Page 94 of Shadow of Doubt

“What about the special items I asked for?”

“Very difficult to come by, especially on short notice, but we got them. It’s all waiting at the safehouse.”

If Powell had, in fact, rounded up everything on his list, Harvath was going to recommend the man for a promotion. Though he didn’t know how much better one could do than Paris station chief. It had to be one of the best assignments Langley had going.

At Porte Dauphine, they got off the Périphérique and drove down the broad, apartment-block-lined Boulevard Lannes and past the Russian Embassy.

In a city of such striking architectural beauty, the Russian Embassy was positively ugly. It was even worse than the FBI’s headquarters in Washington.

Built in the brutalist style, the embassy was a three-story concrete monstrosity that took up an entire city block. Not only was it ringed with an iron fence, but the French police had erected barricades so that pedestrians, and more than likely protestors, couldn’t access the sidewalk. There was plenty of security, including cameras and uniformed law enforcement officers.

The narrow streets on each side had been closed to through traffic and were posted with manned checkpoints.

Drawing Harvath’s attention to the first checkpoint, Powell explained, “The embassy has an underground parking structure. Vehicles exit from the rear of the building and come out here.”

“There isn’t a road in back?” Harvath asked.

“There is, but it’s been closed off as well. The city even went so far as to build concrete embankments back there. Essentially, three out of the four streets surrounding the embassy are off-limits to anyone but embassy personnel. To get in or out, you have to go through a police checkpoint.”

“I don’t see any parking along here. How are we going to have eyes on in order to know if they turn left or right?”

Powell smiled and pointed out the Piscine Henry de Montherlant across the street. “Public pool. We’ve got a hidden camera up on the roof. It allows us to monitor who comes and goes. You’ll be parked about a block over. As soon as Elovik’s car leaves, I’ll let you know if he’s headed north or south.”

“What about CCTV cameras in the park? Are we going to have to be concerned about those?”

Powell shook his head. “The Bois de Boulogne is over two thousand acres. That’s two and a half times the size of Central Park. They would need an army to watch that many cameras.”

“So their answer is no cameras at all?”

“In the city proper, where they’re worried about terrorism, they’ve grudgingly given way to more and more cameras. But out in the woods, on the edge of the city? It’s highly unlikely that it would be a terrorist target, so they figure why bother?”

Harvath couldn’t argue with that logic. Until AI had completely taken over and was watching everything, all the time, human-monitored cameras only made sense in areas where they were actually needed.

He supposed he should be grateful. Even New York City had invested in cameras for Central Park. Granted, they were placed strategically at entrances around the perimeter, but they were still there, always recording. And the software system the NYPD and the Department of Homeland Security used to tap into and analyze feeds from across the city was downright scary. It was like something out of a sci-fi movie. He didn’t know how younger spies were going to be able to ply their trade in a few years.

The good thing about his Bois de Boulogne plan, however, was that even if he and his team were spotted, it wouldn’t matter. They were going to be perfectly disguised.

Powell entered the park and, one by one, showed Harvath the three different bridges and the routes the military attaché and his bodyguards might take. Then they crossed the river and drove past Elovik’s house in Suresnes. From there it was less than five klicks to the CIA safehouse in Nanterre.

When they arrived, Harvath was impressed. It was an old, out-of-business auto shop and looked like an absolute shithole.

The front of the property had a high, graffiti-covered wall, topped with barbed wire. Removing a remote from under his armrest, the station chief retracted the metal security gate, revealing a small outer parking area and a squat commercial building with three service bays.

“What do you think?” he asked, as the other two vehicles followed them in.

“I think you knocked it out of the park,” Harvath replied.

“Good. There are a couple additional features that I’ll show you once we get inside.”

Climbing out of Powell’s Citroen, Harvath took in the sight lines. They were in some sort of warehouse district and none of the structures were high enough to let anyone observe what they were up to. Once the front gate had closed, they were all but invisible to the outside world.

As the team got out and started unloading their gear, Harvath followed the station chief into the shop. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz, but it didn’t need to be.

Despite being old and run-down, it was at least clean. There was a closet-sized bathroom with a toilet and sink, a break room with a couch, table, small fridge, microwave, and coffeemaker, and a parts area that had been converted into sleeping quarters with several cheap bunk beds.

The pièce de résistance was down a narrow flight of stairs, beneath the shop. There the Agency had set up a makeshift interrogation chamber.

High-intensity construction lights, portable DJ speakers, a stainless-steel surgical table, ten-gallon water jugs, pulley systems mounted to the ceiling—they hadn’t missed a thing. Right down to the lone metal chair in the center of the space—it was all there.

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