"Brad Thor - Harvath 02 - Path of the Assassin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thor Brad)

feelings of failure. He had come to Switzerland after ChengтАЩs death to lick his
wounds and be with Claudia, but things werenтАЩt turning out as he had hoped.
Harvath rolled over and felt the empty space next to him. It was cold. Claudia had
long since left for her office. Although he wasnтАЩt the sentimental type, it bothered
him that she had stopped doing so many things lately. She had stopped kissing him
good-bye in the morning, had stopped leaving a coffee cup out for him, had stopped
leaving notes in her bathroom, and worst of all, she had stopped trusting him.
When Harvath returned from Hong Kong and Macau, he had expected to be
spending a few days with Claudia at her parentsтАЩ farm in Grindelwald before
Gerhard MinerтАЩs trial started. Instead, Claudia had тАЬdecidedтАЭ that she needed to
spend more time preparing the case and Scot was left in Bern to his own devices.
He knew why she was doing this. No matter how many times he answered her
questions, which began the minute she picked him up at the airport in Zurich, she
just refused to believe him. Claudia didnтАЩt like being stonewalled, nor did Harvath for
that matter, but matters of national security couldnтАЩt be shared, even if two people
were sharing other things, like the same bed.
Though Harvath couldnтАЩt say where he had been and refused to let Claudia look at
his passport, she knew he had been in Asia. She also knew that he was somehow
involved in the killing of Philip Jamek. Jamek would have been useful in her pending
prosecution of Miner, but now he was of no use to anyone.
It pained Harvath to see a rift developing between him and Claudia, but he couldnтАЩt
tell her the truth, not the full truth. He had tried to assure her that heтАЩd had nothing to
do with the killing of Jamek. That much was true. Someone else had wanted Jamek
dead, but why? The Chinese wouldnтАЩt have put a hit out on him. That wouldnтАЩt have
made any sense. Maybe Jamek had double-crossed somebody in one of his arms
deals and the hit was payback. Or maybe it was something else entirely. All Harvath
really knew was that the eyes of the assassin still haunted him.
Whether he had been in Asia, Macau specifically, during JamekтАЩs killing was
classified and something he couldnтАЩt discuss. Claudia would just have to deal with
that. And she did.
She dealt with it by burying herself in her work. After helping Scot rescue the
president and arrest Gerhard Miner, she had been promoted. She was now a
full-fledged prosecutor, her dream come true, and was part of the team that was
going to make sure Gerhard Miner never again walked the streets as a free man.
In a move that stunned the rest of the world, Switzerland had steadfastly refused to
extradite Miner to stand trial in the United States. The Swiss assured the Americans
that they would see to it that justice was done, but that Miner would not be put to
death for his crimes. If found guilty, which the Swiss government assured the United
States was going to happen, he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
With the increased demands placed upon Claudia by her promotion, it had become
obvious to Scot that their hopes for a workable relationship were fading. Harvath
was on a special leave of absence granted by the president, but at some point he
would be expected to return home and take up his new position as director of Secret
Service Operations for the White House. Once that happened, it would be next to
impossible for them to see each other. In both of their occupations, the demands of
career came first and personal lives second. Each had worked too hard to get where
they were to give it all up and move to another country simply for love.
Though Harvath refused to answer many of ClaudiaтАЩs questions, not a day went by
that he didnтАЩt ask for access to Gerhard Miner. The Swiss felt they had cooperated
fully and had provided unprecedented access to Miner already. Teams of