SIXTY-FIVE

Zack, Zoya, Court, and Annika made it back to the Spandau safe house at four thirty in the morning, exhausted still from the fight, the stress, and the late hour, with Court having the additional weight of his improving but continuing infection to deal with.

Court brewed a full pot of coffee as soon as they arrived, because he knew they had to get to work on Dittenhofer immediately and there would be no time for rest.

He had originally planned on a rough approach—or, more accurately, he had planned on turning her over to Hightower for him to work his magic on her psyche to get her to talk—but upon seeing that she was about to be murdered by the men working for the SIA at the abandoned factory, he determined there was a better way to get what he needed.

Zack treated Annika’s superficial wound to her calf, and then Zoya helped her into the bathroom to clean up. When they came out, the German woman was teary eyed, drying her face with toilet paper. Zoya led her back into the barren living room and helped her down to the wicker sofa. She hadn’t been tied or cuffed, but she’d seen what the three people in front of her were capable of, and it was obvious she wasn’t going to pose any sort of a threat.

Annika now said, “You said back there that I work for terrorists. I have been doing exactly the opposite. Conducting surveillance on Iranian intelligence operatives and sleeper agents.”

Court entered the room and passed mugs of coffee to Zoya and Annika. “I hope you guys like it black.” Annika sipped it, then put it down on the floor in front of her.

Zoya began with the interrogation while Zack poured himself a cup in the kitchen. “Why were you at the abandoned factory tonight?”

She didn’t speak at first. After a few seconds of silence, Zack Hightower entered. “Say the word, Six, and I’ll go to work on her.”

Court held his hand up to Zack, and Annika responded. “I will tell you what I know . . . but . . . I don’t know who you are, so I don’t know what you know.”

“Just start talking. I’ll tell you to skip ahead if I’m bored,” Court replied.

“There is an Iranian named Haz Mirza who lives in Berlin. He is Quds—”

Zoya interrupted. “Skip ahead. We know about Mirza. We know you were tracking his phone.”

Annika took a few breaths, then said, “Mirza’s phone, we had it bugged and geotracked. It gave us the location of the factory.”

Court asked, “Who knew that you had it geotracked?”

She thought about this, staring at a point on the wall as she did so. “Moises, Yanis . . . the two technicians you say were killed. Ric Ennis.” She looked up at the trio standing in front of her. “And Rudolf Spangler. The owner of Shrike. That is all.”

“So . . .” Court said, “you are saying that there is only one person on that list who is still alive.”

The three stared down at her. She shook her head.

“Nein. Nein, you are wrong. Rudy is like a father to me.”

Zack had been standing close to the balcony, keeping an eye on the dark street outside. But he turned around to face her now. “Yeah, then I’m just gonna say it. Your dad sucks.”

She glared at him, but Court got the impression she was a very smart woman and was putting this all together about as fast as he and his mates were.

Still, she fought against her intellect. “I can’t believe he would—”

Court interrupted. “Spangler gave those guys Mirza’s phone, which means either he, or the guy actually calling the shots, has control of Mirza. Either way, your boss helped lead you there tonight so that those gun monkeys could kill you. You’re smart enough to see that, aren’t you?”

Dittenhofer looked at him, tears streaming freely down her face. After several seconds she nodded. “I don’t understand why.”

To this, Zoya said, “You know too much. The two technicians knew too much. You all had to be removed.”

Dittenhofer sipped her coffee and stared at the floor. “I don’t even know that much. They were asking about you,” she said, with an accusatory finger pointed towards Court. “What do you have to do with any of this?”

Before Court could answer, Zack knelt in front of her. His voice dark and menacing, he said, “Tell you what, Fräulein. When you and two of your buddies snatch my friend at gunpoint, you get to ask him whatever you want. Until then, it’s his turn.”

She looked down to the floor. “Yes, I put surveillance on some Quds men, some VAJA men, even some MeK men. I recruited cyber assets into Shrike. But all I did was collect the intelligence product and pass it on to Rudy. I don’t even know what Rudy was doing with the information.”

“Do you know what Ric Ennis was doing?” Court asked.

She shook her head vehemently. “No. We were compartmentalized in our assignments. I have no idea what Ennis did, what the cyber team was doing.”

Zoya said, “Ennis told me what he was doing.”

And Court added, “Clark Drummond told me what he was doing.”

“Why would they tell you that?”

Zoya answered. “Ennis knew a German intelligence officer had been killed while trailing our operation the other night. He was scared. The morning he died he came to my room, told me we had to run. I wouldn’t listen so he told me what was really going on. He wanted me to know how incriminating this all was for Shrike. He said he’d spent months breaking into apartments of the Quds Force and VAJA men, planting evidence that would tie them together.”

Annika bit her lip and sniffed hard, as if she could recoil the tears back into her eyes. “I knew it was something like that. Rudy would tell me to stop my coverage on Quds and the Iranian embassy spies, usually for just two or three hours at a time. I asked him about it but he said the client was directing us to do so and he did not know why.” She looked to Zoya. “If Ennis was doing black-bag work, then that was Rudy giving him the instructions. Ennis didn’t know the client any more than I did.”

This was obvious to Court, but Annika clearly still had trouble wrapping her head around the fact that her surrogate father was as dirty as he clearly was.

Annika now asked, “But . . . what is the objective in all this?”

Court knelt right in front of the German woman now. “You said you were surveilling anti-regime operatives.”

“Ja. Three of them. They were all killed this week.”

“Why would someone kill them?”

“The only thing that makes any sense is that the client was trying to help Mirza and his cell.” She sipped more coffee. “All three of the MeK men killed were informants for BfV. Kamran Iravani was himself bugging another one of Mirza’s phones. If they hadn’t been killed, then they would have been able to go to the German authorities and implicate Mirza and his men in an attack.”

Court said, “Or . . .” He snapped his fingers. “If Mirza didn’t attack, then they could go to the German authorities and tell them that, too.”

Zack said, “What do you mean, if Mirza didn’t attack? I thought he was a terrorist.”

Annika understood what Court was getting at. “His handler in Tehran told him to stand down the day before yesterday. They said they would disavow any attack, and if he tried to defy them, they would kill him.”

“But apparently he did defy them,” Zoya said. “He assaulted the embassy.”

Zack shook his head. “But Mirza wasn’t there. It might have been his plan, but a trained combat veteran and a zealot like that would have been right in the middle of that mission if he could be. He’s not a mastermind. He’s a ground-level fighter. He’d be with his troops, unless someone or something prevented him from doing so.”

Zoya said, “Do you think Tarik got to him?”

“Who is Tarik?” Annika asked.

Court answered this for her. “He’s your puppet master. The one who has been giving orders to Shrike Group. Deputy director of Emirati intelligence.”

She did not respond to this, so Court said, “You met him at the Regent along with Spangler yesterday.”

Annika leaned her head back against the wall; it was obvious a sudden realization had occurred to her. “Of course. That’s it. I told him myself exactly where Mirza was. Just a few hours before the attack.”

Court put the puzzle together from this. “At which point Tarik sent his American mercenary force to go round up Mirza.”

“But why?” Zoya asked. “And . . . if he wanted to save Mirza from the embassy attack, why did he let the attack go on without him? He could have stopped—”

Court had it, and Hanley had been the one to give it to him. “Because fucking Tarik, whose real name is Sultan al-Habsi, personally tipped off the CIA about the attack. He was further establishing his bona fides as a friend to America, while secretly he’s been planning something else with the Iranian terrorist.”

Zack just muttered, “What an asshole.”

Annika now asked, “But, again, what is the plan? Mirza is only one man; most all the surviving members of his cell have been arrested.” She repeated, “He’s all alone.”

Zack shook his head. “To hell, he is. He’s got another force.”

“How can you know that?” Court asked.

“He ran a cell. The cell got rolled up and shot up. But he’s still a leader. Like I said, he’s not a mastermind, but he’s also not a lone wolf. He’s not about to strap on an S-vest and climb aboard a city bus by himself. What he is about to do will take manpower, mark my words. Just because we haven’t ID’d the rest of the dickheads doesn’t mean there aren’t any other dickheads out there.”

Court looked to Zoya and Annika now. “Trust Zack on this. He knows dickheads.”

“Card-carrying member,” Zack confirmed.

Annika was left seated on the couch, her right leg bandaged and her mug of coffee in her hands, while the three Poison Apple assets stepped out on the balcony and closed the door to talk more freely.

“What do we do now?” Zoya asked.

“You stay here with Annika. Zack and I will go talk to Hanley.”

Zoya was confused. “Hanley’s here? In Berlin?”

“Yeah.” He explained the relationship between the CIA and the UAE, about how Hanley came to town on the down low to try to rectify the situation, and didn’t even want the U.S. ambassador to know he was here.

Zoya rolled her eyes. “So Hanley isn’t supposed to be here. Zack isn’t supposed to be here. You aren’t really supposed to be here. I was the only one sent to Berlin in the first place, and yet still you want me to wait back in your apartment while the rest of you figure this out?” She shook her head. “I’m going to take Annika and try to find Spangler. You guys do whatever the hell you want.”

Court said, “We’ll come with you, then. We can fill Hanley in later.”

She shook her head. “We will be fine. Stay here. Get your strength up. A storm is coming, and I won’t be able to handle it without you.”

Court nodded at this. He was utterly exhausted, the lowest he’d felt since he’d gotten sick. He said, “I’ll stay here, update Brewer on what we have so far, and she can tell Hanley and Berlin station.”

Zack turned to Zoya. “If you guys can grab Spangler, I will use my good looks and charm to get him to talk.”

Zoya opened the glass door now to head back inside. “We don’t have that much time. It would be faster to torture him.”

“More humane, too,” Court joked.