“Once he buys a ticket,” he ordered tersely, “get me his destination.”
His man at Thames House just snorted. “That’s not even possible, it’s not like we’re dealing with a bloody airline. Best I can do is give you the train he’s on through CCTV once he boards. No way of telling where he intends to stop.”
“Fine. Do it.”
Colville ended the call, walking to the window of his office overlooking the city—weighing his options, none of them good.
At length, he pulled out the mobile once more, dialing a number from memory. “Brian,” he began when the other end came on, “how soon can you have the Agusta in the air?”
2:23 P.M.
The industrial estate
North of Leeds
And it was done. Harry stripped off the bloody latex gloves one at a time, dropping them into a plastic bag and placing it in the boot of the Vauxhall. Every last shred of his presence removed from the industrial estate, only the battered and bloodied body of Hashim Rahman remaining in the underground room that had borne witness to his torture and execution.
No matter. By the time anyone found the corpse, it would be far too late for them to do anything. And there was nothing to connect him to the death.
Except the Agency. Or Thomas Parker, which was effectively the same thing. They knew now for a certainty what they might have only suspected before—it only remained to be seen what they would do with the knowledge. Whether they would inform the Security Service.
Not very likely, he thought—moving around to the driver’s side door. He had spent most of his life in their employ. He knew how they worked, how they thought.
The millstones of bureaucracy might grind exceeding small, but they ground slowly. Slowly enough for a man to roll out of their way, if he kept his wits about him.
If. The burner phone vibrated within the pocket of his jacket and he reached for it, glancing at the screen. Number unknown.
“Yes?” he answered cautiously, his hand on the open door—eyes scanning the abandoned industrial buildings surrounding him. Searching for vantage points. Any sign that he was being watched.
“I’ve been watching the news out of Leeds,” Mehreen’s voice responded. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
The accusation was there—beneath her words. He didn’t know how many people had died in the tower block, that ball of fire exploding from the eastern wing. How many innocents.
“The explosion…wasn’t my doing,” he responded slowly, “but I was there.”
And that was always the way, wasn’t it? Samuel Han’s words to him—that night in Vegas.
“After this, Harry, after all of this is done—I never want to see your face again. Where you go, Death follows…”
And scant moments later, it had followed him straight out the door of the Bellagio and claimed Carol’s life. Like it had followed him here.
Sammy had been right.
Silence. No response from the other end of the line, just the faint sound of her breathing. “I’m afraid I’m going to need to make this short, Mehr,” he said after another moment, forcing the emotion to subside, “so what can I do for you?”
“I called…to apologize,” she began, clearly struggling to speak the words. “You were right, and it was wrong of me. Aydin left you with no choice.”
No choice. He shook his head, still seeing the kid’s face. If there had been another way, do you think I wouldn’t have taken it? He wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t come out.
“No, he didn’t,” he responded finally. Leaving it there, the silence hanging once more between them.
“If you were there at the council estate this morning,” she went on, an edge to her voice, “then that means you tried to take the Shaikh out of play. And it means you failed, because the news would have had that report. If not them, the bloggers. I want to help. I know this country, Harry. Better than you ever will. If you want to find him again…well, there was a reason you showed up at my door when you came to the UK. You need me.”
That much was true, but there was something else. Something she wasn’t saying. “And in return?”
“When all this is over, when the Shaikh is dead—I want Stephen Flaharty.”
3:31 P.M. Local Time
A chateau in the Gironde Department
Aquitaine, France
“It’s a beautiful place you have here,” David Lay observed quietly, glancing about him at the grandeur of the old chateau—one face of the western wall covered in climbing ivy, similar growth providing a shroud for the iron gate ahead leading down the path toward what would have been, in the 17th Century, the servant’s quarters.
A beautiful place, and one far beyond the salary of a public servant. But “public servant” seemed an insufficient descriptor for the likes of Anaïs Brunet.
A former chief executive of the now-defunct Astrium—a French aerospace manufacturer—the fifty-four-year-old Brunet had left the private sector over a decade earlier to pursue a second career in French politics, one that had led her to the head of the General Directorate for External Security. The DGSE, to use the acronym taken from the French.
Clearly, Lay thought, her career choices had agreed with her.
“Merci, David,” Brunet responded, ushering him through the gate ahead of her. She was an attractive woman if one chose to think of her in such terms—short dark hair and piercing black eyes. “Back when all of this was built in the 1600s, in the years following the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, its owners were producers of some of the finest Bordeaux reds in all of Aquitaine. Left Bank vintage, of course—with proportionally more Cabernet Sauvignon than Merlot.”
“You know your wines, Anaïs.”
“Could I rightly call myself French if I did not?” She laughed, her dark eyes never leaving his face. A moment passed before she spoke again, her expression softening as she did so. “I am only glad that you could come and pay me this visit. Only a few months ago, there was speculation that you might not return at all. That you might not make a full recovery.”
Full recovery. What did that even look like? The CIA director asked himself, forcing a false smile to his face. How did you “recover” when everything that made life worth the living had been ripped away from you? Your one chance at redemption—forever lost.
“I lived,” he responded simply. Honestly.
She favored him with a sidelong, searching glance—as if suspecting there was more he would not say. “And that is good. But this trip, David, out here away from the trappings of our respective offices…and the listening ears that go along with them. You did not come to France to discuss my wine or the Islamists’ attempt on your life.”
Ah…yes. It was reassuring to know that even a rival intelligence service had bought into the cover story surrounding the attempted assassination. The truth was far too devastating.
“You’re right, of course.” He stopped, casting a look back toward the chateau as he turned to face her. They were not alone, of course—their bodyguards back there, keeping a careful overwatch. “The Agency’s involvement in Alliance Base is coming to an end.”
“Effective when?” Brunet demanded, turning on him, her dark eyes snapping like coals of fire. Unable to conceal her surprise—her inexperience in the intelligence world never more visible than in that moment.
Lay shrugged. “Six months. A year, maybe. If we’re lucky. I’ll do what I can to drag my feet, to slow things down, but it’s not going to change anything in the end. The new President is committed to bringing a new ‘transparency’ to the intelligence community.”
And the kind of veiled, secretive intelligence-sharing efforts that had led over a decade earlier to the creation of the joint CIA-DGSE Counterterrorist Intelligence Center in Paris had no place in this brave new world.
“‘Transparency?’” The woman sneered, shaking her head in disbelief. “Every politician promises that.”
“This one means it.”
Brunet just
looked at him incredulously, whatever she might have been about to say lost as Lay’s phone began to ring. He took it out, intending to silence it—until he saw the identifier code displayed on the screen. Langley. “Excuse me,” he said apologetically, “I have to take this.”
2:33 P.M.
Leeds, West Yorkshire
“No,” Mehreen heard him say, his tone brooking no opposition, “that’s not going to happen. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have gotten this far, wouldn’t have even had a shot at Tarik. I’m not going to step aside at the end of it all and let you put a bullet in his head.”
“But he was responsible for my husband’s death!” she hissed, closing her eyes to envision Stephen Flaharty standing before her once again. There in the wood of St. Albans, her pistol aimed at his head.
To have taken that shot. “The two of you were mates in the sandbox…Nick loved you like a brother.”
“And giving Flaharty over to you to be executed, it’s not going to bring him back, Mehr.”
Mehreen laughed, a bitter, mirthless sound as she pushed open the door of the small Toyota—stepping out onto the street. “Are you even bloody listening to yourself? The hypocrisy of what you’re saying? You have only one sodding reason for being in the UK—to avenge the death of someone you loved more than life itself. That’s what Nick was to me, Harry—life itself. And that man took him away from me.”
Her hand came up, angrily brushing away a tear from her cheek as she continued, the torrent of words pouring out of her. “Who do you think you are, God? You and you alone get to decide who lives, who dies? You don’t have the right to seek your own vengeance—and then deny me mine. No right at all.”
There was a long silence from the other end of line before Harry’s voice came back on, “You’re right. I’m sorry, Mehr…that was unfair of me.”
There was something strange in his voice—a curious note of resignation. Defeat?
“I’ve secured intel on what Tarik’s planning,” he went on after a long moment, changing the subject, “not something we can discuss over an open line. Where can we meet?”
She glanced down the street toward her destination, a nondescript terraced house near the end of the row, its windows boarded over. “There’s an old safehouse in north Leeds, abandoned about six years ago in the restructuring of Five’s network. I’ll text you the address. And Harry—about Flaharty—do we have a deal?”
“We have a deal,” he acknowledged, his voice cold, emotionless. “I’ll meet you there.”
The old passkey still worked in the front door of the abandoned safehouse, the hinges creaking as Mehreen let herself into the hall—closing it behind her.
Her eyes adjusting to the dim light—the familiar sight of a place where she had worked more than one asset over her years as a case officer.
Case officer. That’s what her conversation with Nichols had reminded her of, an exchange between a case officer and an asset.
Perhaps that’s really all this was to him—an operation. Her, an asset. In which case…could she trust him to do what he had promised?
Trust. It was a concept as alien to her as to him, both of them inhabitants of a world where lies were the currency of the realm.
But Harry had been Nick’s closest friend—more of a brother, really. There was no way he’d let his killer walk free in the end. No way she would let him.
Mehreen shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the bannister of the stairs, revealing the HK45C holstered at the small of her back as she moved into the kitchen. Might as well take inventory—they were going to be here awhile.
She was stooped down by one of the cabinets when she heard a noise from behind her—the sound of a footstep against the floorboards, her heart almost stopping.
Moving with exaggerated slowness, she rose from her crouch, her hands kept away from her sides as she turned to face the doorway. Darren Roth was standing there in the entrance, an unreadable expression on his dark face—the suppressed Sig-Sauer P229 in his hands aimed at her head.
“Lose the gun and have a seat, Mehr,” he ordered, indicating one of the dust-covered kitchen chairs with a jerk of his head. “We really need to have a talk.”
10:57 A.M. Eastern Time
The Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C.
“Understood, ma’am,” Melody responded, cradling the office landline against her shoulder as her cellphone buzzed with a text message. “I’ll have the Senator give you a call as soon as he’s available. Yes, I understand.”
Can’t meet today, the text read—the number withheld on-screen. Perhaps tomorrow?
She hung up the phone and started to tap a reply, but the door from the inner office came open in that moment. Coftey himself emerging from within—his suit and tie discarded for a light windbreaker. His snow-white hair covered by a Longhorns ball cap.
“See if you can re-schedule my lunch with Senator Pressman,” he said, a smile crossing his face at their eyes met. “Give him my regrets. I’m going to need to slip out.”
“You got through?” she asked, genuine surprise in her voice. She hadn’t expected…
“Ellis is going to meet me for lunch,” Coftey nodded. “They’re taking it seriously.”
And then he was gone, her face changing almost as soon as the door had closed behind him. Twisting into a frustrated grimace as she swiped her thumb across the phone’s screen, tapping in a brief message.
Too late.
4:12 P.M. Greenwich Median Time
Leicester Railway Station
Leicestershire, United Kingdom
Plans have changed, the text message from Hale had read, Gordon thought, glancing out the window as the diesel train moved slowly out of the Victorian-era station, gathering speed as it headed north. Business to take care of. Stay on the train—msg me when you get to Leeds.
Return to boat? Had been his query in response, a question answered simply with: No. Establish comms when you reach Leeds.
Something was wrong—he could feel it, somehow—a nervous tension pervading the air. The way it had before more than one ambush in the sandbox, the massive explosion of a roadside bomb taking out the lead vehicle—the chatter of weapons on full-auto filling the air.
He glanced over at the young woman sitting beside him, her earbuds firmly in place, oblivious to everything around her—her thumbs moving swiftly over the screen of the mobile in her hands.
Ease up. Another few days and this would all be over. Come what may.
11:27 A.M. Eastern Time
Bob & Edith’s Diner
Arlington, Virginia
“You’re serious,” Scott Ellis said, a skeptical look in the minority leader’s eyes as he leaned back into his seat, his back against the wood.
“You know I am,” Roy Coftey responded, putting down his sandwich and dabbing his fingers on a napkin. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Ellis shook his head, glancing around the nearly deserted diner. The lunch crowd hadn’t arrived just yet, and they all but had the place to themselves. “And I probably shouldn’t be. If we’re seen in public together, Roy—the rumor mill, it’s never going to stop.”
Coftey just smiled at his Republican counterpart. “If you think anyone is going to recognize me wearing a Longhorns cap, you’re kidding yourself.”
Ellis didn’t laugh, his blue eyes never leaving Coftey’s face. A searching, penetrating gaze—the look of the prosecutor he had been before leaving the criminal justice world for politics.
“So you’re actually prepared to come over?” he asked, lowering his voice as he leaned forward, his elbows on the diner table. “You understand the ramifications of doing something like this?”
“Don’t patronize me, Scott,” Coftey replied, his voice taking on a harder edge. “I’ve been in this town for over thirty years—was already on the Select Committee when you were putting away small-time drug dealers in Albuquerque. So I can assure you that when I offer your party the c
hance to seize the majority in the Senate, I know what I’m doing.”
“In exchange for killing the President’s signature first-year legislation. And it’s not a real majority you’re offering us,” Ellis countered, “but a technical one. It’ll be split straight down the middle, 50-50.”
“Just like it was in ’01-‘03. And just like with Dick Cheney back then, you’ve got Vice President Havern on hand to split any tie votes.” Coftey shook his head. “Norton has a lot of big battles coming up. The budget, entitlements…those are all going to be party-line votes and you know that as well as I. What I’m offering you is the chance to deliver on all those, big-time.”
“But in return, we have to ensure that the NSA bill never makes it through the Senate.”
Coftey nodded. “Dead on arrival. I don’t want it even coming to the floor for a vote.”
“That’s going to be—”
“Don’t give me that. You have the clout to do it, Scott. And the votes. Norton’s people may have made inroads, but you’re not the only security hawk in the party—and you’re no more interested in seeing this bill pass than I am. The only difference between us is that I’m willing to lay my entire career on the line to stop it—and I’m giving you a way to ensure you can without having to.”
“All right,” Ellis said quietly, rising from the table. “Let me see what I can do.”
4:35 P.M.
Leeds, West Yorkshire
“I understand, I do, Stephen—but that is why I’m calling,” Harry said, his eyes scanning the city street as he continued, leaning back into the driver’s seat of the Vauxhall. “If we’re going to have any shot at stopping this, I’m going to need the weapons to do it.”
It was a brutally delicate business leading a man to his death. One false step.
But those were the terms of his agreement with Mehr. He closed his eyes, shaking his head. That it would come to this. Bartering lives to obtain his objectives. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t done it before, a hundred times. Even so…
“And in return,” Flaharty began, the skepticism clearly audible in his voice, “I get…what?”
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 54
