Near Dark (Scot Harvath #20) - Brad Thor Page 0,50

but danger and the unexpected are always going to be there. We can’t insulate against Murphy’s Law. Besides, if the assignments were easy, why would anyone need us?”

“You’re changing the subject,” Nicholas countered. “The Old Man said you were too valuable to keep going into the field. He wanted you back here, permanently. But for some reason you couldn’t do that. And like an overindulgent parent, he caved. He let you keep conducting ops. If you go back out now, we can’t protect you. You’ll be exposed.”

“So what’s new?”

The little man smiled. “You’re committed to ignoring God only knows how many professional assassins, all competing to be the first to kill you in order to bag a once-in-a-lifetime, one-hundred-million-dollar prize.”

Suddenly an idea began to form in Harvath’s mind. Smiling even more broadly, he asked, “What if we didn’t ignore it?”

“Excuse me?”

“What if we leaned into it? Better yet, what if we actively encouraged it?”

“I’d say you need to be locked in a room with Dr. Levi.”

“Where’s Lawlor?” Harvath asked, changing the subject back.

“He had to make a call to Langley. Why?”

“Once he’s off, let’s get him back in here,” said Harvath. “I think I’ve got a plan.”

CHAPTER 19

NICE, FRANCE

MONDAY

Nikolai Nekrasov, the billionaire owner of the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, told his driver, Valery, to pull over. Nekrasov had grown up on the rough streets of Moscow and still enjoyed a good brawl.

“A thousand euros on the Arab,” he said, pointing to a group of teens that had gathered in a trash-strewn vacant lot.

The only thing Nekrasov liked more than watching a fight, was betting on its outcome. He had an uncanny ability to assess a conflict and immediately know who was going to win. It was a skill that had served him well—not only recreationally, but also as he had scaled the sharp heights of one of Russia’s deadliest crime syndicates.

And while it was his gifted mind for strategy that had gotten him to the top, it was his unflinching willingness to resort to absolute brutality that had kept him there—and for far longer than anyone would have ever imagined possible.

Of course, if you had asked Nekrasov the true secret to his success, his sophistic response would have been that he placed loyalty—particularly to friends and family—above all else.

It would be a bullshit answer, but in addition to overflowing with money, the man was also overflowing with bravado. No matter how far he had risen above the gutter into which he’d been born, he still maintained a cavernous insecurity over who he was and where he had come from.

That insecurity drove him to put forth a façade that even the most decent, upstanding Russian couldn’t compete with. For instance, wanting to appear ever the perfect family man, Nekrasov would have others believe he had left his hotel on a busy workday to meet his wife at the Centre Antoine Lacassagne—a leading cancer research institute in Nice—in order to discuss her oncologist’s plan for her ongoing treatment. But nothing could have been further from the truth. Nekrasov was going along for one reason and one reason only.

Believing her breast implants were the source of her illness, Eva wanted them removed. Nekrasov had made it clear, though, that the only way that was happening was over his dead body. He had spent good money getting her tits absolutely perfect and he would be damned if she was going to have some French doctor cast the deciding vote for having them yanked out.

What’s more, after several years of marriage and a couple of kids, it was about the only part of her that he still found attractive.

Eva drank like a fish, smoked like factory chimney, and ate whatever the hell she pleased. Early in their marriage, she had been stunning—the toast of Moscow. The Russian President himself, Nikolai’s best friend since childhood, had not so subtly hinted that if not for their friendship, he would have wooed her as his mistress. But then, suddenly, she had just given up.

Perhaps it was the stress of motherhood. But as Nikolai had looked around, he had seen plenty of his contemporaries’ wives taking exceptional care of themselves. They had armies of nutritionists, private chefs, personal trainers, and plastic surgeons. As they dieted, worked out, cool-sculpted, and Botoxed themselves without end, they seemed to not only hold aging at bay, but in some cases to reverse the process altogether. Not Eva, though.

Even before her cancer diagnosis, she had been slipping. It was sad to watch. No