Beyond the clamor of tourists and locals at the port, the winding passages here took them between cozy bars and intimate fine-dining restaurants. The sounds of folk music drifted nearby though Alex couldn’t find their source. The map of the Old Town on his phone was nearly useless. Pathways appeared where there shouldn’t have been any. Dead ends sprang up at the end of tunnels lined with potted plants. He looked to Arnon to see if she had any better idea of where they were headed, but to his pleasure, she was no better at navigating the place than he was.
No wonder Smadi had chosen this place to stage his next move.
After a few wrong turns, they finally found a gate with a sign pointing toward the castle. And straight ahead, over a cobblestone path, Alex saw the hotel where Smadi should be. The hotel looked like it had bloomed straight out of a storybook with its twinkling yellow lights, colorful sprays of flowers in planters beneath its windows, and crumbling white stone façade.
Alex could almost feel Smadi’s presence here. But he knew that walking straight up to the reception desk—should anything so formal even exist in this boutique hotel—and asking for Smadi under his assumed name would only spook the man. Their best bet was to post up somewhere outside the hotel and wait for the professor to appear.
With two small outdoor restaurants nearby, that wouldn’t be a problem. Alex motioned to the closest one with an arcing wooden sign that said Nostimon Hellas. There were a couple of open tables outside that would serve them perfectly. They sat down, each ordering a Greek salad and a glass of white wine from Santorini.
“You have to talk to me now,” Alex said to Arnon. “It’s the only way to avoid looking suspicious around here.”
She sighed, glancing toward the hotel entrance. “Perhaps we are a feuding couple, fuming in blessed silence.”
Alex bit back the obvious retort that she was twice as old as him. But then again, he had seen his fair share of mismatched couples in exotic locales. Especially in a tourist destination like Naxos, no one would suspect otherwise.
The scars on her face would probably draw more curiosity than their age gap.
She took a sip of wine. “It’s been far too long since I’ve been out of the office.”
Alex poked at the juicy tomatoes, green peppers, and fresh onions in his salad. “Oh?”
“Yes, as you can imagine, the bosses prefer to hide me away at home rather than send me out where this can be seen.” She used her fork to indicate the left side of her face.
Alex didn’t need to ask why; there were two possibilities. One was that the scars made her far more noticeable in the field. It was a risk that she was even here in Naxos with him—but that just showed how determined she was to get Smadi.
The second possibility was that the scars and her age had retired her out of her usefulness in the field. Many an intelligence agency was known to utilize a cohort of swallows and ravens. Those women and men, respectively, used their sexual allure to draw unwary targets into their grasps.
Whatever the reason Rahel had been removed from the field, Alex didn’t think it wise to probe. He would let her say what she wanted. She might even reveal something unintended, although he doubted it.
“I rather like being out of the country.” Her words came out fluidly. Completely inconspicuous to anyone eavesdropping on their conversation. She was an expert at saying something Alex could perfectly understand while masking the real meaning of those words to someone who didn’t know they were seated next to two deadly covert agents. “But my work no longer requires travel like it used to. I think there is a—”
She suddenly lowered her wine glass.
“You know, I think we may have to leave our dinner early,” she said. Rahel started to unfold a stack of euros, placing them on the table.
A slight nod was enough for Alex to see what had sparked her sudden alarm.
Smadi wore sunglasses. A wide-brimmed hat shaded his face, and he had lost the bushy mustache. The man swept the street with an almost fearful gaze before rushing away, head down.
Arnon started to stand, but Alex grabbed her wrist. She took his hand in her free one. An innocuous gesture to any bystander. But Alex could feel her strength when she squeezed his hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Patience.”
“He’s moving,” she said in a low whisper.
“And so is he,” Alex said.
He gave a twitch of his eyes to their left.
A clean-shaven man with an angular jaw stood from his table. He wore a dress shirt and slim-cut khakis that made him look like a casual traveler. He slipped on a light jacket that had been resting over his chair, placed a few bills on his table, and walked almost nonchalantly after Smadi.
Arnon looked like she wanted to curse at Alex. Instead, she gave him a sorry shake of her head and loosened her grip on his hand. “It appears I’ve been out of the field too long.”
“Time to brush off that rust.”
Alex rose, and they joined the pursuit.
Three cats, one mouse.
The real chase had just begun.
Beirut, Lebanon
Something was about to go down in Martyrs’ Square, and they didn’t have time for a friendly chat to earn Ballard’s trust. Skylar wasn’t sure that Elad would be enough to convince Ballard she had come to help him. But she sure as hell hoped so. If not, she would have to do things her way. Which meant fists and bullets.
With the police gone, cheers broke out amid the crowd. Chanting voices filled the air and echoed off the buildings.
A sudden pop exploded above the throngs of people.
Skylar ducked instinctively, expecting bullets to start flying. Her hand flew toward the pistol holstered beneath her jacket. Instead, she saw the sizzling red streamers of a firework drift back to the ground. More bursts of light bloomed over the celebrations.
A little too early for declaring victory, she thought.
Skylar dodged around a group of six people waving flags, charging toward the center of the square. She kept her eyes on Ballard. The guy wasn’t much shorter than Alex but didn’t quite have the muscular build. Looked more like a lean runner with a swept-back haircut that belonged on Wall Street. Not bad looking. A guy she might actually consider accepting a drink from at a bar—which were few and far between. Still had the beard. Little bit different from the pictures she’d seen of him, but there was no mistaking this guy was CIA material.
He kept glancing around the crowd then back at a cell phone. Had that half-paranoid, half-urgent glint in his expression that only came from a lifetime of looking over your shoulder. She noticed a bulge at his back. Likely a gun.
“Anyone following him?” Friedman asked.
“Don’t see anyone,” Skylar said.
“Awfully strange that this fellow disappears for weeks, and suddenly he’s walking around free, don’t you think?”
“All the more reason we catch up to him and have a chat,” Skylar said.
Why had Ballard gone on an op like this by himself, deep into cover, instead of warning Langley what was about to unfold? He had risked everything to make it to Martyrs’ Square today.
What did he know?
Elad was glancing around nervously.
“Quit looking around like a snake’s got you by the balls,” Friedman said to him. “You’re better than that.”
Elad tried to act casual but looked stiff instead. Might have been a good agent before, but the guy was clearly out of his element now.
Another rash of fireworks burst above the square. Elad winced. Smoke drifted over them, bringing with it a sulfurous odor. Between the clouds, Ballard headed southwest toward the large mosque with the cerulean roof.
“Let’s head him off,” Skylar said.
With a nod, she sent Friedman to Ballard’s left. She took Elad through the crowd to Ballard’s right.
Ballard practically vanished in the swarm of people. Skylar caught only glimpses of him between the protesters. The closer
she got, the more the man reminded her of Alex, the way he faded in and out of anonymity. This guy was a pro—and today, he’d brought his A game.
Too bad for him, so did I, Skylar thought.
“Go,” she mouthed to Friedman.
The Mossad agent swam through the crowd straight toward Ballard. Elad trailed her as she hurried to intercept from the other side.
As she narrowed in on him, a bottle rocket seared past them then exploded against a car. Elad gave a little gasp and grabbed her arm. For a moment, she lost Ballard.
“You got to hold it together, understand?” she asked. “Do you see him?”
Elad’s expression tightened, his brow knitting together as he looked around. “Over there.”
Skylar followed his finger to see Ballard slipping closer toward the mosque. They closed in. He still hadn’t seemed to realize he was being followed. His eyes kept dancing between his phone and the sky.
Another twenty yards, and he would be free from the crowd.
More banks of rolling smoke began to drift over the crowd. The constant rattle of fireworks clapped overhead again and again. If Skylar’s senses hadn’t been tuned by years of training and experience in the Marines and now Vector, she might’ve missed the familiar hum that she heard next.
Things were about to get bad. Worst-case-scenario bad.
“No matter what, you keep your eyes on Ballard,” she said to Elad.
Then they came.
Dozens of quadcopter drones rushed past the minarets of the mosque and over the roofs of the apartments and offices. Smoke swirled around their small rotors. The drones spread out in a lattice network, adjusting their flight paths only to avoid the incoming fireworks.
A few of the protesters began to point up to the sky.
Toward the northern end of the square, past the Martyrs’ Monument, the air around the drones began to sparkle like a fine mist catching the sunlight. Skylar had seen the air shift like that before. Back when she had rescued Jaber from that van in Amman. Only at a much, much smaller scale.
She knew exactly what those drones were dumping into the crowd. And worse, she knew from personal experience what would come next.
This was what she had been afraid of.
“Friedman, we need to get Ballard out of here right now,” she called into the mic on her collar.
She shoved past a few gawkers. Already, people were filming the scene with their cell phones, livestreaming the events around the world.
This was a perfect setup. To the casual observer, they would see protesters celebrating with fireworks, then they would see the surveillance drones.
But afterwards would come the violence. Brutal chaos. People erupting into insatiable madness—and with all the police and military presence having already retreated, no one could blame the protesters’ reactions on the authorities.
This wasn’t a rogue terrorist attack after all.
This was a government using the Ring of Solomon on its own citizens. A terrifying black-flag attack.
And she was about to be swept up in it.
The air seemed to undulate, rippling with that slight shine. It seemed the particles were being released from the northern drones first then slowly spreading her direction.
So far she didn’t hear any screams.
But she imagined it wouldn’t be long.
“I’ve got him,” Friedman said, reaching out toward Ballard. He grabbed the rogue agent’s upper arm, beginning to say something to him.
Ballard reacted with a blow straight to Friedman’s nose and started to sprint away. He shoved a woman and man over, knocking them into a group of teenagers setting off bottle rockets.
“Hurry,” Skylar said to Elad.
More fireworks. More yells. Protesters pointing toward the sky. Camera phones everywhere.
She kept her eyes low, trying to avoid being immortalized on one of those videos. She ran between two men lighting a couple of Roman candles then threw herself at Ballard. They went down in a jumble, rolling over the pitted asphalt. A few people nearby screeched and tried to pull them apart.
But she didn’t let go of Ballard, no matter how he writhed in her grip.
Then Elad caught up to them and reached down to help Skylar.
Ballard suddenly stopped. Fear danced across his face for a second, his eyes going wide.
“You… you’re alive?” he asked.
Elad nodded. “I am.”
Skylar couldn’t tell if Elad actually recognized Ballard or if he had finally gotten his crap together as a field operative. Friedman caught up to them, blood streaming from his busted nose. The sky behind him was filling with the same sparkling mist.
Skylar could just start to taste the metal on the air. “Things are going to get way worse. We need to move.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Ballard said, relaxing in her grip. He waved the people around them back. “I’ve got questions.”
“So do we,” Skylar said, standing. She kept a hand around Ballard’s wrist to make sure he wasn’t about to run off again. “But first, we need to get as far as we can from—”
The first terrified screams exploded from the north of the square.
-27-
Naxos, Greece
Alex and Arnon followed Smadi and his pursuer out from the walls around the castle. They traveled past a few jewelry stores and wine bars where acoustic guitar melodies drifted out. Alex wanted to know where Smadi was going—but most of all, he wanted to know who this other man was who had joined the chase.
They curved up a set of winding stairs that led from the Old Town and toward the mostly empty slopes to the northeast. Smadi led them outside the city between ugly parking lots and convenience stores, a striking counterpoint to the idyllic settings around the castle.
As Smadi headed up the slope, Alex and Arnon had to slow down, dodging behind a few parked cars for cover. A lone chapel stood at the highest point of the hill. In the classical Greek Orthodox fashion, the building itself wasn’t much larger than Alex’s townhouse in Frederick. Its white paint contrasted sharply with the grays, greens, and blues of the surrounding landscape.
Smadi opened the door to go inside.
Right before the door shut, his pursuer caught it and slipped in after. The man didn’t seem to be worried about compromising his cover any longer. He had Smadi cornered.
That told Alex all he needed to know. Judging by the sudden fire in Arnon’s expression, she had drawn the same conclusion. Wordlessly, she raced toward the church with her pistol out. Alex followed, reaching for the handgun stowed at his back.
Arnon burst into the small chapel. Alex came in on her heels.
As soon as he entered the holy place, gunfire erupted in violent flashes of light and sound. He dove behind a long bench. Bullets chiseled into the wall behind him. Fragments of the ornate fresco painted along the walls rained down from each impact.
He twisted his gun up toward the shooter.
The man had Smadi locked in a choke hold with one arm. He swung his pistol around with the other, pointing at Arnon and Alex, as he retreated with the professor behind the lectern. A few candles burned next to him at an altar for offerings. The light flickered over his face, giving him an almost demonic expression.
“If you want this man, you will drop your weapons,” the man said. He had a thick Eastern European accent, though Alex couldn’t place it.
Arnon had her handgun out, taking cover behind a pillar on the other side of the chamber. Alex scrambled for better cover behind another crumbling stone column.
“Drop your weapons,” the gunman repeated.
Arnon looked at Alex and shook her head.
Alex couldn’t disagree with her assessment. He hadn’t followed Smadi into this chapel just because he wanted to save the professor. No, he either wanted to kill the man or kidnap him.
Either way, he had correctly ascertained that Alex and Rahel had come for answers. The guy’s only choice was to use Smadi as a human shield
if he wanted to make it out alive.
Too bad he didn’t know who he was dealing with.
Arnon aimed at the altar with the candles. She fired a burst of shots that cut into one of the altar’s nearly rotten legs. The structure tumbled forward, spilling glass and fire.
The gunman jumped sideways. He turned his back toward Alex just enough to make for a clean shot. Three rounds plunged right into the man’s back. He didn’t even have time to let out a yelp, his limbs splayed, nerves severed.
Alex sprinted toward the lectern where Smadi and the gunman had fallen. He yanked the body away. The professor was covered in blood.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked.
Smadi wiped at his face, shaking. Alex took the gunman’s pistol then offered Smadi a hand to help him up.
Arnon wasn’t so kind. She hauled the man up by his upper arm and pressed him against one of the walls. Her pistol jabbed at his abdomen.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I… he…” Smadi trembled.
Alex couldn’t blame him. Not with Arnon breathing down his neck right after he’d seen the other attacker bleed out on the stone floor. Alex patted down the gunman. To no surprise, he had no identification, no phone. Nothing they could use to figure out who he was or why he had come after Smadi.
“Do you know this man?” Alex asked.
The professor stared, frozen for a moment.
“Dr. Smadi, do you know this man?” he asked, this time with more force.
Smadi shook his head. “No, no, I don’t. God, I don’t know him.”
“We know about the Ring of Solomon,” Arnon said, pressing her weapon into his gut. “We know that it has been sold to terrorist groups, and there are plans to expand its distribution. We know of the human suffering this weapon is already causing. My finger is tightening on the trigger even as I think of these terrible things you are responsible for. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t end you right now.”
Alex knew she had no intentions of killing the guy. They needed him alive to answer all their questions.
But he didn’t seem to know that.
Demon Mind (Vector Book 2) Page 24
