would have found a way to work around Malevsky. Unfortunately, this wasn’t any other situation. There wasn’t a workaround. The path to Baseyev went straight through Mikhail Malevsky. He was the bad actor. They had no other choice than to take the chain off Harvath and trust him to do what he did best.
And what he did best was get results. No matter how much security or protection Malevsky had, Harvath would get to him. Where things went from there was entirely up to him. But considering the Russian’s background, Harvath didn’t expect him to be cooperative.
Based on the phone number from Eichel, Nicholas had been able to track Malevsky to a picturesque village in the Bavarian Alps called Berchtesgaden. The house wasn’t hard to find. It was a massive stone hunting lodge, painted lemon yellow, with its own private drive and wrought iron gates.
There was a F OR S ALE sign in front. A check of German property rec-ords indicated that a real estate investment company two hours away in Munich owned it.
In addition to a twelve-million-dollar price tag, the home had a twelve-million-dollar view. It looked south over the valley toward the third-highest mountain in Germany, the Watzmann. Its jagged peaks still covered in snow, the rolling Alpine meadows below it were filled with spring flowers.
Towering above the village was a mountain known as the Hoher Göll. Along its rocky sweep, Adolf Hitler had built his expensive vacation residence, the Berghof.
The village itself was a beautiful symphony of pastel-colored buildings, sloped cobblestone streets, and pitched rooftops. Here and there, hand-painted murals depicted traditional Bavarian life. Centuries-old church steeples soared skyward.
The Aga Khan, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Neville Chamberlain had all passed through Berchtesgaden to visit Hitler. Mussolini, Goering, and Goebbels had come too. Now Mikhail Malevsky was calling the village home.
It was hard to imagine that a place of such beauty could play host to such evil. Harvath, though, knew better.
He knew that evil could exist anywhere. And that evil was attracted to beauty. It was like a magnet and he had always wondered why.
He guessed it was because evil was incapable of creating anything. It only destroyed. And beauty, being the ultimate creation, was prized and desired by evil above everything but power.
Beauty was a prize, a pet—an illusion, meant to fool the rest of the world into believing evil was something else. It was why truly evil men craved it. It was an addiction that radiated from the very center of their dark souls. Don’t look at me, lookat this. Now look back at me. See the beauty I am capable of?
Art collections, wives, mistresses, cars, homes, golden guns—even diamond-encrusted motorcycles—evil always wanted more, bigger, brighter, better. It was a self-perpetuating cycle, a need that could never be truly fulfilled. Harvath had seen it over and over again. There was only one, terrifying exception— jihadism .
Islamic fundamentalists rejected beauty. Women were to be kept covered. Depictions of the human form were forbidden. Ornamentation and ostentation also forbidden. Theirs was a monastic fanaticism.
And while their acts of savagery were unquestionably evil, within their own faith, these were seen as pious tributes to God. Their warriors were practicing the truest, most basic form of Islam. It was the Islam that their prophet, considered the perfect man, had taught them. It was the Islam laid out clearly in the Quran. They were not perverting their religion—they were purifying it.
The jihadists believed themselves to be true keepers of the Islamic faith. Their time on this earth was fleeting. Everything they did was in service of their god. How they dressed, how they ate, how they bathed, how they prayed—every action, no matter how small, was a step on the stairway to Paradise. That was where their reward lay.
The greater their acts in honor of Islam were here
And what he did best was get results. No matter how much security or protection Malevsky had, Harvath would get to him. Where things went from there was entirely up to him. But considering the Russian’s background, Harvath didn’t expect him to be cooperative.
Based on the phone number from Eichel, Nicholas had been able to track Malevsky to a picturesque village in the Bavarian Alps called Berchtesgaden. The house wasn’t hard to find. It was a massive stone hunting lodge, painted lemon yellow, with its own private drive and wrought iron gates.
There was a F OR S ALE sign in front. A check of German property rec-ords indicated that a real estate investment company two hours away in Munich owned it.
In addition to a twelve-million-dollar price tag, the home had a twelve-million-dollar view. It looked south over the valley toward the third-highest mountain in Germany, the Watzmann. Its jagged peaks still covered in snow, the rolling Alpine meadows below it were filled with spring flowers.
Towering above the village was a mountain known as the Hoher Göll. Along its rocky sweep, Adolf Hitler had built his expensive vacation residence, the Berghof.
The village itself was a beautiful symphony of pastel-colored buildings, sloped cobblestone streets, and pitched rooftops. Here and there, hand-painted murals depicted traditional Bavarian life. Centuries-old church steeples soared skyward.
The Aga Khan, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Neville Chamberlain had all passed through Berchtesgaden to visit Hitler. Mussolini, Goering, and Goebbels had come too. Now Mikhail Malevsky was calling the village home.
It was hard to imagine that a place of such beauty could play host to such evil. Harvath, though, knew better.
He knew that evil could exist anywhere. And that evil was attracted to beauty. It was like a magnet and he had always wondered why.
He guessed it was because evil was incapable of creating anything. It only destroyed. And beauty, being the ultimate creation, was prized and desired by evil above everything but power.
Beauty was a prize, a pet—an illusion, meant to fool the rest of the world into believing evil was something else. It was why truly evil men craved it. It was an addiction that radiated from the very center of their dark souls. Don’t look at me, lookat this. Now look back at me. See the beauty I am capable of?
Art collections, wives, mistresses, cars, homes, golden guns—even diamond-encrusted motorcycles—evil always wanted more, bigger, brighter, better. It was a self-perpetuating cycle, a need that could never be truly fulfilled. Harvath had seen it over and over again. There was only one, terrifying exception— jihadism .
Islamic fundamentalists rejected beauty. Women were to be kept covered. Depictions of the human form were forbidden. Ornamentation and ostentation also forbidden. Theirs was a monastic fanaticism.
And while their acts of savagery were unquestionably evil, within their own faith, these were seen as pious tributes to God. Their warriors were practicing the truest, most basic form of Islam. It was the Islam that their prophet, considered the perfect man, had taught them. It was the Islam laid out clearly in the Quran. They were not perverting their religion—they were purifying it.
The jihadists believed themselves to be true keepers of the Islamic faith. Their time on this earth was fleeting. Everything they did was in service of their god. How they dressed, how they ate, how they bathed, how they prayed—every action, no matter how small, was a step on the stairway to Paradise. That was where their reward lay.
The greater their acts in honor of Islam were here
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