8:46 A.M. Central European Summer Time
Alliance Base
Paris, France
“Bonjour, messieurs,” Anaïs Brunet announced, glancing up from her seat at the head of the table as a uniformed security officer ushered Christian Danloy and his deputy into the conference room. “I’m glad you were both able to join us this morning.”
The cold, flat tone of her voice made it clear that she wasn’t as she gestured for them to take a seat, continuing on with the introductions. “I believe you already know my counterpart here at the Base, General Gauthier.”
She watched as the men exchanged greetings, her eyes never leaving Danloy’s face. “I trust you’ve had time to review the information we sent over, Christian?”
A nod, as the VSSE head took his seat, his hand resting on one of the folders which had been distributed around the room—one in front of each principal. “Oui.”
“As you will see from the folder in front of you. . .there have been developments.” Brunet paused, scanning the faces of the men before her. “According to intelligence received last night from LYSANDER, we have a new player. An Algerian-born Belgian national, named Gamal Belkaïd.”
She saw a flash of recognition pass across Danloy’s face, and turned her attention on her Belgian counterpart. “You know him, Christian?”
“Certainement. He’s a well-known figure in the world of organized crime in Belgium—our counterparts in the Police Fédérale have been trying to put him in prison for years on charges of conspiracy, murder, and drug trafficking, but evidence has always been hard to come by. And despite his connections to Algeria, there’s never been anything linking him to terrorism.”
“Well now there is.”
9:01 A.M.
The Ardennes Forest, near Vielsalm
Belgium
Drugs. That’s what it had turned out to be, Harry thought, watching as Reza leaned down from the open back of the Isuzu in the middle of the wooded clearing, taking a bag of mushroom soil from Aryn’s outstretched arms—stacking it with the others in the back of the truck. Mushroom soil—and buried in the dirt, bricks of heroin.
The street value of what was being loaded into these trucks was. . .difficult to even calculate. Millions upon millions of euros. Enough to fund a small war, if that was the use one proposed to put them to.
His instincts had been right. Gamal Belkaïd was a very dangerous man.
He felt a presence behind him and turned to find the Algerian standing there, regarding him with a peculiar smile. “You see, Ibrahim? The beauty of it all? You remember the years before the war, before the crusader invasion of Afghanistan?”
A nod. “I was far from God in those days, before I found the true faith. But yes, I remember.”
“Mullah Omar had banned the growing of poppies the year before, declaring them haram. Cracking down, like he and other Taliban leaders had on so many sinful things throughout the previous decade. And it was working—supplies of opium and hashish began to dry up, all across the world.” The older man smiled. “Even the kaffir were forced to admit that it was one of the most successful anti-drug campaigns in history, far more effective than anything they could have accomplished in their own decadent societies.”
There was pride in the man’s voice at the memory, a strange, incongruous pride considering his own trade.
“And then the war came, and the crusaders devastated Afghanistan—left its people in poverty. Forced the leaders of the Taliban into hiding. In the midst of such devastation, the poppy became people’s only recourse—blooming once more all through the fields of Afghanistan. And once more, the tide of heroin began to roll West, corrupting a society on the brink of collapse.” Belkaïd paused, a curious intensity creeping into his voice as he continued. “They are paying us to destroy them, brother—willingly funding our own war against them. Is that not a beautiful thing?”
“Mash’allah,” Harry responded, a grim smile creasing his lips. “They plan, and God plans. And God is the best of planners.”
He turned, scanning the trucks—the last of them, now being loaded. Prepped for departure. “It does surprise me, though, Gamal.”
“What?”
“That you would risk yourself like this. . .out here, with the trucks. Surely someone else could do this for you, ensure that you were not compromised if anything went wrong.”
“Were you expecting something to go wrong, Ibrahim?”
8:09 A.M. British Summer Time
Thames House
Millbank, London
It had taken everything in him just to come into work, his brain still screaming with the awareness of his danger—his meeting with the Russian doing nothing to allay any of those fears.
Simon Norris reached for the cup of coffeee on his desk, watching his fingers tremble even as he did so. He was already keyed-up, on edge. Feeling as if the word “Traitor” was already tattooed on his forehead. A scarlet letter.
How had it all come to this? He wondered, for the thousandth time since it had all begun. Knowing the answer all too well. One step at a time.
And now he was so far past redemption that he could barely even remember what it once had looked like.
But staying away from Thames House, wasn’t an option. Not if tomorrow was going to work. They had to be expecting him.
And he could only pray that it wouldn’t set off any tripwires. . .
He reached for the phone on his desk, his mouth suddenly dry as he dialed the number on his screen, waiting as it rang. Once. Twice. Then:
“Royal Bank of Scotland.”
“Yes, this is Simon Norris. . .Security Service. I need to submit an official request. . .”
9:10 A.M. Central European Summer Time
The clearing
Ardennes Forest, Belgium
Suspicion dripped from every word, the edge of hostility in Belkaïd’s voice only too clear. Thin ice.
He looked back, keeping his face neutral as he shook his head. “Syria taught me nothing if not that things can always go wrong. And caution is ever warranted.”
“But of course.” It was impossible to read the Algerian’s expression, the filtered sunlight playing across his features. “But today, there are things that no man can do for me. And I am never in any danger.”
He took a step past Harry, gesturing for him to follow as the two of them walked across the clearing toward the trucks.
“Another shipment successfully delivered, Umar,” Belkaïd began, addressing the short, slight man leaning against the hood of the white Peugeot, smoking a cigarette. The sole remaining representative of “points east”, as Harry had mentally labeled the smugglers delivering the heroin to Belkaïd.
The money man, presumably, a suspicion confirmed as Belkaïd gestured for one of his men to approach, bearing a pair of briefcases. “The remaining money, as we agreed.”
Half up front, half on delivery? It was hard to tell what sort of arrangement Belkaïd might have in place—given the amount of heroin he’d just seen transferred, the two briefcases would be hard-pressed to even cover a third of its value.
“And about the other matter?” the money man asked, looking from Belkaïd to the man with the briefcases. He dropped his cigarette butt to the grass, grinding it into the dirt with a peculiarly savage gesture.
“Ah, yes,” Belkaïd said, as if he’d forgotten—turning to the man with the briefcases. “Ahmed, you had something to add, didn’t you?”
There was something wrong here, Harry realized, his own body tensing, every muscle alert. Watching the man’s swarthy face take on an inexplicable pallor—his knuckles whitening around the briefcase handles.
“Something about the last shipment, Ahmed. . .a couple bricks of the product went missing, and you under-reported the tally.” Full-blown panic, now. Eyes wide as the man glanced wildly about him at the rough semi-circle of men gathered round, looking for a way of escape. “Tried to convince me that our friends had short-changed us. But that wasn’t th
e truth, was it?”
“N-n-no. . .please, Gamal, it wasn’t that way,” the man stammered, guilt written in every feature. The suitcases, falling to the earth of the clearing as he raised his hands in protest. “I would never try to deceive you, I would never—”
“Enough!” Belkaïd snapped, the gun out in his hand almost before Harry even saw the movement—a compact Walther P99. “I’ve heard far too much from you already.”
He turned, the gun now outstretched in his open hand, butt-first—his eyes locking with Harry’s.
“Take this. And kill him.”
8:13 A.M. British Summer Time
Thames House
Millbank, London
“What about her?” Darren Roth, passing a file folder across the desk to Greer, a dark index finger indicating the name in question. Nicola Spelman. “She potentially has the right access—transferred over to us from Six, where she worked Eastern Europe. Divorced five years ago, appears to have a rather. . .significant mortgage, has fallen behind on it at least once in the last three years. Might be indicative of some financial vulnerability, something that could be exploited.”
Greer shook his head. “She only transferred over in the last nine weeks. She might have access to the Russia files, but she wouldn’t have had the necessary access to PERSEPHONE, or to MacCallum if we’re still working off the theory that his access was somehow used without his knowledge.”
“None of this makes sense,” Roth observed, his eyes scanning the mess of papers spread out before him.
“What doesn’t?”
“All this is in Six’s territory, not ours. And it’s supposed be broken down—compartmentalized. Access, heavily restricted. How does one of our officers even get this list?”
“You’re talking about a system,” Greer replied, looking up from his own, hand-scrawled notes. “Systems break.”
The phone on the CI spook’s desk began ringing a moment later, and he shuffled the folders aside to answer it, listening for a couple moments before replying, “Thank you, Henry. I appreciate you making an opening. Yes, I’ll be there soon.”
He replaced the receiver, reaching for his suit jacket as he stood. “Vauxhall Cross,” he replied, answering Roth’s unspoken question. He nodded toward the folders. “Keep at it while I’m gone—perhaps between the two of us, we’ll find some answers yet.”
Perhaps.
9:16 A.M. Central European Summer Time
The clearing
Ardennes Forest, Belgium
Time itself seemed to slow down, the clearing a frozen tableau—every eye suddenly focused on Belkaïd. On Harry.
So this was it, Harry realized, his mind strangely detached—as though he were himself nothing more than an observer to this scene. Belkaïd’s motive, in bringing them here. All of it, a test.
That ultimate test of an undercover. Murder.
The act through which he could finally prove himself to Belkaïd. At the cost of a human life.
He glanced from the gun in Belkaïd’s outstretched hand to Ahmed, a glance curiously devoid of pity—seeing him cower there, half-shrinking away, eyes darting back and forth like an animal in a trap.
How many times had this man stood in this very same place, staring down the barrel of the gun at someone else? Enforcing Belkaïd’s will. This was no innocent here before him.
Who of us is? A passage of Scripture, flickering back across his mind’s eye. Let him who is without sin. . .
“If he has stolen from you,” he responded, returning his focus to Belkaïd, “take his hand, not his life. That is shari’a—those are the bounds prescribed by Allah.”
Belkaïd took a step into him, shoving the Walther into his hand—moving in until the two men’s bodies nearly touched—the Algerian’s face only inches from Harry’s, a baleful gleam in his eyes as he looked up into Harry’s own. His voice barely above a whisper. “He stole from me.”
And that made all the difference, Harry thought, glimpsing the trafficker’s hubris in that moment. Feeling the hard, textured polymer of the Walther in his hand.
“You have the gun,” Belkaïd continued, not backing down. “Use it. Kill him—or me.”
The challenge was there, clear in the Algerian’s eyes. The temptation, so very strong. To end it all. Right here. With Belkaïd’s death and his own—two lives, extinguished in a storm of gunfire.
Leaving behind them, a better world.
Harry took a step back, the Walther coming up in a single, fluid, dream-like motion, a fleeting vision of a face through the pistol’s rear sights as the trigger broke beneath his finger—once, twice, the shots reverberating out from the clearing to awaken the echoes of the forest.
The bullets smashed through Ahmed’s forehead and out the back of his head, blood and brains spattering over the grass as the thief crumpled to the forest floor. Dead before he hit the ground.
His ears still ringing with the blasts, Harry shoved the Walther back into Belkaïd’s hands—taking a step away from him, off to the side, toward Marwan and the rest of his people.
“Let Allah be witness,” he spat, his eyes flashing with a cold fire, “that his blood is on your hands. Not mine.”
Chapter 19
10:03 A.M. British Summer Time
Secret Intelligence Service Headquarters
Vauxhall Cross, London
“I don’t know what to tell you, Phillip,” Henry Brise said finally, turning back from his office window overlooking the Thames, the river glistening in the morning sun, far down the ziggurat-like stories of the MI-6 Headquarters Building.
Hands resting on his hips as the SIS counter-intel chief faced Greer. “Everything you’ve just laid out for me—it all just seems highly. . .improbable.”
It was to the man’s credit that he had refrained from using the word “impossible.”
There were no impossibilities in their world—only betrayals you hadn’t prepared yourself for.
Greer leaned back in his chair, regarding his colleague with an appraising look. Brise was at least ten years his junior—heavy-set, his dress shirt already wrinkled at this early hour of the day, a black tie with stripes of Eton blue extending insufficiently out over his belly.
An utterly unprepossessing picture of a bureaucrat—but Brise had a solid reputation within the relatively small world of British intelligence. A reputation he’d spent twenty years building, since joining the SIS after graduating with honors from Eton. A classicist—like Marsh—Greer mused, a shadow of a smile crossing his face at the thought of his friend.
“Even with the pivot we’ve all made away from Russia and Eastern Europe in the years since the dissolution of the USSR—since the rise of the Islamist threat—the list of our assets, both current and former, in Russia remains one of Six’s most closely-guarded secrets. Or at least it should be.” Brise paused. “How reliable is your source?”
Greer thought about it for a moment. “Quite reliable, I believe. I was involved in his recruitment myself.”
That brought raised eyebrows from Brise. “You? I didn’t know that you were running assets out of your CI shop, Phillip.”
A shake of the head. “Years ago. Back in the old days.”
“I see,” Brise replied slowly, the skepticism still clearly visible in his eyes. As well there might have been—he’d have considered it warranted if someone brought something this fantastical to him. But this time. . .it was real. He could feel it, somewhere down deep within him—all the instincts of a career in this world crying out.
“I’ll do what I can, Phillip,” the SIS man went on after a long moment. “You understand, of course, that sorting all this out may take a few days. A week, even.”
“I do,” Greer acknowledged, rising to his feet—Brise’s body language implying that the meeting was nearing its end. “And you appreciate that this needs to be prioritized. If my source’s intelligence is accurate, this information could be handed off in a matter of days.”
“Of course, I’ll at
tend to it personally. But my shop’s even smaller than yours, and we’re stretched thin.” Brise shrugged, gesturing around him, at the office—at the lower levels of the Headquarters building visible through the window. “You know it yourself, Phillip. We may have a more imposing headquarters, but we don’t have the staff you do there at Thames House. It’s a limiting thing.”
He reached out, clasping Greer’s hand. “But I’ll do everything in my power. I give you my word.”
But would that be enough?
Greer was halfway across Vauxhall Bridge when the mobile in his jacket began to ring. He paused, hand resting on the squat, faded red parapet—bringing the phone up to his ear even as one of London’s iconic double-decker buses crossed the bridge just behind him, drowning out the sound of all else.
“Yes?” he asked, putting a hand up to his other ear to block the noise. Marsh’s voice.
“We need to meet, Phillip. As soon as possible.”
“This is a bad time,” Greer responded, gazing out over the Thames—the river choked with traffic on this bright summer day. An idyllic scene, almost. Full of life. “Perhaps later this week?”
“It has to be today,” came Marsh’s reply. Cold and assured. “I have word of our friend.”
Alexei Mikhailovich. Then he had no other choice. “All right then—two hours? The usual place?”
“You’ll find me there. And, Phillip. . .”
“Yes?”
“Lose the phone.”
10:24 A.M.
The terraced house
Abbey Road, London
That should bring him, Julian Marsh thought, staring down at the phone in his hand. It was a dangerous game he was playing, and he knew it.
If Greer had played him false. . .
But he couldn’t bring himself to believe that—that his old colleague could have betrayed their service. Anymore than that he himself would have.
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