if not obstinate. The surest way to get him to do something was to tell him he couldn’t. Nicholas knew that, yet he had still dropped the hammer on him.
“Listen,” said Harvath, “if you needed to insert someone over there for a long-term reconnaissance, or to build an extensive human network, Kost would be one of the top people on my list. Sending him over to do an interrogation? That’s like asking Rembrandt to do welding.”
Nicholas chuckled. “I’m writing that down. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone pay Kost that high a compliment.”
“Come on, Nick. You know I’m right. He’s not an interrogator. That’s not what he does.”
“Maybe not, but he’s good at reading people.”
“What he’s good at is building rapport. All of his assets would go to the ends of the earth for him. They love the guy. And they love him because they know he has their back. That’s not what this is about. If Landsbergis did give up Pedersen to the Russians, whoever confronts him is going to have to be ready to do anything to pry that information out of him.”
The little man thought for a moment and said, “I’ll send Preisler with him.”
“Wait,” said Harvath, recognizing the name. “Peter Preisler is an Agency guy. Ground Branch. He was part of McGee’s protective detail when I was at their safe house.”
“He’s with us now.”
Nicholas might have been better at running The Carlton Group than he himself believed. Harvath had taken to Preisler. Not only was he squared away with an impressive Special Operations pedigree, but he had also been one hell of a cook. He had taken responsibility for most of the meals while they had been holed up on the Eastern Shore.
“You’re going to put something this big on a guy you just hired?”
“Fine,” Nicholas responded, “I’ll send Johnson.”
Harvath’s eyes went wide. “You send Kenneth Johnson and he’ll kill him. I guarantee it.”
“You’re being overdramatic. We haven’t had a problem with Johnson for some time.”
“No? How about Beirut?”
“That was an accident.”
“Okay,” said Harvath. “What about Bangkok?”
“Also an accident.”
“And Auckland?”
Nicholas paused. “Auckland,” he conceded, “wasn’t an accident. Not even close.”
“Listen, I get it. Everybody loves Johnson. But you have to let him do what he does best. And it isn’t interrogations. They’re like heart surgery. They’re delicate and can get very messy very quickly.”
“Then who? Haney? Staelin? Who am I supposed to send?”
“Me,” Harvath declared. “If Landsbergis gave up Carl to the Russians, the moment he sees me, it’ll be written all over his face. I won’t even need to interrogate him.”
Nicholas had heard Harvath go on ad nauseam about microexpressions, the barely perceptible tells subjects gave off when they were lying and under stress. The U.S. Secret Service, as well as Harvath, swore by them.
Nicholas, though, wasn’t the best reader of human emotions, much less facial cues. He preferred cold, hard data. There was no gray in data. Only black and white.
“Even if you were the best person to send,” the little man asserted, “there’s still the problem of the contract out on you.”
“Alleged contract.”
Nicholas shook his head. “I love you, like a brother, but you’re an idiot. A well-meaning, driven, highly determined idiot. The answer is no, so stop asking me. You’re not going.”
Harvath didn’t want to lock horns with Nicholas, but as far as he saw it, they had two choices. They could sit around hoping to get another piece of actionable intel, or they could act on this one. “What if I didn’t go?”
The way he said “I” caught Nicholas off guard. “What do you mean?”
“I operate under an alias. I don’t travel as Scot Harvath.”
The little man shook his head. “If it were twenty years ago… hell, if it were only ten years ago, that might have worked. With all the retinal scans and facial recognition technology these days, it’s impossible to get into or out of a country as anything else but who you are.”
“So we skirt the borders,” Harvath replied. “We slip in and out at the edges. Take advantage of those gray areas that are under-monitored or not monitored at all.”
Nicholas again shook his head. “Not worth it. It’s too risky.”
“Risk is exactly why The Carlton Group exists. The Old Man established this organization precisely because the CIA was shying away from risk.”
“We don’t do suicide missions.”
“Agreed, but we also don’t say no just because something is complicated or difficult. We do our research, we plan, we take as much risk out of the equation as possible,