SKOPJE, NORTH MACEDONIA
For Donovan, using the SDR techniques he’d been taught at The Farm—the CIA training facility at Camp Peary, Virginia—had become second nature. Donovan had spent months practicing how to blend in to a crowd while maintaining situational awareness. On one occasion, a few weeks before he was due to graduate, he’d fucked up on an SDR. The worst was that he had felt—known, really—that someone was onto him. But he hadn’t listened to the little voice in his head begging him to abort. He hadn’t followed his gut. His failure to do so had cost his team the mission.
In real life, though, it could have killed them all.
After the long debrief in which he had chewed Donovan’s ass in front of the whole class, the chief instructor had pulled him from the group.
“Don, you’re one of the strongest recruits I’ve ever trained, but sometimes you’re just plain reckless, or overconfident. Some of the instructors think it’s because you’re a natural prick, but I was in the marines, Force Recon, just like you. So I know what’s going on in there.” The chief instructor tapped a finger on the side of Donovan’s head.
“Marine Recons like us are trained to go at it one hundred percent all the fucking time, right? We’ve been taught to push our fears aside, to work through them and to persevere no matter what. If we have to charge through an open field as rounds kick up spouts of dirt around us, we’ll do it if that’s what it takes to complete the mission, yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, good. But you’re not Marine Recon anymore, Donovan. Forget you ever were. As an intelligence officer, if you do your job right, you’ll never have to fire a gun again. Your tradecraft is everything. It’s your bulletproof vest and your weapon at the same time. Your survival will depend on how proficient you are at executing it. And out there in the field, it needs to be fucking flawless. Always assume you’re being watched, and that the enemy knows exactly who you are and what you’re doing and why. But, even more importantly, and listen carefully, because this might save your life one day, always assume that they’re going to push you into a van and put a bag over your head any second.”
Donovan had never forgotten that lesson. In fact, it had probably saved his life in Prague. And right now, after spending two hours doing an SDR on his way to the old town, he was hearing that same little voice again. He couldn’t see the impending threat to his safety, couldn’t hear it, but he could feel it. He’d notified Helen the moment he thought he was being watched and they had automatically switched to running aggressive countersurveillance techniques. They had tried all the tricks in the book to identify potential watchers, but, unlike Prague where it had been easy to uncover the three amigos, so far both he and Helen had been powerless to isolate even one watcher.
While they had been able to top up their magazines in the Citation jet, he and Helen had no weapons other than their pistols and knives. Their stealth and the cover Blackbriar had manufactured for them were their main means of defense, just like the chief instructor at Camp Peary had told him. If they had to go to their guns, something had gone terribly wrong.
As a last resort, Donovan had decided to stop at one of the numerous terraces to grab a bite to eat. He wasn’t hungry, but ordering something would give him an excuse to stop and keep an eye on the passing crowds as he ate. He had tried to catalog in his head as many faces and vehicles as possible during the last two hours. Now was the time to cross-reference them with the ones he was about to see while seated at the table. The table he had selected gave him a good view of the traffic driving through Boulevard Krste Petkov Misirkov and the pedestrians browsing the shops on Kiril Percinovik.
Sipping his Coca-Cola Light, Donovan couldn’t shake the unpleasant feeling that a sniper some one hundred yards away had him in the crosshairs of his scope. His lunch arrived, served by a squat, round-bellied waiter who smelled of cooking grease and cigarettes. Donovan looked at his plate. It was huge and loaded with enough stuffed cabbage rolls and beets to feed a small army. But if its smell was any indication of its taste, Donovan wasn’t even sure he’d be able to swallow a single bite. He cut into one with his fork and played with whatever poured out. Since he couldn’t identify a single ingredient, he didn’t even bother tasting it. They didn’t look—or smell—anything like the salmon and rice ones his mother made him each Thursday night when he was a kid.
I should have ordered the borscht or the boiled pierogies.
Donovan took his time finishing his Coke, keeping his eyes moving, studying the crowd. After ten more minutes, he peeled off enough denars to cover his meal and a generous tip, then left the terrace.
“Helen, what’s your twenty?” he said, heading toward the meeting spot.
“I’m walking south on Pokriena Charshija, about three minutes away from the meeting point at the Old Bazaar hotel,” she replied. “You?”
“I’m north of the hotel, too, but on Samardziska, which runs parallel to Pokriena Charshija,” he said. “I have a bad feeling about this. I say we abort and postpone to tomorrow.”
“Have you identified a specific threat or is it just a gut feeling?” she asked.
How could she so easily dismiss his legitimate concern for their security?
“Nothing specific, but I’m—”
“Then we keep going,” she replied, cutting him off without hesitation. “We’ve done everything by the book. We’re clean. I’m doing the meet. Just make sure you get my six.”
Donovan gritted his teeth, not happy with her decision. Was he making a big deal out of nothing? Was it possible that his nerves were playing tricks on him?
No. Something’s not right.
Donovan was about to challenge Helen when her voice buzzed in his ear.
“I spotted Velkoski,” she said, her excitement pouring out of her voice. “He came out of a restaurant . . . the restaurant name is . . . Palma. He’s now heading south on Pokriena Charshija. He’s going to our meeting point. We’re doing this, Donovan.”
Fuck.