Near Dark (Scot Harvath #20) - Brad Thor Page 0,107
explain how this is going to go. I’m not a fan of waterboarding or pulling out fingernails. I prefer a much more direct route.
“I am going to ask you a series of questions. If you lie to me, I will shoot you in very painful, very specific parts of your body. If I even think you are lying, I will shoot you. If you hesitate, I will conclude that you’re about to lie, and I will shoot you. Have I made myself clear?”
The Contessa had no idea how serious the threat was, but nodded, erring on the side of caution. “Is that what happened to Kovalyov?” she asked. “Did you shoot him? Is he dead?”
Sølvi shook her head. “I shot his boss, repeatedly. Kovalyov was next. He decided to cooperate. We made a deal. And we’d like to make a deal with you. If you agree to—”
“Not interested,” the Contessa broke in.
“Either way, we are going to get the information we want out of you. You are choosing to make this much harder than it has to be.”
“Go to hell,” the woman sneered.
“You don’t even want to hear the offer?”
“Not from you I don’t.”
“Well, how about from him?” Harvath asked as he activated a video call on his app and held out his phone so she could see it.
When the call connected, on the other side was Nicholas.
The Contessa was already testy and angry, but once she recognized who it was, she became downright aggressive.
She let loose with a string of expletives in Russian, only a handful of which Harvath knew. The woman was so pissed off and spat words so fast at his phone that he couldn’t keep up.
Nicholas, calm at the outset, also lost his cool—something Harvath had rarely ever seen. There was a lot of bad blood between these two. Buckets of it.
The arguing, threats, and name-calling continued at a furious pace. Back and forth they went, their faces flushed, the veins in their necks bulging.
It took quite some time, but eventually the Contessa’s outbursts began to slow, and she dialed back her tone. Nicholas also applied some self-restraint and became more measured. It wasn’t détente, but the temperature was definitely being turned down. They were now entering the critical phase of Harvath’s plan.
Nicholas had been resistant at first. The Contessa had started this. She had been first to try to stick a knife in his back. He had simply dodged the blade and had inserted his own between her figurative shoulders. Theirs was a cutthroat business. The purchase and sale of black-market intelligence was incredibly dangerous. If you tried to take out a competitor and failed, you needed to be prepared for the consequences.
Nicholas, though, had largely left that world behind. He did still dabble, keeping his skills sharp and preying upon the most unscrupulous in their industry. But basically, he had retired. And while he despised Tatiana Montecalvo, Harvath was family and had asked him for a favor. A big one.
They continued to speak in Russian, taking long pauses as each pondered what the other had said. There were a couple of flare-ups, but nothing close to what had transpired at the outset of the call.
After a little while longer, the Contessa looked at Harvath and said, “We’re done. He wants to talk to you.”
Turning the phone around, he inserted an earbud and walked to the swim platform, leaving Sølvi to keep an eye on their prisoner.
“My God,” said Nicholas. “I hate that woman. Completely and totally. She is unintelligent, uncivilized, vindictive, and avaricious.”
Harvath didn’t need to hear what Nicholas was going to say next. He already knew. It had worked.
CHAPTER 42
Returning to the dock, Harvath put out the bumpers and tied off the Riva. He then brought his drone in for a landing and packed everything up. Once they were ready, he and Sølvi unloaded the Contessa from the boat.
Nicholas had warned them not to take their eyes off her, and they were heeding his advice. They had absolutely no reason to trust her. In fact, if anything, they had plenty of reasons to believe she might attempt to double-cross them.
With Harvath hanging on to their prisoner, Sølvi retrieved the Jeep and drove down to the dock. After he and the Contessa climbed in, it was a quick drive to her villa.
They parked out on the street, fully aware that they were in plain view of her security cameras and were being recorded. Harvath dropped his head so as not to reveal his face.