“There they are.” Roger grabbed Will’s forearm, looking down from their vantage point high in an upper balcony inside Zagreb Cathedral. “One’s walking down the central aisle, and the other two are taking positions in the rear of the cathedral.”
Will looked at the large floor area beneath him. There were seated men and women in prayer, groups of tourists, as well as Lana, two members of the Iranian surveillance team, and the three new men whom Roger had identified.
“The fourth member of their team is outside.” Roger’s voice was so hushed that Will could barely hear him.
Saying nothing, Will focused his gaze on Lana. She’d done as he had previously instructed her and positioned herself toward the center of the cathedral floor. While he couldn’t see it from his perch, Will knew that she would be carrying a tourist guide and occasionally referring to it between her observations of the cathedral surroundings. He looked back at the three men, the two Iranians, and then again at Lana. He saw her turn and walk toward the exit. She would now be heading for the Preradovićeva flower market.
“Let’s see what happens,” Roger was saying. “One of the Iranians moves in behind Lana, the other stays where he is, but what are our new friends going to do?”
Will watched the three men and saw one remain motionless while the other two moved deeper into the cathedral, in the opposite direction from where Lana was going.
“Okay.” The CIA paramilitary man continued his narration of the scene unfolding below. “They’re allowing the fourth member of their team to get onto Lana when she’s outside. Their new position also suggests they’re fully aware of the Iranian team around her.”
“But can we tell if the Iranians are aware of these other men?” Will kept his own voice very quiet.
“It depends. If the Iranian and the other three men stay here for more than ten minutes, we can be confident that both teams know about the other and that the Iranian is sending them a message to stay put. But if the Iranian leaves in under that time, it tells us nothing. He could be oblivious to the other men, or he could want the other men to think that the Iranians haven’t spotted them.”
Will and Roger just watched, saying nothing for the next five minutes. Finally Will saw the last Iranian surveillance man walk slowly toward the exit and leave the cathedral. A minute later one of the three men also left, and after a further three minutes the remaining two men followed him.
Roger turned to face him. “We have a very serious situation.”
Will ran his fingers through his hair and thought for a moment. Roger had summoned him to this place after the CIA team leader had spotted not only the fact that the Iranian surveillance team had acquired new members to bolster its head count back up to seven but, more important, that another team of four unknown persons had positioned themselves around Lana this morning. Will knew that his operational use of Lana was now in dire jeopardy.
Roger pulled out his cell phone to read a new message. “I sent Ben to check up on them. They’re French.”
Will frowned. “DGSE?”
Roger nodded once and said, “They must be.”
The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure was France’s equivalent of the CIA and MI6, and it was the only French covert organization authorized by its government to conduct overseas surveillance and other intelligence activities.
“But how the hell did they get onto Lana?” Will’s mind was working rapidly.
“We don’t have the time to be certain,” Roger replied, “but I’d say it started with the discovery of the Iranian surveillance team. We know they’re staying at the Hotel Dubrovnik, so maybe the local DGSE representative in Zagreb has recruited one of the hotel’s reception staff. That person alerts the DGSE man that seven Iranians have just checked into the hotel. The DGSE person wants to find out more about them, so he has his hotel spy look in their rooms. Maybe the hotel gets lucky and finds covert photographs of Lana, but assuming that the Iranian team is better than that, certainly the spy should be able to find bus or train tickets, store or restaurant receipts. That data would show patterns, and those patterns would tell where the Iranian group goes. So our DGSE person looks for the most frequented location and then just waits there. He or she will also choose the location because of visibility and because it is a bottleneck, meaning high levels of exposure for the group. It may not happen on the first day or the second, but odds are the Iranians will come through that place eventually. The DGSE person observes their formation and behavior. He or she establishes with certainty that they’re a surveillance team. If I were in that situation, I’d be able to positively identify which person was the team’s target, so let’s assume that’s what happened.”
“But how would the DGSE person then be able to put a name to the Iranian’s target without following her and thereby risking being compromised to the Iranians?”
“Again, receipts. The Iranian team is holed up in the Hotel Dubrovnik. So how come they’ve got so many of their receipts for mineral water purchased from the Regent Esplanade’s 1925 Lounge? The DGSE person can’t shortcut this process and just go straight there rather than spotting team and target on the street, because a single person in such a small bar, unlike a rotating team, would risk compromise.” Roger seemed certain. “But with a face for the target and without the Iranians around, there are then any number of options. Maybe there’s an on-site Regent concierge to talk to or a loose-lipped after-hours bartender. The DGSE person shows a photograph taken covertly from a bag camera during his street surveillance. Or if not, he just asks about an Arab-looking woman—there’ll be very few in Zagreb compared to Sarajevo, and certainly very few in the Regent. Then it’s not that difficult to put a name to a room, no matter how strict the hotel is about its security procedures.”
“And then they discover that woman in question is a resident of France.”
Roger folded his arms. “And the French intelligence officer therefore decides to put a four-man DGSE surveillance team onto both her and the Iranians to find out what’s going on.”
Will looked around the cathedral and then back at Roger. He felt his heart rate increase. “We’ve got to pray that the DGSE team is still hidden from the Iranians, but we have to stop them before they’re spotted, or else the Iranians may panic and attack Lana. If that happens, everything will be ruined.” He felt his stomach tighten into knots. “Everything.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Will checked his watch. “She doesn’t know it yet, but in three hours’ time Lana needs to be boarding a plane to take her out of here.”
“Where do you want her to go?”
“Anywhere . . . Anywhere outside the Balkans, but not too far. I need her to be in Sarajevo tomorrow evening, because the day after that she’s meeting Megiddo.”
Roger checked his own watch and said, “There’s a five-forty P.M. Croatia Airlines flight to Prague. Will that do?”
Will nodded. “She’ll be on that flight. So will Laith, Ben, Julian, and no doubt certain members of the Iranian and French teams.”
Roger said, “If I’m correct in my assessment of what you plan to do, then Laith, Ben, and Julian won’t be enough for the job.”
“I know. I can’t be on the same flight as your men, because the Iranians will recognize me. And I can’t have you with them either, because it would be foolhardy to put all four of you on the same flight. You and I will get the next available flight out after your men’s flight, and then we’ll join them when we arrive in the Czech Republic.”
Roger reached for his cell phone. Will, too, pulled out his phone to call Lana and tell her to pack her bags.
The Iranians could spot the DGSE team at any moment. And Will was going to do something very drastic to stop that from happening.