Presence of Mine Enemies

by Stephen England

  “Belmarsh,” he began when the other end was picked up, “this is Phillip Greer. Thames House. . .”

  8:04 P.M. Central European Summer Time

  The boxing club

  Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Belgium

  I know a man. Harry unscrewed the cap of the water bottle in his hand, watching with unseeing eyes as Marwan and another member of the Molenbeek cell, a young man named Mohammed, pummeled each other with gloved fists in the ring a few feet away, the pent-up aggression of the last two days seemingly unleashed in their breathless, sweating bodies.

  His mind far removed from this moment—Marwan’s words still running over and again through his mind.

  There were dangers in this—in every choice spread out before him. Dangers within dangers. Yea, though I walk. . .

  He might well be the shadow in this valley of death. But he wasn’t the only one.

  Marwan had a name. And a number. The contact information of an Algerian man known to the Islamists of Molenbeek. A man who could provide the weapons they sought. The weapons they would need to carry out a larger, more complex attack.

  An attack. He’d been gambling on the kind of weapons they needed being difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.

  A ploy to buy time—increase the cell’s odds of failure.

  He tilted back the bottle, feeling the lukewarm water cascade down his parched throat—his eyes hooded as he gazed out, past the fighters, across the semi-darkness of the boxing club. A haunting voice from somewhere deep within asking him just how far he was going to take this—how many more of these gambles he was prepared to lose. . .

  Questions, more of them. And all of them, without answers. He turned away, picking up a towel and wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  Marwan’s man had been contacted. And there was a meeting set up for the morrow.

  Chapter 10

  12:01 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, July 7th

  Fado’s

  Washington, D.C.

  “. . .if they’ve actually done this, Ian. . .” Her voice had trailed off, a shake of her blond head as she stood beside him on the bridge, looking down into the gurgling waters of Bull Run Creek. “I’m afraid.”

  Cahill took a deep breath, leaning back into his booth as he stared out into the darkness of the pub. Noticing how his fingers trembled as he reached out for his pint.

  He was too. He had to admit that much—afraid that the rules had changed, somehow, when he wasn’t looking. More, that rules. . .no longer existed.

  He could still remember standing beside Coftey on that crisp late December morning at Camp David—not even six months before.

  Smoke curling from the open breech of the senator’s double-barreled Krieghoff, the smell of gunpowder in the morning air.

  “I do what’s necessary. You’ve always known that.”

  And so he had. But it hadn’t begun to occur to him just what Coftey might have come to consider necessary.

  Murder.

  And the murder, no less, of two of D.C.’s most powerful and connected bureaucrats. The head of the FBI and the acting director of the CIA.

  There was a power in this knowledge, a value to the right people—if it were true, of course. But there had been no doubting the conviction in the young woman’s voice. And the fear.

  But there was a danger here as well, a danger to himself—if he chose to act upon this knowledge. He had underestimated his old friend, that much was clear. Miscalculated.

  He couldn’t afford to do so again. It might well be as much as his life was worth.

  More than anything, he needed to find out who was backing Coftey—he’d never had any doubt that the powerful senator from Oklahoma had developed close relationships with the spies during his time chairing the Intelligence Committee.

  What he didn’t know was just how far it had gone. . .or who this man in Chandler had been. But he intended to find out.

  He glanced down at the business card in his hand, its logo just visible through his fingers. A shield, standing before the sun.

  “A shield for the shining god,” a female voice announced ironically, his head coming up suddenly as a woman dressed in a dark pantsuit slid into the booth across from him. “Good evening, Mr. Cahill.”

  She was somewhere in her late thirties—her hair dark, cropped closer than he found attractive in most women. A look of cool appraisal in her eyes as she leaned back into the booth.

  The hard eyes of a woman who wasn’t impressed by his power for a moment—who had seen all the darkness that life had to offer.

  “I’m glad we could arrange a meeting,” he replied, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table between them. He didn’t use her name—wished she hadn’t used his, but that bridge was crossed. No sense in making it worse. “I know it’s short notice, and–”

  “I’m leaving on a flight for Amman tonight,” she interjected in a voice as cold as ice, cutting him off. “I value my time, as well as my sleep, so I’d appreciate you just getting to the point.”

  An angry reply rose within him, but he choked it back, a masterful effort born of years of working around people in this town. You couldn’t always say what you thought.

  And he needed her.

  “I need to identify a man,” he began again, clearing his throat as he stared across the table into her eyes. “If my information is correct, I believe he works for your former employers.”

  She didn’t react, not a trace of emotion showing in her face—holding his eyes for a long moment as a couple passed their table on their way out the door.

  Then, “Give me what you have.”

  6:26 A.M. British Summer Time

  Hampstead Heath

  London

  “You’ll come in on the 210 Bus to the Prospect Hill gate. Head south.”

  The sun was just beginning to rise over the commons as Norris made his way down the footpath, his heart seeming to beat audibly against his chest—his eyes darting nervously from side to side.

  He should be jogging, he knew that—it was what the Russian had instructed him to do, along with the detailed list of bus changes to make on his way to Hampstead Heath. But his feet seemed heavy, glued to the earth even as he moved.

  As if he expected Special Branch to materialize from the surrounding trees, weapons leveled. Shouts breaking the dawn.

  They shouldn’t have anything on him, he kept telling himself. Not yet. Not yet.

  But that was all going to change, soon enough. Unless—

  “Keep walking,” he heard Alexei announce suddenly, the Russian appearing at his shoulder without warning, a black-clad figure in the early morning twilight.

  The man had to be in his early sixties, but only his silver hair and the lines of his weathered face betrayed his age—his form lithe and trim, the powerfully muscled legs of a runner visible beneath his jogging shorts.

  “You weren’t followed,” he went on, as if in answer to Norris’ unspoken question, prodding him to pick up the pace. The two of them jogging down the path past the still, tranquil waters of the pond on their right, the path curving to the west as they entered the woods.

  “At least,” he added, casting a curious smile back over his shoulder, “not by your employers.”

  Of course they were. And he hadn't seen them, Norris thought, shaking his head as he ran—his nostrils filled with the smell of his own sweat. Fear. So consumed with his own thoughts that he barely noticed when Alexei pulled up short ahead of him, bent over with his hands resting briefly on his knees.

  “Why are we stopping?” the analyst demanded, glancing about him in the semi-darkness, the tall trees towering overhead nearly shutting out the dawn's rays. They were standing in a wide, open area—very nearly a perfect square—surrounded by the same kind of low, wooden fence that had marked the path in. “What is this place?”

  “This?” the Russian asked, spreading his hands as he straightened, turning to face him with that same enigmatic smile written across his face. “Why
this is the dueling grounds, Mr. Norris. Where men of honor once came to 'settle' their affairs. To avenge insults, right fancied wrongs.”

  He stretched forth his right arm with a grin, his index finger pointing directly at Norris' face.

  “Bang, you're dead,” he said, laughing as his arm recoiled, pantomiming a gunshot. A harsh, guttural laugh, devoid of mirth. A razor's edge, buried just beneath the surface. “But then, neither you or I are men of honor, are we? So we have nothing to fear.”

  He smiled then, a smile as insincere as his laugh. “It's been days now, Simon. So what do you have for me?”

  6:39 A.M.

  A terraced house

  Hounslow, West London

  The relentless ticking of the clock on the nightstand, its luminous dial shining in the darkness of the bedroom. His wife’s breathing, slow and rhythmic, still lost in the depths of sleep. The noise of motor vehicles passing on the street below.

  The sounds that had formed the background of Dmitri Litvinov’s sleepless night.

  He lay there, gazing up at the ceiling as he had for hours—his skin clammy with sweat, his mind steadfastly refusing to shut itself off, despite its exhaustion.

  He hadn’t slept in two nights—not since the approach on the train. Since he’d looked up to find himself confronted by a ghost from his past. A past he’d somehow deluded himself into thinking was behind him.

  You were such a fool, he thought, a whispered curse in his native language escaping his lips. Somehow uncertain even in his own mind whether he meant his betrayal of his country in those years of disillusionment so long ago or his decision to remain in the employ of Russian intelligence after the British had cut him loose.

  He should have taken what money he’d had remaining and fled—left the country for. . .America, perhaps?

  A bitter smile twisted his lips at the irony of the thought. He might have ended up a manager at Wal-mart, on the outskirts of a small town. Dealing with panhandlers and prostitutes, but beyond the reach of both those he had betrayed, and those to whom he had betrayed them.

  Peace.

  The middle-aged man rose, glancing back at his still-sleeping wife as he padded barefoot across the carpet to the bathroom of the flat—turning on the light only after he closed the door.

  A weary face staring back at him from the mirror. Weary. . .and afraid, he realized, unsure what scared him more. The possibility of exposure after all these years, or. . .

  He could still see the look in Greer’s eyes on the train—the tension in the man’s voice, palpable even through his own panic.

  “You’re the deputy rezident, Dmitri. Vasiliev’s running an operation in this country, and you honestly expect me to believe you have no knowledge of it?”

  But he didn’t. He was in the dark. And that, Litvinov thought, was possibly the most frightening feeling he had ever had.

  6:41 A.M.

  Hampstead Heath

  London

  It was a long moment before Norris responded, his eyes searching the Russian's face through the gloom.

  “I can get into the banking system, I can erase all the evidence that could link Colville's accounts to you. But I can't do that without being compromised—without exposing myself in the process. I'll be burned.”

  “That sounds like a problem you'll want to solve,” Alexei responded as he knelt, beginning to stretch—his face serene, as if he had not a care in the world.

  Norris shook his head, feeling anger build within him. “No, it's a problem you will need to solve, or else I won't do this.”

  “Won't you?” the Russian asked, finishing his stretching before rising, his cold blue eyes meeting Norris'.

  The analyst swallowed hard, feeling himself waver. Forcing himself to hold his ground. This had seemed so easy, rehearsing it in his head last night—so straightforward.

  “No, I won't. If I'm going to just turn myself in to Five in the end, then that's what I'll do. No need to add to the list of my treasons. If I do your job for you, I want you to get me out. Safe passage out of the country.”

  “To Russia?” Alexei shook his head, seeming to find something in the idea amusing.

  “To a country of my choosing. Along with a new identity. I want a new life.”

  “A new life. . .none of us get that, Simon.” The Russian smiled, the shadows playing strangely across his face. “Not here, not in skies above us, like so many poor fools want so desperately to believe. The 'opiate of the masses', as Marx put it. Heaven, hell—it's all right here on this earth, and all of our own making. We are who we are, and there is no escaping from ourselves.”

  Norris swore, his face twisted in a grimace. “It wasn't supposed to be like this.”

  Not like this, not treason against his country. He had never intended. . .

  “It never is,” Alexei responded, the smile vanishing once more. “But betrayal is what it is. Even so—what you're asking is far too much. To—”

  “I'm pulling you out of the fire—ensuring you don't risk a diplomatic incident like nothing your country has seen in thirty years. And I'm asking too much?”

  “To justify such an expense,” the Russian continued imperturbably, “this job isn't nearly enough, Simon. I'd need you to give me something more.”

  The morning air was warm, but Norris felt a shiver run through his body all the same. The question he had been expecting, had feared.

  The question he'd spent the previous day finding an answer to. He looked down and away, swallowing hard, his mouth feeling suddenly dry. There was no way back from this. No redemption.

  He looked up once more, meeting the Russian's eyes. “I'm prepared to do just that.”

  “I'm listening.”

  3:23 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  A townhouse

  Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

  “Do you know who I am? Do you know what having me for a friend in this town could mean for you—for your company going forward?” He’d lost control in that moment, and he realized it now, looking back—his voice rising, his reserve crumbling under the stress and fatigue of the night. Careless.

  Ian Cahill flicked the switch, light filling up the room as he closed the door behind him.

  Throwing his suit jacket over the back of a chair as he made his way into the bedroom, fingers working at the knot of his tie. Exhaustion filling every motion.

  Remembering the look of thinly-veiled contempt in the woman’s eyes as she’d replied, “I do. But you’re out of your league here, Ian. And there’s no amount of ‘friendship’ that could make this worth my while.”

  She knew. He’d been able to see it in her eyes. She didn’t have to make inquiries—the name he wanted was right there, behind her sealed lips.

  The implications of her silence washing over him like an incoming tide.

  “Then I’m right, aren’t I? This is real. They did this.”

  A shake of the head.“I don’t know the answers to your questions, Ian, and I don’t intend to find them. This meeting never happened—we never spoke. But if you still want the advice you asked for over the phone, it would be this: go back to politics, where you belong. This isn’t your world.”

  “But it is yours,” he’d responded angrily. “And they burned you. I know your background. Don’t you want the opportunity to make them pay for that?”

  A faint smile, crossing her face as she’d risen to her feet. “Of course I do. But that’s the thing about being burned. You learn to stop flying so close to the flame. . .”

  8:43 A.M. Central European Summer Time

  The apartment

  Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Belgium

  The Beretta hadn’t been in need of cleaning, but it lay field-stripped on the table before him nonetheless, the slide cradled in Harry’s hand as he scrubbed it with an old toothbrush, searching for nonexistent dirt.

  It was a ritual—a way to calm himself, focus his thoughts going into an op.

  An op.

  It was unsettling to realize
that he was letting himself think of it that way, as though this was no different than all that had gone before.

  A psychological trap, so easy to fall into. So very dangerous. And yet that mindset was the only thing keeping him alive. The skillsets from a past life. That ability to analyze threats.

  And there was no lack of threats—this so-called “arms dealer” named Said now ranked chief among them. It was impossible to conceive a more perfect set-up for a sting, whether or not Marwan was a mole or a dupe.

  That would resolve one problem, he thought wryly, daubing the excess oil away from the slide with a paper towel as he reached for the Beretta, preparing to reassemble it. Imagining the consequences of French or Belgian intelligence being behind this man. The Molenbeek cell disemboweled at a stroke, the remaining members scattered to the winds. The threat, stopped.

  And himself, thrown into prison for extradition back to the United States. That last, the only certainty in any of this.

  He was under no illusions of what awaited him after his actions in the UK. There were rules, even in this world, and he hadn’t left a one unbroken in his single-minded pursuit of Tarik Abdul Muhammad.

  Don’t make that mistake again, a voice inside him warned, seeming to ignore that he already had. That bridge, already crossed.

  And now here he was, walking straight into a trap, eyes wide open. Nothing to be done for it. Unless. . .

  He pulled the Beretta’s slide back until it locked, reaching for the loaded magazine which lay a few inches from his hand. There might just be a way out, if he moved carefully. Quickly.

  Cut the knot.

  10:08 A.M.

  Alliance Base

  Paris

  “So we’re actually going to let this happen,” Daniel Vukovic announced quietly, looking up from his notes. The gravity of what was at hand seeming to settle on his shoulders, weighing him down.