The Athena Project

by Brad Thor

  When the women touched down from their jump, Cooper and Rhodes were waiting for them. Gathering up their gear, they leaped into the car and made their escape. Examining her chute, Casey realized how close the shooters on the roof had come to hitting her. Several rounds had pierced her canopy. She had been very lucky.

  The drive to Tuzla took three hours. Just as during most of their drive from the Slovenian coast up to Zbiroh a few days ago, it was dark and boring. Nobody spoke much. Casey and Ericsson were both disappointed at having lost Kojic. He had been their prisoner and their responsibility. It was an unfortunate accident, but the accident had happened because of carelessness on their part. It was a hard lesson to learn, and one neither of them would soon forget.

  Camp Eagle was a black site the United States used to move and interrogate ghost detainees in the war on terror who were being kept off the books. It had a history of covert operatives moving in and out, and therefore the staff knew not to ask a lot of questions.

  Casey and her team got something to eat at the Longhorn Café on base and then Gretchen told the girls to get some sleep. They didn’t all need to help her upload the contents of Kojic’s computer back to Bragg. She could do that on her own.

  Hutton had arranged for her to have everything she needed, including a private office with high-speed internet and access to a secure telephone. The telephone was unnecessary. She didn’t want to talk to Hutton, not now at least. She just wanted to upload the contents of Kojic’s computer, write up her report, and go to bed, which was exactly what she did. She and her teammates slept like rocks for over eight solid hours. It felt better than any trip to any spa.

  Once they had showered and changed clothes, they went back to the Longhorn Café for another meal.

  Summer had hung around longer in this part of the world, but as the afternoon wore on, a cool breeze had picked up, suggesting fall was on its way.

  It made Casey think about home and what autumn would mean for her. The leaves would be changing colors. There’d be football games, and before you knew it Thanksgiving, and then Christmas.

  The holidays were about the last thing she wanted to think about. They always reminded her of the mistakes she had made in her life, particularly when it came to her relationships.

  After lunch there was talk of going to work out and even checking into flights home, as Tuzla had direct flights to the United States. They were hopeful Hutton was about to cut them loose.

  Gretchen was wondering what she would do once she got back when her cell phone rang. Speak of the devil, she thought to herself. “Casey,” she said as she activated the call.

  “You and your team did a good job,” stated Hutton. “We’ll be going through the stuff on Kojic’s hard drive for a long time.”

  “I’m glad,” she replied.

  “I read your report. How seriously are you and Julie injured? It reads to me like you downplayed things, as usual.”

  Casey smiled. He knew her too well sometimes. “I got a little cut,” she said, touching the wound on her scalp. “It probably could have used a stitch or two, but Coop closed it up with Krazy Glue.”

  “And Julie?”

  “She was slapped in the face with Kojic’s laptop. She’s got a bit of a bruise, but she’ll be fine too. We’re all fine.”

  “Everybody’s fine but Kojic.”

  “Listen,” Gretchen began, “about that—”

  Hutton stopped her. “The guy did it to himself. Okay? Don’t give it another thought. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Casey decided to let it go. She didn’t want to talk about it and she wasn’t in the mood for a pep talk from Hutton. “Did you find out anything more about the man who financed Kojic’s purchase of all the Kammler equipment from the Zbiroh bunker?”

  “Thomas Sanders,” said Hutton, repeating the name Kojic had given them back in Belgrade, shortly before he had died. “We’re compiling a jacket on him now. There isn’t much out there. What is interesting, though, is that Sanders didn’t want Kojic knowing who he was either. He tried to remain in the shadows, but Kojic tracked an IP address he used one time, and that became a jumping-off point for building a jacket of his own on him.”

  “What was in it? Anything good?”

  Hutton flipped through the printouts that covered his desk back at Bragg. “There’s mention of someone else we’re trying to run down, named Abressian. Armen Abressian. Don’t know who or what he is. The rest of it is pretty much banking information, but that’s where it gets interesting.”

  “How so?” asked Casey.

  “It’s like Russian nesting dolls, trying to pick apart all of the shell companies and phony accounts these guys use, but it appears Thomas Sanders has recently done business with your swim partner from Venice.”

  “Nino Bianchi, the arms dealer?”

  “Yup.”

  “The bomb discovered in South America, do you think Bianchi might have had something to do with that?” asked Casey.

  “That’s what I want you to find out,” said Hutton.

  “How am I supposed to find that out?”

  “You’re going to ask Bianchi yourself.”

  “All right,” she replied. “I’ll get the team ready.”

  “No. You don’t need the team. Just you. I’m going to send a car to get you. Where are you?”

  “I’ll walk back over to the Longhorn Café. The car can get me there,” said Casey. “Can I grab a bag at least?”

  “You won’t need one,” replied Hutton. “The car will be there in five minutes.” And with that, he disconnected the call.

  CHAPTER 50

  A Humvee showed up four minutes later and Gretchen Casey climbed in. Like everyone else she had met at Tuzla, the driver was polite, professional, and didn’t ask a lot of questions.

  He drove her out toward the airfield. “Do I have a plane waiting for me?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” her driver replied as he kept going.

  The kid had obviously been told to pick her up and not make conversation, so she decided to leave him alone. From what she could tell, they weren’t driving off the base, which meant she’d find out what this was all about soon enough.

  At the far end of the airfield was a cluster of prefabricated buildings. Just beyond the cluster was a building surrounded by a high cyclone fence. When Casey saw who was standing at the gate, twirling a key on his finger, she began to understand what this was all about.

  “Where is he?” Casey said as she climbed out of the Humvee.

  “We haven’t seen each other in days and that’s your first question? No, ‘Hi, Scot, How’s it been?’” replied Scot Harvath.

  “Hi, Scot. You look like crap.”

  “Actually, I haven’t been sleeping very well. Which is probably because I haven’t been letting Bianchi sleep very well. He’s a real tough nut to crack.”

  Casey looked at him askance. “Is that some sort of macho, male anatomy joke?”

  Harvath put his hands up. “No hostile work environment here, boss. I don’t want to get written up.”

  “Relax. I’m just pulling your leg. Where is he?”

  “He’s downstairs in the play place having a happy meal.”

  “Can I see him?”

  Harvath stepped back and swung open the gate. “I was told to give you full access. By the way, he’s probably not going to be very excited to see you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect him to be.”

  “When you tossed him out the window, did you know he couldn’t swim?”

  Casey shook her head. “I had no idea. He sure picked an interesting city to live in then, didn’t he?”

  They walked across the packed, brown earth to the building. “My only request is that you don’t tell him where he is.”

  “No problem,” replied Casey as they reached the building’s main door and Harvath slid his key in and unlocked it. “Where’s Riley?”

  “She went to hide her clothes. She’s afraid you’re going to borrow some
thing again like you did on the yacht.”

  “C’mon, seriously.”

  “I am serious,” replied Harvath with a grin.

  He walked them over to a steel door with an electronic card next to it. Removing a card from his pocket, Harvath swiped it through the reader. There was a buzz followed by a click as the lock released and he pulled back the heavy security door.

  He led Casey down a flight of metal stairs to the basement level. They had not seen anyone else and she figured that was on purpose. The fewer people who knew Scot Harvath and Nino Bianchi were here, the better.

  They passed several doors until they reached one marked 5. Harvath slid his card through another reader, the lock released, and he held the door open for her.

  It was a long room, and sitting in the center was the play place, as it was known, an enormous cell, constructed out of heavy, modular concrete panels that could be broken down and moved. It had its own heating and air-conditioning unit that could create wild temperature swings inside if an interrogator so chose.

  Casey had seen enough of them to know what the interior looked like. It would be monitored by video and be outfitted with strobe lights and Dolby surround-sound speakers. There would be an eye hook in the center of the floor to restrain the prisoner in stress positions. Not only would the prisoner have no idea where he was, but the play place was completely soundproof. Access was via yet another heavy security door and card reader. On the outside, someone had taped a picture of an evil Ronald McDonald.

  There were two desks and a bank of closed-circuit monitors to watch what was happening inside the cell. Right now, Nino Bianchi was eating.

  He looked worse than Harvath. His clothes were soiled and his hair was unkempt. He probably hadn’t bathed or shaved since Casey and her team had handed him over.

  “Well,” said Scot. “He’s all yours. Do you want me to go in with you?”

  Casey shook her head. “I’d rather go in alone.”

  “Understood.”

  “And no video, okay? I’m not here and this never happened. Are we good?”

  “We’re good,” replied Harvath as he walked over to the cell door and swiped his card.

  When the lock released, he pulled it back so Casey could walk in. Once she had entered, he closed the door behind her and waited for the lock to reengage before walking over to one of the monitors to watch her interrogation unfold.

  “Hello, Nino,” Casey said as Bianchi looked up from his food.

  If he was unhappy to see her, she couldn’t tell. The man had a drawn expression. Gone was the arrogance of only a few nights ago. He looked broken, but broken didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. Despite his being shackled to the eye ring in the middle of the floor, she still made sure not to get too close. Caged animals were just as dangerous as those roaming freely in the wild.

  “Have you come back to throw me out another window?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied as she pulled a chair from the corner and straddled it. “I want to talk about weapons.”

  “I sell computer parts. I don’t know anything about weapons.”

  “What did they give you to eat?” she asked, trying to figure out what he was scooping up from his plate with a piece of bread.

  Bianchi made a face and set the plate aside. “For an Italian, this is true torture.”

  “I think the chef has a bottle of Dom Perignon White Gold outside. Would you like me to check?”

  “Considering that it may be a very long time before I taste champagne again, I made a good choice,” he replied, a bit of a smile forming on his mouth.

  “Have you been cooperating?”

  “Are you the good cop, then? The other man who has been in here with me certainly isn’t.”

  Casey had seen Harvath in action before. He had issues. He most definitely wasn’t the good cop. In answer to the man’s question, she said, “That depends.”

  Bianchi sighed. “Of course it does. It always does.”

  “You understand that because of your involvement in the bus bombing in Rome—”

  “I wasn’t involved,” the Italian insisted.

  “You sold the explosives to the terrorists,” stated Casey. “That’s involvement enough. More than twenty Americans died. At your trial, the United States will push for the death penalty.”

  She expected some fervent defense, felt certain that he would stand up for himself and justify what he had done, but instead he just hung his head. She had no idea what Harvath had done to him. There wasn’t a mark on the man, at least not that she could see, but it was as if someone had gone to work on him with a hammer. There was no resistance, no fight in him.

  “I’ll give up the people involved. I’ll make a deal. Is that what you want?” he asked.

  Casey needed to be careful and not screw up whatever Harvath was trying to achieve with Bianchi. “That’s not why I am here, Nino. That’s for you to discuss with the other man.”

  “The bad cop,” he said dejectedly.

  “Yes,” she replied. “The bad cop. I need to talk to you about something else.”

  He looked up and said, “You have come to talk to me about Thomas Sanders.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Because,” said Bianchi, “for however long I have been down here, I have been waiting for bad cop to ask me about it. But he hasn’t. Instead he has asked me about all of my other business dealings. He has asked me about Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, the Taliban, ELN, FARC, Abu Sayyaf, and on and on and over and over.”

  “You sold computers to all of those organizations?” asked Casey. “You must be a very good salesman.”

  He smiled. “I can get anything people want.”

  “So what did Thomas Sanders want?”

  “Let’s talk first about what I want,” demanded Bianchi.

  “And what would that be?”

  “I want to walk out of here, wherever this is, a free man.”

  Casey started to speak, but he raised the index finger of his shackled right hand and continued. “I also want a guarantee that no one will come after me. That I will be safe.”

  “Nino, you are directly involved in the murder of more than twenty Americans in Rome alone. I can’t even begin to imagine how many U.S. soldiers and Marines have been killed because of the people you have helped equip. You just expect us to let you go free? After all that you have done?”

  “If you don’t make a deal with me, millions of people in your country are going to die. I can help you stop that from happening.”

  “How?”

  “First things first,” he said. “You are here because of Mr. Sanders, aren’t you? Everything else was to soften me up, to make me more cooperative.”

  Casey didn’t care what the guy thought, as long as it kept him talking. She nodded.

  “I knew it,” said Bianchi. “How did you find out? About Sanders and what he has planned?”

  “Listen, Nino,” stated Casey, “I’m the one who will ask the questions. Now, as to Mr. Sanders. What is it you know that might be of value to us?”

  “I want some sort of a guarantee. In writing.”

  Casey patted her pockets before saying, “I must have left my pen on the subway. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  The Italian shook his head. “No. I want something from your president. Something signed.”

  Casey laughed. “You’ve been watching too much television, Nino. Our president doesn’t do that sort of thing. Even if he did, we would need to know exactly what you were offering.”

  Bianchi thought about that for a moment. “Mr. Sanders wanted bombs from me. A very special, very specific type of bomb.”

  “What kind?”

  The Italian shook his head again. “A man has to have some secrets.”

  “You know what I think, Nino?” said Casey as she stood up. “I think we overestimated your usefulness. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

  Casey walked over to the door. Just as she was about to rap on it to be releas
ed, Bianchi said, “EMP bombs. Electromagnetic pulse. Are you familiar with those?”

  Gretchen turned around and leaned her back against the door. “I’ve heard of them.”

  “Well, that’s what Sanders wanted.”

  “And that’s what you got for him?”

  Bianchi nodded.

  “How many?” asked Casey.

  “He wanted three at first.”

  “At first?”

  “Yes. Then he contacted me and said he needed more. That he wanted them quickly. He told me he would purchase whatever I could get my hands on.”

  “And you being you,” said Casey. “You had no problem finding more of these things.”

  He smiled. “There are a few countries that see EMP devices as the weapons of the future. They are producing certain EMP devices in quantity. In most of these countries, the scientists and members of the military are poorly paid. They are easy to come by. The hardest part is getting the bombs to their destination.”

  “Which in the case of Mr. Sanders was where?”

  Bianchi shook his head. “As the good cop, you can appreciate that I must have my guarantee.”

  Casey wanted to go over and slap the smug bastard across the face, but she kept her emotions in check. “Nino, this is still not enough for me to take to my superiors and request special treatment on your behalf. It’s all words, smoke. We can’t prove if any of what you say is true.”

  “You are toying with me,” said Bianchi, a bit of the spark back in his eyes.

  “No,” replied Casey, “you’re toying with me and I’m done having my time wasted.” She pounded on the cell door to be let out. As she waited for the door to be opened she added, “I’ll tell your friend outside that you’re done with your lunch and that you’re ready to pick back up wherever you two left off.”

  Casey didn’t even bother looking at him as the door opened and Harvath stood back so she could exit.

  As the door began to close, Bianchi yelled, “Wait!”

  CHAPTER 52

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Jack Walsh hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in two days. The trip to Paraguay had only heightened his anxiety. His sixth sense was telling him that there was going to be an attack of some kind. He could feel it.