Page 125 of Spymaster

“I’ve got good news,” Ryan replied, “and then I’ve got good news. Which do you want first?”

“How about we start with the good news?” he said, smiling.

“Nicholas knocked it out of the park. He publicly exposed every fake Twitter and Facebook account that the Russians, through their hacker group Fancy Bear, were using to stir up dissent. He also managed to insert an undercover-style journalism team into the Troll Factory with hidden cameras.

“All of the television stations in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are running specials exposing how the Russians were trying to weaken them from within.”

“His sleeves are short, but there’s always something up them.”

Ryan laughed and continued. “As you know, as soon as you dropped off Tretyakov, Vella went to work on him.”

“How has that been going?”

“Very well. He has been able to extract a lot of information about how they had planned to invade the Baltics.”

“Had planned?”asked Harvath. “Past tense?”

“The Russians have canceled their training exercise and are actively repositioning much of their military equipment out of the theater.”

“They know we have Tretyakov.”

“They know someone has him,” Ryan replied. “And that’s all that matters. Based on what we have passed along to SHAPE, NATO is already taking steps to shore up the weak points the Russians had planned to exploit in the Baltics.”

“That’s great news.”

Ryan agreed. “Yes it is. You and your team did a fantastic job. But before we celebrate, there’s a bookkeeping item we need to discuss.”

“What is it?”

“Chase and Sloane’s expense report from Belarus.”

“What about it?” Harvath asked, slowly remembering that this was a part of his job he really didn’t care for.

“They were supposed to pretend to steal the crates of alleged missile upgrade kits and then use the Old Man’s contact to smuggle them into Belarus.”

“Which they did.”

“Did you know that after dumping the bricks we used to weigh down the crates, they took all the smugglers out for champagne and steak dinners in Minsk?” she asked.

Harvath laughed. “I didn’t know that, but good for them. We should give them a bonus for initiative. That’s a valuable relationship we need to maintain.”

Ryan didn’t necessarily disagree. Faking the theft of the missile upgrade kits had been a key part of their strategy. Allowing the Russians to see the U.S. and Baltic Ambassadors in a heated exchange at the UN was also part of their plan.

It was all over now, though. The ends, as Chase had said back in Kaliningrad, had justified the means. Their assignment was to avert an Article 5—and by all accounts they had done that.

“There’s one other thing,” said Ryan, as she removed a sheet of paper and slid it across the table to him.

“What’s this?”

“The names of every cell leader across Europe in the People’s Revolutionary Front organization.”

“Tretyakov gave this up?” he asked.

“It came direct from the Solarium,” Ryan confirmed. “The list is yours if you want. Full expense account. No time limit.”

Harvath looked at the names and the list of European cities. Then he lifted his head looked out the window at Lara.

“I’ll take it,” he said.