He unslung the backpack from his shoulder and casually carried it with one hand. Near the entrance to a Greek restaurant was a large sandwich board. It had a picture of a Greek fisherman holding a blackboard upon which the evening’s specials had been scrawled. Setting the bag on the ground near the opening of the tent-like sign he read the menu from top to bottom. Then he peered around to see what was written on the other side. As he did, he used his foot to nudge his bag underneath.

“May I help you?” asked the restaurant’s owner in a haughty tone.

“Do you serve couscous?” Ressam asked.

The owner dropped his voice, grabbed Ressam by the arm, and guided him off the curb and into the street. “Does this look like a fucking couscous restaurant to you, asshole? Go find someplace else to pick pockets. Get lost.”

The owner turned back to his guests and smiled. “No problem, no problem,” he said with a laugh. “Gypsies. Very bad.”

Ressam kept his temper in check and walked to the end of the block. Turning the corner, he stepped into a doorway, lit a cigarette, and watched the final seconds tick down on his watch.

The explosion was deafening. From his vantage point, he saw a cloud of smoke belched from the end of the street and watched as debris from his primary device rained down from above. As soon as the ringing in his ears started to abate, he could hear the sound of people screaming.

Leaving the security of the doorway, he walked back around the corner. His handler had been very specific about this part. He was so very close now. He needed to fight his urge to rush right in. Let it happen, he had been told. Be patient. It was much easier said than done.

Ressam was certain that at any moment someone would point him out and yell, “That’s him! He’s the one who placed the bag at the Greek restaurant.”

It was a foolish fear. Nobody was looking at him at all. Everyone was rushing to the scene of the blast. All of the other restaurants were emptying out as people ran to see what had happened. They were like moths, drawn to the flame. In the distance, he could already hear sirens.

As he neared the restaurant, he could see the carnage firsthand. Tables were overturned, windows were blown out, bodies were everywhere. And there was blood. Oh, so much blood! Blood that had been shed for Allah and all of the world’s Muslims. God was indeed great. So great indeed. Allahuakbar, he thought. Allahuakbar.

And then he began saying it. Quietly at first, but raising his voice as he moved closer to the crowd that now numbered at least two hundred people.

“Allahuakbar!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

People heard the Islamic war cry and screamed, but it was too late. Samir Ressam took his finger off the detonator and completed his masterpiece.

CHAPTER 26

Harvath had wanted to put as much distance between himself and Cannes as possible. Despite playing dumb with the man’s wife, he knew who Nikolai Nekrasov was. Considering all of his ties to organized crime, it didn’t surprise him one bit that he had a lowlife like Gaston Leveque working for him.

At the Palais des Festivals, Harvath had pulled into the underground parking garage where he had earlier left his Citroën. After having wiped his prints from the Saleen, he had grabbed his pack, turned over the keys, and had said good-bye to Eva Nekrasova.

At the ticket booth, she had blown him a kiss and had roared away toward the center of town. Harvath had let two cars pull out after her and had then exited the structure. Looking up, he had seen no sign of Nekrasov’s helicopter and so had pointed his Citroën toward Marseille.

He made the drive in under two hours and took a room at the Sofitel near the Vieux Port. The valets seemed distracted as did the front desk staff when he checked in.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“There has been a series of suicide bombings in Paris,” the clerk replied.

The minute he got into his room, he turned on the TV. There had been bombings at major tourist attractions across the city. Footage was being played of the devastation at the Eiffel Tower, along the Champs Élysées, at Montmartre, and near Notre Dame. The facts were still sketchy, but there was talk of primary and secondary detonations. It was a favorite tactic of Islamic terrorists to detonate a primary device in order to draw in further victims and first responders, and to then detonate a second, more powerful blast.

French news services were speculating whether the attacks were related to the bus bombing in Rome and placed the death toll in the hundreds. Though many of the victims were tourists, locals had also been killed. It was being described as the French 9/11.

Harvath stood at the foot of his bed still holding his backpack. He had no doubt this attack was tied to the Rome bombing. He also felt responsible. He knew he shouldn’t, but he did. The Old Man was going to be very angry. Harvath owed him a phone call, but before he spoke with his boss, he wanted to speak with Nicholas.

Setting his pack on the desk, he opened up the minibar. He grabbed a small bottle of whiskey, twisted off the metal cap, and poured it into a glass. Removing one of his clean cell phones, he powered it up and dialed the number for the Troll’s satellite phone.

“You heard about Paris?” Nicholas asked. Ever fearful of the NSA’s voice-printing capabilities, he was running the call through a special program on his laptop. The voice sounded robotic. There was a slight delay, along with an echo as it went up to the satellite and bounced back down.

“We were too late,” said Harvath.

“We couldn’t have stopped it.”

“We could have and we should have.”

“There are going to be more,” replied Nicholas. “Trust me. Let’s focus on stopping those. We cannot bring these people back.”

Harvath took a sip of his drink. “Tell me about Tony Tsui.”

“That’s who hired Leveque?”

“Yes. Who is he?”

“He is a second-rate, digital pimp. That’s who he is.”

“So you know him.”

“Unfortunately, I do,” answered the little man. “But this is all starting to fit. When the assassin he hired failed to report back in, he proceeded right to the next step in his plan.”

“Which was implicating you in the Rome bombing.”

“Exactly.”

“Why would he want you killed?”

“I’m his leading source of competition.”

“Tsui is in the intelligence business?” asked Harvath.

“Tsui is barely a step above a peeping Tom, and not a very high step either. He’s pure scum. He’d sell out his own mother if it meant a couple of bucks in his pocket. He has been trying to fish from my pond for years.”

“But why attempt to kill you now?”

The Troll was silent as he tried to fit the pieces together. “I sold him a piece of information recently.”

“How recently?”

“In the last year.”

“And that was the last time you communicated with him?”

“It’s not like the man is on my Christmas card list.”

Harvath took another sip of his drink. “What was the information you sold him?”

“Normally,” replied the Troll, “I don’t kiss and tell, but in this case I have no problem filling you in. It was the location of a secret military base in Mongolia run by the PLA.”

“What did he want with a secret base run by the Chinese military?”

“It was for a client.”

“Did he say who the client was?”

“As unprofessional as Tsui is, he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

Harvath was having trouble connecting the dots. “What’s the base used for?”

Nicholas exhaled loudly. “I’ve got no idea.”

“How about Tsui? Does he know?”

“Maybe. Maybe his client knows. All I brought to the party was the location.”

“And Tsui paid you for that information?” asked Harvath.