Tel Aviv, Israel
The next day Stone stepped out of an elevator and onto the rooftop pool deck of the Isrotel Tower in Tel Aviv. The pool was at the very top of the tower, and might as well have been isolated in a desert. He could hear nothing but laughter and splashing. The sounds from the city below couldn’t reach them.
At the bar, he ordered a Maker’s Mark-and-Coke. Moving to the blue rail surrounding the edge of the roof, his body aching in mild protest, he leaned against the rail and gazed out at the clear blue Mediterranean in the distance. The frolicking continued behind him, providing an interesting soundtrack to his introspection. The color of the water matched the sky. The warm temperature felt good. The view seemed very peaceful, but that water had witnessed a lot of bloodshed.
The city below went about its business silently, while up on the pool deck, a carefree attitude ruled the day. Stone turned to face the pool. Mostly kids in the water; watchful parents remained on the sidelines while a trio of young ladies sunned themselves on loungers. Each one wore a bikini to show off their flawless bodies, with an automatic rifle lying next to them. Stone shook his head. IDF troops on a break. The war was never far away.
He sipped his drink with a glance toward the elevator. No sign of his Mossad contact yet.
His team had left Iraq and returned to the back room of a downtown Tel Aviv bar where the failed operation had been assembled. Very quickly they broke down their gear and went their separate ways, but not without Stone trying to get them to agree to continue the mission.
Both had refused. They’d been paid to go into Iraq and assassinate a target; the failure of said mission left them at no obligation to chase the man down unless Stone and his company wanted to fork over more cash.
For Stone that was quite a letdown. To him, the job wasn’t done until the target was dead.
He didn’t know anything more about Jafar el-Gad than his Mossad contact had told him. PLO Captain and the brains behind a variety of attacks incorporating new killing techniques. Of course, el-Gad never did any killing himself, he just showed others how to do it and sent them into battle. Mossad wanted him dead. Stone’s plan had gone from a smoothly executed idea developed in a Tel Aviv bar to a pile of rubbish in a Baghdad street.
He drank down some of the Maker’s-and-Coke and the elevator doors slid open. Asaf Cohen, Stone’s Mossad contact, stepped out and took in the site before him, his head moving left and right and lingering a little too long on the bikini-clad IDF sunbathers. Stone whistled. Cohen snapped his attention to Stone, grinned, and approached with an easy gait.
“Good morning,” Cohen said, shaking hands with Stone. “What are we drinking?”
“Maker’s-and-Coke.”
“This early?”
“It’s after midnight in the States.”
Cohen took a deep breath. Stone couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark aviator glasses, but he sensed those eyes were looking right at him.
“What did you want to see me about? Your job is done. Go home.”
“The job is incomplete,” Stone said.
“Missions fail all the time. We knew the risks when we hired you. If you had been killed--”
“I know, I know. You didn’t want it traced back to Mossad. I get that. But I also have my pride to think about.”
Cohen laughed. “Pride will get you killed.”
“My reputation?”
Cohen shrugged. “I suppose it’s not good to be known as somebody who can’t finish his tasks.”
“You paid my company a lot of money.”
“You needed to pay your men. By the way, where did they go?”
Stone shrugged. “Who knows. I tried to get them to stay with me and keep going, but they refused. They were paid to go into Iraq; they went there.”
Cohen shook his head with half a grin on his face. “You have a lot to learn about mercenaries, Stone.”
“Or just find men with a better work ethic.”
“That has nothing to do with it. Mercenaries are the way they are. That’s why we hire them. No fuss. No drama. You’re creating drama by trying to be a hero.”
“I’m simply trying to earn my money.”
“You earned it. Go home. We’ll catch el-Gad another day. You know how it is. Miss him on Tuesday, get him on Friday.”
“Today is Friday.”
“You know what I mean.”
Stone folded his arms. “What if I want to kill el-Gad on principal?”
“Because he needs killing?”
“People like him, yeah. So these people”--Stone gestured toward the pool--“don’t have to worry about somebody blowing up this hotel.”
Cohen removed his sunglasses, squinting at Stone. “I’m going to tell you this as a friend,” he said. “Don’t get too deeply involved in things. You need to stay detached.”
Stone did not answer.
“What happens if I tell you Mossad will not sanction continued action?”
Stone waited a beat. Then: “I’ll do it on my own. Worse case I end up dead.”
“What does your boss say?”
Stone’s boss was Brad Preston, Director of the Eagle Alliance, the man who adopted Stone after the murder of his family.
“What my boss doesn’t know,” Stone said, “won’t hurt him.”
Cohen put his sunglasses back on. “When was the last time you visited Greece?”
“That’s classified.”
Cohen laughed again. “Tell you what. Go somewhere away from here and do some serious thinking. You might like Athens and a casino there called Regency Mont Parnes. Lots of good play. Lots of attractive women. Like those over there.”
“You probably know them.”
Cohen took the opportunity to glance at the three women over the top of his aviators. “Nope. Not those.”
Stone said, “How long should I think about things?”
Cohen shrugged. “Couple days. I’m sure the answers you’re looking for will come to you quite quickly. So long.”
Stone watched Cohen cross the roof to the elevator, walking with a casual gait, shoulders relaxed. He didn’t look like a veteran of various secret campaigns carried out in defense of his country.
Then again, Stone didn’t look like a killer, either.
And Stone had a talent for killing bad guys.
Stone waited a few more minutes to give Cohen time to get to the lobby and back to his car and away. He leaned his elbows on the railing and gazed out at the Mediterranean.
Of course he took missions personally. The defenseless deserved a champion, somebody who could fight the battles they could not. Stone considered himself that champion. It was thankless; it was crazy, yeah, but when one has the power to make a difference, one should exercise that power. Responsibly. Carefully. And annihilate the enemy at every opportunity. He did it so others wouldn’t experience the tragedy he faced as a teenager.
The Med offered no comment. Only the ocean and the land lasted forever; everything else around him would someday be gone, same as the civilization that preceded it had faded into history. What would it look like then? From that perspective, Stone wondered what the point was. Why risk his neck when history would eventually forget he existed and the only witnesses, the ocean and the land, forever presiding over human folly, couldn’t talk? Then he realized he was thinking way too much.
A splash behind him. Somebody screamed. Stone turned to look. Some knucklehead had cannonballed himself into the water and the splash made a direct hit on the bikini-clad IDF women, who were laughing it off now as they dried themselves, one shooting a nasty look at the fellow as he swam lazily, pleased with himself.
Stone returned to his hotel room on the eighteenth floor. Using his laptop, he booked a flight to Greece.
Athens, Greece
The cable car swayed as it traveled upward, the slope of the mountain below a carpet of dark green. The treetops looked bristly from above, and very unforgiving should the cable car somehow fall through the forest c
anopy to the ground below. Stone had to admit it was a nice view, though. Behind them, the lights of the city blazed against a curtain of black. Ahead, more lights, but isolated in a single spot. The lights of the Regency Casino Mont Parnes were almost as bright as the city lights, but not as dazzling.
Stone loved Greece, especially the coastal areas, and had once spent a week of vacation at a seaside resort, but he hadn’t been back in several years, despite his quip to Cohen. This trip, and the reasons for it, made the venture less enjoyable than if he’d been on holiday, but if he could finish what Mossad had hired him to do, he might change his tune.
There were two ways to get to the Regency. The first was to follow the Parnithos road which wound through the mountain, twisting and turning its way through the forest and requiring special attention, especially at night. There were no lights on the road, and a driver who was tired, slightly inebriated, or simply not paying attention faced disaster should he or she run off the road or overcorrect on one of the hairpin turns.
The other way, and the most popular, was the cable car, which started at a station far down the mountain just outside Acharnes, a suburb part of the greater Athens area. The cable cars were always packed, and Stone stood against the Plexiglass window with a crush of other Regency guests behind him. Standing room only. The parking lot at the cable car station had been full when he arrived by taxi, so that meant anybody taking their own car would have to brave the road.
Stone had been visiting the casino every night for the last three days, tracking Jafar el-Gad, his girlfriend, and his two-man entourage of security. Asaf Cohen’s suggestion of finding the Palestinian at the casino had been so spot on, Stone knew they’d been tracking the target even before Stone made his plea to continue the mission. He didn’t fault the Mossad man. A lot of things in the spy business happened based on suggestions, hints, and creative interpretations of other men’s words. It was up to people like Stone to make sure they made correct assessments of such indirect instructions.
Sometimes it was enough to make a guy crazy. Why couldn’t they say things directly, like normal people? That, Stone thought with a short laugh, assumed that spies were indeed normal people. He seriously doubted that they were.
As the cable car continued to creep along, the voices of the people surrounding him slightly muting the groans and whines of the thick cables holding the cabin aloft, Stone ran through what he knew about el-Gad.
El-Gad and his crew visited for a round of poker which often ended in el-Gad losing money. They avoided the cable car. El-Gad’s bodyguards drove him around in a four-door Jaguar XJ, white in color. The reason was obvious. The cable car represented a cage in which el-Gad could be trapped. Stone would have made the same call, except tonight he needed the cable car. He’d left his own car in the casino parking lot, positioned near the exit, and planned to follow the Palestinian back to whichever hideout he had secreted away in Athens. Their use of the road meant Stone could, if he made the effort, find an ambush point and blast the Jag off the road, but that would endanger civilians also using the road.
There were always problems to solve.
He let out a sigh that created a small patch of condensation on the Plexiglass. The cable car was almost to the top. Stone wanted to be there now.
The cable car finally docked at the receiving platform and Stone waited while the other passengers disembarked into the dazzling and brightly lighted casino. He heard a lot of Greek, foreign languages, and some English. The Regency catered to tourists and locals alike. Stone made his way through a floor of buzzing and dinging slot machines, weaving around clusters of people trying to navigate their way around, and presently exited the front of the casino into the parking lot. His shoes scraped the outside steps and tapped a rhythm on the blacktop. It looked like every parking spot had a car in it, bright lamps lighting the way. His rented BMW sat in a farthest corner. Stone dropped behind the wheel and let out a deep breath. He couldn’t see the white Jaguar from where he sat, but there was only one exit, and he’d see the car for sure when el-Gad and his people departed.
Now he just had to stay awake and not get bored. The soft leather seat felt like a couch. He turned on the car’s accessory power and rolled down the windows to let the cold air in, then turned on the radio and found some music to listen to. Lastly, he removed a Montecristo cigar from the inside pocket of his jacket and struck a match to the foot. If he had to sit and wait, he could at least enjoy himself.
Two-hours later he’d finished the cigar, tossing the butt out the window, his mind numbed from watching every single car that exited the parking lot. Plenty of white cars; no white Jaguar XJs. As he began to wonder if el-Gad had broken his nightly routine for the first time, he finally saw the four-door Jag making its way down an aisle. Stone twisted the ignition key and buckled his seat belt.
The BMW’s powerful V8 burbled as he joined a short line of leaving cars, luckily none of them white. The road down the mountain was one lane each way. There would be no chance of losing the Jag or of getting ahead of them. They, too, had the disadvantage of having other cars in front of them. Once they reached the streets at the bottom of the mountain, where a four-way intersection allowed many different options for travel, he’d have to hustle to keep up.
The road was actually more twisty than Stone thought, but the BMW handled the cornering just fine, the tight suspension making any bumps a little extra rough. The centipede of cars, with their flashing brake-lights and bright headlamps, lit the roadway enough to give him plenty of time to react to the curves. Speeds remained moderate. The white Jag XJ was three cars ahead. The forest on either side looked dense.
After a half hour of twists and turns they cleared the mountain and reached Meg. Alexandrou, Stone staying close to the Jag as other vehicles branched off in other directions. They drove by homes and more trees. There were trees everywhere, separating the homes or lining the streets, as if the builders hadn’t the heart to cut down all of them to make room for the houses. When they reached Orfeos Road, Stone noted the houses became more spread out, then less and less, and he drifted back to put more space between him and the Jag. They were back in a wooded area, albeit with street lamps to light the way a little better than on the mountain. Other cars passed in the opposite lane, so being on the same road as el-Gad and his crew would not immediately be suspicious, but had Stone been in the other car, he’d have his senses on high alert.
The Jag slowed, brake-lights flaring, and Stone took his foot off the accelerator to slow down a little as well. The Jag made a sharp left turn. Stone kept going, glancing at the rear of the Jag as he passed, noting the long driveway up to another house secured behind the wooded roadside. Stone continued up the road another mile and pulled over with the engine still running. On his iPhone, he noted their location and coordinates. He could get a better look at the place on his laptop back at the hotel. He waited for two cars going the opposite way to pass before swinging the BMW in a wide U-turn and heading back the way he’d come.
He found the house via Google Maps, his HD screen giving him a very sharp overhead picture. The news, however, didn’t get any better.
The computer rested on his lap. He sat on the hotel room’s small leather couch which had no back support and sitting on it for any length of time made his lower back ache. But it was a smoking room, so while he puffed on another Montecristo, he examined the photo. Large house with what looked like a red-tiled roof, a lot of overgrowth in front, and a crescent driveway that connected at a single point with the access road from the street. A closer zoom revealed a chain-link fence blocking the property off from the wooded area surrounding it, and there were no other structures close by.
Plenty of places to hide, yeah, but for him and the enemy. Was the fence electrified? What kind of security did the house have? Cameras, certainly. He set the machine on the seat beside him and pondered the lit end of the Montecristo. He could do some digging and learn what kind of security measures were installed, who owned the
place, and other ancillary details, but that wouldn’t change the fact that if he tried to take out el-Gad while he was home, he’d have to go it alone.
He’d done that sort of thing before, but there was always back-up standing by if the situation went south.
He didn’t have that advantage any longer.
The option remained to give up on this crusade, but instead he found himself determined to see it through more than ever. And then the tactical side of his mind took over and started formulating a plan. He typed a list of needed items and grabbed his phone. There was only one person to call for the gear he needed, and the man answered right away.
“Yes?” The man spoke guardedly, his voice low.
“Liam, it’s Devlin Stone.”
The voice brightened. “What can I do for you?”
Liam Miller ran one of the biggest arms smuggling operations in Europe, and worked on a retainer for when Alliance operatives needed assistance with gear or weapons.
“I need some things. I’m paying cash.”
“I’ll give you the friends and family discount. What do you need?”
Stone read from his list, having to repeat an item once or twice, Miller suggesting that he might have to replace the named item with a similar equivalent, Stone not minding as long as the substitute performed well.
“What about ammo for your pistol?”
“Yeah, I need some of that too.”
“Still the SIG-Sauer?”
“Of course.” Stone’s pet pistol was his SIG-Sauer P-225A1 nine-millimeter automatic. He’d had the action smoothed by the Alliance armorer, the delicious Victoria Hood, with whom he had an off-and-on relationship. He’d added a match-grade barrel for better accuracy and glow-in-the-dark night sights.
Cartel Queen Page 2
