they’re going to kill us.”
CHAPTER 36
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
From the moment he was wheels down at Logan International, the Ghost did what he did best—he began to build a human network.
His cab driver, as most cab drivers tended to be, was a font of information. He not only knew a lot about the neighborhood the Ghost would be staying in, but he also had a friend whose sister-in-law owned a local business.
The business, it turned out, was a small grocery store, two blocks away from the three-flat owned by Harvath’s deceased wife. Across the street was a playground.
The store was the nerve-center of the neighborhood and the collection point for every piece of gossip, rumor, and innuendo for ten blocks in any direction.
The Ghost had the cab driver stop and introduce him. He did some quick shopping, endearing himself to the owner, and then headed to his Airbnb nearby.
Over the course of the next two days, he popped in and out of the little store. He billed himself as a New York City photographer and videographer who was compiling a living history of the neighborhoods of Boston. The goal of his “project” was to capture the soul of each neighborhood—the day-to-day things that made them tick, as well as their eccentric and unusual characters.
The shopkeeper thought it was a wonderful idea. The store had been in her family for three generations. She had grown up in the neighborhood and knew everyone. And so, his human network had begun to grow.
Meanwhile, Johnson and Preisler had begun to build out the tactical side of the operation. Based on their experience, and the limited amount of time they had spent with Lara’s parents, the most likely place for an attack was either at the house or somewhere between the house and the playground. Thankfully, Marco wasn’t in school at the moment, so that took some of the logistical headaches out of the equation. Nevertheless, they still were going to have their hands full. Harvath had been right to send them to Boston.
And if it hadn’t been for Harvath, Lara’s parents never would have cooperated with such a plan. Left to their own devices, they would have retreated to the familiar.
They would have gathered up Marco and hopped a plane to Brazil. There, in Providência—the notorious Rio de Janeiro favela where they themselves grew up—they would have hoped to hide and ride out the storm.
But with a possible one-hundred-million-dollar bounty on Harvath’s head and Marco as an irresistible piece of bait, there would have been no place they’d ever be truly safe. This was the best way to handle it. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and keep Marco’s life as “normal” as possible.
Unlike many of their friends, they didn’t blame Scot for Lara’s death. Both their homicide detective daughter and their intelligence operative son-in-law had difficult, dangerous jobs. More importantly, they knew that Scot had loved Lara. They also knew that he still loved Marco. He would never intentionally do anything to compromise them.
Which was why, when Nicholas had reached out, they had agreed to go along with Scot’s request. Even with their daughter gone, Scot was still part of their family. They not only loved him, they trusted him.
They had put their lives in his hands and Harvath had treated that responsibility with the utmost seriousness. He knew Preisler, Johnson, and Kost would fight to the death to keep them safe. That was why he had asked Nicholas to send them. Marco was an obvious choice.
The men were also smart as hell. If something was afoot, not only would they pick it up quickly, but they’d put a knife in it so fast, lightning would be envious.
And that had been Harvath’s concern at Camp David—that an assassin might use a family member to flush him out. He had worried that whoever had killed Carl would either try to get to Marco, as well as Lara’s parents, or maybe even his own mother out in California.
Already, a team had moved her out of her senior community and over to Naval Base Coronado.
With such an alleged bounty in play, even a U.S. Navy base might not be perfectly safe, but Sloane Ashby and Chase Palmer, the two operatives Harvath had asked to watch over his mom, liked their odds. So too did the horde of U.S. Navy SEALs who had taken up residence around Mrs. Harvath. She was part of their family and there was no way they were going to let anything happen