by Matthew Dunn
Will nodded. “Would the shipment be armaments and their destination somewhere dubious?”
Harry rubbed his hands together rapidly and smiled mischievously. “You’re not a secret policeman, are you, Charles?”
“No, I don’t think I’d make a very good policeman, secret or otherwise.”
Harry uncrossed his legs and leaned in close. His voice was a near whisper. “True. And they wouldn’t have someone like you in their ranks, would they? Not someone who has your kind of problems.” He pulled back quickly while chuckling and then clapped his hands together. “Now, I think I have something for you,” he boomed.
“Am I going to be impressed?”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “I hope so. You asked me to find a man, and I have done so. The defense attaché at the Iranian embassy in Zagreb. He’s an IRGC officer.”
Will nodded in appreciation. “How long has he been posted there?”
“Sixteen months. It’s his first posting in Europe.” Harry widened his eyes, and the look in them seemed expectant. “He’s only regular IRGC, mind you—a major in their army, nothing unusual. I believe that is what you wanted?”
“It is. What’s his function?”
Harry reached for his drink. “He’s doing what a regular DA in his position should be doing: schmoozing with the Croatian military, trying to persuade them to sell military equipment to the Iranians or maybe buy from them, and most likely drinking with them until the wee hours.”
“Age?”
“Thirty-one.”
Will resisted the urge to smile. The man’s profile was perfect for what he needed. His age was an additional bonus, as it could mean that the man was still eager to prove his worth to his superiors in Tehran. “That is very good, Harry. Very good indeed.”
Harry grinned widely again. “See, I knew I could be a valuable asset to you.” He pointed a finger at Will. “Hey, the woman Lana—have you spoken to her yet?”
Will lifted his drink. “If I use her, she will be oblivious to the fact that she is working for British intelligence.”
Harry nodded and chuckled again. “I like the way you work.” He finished his whiskey and checked his watch. “Well, unless there’s anything else we need to cover, an old man requires his bed. I’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“There’s nothing else right now.” Will reached out and placed a hand over Harry’s watch. “But I need you to stay in touch with me. I need you and your contacts to keep eyes and ears open for any sign of Qods Force activity in Central Europe. Anything at all, even if it’s just rumor.”
“Of course.” Harry placed his own hand on top of Will’s fingers, the mischievous look on his face having returned. “Of course.” He grinned even wider and laughed harshly as he broke Will’s grip and stood. “I do forgive you for holding a knife to me. But you should know that I never make threats. If I ever have cause to put a knife against your throat, the next thing you will feel is unimaginable pain as my blade slices through your life.”
“I don’t think so, Harry.” He smiled and regarded Lace. He saw the man’s humor, his deviousness, his business-sharp intellect, and his wisdom. He also saw hope and sorrow in the man’s eyes. He saw a man he could not help but like. He nodded. “I, too, never give threats, but I do give warnings to those I feel are capable of redemption. Remember that, Harry. Because I have just warned you.”
Seventeen
“We all arrived late last night.” Patrick poured coffee into a mug.
Will rubbed a hand against his chin and felt morning stubble on his face. He took a gulp of his own coffee and looked out a window toward Zurich’s Limmat River. They were in a CIA residential house on Rössligasse near the Swiss city’s old town quarter. He turned, walked to the dining table, and picked up a piece of paper. “So these are the others?”
“Indeed.”
Will read the paper.
Roger Koenig. Age thirty-eight. Married, three children. Seven years CIA Special Operations Group. Two years as team leader. Deployments include China, North Korea, Borneo, Russia, and Uzbekistan. Five SOG commendations at “outstanding” grade. Previously eight years SEALs, five of which DEVGRU. Global operations. Specialist in business cover, surveillance, all arms, disruptions, hostage rescue, HAHO and HALO parachute insertions, transportation (specifically maritime). Fluent in Mandarin, Russian, and German.
Laith Dia. Age thirty-four. Divorced, two children. Five years SOG. Deployments include Syria, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Previously five years Delta. Global operations. Twice recommended for Congressional Medal of Honor. Previously NCO in Rangers. Specialist in all arms, protection, hostage rescue, mountaineering, surveillance, disruptions, communications. Qualified sniper. Fluent in Arabic and operational Farsi.
Ben Reed. Age thirty-three. Single. Four years SOG. Deployments include Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, India, and Somalia. Previously nine years Green Berets. Global operations. Specialist in medicine, explosives, communications, HAHO and HALO insertions, hostage rescue, protection, surveillance, offensive and defensive driving, all armed and unarmed combat. Operational Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, and Spanish.
Julian Garces. Age thirty-one. Single. Three years SOG. Deployments include Sudan, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, and China. Previously seven years Air Force Combat Control Team. Global operations. Specialist in communications, HAHO and HALO, combat scuba diving, demolitions, all armed and unarmed combat, offensive and defensive driving. Fluent Spanish and operational Russian and Farsi.
Will placed the paper back down on the table. “Their experience looks perfect. I presume Roger will act as their team leader on this operation?”
Patrick poured more coffee into his mug. “He will.”
“I want to meet the team.”
“Of course. I’ll get them here now.”
Will shook his head. “Not all of them together. Get Laith, Ben, and Julian here first. We’ll meet their team leader separately.”
Will looked at the three men before him. He knew that to most people they would appear, from a distance, to be average men, and that was as it should be, for these men spent most of their time hiding among the ranks of normal people. But Will could immediately tell that the three specialists sitting in the Rössligasse house were anything but average men. He could see that they were highly professional. He could see that they were killers.
Patrick was leaning against a wall, also studying the men. “Introduce yourselves.”
“Laith Dia.” This came from the man on the left and was spoken in a deep, rich voice. The American looked tall, sinewy, and very strong. He had striking straight black hair and jet-black eyes. His physique, features, and name suggested that he was of both Moorish African and Levantine Arab heritage.
“Why did you join the CIA, Laith?” Patrick folded his arms.
Laith pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “To help senior officers like you get out of the shit.” He blew smoke. “Plus, in Delta we got to travel a lot, but it was always a quick in and out of places.” He smiled. “In this job we get to mix much more with the locals. It gives me the chance to take in the sights and shop for presents for my kids.”
Patrick nodded at the man in the center.
“Ben Reed.” The man was not large and looked like a lawyer or a doctor rather than a Special Forces–turned–CIA paramilitary man. He had immaculate blond hair and a fixed grin showing perfect teeth. “And before you ask”—he also sounded Harvard-educated—“I joined our service to impress women. But nobody told me back then that I had to keep my job a secret from them.”
The three men laughed, but Patrick did not. He pointed at Ben. “I wasn’t going to ask you that. My question is, what’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, in either Special Forces or the CIA SOG?”
Ben seemed to consider the question and then smiled wider. “Filling in my last tax returns
.”
Patrick said nothing for a moment before slowly turning his attention toward the third man and nodding at him.
“Julian Garces, ex–U.S. Air Force special operative. Currently deployed in the CIA with a guy who likes shopping and a guy who can’t get laid.”
The three SOG men laughed again, and this time Will saw a slight smile emerge on Patrick’s face.
Julian was evidently Hispanic and was as tall and sinewy as Laith. He had dark, cropped curly hair and a scar down one whole side of his face. He reminded Will of the ancient and lethal Iberian warriors he’d seen depicted in paintings.
Julian’s laugh slowly receded until his face grew serious. He looked straight at Patrick. “I’ve killed ninety-seven men, which is only three less than Laith and only seven less than Ben. Add all of those deaths together, and you’ve got the number of men Roger’s killed.” His eyes looked cold. “Like my friends, I’ve been in almost every overt and covert American war that’s happened during my adult life. If you want to ask me, the hardest thing I’ve ever done is spend three months in a village in northern Afghanistan teaching medicine and other survival skills to the women and children and elders, protecting them day and night, and then having to walk away from that village when my job was done, only to see the place destroyed by Taliban guerrillas a few days later.”
Ben nodded.
So did Laith.
The three men looked at Patrick and then at Will with icy gazes.
Will held their gaze before turning to address Patrick. “They’ll do.”
“Will is the intelligence officer who is running the operation.” Patrick was sitting on the dinner table. The man he was speaking to was sitting on a chair in the center of the room. “Do you understand?”
“It’s not a difficult thing to comprehend,” Roger replied.
“Good.” Patrick nodded. “Will’s British. Could that be a problem for you?”
“Only if he has a problem with the fact that I’m of German descent.”
Will laughed.
“I’m sure that he doesn’t have a problem with that.” Patrick’s words were rapid and not jocular. “Are Laith, Ben, and Julian now bedded down?”
“Why would you feel the need to ask about my men, Patrick?”
“I don’t have such need. I simply have a need to hear how you respond to me.”
“Then you should now know that despite your profile I have no desire to be unduly deferential to you.”
“Which in turn would mean you wish to project independence and control.” Patrick slapped his hands together. “I need that.”
“What a man like you needs is rarely shared with people like me.”
Will turned from the window and looked at Roger. He walked toward the middle of the room, grabbed a dining chair, and spun it around to sit opposite Roger. Despite being seated, the man before him was obviously quite tall, but Will was pleased to note that Roger betrayed no obvious signs of being a special operations officer. Will could tell that Roger was visibly older than his men, and even though he was clearly a handsome man, with short straw-colored hair, there was something in his face that spoke of a lifetime of living with extremes.
Will nodded once. “I can tell you exactly what I want.”
Roger regarded Will for quite some time, then frowned. “You’ve been in the military. Special Forces, I would say.”
“How do you know that?”
Roger waved a hand. “You’ve got dead eyes.”
Will had been told by others that his eyes had died long before he joined the army. “French Foreign Legion. I was a GCP operator.”
Roger said, “When I was in DEVGRU, we did some cross-training with you guys. We taught you underwater insertion techniques. You taught us how to kill people while diving through the sky in a HALO insertion.”
Will sighed. “Is it of any particular relevance what units we previously worked in?”
Roger shook his head, smiled before going serious again. “I come from a family of fighters who all served different organizations and flags. I’ve served the country of the United States as a DEVGRU SEAL and now as a team leader in the CIA SOG. My father and my uncles served deep behind enemy lines in Vietnam with the Australian SAS and on secondment with the secret MACV-SOG. And my grandfather served as a paratrooper in Germany’s elite First Fallschirmjäger Division in most of the European and Russian hellholes that existed for Wehrmacht soldiers in World War Two.” He smiled. “They’re all dead now, and all I have to remember them by is a bunch of medals and photos and citations.” He looked at Will. “But I know that none of us—my forefathers, their brothers, or me—has fought for our organization or our country. We’ve all fought for the man by our side.”
Will glanced at Patrick, then turned back to Roger. His first impressions of Roger were very positive. “I’m going to give you every single detail about this operation, and I have a very specific reason for doing so. There is a strong possibility that I will be eliminated by the man we seek. If that happens, the operation must continue, and you will be in charge in the field.”
Roger shrugged. “That’s fine by me. I just need to know my objectives.”
Will smiled briefly without taking his eyes off the paramilitary officer. “You have two primary objectives: monitor a woman while she tries to make contact with our target and then help me seize the target when he reveals himself. You may have secondary objectives, but they will be determined subject to on-the-ground developments.”
Roger nodded almost imperceptibly.
Patrick spoke. “Unless something catastrophic happens, you take your orders from Will rather than me.”
Will snapped his fingers. “Forget that.” He looked at the man’s face. “Forget orders. All I need to know is this: Can you and I work together?”
Roger placed his hands neatly together and then nodded. “I made up my mind about you the moment you sat down before me. You look like you know what you’re doing. The only thing that concerns me”—his words slowed—“is that you do not appear to fear your own death.”
Eighteen
The following morning Will and Roger entered Croatia. They took a taxi from the country’s main airport in outer Zagreb, and within twenty minutes they had arrived at the five-star Regent Esplanade, on the city’s Antuna Mihanovićeva. Roger got out of the car first and walked quickly into the imposing hotel. Will stayed in the vehicle, fiddling with bills to pay for the drive. When he was satisfied that Roger was in position, he handed the cash across to the driver, grabbed a bag, and made his own way into the Regent.
Will looked around the elegant, spacious reception area and spotted Lana in a corner sofa area. He walked casually up to her and kissed her on both cheeks. He had a smile fixed on his face and hoped that to anyone else in the hotel he looked like Lana’s husband or lover.
When they were seated, Will said quietly, “You’ve checked in?”
“Yes.” Lana gestured to take in their surroundings. “I’ve never stayed in a place like this. My room is lovely.”
“Don’t get too comfortable. You won’t be here long.”
She was dressed in a suit with a short, boxy jacket, a slim skirt, and leather pumps, with a gold silk scarf carefully wrapped around her throat. Her hair was pinned up high to reveal her stunning Arabic features. He felt instantly attracted to her and for a moment wondered how it would feel to genuinely be Lana’s lover. He decided it would feel good.
“Do I have your approval?” Lana raised an eyebrow, crossed her legs, and placed her hands in her lap.
“You fit right in here.” He reached down to his side, picked up his small bag, and swung it across to the floor by Lana’s feet. “I bought you some gifts.”
Lana looked at the bag and then smiled at Will.
He wagged a finger and smiled. “There’s nothing in that bag to get too excited about.
While you’re here, you need money and communications equipment, so I’ve treated you to a laptop, a cell phone, a credit card in your name, and three thousand dollars. I’ve also enclosed my contact details.” He smiled wider. “I did, however, throw in a gold necklace for no reason other than to make you feel positive thoughts toward me.”
“Positive thoughts?” Lana smoothed a hand over her hair and frowned. “Why am I here?”
Will checked his watch, even though he knew exactly what time it was. “It’s nearly nine A.M., meaning the place you need to go to is open.” He withdrew from an inner jacket pocket a folded sheet of plain paper, an envelope with a printed name and address on its cover, a fountain pen, and another sheet containing the words Lana needed to copy. He carefully placed all of it on the coffee table between the two of them.
Lana picked up the sheet containing the words and silently read its contents. Then she sighed and picked up the pen. Her hand shook as she did so.
I would like the contents of this letter to be communicated to a dear old friend.
My friend is a Persian man who knew me during troubled times in Central Europe. I helped him with his dangerous tasks, and then one day he suddenly disappeared. I believed he must have been killed, and for years I have mourned his absence from my life.
Something has happened, though, which has given me hope that my friend may not be dead. A British man who works with secrets approached me nine days ago at my home in Paris. The man told me that my friend was still alive and now held a very senior and powerful position within the Iranian military. The man said that he wanted to capture my friend in order to prevent something bad from happening in the United States or Great Britain. The man asked me questions about my friend. The British man gave me his own name and contact details and said he would return to speak to me again soon.
I am scared. I have fled my Paris home, even though in doing so I have left an ill mother alone. I have traveled eastward to put distance between me and the secret British man, although I am sure he will find me if he wishes to do so.
