be suspicious of.
He paid for his purchase, returned to the Land Cruiser, and got back on the highway. There was still over an hour left to go.
With the endless road unfolding in front of him, he could sense his jet lag trying to kick in. Rolling down the window, he turned on the radio to help him focus and stay awake.
Sandwiched between countless Europop offerings and local folk music channels, he found one playing American classic rock—on vinyl, no less, with all of the original hisses and pops.
He tuned in just as the needle was dropped on “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones.
If you paid attention to the lyrics, it was an incredibly dark song. If you tuned them out, it was—as Mick Jagger stated—one hell of a hypnotic groove, a samba that doesn’t speed up or slow down—just a sinister constant, which was what Harvath needed at the moment.
And the DJ didn’t let up. After the Stones, there were high-energy songs by The James Gang, Eric Clapton, Jefferson Airplane, Aerosmith, and even KISS. The next hour passed without his eyelids getting any heavier, or his mind wandering to things he didn’t want to think about.
By the time his exit came up, he was looking forward to getting out of the car. The sooner he could question Lukša, the sooner he could get the answers he had come here for.
Checking his GPS, he found a gas station a bit off the beaten path. There, wearing a baseball cap he had pulled from his bag and keeping his head down to avoid any CCTV cameras, he refilled his tank and bought an energy drink.
He cracked it as he pulled back out into traffic and slowly snaked his way toward the truck driver’s home.
The outskirts of Vilnius were like any other major Baltic city he’d ever visited—industrial, rough, and very poor. This was definitely where the have-nots lived.
Graffiti was everywhere. The streets were dirty. Weeds sprouted up from the cracked sidewalks. Steel shutters and bars over windows spoke to a high level of crime. This was not a good place to live.
As he got closer in, the neighborhoods began to get nicer, but only by a degree. They were still poor, but the properties were better kept. Graffiti was no longer evident. Many homes had modest landscaping. And while some had bars over the windows, many did not.
This was a buffer zone—the working-class ring that surrounded Vilnius’s more affluent neighborhoods and its bustling city center. This was where Mr. and Mrs. Lukša lived.
Seeing the truck driver’s home now clearly marked on his GPS, Harvath did a wide reconnaissance sweep of the surrounding area. His eyes took in everything.
He wanted to know what businesses there were, if any. What about police or fire stations? If something went wrong and he had to flee on foot, what direction would he run and where might he hide out?
All of it was necessary, pre-approach surveillance. If anything went sideways, no one was coming to save him. He was on his own. The better he knew the lay of the land, the better he could handle any problems that might pop up. And knowing what he knew about field operations, problems were almost a sure thing.
He drove in ever tightening circles, until it was finally time to drive down Lukša’s street. One pass was all he’d be able to make. Anything more than that was asking for trouble.
Not only would he be given one shot to study the truck driver’s house, but simultaneously he’d need to figure out where to park the Land Cruiser.
His preference was to stash it someplace out of sight and walk up to the house. That said, he didn’t want to leave it anyplace that might be tempting for thieves to break into. He had too much stuff in the cargo area that he didn’t want to lose.
In the end, as was so often the case, fate handed him his answer. One of the side streets was involved in a public works project and was off-limits. That had pushed cars onto the next side street, where they were parked along the curb almost bumper to bumper. The only open parking was on Lukša’s street and based on the posted signs, it was permit-only. Harvath found an empty spot at the beginning of the block and pulled in. Now, he had a decision to make.
Murphy’s Law being what it was, he felt certain that the moment he stepped out of his vehicle