well.
As he boarded and found a seat, an aircrew member handed Harvath a pack of foam earplugs. Normally on missions, he brought his own. This time, though, someone else had put together his kit and he had forgotten to ask for them. The noise level in the four-engine turboprop cargo plane could be quite high. Thankfully, this crew had thought ahead. That wasn’t always the case. He had been on plenty of ops where if you weren’t prepared, you were out of luck.
The nylon webbing seats bolted to the fuselage were a far cry from the plush leather seats of the C-37B he had crossed the Atlantic on, but all that mattered was the destination, not the journey.
He rolled his earplugs and stuck them in as the C-130 thundered down the runway and lifted off. Once it was level, he unpacked his lunch and ate. He had thought about picking up a six-pack to bring on board, but had decided against it. All he needed was some overzealous MP at Šiauliai smelling beer on his breath and preventing him from driving off the base. He had too much work to do and time was of the essence.
While Landsbergis was his ultimate target, he wanted to pay Lukša, the Lithuanian truck driver, a visit first. If he really had been beaten up by the Russians, Harvath wanted that intel straight from the horse’s mouth. He wanted to confront Landsbergis having assembled as much information as possible.
Besides, going to speak with Lukša wasn’t too much of a detour. According to Nicholas, he lived in a working-class suburb of the capital. And considering the extent of his injuries, Harvath felt relatively certain the man wouldn’t be tough to track down. In fact, he would have been surprised if he wasn’t laid up at home, watching TV, and being taken care of by his wife.
Landing at Šiauliai, he was met by an Air Force officer who checked his ID and handed him the keys to a black Toyota Land Cruiser, idling on the tarmac. No further words were exchanged. After Harvath had loaded his gear, he plugged Lukša’s address into his GPS, headed for the nearest gate, and exited the base.
The first thing he noticed was a sign for a popular attraction called the Hill of Crosses, about twelve kilometers northeast of town. It had popped up when he had been online researching the best route to Vilnius. From what he understood, it was a small hill covered by a vast collection of over 200,000 wooden crosses. Like the Lithuanians themselves, some were plain, some were very ornate. A pilgrimage site dating back to the nineteenth century, it was meant to symbolize resistance to Russian rule.
It was a noble part of the country’s heritage—a solid, passionate part of its DNA. But like the human body, sometimes DNA could become corrupted and that corruption could bring forth incredible sickness, even death.
Heading southeast of town, Harvath made himself and Šiauliai a promise. He already knew what he was going to do to every person he tracked down who was responsible for Carl’s death. In addition to putting each of them in the ground, no matter where in the world he was, he would send Šiauliai a cross to place upon its hill.
In a warped, messed-up way, he’d at least be leaving something behind—a legacy of sorts—his own little family of wooden crosses.
* * *
Like a lot of espionage work, the drive to Vilnius was dull and uneventful. Halfway there, he noticed a farmer’s market, and pulled off the highway.
Lithuania might no longer be part of Russia and the old Soviet Union, but Russia and the old Soviet Union were still very much a part of Lithuania. Neighbors still took an unhealthy interest in what other neighbors were doing, strangers were regarded with suspicion, and gossip spread faster than a fire in dry grass.
Harvath knew that the moment he appeared in the truck driver’s neighborhood, tongues were going to wag. He couldn’t control that. What he could control was what the neighbors were whispering. That was why he didn’t intend to hide his presence. In fact, he wanted to be as obvious as possible about why he was there and who he was going to see.
Just like a private investigator throwing on a utility worker’s reflective vest to get a closer look at a house, Harvath figured—human nature being what it was—that he could run a version of the same ruse; give the neighbors something not to