The Skorpion Directive

by David Stone

  “Okay. Penance. A Rosary and the Stations of the Cross.”

  “I am a Jew, Ray.”

  “So was Jesus. Roll with it. Any idea who sent the video?”

  “Yeah. Come from a Captain Bogdan Davit. I think is a policeman, in Kerch, on the Crimean across from Russia. Had a note with the package. I read it to you?”

  The cell beeped in his hand.

  He looked down at the screen.

  CALL WAITING

  “Yeah. Please.”

  “ ‘Dear Mr. Dagan . . . I have the duty to present you with very disturbing evidence of the murder of one of your countrymen. I vouch for integrity of these difficult images and I express my deepest condolences that such barbarity took place in my country. Three of the men you see in this picture were found dead in a truck a few kilometers from a town called Staryi Krim. The third man, the scarred one, his name is Aleksandr Vukov, a Serbian national and a leader of a paramilitary group known as the Skorpions. His whereabouts not known. He may be drowned off Kerch. I am under the news that your organization has suspected an American CIA agent of this atrocity. I warrant to you that he is innocent of this thing. I offer my services in any capacity to help you in your investigation of the murder of your Mr. Issadore Galan . . .’ He goes on, gives his phone and e-mail numbers. Meir Dagan has already called him—”

  “Any mention of . . .”

  CALL WAITING

  “. . . Micah Dalton?”

  “No. But we know who he is talking about.”

  “Does Meir Dagan buy it?”

  Another pause.

  “Yes. We all do. Pretty hard to argue with.”

  “So Mikey’s off the hook?”

  “With us, yes. With the Russkies, no. Dagan did some digging and found out that Dalton made a midnight run on a Russian coastal town called Anapa. Girl was killed. Somebody else kidnapped. He might have had the help of the Ukrainians. Big international incident, if that comes out . . .”

  CALL WAITING

  “Look, Joko, I got a caller . . .”

  “Okay. But I got to say something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “We were out of line. No hard feelings, okay?”

  “No . . . And thanks . . .”

  “No. Is more. You going after this Aleksandr Vukov guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “So are we. You want in?”

  “I am in. I own it. You’re the guy who wants in.”

  “Okay. You own it. We want in. How about it?”

  “Who have you got?”

  “Me. And Daniel. He still wants his tooth back.”

  “Declared? Flying the flag?”

  “No. Not declared. But we got some backing, if we need.” Fyke was silent for a moment, thinking it through.

  “Okay. Just you two. And I’m running it.”

  “Good. Okay. Where are you?”

  “In Athens. At the docklands in Piraeus. When do you leave?”

  “We are in air already. Dagan gave us a jet. Meet us at Ellinikon Airport in . . . three hours. Okay?”

  “Done.”

  Fyke clicked off, hit CALL, and heard Nikki’s line beeping, his chest suddenly cold. Answer please, Nikki, answer . . .

  “Ray, I’ve been ringing and ringing.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In a cab, on . . . Poseidon . . . We’re going by a big football stadium . . . I’m following Kirikoff . . . They’re in a white Mercedes, a two-seater of some kind . . . He’s with the guy he met at lunch.”

  “You get a shot of them?”

  “Yes. That’s why I was calling. I went on our Greatest Hits page—all known terrorists on the watch list?”

  How does she have access to that? he thought.

  “Okay. And . . . ?”

  “I think the guy with him is Milan Babic. He was Ratko Mladic’s second-in-command.”

  “Kleinst said he was involved. And here he is. If you have access to that database, then you have access to Deacon Cather too, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Indirectly.”

  “Then send him a flash about Babic. Where are you now?”

  “We just merged with a big street . . . Piraeus something . . .”

  “You’re headed to the docklands. Don’t get too close.”

  “I won’t. We’re already falling back. Where are you?”

  “Where you’re going to be in about five minutes.”

  FYKE was still in the shadows across the road when a white Mercedes SL550 roadster came gliding down the wharf, weaving in and out of the carts and forklifts, pulling up in front of the door to Northstar Logistics. The door pulled back—electric—and Fyke was treated to the prolonged spectacle of a sweating, writhing, red-faced Piotr Kirikoff struggling to extricate his bulging bulk from a car not specifically designed for bipedal belugas.

  Fyke was aware of Nikki walking down the wharf toward him, having dumped her taxi a block back, but he found it impossible to look away as Kirikoff, wrapping his fat flippers around the door trim, managed to give birth to himself. It was like watching a giant pink crab leave home and waddle off down the shoreline without his shell.

  His passenger, Milan Babic, a whipcord type, tall, slender but muscular, with a trim gray beard, stood by the entrance to the warehouse and pretended to be fascinated by his BlackBerry. Nikki reached Fyke just as Kirikoff came free with an audible pop, his pink face dripping wet and his linen shirt already hanging limp.

  “Dear God,” she said softly.

  “Yes. They’ll have to bury him in installments. That your Serbian lad with him? Babic?”

  “Yes. Kleinst thinks Babic is next in line if Mladic ever gets caught. He’s taking quite a chance walking around in Athens. Every security agency in the West wants him.”

  “You hear back from Cather?”

  “No. Early in Langley.”

  “He’d still be in his crypt, then, sleeping on a bed of his native soil and dreaming of nubile young Carpathians?”

  “Transylvanians.”

  “He really behind this . . . whatever this is we’re doing?”

  “He’s paying for it anyway.”

  “How’d he talk you into it?”

  “It was more trick than talk. By the time I had finished listening to him, I was already wrapped up in spider silk and hanging out to cure. Why are you here, Ray?”

  “Mikey.”

  “Simple as that.”

  “Not simple at all. By the way, one of us is going to have to go along to Ellinikon Airport in . . . about an hour and a half.”

  “Why?”

  Fyke told her.

  “Dear God.”

  “Is that relief or horror?”

  “I didn’t like Joko very much. And you knocked out that poor boy’s teeth. What was his name?”

  “Daniel. You hit Joko with the champagne bottle.”

  “I did not. I merely handed it to you.”

  “What did you think I was going to do with it? Stick a flower in it?”

  “Do they still think Micah killed Galan?”

  Fyke shook his head, his smile fading.

  “What is it, Ray? You look strange.”

  “You remember a cop named Bogdan Davit, in Kerch?”

  “I heard good things, but I never met him. I never got to Kerch.”

  “Seems he has . . . acquired . . . a video of Galan being killed. It clears Dalton. That’s why the Mossad want to help. We’re after the same people now.”

  “ ‘Acquired’? That sounds like Micah Dalton.”

  “Yeah. Has Mikey written all over it, especially since there now seems to be a good chance that Russia and the Ukraine are going to war. He’s an active lad, is Mikey.”

  “I’d like to know what he knows. There’s a good chance we’ve got hold of both ends of the same tail.”

  “If we do, I hope he’s got the end closest to the tiger’s ass. There’s one way we can get in touch with him.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Set fire to
this end of the tail. He’ll hear about it. I’ll bet he already knows about Tel Aviv.”

  “Everybody does. We made the BBC, Ray.”

  “Yeah. Good point. Then be patient, Nikki. He’ll turn up.”

  Nikki looked across the wharf, watching as Kirikoff and Babic circled around the big stainless-steel tanker truck. Kirikoff was leaning in close to Babic to make himself heard over the din of the port, Babic running a loving hand over the gleaming surface of the tanker’s body.

  “What is this?” asked Fyke. “Is Kirikoff trying to sell the damned thing to Babic?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nikki. “But we better not lose sight of this thing. Whatever’s going on, that tanker has something to do with it. I’d love to know what’s in it.”

  “I can tell you that,” said Fyke. “Nothing. That tanker’s bone-dry. You can tell by the tires and the height off the ground. A full tanker, one that size, would be squatting down over its shocks like a beetle with a brick on its back, tires all bulged out.”

  “So it’s empty? That tanker?”

  “Empty as my pockets, Nikki, dear heart.”

  “Well, this is too deep for me. I guess I better get going.”

  “Ellinikon. You know it? It’s down the coast from here, about ten klicks.”

  “I know it.”

  “You’ll recognize them, then, will you, my darling?”

  “Yes, Ray. I think so. They’ll be the grumpy ones in the bloodstained bandages.”

  Airborne

  PASSING OVER ISTANBUL, TWENTY THOUSAND FEET, TWO P.M. LOCAL TIME

  Dalton watched the city of Istanbul glide by underneath the starboard wing of Poppy Pownall’s corporate Learjet. The Sultan Mehmet Bridge was almost directly below, noonday traffic streaming across it, hundreds of gypsy freighters dragging their white wakes up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea, through the Kerch Strait and into the Sea of Azov and the gritty Russian coal and iron ports or down to the Sea of Marmora through the Dardanelles and out into the Aegean. A pall of smoke and haze lay over the low, crowded slopes of Istanbul, the spear tips of a hundred minarets lancing up out of the smog, facets of sunlight bouncing off the dome of Hagia Sophia.

  He checked his watch, checked their airspeed indicator, made a rough calculation that they’d be on the ground in Athens by three in the afternoon. He sipped at his G & T and shifted his weight in the wide leather chair, easing the pressure on the wound in his hip, which was painful as hell. Mandy, sitting opposite, gave him an up-from-under smile, crossing her long legs as she did to great effect, since she was wearing a tight blue skirt and a crisp white blouse, sleek black stilettos with bright scarlet soles. She looked, as always, shatteringly and untouchably beautiful.

  For his part, Dalton, although shaved and showered and turned out in a very fine blue pinstripe over a fresh white shirt, felt like a low-rent fur ball. He smiled back at Mandy, sipped at his G & T, and asked about Dobri Levka, who, after getting some medical attention and a couple of stiff vodkas, had gone limping off to sleep at the rear of the jet.

  “Levka’s a tough lad,” said Mandy. “He just needs some sleep. How are you doing?”

  “Vukov. I can’t get over it.”

  “Well, try,” said Mandy, holding her wineglass out for Dalton to fill, “Whiners bore me.”

  “I’m not whining.”

  “Not yet. But you’re circling the drain. Anyway, what’s left of him is probably working its way through some creature’s alimentary canal right now. We were sixteen miles out at sea. You really think he could swim sixteen miles, in water that cold?”

  “I think Vukov is hard to kill.”

  “So’s my sense of humor, but you’re managing. What do you want to do when we get on the ground in Athens?”

  “How’s your math?”

  “I don’t do math. I have people for that. How’s yours?”

  “The Russians intercepted Levka’s boat three weeks ago, towed it to Anapa. Two days later, he watched as a yacht transporter took the Subito aboard, lashed it down under a tarp, and steamed out into the Black Sea. According to Earl Ford, Turkish authorities had cleared a Kerch-bound yacht transporter to transit the Bosphorus seven days before. There aren’t many yacht transporters going into the Black Sea. None in over a month. This transporter was called the Novotny Ocean, owned by a shipping conglomerate with offices in Athens, Marseilles, Bremen—”

  “Northstar Logistics. Fast-forward, Micah, dear boy.”

  “The Turks passed it back down the Bosphorus fifteen days ago. No record was kept of the load. According to Lloyd’s, the Novotny Ocean is over three hundred feet long, has two Wartsila Vasa diesel engines, and can cruise at fifteen knots with a full load, faster with only one boat on board. It’s eight hundred and fourteen klicks from Kerch to Istanbul—”

  “Dear God, I need a drink—”

  “You’ve got one.”

  “I need a real drink.”

  Dalton mixed her up a G & T, handed it over. She took a sip, shivered, set it down, leaned back, and artfully recrossed her legs, giving him an eyebrow as she did.

  “That’s not going to work,” said Dalton, his face a little hot.

  “Not immediately. Please, do go on. I’m utterly transfixed.”

  “Another five hundred and forty-one from Istanbul to Athens. It cleared Greek customs and was logged into Piraeus Harbor twelve days ago. It was refueled and resupplied by the dock crew and left the next evening, declaring a course for Gibraltar. It’s roughly twenty-six hundred klicks from Athens to Gibraltar—”

  “We Brits just call it Gib—”

  “Thank you for that, Mandy. At fifteen—”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “At fifteen knots per hour—”

  “Do I get a prize if I guess this right?”

  “Yes. At fifteen knots—”

  “What sort of prize?”

  “A kiss on any body part you care to name. At fifteen—”

  Mandy named one.

  Dalton took some time to refocus, but, being a trained professional, he managed. Mandy sipped at her G & T and felt rather good about her flirting skills. They were not in any way declining.

  “At fifteen knots an hour,” said Dalton, beginning again, “the Novotny Ocean would reach Gib in eight days. Am I right?”

  “Actually, no, since a knot is a nautical mile, and a mile is longer than a kilometer. Say, to be safe, seven days. But what if this Novotny thingy wasn’t really going to Gib?”

  “The IMO keeps a geostationary satellite over the Med. I don’t think there’s a body of water in the world, other than the Indian Ocean, where ships get tracked as carefully as in the Med. I think we can assume the Novotny was going to Gibraltar—”

  “Since it left Piraeus Harbor roughly ten days ago, we can assume it’s already in Gibraltar. We just don’t—”

  “Know why ?”

  “Yes,” he said, picking up his glass. “We don’t know why.”

  The bathroom door at the back of the Lear cracked open, and Levka, showered and shaved and wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket that he had borrowed from one of Captain Davit’s sailors, came down the aisle, stopping at the bar to pour himself a large vodka. He wasn’t moving very well, but he wasn’t dead either. He came along to their seating area, sat down—carefully—beside Dalton, and lifted his glass to Mandy.

  “You come to get me, Miss Mandy. I wish to say thank you! And to you, boss, I hope you will. But, even so, I never think I leave that place alive.”

  “How are you feeling?” asked Mandy, looking at his bruised and battered face, at his general pastiness. Levka, when properly fed, had developed a kind black Lab aura, solid, friendly, a bit of a scoundrel but an honest scoundrel. She was sorry to see him looking so downcast.

  “I am okay, Miss Mandy. I am not happy to lose boat. Was my business. My new life. Now is gone.”

  “Did the ship have one of those embedded GPS things?” asked Mandy. “The one
s they hide in the hull somewhere?”

  Levka looked a little shamefaced.

  “Yes. But battery was dead, and I not getting around to fixing. Battery cost three hundred euros,” he added by way of an explanation, looking down at his hands. “I am idiot. Boat gone.”

  “Maybe not. We have a rough idea where it is,” said Dalton.

  Levka brightened.

  “Is true? How?”

  Dalton nodded to Mandy.

  “My father has a friend in Yalta,” she said. “We were able to identify the boat that came to get the Subito. The Blue Nile. Shipping records show it on a course for Gibraltar. We think it may be there now.”

  “In Gibraltar? But why?”

  “Good question,” said Dalton, offering him a Sobranie, which he lit and carefully placed between his battered lips, drawing the smoke in. From up in the cockpit came a female voice, gently chiding, “Please, sir, there’s no smoking on this jet.”

  Levka sighed, stubbed it out, looked out the window.

  “Speak of no smoking,” he said, “I hope they pumping out engine compartment every day.”

  “Why?”

  “Sump is malfunction. Fumes always building up in engine area. Make you pretty sick, you go down there.”

  “Isn’t that a fire hazard?” asked Dalton.

  “No. Everything, all the electrics, are shielded. Fuses, breakers, wiring—all shielded good. No. No hazard there. But if you go down with cigarette in mouth, you come back up pretty fast. Only in little pieces. Along with rest of boat.”

  “Maintenance, Dobri,” said Dalton, giving Levka a look. “You ever get it back, you need to take better care of that boat.”

  Levka sighed again, nodded.

  “Sure will, boss. If I ever see it again. Where are we now?”

  “Over the Dardanelles,” said Dalton. “We’ll be in Athens soon.”

  “What we going to do in Athens, boss?”

  Dalton told him about Northstar Logistics, about their warehouse in Piraeus. “Vukov said Kirikoff was in Athens. If he is, that’s where to start looking for him.”