SIXTY
Maksim Akulov hadn’t touched a bottle all day, and though his body craved alcohol, his mind remained surprisingly clear.
He had an objective, a raison d’être, and this kept him going.
He’d spent the past day convalescing from his injuries sustained jumping out the high window of the hotel suite, not because he particularly minded the discomfort and lack of mobility but because he wanted himself in the best possible condition the next time he encountered the Gray Man.
And his two colleagues were working on arranging that meeting for him now. Anya had been going back and forth with SVR in Moscow, desperate to find any intelligence about Court Gentry. And Inna had stayed in contact with the team’s handler in the Solntsevskaya Bratva, just waiting for word on where Zakharova would go next.
Maksim was sharpening a throwing knife on a whetting stone in the kitchen when Inna entered from the back door of the property. She called out to him from across the living room. “I just heard from St. Petersburg. They have no new information on Sirena’s whereabouts. She dropped off the map after the gunfight at the Adlon, and no one has heard from her in days.”
Anya was sitting at her laptop on the sofa. “Probably because Semyon killed the guy that was providing us the intel.”
Inna thought this over. “Yes, that’s possible that the informant was Ennis, but St. Petersburg won’t give me that information. The other possibility is it was someone else, and Sirena is just smart enough to go to ground, not to trust anyone.”
Maksim asked, “What do we know about the operation she was on?”
“Shrike International Group. She was working as a case officer. Her target, from what I’ve been told, had been an Iranian embassy staffer suspected of working for VAJA.”
The Russian assassin said, “We can put surveillance on him.”
“She’s not tailing him anymore. She’s disappeared. Remember? We have to entertain the likelihood she simply left town after the attempt was made on her. I know I would.”
“Well, you don’t have the Gray Man to protect you. She’s still here.” He said it confidently.
“Maksim, Moscow is sending another team after her. We’ve been ordered to stand down.”
He stopped sharpening his knife and looked up at her. “What?”
“It’s for the best.”
“Nyet. It will take a new team at least a day to get on their mark here, especially with the added security around Berlin with the attack. That buys us time. I want twenty-four hours more. You give me that, and then I will go home. But I need both of you helping me.”
He held up his throwing knife. “Get me in front of him, and I will do the rest.”
Inna snapped back at this. “You mean her. Zakharova is the target, or have you forgotten?”
“They are both my targets. And I will see that they spend eternity together. You just have to find Sirena.”
Inna relented reluctantly. “Twenty-four hours. And then we’re on a train to Moscow.”
“All I ask. Spasibo.” Thank you.
Inna then said, “We are open to suggestions of how to find them.”
“I hurt Gentry. I don’t know how badly, but I saw the blood trail, so I know one of my knives cut him. We know he’s not aligned with the CIA, and we know there is no way he would walk into a hospital, or any medical facility that was run aboveboard. So, ladies, the question is, if he were to go somewhere in the city for medical treatment, where would he go? Where is safe harbor for a man like him?”
Anya and Inna exchanged a look. Anya said, “I will make some calls.”
“Excellent,” Maksim said. “And I will continue to sharpen my blades.”
Matthew Hanley and his team of Ground Branch paramilitary officers landed at Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport shortly after six a.m., where they were met by Berlin station officers in a trio of silver nine-passenger Volkswagen vans. Once the team’s bags were off the aircraft, Hanley, Travers, and the others climbed into the vans and they all rolled off towards the city.
Hanley had chosen to avoid going into the embassy for this trip. The DDO appearing at a station caused a lot of fanfare, and he needed to avoid that. And the DDO would have to call in on the ambassador, and that was something he desperately wanted to avoid having to do.
Ryan Sedgwick was an asshole in Hanley’s eyes. A longtime Agency critic, he had the president’s ear like no one else, and Hanley knew that Sedgwick asking a bunch of questions right now would involve Hanley telling a bunch of lies, and that would lead to trouble.
Hanley wasn’t here for scrutiny, he wasn’t here for meetings, and he wasn’t here for glad-handing. His objective was open-ended, but his objective was concentrated on one issue.
On one man.
Other than a few of his close operational staff at Berlin station, no one else from the embassy would even know he was here.
The vans delivered the new arrivals to a CIA safe house in Lichtenrade, not far from the airport and a straight forty-minute shot north to the center of Berlin and the U.S. embassy. It was a five-bedroom home, fenced in, and it backed up to an open field of barley. Hanley eyed the safe house guards that the entourage passed on the way in, and was pleased to find the Berlin station security team inconspicuous in work overalls, with their submachine guns well hidden.
Hanley was more concerned with operational security than he was worried about threats to himself. He’d worked in Haiti, in Somalia, in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and a dozen other locales around the world.
Berlin was as safe a place as he knew. He needed this location to meet in a clandestine fashion with people in the city, and he couldn’t very well have his arrival here at the quiet safe house broadcast with an overly robust security profile.
Once he and the others settled in, he received his first visitor. The senior operations officer who had been the lead at Berlin station in charge of looking into Shrike Group had been ordered to run a two-hour, early-morning SDR before arriving at Hanley’s safe house, so by seven thirty a.m. the man had traversed some eighty miles of train tracks, city roads, and shoe leather.
He met with the deputy director in a room in the house that had been swept for electronic surveillance.
In the end, however, the meeting had not been nearly as fruitful as Hanley had hoped. Yes, Berlin station had been looking into Shrike for a few months now, but they still believed it to be an Israeli intelligence operation, something Hanley knew, without question now, was not the case.
The DDO recognized that his station knew very little about what was going on save for the fact that a senior employee of the company had been murdered two days earlier, shot in the temple in a hotel next door to the embassy. The officer offered, helpfully, that he had actually heard the gunshot himself, but this told Hanley the man had been sitting in his office in the embassy and had not been out in the field where he could be of any use.
Berlin station had been using cyber and signals intelligence intercepts to look into Shrike, the officer explained, for the very simple reason that every single time men and women were put in the field around Shrike’s offices, police showed up within minutes to see what they were doing.
Hanley knew the rules about operating in Germany. Officially speaking, anyway, it was verboten, more so because the U.S. ambassador—to Hanley’s way of thinking, anyway—was bending over backwards to placate the Reichstag, so he couldn’t very well get too angry with his subordinate for adopting a policy of extreme caution.
Hanley had always placed a premium on human intelligence, so the theft of PowerSlave had effectively crippled his operation here in Germany.
The fact remained that Berlin station had been no help at all. No, Hanley realized as he watched the man leave that what he really needed was to talk to the one person in his influence who had the closest relationship with whatever the fuck was going on over here.
A call to Suzanne Brewer arranged the meeting, and at eight forty-five a.m. a motorcycle appeared at the front gate to the safe house. A man climbed off and was searched just inside the wall, then led not into the home itself but around to the back garden.
The man was directed to a picnic table, and he sat there alone for a few minutes, looking up at the clear morning sky. A guard brought him a paper cup of bad coffee, and he sipped it while he waited.
Matt Hanley appeared in the sliding glass door just a few minutes later, wearing casual clothes from REI. He had a coffee in his hand himself, and he sat down in front of the new arrival before speaking. Finally, he said, “Shit, Court, these transatlantic hops get tougher and tougher each time. I feel like I just fell down a flight of stairs.”
Court Gentry had a few aches and pains to complain about himself, but he didn’t bother. Hanley was management; he wasn’t supposed to hurt like labor.
“Brewer said you caught another knife. You just trying to add to your collection?”
Court held up his bandaged biceps. “It’s fine.”
“And the shoulder? The infection?”
“I’m doing okay.”
The older man laughed. “I told you last week that you had one week to get your ass back to the doctor.” He shrugged. “Now I wouldn’t let you go home if you wanted to.”
“I don’t need to go home. I need to know what’s happening.”
“Same.”
“Why the hell did you race over here the moment you saw a picture of that man standing with Spangler and Dittenhofer?”
Hanley took a slow sip, then looked down at the cup like it was strychnine. He said, “I wasn’t going to read you in on this, but it looks like I have no choice. Berlin station is compromised to Shrike, we all know that.” He heaved in a massive sigh and let it out. “It appears that Shrike Group’s client, the entity who is orchestrating this plot involving the Islamic Republic of Iran, is the SIA.”
Court drew his head back in surprise. “Emirati intelligence? Not Israel?”
“Affirmative. The man you saw talking to Spangler helped put some of the pieces of the puzzle together for me. His name is Sultan al-Habsi, and he’s SIA’s deputy director of operations, but he secretly runs the whole thing. He was the source of the initial intel that led to the Vahid Rajavi drone kill. He has decent assets in Iraq, still, a lot better than ours these days. Anyway, we kept him in the loop as to our plans regarding the general.”
Court was putting the puzzle pieces together himself. “So, you are saying he knew when the attack was going to happen?”
“Yeah.”
Court then asked, “How is it that the deputy director is the guy at the helm?”
“Well,” Hanley said, “his father is the crown prince.”
Court closed his eyes now. “That figures.”
“And that’s not all. The old man’s got one leg in the grave. Terminal stomach cancer. It’s up to the crown prince to name a successor, and it’s no secret that Sultan has been out of his father’s favor for many years. But both his brothers were killed in Yemen, so he’s the only heir to the palace. Our intelligence told us that one of his cousins would be appointed by old man al-Habsi before he died, but now we’re not so sure.”
“Why’s that?”
“Iran is the crown prince’s biggest enemy; they killed both his other sons, so now we have to ask the question—”
Court asked the question himself. “Is this entire operation a way for Sultan to earn back his father’s trust and win the throne?”
“Bingo. Looks like he’s currying favor with his dad, trying to deal some massive blow to Tehran before the old guy kicks the bucket.”
“Unreal,” Court said. “But what is the plan? Quds Force already attacked the embassy.”
Hanley shook his head. “That was nothing. My guess is that was to clear the playing pieces off the chessboard, so al-Habsi could take control of the game.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The Emirates are planning on some sort of major attack they can blame on Iran, and those guys were just truck drivers and freight loaders. They weren’t soldiers who could get it done.”
Court thought it over. “Well . . . the UAE are our allies. Can’t you just tell them you know what Sultan is plotting?”
“No, I can’t, as a matter of fact, and that’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have a long-standing order at the Agency.” He waved his hand. “Not just the CIA, all U.S. intelligence agencies. We do not collect intelligence on the UAE. We do not analyze intelligence collected on the UAE from our allies.”
Court was surprised to learn this. “Shit, boss. We conduct ops against all our allies. Israel, the UK, even Canada. What makes the UAE so special?”
“A lot of things. This was the agreement we came to with them to ensure they would do our bidding in the war on terror. The president agreed to this, and the president is not going to appreciate learning we’ve gone behind his back here.”
Court said, “Look, you’re the DDO, I’m just a dumb trigger puller, but I don’t get why you don’t just go to the president, say you picked up some credible information from an outside source, something that fell into your lap.” Hanley was already shaking his head, but Court kept going. “You can expose what the UAE’s up to without having to reveal you picked up the intelligence from your own HUMINT operation.”
“We can’t implicate SIA in this at all, Court. That’s the problem.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because we fucking made them!”
“Who did?”
“The Agency. We stood up Emirati Signals Intelligence fifteen years ago. We recruited Sultan al-Habsi, and hundreds like him in the UAE, brought them to the U.S. for training, taught them everything they know. We paid for everything, gave them everything, and we turned them into the group they are now. We are inextricably tied to them. If they go down, we go down with them.”
“We created them, and then they fucked us over?”
Hanley waved a hand in the air. “Congratulations, trigger puller. You just managed to articulate the complete history of the CIA in one sentence. Look, the idea was that the UAE would be our proxies. They’d be our little brother in the middle of that shitstorm that is the Middle East. But then they got good. They grew and grew, and they started pushing back on us. They didn’t give a damn about AQ, about ISIS, about the Sunni groups. No, they only cared about slowing Shia expansion. There was a lot of pressure from them for us to drive a hard line with Iran. We did it, at least as compared to the EU, and the UAE became our most trusted intelligence source on the mullahs, on Quds, on the proxy fighters in theater.
“It got to where we needed the UAE as much as they needed us. And that was about the time when al-Habsi started calling the shots. He knew we needed him, and he got his dad to demand from the president that we didn’t spy on the UAE.”
“So . . . it’s a presidential order?”
“Damn right, it is. The USA does not run any intel collection on the UAE. Full stop. We can’t touch them, and we sure as shit can’t reveal that we used a black operator to spy on a nation we can’t spy on in another nation where we aren’t supposed to be spying.”
Court said, “But, Matt. You can’t just sit back and let us get drawn into a war because you are worried about the CIA being dragged through the coals!”
“I know that!” Hanley exclaimed. “That’s why I’m here. I’m going to figure this shit out, and I’m going to stop the attack, and I’m going to keep the Agency’s reputation, such as it is, intact.”
Court didn’t understand all the intrigue, but he did understand one thing. “If al-Habsi is the one orchestrating this plot, how about I just take him out? That would end it. Right?”
Hanley drummed his fingers on the side of his cup for a moment. “It might come down to that, but my concern is the die has been cast. We are looking at some sort of an attack, whether or not Sultan is around to take the fall for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got a call while en route. BfV raided an apartment belonging to one of the Quds men killed in front of the embassy yesterday. They found some notes about a second attack on the embassy. It indicated that Mirza himself would lead this wave.”
“With other personnel?”
“Affirmative.”
“How many?”
“We are estimating a force of about twenty-five strong.”
“That’s a hell of a lot more than yesterday. Small arms, again?”
“And suicide vests.”
Court thought about this. “AKs and S-vests sounds like something the Marines can handle.”
Hanley responded, “But the embassy has to go into lockdown until it happens.”
“If they go into lockdown, it won’t happen.”
“Which buys us time to find Haz Mirza. We are proceeding with the mind-set that the man might be working as a rogue agent for the SIA, and not for Quds Force. The entire Shrike operation was to eliminate German informants around Mirza, to find official cover operatives for Iran in the city, and to create fake linkage between them and Mirza.”
He added, “Stopping al-Habsi won’t prevent the attack, but stopping Mirza just might.”
Court felt like he was back on firmer ground now. A riddle he could solve. “If I capture Annika Dittenhofer, take her to a cold cellar somewhere, I’ll get you Haz Mirza.”
Hanley nodded slowly at this, then said, “Approved. Travers and his boys are here, too. If you need them, they’re yours.”
“Good.”
“Although,” Hanley said, and his tone of voice turned suddenly accusatory. “From what I hear, you are already getting a little help.” Court did not respond, so Hanley said, “Caracas station, what’s left of it, found out Zack Hightower was released to a former member of Russia’s foreign intelligence services. A female.” After a pause he said, “I guess Anthem just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Guess so.”
“And how did she know Zack was in the care of our friends in Venezuela?”
Now Court came clean. “I told her about Zack. I also told her to get out of here. That’s where she went, apparently.”
Hanley said, “Court, you do good work, but you are more than a little . . .”
Court thought about what Dr. Kaya had said to him three nights earlier. “Relentless?”
Hanley shook his head. “I was going to say impulsive. But instead I’ll say you are a loose cannon rolling around the deck of my battleship. You are a potent, vital tool, but first I have to get you tied back down and pointed in the right direction.”
“I’ll get you intel on Mirza, and Zack will help me. Then we get Chris and his boys from Ground Branch, and we go take Mirza and his crew out.”
Hanley snickered. “You make this shit sound so easy.”
Court shrugged. “The hard part will be al-Habsi. Be thinking about him, and what we do when Mirza is no longer the top item on our to-do list.”
Hanley stood up from the table, letting Court know the meeting was over. “I will.” He added, “Good luck. You don’t need me to tell you, but remember . . . Hightower can run one hell of a tough interrogation.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“And also remember,” Hanley cautioned, “Zack is a blunt instrument. You are a sharp instrument. Sometimes a hammer will work, sometimes a scalpel is called for.”
“Got it.”
The men shook hands. “Good luck, Violator. Let’s get this done, and then let’s go home. You look like shit.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been stabbed twice and I have a raging infection. What’s your excuse, boss?”