Soul of the Assassin - [First Team 04]

by Larry Bond

  Or to a lab for analysis.

  Nothing could connect him to the bag. But how much evidence would the FSB need? They’d show his picture to the clerk at the left baggage area and get him to nod.

  Or worse: some fool would open the containers, not knowing what they were. The material would get on their skin, and eventually into the digestive tract. From there, an epidemic would start.

  Statistically, it would take more than one person. One person, statistically, would not produce the critical mass needed for a truly devastating epidemic.

  If you trusted the statistics. If you didn’t consider a single death, or a handful, significant.

  Rostislawitch paced some more. He could go there and get rid of the bag. It was the safest thing to do. And the right thing.

  Unless the she-wolf was following him. Then it would be foolish.

  He would have to make sure he wasn’t followed. Rostislawitch put the check back into his wallet, took his coat, and headed for the door.

  ~ * ~

  10

  OUTSIDE OF TUNIS, TUNISIA

  The Russian-made Mil Mi-8 was a versatile helicopter, though like most helicopters, it was not particularly well suited for flying through thunderstorms. To add to the discomfort, internal fuel tanks had been added to the walls of the cabin area, tripling its range but greatly reducing space. Atha and the two crewmen shared a small bench for the entire ride; standing up, they could take two steps before reaching the forward bulkhead separating the crew space from the cockpit.

  The bathroom was a small pail that hung on a hook on the wall. When you were done, one man opened the cabin door and you emptied the contents into the slipstream. Emptying the waste successfully required a certain amount of body English.

  When they finally arrived at the airport, Atha was so glad to be there that if it weren’t for the fact that it was still raining he would have dropped to the ground and kissed the cement. His legs literally trembled the entire way to the terminal building. The suitcase with the scientist’s material rolled along behind him, bumping through the puddles and skipping over the curb.

  His journey was hardly complete—a chartered plane was due to take him on to Libya, where he would catch yet a third plane to fly on to the camp in the Sudan. But those rides would be in airplanes. Atha vowed he would never fly in a helicopter again.

  Though Tunis was an Islamic country, it was not particularly friendly toward Iran. If the military officials at the airport had thought he was anything other than an ordinary smuggler, they would have been loathe to take his bribes. But as far as they knew, he was only transporting embargoed oil equipment and software. His generous landing “fee” was supplemented by an agreement to purchase twice as much fuel as the helicopter could hold, even with its expanded tanks; the difference went directly into the pocket of the colonel responsible for the airport.

  Having arranged to pay the fees in advance, Atha was surprised to find a customs agent waiting to see him in the small terminal. The man insisted that Atha would have to come into the small office to speak with him privately, even though there was no one else in the building.

  “Perhaps you should talk to Colonel Nawf,” suggested Atha. “I believe we’ve already made our arrangements.”

  “I will have to see your passport,” said the man.

  Atha started to take it from his pocket, then stopped. It didn’t look like a trap—there was definitely no one else in the building, and there had been no trucks or troops nearby. But giving the man his passport was the same as telling him who he was, and he didn’t want to do that if at all possible.

  Of course it could be arranged. It was just a matter of handing over more money—something he hated to do on principle.

  “I have paid a considerable sum for the arrangements here,” said Atha.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Is there some permit that I’ve forgotten? Is that what the problem is?”

  The customs agent smiled. “Ah. Now you are beginning to understand.”

  “And how much does the permit cost?”

  “Five hundred euros.”

  Atha did not have that much cash with him; there had been no time to get money in Naples.

  “Would you take a check?” he asked.

  “A check?” The man jerked his head back. Then he started to laugh. “A check?”

  “Just joking,” said Atha, reaching inside his jacket.

  “A very funny joke,” said the man.

  He started to laugh, then saw the pistol in Atha’s hand.

  “Here you go. Five hundred euros,” said Atha, putting the bullet through the man’s forehead. “Don’t bother with a receipt,” he added, stepping around the man and the gathering pool of blood as he went to find his airplane.

  ~ * ~

  11

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  Ferguson had barely gotten himself settled in the suite below Rostislawitch when the scientist grabbed his things to go back out. Hurriedly securing the laptop, Ferguson headed down the steps, trotting through the lobby and reaching the revolving doors just as the Russian started outside.

  “Oops, sorry, you go first,” said Ferguson, awkwardly bumping against him. He gave his English a British accent. “Never can work these things out.”

  Rostislawitch frowned at Ferguson as he came through the doors.

  “Sorry, mate,” said Ferguson, waving and then trotting off up the street.

  Rostislawitch shook his head, then watched warily as Ferguson disappeared around the corner. He looked up and down the block, trying to spot the FSB she-wolf or her minions. Finally a cab appeared and he got in. Not trusting that it had appeared randomly, he had the driver take him to the train station; there he caught another cab, this time back to the Americana, one of the larger hotels in the city’s business section. Another cab was just letting off a passenger when Rostislawitch arrived; he hopped in.

  “I want to go to Firenze,” he said, using the Italian name for Florence.

  The driver started to protest. Florence was about 110 kilometers away; the trip there and back could take three hours or more.

  Rostislawitch dropped ten hundred-euro notes—all of the cash Atha had slipped him at their meeting—onto the front seat of the car.

  “Wouldn’t that cover the fare?”

  It would indeed. The driver was even agreeable to cutting through alleys and taking sudden U-turns to make sure they weren’t followed.

  Two hours later, the driver dropped Rostislawitch off in the Piazza della Stazione, near the Florence train station. He walked around the circle, once again checking for anyone who might be following him, then went in and got a ticket for Naples. He found the platform, then stood back after the train’s arrival was announced, waiting until the last possible minute before getting aboard.

  ~ * ~

  T

  he tracking bug Ferguson had surreptitiously placed on Rostislawitch’s back when he “bumped” into him at the hotel doorway made the Russian easy to track, and Ferguson was able to figure out what he was up to pretty quickly. But having gotten so close to him meant Ferguson didn’t want to be seen again. This wasn’t a problem on the motorbike; he got to the station ahead of the scientist and watched from inside as he walked around in front. But he had to guess what the Russian was doing, and Ferguson wasn’t completely sure that he was correct until Rostislawitch got onto the train.

  The scientist was being much more careful now that he knew Kiska was watching him. But he was an amateur: he assumed that anyone following him would be literally following him, waiting for him to make the first move. He never suspected that Ferguson had gotten onto the train as soon as it pulled in, and was already in the car behind him.

  Nor was Ferguson entirely confident that the scientist wasn’t being followed. True, no one seemed to have been following the taxi, but a Russian op had been down the street when Rostislawitch’s journey from the hotel began. The man appeared to have lost Rost
islawitch the second time he switched cabs, but Ferguson was still wary; it was possible that he, too, had used a tracking device and was nearby.

  Ferguson took out his sat phone and called Imperiati. The Italian intelligence officer answered his phone in a crabby mood, and didn’t laugh when Ferguson asked if anyone had died at the conference yet.

  “Not so far.”

  “Drug guy still eating?”

  “He gave his speech and left a half hour ago. No incidents.”

  “Very good,” said Ferguson. He had never considered the drug company president to be a real target.

  “Are you on a train?”

  “Had to leave town for a few hours. I’ll be back. I think.”

  “The Russian FSB agent was asking about you. She said you couldn’t be taken at face value.”

  “I can’t. What else did she say?”

  “She was asking about an Iranian she thinks may be a terrorist. She offered to trade information.”

  “Did you take her up on it?”

  “I’m considering it.”

  “I’d go for it if I were you. I’d be interested in how she found out.”

  “She told me she has sources at all of the hotels,” said Imperiati.

  “Did she tell you his name?”

  “She was not willing to give details unless I reciprocated. I told her I didn’t have any to give. Then I mentioned how I was hoping to live a boring life.”

  “That’s not going to fly with her,” said Ferguson. “She likes excitement even more than I do.”

  Ferguson asked if there was anything new on the investigation into the bombing; Imperiati, sounding somewhat distracted and tired, answered that there wasn’t. Ferguson signed off, then called Thera to see what she was doing.

  “Getting some beauty rest?” he asked, after it took several rings for her to answer.

  “Not really.” It sounded like a lie; her voice was sleepy and distant.

  “Well, go ahead and get some. Not that you need it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Rosty got on the train like I thought he would. We oughta be in Naples in three hours or so.”

  “What’s going to happen then?”

  “He’ll freak because the bag is gone,” said Ferguson. “After that, I don’t know. He has to go back to Bologna at some point. He left everything there.”

  “I should be there.”

  “Where?”

  “Naples.”

  “It’s kind of an ugly city, especially near the train station.”

  “What if he does something crazy?”

  “Like?”

  “Maybe he’ll kill himself.”

  Ferguson hadn’t really considered that possibility.

  You have to be a hard-ass, his father once told him. He meant it as a reproach—he was telling his son that the young man didn’t really have it in him to be a CIA officer. He wanted too much to save the world and trust people and do the right thing; he couldn’t just stand back and let people suffer, let them die. Which you had to do.

  “What are you thinking, Ferg?” Thera asked.

  “That you really do need some sleep,” he told her. “Stay in Bologna. We’re going to need you at full steam tomorrow. OK?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “OK, Thera?”

  “Yeah. You’re right. I am tired.”

  “G’night, ladies, g’night. G’night, g’night, g’night,” he told her, killing the line.

  ~ * ~

  12

  THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, NORTH OF AFRICA

  It had been several years since Guns had participated in an armed ship boarding, and then it was simply an exercise. But the adrenaline and weapons were plenty familiar. He climbed down from the destroyer to the rigid-hulled boat, taking a place behind the team leader as the craft revved its outboard and slipped into a dark patch between the destroyer and the search beams playing on the cargo ship it had just stopped. The rain had passed, but the waves were still choppy and swells reached well over the hull of the tiny boat.

  Guns and Rankin had come aboard the USS Porter, DDG 78, just an hour before, flying to the ship in the southern Mediterranean aboard an Italian helicopter. The Porter had been tasked to stop the last remaining vessel that Atha might have escaped to, assuming he had not found a way to sneak past the Italian coast guard and get back on land near Naples or Sicily.

  Though the Porter was a destroyer, her firepower would have likely given her the advantage over a confrontation with a World War II cruiser. The ship had recently been deployed in an effort to stop pirates and gunrunners near the east African coast, and her specially trained SITT team—the letters stood for Shipboard Integrated Tactical Team—was well practiced at boarding and searching for contraband, human or otherwise.

  The chief petty officer directing the team was a graybeard who claimed not to remember exactly how old he was; he’d groaned as he pulled on his bulletproof vest and the rest of his gear aboard ship. But there was a definite spring in his step as they pulled next to the cargo vessel: he lunged for the rope ladder at the ship’s side, climbing up behind the point man.

  Guns went up third, the strap for the shotgun he was carrying hooked through his arm so that he could wield the weapon quickly. The boarding party was met by a nervous-looking man standing in a tiny pool of light on the foredeck of the cargo craft. He told them in Spanish that they were welcome aboard and that the captain was waiting for them on the bridge.

  “I’ll bet we’re welcome,” said the chief as the rest of his men came up.

  Guns didn’t like the fact that the crewman was nervous. He glanced around the deck area nearby, trying to spot other men who might be waiting to ambush them. Such an attack would be foolish—it would take the destroyer only a few moments to sink the ship—but counting on someone else’s ability to reason things out was an easy way to get killed.

  With the SITT team aboard the vessel, the chief, Guns, and two other sailors made their way up to meet the captain. The captain protested mildly—the vessel was in international waters; there was no reason for an inspection—but then volunteered that since they had nothing to hide they would be happy to accommodate their friends from the U.S. Navy, and even inquired if they would like some tea. The chief politely declined the invitation and asked to examine the ship’s log and papers.

  Guns didn’t bother looking at the papers, knowing they were unlikely to show that the boat had picked up a passenger. Instead, he walked around the bridge, silently sizing up the two sailors who were with the captain. The men seemed nervous. The mate at the ship’s wheel kept jerking his shoulders upward, his hands still tight on the wheel though the boat had come to a full stop.

  The chief explained to the captain that they had come because the Italians were searching for a man who had made a terrorist attack and was believed to have escaped Italy by boat. The ship’s captain said this was a terrible thing, but of course not something he would be involved in. They had seen no small boat, let alone a terrorist.

  The outcome of their talk was preordained, since there was no way the SITT team was leaving without having thoroughly searched the ship. But the chief played diplomat; cajoling a ship’s captain into a state of semi-cooperation made his job considerably easier, if not necessarily safer.

  Guns, meanwhile, went back down the ladder to the compartments below, thinking about what he had seen so far aboard the ship. The most obvious fact—Ferguson always said start with the obvious— was that the crew and the captain were of different nationalities. The crewmen were Filipino, while the captain had said he was Egyptian. That implied a certain distance between them, a possible weakness that Ferguson would have been quick to exploit.

  Guns approached one of the crewmen, asking in Spanish if the ship had picked up someone at sea.

  At first, the man pretended not to understand. When Guns repeated the question, the man told him no, they hadn’t made a stop since Marseilles. Guns then asked if he was married, trying t
o make small talk—stalling really, while he thought of some way to determine if the sailor was lying. But the man told him that he was sorry, but he was busy and the person he should speak to was the captain.

  Ferguson might have gotten the same results, Guns thought as he walked down the corridor. But he would have gone about it differently— small talk first, and ... and he would have been much more leading when he struck up the conversation.

  What happened to the guy you picked up? I can’t find him anywhere. . . .

  That was the vintage Ferguson question, leading and personable at the same time.