Page 101 of Dead Fall

Walking a few feet away, Carolan brought up his address book and selected the entry for his predecessor—the woman who had headed the Quick Silver operation and had suffered a series of massive, still-unexplained heart attacks—and placed a call to her cell.

“Nancy,” he said when she answered, “it’s Joe Carolan. I’m sorry to bother you, but I want to have someone inspect your Bureau vehicle. Is it at your house? May I send one of the countersurveillance people out right now?”

As soon as the call was finished, he walked back over to the tech. They traded cell phone numbers and Carolan texted him Nancy’s contact information.

“Let me know as soon as you’re done. Okay?”

“Will do,” said the tech as he placed the devices in Faraday pouches, gathered up the rest of his gear, and headed off to his car to drive out to Bethesda, Maryland, to make a house call.

Fields waited for the tech to be out of earshot and then asked, “Do you think whoever planted these trackers was also behind what happened to Nancy?”

“I don’t know yet,” Carolan replied. “But I think it’s worth looking into.”

“So where does that leave us? What’s our next step?”

He gestured at the photos still in her hand and said, “Short of any new leads, I think there’s only one road available to us, and that road points right to Greg Wilson.”

CHAPTER 29

KHARKIVOBLAST

Harvath was exhausted. His entire team was exhausted. But they couldn’t let their guard down. Not now. Not with danger so close.

As Hookah and Biscuit had been standing guard at the convent and hadn’t had any sleep, he ordered them to turn in. He placed Jacks and Krueger on watch and stepped inside the vintner’s residence with the old woman.

She stopped at the table full of photographs, picked up one of the family, and clasped it to her chest.

As she did, tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Druz’ya,” she said in Russian.Friends.

Harvath had her sit down in the dining room while he stepped into the kitchen and began looking through the cupboards. They had been cleaned out. The Ravens had taken everything.

He told her to wait and then hustled outside to their truck, where he gathered up a couple of Ukrainian MREs and brought them back inside.

“Chay ili kofe?” he asked her.Tea or coffee?

“Chay, pozhaluysta,” she replied.Tea, please.

As he started boiling water in the kitchen, he opened a fresh MRE and offered her an assortment of snacks—biscuits, some more dark chocolate, cheese, as well as another pouch of dried apricots.

“Nyet,” she said. “Dlya detey.”For the children.

He pointed at the MREs and told her not to worry. There were more in his vehicle.

He knew she must be hungry and encouraged her to eat. Slowly, she thanked him and accepted a sleeve of biscuits.

When the water had come to a boil, he found two glasses and prepared a tea for her and a coffee for himself. The MRE came with a packet of sugar as well as creamer, which he handed to her along with a spoon.

“Spasiba,” she responded.Thank you.

He gave her a moment of peace, perhaps the first she’d had all day, and allowed her to drink her tea undisturbed. Faceup on the table in front of her was the picture of the vintner and his family. “Druz’ya,” she said again, lovingly touching it.

“Druz’ya,” Harvath repeated.

Once he felt that a long enough respectful silence had passed between them, he removed his map and laid it across the table. The old woman nodded and set the photo off to the side, out of the way. She understood that work needed to be done.

Harvath asked her to confirm their position on the map and then asked her to show him again which village had alerted them that the Ravens were coming. She pointed to the same village as before. That was good. The old woman hadn’t struck him as someone with cognitive difficulties, but this was critical intelligence they were gathering, and he had to be positive that she was fully with it.

With that out of the way, he wanted to reverse engineer the bush telegraph. They would do that by contacting the person who had let them know that the Ravens were coming. Kind of like Paul Revere’s midnight ride, but backward.

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