Assassin's Run

by Ward Larsen

  FORTY-FIVE

  Captain Zakaryan heard the great bang, and it put his sailor’s instincts on high alert. Loud noises, sudden and unexpected, were never a good thing on a ship. Failed rigging, bent propeller shafts, shifting cargo. More alarming yet was when such noises were accompanied by rapid motion. And that was what registered next—an explosion of action along the port beam.

  It came so fast Zakaryan couldn’t comprehend what was happening. He ran to the port rail amid a chorus of shouting, and there he looked down over the side. He saw the boat that was being loaded, and had the distinct impression that a giant shark had taken a bite out of its port beam. He saw a man sliding across her shattered deck, and flotsam arcing out across the water. The boat was foundering, listing badly to starboard. Water washed over the gunnels like waves on a gentle beach. His years at sea allowed the captain to extract the most important elements of the scene before him. First priority: the lines connecting the damaged boat to Argos were taut as piano wire.

  “Cut those lines free!” he shouted. The smaller boat was going to sink within minutes—there was nothing to be done about that—but mooring lines under such tremendous strain were a danger to both Argos and her crew.

  He saw a quick-thinking deckhand produce an ax and cut the lines fore and aft. Zakaryan’s gaze swept over the sea. He counted three men in the water, and began shouting orders to collect them. He was surveying the wheelhouse of the sinking boat when his thoughts were interrupted.

  “What the hell happened?”

  He turned and saw Ivan. “Something failed in the lifting rig—one of the crates dropped.”

  The Russian turned apoplectic. He looked down over the side, then up at the boom of the crane. “Can you fix it?”

  “Fix it?” Zakaryan repeated, following Ivan’s gaze to the tangle of limp loading straps. “First I’m going to make sure everyone is alive! We can talk about what to do later.”

  Ivan’s expression grew dark, but he said nothing.

  Zakaryan began moving along the rail, bellowing orders as he went.

  Ivan went the other way, up toward the bridge. Minutes later he was in the communications room sending a message.

  * * *

  “What just happened?” Christine asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sorensen replied. She too was left staring at the screen.

  They’d both seen the disaster play out in a flash, but it all happened so fast it took time to decipher what had occurred. The crate getting lowered was gone, and Argos’ deck looked like a kicked beehive—men were swarming and spotlights crisscrossed the sea. The small boat next to Argos had nearly capsized, its hull rolling to the sky like an upended turtle. A lifeboat had been launched from Argos and men were being plucked from the water.

  “I don’t see them anymore,” Christine said. There was no need to mention whom she was referring to. Just as there was no need to question responsibility for the scene before them.

  “Whatever happened,” Sorensen surmised, “I think the job is done.”

  Christine couldn’t take her eyes off the chaos. “But … how?”

  After a moment, Sorensen said, “Tell me something. Have you ever known David to miss?”

  “Miss? As in…?”

  Sorensen nodded.

  Christine thought about it. “Yes. He was snorkeling once in the Philippines, and I saw him spear a jellyfish when he was aiming for a grouper.”

  “Don’t tell me he brought that home for dinner.”

  She shook her head distractedly, her eyes still glued to the monitor. “No. Without even surfacing, he retrieved the spear and shot the grouper on his second try. It was like he refused to even breathe until the job was done.”

  “So there you are.” The two finally locked eyes. “With any luck, they’ll all be back in Israel in a few hours.”

  * * *

  Eight minutes after the event, and one hundred and five feet directly below Argos, three divers arrived at the coral sand bottom. The man in the lead looked upward repeatedly, referencing the riot of lights on the surface above. Some were steady, while others swept as if searching. Slaton was certain none was looking for them.

  Confident in the distractions of the mayhem above, not to mention the optical diffusion granted by a hundred feet of seawater, he turned on his diving light and began sweeping it across the bottom. It didn’t take long to find what they were looking for. It was strewn over an area the size of a swimming pool, an explosion of evidence scattered across coral outcroppings and sea fans and pristine white sand.

  Wanting to be methodical, one of the men produced a small underwater camera. A flash was of course necessary, but ten quick strobes later they had the proof they’d come for. Soon after that, the three divers were gliding west toward their rendezvous point at top speed.

  FORTY-SIX

  It took an hour for Argos’ crew to regain control of the situation. One boat had been lost, and the trawler that had been loaded successfully departed for the Saudi coast. That left one empty receiving boat, broken rigging on the crane, and a shaken crew on Argos—not to mention four men on the dhow who seemed less than enthusiastic about coming alongside.

  It was here that Ivan stepped in. He engaged in a heated debate with Zakaryan, and only when two of Ivan’s backups appeared in the company of machine pistols did the captain submit to the inevitable—the remaining crates would be transferred. It was the first time the Russians had brandished weapons, although it didn’t surprise Zakaryan that they’d come prepared. Or perhaps they’d raided one of the crates to make their point. At least that ill-kept mystery was definitively answered: Before the doomed trawler had gone down, Zakaryan had seen assault rifles strewn across her listing deck like candy from a broken piñata. It left no question as to what was being smuggled.

  He reluctantly gave the orders, and soon his crew was back in action. If any mistake was made, it was that the failed sling was not inspected—in the haste to clear the deck and get things moving, a crewman simply detached the shredded rig from the hook and threw it overboard. The crane was then fitted with a backup sling, and everything was double-checked.

  The last boat took on the remaining crates, and set off just as the sun was breaking the horizon. Under the orange eastern glow, Argos weighed anchor.

  Before the engines could be engaged, Ivan appeared on the bridge and addressed Zakaryan. “I have received new instructions regarding our next port of call.”

  “From who?”

  “The ship’s owners—I can show you the message if you like.”

  Zakaryan bristled, but said in a level tone, “I assume the south of France is no longer on our itinerary?”

  “Correct. Set a course to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.”

  The captain’s eyes narrowed. This was to the east, where the Red Sea merged with the Gulf of Aden, the narrow throat between Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula.

  Ivan said, “Our next port of call will be Djibouti.”

  Zakaryan was not entirely dispirited. Djibouti was on the Horn of Africa, no more than two days’ sail. Far less than France. He would be rid of his unwanted guests sooner than expected. He issued the order to his executive officer without comment, but then his mood darkened again when he considered what awaited in Djibouti. What if Ivan and his squad didn’t leave there? Would more guns be loaded? Some other illicit cargo?

  Argos accelerated quickly, its lone funnel churning out black smoke that was not misaligned with her captain’s mood. She’d been under way no more than twenty minutes, a chevron of wake building astern, when the Russian named Ivan went to the comm room and sent another message.

  * * *

  Sorensen and Christine were in the embassy’s in-house café. At three in the morning there were no meals available, but the coffee machine never slept. They each had a full cup as they sat together at an institutional table.

  “Thanks for letting me sit in on that,” Christine said.

  “No problem.”

&nb
sp; “It seemed like it went okay.” She looked at Sorensen as if begging for confirmation.

  “I’m no field operative, but yeah, I’d say it went well. Of course, we had a very restricted vantage point. I’m guessing there were some tricky moments.”

  A silence fell, and Sorensen was cutting her overbrewed coffee with cream when her phone rang. She took the call.

  Christine noticed she didn’t try to move away for privacy. She caught enough to know it was an update from Langley. The call lasted two minutes.

  “Good news,” Sorensen said as soon as she hit the end button. “The team are nearly back in Eilat. They called ahead with a preliminary report, but so far it sounds like a home run. Everyone is accounted for, and both Mossad and Langley are convinced that no alarms were raised on Argos—the loss of the crate and one boat are apparently being written off as an accident. I’m not sure where it will all go from here, but the director is happy—apparently the scheme was David’s, and it seems to have worked perfectly. We have the evidence we need, and whoever is operating that ship doesn’t realize what really happened.”

  Christine stared at her cup, ruminating over it all.

  “That had to be terrifying,” Sorensen said.

  Christine looked up and saw Sorensen staring at her thoughtfully.

  “I mean, to see your husband in a situation like that.”

  “Actually … it was kind of enlightening.”

  “In what way?”

  “I guess I saw how good he is at what he does … or what he used to do.”

  “I’ve seen David work once before. The mission was far more complex, but the end result was every bit as effective.” She thought about it, and said, “I have a lot of interaction with cops in my line of work, and I know their basic rule when it comes to using force: you use the minimum amount necessary to get the desired outcome.”

  “Which is what David did tonight.”

  “Exactly. Although, in his particular specialty, it’s not so much a moral or legal imperative. Avoiding unnecessary casualties is generally in his own best interest. Tonight there was no response whatsoever. The team got in, got out, and no one ever knew they were there.”

  The two sat in silence for a time, until Christine said, “I remember one guy in my med school class—he went on to become a really top-flight surgeon. It was no surprise. We all noticed him in our first year of school, when we were dissecting cadavers. It’s a grim business, and most of us muddled through to get the job done. But this one guy, he could uncover a nerve or a tendon better than any of the second-years who were teaching us. He was a prodigy, just had a gift for it.” Christine turned her cup in her hands. “I’m no expert, but what I saw tonight … given what they were up against, and the way it turned out…”

  “You’re right … David’s a natural. He operates in situations most people can’t imagine. And I’ve never seen anyone do it any better.”

  * * *

  The results of the raid on Argos were quickly shared between the CIA and Mossad. After independent analyses of the underwater photographs, as well as surveillance footage of the other suspect ships, Tasman Sea and Cirrus, the affair ended where it had begun—in a conference call between the two directors.

  “Things went as well as could be expected,” said CIA director Coltrane.

  “The team is still in debriefing,” replied Raymond Nurin, his Mossad counterpart. “In the photographs we have identified AK-47s, PKM machine guns, RPG-7 grenade launchers, Spandrel anti-tank missiles. All worrisome equipment, and a lot of it, yet nothing that isn’t already endemic in the region. I was concerned we might find worse—stockpiles for some kind of chemical attack, or perhaps lab equipment suggesting the manufacture of a biological weapon. If something like that had been brought to Israel’s back door, we would be having a very different conversation.”

  Coltrane was seated behind the desk in his office, perusing the same high-resolution underwater photos that Nurin likely had spread across his own desk. His eyes were locked on the most spectacular image: wedged against a large stand of brain coral was the only recognizable section of the shattered crate, and next to that thirty rifles lay stacked like cordwood amid a school of curious snapper.

  “I agree,” he said, “conventional arms is the best we could have expected. But this is a significant cache. Given what we now know about Argos, we can only assume these other two ships, Cirrus and Tasman Sea, are distributing similar loads.”

  “We have reached the same conclusion,” Nurin said.

  “I really don’t see any option here. We have to tell the Saudis what’s going on.”

  There was a pause on the Tel Aviv end as calculations were run. Finally, Nurin said, “I won’t argue otherwise. Perhaps when you do, you could mention that we were involved in uncovering this intelligence, and that it comes with our blessings. For the good of the neighborhood, one might say.”

  Coltrane’s somber grin could not be seen an ocean away. “I suppose Israel does deserve something out of it. But this all begs one greater question: Why did three Russian oligarchs, two of whom are now dead, put together a shipping company and use it to smuggle an arsenal into Saudi Arabia?”

  Nurin, clearly at a disadvantage, asked, “What exactly are you referring to?”

  In their original conversations, the two had concentrated on the immediate crisis of Argos. Thinking the backstory less critical, Coltrane had not gone into detail about MIR Enterprises, nor the suddenly abbreviated life expectancy of its principals. He now explained the rest as he knew it.

  “This cannot be a coincidence,” Nurin said.

  “Certainly not,” agreed the head of the CIA. “Two of the three owners of this company have been murdered—by a very capable sniper, I might add. The FSB are quietly promoting the idea that Slaton is responsible.”

  “Slaton?”

  “I know. He’s is certainly capable, but he’s no hired gun. One of my case officers was actually with Slaton when the second man was killed. Because the Russians are trying to implicate him, Slaton did some detective work on his own. He uncovered a bit of evidence from the second shooting. I don’t know the specifics, but I’m told it suggests the shooter is Russian. Which makes sense, in a twisted sort of way.”

  There was a heavy pause, and Coltrane imagined that as soon as their call ended, Nurin would be making a follow-up connection to Eilat.

  “Do you know the name of the surviving owner of this shipping company?” Nurin asked.

  “Vladimir Ovechkin. He’s been a favorite of President Petrov for some time. Oil and gas—been around since the mid-nineties.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  Coltrane gave a muted laugh. “Funny—Slaton has been asking that same thing. It appears Ovechkin is laying low.”

  “Very low, would be my guess.”

  “I can tell you we’ve been looking for him.”

  “Any luck?” Nurin asked.

  The director’s eyes drifted over a message that had reached his desk only minutes earlier. “I think we might have something soon…”

  * * *

  True to his word, Coltrane wasted no time in alerting the Saudis. Within minutes of ending the call with Mossad director Nurin, he arranged a second to his counterpart at Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate, or GID.

  His name was Bandar al-Fahd, a first-tier prince who’d been on the job less than two months. Coltrane had spoken with al-Fahd twice before, and thought he seemed capable, if a bit overwhelmed. As he waited for the prince to be pulled from a meeting, Coltrane weighed how best to impart his information. He decided that in this initial call he would defer mention of Israel’s involvement in the affair—that could be hashed out later. By doing so he would keep suspicion to a minimum, and perhaps muddy the fact that the CIA had been monitoring the impending smuggling operation for the best part of three days.

  While his call ran, Coltrane found himself staring idly at the wall—in particular, his graduation photo from
college. His degree had been in chemistry, and not for the first time he was surprised by the odd applicability of his old studies. He’d taken to envisioning the CIA’s vast network of ties with foreign intelligence agencies as a variant of the periodic table of elements. Every box on his private chart represented a particular foreign service, each with its own structure and orbit and spin. Times of crisis brought isotopic variants, subject to decay and varying levels of toxicity. His musings were interrupted when Prince al-Fahd finally came on the line.

  With all the force he could muster, Coltrane told his Saudi colleague that tons of conventional arms were at that moment metastasizing through the Kingdom. He promised to back up the warning with hard information, and gave his personal assurance that the CIA would do its best to help.

  When the call ended, Coltrane followed through. His staff forwarded photos of Argos over established secure lines. Three floors down, teams of analysts began scouring raw data for anything to help track the weapons that had come ashore. Photos of wharves were pored over, road traffic monitored, and enough information was shared with regional offices to press human sources for answers.

  As the hunt for the missing weapons expanded into an agency-wide undertaking, Coltrane assigned a second working group to track down Vladimir Ovechkin. The Russian had long existed as a minor file in the CIA’s database, but with one verbal directive, an obscure oligarch became the agency’s second-highest priority.

  Ovechkin’s existing profile was gone over for possible aliases, travel habits, and business interests. The most simple theory was that he was hiding out in a property he already owned. Unfortunately, his only known residence was outside St. Petersburg, and given that the elusive assassin was very possibly Russian, consensus opinion was that Ovechkin would not venture there. It was a virtual certainty that he owned at least one overseas residence—as the oligarchs knew better than anyone, money left in Russia was money left at risk. It was equally likely that any such property would be held within a maze of trusts and shell companies so baffling it would not be uncovered on short notice.