Page 11 of Shadow of Doubt

“No. That you don’t know who the second account belongs to.”

Hayes smiled. “We didn’t know bin Laden would be in that house in Abbottabad either, but we had a high enough level of confidence to move on it.”

“You took your shot and it paid off.”

“As this could for you. Fifty million is a hell of a nest egg. And no one is blaming you.”

“Blaming me for what? I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The station chief put up her hands in surrender. “Maybe you and Mrs. Nekrasov came to some sort of an understanding. I don’t know and I don’t care. The Russians are butchers. They killed your wife. And you made them bleed,big-time.If that bleeding also meant keeping the bounty Nikolai had placed on your head in exchange for letting him live, even better. All I want you to do at this point is think about it. Okay? It’s a big ask. I get it.”

“What’s the carrot?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said Langley opted for the stick, but you wanted to offer me a carrot. What was it?”

Hayes smiled again. “It doesn’t matter. That Swiss account, stuffed with fifty million dollars, isn’t yours.”

“But,” said Harvath, pausing for effect, “if it was.”

“If it was, then I’d do you two favors. First, I’d let you know that an elite unit at the U.S. Treasury has it ringed with tripwires.”

He rolled his eyes. “Sounds dangerous.”

“They don’t mess around at Treasury.”

“And the second favor?” he asked.

“The second favor is the carrot. I’d help make all those tripwires, in fact the entire file, disappear.”

CHAPTER 6

By the time Harvath exited the SCIF, he had already made his decision. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it went against almost everything he stood for. That said, it was the only way forward.

Retrieving his phone from the cubby, he powered it back up and was greeted by several messages from Sølvi. The news about what had happened on the flight from Kraków must have made its way to her.

He texted back that he was okay and would be at the apartment soon. Grabbing his bag, he left the embassy and picked up an Uber a block away.

He made two stops en route to her apartment. One was for a bouquet of flowers. The other was for a bottle of Krug and a small tin of Desietra caviar. Harvath had a few, very specific reasons why he bought this particular brand. Yes, the caviar tasted great and was the perfect accompaniment to champagne—although so were pizza and popcorn, he had found—but Desietra was completely sourced in Western Europe, not Russia or Iran, and the brains behind the company belonged to a successful American entrepreneur from, of all places, Wisconsin. Harvath’s patriotism didn’t stop at the U.S. border; he took it with him wherever he went.

When they arrived at the address he had provided, Harvath thanked the driver, tipped him via the app, and gave him five stars.

Once the car had driven off, he turned and walked the two short blocks back to Sølvi’s. It was a minor inconvenience; an investment in making sure that he wasn’t being followed and that the apartment wasn’t under surveillance.

It also gave him a few more minutes to sort out his words. He had never been placed in this kind of position before. The territory was completely foreign. In his mind, he knew what he had to do. His gut, however, was ripping him apart.

When he arrived at the entrance of the building, he took one last look up and down the street. Confident it wasn’t being watched, he stepped inside, locked away any misgivings in the attic of his mind, and headed up to the apartment.

Sølvi was already there waiting for him.

He threw his arms around her and they shared a long hug, followed by an even longer kiss.

Once they had peeled themselves off each other, he handed her the flowers and said, “These are for you.”

“They’re beautiful,” she replied. “Thank you.”

He couldn’t believe they were finally together again.“You’rebeautiful. God, you have no idea how much I missed you.”

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