by Ward Larsen
“Where exactly is that?”
“Southwest of here, between Essaouira and Tamri.”
As Slaton studied the tighter shots he heard scraping noises somewhere in the walls. Tiny claws scratching out a living.
Smith pretended not to notice. “There’s more,” he said. He removed another photograph from the folder, this an image of a printed page. “I’m to tell you that you ‘owe one’ to a certain duty officer in Langley.”
Slaton saw what looked like a legal document, then a series of signatures below. It was all quite incomprehensible because it was written in French. “What is it?”
“A short-term property rental agreement.”
“For Ovechkin’s villa?”
“No. Your supporter in Langley knew you were focusing on nearby residences. Since there are only a handful within the five-mile radius you mentioned, he had someone run a check. One address generated particular interest. It was rented for one week, beginning three nights ago, all arranged through a particularly shady vacation operator in Kazakhstan—as it turns out, one we’ve linked previously to the FSB.”
“Russian intelligence rented this place?”
“Loosely put … yes. Reference image number five.”
Slaton did, and saw an excellent shot of a small house perched on a cliffside. There was a patio with a pergola, and beneath that the outline of a chair and small table. Partially masked by vegetation on the pergola was the figure of a man. He appeared to be standing and staring out across the sea.
“How long ago was this taken?” Slaton asked, not seeing a time and date stamp.
“When did you ask for it?”
“Roughly eight hours ago.”
Smith gave a so there you are look.
Slaton decided he did owe a favor to the duty man at Langley. He looked again at the shadowed form, then reverted to photo number one, the “big picture.” He estimated the distance between the two villas as roughly four and a half miles.
He tried to shoot holes in his assumptive theory, and right away saw two that were glaring. To begin, there was no line of sight between the two residences—a high promontory split the coastline. Secondly, the range stretched the ballistic limits of any fifty-cal round—guided or not. Yet a short hike, most likely to the peninsula jutting toward the sea, solved both problems. From there, the issues of both range and line of sight to Ovechkin’s temporary residence were solved. Take him through a window or standing on a balcony. While he’s floating in the pool.
Was it all too straightforward? Or was truth staring him in the face in so many pixels?
He concentrated on the promontory, and saw level ground that tapered in the middle to an hourglass shape. He saw a half dozen good setups, and certainly there were hides that could not be seen from overhead. Like a ledge on a mountainside. Then something caught his eye in the narrow waist of the hourglass.
“What spectrum is this?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?” replied Smith.
“Is it infrared?”
“I’m no expert, but our imagery these days is increasingly a hybrid product. Multiple wavelength inputs are synthesized using software. It helps pull out the slightest details. Why do you ask?”
Slaton tapped on the large-scale picture of the peninsula. Smith leaned in for a closer look. Near Slaton’s fingertip was a light-colored rectangle.
“What do you think it is?” the CIA man asked.
“I don’t know … but it doesn’t belong. It’s the only man-made object on that spit of land. Can you get me more detail?”
The gravedigger’s smile. “Possibly. But I can’t say how long it will take.”
“Do what you can,” Slaton said. “Now … what about the rest?”
Smith walked across the room, reached behind a threadbare daybed, and produced a heavy canvas bag. He set it carefully on the mattress and extracted what Slaton had requested: a Heckler & Koch UMP45, two twenty-five-round magazines, and enough .45 ACP rounds to fill them. He’d wanted the higher caliber version of the gun for its close-in stopping power, allowing that his adversary—if it was who and what he expected—would have every advantage at long range. For Slaton to win a gunfight, he had to get close. With its stock folded, he also knew the UMP would fit in the BMW’s oversized side cases.
Smith reached into the bag again and produced a set of lightweight body armor. No vest in the world was going to stop a fifty-cal round, but he wanted some protection against smaller calibers while allowing for maneuverability—which, given the field of play, might be critical. The last thing Smith provided was a set of night-vision binoculars, a military-grade German brand with image enhancing. They would be far more capable than the over-the-counter set he’d bought earlier.
“Will there be anything else?” Smith asked.
“No, that should do the job. Can I keep these photos?”
“Of course. Any new information will be sent to your phone.” Smith dropped a key on the small table. “Stay as long as you like.”
Slaton looked up at the stain on the dimly lit ceiling—it now appeared wet. “Thanks.”
Minutes later Slaton was alone in the tiny flat, Smith having wished him luck and departed to the cacophony outside.
He went to the mini-fridge and cautiously opened the door. The temperature inside was below that of the room, but only slightly. He saw something unidentifiable in a leftover box, and a fuzzy mass on a plate might once have been cheese. Two water bottles appeared sealed, and he took both, downed one immediately, then began nursing the second. The cupboards were nearly bare, his only useful discovery being a can of tuna. A subsequent search of the adjacent drawers produced no can opener, but one sturdy kitchen knife. He had the can half open before the blade broke.
Minutes later he was sitting on the bed, the second water bottle and one damaged but empty tuna can beside him. Light wafted in through joints in the ceiling, highlighting clouds of dust that drifted like a microscopic galaxy of stars. He closed his eyes.
Slaton tried not to think about the burner phone in his pocket. It was so far unused. It felt like a tiny thread linking him to Christine and Davy—a thread that, once stretched taut, would quickly have to be broken. He yearned for some tenor of normalcy, to hear a trace of their day-to-day trivialities. The squeals of a night-ending game of chase. Davy giggling as Mom brushed his teeth. How quickly it had been lost.
All at once, the tenuousness, the fragility of the life they’d built together seemed bleakly apparent. What had taken years to create was at risk, threatened by a few days of madness. The only way out: to not permit failure.
Someone in Russia was condemning him, trying to hold him responsible for killings he’d had no part in. Someone needed a fall guy. Slaton realized he was a ready-made target. In giving up his career with Mossad, he’d cast himself as a rogue. An assassin without a country. In recent days he’d associated with Mossad and the CIA, both giving and getting help. Had that been a mistake?
Exhausted, he tried to push the thoughts away. He could not afford the luxury of thinking forward—not past tomorrow. He needed a full night’s sleep. Slaton allowed himself half that.
Four hours. Then his operation would commence. A private mission that he would undertake quickly and quietly, and to the furtherance of no one’s objectives but his own. Most critical of all: he would do it alone.
FIFTY-NINE
The CIA analyst named Dobbs worked well into the night, his enthusiasm mounting with each new detail as he scoured the images sent by their man in Morocco. He hit a number of roadblocks. In particular, much of what he needed could only come from DOD counterparts, and most of that crew had gone home for the night. One critical expert he reached shortly after nine o’clock as he sat on the bench during a softball game. On the unsecure line the DOD specialist, who was retired Air Force and the department’s resident expert on Russian unmanned aerial vehicles, provided just enough detail to support Dobbs’ burgeoning theory.
By ten o’clock
Dobbs had enough to take his findings to whoever would listen. He went through three levels in the organizational chart before ending with a shift manager at Current Operations, Middle East Arabia section. She insisted they take his results straight to the operations center where, it was rumored, a crisis was being managed—one so serious that the director himself was working overtime.
As a mid-level analyst, Dobbs had never been in the ops center, and he was taken aback when he saw the intensity of the place. After a minor sidebar conference, he was given five minutes to lay out his findings to no less than the director and his senior staff. In a conference hall just off the main room, Dobbs passed out hastily copied images of the photos Slaton had taken. He then began his evaluation of what they meant. When he was done—five minutes and ten seconds later—there was an extended silence.
Director Coltrane was the first to speak. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes, sir. This hangar contains at least three MiG-21s that have been modified into aerial drones of some kind.”
“We have that kind of thing, don’t we?” a deputy director asked.
“Yes, we’ve converted a number of outdated airframes into drones—F-106s, F-4s, and even older F-16s. Operators fly them over test ranges as targets—live missiles, minus the warheads, are launched at them for test and evaluation.”
“But this RosAvia … it’s a Russian company.”
“Yes,” said Dobbs.
“Does Russia test missiles in Morocco?” asked Coltrane.
“That’s the disconnect I keep coming up against,” said Dobbs. “I’ve gone over RosAvia’s history and talked to analysts at DOD. Without exception, all Russian missile testing is run from remote airbases on home soil—it’s a matter of security. You don’t want the performance of your latest weapons to be compromised.”
“So why would they put an operation like this on the edge of the Sahara?” the duty officer asked.
Dobbs added, “There is one other curiosity.” He referenced a blown-up image. “There are two vehicles parked near the hangar—a van and a large truck. I’m quite sure they’re some kind of mobile control centers.”
Coltrane wanted to be clear. “What does that mean?”
“Well, there are a number of possibilities. We think the smaller van might be a local control vehicle, meant to handle the drone on the runway. The larger one, based on antenna configuration, is likely data-linked and could be sent elsewhere to control missions. In essence, you could operate these drones virtually anywhere.”
It was clear by the silence that no one knew what to make of it all.
Coltrane then mused aloud, adding a final bit of sand to gears that were fast grinding to a stop. “The thing that mystifies me is the Russian who led us to this hangar. Why would he rush straight from sinking a ship to a drone research facility in Morocco?”
Not even the most speculative answer was ventured.
* * *
Eight time zones east of Langley, Sorensen woke just before daybreak in Riyadh. She was still at the SANG’s regional headquarters, having been allowed to use a small guest room in the servants’ wing. She’d not changed clothes since leaving Italy, and when she sat up her long-sleeve blouse and pants looked like they’d come from the bottom of a damp hamper. She reflexively checked her phone, and was surprised to see a message from headquarters—apparently there was a useable mobile signal in this arm of the complex. The news was that a Delta Force unit had arrived an hour ago, and was mustering somewhere in the building. Sorensen’s instructions were to update them on the latest developments.
“As if I know what they are,” she mumbled through a yawn.
She tried to call General Abdullah, but he didn’t pick up. Her next call was to Langley where she ended up talking to a supervisor in the operations center. He explained that two new shipments had been interdicted in recent hours, one on the Yemeni border and another near Jeddah. Between the two raids, the Saudis had killed three men and taken two others into custody.
“So far, neither are talking,” the supervisor said.
“Chances are, they don’t know anything. They were probably told to haul a load of guns from Point A to Point B. Further instructions to follow.”
The supervisor admitted that headquarters had reached the same conclusion.
After ending the call, Sorensen spent two minutes gathering herself in a tiny bathroom. She then began a search of the headquarters wing and found the Delta team assembled, rather awkwardly, in an ornate dining room. Between walls braided in silk curtains and beneath golden statues of raptors, seventeen serious men were seated around a dining table the size of a bowling lane. To a man, none looked impressed. They wore battle gear—body armor and equipment vests—but were not yet weighed down by weapons and explosives. Sorensen was sure that could fast be remedied.
A man with a buzz cut introduced himself as the unit’s commander. Sorensen greeted him warmly, and explained that she was the local “CIA liaison.” It was a nonexistent post, but seemed to fit the situation.
For thirty minutes they exchanged their respective understandings of what was happening on the peninsula. The Delta Force intelligence officer introduced a new wrinkle. “JSOC tells us there have been a number of other arms shipments recently. They go back nearly a month—each one small in itself, but a definite trend. Message traffic among monitored terrorist cells has been accelerating in recent days.”
“We’ve been seeing the same traffic,” echoed Sorensen.
The Delta intel officer said, “Our Saudi National Guard contacts insist it’s nothing out of the ordinary. They write it off as the usual Iranian meddling—say they have everything under control.”
“I talked to General Abdullah yesterday,” said Sorensen. “He said essentially the same thing. But then, he seemed pretty distracted.”
“By what?”
“Apparently the royal family is convening its annual bash sometime in the next few days. Everybody who’s anybody in the House of Saud will be there.”
“Sort of like Thanksgiving and a session of Congress all in one?” the Delta commander injected with typical SpecOps sarcasm. “Sounds like a great time. Where is this blessed event supposed to take place?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“For reasons of security.”
“Right.”
On that note, the meeting staggered to its end. The commander explained that he had three Pave Low helicopters standing by outside, and that his team would remain on alert, ready to respond to any new threats that warranted their involvement.
At the end of the meeting, Sorensen realized her phone was again useless in the heart of the main complex. Wanting to try General Abdullah once more, she decided to go outside for a signal, and perhaps even more for a bit of fresh air to clear her head. She navigated to the main entrance, and checked with the security station before stepping outside.
Standing on the fine marble of the building’s main entrance, she took a deep breath and stretched her arms over her head under the fast-warming eastern sun. That intake of air was interrupted when she realized what lay before her—or more precisely, what wasn’t there.
The parking lot, which yesterday had been clogged with more limousines than she’d seen in her entire life, was completely empty. With refreshed urgency, she quickly dialed General Abdullah. There was still no answer.
SIXTY
The general didn’t pick up Sorensen’s call because he was at that moment a thousand miles west, thirty thousand feet above the Mediterranean, and observing the strict dictates of his own comm-sec protocol: all connections of mobile phones and email were to be shut down until arrival at their destination.
They were three hours into an eight-hour flight, although it was hardly a chore given the manner of their conveyance. The Boeing 747 in which Abdullah was traveling was nothing short of a marvel. Under a virtually limitless financial spigot, the engineers at Boeing had gladly fitted the king’s jet with a wide array of custom equi
pment. A first-rate communications suite was hardened against attacks, and multiple electronic countermeasures had been installed to protect against missiles and confuse radar.
Where security ended, the decorators had taken over. The interior of the jet was resplendent in fit and finish, with furnishings that rivaled any palace. Boeing’s performance engineers were hardly surprised when their calculations revealed that coaxing everything into the air would require more than the usual thrust. The gold-plated throne amidships alone weighed nearly a ton, meaning the massive GE engines had to be programmed for their top-rated thrust. Mercifully, the custom-built golden boarding escalator—on which the king himself drifted to earth as if descending from the heavens—was too unwieldy to leave Saudi soil.
As was his custom, General Abdullah occupied himself during the flight by dabbling in tribal politics, working the airplane’s various compartments like an alderman at a barbeque picnic. In spite of the early hour, he was not surprised to find that as the jet cruised smoothly westward toward the House of Saud’s annual gathering, the party had gotten well under way. Groups of princes huddled with favorite uncles in the main salon, and silver breakfast trays were fast emptied. In the royal suite a handful of high-ranking ministers debated the prices of oil and thoroughbreds, and the suspicious correlation between the two. In a pillowed lounge aft, two dozen princesses in brightly colored robes, the presumptive bon vivants of the Wahhabi kingdom, sipped champagne from fluted crystal and compared notes on the latest styles from Paris.
Amid it all Abdullah saw the usual interactions. Family and tribal affiliations were the rule, but not without the occasional thrust and parry of allies made and backs stabbed. It occurred to him that, notwithstanding their immediate location and means of carriage, it was a scene not unlike what had been taking place under sweltering tents for a thousand years. And across those centuries, there had always been someone like him: a guardian to keep an eye on the servants and crew, to coordinate the logistics of what lay ahead.