With Guryev was the aforementioned red-bearded thug Kovalyov, as well as the other two goons who had presumably held Lukša down while he was being tortured. All of them had weapons, and all of their weapons were pointed at Harvath and Landsbergis.
“Hands,” said the Russian, in perfect English. “Let me see those hands. Nice and high.”
Harvath and Landsbergis did as he commanded while his men streamed into the room and disarmed them.
“You took your time getting here,” Simulik complained.
“Quiet, Andriejus,” Guryev shot back. “Don’t forget, you work for me—not the other way around.”
Harvath was glad to have the confirmation, but it came with a downside. Admitting that the VSD Director worked for them meant that Guryev and his crew weren’t about to let him go.
If anything, they were going to take him back to Russia and finish the job that had been started before he had escaped. Unless, of course, he was worth more to them dead than alive. If that was the case, he could be seconds away from being executed.
“I cannot tell you what a strange and unexpected pleasure this is,” Guryev said, turning his attention to Harvath. “You killed several friends of mine back in Russia. I am looking forward to returning the favor.”
“I killed a lot of Russians while I was there,” he replied. “So you’ll forgive me if I don’t remember them.”
“Americans—always making jokes.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Harvath knew he was in trouble and shouldn’t have been kicking the hornet’s nest.
His opponents were not typical Russian muscle—the sides of beef normally seen rolling with Moscow gangsters. He could tell by their eyes that these men were not only intelligent, but also switched on. They were probably ex-military, possibly even ex–Special Forces operatives, Spetsnaz.
He needed to come up with a way out of this. Quickly. Think, he exhorted himself.
Scanning the room, he looked for any advantage. He and Landsbergis had been positioned up against the wall—there was no cover or concealment. There were, though, multiple items he could turn into weapons.
From the highly polished pair of scissors or the brass inkwell on the desk, to the martini pitcher and nickel-plated cocktail picks behind it, his choices were broad. The challenge was getting to just one of them without being riddled with bullets. What he needed was a distraction.
But when Guryev next spoke, he realized that wasn’t going to happen. “My President wants you dead or alive. He prefers alive, of course, because you killed his son and he’d like the pleasure of killing you himself.
“Escaping from Russia, as I said, you killed several of my friends. These men were highly skilled, which tells me I need to be very careful with you. So, while I’d like to deliver you to my President alive, I think dead is a much safer option.”
Harvath smiled. “Then you’re even more arrogant than Director Simulik.”
The Russian smiled back. “That’s a very high bar. You’ll forgive me if I disagree.”
“If your President had wanted me dead, he could have killed me when he murdered my wife and my colleagues. Instead, he brought me all the way to Russia. Why do you think that was?”
“I cannot possibly know the President’s mind.”
“Exactly. Which is why you’d be a fool to assume you can now.”
Guryev’s smile broadened. “Does banter like this normally work for you, Mr. Harvath?”
“Only with less intelligent people,” he replied.
For a moment, the Russian was unsure of whether he had been complimented or insulted.
“I have a lot of information that your President wants. Believe me, your reward is going to be a lot bigger if you bring me in alive.”
“You sound to me,” the Russian responded, “like a man who is trying to buy time. I’m sorry, though, Mr. Harvath. There is no more time. I’m not taking you in alive.”
“In that case,” said Harvath, “let me show you my shocked face.”
As he opened his mouth, plugged his fingers in his ears, and closed his eyes, a pair of flashbang grenades were tossed into the room.
When they detonated, they did so with ear-splitting, 180-decibel bangs accompanied by blinding flashes of over one million candela.
Their purpose was to throw an enemy into confusion and disorientation while interrupting their balance and coordination.
Distracted and temporarily incapacitated, it was impossible for them to adequately respond.
Having prepared himself for the explosion, Harvath was able to spring into action.
The two Russian operatives nearest him received the brunt of his response. These were the men who had pinned Lukša down and held him while he was being tortured.
Snatching the heavy brass inkwell off the desk, he swung it like a mace, striking each of the men in the head and knocking them unconscious.
Grabbing one of their guns, he spun to face the others, but the task had already been completed. Sølvi had used the two Tasers from his bag in the Land Cruiser—the same bag in which she had found the flashbangs—to drop Guryev and Kovalyov to the floor.
The effect wouldn’t last long, though. They didn’t call it the “ride for five” for nothing. The jolt of electricity bought you only a handful of seconds.
“Did you bring any restraints?” Harvath asked.
“I brought the whole bag,” she replied. “It’s out in the hallway.”
As Harvath hurried to grab it, Sølvi noticed Guryev and Kovalyov coming around. Pressing the triggers of the Tasers, she let them ride the lightning again.
Fishing out a handful of flex cuffs, Harvath came back into the room and restrained all of the Russians. He also cuffed Simulik.
Once everyone had been patted down and their weapons taken away, it was time to get some answers. Harvath started with Guryev. Sølvi and Landsbergis, pistols in hand, kept everyone covered.
“What do you know about Carl Pedersen?”
“Fuck you,” the Russian replied.
Harvath was about to give him a warning when Sølvi lowered her suppressed pistol, pointed it at the man’s right knee, and pulled the trigger.
Guryev howled in pain.
“Answer the question,” the Norwegian demanded. “Or your right knee will be next.”
“Fuck you,” he repeated, this time at her.
Sølvi adjusted her aim and fired at his other knee.
The Russian screamed even louder.
Harvath looked at her. There was no emotion on her face. She was all business. As cold as ice.
“You’ve run out of knees,” said Harvath, turning his attention back to Guryev. “You’d better answer my question, before she finds a new body part to target.”
The man barely managed to mumble “Fuck. You,” from behind his gritted teeth, when Sølvi shot him again, this time in his left shoulder.
It was followed by another wave of screaming.
“What do you know about Carl Pedersen?” Harvath asked again.
“Norwegian Intelligence,” came the reply, but not from Guryev. It had come from Kovalyov.
Harvath shot him a glance.
His boss told to him to shut up in Russian and they began arguing, before Sølvi put a round past each one of their heads and they instantly fell silent.
“What do you know about him?” Harvath repeated. “Besides the fact that he was Norwegian Intelligence.”
“He introduced you to Landsbergis and Landsbergis helped facilitate your operation into Kaliningrad.”
“Was Landsbergis next?”
The bearded man looked at Harvath confused. “Next?”
“All Carl did was make the introduction. Landsbergis was responsible for much more. If you were willing to torture and murder Carl over an introduction, I can only imagine what Moscow was planning for Landsbergis.”
Kovalyov was even more confused. “Torture? Murder?” he said, before addressing his boss again in Russian.
Sølvi fired another round, intentionally missing his knee, but not by much. It was enough to get his attention. “English only,” she ordered, as she ejected her magazine and inserted a fresh one. “No more Russian.”
“We didn’t know Pedersen was dead.”
“Bullshit,” Harvath replied.
Sølvi adjusted her aim and prepared to not miss his knee this time, but the bearded man begged her not to fire.
“If he was killed, it wasn’t by us.”
“He was killed and it was by you,” she spat back. “Maybe the assassin wasn’t GRU. Maybe the killer was FSB. The orders, though, came from Moscow.”
“Think about it,” Guryev managed with a grimace as pain radiated throughout his body. “If someone on our side was angry enough to kill Pedersen for his involvement, then Landsbergis would have been killed too. And I would have been tasked with carrying it out.”
“And you never received any such tasking?” Landsbergis demanded.
“No,” the Russian replied. “We didn’t even know Pedersen was dead. Our job was to unravel how the operation took place and report back anything we learned. When the truck driver was identified, we were sent to interrogate him. And, if we discovered he was involved, we had orders to hurt him so that he couldn’t work. But we were never told to kill him.”
Harvath didn’t want to say it, but the man’s argument made sense. If Carl’s involvement had merited killing, then certainly Landsbergis’s did, and so too did Lukša’s. It would have settled the score and sent a strong message—Cross Moscow at your peril. If you do, you’ll pay the ultimate price. But that was looking less and less like what was going on here.
While Harvath appeared to be the reason Carl had been killed, perhaps it was possible that Moscow wasn’t behind it. If it wasn’t Moscow, though, who was it?
“I don’t buy any of this,” said Harvath. “Shoot him again.”
“No!” Kovalyov shouted, sticking up for his boss. “There may be another reason.”
Harvath waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, he nodded at Sølvi. As she pointed her pistol at the bearded man’s crotch, the Russian exclaimed, “Montecalvo!”
“What is ‘Montecalvo’? she demanded, applying pressure to her trigger.
“She’s a person,” Kovalyov clarified. “A broker of information.”
“What does she have to do with Carl’s murder?”
“I gave her Pedersen’s name.”
“You did what?” Guryev grunted.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What did you do?” the Russian GRU boss demanded.
“I sold a small piece of information.”
“About one of our operations?”
“Only after the report had been filed,” the bearded man said in an attempt to justify his actions. “Why should our superiors be the only ones getting rich off of our work?”
“Alexander, you have betrayed us.”
“I have only done what is done every single day in Moscow. They use the information from our intelligence operations to steal intellectual property and to take advantage of the stock market. Why should we not do the same? Especially when we are the ones out in the field taking all of the risks?”
Guryev was in too much pain to even shake his head. All he could do to show his disappointment was to close his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, he said, “Tell them how to find Montecalvo. If you don’t, they’re going to kill us.”