by Dale Brown
To get to the computer he had to get into the estate, but that wouldn’t be difficult either. A Reaper drone would provide real-time imaging through MY-PID, telling Nuri where the two outside guards were with the help of a synthetic imaging radar. The radar could penetrate the earth to roughly one hundred feet; it would have no trouble seeing into the house. The aircraft also had a small cesium magnetometer and an electronic field sensor aboard; the devices were sensitive enough to detect burglar alarms and computers, even when off—in effect telling Nuri not only what to avoid, but where to go.
Vineyards and olive groves surrounded the estate on three sides. A small booth near the top of the driveway about two hundred feet from the house looked to be the only permanent guard post. The two men who watched the place came out of the hut every thirty to forty minutes. Though their schedule was unpredictable, their route wasn’t: one walked around the house to the west, one went east. They met at the back veranda, continuing onward back to the hut.
Approaching through the eastern olive grove would be the easiest; hedges blocked most of the view from the post, and a pair of farm buildings near the house would make for a natural jumping off point.
The house was an old stone structure, at least six or seven hundred years old. It had three stories aboveground and one below. A portico ran along the east and north of the building, a kind of two-story porch flanking the kitchen and main living area. A pool was located on the northwestern side. Nuri wouldn’t know where the office was until the Reaper made its first overflight, but he suspected it was somewhere on the second floor, very possibly near the mafioso’s bedroom.
Or in it.
Given that possibility, he decided he wasn’t going to let insomnia jeopardize his mission: he armed himself with several syringes of an etomidate derivative, a powerful anesthetic that would put Moreno into a deep slumber almost instantaneously.
He was tempted to use one to get rid of Gregor. She clung to him like glue when he went to Naples International Airport, Ugo Niutta, to pick up Flash and the gear he needed, which had been flown in from the States via the Aviano air base.
In one breath she would say she didn’t want to do anything illegal, in the next she would ask how they were getting onto the estate. Nuri kept the details to himself. He didn’t need her, now that Flash was with him. The question was how to ease her from the picture.
A cliff would have done nicely.
Flash was flying on a diplomatic passport, and brought in a “pouch” of weapons and backup com gear. “Pouch” was a diplomatic misnomer—it was actually a small metal crate, securely locked. To carry it, they had to each take a handle at the side and walk out to the car.
“You could open the trunk for us,” Nuri grunted to Gregor as they approached the rented Fiat.
“You didn’t give me the keys,” she said.
True, but somehow it felt like it was her fault. They packed up the car, then went off for something to eat.
Flash had been in the Army for just over ten years before deciding to work with a private security contractor. That gig, three months in an African hellhole, hadn’t worked out the way he had hoped. He told Nuri in Iran that he’d spent his time guarding the brother of an African “president”—aka dictator for life. The man had a thing for guns, and liked to fire them at all hours of the night, and not always in appropriate places or directions. This wouldn’t have been so bad if Flash had been paid as promised. In the end he had to take matters into his own hands, bartering for his pay—diamonds for his employer’s life.
This might have complicated Flash’s future, except for the fact that the president was overthrown a week after Flash left the country. He and his brother were executed by the new government. Flash held a private memorial service at a bar he liked in Oklahoma. He was the only attendee.
Nuri found a small restaurant on the outskirts of the city, far enough away from the crowded, medieval streets at the center of town where he could park the car without having to watch it. He was fluent in Italian—he’d spent some of his childhood here—and took charge of the ordering, sticking to basic spaghetti so heartburn wouldn’t be a factor later on.
“So what’s our plan?” asked Gregor after the waiter left.
“Eat,” said Nuri.
“I mean later.”
“The plan is, you go into the city, find a nice hotel with a good bar, and wait for us.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
The waiter returned with water and bread. The inside of the bread looked almost gray in the restaurant’s dim light.
“I’m not going to a hotel,” said Gregor.
“You don’t want to do anything illegal, right?”
“You don’t need backup?”
Flash stayed quiet, slowly sipping the water.
“What happens if something goes wrong when you break in?” asked Gregor. “Who’s going to rescue you?”
“You’re not coming in with me,” Nuri told her. “Flash isn’t either. This is a one-man gig.”
“Your radio tells you what to do?” said Gregor. She was apparently referring to the MY-PID control device.
“No,” said Nuri, a little louder than he wanted. He recalibrated his voice as he continued. “No one is telling me what to do. Flash is going to liaison between the Reaper and me. He’ll be near the estate, down the hill.”
“Who’s going to watch his back while he’s watching yours?”
“Here comes the spaghetti,” said Flash, glancing at the waiter.
Nuri considered what to do while the waiter put down the platter of pasta and served family style. Gregor might be helpful; in any event, it was safer to keep her with them than have her in the city if he couldn’t trust where she’d end up. Most likely she wouldn’t screw him up, but there was always that distant chance that might come back to bite him.
“If you do exactly what Flash says,” Nuri told her once the waiter retreated to the kitchen, “you can watch his back.”
He thought he saw a look of pain pass over Flash’s face, but maybe it was just a reaction to the spaghetti.
“It won’t be illegal, right?” asked Gregor.
“If it is,” deadpanned Flash between bites, “we’re blaming it on you.”
Nuri’s mother’s side of the family came from Sicily, and counted a number of relatives with low-level associations with the Men of Respect, as the mafia was generally known there. The Sicilians and the Neapolitans got along only rarely, but they were alike enough as a general species for Nuri to form a sound dossier on what Moreno would be like: brutal in his dealings with the outside world, but completely complacent and lazy within the confines of what he considered his safe and untouchable haven. Calling him full of himself wouldn’t begin to describe him. It was very likely that the two men watching his estate were related to him, drawing the assignment as a kind of family work program.
The Reaper was due to come on station precisely at midnight. Nuri wanted to be ready to get into the house by then; that would give him plenty of time to get in and out before dawn. If things went well, in fact, he should be out before the last bars closed.
The first sign of a complication came when he drove up the town road to familiarize Flash with the area. It was a little past eleven, and the few people who lived in the hamlet had long since retired; there were no lights on in any of the buildings. But as he drove toward the turnoff for Moreno’s estate, he saw a dark Mercedes E class sedan parked in the center of the road. Nuri slowed down but didn’t stop.
“Two guys inside,” said Flash, who was sitting in the passenger seat. “Didn’t look too friendly.”
“They weren’t there earlier,” said Gregor.
“Is there another way up?” asked Flash.
“That’s the only road. But we can get up there through the vineyards down around the bend here. Just a longer walk, that’s all.”
Nuri drove down the road, showing Flash how the road cut into the side of the hill. T
he old monastery was to their right, just below the vineyards. They could stash the car near the ruins.
“You two wait here,” Nuri told Flash after pulling down the dirt driveway that led to the ruins. “I want to see if I can figure out what’s going on. I’ll sneak back behind the car and see if I can pick up anything from their conversations.”
“You sure you don’t want backup?” asked Flash.
“It won’t be a problem. One is quieter than two. Test your radio and make sure we have a good signal.”
Nuri got out of the car. He put on his Gen 4 night glasses, fixing the strap at the back of his head. While the glasses were slightly more powerful than the generation 3 glasses that were standard issue in the military, their real value was in their size—they were only a little thicker than swimming goggles, and weighed barely a pound.
Nuri rolled down the thin wire that ran from the right side of the goggles and plugged it into the MY-PID control unit, allowing the computer system to see what he was seeing. He checked his pistol—a Beretta fitted with a laser-dot pointer and a silencer—then did a quick check of the rest of his gear in the fanny pack he had around his waist. He’d taken a small can of mace and two of the hyperemic needles, but in truth he knew if he needed either, he might just as well use the gun.
He walked a few yards farther up the hill, moving through the trees as he approached the intersection where the guards were.
He was about fifty feet away when the dome light inside the Mercedes came on. He held his breath and went down to one knee as a Fiat approached from the main road. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a small microphone that was tuned to gather sounds from a distance. His fingers fumbled as he connected it to the radio headset.
The guard who’d been sitting in the passenger seat of the Mercedes got out and walked to the Fiat as it stopped. Nuri tuned his mike, but the Fiat’s muffler was broken and the car drowned out whatever they were saying.
The guard straightened and waved. Nuri froze, sure that the man was waving at him. But he was only signaling his companion in the Mercedes, who backed out of the way to let the Fiat pass.
He strained to see into the car as it passed but couldn’t see through the bushes.
“Computer, identify the occupants of the car.”
“Query: which vehicle?”
“The Fiat.”
“Unknown. One occupant. Driver. Unidentified female.”
“Female?”
“Affirmative.”
The Mercedes resumed its position blocking the road. The man who’d gotten out walked back over to the passenger side and got in.
“Can you identify the man who just got into the Mercedes?” Nuri asked the computer.
“Negative. Subject is approximately thirty years old. European extraction. Six feet three inches tall. Appears armed with a handgun in a holster beneath his jacket.”
Nuri angled to his right, trying to get a better line of sight on the intersection when they stopped another car. He settled into another clump of brush about twenty feet from the road and waited.
Ten minutes later a second car came up the road. This one was a Ford. He had a clear view into the windshield, despite the headlights. There were two women in the front seat; the back seemed empty.
The driver rolled down the window as the guard approached. The two women were laughing, giggling.
“The party,” she said in Italian.
The guard waved the Mercedes out of the way, and the car passed. Nuri retreated back to the old ruins.
By the time the Reaper was on station, there were a dozen people at the estate. Most were by the pool, though there were two in front of the house, near the cars. Nuri assumed they were guards and that the others were revelers.
“We’ll wait for them to get good and loaded,” he told Flash.
“How long is that?” asked Flash.
“Couple of hours.”
“You’re gonna wait that long?” asked Gregor.
“I can wait as long as I have to.”
At two-fifteen Nuri decided he’d waited long enough. “All right, we’ll go up together,” he told the others. “We’ll go up to that hedge line near the house. You guys wait for me there while I go in. Capisce?”
“We got it,” said Flash.
“Anything you say,” said Gregor.
“No questions,” added Nuri.
“No questions,” she said.
They got out and started up the hill, moving easily through the vineyards.
“Nice goggles,” said Gregor. “They’re starlight goggles, right? Cat’s eyes.”
“You weren’t going to ask any questions,” said Nuri sharply.
“Oh come on. That was harmless.”
“I could strangle you here and no one would ever know,” snapped Nuri.
Just as they were approaching the barns, MY-PID warned that a woman was coming down in their direction from the house. Nuri stopped at the edge of the vineyard, waiting to see where she was going. A minute or so later one of the guards slipped from the guard house, a good ten minutes earlier than the normal schedule dictated. He walked in her direction; they met in a small garden about thirty yards from the house, whispering before finding each other in the moonlit shadows.
“They’ll be busy for a while,” Nuri told Flash. “I’m going to circle around. Watch what’s going on with the MY-PID screen and let me know.”
“Got it.”
A few minutes later Nuri felt short of breath as he pulled himself onto the portico at the eastern end of the house. He knelt near one of the columns, catching his breath. Using the data from the Reaper, MY-PID had analyzed the circuitry inside the house and deduced that there were no alarm systems. It had also located the office on the western side of the house. He moved around the back, working his way toward the office.
Large French windows lined the exterior rooms on the first floor. He passed a large dining room and a living room before coming to the edge of the house.
Music was playing in the back; it was an Italian version of hip-hop, an odd blend of rhythms. Nuri slipped down to the bottom of the wall and peeked around. There were two or three girls in the pool, splashing each other and drinking out of champagne glasses. A man, presumably Moreno, was floating on a raft, his back to Nuri.
Let’s go, Nuri told himself. Get it on.
He moved back to the French door and tried pulling it open. It was locked. A thin shiv took care of the simple latch, and it gave way easily. He slipped in behind the light curtains, walking into the mafioso’s lair.
He got three feet when he heard the dog coming.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Nobody told me about dogs.”
11
Chisinau, Moldova
The thirst was overwhelming. His whole body ached. His hands shook. He curled his fingers into a fist and put them under his legs. He tightened his stare at the woman at the desk across from his chair near the door to the examining rooms and offices inside.
The drugs. He needed the drugs.
The clinic waiting room was nearly full. He willed the other patients away. The doctor had to see him now.
Now!
An intercom buzzed at the desk.
“Mrs. Gestau?” said the receptionist, looking down the list of patients. “Dr. Nudstrumov will see you now.”
A middle-aged woman sitting near him got up. She walked as close to the opposite wall as possible, clearly sensing his displeasure that she had been called ahead of him.
He waited a few more seconds. They seemed like hours. He had to do something. He leaned forward—then got up, practically rolling into motion.
“When am I going in?” he said to the woman at the desk.
“The doctor is very busy today. But I’m sure as soon as—”
He didn’t need to hear the rest. He stepped to his left and pushed through the door. The hallway seemed darker than normal, the walls closer together. Very close—they seemed to push against his shoulders as
he strode toward the doctor’s office at the end of the hall.
“Wait!” the receptionist called behind him. “Wait—you can’t just barge in here. Wait!”
Her voice fell back into a deep pit far behind him. He stopped at the first examining room, threw open the door. A man in his sixties sat on the examining table in his underwear, feet dangling off the side.
The doctor wasn’t there. He turned and walked to the next room.
“Stop!” said a nurse. “What are you doing?”
“It’s OK,” said Dr. Nudstrumov, appearing at the end of the hall. “I was just going to send for Herr Schmidt.”
“The examining rooms are full,” said the receptionist.
“Herr Schmidt and I can use my office.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Herr Schmidt, please,” said the doctor, extending his arm. “So good to see you today.”
He walked into the office. Without waiting for an invitation, he pulled off his shirt.
“You’re shaking,” said the doctor, closing the door behind him. “It’s getting worse.”
“Give it to me,” he said tightly.
“A year ago you only needed the shots every six months. Now it is every six weeks.”
“I don’t care to hear my entire medical history.”
“I suppose not.”
The doctor took a stethoscope from the pocket of his lab coat. The coat seemed almost gray, though he knew that the doctor habitually wore them bright and freshly starched.
“My heart is fine.”
“I’m listening to your lungs,” said Dr. Nudstrumov, an edge creeping into his voice. He was in his sixties, short and bald. He’d gained a considerable amount of weight in the decade and a half since they had known each other, to the point that he was now fat, rather than skinny.
But that was the least of the changes. He’d gone through several different names, so many that even the Black Wolf didn’t know which was real. He even used “corporate” names—common aliases that were supposed to belong only to the Wolves.
