DEHLER SAT IN the semidarkness of the flat’s kitchen, eating slices of apples and cheese. On the table next to the plate lay her pistol and her knife and the disposable phone with the number she had given Esa.
From there, she could see both the front door that led to the outside staircase, and the back one that opened on a five meter-long corridor to the rear of the house. She told herself she was overreacting. That she had nothing to worry about. No one knew where she was. But she couldn’t quiet the voice in the back of her mind, the one saying, You were followed. They know you’re here. They’re coming for you.
She placed another cheese slice on a wedge of apple and ate them as her gaze flicked back and forth between front door and back.
You were followed.
“Shut up,” she whispered.
They know you’re here.
“Shut up!”
They’re coming for you.
“Shut up, goddammit. Shut up.”
The voice quieted.
For now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
EARLY THE NEXT morning, Orlando took Daeng off Dehler’s surveillance duty so she could use him on a side mission.
Before he left, she gave him what looked like a regular mobile phone. “You’ll have to get in fairly close. Ten meters should be enough, but five would be better. And you’ll need to stay within that range for at least three minutes.”
“I’ll make it happen,” he said.
“If you drop it, I will beat the crap out of you. They’re a pain in the ass to make.”
“I’ll try not to let go, Mom.”
He left by 6:45 a.m., and called in to report he was in position at 7:33.
That was Orlando’s cue to ring Margery.
“Ugh. So early,” Margery said.
“Sorry to wake you. It’s Orlando.”
“No kidding. Only an American would ring this time of morning. Couldn’t you have waited to call until after I had some coffee?”
“Most people have had their coffee by now.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not most people, then, I guess.” Another waking groan. “What is it I can help you with?”
“The man who contacted you about us?” Orlando said.
“Roberts.”
“That’s the one. We’d like you to call him now and tell him you heard a rumor that we’re in Southampton.”
“Southampton?”
“Temporary diversion. I’ll text you a picture of Quinn and me. You can’t tell where it’s taken, so play it off that you have a source who snapped it there. Make it convincing. We want them to stay until tomorrow evening. We’ll have you feed them new information to bring them back here then.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks. Before you go, I have a question.”
“Is this about the email?”
“Yes.” Orlando had sent Margery a request last night for some additional specialized equipment.
“What are you doing? Fighting a herd of elephants? Who needs so many tranquilizer guns?”
“We do.”
“I don’t have that many lying around. I can get some today and some—”
“Tomorrow by noon?”
A grumble. “Tomorrow by noon.”
“Thank you, Margery. Could I impose on you to deliver them?”
“I’m not running a takeaway.”
“Please?”
“Okay, okay, we’ll deliver them, too. Because we like you.”
“Because you like Quinn.”
“Well, yes, but even that’s going to wear thin after a while.”
After hanging up, Orlando sent the picture and moved on to the next task—getting in touch with the operatives they’d put on hold, and letting them know it was time to come to London.
The first three calls went fine, but when she hung up after the fourth, she said to Quinn, “Dorant and Kensey’s job boomeranged and they’re going to be tied up until the weekend.”
That meant the operation was down not only two people but three, because Dorant always brought Morris with her. While the plan could survive the reduction in manpower, they were trying to heavily stack the odds in their favor. The problem was, Quinn and Orlando had already tapped most of their resources and had few choices for replacements.
“What about Ananke?” Orlando suggested.
Quinn looked at her, surprised. “I thought…I mean…um…”
“Relax,” she said. “She and I are fine now. She was there when Claire was born, remember?”
Quinn looked like he didn’t quite believe her.
“If you don’t call her, I will,” she said.
“I’ll do it.”
QUINN HAD THOUGHT about calling Ananke when he and Orlando first compiled their list of potential help, but he’d assumed things were still awkward between her and Orlando. There was something in their shared past he wasn’t privy to, something that had—to put it mildly—strained the women’s relationship. He wasn’t convinced it had all been forgotten, but Orlando was insistent so who was he to argue? Besides, Ananke would be a welcome addition to their team. Though she had her quirks, she was one of the most intelligent and resourceful people he knew.
His call was answered by her assistant, Shinji. “I’m not sure what her situation is at this moment,” the man said after Quinn asked for his boss.
Quinn frowned. “She’s on a project?”
“Well…um, kind of. It’s…weird. I could see if she can call you back. Would that be okay?”
“Yes, please.” He gave Shinji the number and hung up. “Sounds like she might be tied up,” he told Orlando. “Any other ideas?”
She had two, but both were also unavailable. She and Quinn had no choice but to rework their plan with the reduced number of operatives, and had just about figured everything out when Quinn’s phone rang.
The number was unfamiliar, but with all the people they’d been talking to, someone calling from an unknown phone was to be expected. “Yes?”
“It’s Ananke.”
He hesitated a moment, surprised. He hadn’t thought he’d hear back from her so quickly. Hopeful, he said, “I need your help.”
“When and where?”
“Now. In London.”
“What’s going on?” The way she asked the question, he knew she was in.
Thank God.
“I’ll fill you in when you get here. It’s…personal.”
“How much help do you need?”
“All I can get. Do you have some people you can trust?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Bring them, and get here as fast as you can.”
“We should probably be able to get there by midday tomorrow, will that work?”
He smiled. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
A BEEP ANNOUNCED the arrival of a text a heartbeat before the phone rang.
Hammad Kassab nodded his assent, and Bilal pressed ACCEPT. “Yes?”
“I sent you a photo,” Mr. Cooper said. “Have you seen it?”
“One moment.”
Dima’s husband placed the call on hold and opened the text. The photo was a picture of the two Americans the watchers had been following in San Francisco. The background was blurred, a few out-of-focus cars on a road. What he could make out was the shape of the license plates—not the fat rectangles in the US, but the long, thin ones in Europe.
He reactivated the call. “Does this mean you found them?”
“The picture is from one of my sources. We’re en route to confirm.”
“Where was it taken?”
“Southampton.”
“And Dehler? Is she with them?”
“Unknown at this point. I’ll report back as soon as we—”
Bilal hung up and joined his brother and Dima’s uncle at the window overlooking the London skyline. “I think we should shadow Mr. Cooper just in case she is with the Americans.”
“I agree,” Kassab said. “Tahir, you will go.”
Bilal’s eyes widened in surprise. “Tahir? But—”
A glare from Dima’s uncle reminded him of his place.
“I’m sorry,” Bilal said. “Tahir will go.”
“You would do well to learn from your brother’s example,” Kassab said. “Yours isn’t the only wife who betrayed us, and yet he is keeping a cool head.”
“Yes, Uncle. My apologies. You are right. I will not lose control again.”
Bilal swallowed his disappointment while he watched his brother leave.
WHEN THE RIDESHARE vehicle pulled to the curb in front of the building Daeng had been watching, he started the engine on the motorcycle he’d “borrowed” after leaving Orlando and Quinn.
Sure enough, less than a minute later, the three watchers emerged from the building where their not-as-secret-as-they-thought safe house was located, and climbed into the back of the vehicle. Daeng gave them a bit of a head start before pursuing.
Since it was a weekday morning, there was plenty of traffic to blend into, making it easy to stay only a couple of car lengths behind them. After crossing the Thames River, the car turned in the opposite direction from Southampton and drove to Waterloo station.
As soon as he was sure the watchers were getting out, Daeng parked the bike and followed them on foot into the building. Although he couldn’t get close enough to see which train they purchased tickets for, he figured it out from their platform choice and bought his own ticket to the coast.
The 8:35 South West train sat waiting at the platform when he arrived. While most of the passengers had boarded, a few were still standing outside, including one of the watchers. Daeng sauntered past him, embodying the guise of a commuter destined for one of the cars farther down. When he’d gone far enough, he turned back, as if looking for someone he was traveling with, and scanned those who had yet to climb on board. Most looked like businesspeople not quite ready to sit for the next hour-plus, and the others tourists making sure they were in the right place. None was who Daeng was hoping to see.
He waited until the last minute to hop on to check the last stragglers, but none of the handful of people who rushed on board struck him as the person he was looking for. Twice in the following seventy-five minutes, he walked through the train noting everyone aboard, but still did not find his prey.
When they reached Southampton, Daeng made sure he was one of the first off, but he paused on the platform to let other travelers move in front of him. When the watchers exited, he started walking again.
As they headed out of the small station toward the line of waiting taxis, Daeng finally spotted a man he was sure was the one he’d been looking for. The guy stood in the small parking area to the right, smoking a cigarette next to a late-model Mercedes. He had the dark hair and olive skin. The beard was missing, but that wasn’t unexpected.
On any other day, a guy like this wouldn’t garner a second look. What made this particular man different, however, was his clear interest in the watchers.
He was smart enough to glance away when any of the trio looked in his direction, but when they turned away, his gaze shot right back at them. The man was so laser-focused on the trio that Daeng didn’t even need to hide the fact he was taking a picture of him. Daeng sent the shot to Orlando with the message:
Yes?
ORLANDO WAS IN the middle of arranging travel for several of their friends when her phone buzzed. She examined the picture from Daeng and transferred it to her laptop. There, she compared it to the photos she’d obtained when she and Quinn were working out their plans in San Francisco.
The man in the picture was neither old nor pudgy enough to be Hammad Kassab, but he was the right age to be Dima’s or her sister’s husband. In the pictures they had of Bilal and Tahir Halabi, both men were bearded. The man in Daeng’s photo was clean-shaven. Still, the facial features were more than enough to make a match.
To make sure she was right, Orlando ran the images through the recognition software.
It took only thirty-seven seconds before her computer pinged with the results.
DAENG WAS GETTING into a cab when Orlando’s reply arrived.
Confirmed. Tahir Halabi.
Daeng smiled.
Though it hadn’t been a sure thing one of the watchers’ clients would follow them to Southampton, it was a logical move. As a cherry on top, from the way Tahir had stared at the watchers, his espionage skills were amateur at best, which meant it’d be a cinch to get close enough to him so that Orlando’s device could transfer a monitoring packet onto the man’s phone.
Daeng would be headed back to London in no time.
IT HADN’T REACHED noon yet when Orlando received another text from Daeng.
Done
She opened the monitor software and triggered the signal to activate the packet now tucked away in Tahir Halabi’s phone.
>SEARCHING…
>DEVICE ACQUIRED
>INITIALIZING
>INITIALIZING
>PAIRING COMPLETE
“All right, let’s see what you’ve got,” Orlando said.
She dove into Tahir’s device.
A few minutes later, she announced, “They’re staying at the Park Plaza. Right across the river from Parliament.”
“All three of them?” Quinn asked.
“Looks like it. Jar can check video feeds from the hotel to confirm.”
“Are they alone? Or did they bring backup?”
“Not sure yet. I haven’t finished looking through everything yet.” She glanced across the table. “Jar—”
“Video feeds from the hotel,” the girl said. “I am already on it.”
Orlando could feel Quinn looming behind her. “If you’re not consciously trying to make things go as slow as possible, do me a favor and find something to do.”
He grumbled a little but moved off.
As she burrowed through the terrorist’s phone, she unearthed a ton of valuable information that Taplin and MI6 were going to love. It appeared Kassab’s organization was in the planning stages of a European action, though in Germany, not London.
Finally, she found what Quinn had been asking about. Kassab had not brought men of his own, but he had used contacts to gather a team of fourteen and then split them into three groups. A group of five was staying at a hotel west of London, and a similar group was doing the same in the east. Clearly he was staging them this way so that the closest team could immediately react once Dehler’s location was discovered. The final four men were at the Park Plaza.
Fourteen plus Kassab and the Halabi brothers. Seventeen all together.
And Dehler made eighteen.
This was going to be interesting.
THE FIRST OF Quinn and Orlando’s friends arrived late that afternoon, around the same time as Margery’s initial delivery. Others trickled in throughout the night. By sunup, the count had reached twelve.
The initial briefing was held at seven a.m. in the now crowded apartment living room. The only ones not present were Nate and Kiet, both of whom remained on standby near Dehler’s apartment, and Ananke and whoever she was bringing. They were not scheduled to arrive until later that morning.
Quinn and Orlando took turns telling the story of how Liz had died and their subsequent search for her killer. They told of their visit to Dima, and the nightmare she had lived through before finally escaping. They discussed the decision to widen the scope of their mission and rid Dima of her demons, along with dealing with Liz’s killer.
“Then we’re taking on terrorists, too,” Steve Howard said. He was one of their closest associates.
“Correct,” Orlando said. “We know that might change things for some of you. If you would rather not get involved because of that, we completely understand, and you’re free to walk away.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest I was going anywhere,” Howard said. “I just wanted to make sure I was clear.”
“You’re clear,” Quinn said.
“And the rest of you?” Orlando asked. �
�Any problems?”
Though the response was easy to guess, she still felt a great deal of relief when no one said a word.
“Thank you,” she said. “We are forever grateful you’re all here.”
“Orlando, please. You’re tearing me up,” Ramon Sosa said in his usual sarcastic tone. “All I want to know is, when does the action start?”
“Part one between eight and nine this evening. The main event right after that.”
FOR THE FIRST time in years, Ananke felt nervous going through customs and immigration. Her concern stemmed from the fact she’d recently been excommunicated from the business after unwittingly being used to assassinate a Philippine presidential candidate. Granted, she was an assassin by trade—or, at least, had been—but the job as she’d known it had not been to kill the guy, only to make him sick for a few days. Turned out someone wanted him dead after all.
Since that event, her life had taken a decidedly bizarre turn. She’d been recruited—if that’s what you could call being kidnapped and dragooned—to lead a small team of other excommunicated ops on specialized missions. In exchange, they were told their pariah status had been lifted, but she didn’t know who’d received that message and who hadn’t.
It turned out the British had received it, thank God, because she entered the country without a problem.
She and her team of excoms had just completed their first mission when Quinn called. Which was why she’d been able to bring Rosario, Liesel, and Dylan with her. The only one missing was Ricky Orbits, which was a blessing. He was a pain in the ass for so many reasons. Thankfully their new employers found it prudent to keep him on a tight leash, and had restricted him to the cargo ship that served as the team’s main facility.
“No welcome party?” Dylan asked as they walked into the public area of Heathrow airport. He was an Irishman who’d made his living, before being “recruited,” as a driver of whatever needed driving. “I was hoping there’d at least be a guy in a suit holding a sign with our names on it. That’s always exciting.”
The Aggrieved Page 24
