloane stood in their doorway to keep a lookout.
There was no food in the fridge, no dishes in the sink, nor in the dishwasher. The bed had not been slept in. The shower had not been used. Some clothing hung in the closet. An empty suitcase sat with its lid open on a luggage stand. As far as Harvath could tell, it didn’t contain any hidden pockets or false panels.
The empty FedEx box sat next to the wastepaper basket under the desk. Harvath studied the shipping label, but it provided no clues to what had been inside. On top of the desk was a wall charger for a cell phone. That was all that he could see sitting out in the open.
He now moved much more methodically through the room, looking anywhere and everywhere things could be hidden. He looked under tables, opened air vents, unzipped cushions, slid the fridge out from the wall, and took the lid off the toilet tank. He removed drawers, outlet covers, and light fixtures, putting each item back afterward exactly the way he had found it.
When he left the room and closed the door behind him, he looked at Sloane and shook his head. “Suitcase and some clothes, that’s it.”
“Which sounds like he’ll be back at some point.”
Harvath stepped into their room. “Probably,” he repeated. “But if he sneaks back in, we’re going to have to be watching that hallway, or none of us will know.”
• • •
There was no easy way to conduct the surveillance. Someone had to stand at the door, stare out the peephole, and wait. In a word, it sucked. But surveillance normally did. They had decided to go in half-hour shifts. Harvath offered to go first.
After radioing down to Chase, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick SITREP to the