THIRTY-SIX
Downstairs at Lorenz, Zoya’s and Ric’s food came, and across the street, through the trees lining the stretch of concrete running between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Unter den Linden, Court looked away. Fighting his infection, fighting the pain he felt in his heart. He knew Zoya was working, knew she wasn’t really out with this man by choice, but he couldn’t help himself. He was all alone, hiding in the shadows, and she was over there among the beautiful people.
Hanley hadn’t wanted him to come here, and he now wondered if this was why. Perhaps Matt had suspected that Court watching out for Zoya would entail him seeing things he wouldn’t want to see.
He asked himself if she would sleep with Ennis to gain intelligence for her operation, and he was immediately angry with himself for this train of thought. Still, in the back of his mind, he had to admit he didn’t know what she did in the field.
Court looked back to see Ennis place his hand over Zoya’s hand resting on the table. He smiled and kept talking, until she looked down at his hand, and he moved it away.
Court didn’t like it. He squeezed his own hands together; his left tingled from the assault to the nerves in his shoulder a month ago. He fantasized about standing up right now, storming over to the shithead trying to hold Zoya’s hand, and throwing his ass into the Spree River.
But he remained there, leaning back on the bench, trying to stay awake and on task.
He tried to push the thoughts from his head by making another scan of the street, all the way over to Pariser Platz, and the Brandenburg Gate to his right, to the traffic on Unter den Linden in front of him and to the left. Court was one man, and he knew one man couldn’t cover all this territory with his eyes and hope to keep someone safe from harm, but he did his best.
He shook his head of the haze of his constant fatigue, heightened his focus, and pushed the idea out of his mind that he needed to go to Dr. Kaya right now and pick up the “go” pills he needed to reenergize him.
But that would have to wait, because Zoya had felt the need to dine al fresco in a European capital while Russian assassins hunted her down.
Fuck! he said to himself.
And then he stood, rushed back into the Dunkin’ Donuts, and headed for the bathroom.
He’d just made it inside when he lurched over a large open rubber garbage can and vomited into it.
When he was finished he went to the sink, washed out his mouth, and threw some cold water on his face, and then headed back outside.
As he came out the door his head swiveled, on autopilot, but then it stopped suddenly. He wiped fresh perspiration off his eyelashes so he could see better. Two men, both in their forties, stepped out of the door to a Starbucks just a few doors down from Dunkin’ Donuts. As he watched, they headed to a darkened alcove one building closer to him, then stood there, half-hidden in the dark.
They wore jeans and collared shirts, and comfortable black leather walking shoes. Neither had a beverage in his hand, but one faced towards the building while the other faced across the street, over towards the Adlon Kempinski Hotel and Restaurant Lorenz.
Court continued his scan, searched for anyone looking his way, then settled back on this pair, only one hundred or so feet distant.
He realized they might have just been a couple of guys meeting up for coffee at nine p.m. on a Monday; they certainly didn’t scream “threat” by their dress or their actions. He kept his eyes tracking back to them for a couple of minutes, hoping one spoke into a cuff mic or another pulled out night vision goggles, both ridiculous breaches of tradecraft and something Court really didn’t expect to happen.
He wondered what had drawn his attention to them in the first place, and when he spent a few more seconds looking, he realized what it was. While the man facing the Lorenz was leaning back against the wall of a souvenir shop, the one who faced the building stood straight. But Court saw that the man’s feet were shoulder width apart, his knees soft and not locked, and he did not sway or change the weight of his body from one foot to the other. His hands were clasped behind his back for a moment, then released.
It looked like this guy was standing at parade rest—which meant he was likely military, or former military.
Spetsnaz? Russian special forces? Court couldn’t be sure, but the man, while not huge, did have broad shoulders and a square jaw. He appeared possibly Slavic once Court focused on his face, and soon enough he found himself sufficiently suspicious that he might be looking at a pair of hit men from Moscow.
They also could simply be former German military, now working as carpenters or accountants or anything ordinary, so he knew better than to prejudge.
But when both men scanned around, as if checking for any surveillance on them, Court felt surer of himself.
Shit. He had a gun in his pants, but he really didn’t feel like shooting it out with two GRU assassins in the busiest part of one of Europe’s busiest capitals.
Thanks, Zoya, he said to himself, only partially recognizing that he was angry at her because she appeared to be having a nice evening and he, in contrast, most definitely was not.
Zoya took another bite of her Norwegian salmon, finding it to be perfectly cooked and seasoned. Ennis was enjoying his lobster; he made a show of cracking the claws and dipping the meat into the butter.
For practically the first time in the ninety minutes they’d been dining, Ennis stopped talking about himself, if only for an instant, so she decided to jump in.
“Ric . . . who is Haz Mirza?” Zoya asked.
Ennis looked up as he chewed the buttered lobster. He appeared surprised, but not concerned. After he swallowed, he asked, “Where did that name come up?”
“Sasani said the man killed today had hacked into Haz Mirza’s computer.”
Ennis nodded at this, looked out at the Brandenburg Gate over Zoya’s shoulder. The massive structure was illuminated by blue spotlights in the fading light of dusk. She worried Ennis was going to clam up, but instead he took a long swig of his wine and said, “So, the guy who was killed today. Kamran Iravani. We found him a few months ago. We were tailing the leader of one of the Quds Force cells here in town. That was this Mirza joker. Anyway, our cyber team got to work on him, but we didn’t find anything incriminating. Mirza had come from Iran as a sleeper a few years ago. He’d fought in Libya and Yemen and God knows where else; his Quds credentials are legit. But his cell here appears dormant. Our working theory was that he came, recruited his guys, and then they all got jobs at a trucking firm. They liked their lives here in Germany too much to start running around blowing shit up like any self-respecting terrorist would. Mirza’s pissed about it; he’s a true believer, but he’s still here, so we wonder if he’s slowly acclimating to life in the West himself.”
Zoya countered, “Just because you don’t pick up incriminating evidence on phone chatter doesn’t mean they are inactive. They can use burners, Ric.”
“Of course they can. We’re inside their burners.”
“Really?”
Ennis smiled. “You didn’t hear that from me. Anyway, even with ears on them, we haven’t picked up anything.” He shrugged a little. “All this work against Iran . . . Honestly, I don’t get the point.”
“What do you mean?”
“No way Quds would act in Europe right now. The EU has thrown Iran a lifeline by lessening sanctions. Tehran’s not going to fuck that up by blowing up a bus in Berlin.”
“What was Iravani’s connection to Quds Force?”
“Kamran Iravani had no connection to Quds Force. In fact, he played for the other team. He was MeK. You know who they are, right?”
Zoya found the question patronizing. “Of course, I do. Mujahedin-e Khalq. They want to overthrow the government in Tehran.”
“Yeah. They’re the opposite of Quds Force, if you like. Iranians, but anti-regime. Anyway, we were surveilling Mirza and didn’t find what we were looking for, but we realized someone else had installed another back door into his computer and phone. It took our cyber team a few days, but they tracked it back to a server at Humboldt University, and that led us to Iravani. We put a physical team on him. He’s straight-up MeK, goes to meetings and all that. He has associations with known People’s Mujahedin leadership in exile. He was also a hacker. Nothing too sophisticated, mostly off-the-shelf attacks. The guy is basically just a cyberpunk, but he was watching everything Mirza’s cell was doing. He’d cracked into some of their phones, too. No longer; they change out their burners every couple of months.” He added, “And, yeah, Iravani’s dead, so there’s that.”
“How many operatives does Mirza have?”
“We’ve ID’d ten. But, like I said, they all seem to be just regular working stiffs here in the capital.”
Zoya thought this over. “So the only reason you were watching the anti-regime activist Iravani was to find the pro-regime people he was uncovering?”
Ennis nodded, chewed his lobster a moment, and sipped his white wine. He then said, “I guess so. Our client tells us what to do. We don’t always know why.”
Ennis gave her a wink now. “I wouldn’t worry too much about Iran. We’ll be off them in a few days.”
Zoya nodded at this. “You told me when you hired me, the contract with this client was almost complete.”
He nodded. “The client is about to go to the Germans with enough intel to get these bastards pulled into an American black site. The goal is to implicate the Iranians in some sort of impending terrorist act, something bad enough for the entire EU to put the sanctions squeeze back on.”
Zoya thought of something he’d mentioned on the phone earlier. “You said we pulled coverage of Iravani before he was killed. Why?”
“Because we realized we weren’t the only ones on his ass. BfV had a physical and cyber tail on him. They had his shitty apartment miked up, just like we did. We aren’t supposed to be watching foreign nationals in Berlin, so we left our equipment in place and backed away before the federal intelligence service here found out what we were doing. Kind of like what you did with Sasani today.”
“Do you think Shrike was exposed to BfV?”
The waiter appeared and poured more wine, and Zoya could tell Ennis was using the opportunity to weigh his options for answering. When they were alone again, he said, “Normally I would say yes. It would be hard as hell for Shrike to do all that we did to track Iravani and not be compromised by German intelligence doing the exact same thing. But in this case, I feel pretty confident we were in the clear.”
“And why is that?”
Zoya realized now that Ennis actually liked talking about work; he was the authority, letting the “new girl” in on the gossip.
“Because the Shrike officer who had been running the op on Iravani is our best.” He flashed a toothy grin. “No offense to you. She’s been working for the company from the beginning, and she knows her shit.”
“She?” Zoya said. “You must be talking about Miriam.”
Ennis stopped eating, put his fork and knife down. With mild annoyance he said, “Moises or Yanis? Which one told you about Miriam?”
Ric Ennis had already freely doled out more intelligence than either of the two men on Zoya’s team had, so she found it ironic that he seemed bothered by their relatively minor breach.
She said, “Her name came up in conversation. All I know is that she’s good at her job, and she’s attractive.” Zoya didn’t mention that Moises had said she wasn’t really Israeli; she wanted to see what Ennis might say on his own.
Ennis seemed to let it go. Zoya knew he’d already consumed an impressive amount of alcohol, and it was showing its effects in his actions. She didn’t know if this was what was loosening his lips, but she also knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“She’s very attractive. She is not as attractive as you.” The Russian woman groaned inwardly, but she made herself blush slightly as she reached for her own glass.