Page 34 of Edge of Honor

“So what are you going to do?” she had asked. That was when he had laid out his plan in its entirety.

While she wasn’t crazy about the idea, she agreed with him. Rogers had no other option. This was the way it had to be done. “How can I help?”

Harvath reached out across the table and took her hand. “Remember what you said to me, right before we got married, when I had those back-to-back-to-back assignments? Afghanistan, India, and then dropping behind the Russian lines in Ukraine?”

“I told you that the only thing I cared about was for you to come back safely.”

“Exactly. And now, that’s what I want. Just focus on your assignment and come back safely.”

“I will. As long as you promise to do the same.”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “And when we’re done, we’re going to have a wonderful Fourth of July.”

Smiling, she leaned over the table and kissed him. He kissed her back.

But as they kissed, the dark clouds that used to follow them in their professional lives—the danger, the deceit, the constant fear of betrayal—seemed to mass again, a silent reminder that their return to the field might come at a cost that neither of them was willing to pay.

CHAPTER 16

FBI HEADQUARTERS

Once they were in the car, it was a straight shot up Seventh Street. They made a left at the National Archives onto Pennsylvania Avenue and then a right onto Ninth, passing through security and pulling into the Bureau’s underground parking garage only eight minutes after leaving the Wharf.

Considering D.C. traffic, they’d made excellent time, largely due to the fact that Carolan had rolled through more than one red light in order to get them back so quickly.

A bonus of the new basement office was that they were able to bypass the main lobby. Gallo had updated their electronic access cards so that they could enter directly from the garage. It not only saved time, but it also cut down on bumping into other agents and having to make small talk.

Back at his desk, Carolan removed a ruggedized laptop and plugged an Ethernet cable into it.

“Is that your personal computer?” Fields asked, knowing that the IT division went apeshit over personal devices being connected to the FBI’s network.

“Negative,” said Carolan, powering it up. “It’s technically a loaner from Cyber Crimes.”

“Why do you saytechnically?”

“A, because they don’t know they loaned it to me. And B, because I’ve got no plans to give it back.”

Fields smiled. “Look at all the rules you’re breaking today. I’m really liking this one-foot-out-the-door Joe Carolan.”

“Don’t get too excited,” he admonished her. “Gallo swung the notebook for me.”

“Why not just requisition one from tech services? Why the subterfuge?”

“Because these are used for surfing the Dark Web. They’re loaded up with a bunch of special software to prevent them from being tracked and they access the internet via a completely separate system than the Bureau uses for its day-to-day operations.”

“So what’s this have to do with an MMA fight in Vegas and the tattoo you saw in the morgue?”

“Almost everything the Russians have been doing to influence the United States has been online. Troll farms, bots, websites made to appear American, etc. Last summer, in a suburb of Dallas, they established an online content creation company and spent over ten million dollars in a scheme to create and distribute media to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.

“They spent a good chunk of their cash on high-profile, online political influencers—running ads on their podcasts and paying them to amplify certain Russia-friendly messages. They also paid them to take stances on various political issues, as well as having them advocate for and against a range of political candidates. The more water they carried, the more they got paid. TikTok, Instagram, X, YouTube, you name the platform and it was awash with Russian propaganda cooked up by this group.

“Eventually, they got nailed and were shut down by the DOJ. The company’s principals were arrested and brought up on federal charges—the bulk of which asserted that they had been running a covert Russian operation meant to illegally manipulate American public opinion by sowing discord and division.

“Ultimately this effort failed, but it was an evolution. Like the velociraptors inJurassic Parklearning how to operate the doorknobs. They had gone from trying to appear like Americans in order to spread their propaganda, to just paying Americans to do it for them.

“No matter how you look at it, it was a huge step forward. TheRussians had hit upon a new strategy and were eager to capitalize on it. We, however, were on to them.

“They couldn’t run the same scam again, at least not right away, because they knew we were going to be watching for it. So they needed to figure something else out. They needed to find another way to reach American ‘influencers’ who would not just embrace but unwittingly spread Russian propaganda.

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