Page 81 of Spymaster

He asked Haney to do a final flyby and search the windows of the cabin. He, Ashby, and Jasinski took cover positions while he did.

It took several minutes for him to scan each of the tiny openings and what lay inside. Finally, he reported, “No heat signatures and no movement from inside.”

This only made Harvath more nervous. Had Dominik Gashi been inside, there was the hope that the cabin hadn’t been wired to explode. The Russians weren’t big on suicide. They might drink themselves to death, but that was seen as a virtue, religiously committed to over a significant period of time. Booby-traps were something else entirely.

An empty house, previously inhabited by an assumed GRU intelligence officer, now believed to be on the run, could only be bad news. There were dozens of ways that it could be wired to explode.

A device could be affixed to the door and detonate on entry. It could be rigged to a specific floorboard and explode once an unlucky member of the entry team put weight on it. It could be attached to a closet door or a dresser drawer, just waiting for some poor bastard to open it. The options were both endless and terrifying.

Harvath was aware of them all and he took the lead, starting with the front door.

After checking, as best he could, to make sure it wasn’t wired, he pushed it open with the toe of his boot and stepped back.

Nothing happened.

Relieved, Harvath slowly crept inside.

The structure was built around a rough stone fireplace, big enough to walk into. Horns and antlers were nailed to the walls. There was a variety of dead animals, in various stages of taxidermy, scattered throughout the space. A rough-hewn railing blocked off an elevated sleeping area above. The entire place smelled like mold.

Harvath scanned his weapon from left to right as he and his team made entry.

“Clear!” he heard Ashby eventually yell.

Jasinski responded in kind. “Clear!”

Reluctantly, Harvath added his assessment. “Clear!” Dominik Gashi was not here.

Rapidly, they searched chests and wardrobes, under the couch, and inside the tiny bathroom. There was no sign of the man.

There was, though, a sign that he had recently been there. Seeing a bright blue kettle sitting on the stove, Harvath reached out and placed his hand above it. It was still warm. Gashi had been here, and not that long ago.

He gestured Ashby and Jasinski over to show them what he had found. Each of them touched the kettle, and then, nodding, they fanned out and conducted a renewed search.

“Friendlies,” Palmer said over the radio as he and Staelin arrived at the front door.

Knocking twice, they waited for a response, and when Ashby gave the all clear, they entered.

Looking up from her search, she pointed at the kettle on the stove, indicated it was still warm, and then went back to what she was doing.

“I think I’ve got something,” Harvath said from upstairs in the sleeping loft.

Inside a small cubby he had found a key rack. On it was an assortment of keys, each with a brightly colored plastic tag. Inside each tag was a piece of paper with what looked like an address. One of the pegs was empty.

Explaining what he had found, Harvath slung his Rattler and went back to his search. He was looking for any information about Dominik Gashi and what he was doing on Gotland.

Minutes later, as Staelin was scanning the man’s bookshelves, it was Chase who called out, “I may have something.”

Harvath came to the railing. “What is it?”

“It looks like a ledger.”

“What kind of ledger?”

“A property ledger. There’s a chart here with multiple addresses. Then there are dates last visited, status, repairs needed, that kind of thing.”

“Read out the addresses,” said Harvath as he went back, pulled the keys off the rack, and lined them up on the bed.

As Chase read off the addressees, he discarded the corresponding sets of keys. At the very end, he was able to identify the property to which the matching set belonged.

---