BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
The two Agency officers nervously awaited coordinated backup at the row house apartments four blocks from the north train station. Neither man was familiar with Brussels. They had simply followed their target there on a flight from Rome, taken the train from the National Airport, and walked the four blocks. Only minutes ago the man entered the building, and then the junior officer, Max Noble, had hurried back to a phone, called in their position, and found out the horrible truth. Max was back now, had just given the news to his boss, Allen Gregory, and they stood back in the shadows, waiting for the place to explode with Agency and Belgian officers.
Gregory was a tall man. Blond hair, thinning on top, but never visible since he was rarely without his leather seaman’s hat.
Max was the opposite. Short, stocky, with a full head of dark hair that was a touch longer than his boss liked to admit. But Max just assumed Gregory was jealous.
The casual observer seeing them in the park together like that, would think nothing of them. They were dressed in casual clothes, nothing obtrusive. Nice slacks. Neutral dress shirts without ties. And waist-length jackets that were a bit baggy on each, making it easy to conceal their 9mm automatics.
Max hated to wait. Gregory said he would gain patience with age. At thirty-five, Gregory was nine years older than Max. Perhaps a lifetime in this business.
Gregory was an assistant to the Berlin station chief. Had been since it was the old CIA. Two years. He thought back about the last twenty-four hours. How they had been watching the Kurd they suspected killed Gerhard Kreuzberg, the former foreign minister killed by a tiny Ricin pellet. The man had worked sporadically in Berlin under a number of different names. The most recent one, Hosap. When the man suddenly took off by train, the Agency officers were right on his tail. Had they spooked him? Gregory didn’t think so. They had stopped in Munich briefly, long enough to call in their position to Berlin, and then continued on with a night train to Rome.
That’s when things turned strange. Hosap went directly from the train station to the airport and bought a one-way ticket to Brussels under a different name. Baskale. Just before the flight, Gregory had called in again and reported what he knew. He was told to stick with their man. They were sure he was up to no good.
And there they were. The place hinting toward darkness from heavy clouds. A city neither had been to more than once, and that was for a brief meeting a year ago. When Max had returned from calling in, he was clearly disturbed. Something wasn’t right with the tone of the local Agency officers. He was sure of it. They were to not proceed without them. That was an order. An order. Max hadn’t heard someone say that since he was a marine lieutenant about to blow the shit out of an Iraqi bunker in Kuwait. He had known the men inside were simply pawns not willing to give them much of a fight. But he had followed orders like a good marine does, killing everyone inside. Thirty-five men huddled inside, emaciated from weeks without supplies. Max had felt like such an asshole that day. Orders. Follow them blindly. He looked up at the building and wondered if this was another one of those situations.
After twenty minutes of waiting, finally a car pulled up a few blocks away and a man stepped out, lit a cigarette, and proceeded down the sidewalk toward them. That was the signal.
Another car pulled up from the other direction, a block away. It looked like two or three men in that one.
Max and Gregory moved toward the man with the cigarette. All three met at the corner under a street lamp that wouldn’t turn on for hours. It was late afternoon, but the sidewalks were nearly empty. Down a block and a half was a woman with a baby stroller heading toward a park. Farther down, an old man waited at a corner bus stop.
The man with the cigarette had broad shoulders and was somewhere in height between the other two. Perhaps six feet. He wore a long coat that was open in front. Gregory knew he must have had a little extra firepower inside.
“Which one of you did I talk with?” the man asked.
“Me,” Max said.
“Great. I called Berlin and told them about our situation. We’ve got the place covered. Our Belgian friends are moving in behind the building as we speak. They agree this is ours. What I couldn’t say over the phone is that we got an anonymous tip about two men at this location. Did you hear about Houston?”
They both nodded.
“The two inside were supposedly involved.”
Max looked confused.
“We only followed one here,” Gregory said.
“I know. It doesn’t mean there aren’t more inside. Our orders from Langley are to try to take these two alive. Or three. You told Berlin the man you were following flew under the name Baskale?”
“That’s right.”
“Well that’s the name of the pilot who dropped the nerve gas on the Astrodome.”
Gregory thought about that. It didn’t sound right. Something was screwed up with the timing, but there was no time to argue the point. “So how in the hell should we proceed. For all we know, these guys could have nerve gas in there.”
Max shuddered with the thought. He had spent far too many hours in chemical warfare suits, until his skin had turned black from all the charcoal, to even think about nerve gas. Give him lead any day. Bullets. That’s how to kill someone. Blow a hole in them.
The Brussels officer shrugged. “We don’t have time to round up chem gear. Let’s go. You can’t live forever.”
The three of them headed off toward the apartment house. As they did, two other men got out of the car behind them, and three from the car ahead. There was no way to hide their approach. They had to hope no one was looking outside. Once they got inside, Belgian police would show up outside, blocking any exit.
Inside, the men quietly made their way to the second floor and took up positions. Everyone knew the drill. Surprise was the key.
The Brussels man pulled a Mac 10 automatic from inside his coat and nodded his head to Max and Gregory, who were straddling him on each side of the door.
With one quick motion, the Brussels officer kicked in the door, screamed out orders in French, flying into the room.
Two men inside scurried for weapons lying on a coffee table.
Brussels sprayed a blast of bullets against a wall, and the men froze.
By now, Max and Gregory were inside, their guns pointing the way around the room.
Behind them came a wave of others.
Max grabbed one of the men and threw him to the ground, placing his gun at the man’s head. “Where’s the other?” He asked in German.
The man didn’t say a word.
“Where’s Baskale?” He tried in English.
Still no answer.
Gregory turned over the man he had been holding to one of the other Brussels officers, and Max did the same. Together they quickly scanned the room and noticed the bedroom door closed.
Just as they were about to crash through the door, bullets started exploding from the wood. They each dove to the side, their weapons aimed at the door.
Behind them, one of the Brussels officers and a Kurd were hit by the spray of bullets and collapsed to the floor.
“Hosap,” Max yelled. “Stop shooting. Nobody has to die here today,” he continued in German. He glanced back at the two men hit on the floor. The Brussels officer had taken a round in the shoulder, but he was pulling the Kurd away toward the outer door. The Kurd took a shot in the stomach, but he’d probably live.
“Shade! Eine Kriger sterben auf Schlacht.”
“This isn’t a battle,” Max yelled back.
Before the Kurd could answer, there were two separate guns firing within the room.
“All clear,” came a call in French from within the room. The Belgians must have come up the back stairs and fired through the window.
Seconds later, the bedroom door opened and two Belgians dressed in black clothing came out, followed by a cloud of gun smoke.
“Damn it,” Gregory said, as he noticed the man he had followed from Germany lay riddled with bullet holes on the floor against the bed. “We needed him alive.”
The Belgians shrugged.