The property was at the end of a gravel road in the Belgian countryside, halfway between the Brussels South Airport in Charleroi and NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons.
“What is this place?” Jasinski asked as they approached.
“It’s a rental,” said Harvath. “Belongs to a Belgian businessman. He was transferred to Thailand with his family. We found it online.”
As their car neared the gates, two serious-looking men materialized on the other side. After confirming the driver was Harvath, they unfastened the lock and opened the gates so the vehicle could enter.
Though they were wearing jackets, Jasinski had no doubt they were armed. Both had earpieces.
“Pool boy and the gardener?” she asked.
Harvath smiled as he drove forward into the motor court and parked.
Getting out of the car, he introduced the two men. “Monika Jasinski, I’d like you to meet Jack Gage and Matt Morrison.”
Gage, who looked to be in his forties, was an enormous man. He stood six-foot-three with a thick, dark beard and had a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth.
Morrison was a few inches shorter and several years younger. He looked to be in his early thirties and stood about five-foot-eleven. He offered his hand first and Monika shook it, followed by Gage’s. When he extended his hand, she could see a paperback novel tucked inside his coat.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
“The Terminal List. It’s a thriller by a guy named Jack Carr,” Gage answered.
“Any good?”
“Considering the author is a former SEAL and can even string his sentences together, it’s amazing.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Monika saw Harvath raise his middle finger and use it to massage his left temple. There appeared to be a little interservice rivalry going on here.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You’re Army?”
Gage nodded. “Was. Fifth Special Forces Group.”
“Which makes the fact that he can read even more amazing,” jibed Morrison.
That got a laugh out of Jasinski. “And you?” she asked.
“United States Marine Corps,” he replied with an Alabama drawl. “Recon.”
“Where the motto is,” said Gage, “when you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, just riddle them with bullets.”
Jasinski laughed again.
“You don’t have to laugh,” Harvath deadpanned, though it was pleasant to see her smile for the first time. “Their jokes aren’t that good.”
In unison, both Gage and Morrison raised a middle finger and began massaging their temples.
Harvath shook his head. “Are you two joining us for lunch?”
“We couldn’t get a reservation,” replied Morrison.
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” offered Gage. “Your chef’s a little too temperamental for my taste.”
Harvath shook his head once more as he led Jasinski away from the car.
In addition to the main structure, there was a garage and a small stone guesthouse. She was studying its tiny windows when the door opened and an equally tiny man, accompanied by two enormous white dogs, stepped out.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s my secret weapon,” said Harvath. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
The moment the two dogs saw Harvath, they began wagging their tails. They never left the little man’s side, though, until he whispered some sort of a command and they raced forward.
“Five minutes or five months,” stated Harvath, scratching them behind the ears. “It’s always the same welcome.”
“I’m beginning to believe they like you more than me,” said the little man, as his small boots crunched across the gravel motor court.
He couldn’t have been more than three feet tall. His salt-and-pepper hair was long enough to be swept back behind his ears. He had a neatly trimmed beard and wore jeans and an Irish fisherman’s sweater.
“Nicholas,” he offered, sticking his hand up so she could shake it.
“Pleased to meet you,” replied Jasinski, bending down. “I’m Monika.”
“Are you hungry, Monika?”
“I am.”
“Good, because lunch is ready. Let’s go inside.”
When Harvath had called her for lunch, this wasn’t what she had expected. They had each left Norway the same way they had arrived — separately. NATO had arranged for her to hop a ride on a military transport. Harvath had remained behind for a day with Carl Pedersen. He wanted to see what, if anything, the Norwegian forensics team pulled from the ashes of the cabin. It turned out to be a bust.
As Harvath was a special consultant to SHAPE, Jasinski had assumed he and anyone working with him would have been issued offices on the Mons campus. Stepping into the guesthouse, she realized these were his offices.
The building had low ceilings with exposed timber beams. Taped to the plaster walls were countless maps, photographs, and computer-printed documents. There was a large whiteboard with notes in multiple colors of dry-erase marker. Makeshift desks held rugged laptops or keyboards and large monitors. In the corner stood a rack of hard drives. Multiple muted, flat-panel television sets were tuned to different twenty-four-hour news channels.
This wasn’t a domicile. It was a control center. And at that moment, she knew her hunch was correct about who the little man was.
The Troll was infamous in intelligence circles. He was a purveyor of highly sensitive, often classified information. He bought it, sold it, traded it, and stole it. He had an amazing list of clients around the world and an equally amazing list of enemies. The intel he trafficked in had been used to disrupt covert operations, blackmail politicians, and bring down governments.
“You’re the—” she began.
“Not anymore,” he replied, cutting her off as he climbed onto a stepstool to reach the stove in the open kitchen — the smells from which were delicious. “Now, I’m just Nicholas.”
She noticed he spoke English with a slight accent. “You’re working with the Americans?”
“I am an American,” he beamed. “Recently minted.”
“I give up,” she said. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Don’t worry,” said Nicholas as he lifted the lids off several pots and pans and began plating their lunch. “It will eventually make sense.”
“Or it won’t,” said Harvath as he examined a new photograph that had been added to the wall.
Jasinski lowered her voice. “Is he always like that?”
“Like what?”
“Such an asshole.”
The little man smiled. “He’s just testing you.”
“For what?”
“He doesn’t like people who blindly follow orders. He wants you to think for yourself, to think outside the box. Don’t worry, he’s a Teddy bear.”
“I heard that,” Harvath replied from the living room.
The little man smiled at her and, nodding at the plates, asked for her help in carrying everything out to the table.
He then encouraged Harvath and Jasinski to sit, while he fished a bottle of white Burgundy out of the fridge.
“I actually found a very nice 2014,” he said, bringing the bottle over and handing it to Harvath, along with a corkscrew.
Harvath looked at his watch. As long as they didn’t open a second, they’d be okay. It might also help to further take the edge off of Jasinski.
He had decided to read her in, and a lot of it was going to come as a shock.
CHAPTER 14
For a man of such small stature, Nicholas’s appetites far outstripped his size. One of his most troubling predilections, at least from a security standpoint, had been Nicholas’s appetite for women. Because of his primordial dwarfism, he had been accustomed to paying for sex. And not just any kind of sex.