“Why? So you can hit me with an RPG like you did with Tayeb’s crew in Moscow?”
Tessmer surprised him by laughing. “That was a bit theatrical, wasn’t it? Wasting that kind of ordinance on a room full of Jews. A regular grenade would have been much cheaper.”
Hicks’s hand balled into a fist. “Tayeb was my friend, you son of a bitch.”
“I gathered that,” Tessmer said. “Poor Ronen. His field skills were a bit rusty. He’d begun to contact old sources of his to ask them about a mysterious man named Tessmer. He had been sitting behind a desk so long he had no idea his old contacts had become my employees. Had he been more careful, he may very well still be alive today. But if he had, you and I wouldn’t be having this lovely chat right now, would we? Isn’t it fascinating how one slight misstep can change the entire course of one’s life? So many people would still be alive if he had been just a bit more discreet. Or if he had still been behind that desk in Tel Aviv where he belonged. But since you were undoubtedly the one who got him back in the field, perhaps you’re to blame for his death and the deaths of his comrades.”
The more Tessmer talked, the more Hicks learned about his background. Tessmer wasn’t just some common criminal. He wasn’t just an arms dealer or a mercenary. He was running a psychological operation on him right now. He was working him, trying to get him to blame himself for all that had happened. He knew what he was doing. He had been trained.
So had James Hicks. “You lost a few men yourself, Ace. Thanks to me.”
“Yes, I have. There have been losses on both sides, and this will continue to be the case unless we reach some kind of understanding.”
“The only understanding we’re going to reach ends with a bullet.”
“All the more reason that we should meet each other,” Tessmer said. “Just the two of us. Not like a couple of gunslingers in the middle of the street like one of your tawdry western movies, but in a setting and manner befitting the professionals we are. We can discuss the return of the man you captured and the laptop you took from me, among other things.”
Hicks hadn’t expected him to ask for a meeting so soon. He also hadn’t expected him to answer the phone. Tessmer was proving to be an unpredictable man. “Where and when?”
“Say Istanbul? Tomorrow at three o’clock? That should give you plenty of time to get there.”
The Operator spoke in Hicks’s earpiece. “He’s actively tracing the call. He’s bouncing his own signal all over the world, so I can’t get a fix on him. But OMNI is picking up ambient noises on his side of the line. Horns and police sirens and traffic noises in the background that match similar patterns of Berlin. He’s close, sir.”
“Why Istanbul? You’re in Berlin and so am I. Let’s meet tomorrow at eight in the morning.”
“My compliments. You’ve succeeded in impressing me.”
“And I don’t give a shit. Where do you want to meet?”
“I will send you a text with the time and location. I’d say come alone, but why waste time with requests neither of us has any intention of honoring?” Hicks heard another voice in the background. “One moment, please.”
In Hicks’s ear, the Operator said, “He’s talking in Russian, but has his thumb over the mouthpiece. I can’t hear what he’s saying.”
Tessmer came back on the line. “Good news. We can cross one item off the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting. The missing laptop has turned up after all. We’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead.
The Operator said, “The call has been disconnected, sir. Absolutely no idea on their location, but OMNI is already running a search on ambient noise, so…”
But Hicks didn’t care about ambient noise. Tessmer had somehow located the laptop. The same laptop Rivas and Tali were uploading to OMNI.
He killed the connection and dialed Tali’s handheld. She didn’t pick up.
He called Rivas’s handheld. He didn’t pick up, either.
He fought the panic rising in his gut and called Jason. “I’m already trying to get a fix on Tali and Rivas’s location.”
“They didn’t pick up.” His breath caught and he tried not to hyperventilate. Not Tali. Not now. Not today. Not the baby.
“OMNI’s reach is weak in this part of Europe,” Jason reminded him. “They’re probably in an area with a high volume of wireless traffic that’s making it harder for us to pinpoint. They may be using their handhelds to boost OMNI’s signal for the upload. I know they’re roughly two miles away from the Penthouse, but it takes a few seconds to pinpoint their exact location.”
Hicks heard a ping on Jason’s end of the line, then, “They’re in a coffee shop in central Berlin, three miles away from your current position, two miles away from the Penthouse. I don’t know why they’re not picking up.”
Hicks was up and running for the street. “Text them to kill the upload and get the hell out of there now. They need to split up. Assign them separate fallback positions close to their current locations. I want Patel and Roger to stay with the prisoner, but have Scott get the van and pick them up immediately. Then contact Demerest and have him get his people to the coffee shop ASAP. We’ll have to make do with the information we’ve already uploaded to OMNI. Send me their exact location now. I’m on my way.”
AS RIVAS clicked through windows on the laptop, Tali eyed the other patrons in the coffee shop. Most of them were tourists babbling about the sights they had seen that day. The rest were office workers, cubicle drones looking for an extra dose of caffeine to get them through the rest of the workday. Tali had been passively listening to the plethora of languages around her. German, French, English, and Japanese.
That was why she decided to speak to Rivas in Spanish. “How much longer is this supposed to take?”
“I don’t know,” he replied in Spanish. “I didn’t know when you asked five minutes ago, and nothing in the past five minutes has changed that. I’m not tech support. Jason can make these damned things jump through hoops, but not me. All I can do is watch the files upload to OMNI.”
“Fine. So tell me how many have uploaded so far.”
Rivas toggled back to one of the screens. “Thirty percent.”
Tali tried not to show her disappointment. She tapped her paper coffee cup instead. “Why is it taking so damned long?”
“Because we’re uploading massive encrypted files, and our connection to OMNI isn’t as fast as it would be back home. The security measure isn’t helping it go any faster. The further east you go…”
“The weaker OMNI gets,” Tali finished the sentence for him. “I know.” She checked her phone again, but no word from Hicks or from Jason about handing off the laptop to the CIA. Since they had only uploaded a third of the files, she wasn’t complaining. But she didn’t like being out in the open like this, either.
“Maybe if you closed some of those windows, the information would upload faster.”
Rivas clenched his jaw. “And maybe you should remember I’m not a rookie on his first assignment. Hell, you wouldn’t even be here if I wasn’t in this fucking chair.”
“But you are, so here I am.” She didn’t like the way she’d sounded when she said it. “Sorry. I just hate being exposed like this.”
“I’m not exactly having the time of my life either.” Rivas looked at the screen. “Thirty-five percent now.”
Tali realized her foot was beginning to tap and she stopped it. It was the only nervous habit they had not been able to break her of in training. She only did it when she got nervous, so she didn’t do it often, but she was nervous as hell now. Being out in the open like this with a laptop that may be pinging their location to the Vanguard was a pretty good reason to worry. They had taken out Tayeb’s people with an RPG. Launching one into a crowded coffee shop would be a piece of cake.
She had always prided herself on avoiding risky situations whenever possible. She never operated in the open like this, and a coffee shop in the middle of Berlin was about as open as it go
t. Too many faces to watch, expressions to read. Too many ways someone from the Vanguard could blend in. Too many ways to be spotted without knowing it.
She fought to keep her feet flat on the floor as she continued observing the customers. Those who came in and those who’d been there for a while and those who ordered their coffee and left.
The line for coffee was long and growing longer by the second as the overwhelmed baristas struggled to keep up with orders for lattes and Frappuccino. Many of the people in line looked around absently at the other customers in the shop before they defaulted to checking their phones. Almost all of them looked over at her or Rivas. Mike’s wheelchair drew glances and a brief flash of sympathy before turning away. Women looked at her green jacket over her black sweater and jeans. They checked out her boots and her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, making their own mental critique of her fashion sense. Men stole glances, too, though more for how she filled out what she was wearing rather than the outfit itself. She even drew a fair number of smiles. She ignored them all.
She didn’t mind the looks she received.
She paid more attention to the looks she didn’t get. Not because it offended her ego, but because they might already know who she was.
One man stood out. Tall. Bald. Lean. Late thirties. Leather jacket. He had just entered the shop and stood at the end of the line. He didn’t look like the type who’d come in for a latte or a hot cocoa. And he looked everywhere except at them.
In fact, he made a point of not looking their way.
She mentally tagged him Baldy.
She watched him as she sipped her coffee, even though more caffeine was the last thing she needed. “Possible contact. Twelve o’clock. Bald man. End of the line.”
Rivas kept his eyes on the screen. “Keep an eye on him and…”
He stopped when Tali’s phone began to buzz on the table. She picked it up and saw it was a text message from Jason.
KILL UPLOAD AND EVACUATE NOW. DEPART SEPARATELY. FALLBACK POSITIONS TO FOLLOW. EXTRACTION SOON AFTER.
“We’re blown.” Tali slipped the handheld into her pocket and stood. “Kill the connection and get out of here. I’ll head west, you head east. Jason will text us fallback positions when we’re clear.”
“Forty fucking percent. Damn it.”
He closed the laptop and Tali slipped it into her bag. “I’ll take it and try to lead them away if they’re watching. Wait fifteen minutes, finish your coffee, and move on to your designated location. Are you armed?”
Rivas’s hand was steady as he reached for his coffee. “Been armed every day of my life since I was twenty years old.”
Tali slung the bag onto her shoulder. “Good. I’ll see you back at the Penthouse.”
She threaded her way through the tight confines of the coffee shop. She didn’t run and she didn’t shove anyone out of the way. She simply moved with purpose, like most of the people in that part of the city. She stole a quick glance at Baldy. He was still the last one in line, only now he was on the phone.
Shit.
She pushed through the revolving doors and broke to the right. She had no idea how far away the Vanguard men might be. She didn’t know if Baldy was with them but was pretty sure he was. They could be half a block away or already on-site. She didn’t know if Hicks or Scott or Patel were on their way to the coffee shop, but that didn’t matter anymore. For the moment, she was entirely on her own. Jason would send her the fallback position when he saw she was clear. At least someone was watching her.
She blended in with the street crowd, moving with purpose, resisting the urge to break into a flat-out run. She was just another busy person on the streets of one of Europe’s great cities.
As she reached the corner, she began to breathe a bit easier. Being on the street was better than being in the coffee shop. The street gave her maneuverability and options. The street also made her a moving target, though still a target nonetheless.
She edged her way through the crowd at the corner and was about to hail a cab when she spotted two men jaywalking in her direction. They were both broad and bulky and looked a bit winded. The thin sheen of sweat on their foreheads confirmed they had been in a hell of a hurry to get there.
And each man looked at her a second too long for it to be a coincidence.
Vanguard men.
She looked behind her and saw Baldy come out of the coffee shop and head in her direction.
A three-man goon squad. At least she knew what she was up against.
She forgot about waiting for a cab and decided to take another right at the corner. The coffee shop was already half a block away, so Rivas would have to take care of himself.
She quickened her pace, but did not run. Not yet. People scattered when someone ran at them. Right now, she needed as many people around her as she could get. Too many targets presented a problem, even to the butchers of the Vanguard.
She scanned the faces of people coming her way as she moved through them. Men and women. Young and old. The well-dressed professionals and aging hipsters who had spent a lot of money on clothes that looked cheap, and bored teenagers trudging home from school wishing they were anywhere but there.
She observed them all as she moved because any one of them could be with the Vanguard. They would certainly send more than three people after her. Probably two more at least, especially if it was a kidnapping. If they wanted her dead, the men she had already seen would have shot her on sight. They had decided to follow her instead. They probably didn’t want to risk hitting the laptop in a gunfight. They probably wanted to kidnap her instead, get the laptop and a hostage as leverage over Hicks for the Vanguard man they’d caught.
They had to be delicate.
Fortunately, Tali did not.
She moved through the thickening foot traffic, knowing the large crowd might prevent the Vanguard from shooting her but not from grabbing her. If anything, they would use the crowd to their advantage. Grab her and the laptop, tuck them both away into a waiting vehicle, and be on their way.
She had never been any man’s pawn and she wouldn’t be one now. And neither would the little miracle she knew was growing inside her.
Tali walked another block, moving faster through spaces in the foot traffic as she sensed the three men behind her were losing ground in the thickening crowd. If she could just make it to the corner, make it to a taxi or a hotel lobby or even another crowded bar, maybe she could find a way to escape, maybe—
All thoughts of possibilities died away as she watched a man speed-walk toward her from her right. She heard a vehicle, a van that did not sound like Scott’s van, pull over to the curb on her left.
A classic kidnapping setup, just like Stephens had used to try to grab Hicks back in New York.
Her training kicked in. She felt the Glock in her hand before she had decided to grab for it.
She aimed it at the speed-walker and fired a single round at nearly point-blank range into his forehead.
Instinct made the people around her scream and run away, clearing a widening circle on the sidewalk, leaving her completely exposed.
Tali was not afraid, but put fear into her voice as she shouted in German, “Please, help me! My husband. He’s trying to kill me and my daughter! Please!”
But the people kept moving away from her as she spotted the two men from the corner struggling against the crowd, both grabbing for something beneath their long coats. They may have even yelled Polizei as they pushed people aside. Baldy was right behind them.
Tali brought up the Glock again as she backed away. The panicked civilians had parted just enough to give her a clear target.
She aimed at the closest man and squeezed off another round, striking him in the face. She shifted her aim to the second man, who’d begun charging toward her, and fired. The bullet hit him on the top of the head and he fell backward.
The crowd screamed and began to bolt in all directions, blocking Baldy from her. Her mind worked fast as she backed away
from the men, continuing on her path. She had fired three times, leaving five rounds in the clip. She shifted her aim to the van as she continued to back up. The driver was looking at her, but…
She stopped thinking when she felt a knife slip through her jacket and skin, between her ribs and puncture her heart. Or maybe it was her lungs? It had all happened so quickly that she wasn’t sure what had happened, only that something was in her body that didn’t belong there. Something had been done that could not be undone. Final.
A flame had blown out that could never be relit.
She thought of all these things as the blade was withdrawn as quickly as it had been inserted. She heard her Glock rattle on the sidewalk as it fell from her hand. She felt the computer bag slip from her shoulder as she fell to the sidewalk.
She dropped to her knees, surprised that the impact didn’t hurt, before falling face-first onto the pavement. She didn’t see anyone rushing toward her. She couldn’t hear their screams anymore. She could only hear the beat of her own heart as her blood rushed in her ears. She felt the warmth of her own blood begin to cover her back, making her sleepy. So sleepy.
She may have heard a siren approaching, but wondered if she only wished it so.
She only hoped they got to her in time to save the baby she and James had made. Their impossible miracle was better than either of them could ever hope to be.
The pavement was cold, but she was warm. And sleepy. So very sleepy.
RIVAS CRUSHED his paper cup when he heard the first gunshot. He ignored the pain from the hot coffee that ran over his hands. He didn’t feel the hot coffee that had poured onto his deadened legs.
Everyone else in the café reacted to the shot, too, interrupting their conversations as they turned in the direction it had come from. The same direction he’d watched Tali go. His stomach clenched when he heard the two additional shots, one right after the other.
A Conspiracy of Ravens Page 18
