Near Dark (Scot Harvath #20) - Brad Thor Page 0,48
to his file, two weeks ago Mr. Antanas Lukša said he had been in a car accident.”
“He looks like he went through the windshield.”
“In addition to his facial injuries, he had four broken ribs, and his right hand and left knee had been shattered.”
Harvath watched as Nicholas scrolled through the rest of the injury photos. When he was done, Harvath asked, “What did you mean by nobody thinks it was an accident?”
“Mr. Lukša changed his story to the doctor. First, he said he had been driving his truck when it happened. Then, when the doctor told him he would need verification from his employer for a work-related injury, he said he had actually been driving his personal vehicle at the time.”
“That’s weird.”
“It gets weirder,” Nicholas continued. “I’ve managed to track down both vehicles, but I can’t find any police or insurance reports dealing with the alleged accident.”
“The guy was a smuggler. We couldn’t have been the first load of cargo he had ever helped sneak into or out of Kaliningrad. Maybe something happened and he didn’t want his legit employer to know. If he damaged his boss’s truck, maybe he paid in cash to get it fixed and keep it quiet.”
“Whatever it was, he definitely wanted to keep it quiet.”
“What do you mean?” asked Harvath.
“If I’m translating the file correctly, before he went to the hospital for treatment, Mrs. Lukša had reached out to their general practice doctor. She didn’t mention any car accident. Instead, she claimed that he’d had a fall, but was okay and merely in pain. She wanted the doctor to prescribe painkillers. But because it was a weekend and his office was closed, the doc recommended he go to the emergency room.”
“Interesting.”
“There’s more. Not only did Mr. Lukša change his story with the ER physician, he was also evasive when it came to providing details. The physician said the whole visit was ‘suspicious.’ In fact, he wrote in his notes that it looked like Mr. Lukša had been beaten up. Drawing attention to his patient’s shattered right hand and left knee, he indicated that it looked like Mr. Lukša had been struck, repeatedly, with a blunt instrument—most likely a hammer.”
“And like I told you,” said Harvath, “his truck was a manual. It’s one thing to beat a guy up, but if you break his right hand and left knee, he’s not going to be working the stick and the clutch for a while.”
“If that was someone’s goal, that means they knew what kind of equipment he operated. Do you know if he had any enemies?”
“He wasn’t much of a talker.”
“What if,” Nicholas responded, scrolling back through the photos, “this wasn’t about settling a score?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s say this wasn’t about some angry border guards not getting their monthly payoff. What if the Russians did exactly what we were talking about? What if they went back and reviewed all their CCTV footage from ports of entry, made a list, and Lukša was on it? What if they then decided to pay him a visit? And during that visit, the Russians decided they’ve got the right guy and put the screws—or in this case—the hammer to him?”
“And he gives up that he was working for Lithuanian Intelligence?”
Nicholas shook his head. “It wouldn’t be a straight line, they understand proper tradecraft, there’d be cutouts along the way. But the Russians are smart—smart enough to reverse engineer it. All Lukša would have had to do was admit that he picked up a team of Americans and they’d be off to the races.”
He had a point. A good one. Once the Russians started pulling on that thread, it wasn’t impossible to believe that they could unravel the entire thing—right up to Landsbergis at Lithuania’s State Security Department.
“I need to get to Vilnius,” said Harvath.
“Lithuania? Are you kidding me?” Nicholas replied. “When you very well may have a one-hundred-million-dollar bounty on your head? Are you insane? No way.”
“I want to speak to Landsbergis myself. I want to look him in the face.”
“Negative. We can send the Ghost.”
The Ghost was a deep-cover operative who had been brought over to The Carlton Group from CIA. His real name was Steve Kost. Because his last name rhymed perfectly with “ghost,” the call sign had practically selected itself.
“And what do you expect me to do?” asked Harvath.
Nicholas threw up his hands. “I don’t know. Stay here? Survive? Take up a hobby. I don’t really care. All I know is that you’re not leaving.”