Page 76 of Shadow of Doubt

The best thing about Muse was that it was a vintage building that had been updated and added on to over the years. In a previous life, back when Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat was a fishing village, it had been a cannery.

The frosted windows of the men’s and women’s bathrooms opened onto a narrow gangway, which led to a service area where fresh fish used to be offloaded from boats in the port and brought in for processing. It wasn’t exactly the balcony fromRomeo and Juliet,but it was better than trying to hide a man and a woman in the same stall at a busy, popular restaurant.

Entering the men’s room, Harvath waited for one guy at the urinal and another at the sink to leave, before knocking on the door of Grechko’s stall.

When the Russian unlocked it, Harvath stepped inside, and then closed and locked the door behind him.

Hopping up onto the toilet, he carefully swung the window open, and after checking to make sure the coast was clear, pulled himself through and dropped down into the gangway.

There was a pallet nearby and he propped it against the wall to provide Grechko with a makeshift ladder.

Once the Russian was in the gangway, Harvath pulled out his phone and swiped to the camera feature to record a video.

“Short and sweet. Got it?” he asked.

Grechko nodded and Harvath began recording. A few seconds later, it was done. He checked to make sure the audio was intelligible and then, grabbing the pallet, walked down to the window for the ladies’ room, where he texted Ashby.

Having seen the dress that Inessa was wearing, he was glad that he had set things up the way he had. There was no way she could have climbeddown into the gangway. Leaning the pallet against the wall, he texted the video to Eva.

Once the message had been sent, all he and Grechko could do was to be patient and wait. She was either going to come, or she wasn’t.

As far as Harvath was concerned, the only thing better than her showing up and telling Grechko she wanted nothing to do with him would be her choosing not to show up at all. Both of those outcomes would make his night a lot easier.Easier,however, didn’t appear as if it was going to be in the cards for him.

Moments later, he heard the window of the women’s room being opened. Looking up, he saw Ashby poke her head out. When he flashed her the thumbs-up, she returned the gesture and disappeared back inside.

Harvath stood back so Grechko could climb the pallet and be as close to eye to eye as possible with the woman who had now taken Ashby’s place in the window.

Before the defector had even started speaking, Harvath knew what Inessa’s answer was going to be. He could see it just by looking at her.

After Eva had shown her the video, it must have taken every ounce of self-control she had to calmly get up from the table and walk slowly back to the ladies’ room.

Instantly, their hands reached out for each other’s. Inessa was overcome with emotion.

“How did you find me?” she asked in Russian, tears welling up in her eyes.

Grechko explained that they didn’t have much time and launched into his speech. Harvath, though he spoke a little Russian, could only pick up a few words here and there. The defector was speaking very quickly.

When he came to the end of what he had to say, Inessa Surkova didn’t need to ponder her answer. She had rehearsed it in the quiet of her heart a million times. “Etogo ya i zh?a?a,” she replied, the tears now streaming down her face.This is what I have been waiting for.“Ya ne mogu predstavit’ svoyu zhizn’ bez tebya.”I can’t imagine my life without you.

Inessa had a ton of questions, especially as she was supposed to leavefor Russia in the morning. Grechko explained that the details were still being worked out and that Eva would be their go-between.

Harvath looked at his watch and motioned to wrap it up. If Inessa was gone too long, her security team would start getting suspicious.

They kissed and she disappeared back inside the ladies’ room. Ashby closed the window and locked it from the inside as Grechko hopped down off the pallet.

The man was overjoyed. “Thank you,” he exclaimed, pumping Harvath’s hand.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Harvath replied, trying to temper his expectations. “That was the easy part. From this point forward, things are going to get a lot more dangerous.”

CHAPTER 36

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Maggie wasn’t used to Conroy popping his head into her office. Normally he summoned her to his. But with the situation in Belarus as it was, everyone at the CIA was on edge. Moving around, checking on other departments, conversing with “the troops,” were all ways Conroy dealt with the stress.

“May I come in?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied. Putting the cap back on the highlighter she’d been using, she returned it to the mug that held the rest of her pens. It had been a gift, years ago, from her husband. Upon it was printed an inside joke,If you can’t say anything nice, say it in Russian.

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