At three in the morning, the Turkish Airlines 8 flight to Athens was four hours out into the Atlantic from Dulles, and McGarvey hadn’t been able to get to sleep yet, though their first-class accommodations were decent. Pete had fallen asleep after a glass of wine once they were in the air, and looking at her now, he was of a mixed mind.
He was afraid for her, and yet he was glad she was at his side. It was a new feeling for him, accepting that he wasn’t going on an assignment alone, and liking it. In fact, it was completely alien to just about everything he’d been taught and had learned by hard experience in the field.
It had to do with trust. Not loyalty, not a fear that a partner would turn out to be a traitor, but trust in that a partner was capable. He’d never wanted to find himself in a situation where he not only had to take care of himself but watch out for the misstep that would put whoever was next to him in a bullet’s path.
He looked at the window, the shade up. The cabin lights had been dimmed, but he could still see his reflection, pale now, almost like how he felt inside. And yet he’d finally—for the first time in his life—learned to trust. And he was damned if he knew whether he liked it or was afraid.
“Such deep thoughts when you should be sleeping,” Pete said.
“I was thinking about us,” he said.
She smiled. “You better have, because I was dreaming about you.” She paused. “And about our game plan. You haven’t said anything about how we’re going to play it, and I thought I’d hold my tongue for a change until you’re ready to clue me in.”
Besides the Glock 29 Gen 4 that Pete favored, and one of his Walthers in the 9mm version, plus plenty of ammunition at the lighthouse, Otto had packaged a pair of HK MP7A1 compact submachine guns along with ammunition, in a diplomatic pouch, that was placed in the cargo hold along with their bags. When it came down to a gunfight, he didn’t think that sheer firepower would be the sole deciding factor; finding the right spot would be just as important, but the room brooms would help.
His major concern was that, this time, whoever had directed the attacks on him would be sending what they might consider an overwhelming force. Maybe a team of four operators. Ex–Special Forces types who knew stealth tactics and were well connected enough to bring some serious weaponry to bear—like the updated version of the Russian-made RPG anti-tank weapon or the British-made, more compact and disposable LAW 80 rocket-propelled anti-armor weapon.
“I was thinking that, had we stuck with my original idea of using the house as our defensive position, we might have been more vulnerable. I think they were going to use the woman in the Gulf as a diversion to lure one of us outside and then come in from the ICW.”
“She would have been the bait, and I would have been the mouse out to the cheese, with you watching my back,” Pete said.
“Something like that.”
“What about this time?”
“For starters, I think there’ll be more of them, and probably better armed.”
“How many, and armed with what?”
“Four, maybe six operators. RPGs or LAW rockets to dig us out of the lighthouse.”
“You were thinking that we’d have the high ground,” Pete said. “But they’d have to get that stuff onto the island. Might not be so easy.”
“By sea in the middle of the night. Or if they’re as well funded as I expect the others were, they could come in by air high and slow and make a parachute drop.”
“Sounds military.”
“I think that’s likely,” McGarvey said.
“Otto should be able to come up with some ideas.”
“Plenty of ideas, but ex–special operators are a dime a dozen in the business.”
“It’ll be a night attack, and we’ll be outside in the bush or behind a rock somewhere with good firing lines on our house,” Pete said. She reached out and touched his cheek. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
The Hotel du Paris, Monaco’s finest, had always been one of Hammond’s favorite spots anywhere on the planet. After he had made his first five million, he’d treated himself and his girlfriend at the time to the Princess Grace Diamond suite, which even then was more than twenty thousand euros per night, worth every cent in his estimation. And he’d been staying there at least once a year ever since.
He and Susan had gotten up around ten and had sauntered down to the private beach, where they sat on chaise longues drinking Krug under one of the striped cabanas. It was just past eleven, and Susan said she was getting hungry.
“Let’s finish the wine and then go up,” Hammond said. “Unless you want a picnic lunch brought down.”
“Out here,” she said. “It’s nice.”
Hammond picked up the phone that did not ring but was answered immediately by a woman speaking English with a French accent.
“May we be of service, Mr. Hammond?”
“We need another bottle of wine, and fix us something for lunch.”
“Do you have a preference, monsieur?”
“I’ll trust your good judgment.”
Susan had watched, and when he hung up, she managed a slight smile. “How do you do it, Thomas?”
“Do what?”
“Sit on the beach, drink wine, and order lunch as if nothing were going on?”
“It’s a nice day, I’m with a woman I love, and I’m hungry.”
“But it’s going to happen in Greece in the next thirty-six hours, and if it fails again, it’s very possible that a virtual shitstorm could rain down on us. Aren’t you worried?”
He’d thought about that from the point when the second attempt in Washington had been made and failed, and he had been frightened for a time, but then he’d relied on his pipeline deal with Tarasov to provide him with a shield. Shortly after that, he’d once again played the situation like the game he’d wanted it to be from the start.
“Actually, no,” he said.
She laughed. “You’re either the smartest man I know or the craziest.”
He laughed, too. “Probably a little of both,” he said. “But the game’s afoot.”
“Sherlock Holmes.”
Senior Lieutenant Vetrov showed up with his team a few minutes after 1800 hours, assuring Nyunin that they fully understood what was needed of them and had agreed without reservation to the terms.
“We’re doing it for the Rodina,” the senior lieutenant said.
“And yourselves.”
“If you say so, sir.”
The six of them crowded into Nyunin’s office, and Vetrov handed them their terms-of-enlistment papers. All of them in battle camos stood at attention.
They looked young, Nyunin thought, barely out of their teen years. But they also looked hard, their bodies for the most part smaller than the average Russian, but muscled without being muscle-bound. Supple, with an almost wild animal edge to their faces and postures.
“Do you understand what you have been asked to do, and the requirements of the mission?” Nyunin began.
All of them nodded.
“This will be handled as a captain’s mast, the result of which will be dishonorable discharges and a debt to you men that your country will never be able to properly repay except by its lasting gratitude.”
No one said a thing.
“Sound off.”
One by one, they reported their names, ranks, and serial numbers, beginning with Vetrov, and from his left, the youngest looking of them all, Vasili Anosov, Aleksei Petrin and Eduard Nikolayev—who could have been twins—Ivan Orlov with his Siberian looks, and Ilich Silin, a man near thirty who had the attitude that he was ready to cut everyone’s throat.
When it was over and they were gone, Nyunin took the Makarov out and laid it on the desktop.
The Gulfstream G500 leased from a Bulgarian service was incoming and due to land within forty minutes. Vetrov’s team would have changed into civilian clothes by then, and within fifteen minutes of the aircraft touching down, they and their equipment would be aboard and the Gulfstream airborne.