by Ethan Jones
“And the doctor?”
“He’s in London, at the Canadian embassy. I can arrange for an Iranian team to make a visit, and we’ll consider this the official handover of the doctor and the files.”
Salimi didn’t respond right away.
Javin was asking too much of Salimi, but in the end, it was an acceptable deal. It would allow Salimi to save face, as well as his neck, and receive what he wanted. The Mossad authorization was forged earlier by Yael, but any original document would have been easily deniable.
Javin glanced at Ziyad, who was pacing by the SUV. Claudia had also stepped outside and was stretching her arms and neck.
“Salimi, did you hear me?”
“Yes, yes, I did. Pierce, you’re putting me in a tough position.”
“True, but it’s also your way out. You get everything you want, and the risk is minimal.”
“Will the Bahrainis talk?”
“They don’t know the identities of the people at the safehouse. We told them the shooters were former ISIS fighters who had returned from Syria.”
“And they have no suspicions?”
“None.”
“And the document is genuine?”
“Yael was in charge of obtaining it.”
“Okay, fine, fine,” Salimi said with a loud sigh as if accepting devastating capitulation terms. “When?”
“Give me some time to arrange it.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Take care now.”
“You as well, Pierce.”
He ended the call and suppressed a small smile that began to crease his lips. Salimi might or might not abide by these terms. We still need to be careful, extremely careful.
He walked to Claudia and whispered to her, “Salimi agreed to hand over the rest of the recordings.”
She gave him a surprised smile. “How did you—”
“I’ll tell you later. But I need you to return to the embassy and hand over Yael’s letter to the station team.”
“Part of the deal?”
“Yes. We’ll wait at the airport.”
“Okay.” She pulled out her phone to call a cab. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Javin nodded. “Hopefully, this will be the end of it.”
He said the words without any conviction whatsoever.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Outside the Comandante Café
Barcelona, Spain
Javin smiled and nodded to himself. The intelligence seemed to be accurate, a welcome change from the flurry of misinformation, disinformation, and betrayal from almost everyone around him. About ten minutes ago, Shinwari and two bodyguards had arrived at his favorite café, a fancy establishment in downtown Barcelona, near Plaza de Cataluna. The café had an elegant interior décor, with beautifully carved wooden tables on one side and brown leather couches on the other. The walls were painted a subdued red with large paintings of cityscapes hanging on almost every wall.
Prior to the target’s arrival, Javin had run reconnaissance and had bought coffee for the team members. Along with Claudia and Ziyad, he was waiting inside a red Seat sedan parked half a block away from the café’s front entrance. They were positioned at an almost forty-five-degree angle, which gave them a clear view of anyone who entered or exited the café. The other two Bahrainis were covering the back entrance, in case things went haywire, and Shinwari tried to escape in that direction.
The team’s plan was simple in concept: They were going to nab Shinwari as he exited the café. The team was going to use Shinwari’s silver Citroën SUV and drive him to the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona El Prat International Airport. A diplomatic Bahrain aircraft was waiting on the tarmac, ready to whisk the terrorist and the team out of the country.
Javin drank the last of his coffee, then shifted in his seat and placed the empty cup in the holder by the console between the seats. He looked at Ziyad behind the driver’s seat, who said, “How much longer do you think?”
“Not sure.” Javin shrugged. “Yesterday, it was twenty minutes.”
“I didn’t think a terrorist mastermind would be so predictable…”
“He isn’t. This is the second time he’s been here.”
“Where did he go before that?”
“Not sure. Surveillance only started a little over twenty-four hours ago.”
He lowered his head and peered through the windshield. The bodyguards were sitting at the table behind Shinwari, who was dressed in a grayish jacket with a white dress shirt and darker gray pants. They seemed deeply engaged in their conversation, but every five seconds, their vigilant eyes covered Shinwari’s location, as well as the two entrances to the café.
Ziyad reached for the dashboard radio, but Javin stopped him. “Wait, there’s movement.”
Ziyad peered and nodded. “Yes, one of the bodyguards. He’s heading out, same as when they came in.”
Javin nodded back. He pulled out his Sig Sauer pistol, cocked it, and held it in his lap. “Ready?” he said to Ziyad and looked at Claudia in the backseat.
“Let’s do it,” she replied and cocked her pistol.
“I’ll get my men ready.” Ziyad picked up the radio.
Javin waited a couple of moments until the first bodyguard opened the café’s front door. “Now,” Javin said and shoved open the door with his shoulder.
He held the pistol in his right hand, inside his half-zipped black jacket. None of the casual passersby or the patrons of the café or clients of the nearby stores on either side of the street would notice it. The bodyguards might become suspicious and draw their guns. That’s where Ziyad and Claudia came in. At the first sight of a gun, they were to neutralize the bodyguards.
Unfortunately, things didn’t get that far.
Javin had taken only half a dozen steps on the sidewalk when a bullet struck him in the back. The bulletproof vest he was wearing underneath his jacket bore the brunt of the bullet. Still, the dull pain zipped through his whole body. He remained on his feet, but the heavy blow caused his pistol to fly out of his hand.
Javin turned to face the assailant. He was a thin man wearing a maroon sweater and a pair of blue jeans. He held a pistol equipped with a sound suppressor aimed at Javin’s chest. “That’s for Peter,” the man spat out his words in a thick accent.
Peter? Who is Peter?
“And this is so you’ll stay down.”
The man tapped the trigger.
The second bullet caught Javin just below the breastbone. The pain spread across his chest, deep and dull, as if he had been struck with a heavy hammer. It punched the air out of his lungs and knocked him onto his back. Javin struggled to breathe, feeling blood at the back of his throat. He coughed and tried to raise his head.
The assailant’s face filled his vision. The man said, “If you get up, I’ll kill you.”
Javin sighed and dropped his head back onto the uneven, tiled sidewalk. Gunfire came from the other side of the car, followed by heavy footsteps and more gunfire in the distance. He drew in a series of shallow breaths. A sizzling pain seared his chest, then zipped through his back. He placed his hands onto the sidewalk and brought himself up to his elbows. He looked around for his pistol and found it a few steps away, where the assailant had kicked it.
Javin grinned. Big mistake leaving my gun there…
He sat up, ignoring the pain erupting from every pore of his body. He had been out of the firefight for maybe a minute, but he knew so much could take place in such a small window of time. Javin picked up his pistol and crawled back to the car. He glanced over the hood and to his right. One of Shinwari’s bodyguards was lying on the sidewalk, a few steps away from the silver Citroën SUV. Ziyad was crouched next to a white sedan parked across the street, about twenty meters away from the Citroën. Where’s Claudia?
Javin advanced to the front of the sedan and looked to the left. A man was stretched on the street about ten meters behind the Seat. Javin didn’t recognize him, but he wasn’t breathing. Blood was for
ming around his head.
People were running, shouting, and screaming in both directions on the sidewalk in front of the café. Javin raised his pistol and walked swiftly toward Ziyad. The CIS operative had crossed only half the distance when gunfire exploded from up ahead. A quick burst, and a couple of bullets whizzed past his head.
Javin ducked and returned fire at a man standing next to a black Audi SUV, the same man who had shot Javin moments ago. The bullets struck the back of the Audi, and one of them shattered the rear window.
A second, larger man appeared up ahead. He had just stepped out of a small white car and was dragging Claudia toward the Audi. She was fighting, but he had wrapped an arm tight around her and had jammed a pistol into her side. She was no match for his strength.
“No, no,” Javin shouted.
He wanted to empty his pistol at the man but was worried about hitting Claudia by mistake. So Javin dropped next to Ziyad, away from the line of sight of the assailant next to the Audi.
Ziyad said, “You okay?”
Javin bit his lip to stifle the pain zipping through his body. “I’ll be fine. Can you handle Shinwari?”
“Yes, his other bodyguard is down.”
“I’m going to get Claudia back.”
Ziyad nodded. “Do it.”
Javin stood up as the large man shoved Claudia into the SUV through the rear door. Then he turned his pistol on Javin, but the Canadian was faster on the trigger. He planted two bullets in the man’s chest, then a third one through his face.
The SUV began to speed away.
Javin aimed his pistol at the rear tires. He hesitated for a moment. What if I miss and hit Claudia? He cursed, lowered his weapon, and looked at the café.
Just then Shinwari stood up.
Javin had only a second to fall behind the nearest car. Shinwari’s bullets peppered the car, and the windows’ glass burst all around Javin. He slid down onto the street to protect his head, then rolled onto his stomach and crawled to the front of the car. He fired a couple of rounds that struck Shinwari in the lower part of his chest. He fell against one of the chairs, then collapsed onto the café’s floor.
“Got him. He’s down,” Javin shouted at Ziyad, who stood up. “Cover me.”
Javin sprang toward the Audi SUV that was about to round the corner. When he came to the bodyguard’s body sprawled on the sidewalk, he noticed a set of keys a couple of steps away. The Citroën SUV’s keys. Javin grabbed them, scrambled in, and started the Citroën. He turned it around quickly and slammed the gas, going after the black Audi.
As he drove past the large man, Javin glanced at his face. The bullet had blown away half of it, but Javin still thought he had seen him before. But where? Where have I seen him?
He swerved around the corner, barely missing an oncoming van. Then he stepped on the brakes, coming to an almost full stop as a couple of pedestrians crossed in front of him. Javin looked up, trying to find the black SUV.
It disappeared.
“No, no, no.” He slammed the steering wheel and cursed the turn of events.
He drove up the street, searching everywhere for the Audi SUV.
He couldn’t see it anywhere.
He turned around and drove along the parallel street, weaving in and out of the back alleys. As seconds turned into minutes, he knew he had lost the SUV and Claudia along with it.
The words of the assailant who had shot him echoed into his mind. “Who is this bloody Peter?” he shouted and hit the brakes.
He tried to take a deep breath, but his chest hurt. He ran his hands over the jacket and the bulletproof vest. A two-inch tear in the jacket and a dent in the bulletproof vest. What if I didn’t have the vest? What if he had used armor-piercing bullets? One day, I’ll run out of luck… He sighed and shook his head. Not today.
He turned onto the street on which they had begun the chase and returned to the café. He had almost expected to see the police at the scene, but there was no one in uniform anywhere in the area. A few curious pedestrians were glancing at the scene from what they considered a safe distance of fifty or so meters away. The red Seat sedan was gone. Did Ziyad take Shinwari?
Javin drove slowly and observed the café without leaving the SUV. The café’s windows were all shattered, and tables and chairs were turned upside down because of the patrons’ stampede.
When Javin came to the large man still near the middle of the street, his half-face jogged the CIS operative’s memory. He’s one of the gunmen that attacked us in Doha, when we were at the Morocco Nights restaurant. How did they track us down here?
Javin frowned. Could they have followed the Bahrainis? The gunman made it sound like this was personal. Peter.
Javin stepped out of the SUV and rummaged through the dead man’s pockets. He found a wallet and a national ID card issued by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The name on the card read Talal bin Amin Kanno. Why are the Saudis after us? He pulled out his phone, took a couple of pictures of the man’s gruesome face, and returned to the SUV.
When he came to the next intersection, he thought about calling Ziyad and getting an update on the situation. Before he could reach for the phone, it began to vibrate with an incoming call. Javin glanced at the screen. Unknown number. “Yes, this is Pierce,” he said in a wary tone.
“Pierce, you’re a stubborn man,” a harsh male voice said.
Javin recognized the voice of the assailant who had shot him twice and who had driven away with a kidnapped Claudia. “I got up, so you’ll have to come and kill me…”
The assailant snorted. “That will have to wait. I have someone else to kill first…”
“If you touch a hair on her head, you’ll be sorry you were born.”
“Tough talk will get you nowhere, Pierce.”
Javin shook his head. He tried to place the man’s heavy accent. It sounded Arabic but not quite. It had a heavier, throaty sound. The Rs sounded like Ws. Where is he from? “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“I’m a soldier, just like you, and we want Mossad’s operative, Yael Rosenberg.”
“Yael? I… I don’t have her.”
“We know you don’t have her. She’s at the Whittington Hospital, guarded by a horde of police and MI5 agents.”
“So, how am I supposed to get her?”
“Pierce, should I tell you how to do your job?” The assailant’s voice rang out with pure sarcasm.
“It’s impossible for me to get in there, get her out, and hand her over to you. Even if it were possible, I’m not sure I’d want to do it.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, should I remind you I have someone who’ll suffer dearly if you don’t follow orders?”
“If you touch Claudia—”
“Shut up, just shut up, Pierce, and listen, listen carefully.” The man’s voice rose up and turned ice cold. “She’ll experience unimaginable pain, all because of you. If you don’t hand over Rosenberg within twenty-four hours, you can say ‘Goodbye’ to your pretty little partner.”
Before Javin could say anything, he heard Claudia’s muffled voice. “Javin, Javin, don’t do anything they ask. Just don’t—”
“Enough, that’s enough. Take her away,” the assailant cut her off. “Are you convinced that I have your partner, and I can end her life at any moment?”
Javin tightened his left fist and slammed the steering wheel. He closed his eyes for a moment and, when he opened them, he said, “Twenty-four hours… I can’t—”
“You can, and you will. Find a way… What is that expression you have? Yes, if there’s a will, there’s a way.” He laughed a cold chuckle.
“I’ll do my best—”
“No, you’ll do it, Pierce, or your dear Claudia dies a painful, horrible death.”
Javin clenched his jaw.
“Did you hear me?” the assailant said.
“I heard you pronounce a death sentence upon yourself.”
The assailant let out a burst of wicked laughter. “How about you use some
of that toughness to get Rosenberg and bring her to us?”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“That’s irrelevant. Get to work, and get it done. I’ll call you in twelve hours to check on your progress. Is it clear?”
“Very clear.”
“Good. Go on then…” He ended the call.
Javin glanced at the phone in his hand. He drew in a deep breath and dialed his boss, Bateaux.
Chapter Thirty
Two Blocks South of the Comandante Café
Barcelona, Spain
“I doubt the Brits would hand her over so easily,” Bateaux said in a resigned tone of voice. “After we shot up half of London…”
“We have to do something…”
“We will. I’m not saying we won’t, only that we need to be very careful with our next steps. Considering the bad blood between you and MI6, this is going to be awfully difficult…”
“Former MI6.”
“Still, with a lot of clout,” Bateaux’s voice turned hard. “First, let’s find out who these people are…”
“I only have the Saudi’s name.”
“It’s a good start. We’ll check with the Saudi intel and our databases and, of course, our friends at the CIA. I’ll talk to folks at MI6 and MI5, and Mossad, of course. And I’ll get the minister involved, so he can work the diplomatic angle. We’ll come up with an exchange of favors. I’m sure we have something the Brits want, or we’ll owe them.”
“Do you think we’ll have results by the deadline?”
“Twenty-four hours is very tight, Pierce. That guy knows that, and that’s why he’s putting us under a lot of pressure. Besides, we’re talking about a Mossad agent. We really have no authority here, no jurisdiction, and we’re bringing nothing to the table…”
Javin sighed. “The life of our agent, Claudia’s life, is on the line, sir. That has to mean something—”
“It does, Pierce, of course it does. But only to me and you. In the eyes of the UK’s agencies, you, Claudia, and Yael are people wanted for terrorism. According to the police, three people were killed at the shootout in Finsbury Park. One of them was a British citizen. Things are complicated.”
