Levi might have been a nice guy, but Harvath wasn’t here to make friends. There was nothing he needed to “get off his chest.” All he wanted to do was to be left alone. In furtherance of that goal, he remained silent.
• • •
Walking back up to house, Levi found McGee sitting on the porch, smoking a cigar.
“It didn’t work, did it?” the CIA Director stated.
The doc shook his head. “No, it didn’t.”
“I told you it wouldn’t. That’s not how a guy like Harvath operates.”
“And I’m telling you, you have a malfunctioning weapon on your hands. If you let him go, I won’t be held responsible for what he does.”
“His wife is being buried the day after tomorrow. We can’t keep him here. We have to let him go.”
“At least put a surveillance team on him; follow him—for his own good.”
Not a chance, thought McGee as he blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Anything else?”
“No. I’m driving home tonight. My report will be on your desk in the morning.”
The CIA Director nodded, turned back toward the water, and took another puff from his cigar. His concern wasn’t that Harvath was “malfunctioning.” In fact, based on everything he’d seen, Harvath, all things considered, was functioning better than anyone would have assumed.
No, his concern ran deeper, to something more visceral.
Inside every human being was a very dark, very cold place. Sealed behind a heavy iron door, the cold dark was populated by the worst demons known to man.
But crack that door—even just an inch—and out all of the demons would fly. And once they had escaped, there would be no bringing them back until they had fed.
What they would feed upon was what worried McGee the most. In the case of Harvath’s demons, only one thing would satiate them.
Revenge.
CHAPTER 76
* * *
* * *
BOSTON
Harvath didn’t know what was harder, facing Lara’s parents and explaining how they had secretly gotten married at Reed Carlton’s bedside, or facing Lara’s little boy and not being able to explain to him why he couldn’t save his mom.
The service was gut wrenching. It was a full-on police funeral, where Harvath was highly disliked and seen as the guy who had convinced Lara to leave the force and move to D.C. In everyone’s mind, he was the reason Lara was dead. And while they knew next to nothing about the details, which only served to piss them off more, they were right. It was his fault that she was gone.
No matter how long he lived, he would never be able to escape that fact. It was another link in the heavy chain of guilt he carried over women who had been killed or injured because of who he was and what he did.
While meant as a slight, it was actually a blessing that Harvath wasn’t invited to speak. Instead, he sat quietly with Lara’s parents, holding Marco’s hand when the little boy had reached out for his.
The Brits had a term for what he was feeling—gutted—but it didn’t go far enough. Harvath was absolutely hollowed out.
The night before, he had stood outside the funeral home for hours in the rain. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t summon the courage to go inside, not while the viewing was going on.
Lara’s colleagues loved her dearly and he could tell by the amount of drinking that was going on in the parking lot that if he had shown his face inside, there would have been trouble. This was Boston after all. They were proud, profoundly decent people with a deep sense of right and wrong.
He didn’t blame them. Each of them wanted to believe that had they been there, regardless of what had happened, they would have made a difference. That’s who they were. They were cops, warriors. It was grossly unfair to them that Lara was gone and Harvath was still here. They couldn’t willingly fathom a scenario in which he lived and she died. In their minds, it had to be a failing on his part. If only she hadn’t left Boston. If only she had chosen a cop over whatever secret-squirrel bullshit Harvath did for a living.
Once all the cars had departed, once the funeral director and his staff had gone home for the evening, Harvath had disabled the alarm and had let himself inside.
They had done an amazing job. Lara looked beautiful. Pulling up a chair, he placed his hand atop hers.