“Sounded like the Sinai turned into a real mess,” his friend observed as they exited the base, turning south onto Route 1.
“You heard right,” came the Texan’s short response, his eyes on the road. “Congressional hearings, coming up late next week. Kranemeyer’s been called to testify.”
Thomas swore softly. “What’s he going to tell them?”
“The truth, I imagine. That it was a clean strike, everything by the book.” The future textbook case for how horribly things could go wrong even when you did everything right, he thought, but didn’t add. It wasn’t how he’d expected his career with the Agency to be remembered. . .not that he’d expected it to be remembered at all. A failure, in itself.
“I hear you were tapped to take Mitt’s place.”
A nod. “I asked for you, Granby, and Ardolino, and Kranemeyer approved the request.”
There was a bemused look in the New Yorker’s eyes. “So you’re putting the band back together, huh?”
“On a mission from God,” Richards replied, a rare smile creasing his swarthy face. “Or the seventh floor.”
Thomas laughed. “Close enough for government work.”
There was a long pause, the flat farm fields of Delaware flashing past as the car sped south through the night.
Then, “Any further updates on Harry? Any word where he might have ended up, after Scotland?”
Richards’ smile vanished, his obsidian-black eyes narrowing into glittering points as they focused on the road ahead. The red tail-lights of another car, appearing off on the horizon.
“No,” he said finally. “He’s a fugitive now, after everything in the UK. . .if he’s smart, he won’t be putting his head up anytime soon.”
“That can’t last.”
“I know.” The Texan went quiet for another long moment, the closing strains of the old Prussian’s symphony filling up the silence. “I don’t know what happened to him, what. . .broke, somewhere inside. Wish I did. But that’s the past, like it or not. And we have a job to do.”
“Copy that.”
9:32 A.M., Central European Summer Time
Rue Hors-Château
Liège, Belgium
Harry shut the door of the sedan behind him as he stepped out onto the street, waiting on the curb as Belkaïd’s bodyguard finished speaking to the driver—his eyes flickering across the street to the towering red baroque facade of the Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception looming there above them, mute stone saints staring down upon them from their carved niches in the stonework.
Staring down in judgment, or so it seemed, in this moment. Belkaïd’s call had come unexpectedly, forty minutes before, followed quickly by his bodyguard—despatched to retrieve Harry and bring him to the trafficker’s own residence. No reason given, clearly Belkaïd felt no need to provide one.
And so here they were, standing in the historic center of the old city of Liège. The heart of Walloon culture, centuries-old. A few more hurried words, and the car pulled away, the bodyguard coming over to motion Harry into the arch of the building’s doorway. Up we go.
Belkaïd’s apartment was on the third floor—the entire floor, from what Harry understood, glancing over at the bodyguard as the man entered a passcode for the elevator access—his sidearm printing against the thin fabric of his shirt as he bent over, tapping in the code.
8-5-5-7, Harry thought, filing the number away for future use—wondering at the significance of it. None, if the trafficker was savvy. He didn’t know just how careful Belkaïd was when it came to such details—it was an area where even some of the best allowed themselves to be tripped up. The human impulse, almost impossible to overcome. For him, as much as anyone else.
Was this about last night? Had he been followed from Ghaniyah’s apartment to the Pont de Fragnée? Was it just that his lengthy absence from the warehouse and apartment building had been noted, his very disappearance from their radar causing questions? He had intended to take the phone and plant it in Marwan’s room as an insurance policy, but he hadn’t gotten that far—leaving it instead disassembled and hidden in an old box of cereal in their apartment’s pantry—something left over from the previous occupants.
The elevator shuddered to a stop and the bodyguard entered the passcode once more, the doors sliding open. The man extended his hand, not a trace of a smile in his eyes as he gestured for Harry to lead the way into the hallway. “After you.”
9:35 A.M.
VSSE Headquarters
Brussels
“This is highly irregular, Anaïs,” Christian Danloy responded, glancing up from his briefing notes toward his counterpart’s face on the teleconferencing screen. “I’m afraid, if you’re going to ask me to push back my timeline, you’re going to have to provide me with a reason for doing so.”
He could see the DGSE director hesitate, clearly choosing her words carefully. What was going on here? “There have been developments in the situation. . .I’m afraid that’s all I’m able to divulge, Christian.”
“You’ve heard from your officer, then?”
“Not exactly, no,” Brunet acknowledged, glancing at someone off-camera.
“Then I must insist that the timeline stands. Please, understand what I am dealing with here. We have a terrorist cell here in my country, potentially on the very brink of going active. . .and you’re asking me to refrain from surveilling them. This is madness.”
“Twelve more hours, Christian. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“Then surely you can tell me why. I am not being unreasonable here, Anaïs! If you have intelligence this specific affecting the national security of Belgium it is imperative that you share it with me. It is—”
“If you will excuse me, madame le directeur,” he heard another voice interject, a man’s face coming up just then in a split-screen with Brunet. “It’s been a long time, Christian.”
It took Danloy a moment to place the man, but then he remembered. Daniel Vukovic. Two decades earlier, they had both served as liaison officers for their respective agencies at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. It had only been nine months—Vukovic had been finishing out his tour, on his way elsewhere at the bidding of the CIA—but Daniel had introduced him to the woman who would later become his wife. His ex, now—but it had seemed like a good idea to everyone at the time.
“Indeed it has, Daniel. This is something of a surprise, though I remember now there were reports you had taken over for Kassner at Paris Station.”
A smile. “You’re well-informed, Christian, as ever. We don’t have a lot of time here, so I’m going to cut straight to the point. Given the CIA’s interest in the success of this operation long-term, we would appreciate your cooperation in this. . .extension of your timeline. The Agency would be grateful.”
Do us this favor now, Danloy thought, the subtext of the American’s words only too clear, and we’ll do you one later. A “marker,” as Vukovic would have called it, to be redeemed at a future date.
And being able to call in a favor from one of the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies. . .offers in this business didn’t get much more seductive. But if it ended up meaning bodies in the streets of Brussels. . .
It felt like a Faustian bargain, with his old friend playing the role of Mephistopheles. And yet irresistible, for all that.
He shook his head, a sharp, incredulous laugh escaping his lips. “You’re honestly telling me that the CIA has greater access to matters pertaining to the national security of Belgium than the State Security Service itself? C’est incroyable.”
He understood, of course. Limitless money, the sinews of war. Money bought access. And no one in this business had “limitless money” quite like the Americans. But understanding didn’t make this pill any less bitter.
“All right, then,” he said finally, glancing around him at his subordinates as he spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You have your extension—our surveillance will be deferred until tomorrow morning, at this t
ime. But no longer.”
9:39 A.M.
Rue Hors-Château
Liège, Belgium
“Please, Ibrahim. . .have a seat,” Belkaïd announced, gesturing to a leather armchair in the apartment’s living room. “I appreciate you coming, even though the notice was short. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Of course,” Harry responded guardedly, glancing around him. The contrast between the trafficker’s living quarters and those of his sister couldn’t possibly have been more stark.
This was the home of a man to whom money was no object. A man who valued luxury—opulence, even. And yet his sister. . .
Belkaïd was still padding around barefoot, dressed in sweatpants and an old off-white wifebeater, as if he had just recently risen from bed. A calculated ploy to allow himself to be underestimated? Or simply. . .what it was?
The older man re-emerged from the back room bearing a laptop—placing it on the coffee table in front of his plush sofa, sinking back into its cushions.
“Please,” he offered, gesturing to a crystal bowl of fruit which sat on the table between them, “help yourself.”
It was the kind of invitation one didn’t just refuse. Harry reached out, taking an apple from the bowl. Turning it in his hand as he withdrew his knife—the only weapon left to him—and began to peel back the skin, watching for any imperfections that would indicate the fruit had been tampered with. Nothing.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bodyguard react, stiffening at the sight of the blade, and apparently Belkaïd felt it as well, for he turned to the man. “You may leave us now.”
A nod, and the man was gone, leaving through the door from which they had entered—the apple’s firm flesh giving way as Harry’s knife sunk in, slicing quick to the heart.
“That’s the knife you used to kill Hakim, isn’t it,” Belkaïd observed, crossing one leg over another as he leaned back into the sofa. A curious smile playing across his face.
Harry nodded, slowly, his eyes never leaving the Algerian’s. The knife slowing, juice running along the blade as he pulled it back out the other side of the apple. “And Said bin Muhammad.”
“And perhaps even me, eventually?” The older man’s voice was casual, disinterested, almost. Bored. Dangerous.
“That depends,” Harry replied, recognizing that to show weakness in this moment could be fatal, “on whether you’ve done anything to deserve it.”
Another quiet smile. “In some men’s eyes, I suppose I have done many such things. It all depends on what side you’re on.”
Warning.
“I stand with the Lord of the Dawn,” Harry responded quietly, the knife now motionless in his right hand. “His ‘side’ is my own. And truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array, as though they were a single structure, joined firmly.”
“A single structure,” Belkaïd mused thoughtfully, running a hand over his greying beard. “But that’s never been our reality, has it, Ibrahim? We’ve been fragmented, turned against each other—manipulated by the West for their own ends, until brother killed brother.”
The tragedy of the Arab world. Divided against itself for centuries.
“I understand that you met my sister yesterday,” the Algerian went on, not waiting for a response. “What did you think of her?”
9:43 A.M.
DGSE Headquarters
Brussels, Belgium
“Unacceptable,” Anaïs Brunet spat, waiting only until the screens darkened, indicating the Belgians had gone off-line. “Just what did you think you were doing there, Daniel, undermining the relationship of French intelligence with our Belgian counterparts in such a manner?”
“I was buying us time, Anaïs,” the CIA man replied, his gaze unwavering as his eyes locked with hers. Unrepentant. He knew exactly what he had just done—established his own service as arbiter in this, as so much else.“Time to get your officer out of harm’s way.”
“That wasn’t the way to handle it.” You didn’t simply run roughshod over the norms of inter-agency cooperation—not without serious, long-term consequences. The next time there was a joint operation, the Belgians would be uncertain with whom they really ought to deal. The French, or the Americans.
And she had seen the suppressed anger in Danloy’s face. He had felt it, no less than her. The VSSE might have been a small agency, but it was one of the world’s oldest, with an institutional pride that matched their long history.
The American might have gained his point for this moment, but it would rankle nevertheless. And repairing the relationship would involve far more effort than Brunet wanted to think about.
“You’re right, Anaïs,” Vukovic responded, rising to his feet. “It wasn’t. The way to handle this would have been for me to go to Danloy in the beginning—use my personal relationship with him to smooth the way for a truly joint operation. Or, perhaps, simply establish surveillance from the outset, instead of risking the life of an officer.”
That would have been Vukovic’s preference, certainly. His preference for technical means of intelligence gathering was well known.
“But here we are,” he said finally, still holding her stare. “So make the most of it. Get your officer out—while you still can. Because it only gets more dangerous from here.”
And then he was gone, the door of the conference room closing behind him. Americans.
9:44 A.M.
Rue Hors-Château
Liège, Belgium
“A remarkably strong woman,” Harry replied, truthfully enough. “A survivor.”
“Ah, she told you then.” There was pain and sadness in Belkaïd’s eyes as Harry answered his question with a simple nod of the head. “Ghani has always been a rock. Even as a child.”
He paused, his eyes growing reflective. “You know, I can’t remember that day—no matter how hard I try. I was five, then, but I don’t remember a thing—not the screams or the gunshots. Or my brother, laying dead on the floor. I don’t remember my brother at all, really, just the shadows of a face, here and there. Fragments. I only knew my father as he returned, broken in body and spirit. And I was too young, of course, to understand the brutality my mother and sister had been subjected to.”
Trauma. It was a strange thing, Harry thought, watching Belkaïd closely, but seeing no signs of deception in the older man’s face. Some things, it seared into one’s memory as if with a brand. Others. . .it were as though the brand had scorched away reality itself, leaving behind only a gaping hole. The knowledge of loss.
“Ghani accuses me, at times, of having forgotten. . .but the truth is far more bitter. I never knew.” There was an agony there, in the words, a desperate yearning to understand the unspeakable. To share it. “And perhaps I have. . .allowed other things to get in the way, over the years. No longer.”
He reached out a hand, opening the screen of the laptop and turning it to face Harry. The pictures on-screen were of a massive soccer stadium, open to the summer sun, packed with screaming fans by the tens of thousands.
“The Stade de France,” Belkaïd replied, answering Harry’s unspoken question. “In a week’s time, it will host the final qualifying match for the World Cup, determining whether France’s team will go on to the Cup itself. The President of France himself will be in attendance. And that’s when we’ll strike.”
It was audacious. Even an unsuccessful attack could be devastating. And yet. “This has already been tried,” Harry replied, recalling another jihadist attack in Paris. Not so very long ago. “You’ll never get in.”
A smile, as if it were a concern he had already thought of and dismissed long ago. How long had he been thinking of this? “But we don’t need to get in. Driss is right. Now that we have a supplier able to obtain military-grade plastic explosives for us, we can simply use the UAVs. Fly a pair of them into the stadium, directly to President Albéric’s box. Should take no more than ninety seconds to cross the open space from the roof to the box—the first explosion will tak
e out the security glass of the skybox, opening a path for the second UAV to fly straight in. Boom.”
He spread his hands in a pantomime of the explosion, smiling widely. “Everyone dead. What do you think?”
“It’s a good plan,” Harry acknowledged, struggling to keep his inner turmoil off his face, his mind racing. The DGSE would have to be warned, no matter the risk. He resisted the urge to glance at his wristwatch. Tonight’s meeting couldn’t arrive quickly enough. “If you think we can really trust this Russian to provide the plastique. But it’s a good plan.”
“Good,” the older man replied, his dark eyes suddenly turning hard and cold as he stared across the room into Harry’s face. “Then why have you betrayed us?”
9:47 A.M.
A hotel
Liège, Belgium
There was still nothing at the dead-drops, Armand Césaire thought, running a hand over his scalp, tousling the tight silver hair. No sign that Daniel had even seen his signals, let alone made an effort to respond to them. They were running short of time, and now. . .his masters on the Boulevard Mortier had added another tasking.
This meeting, on the Pont de Fragnée, with—they had no idea whom. He shook his head. Madness. They were risking exposure sending him in like this—bringing it all crashing down about their heads.
It should have been given to another officer, that’s what he’d told Godard. Someone firewalled off from LYSANDER. Someone who couldn’t talk.
He paused, as if realizing only then what he was preparing himself mentally for. The possibility of being taken.
It had been years. Africa, the last time he had truly found himself in physical danger. Sitting in a stopped car at a rebel checkpoint, somewhere in the Congo. Looking down the muzzle of a battered old AK-47 held in the trembling hands of a man young enough to be his son. Young and scared, screaming at the top of his lungs as if he could somehow find courage in the volume—the rifle’s muzzle waving back and forth.
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