Page 30 of Shadow of Doubt

“We rotated two security teams on and off, so that’s twelve people right there. The safehouse is paid for out of a secret budget, which less than five people at Norwegian Intelligence have access to. Weapons and vehicles needed to be approved, but that doesn’t involve the location of the safehouse.”

“Anyone else?”

“I’m not the first person at NIS to have used that safehouse. Others knew about it, but its existence was classified.”

“As was Grechko’s defection,” Harvath stated.

Sølvi nodded. “I used a special tactical team to handle it. From the moment he drove up to our border, we had eyes on him. We even had one of our people in the booth, assessing him. He was followed and surveilled all the way to the rendezvous. Not until we were completely sure that it wasn’t some sort of Russian trick did we make contact.”

“And then what?”

“Straight to the airfield and, after guaranteeing he was clean of any hidden electronic devices, we brought him back to Oslo via private jet.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” she replied, taking another sip of wine, before asking, “How did you know we had him?”

“Holidae didn’t say.”

“Did you ask her?”

Harvath nodded. “All she said was that the intelligence was solid.”

“It would appear that both the Russians and the Americans each have at least one spy inside the Norwegian Intelligence Service. That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not. What do you want to do?”

“I want to do my job and complete Grechko’s debrief.”

“Here?” Harvath asked.

“Why not?”

“Because by now, the NIS already knows you and Grechko are missing. They are going to stop at nothing to find you. That means interviewing your friends and colleagues, several of whom spent time with us here over the summer. I give it twenty-four hours tops before someone is sent to check out the cottage.”

“Damn it,” Sølvi muttered in frustration.

Harvath tried to reassure her. “You’ve got a protocol, right? A PACE plan. Primary, alternate, contingency, emergency order of communications?”

She looked at him. “There is no protocol, no PACE plan when your agency has been compromised. I have no idea who I can trust.”

“I hear you. But none of this is your fault, okay?”

“This was my assignment. I’m responsible. Foreverything.”

“Shit happens. Sometimes it can be really bad. Missions go sideways. You were a soldier. You know that. Even if you did fuck up somewhere, none of that matters now. You got Grechko out of there, you’re both alive, and you’ve bought yourself a little breathing room. Those are wins.Bigwins. Take them. Keep trusting your instincts. That’s all that matters.”

Sølvi didn’t know how to respond. After another sip of wine, sheglanced over her shoulder, back inside the cottage. Against the light from the fire, she could make out Grechko’s silhouette.

“He’s one of the highest-ranking defectors we’ve ever had. With what he knows, we’ll be able to set parts of Russian intelligence back decades, if not longer. But that won’t happen if I can’t keep him alive. And right now, I don’t know if I can do that in Norway. Not alone. Not by myself.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not alone,” said Harvath, swirling the wine in his glass and taking a drink.

Grechko was a massive get for the Norwegians and, by extension, for NATO and all its allied partners. He wasn’t going to let Sølvi fail.

In fact, he had already begun formulating possible next steps in his mind. That was who he was. When he saw a problem, he charged right after it and fixed it. Or he smashed it into so many little pieces that it wasn’t a problem anymore. But Sølvi’s approach was different.

She was more measured, more of a tactician. If she had to, she could apply brute force to a problem. Before that, however, she methodically ran through each and every scenario—sifting, weighing, and then rejecting whatever didn’t give her the highest possible chance for success. It was one of the biggest reasons he thought she would turn out to be a better spy than he was. She had figured out how to weaponize both her intelligenceandher patience.

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