SIXTY-SEVEN
Kevin McCormick sat in his office on the fifth floor of the U.S. embassy, with a view of the Brandenburg Gate out his window. As the local CIA chief of station, he had been working virtually nonstop since the Marines on the roof of this building successfully thwarted an attack two days earlier, and he expected his workload would not slack off at any time in the near future, all due to the killing of Iranian general Rajavi.
He knew that the intelligence for this week’s attack had come in at the last second from the UAE, and he’d already sent his thanks to the local SIA office at the Emirati embassy on Hiroshimastrasse.
But still, the Quds Force cell leader was on the loose in the city, and all indicators were that he was not finished with his mayhem.
McCormick had other worries, too; office politics on a large scale. But he pushed these out of his mind and decided to call to his executive secretary to get his German counterpart at BfV on the line to see if there were any updates in the search for Haz Mirza.
But before he could do this, she leaned into his office. “Sir. DDO Hanley is on the line for you.”
“Thanks, Brenda.” McCormick sighed. Office politics. He’d been dreading this call. He’d found out earlier in the morning that the ambo was livid because he’d learned Hanley was in town, and Berlin station had been keeping this info quiet around the embassy.
The fact was, McCormick had no idea how Sedgwick found out about Hanley’s trip to Berlin, but he knew this fact wouldn’t get him off the hook with Hanley, and since he hadn’t, in fact, notified Sedgwick of Hanley’s visit, he’d be getting an earful from the ambo, too.
The call was put through, and the chief of Berlin station prepared for his first of two difficult conversations of the day.
“Good morning, Deputy Director.”
Hanley wasn’t one for chitchat in the best of times, this the CIA station chief already knew, but he was still unprepared for the berating to come. “Fuck, McCormick! You told the ambo I was here!”
McCormick said, “I absolutely did no such thing, sir. We’ve done everything in our power to keep this close to our vests.”
“Oh, so it wasn’t on purpose. It was a fuckup. Is that the defense you’re going with?”
“I don’t know how he found out. I called a meeting with senior staff an hour ago, and they assure me that—”
“Someone in your station either did it out of malice or out of incompetence. No other possibility exists.”
“But—”
“Shut up, Kevin. Shut up and just listen.”
McCormick had known Hanley for nearly two decades. He’d never heard him this angry, and he assumed it had more to do with the beating he’d taken from the president’s top man in Europe than anything else.
Hanley was worried about losing his job, and right now, McCormick could relate. “Yes, sir,” he said, sheepishly.
“Simple question, I want a yes or no answer. Would you like to have a career tomorrow morning?”
“Yes. Yes, I would. Very much so, in fact.”
“Then I need you to do something for me, and I don’t want any pushback.”
McCormick had been handed a lifeline, and he lunged at it. “Anything you ask, sir.”
“What I need is for you to get me an invitation to Sedgwick’s party tonight.”
“His party? I was unaware of—”
“Some art opening bullshit thing at the ambo’s residence.”
McCormick thought a moment. “That’s right. I did hear something about that.” Relief washed over him. “Shouldn’t be any problem at all. I wasn’t invited; I’m Berlin station, and Sedgwick hates us. But you’re the DDO. I can reach out to one of the galleries providing the artwork and get you an invite.”
“Good.”
So happy he was to be let off the hook, McCormick said, “Is there anything else I can—”
“Yes, there is. I am going to send you two passports. I need identification made for these men. They are my personal security detail. I will be attending the event with them tonight.”
“Certainly. With security badges they will be let in to any event at the ambo’s residence as long as they’re with you and you have an invitation.” McCormick was even more ebullient now. “I’ll run them down to personnel and get—”
“No.”
“No?”
“They are not CIA personnel.”
It was quiet a moment. “Your bodyguards aren’t employed by us?”
“Long story. I need your art department to prepare these. And I need you to oversee it personally, and I need this to stay between you, me, and whoever in art that you trust.” “The art department” was a nickname given to the forgers kept on staff at a station. Hanley was telling McCormick, without saying it outright, that the two people coming along with him to the ambassador’s party would be using falsified CIA badges. And he was also telling Kevin McCormick that he would be complicit in this.
The chief of station’s voice shifted from relief to torment. “Oh . . . Actually, I’m not sure that I can—”
“Two men who are Agency contract employees. They don’t have security badges. I need them at the event, and they won’t be allowed in unless they are on my detail. I need them on my detail.”
McCormick sighed into the phone. “In good conscience, I don’t believe I—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your conscience! This needs to happen. If you don’t do it for me, I’ll call Benji Donovan at Prague station and have him courier them up to me this afternoon. But if I do have to call Prague, I’ll have you made assistant to the deputy director of personnel in Port Moresby.”
Hanley’s voice lowered. “Tell me, Kev, have your past assignments taken you to Papua New Guinea, or will this be a first?”
There was a pause, but not for long.
McCormick asked, “Will these contractors be carrying weapons? There’s a lot of documentation necessary for that, as you know, especially in Germany. Plus, I’d have to go through DSS and RSO.” The Diplomatic Security Service was responsible for the ambassador, and the Regional Security Office assisted with local protectees. “I really do not think I can falsify that.” He faked a little laugh. “I’d rather go to Port Moresby than prison, know what I mean?”
Hanley quipped, “So you haven’t been to New Guinea, I see.”
It was quiet another moment; Hanley pictured McCormick shitting his pants, and he enjoyed the image, so angry was he at the fact that someone at the man’s station had outed the DDO to the ambassador.
But Hanley let him off the hook. “No weapons. The DSS and RSO will handle any tough stuff, I just need these men by my side.”
Chief of Station McCormick relaxed, but only a little. “I’ll take care of the badges, sir. Run down the images personally and stand there while one woman in art, who I trust implicitly, takes care of the entire job. No one else will know.”
Matthew Hanley nodded to himself with the phone to his ear. He said, “Thank you, Kevin. Port Moresby’s loss is Berlin’s gain.” He hung up the phone, and turned to Court and Zack, who had joined him in the library of the farmhouse.
“Violator, you and Romantic are good to go, but you’ll have to go unarmed.”
“That blows,” Zack said.
“There will be seventy-five armed men and women at the event, I’m certain. I need your eyes, ears, and brains. I don’t need two more trigger pullers tonight.”
Gentry said, “I’ve heard that one before.”
Hanley shrugged. “If the shit hits the fan, I’m sure you will have access to a battlefield pickup.”
“That’s your plan, sir?” Zack was incredulous.
“Mirza could be there as a waiter, as a member of another delegation, as a fucking artist there to talk up one of his paintings. I don’t know. If he is there, and we have an opportunity, we can take him quickly and efficiently.”
Court said, “What if Mirza comes with one hundred jocked-up Quds dudes wearing S-vests? You know he won’t be there on his own. He has some sort of force multiplier up his sleeve.”
“Berlin station has gone to red alert, and they know the party is a potential Mirza target. DSS knows it, too. The Germans are already on high alert knowing that he’s loose in the city. Travers and his team will have a helo assigned to them, and they’ll be fifteen minutes out. Even if Mirza does have some other men, even if he’s got two dozen motherfuckers with him, they’re not getting into that building.”
“Unless they do,” Zack said.
“Unless they do, at which point you’ll have to stop him. You two, as well as myself, will be inside the residence. If an attack comes and all the armed men and women outside can’t repel it, it will be down to us.”
Court looked at Zack, hoping he wasn’t about to say what he worried he would say.
And then Zack said it. “Sir, Anthem is here, as well. Do you want to roll her into this?”
Hanley cast a frustrated gaze at Court, who himself cast a frustrated gaze on Zack before saying, “I wasn’t lying earlier, boss. She came back. Showed up when we were in the process of liberating Dittenhofer.”
“Where is she now?”
“She is with the German woman now.” He paused. “They’re trying to track down Spangler.”
“I will have Travers take you back to your place for a few hours, and they will collect Dittenhofer. She’ll come here and I’ll have Berlin station watch over her.” He sighed. “And I’ll call McCormick back and get Zoya a badge for tonight.”
Court didn’t say anything. He just looked at the floor.
“How copy, Violator?” Hanley asked.
Court shrugged. “Solid copy, boss.”
Hanley looked at both men now with a finger in their faces. “Remember this. Failure is not an option.”
Court sighed after hearing this cliché. “Failure is always an option, Matt. It’s just not the desired option.”
Zack said, “Six is not wrong about that. I’ve seen him fail.”
Hanley let it go, and changed gears. “You still look like shit, Court. I’m going to need you to clean up before the party. It’s an art show, can’t have you walking around looking like you’ve got typhoid.”
“Yeah, I’ll get on that.”
Court and Zack left Hanley in the library and headed outside, out on the driveway. Here they climbed into the back of a Suburban driven by one of Chris Travers’s Ground Branch operators, with another in the front passenger seat, for the lift back to the Spandau safe house. Court was furious with Zack that he’d roped Zoya into this plan of Hanley’s, but he retained the presence of mind to know that Zoya would have kicked his ass if he had kept her out of it.
Zack said, “We need suits and ties and shit for tonight, right?”
“Yep.” Court said it distractedly, his mind somewhere else.
“Want to go shopping?”
“Not particularly. Last time I tried that, it didn’t go so well.” Court’s focus was fully on Zoya now, on protecting her, and not on the mission at hand.
Zack nodded to himself, then smacked the driver’s seat. “Teddy. How ’bout you and Greer drop me off at a mall somewhere? I’ll get some duds for tonight for me and Six, then catch a cab back to Spandau.”
Teddy looked in the rearview. “Roger that, gramps.”
Zack smacked the back of the seat again, then turned to Court. “Dude, Mirza has got himself another crew of shitheads, and I agree they know something we don’t about what’s gonna go down, but if the shit hits the fan, we’ll adapt and overcome.” He added, “Anthem might end up being the help we need, just like last night in the factory.”
Court nodded. Zack was right, but Court’s affection for her still made him protective.