Page 92 of Spymaster

“You told me to wake you when the plane from Malta was inbound.”

“How far out are they?”

“Touchdown in forty-five minutes.”

“Roger that,” said Harvath, rubbing the stubble on his face and throwing the blankets back. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Nicholas replied. “I’ve got coffee and a late lunch in the kitchen if you’re interested.”

Harvath was definitely interested, but first he needed to grab a quick shower.

Standing under the hot spray, he let the water beat on his body. He ached in places he didn’t even know he had. Getting older sucked, but it beat the alternative.

Five minutes later, he threw the temperature selector all the way to cold and measured how long he could stand it. He managed a good thirty seconds before he decided he’d had enough and turned it off.

Though he didn’t fully agree with the K4 operative, Ingesson had a point about SEALs and cold. At some point, you just have had enough.

Harvath imagined a lot of things could have that effect—even field work. He wasn’t ready to concede that point. Not yet at least.

After drying off, he wrapped the towel around his waist and stood at the sink as he lathered up his face and began to shave.

The face staring back at him as he looked in the mirror was the same face that it had always been. And while it may have aged a little, in his mind he was frozen in time at right around twenty-four years old.

There were, of course, at least a good two decades between that fantasy and reality. However, this was who he was. This was what he knew how to do. And despite his preference to operate alone, he had been reminded that he still worked well with a team. He was also pretty good at leading one.

But did that mean he was ready to take over for the Old Man? Rinsing off his razor, he took another look at himself in the mirror.

The idea that he could ever fill the shoes of someone like Reed Carlton was absolutely crazy to him. It was one of the biggest reasons he had saidnowhen the Old Man asked him to become Director of The Carlton Group. He was not only afraid of failing at it, he was also afraid of taking on the additional responsibility, only to let Carlton down. That would probably be the most difficult thing to deal with—his disappointment.

Of course, simply saying no to the position had disappointed the Old Man, but on the scale of letdowns, Harvath figured it was a lot better than his taking over the entire organization only to screw it all up. The Old Man had invested too much of his time, money, and energy into it.

For some strange reason, that hadn’t seemed to bother Carlton. “If it goes, it goes,” he had said, like some Stoic philosopher. “But I don’t think you’re capable of screwing it up. At least notthatbadly,” he had added with one of his wry smiles.

Carlton had a certain confidence in him that Harvath didn’t have in himself, at least not in that way. Harvath was supremely confident in everything that he did. It was the absolute unknown of running an organization like The Carlton Group that he had found so daunting. He wasn’t sure he would have confidence in others.

But the one big plus, the biggest plus actually, would be being home—if he chose and she agreed—with Lara. That was something that held a lot of appeal for him. With Lara and her son, Marco, he could finally put down roots and have the family he had always said he wanted.

But for a guy who told himself that was what he wanted, he reallywasspending a lot of time in the field.

In a way, he was sowing his operational oats. Some of the jobs had just been too good to turn down. Some had been so difficult and so dangerous that he didn’t feel right giving them to anyone else. It was also a great way to avoid taking that next step at home.

That mindset was going to have to change. He couldn’t keep taking all the most challenging assignments. Even if he was that twenty-four-year-old he saw staring back in the mirror at him, eventually he would break. Nobody could keep going at the pace he was on. It didn’t matter how improved he felt his body to be. He was using injections to stay in the game.

And while the game was one of skill, it also involved a large degree of luck. At some point the odds caught up to you. And when that happened, all the luck in the world wouldn’t be enough to save you.

For now, he prayed the odds would remain in his favor—just until he could complete this assignment and get his team safely back home. Then, he’d have to finally take a good, long look at everything else and decide what he wanted to do.

Splashing cold water on his face, he quickly brushed his teeth, got dressed, and headed to the kitchen.

It smelled as if Nicholas had grilled sausages. He was about to ask, when he noticed the little man paying rapt attention to one of the television monitors.

There were pictures of fire and billowing columns of black smoke. First responders were carrying injured people out into the street.

“What is it?” Harvath asked. “What happened?”

“Istanbul,” he replied. “Multiple bombs at a subway station.”

Turkey had a lot of political problems, but something told him that might not be what this was about.

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