Brad Thor - Foreign Influence

The bar was noisy and crowded with students who were not paying attention to their belongings. He was in and out in less than five minutes.

He walked back with his backpack slung over his shoulder, and using the access card he had just liberated, entered the building Tsui’s data was being fed in and out of. He found a directory and located the lab he was looking for. Students came and went. No one paid him much attention.

When he arrived at the lab, its door was locked. He tried his access card, but it didn’t work. After checking the hallway to make sure no one was coming, he removed a set of lockpick tools from his pack. Harvath preferred lockpick guns, but was able to get the door open in a respectable amount of time.

Slipping inside, he closed the door quietly behind him. The room was nothing special and exactly what he had expected. Rows of tables with computers faced a long wall at the other end of the room complete with blackboards, a retractable projection screen, a lectern, and a desk. Off to the right-hand side was a pod of offices.

Harvath made his way forward. There were at least fifty computers in the room, any of which could have been the one designated to send and receive Tsui’s message traffic.

At the front of the room, Harvath saw that a message had been taped to each of the blackboards. It was written in French and English. It was dated one week ago and listed funeral arrangements for Professor Lars Jagland, as well as an announcement to his students that classes would resume with his teaching assistant on Monday. There was no explanation as to how the man had died, but Harvath had a pretty good feeling it wasn’t an accident.

The door to the offices was unlocked and Harvath walked through. He studied the nameplates and decided to start with Jagland’s.

His office was clean and sparsely decorated. Bookshelves and a small desk took up much of the room. There were no photos and no personal effects anywhere. On the wall near the window were two blank spots where artwork must have once hung.

Harvath took out his cell phone and stepped behind the desk. Dialing Nicholas, he fired up Jagland’s computer.

“What have you got?” asked the Troll.

“There are about fifty desktop computers in the lab. There was also a notice about funeral services for a Professor Lars Jagland. Does that name ring a bell with you?”

“No, but I’m running it now. While I do that, I want you to ping the e-mail address I gave you.”

“It’s asking me for a password before it will allow me on the system,” replied Harvath.

“Hold on. Let me see what I can do.”

“There’s three other offices here. If you want me to check those computers, I’ll probably also need passwords for them. But something tells me, Jagland is our guy.”

“Lars Jagland, Ph.D.,” replied the Troll, who had just pulled his obituary. “Norwegian citizen age fifty-eight. Expert in the field of computational complexity theory and professor of same at the University of Geneva, at least until he was killed in a car accident just over a week ago.”

“Any family?”

“The obit I’ve got here doesn’t recognize any.”

Harvath was about to ask Nicholas to see if he could uncover an address for Jagland’s home when suddenly he heard a woman’s voice.

“What are you doing in this office? Who are you?”

“Let me call you back,” said Harvath as he disconnected the call and stood up. Smiling he offered his hand. “I’m sorry. The door was open.”

“I asked you who you are,” the woman repeated. She spoke English, but with a Germanic accent of some sort. She was in her early thirties, about five-foot-four with brown hair and trendy glasses. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

“My name’s Jeff Hemmings. Who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Jagland’s teaching assistant. What are you doing in his office?”

“We had a meeting scheduled,” said Harvath.

The woman looked at him and her posture softened a bit. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Dr. Jagland was killed in a car accident.”

“When?”

“The week before last.”

“I had no idea.”

“The funeral was yesterday,” she said. “I’m taking over until the university finds a replacement. Classes resume tomorrow.”

Harvath stepped out from behind the desk. “And you came in to prepare and here I am.”

“Yes. Here you are. What is it you were supposed to meet with Dr. Jagland about?”

“I work for American Express. Dr. Jagland approached us about a project he thought our fraud-monitoring department would be interested in. We were supposed to meet here and go for dinner. He told me to dress casual.”

The teaching assistant smiled. “You’re a liar.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re after Michael, aren’t you?”

“Who’s Michael?” asked Harvath.

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. But I have to tell you that anyone who knows him won’t be surprised.”

“Why is that?” he said, curious as to where this was leading.

“He’s nothing more than an overeducated hacker.”

Bingo.

“He’s incredibly rude as well,” the woman continued, “and to tell you the truth, I don’t know what Dr. Jagland saw in him. Love is blind, I guess.”

“So they were-”

The teaching assistant nodded. “Disgusting, isn’t it? Dr. Jagland was easily at least thirty years older than him. Why he couldn’t find a boyfriend his own age is beyond me. So what did Michael do?”

“It’s delicate,” replied Harvath. “I’d rather not get into it.”

“He finally went too far. I’m not surprised. Are you going to arrest him?”

“Possibly. We have to find him first. Any idea where he might be?”

“He didn’t even come to the funeral.”

“That sounds strange.”

“It’s typical, selfish Michael. Afterward, we all went out for a couple of drinks and went by the house to give him a piece of our mind.”

“The house?” asked Harvath.

“Dr. Jagland’s house. He and Michael lived together. But Michael wasn’t there. It looked like he hadn’t been there for a little bit.”

“Any idea where he might be now?”

The teaching assistant thought for a moment and then said, “The chalet, I guess.”

“Do you have an address you can give me?”

The woman pulled out her iPhone and began going through her folders. “We celebrated Dr. Jagland’s birthday there over the winter. Here’s a picture of the place,” she said, holding up her phone so Harvath could see it. “Cute, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he agreed.

“Here’s a picture of Michael too.”

Harvath looked at him and he was exactly as Nicholas had so poorly described. “If I give you my e-mail, can you send those pictures to me?”

“As long as you promise you won’t tell Michael I gave them to you.”

“You don’t need to worry. Michael and I have a lot of other things we need to discuss.”

“Good,” said the assistant with a laugh. “I really hope he gets what’s coming to him.”

Lars Jagland’s chalet was located in a small village in the mountains two hours outside of Geneva.

Harvath and Peio had picked up Nicholas, who insisted on bringing Argos and Draco along. It was turning into a circus, but Harvath grudgingly agreed.

The fact that Tsui had set Nicholas up to take the fall for the attack in Rome had bothered him from the beginning. It didn’t make sense. Why not let the terrorists take credit for the operation? It was obviously meant to be a distraction, but from what? Another attack? Was it meant to somehow help the terrorists pull off their Paris operation by siphoning away investigative resources? Or, was there another reason entirely?