Silent Assassin

by Leo J. Maloney

  “So are you the best, Cobra?” she pressed.

  “Goddamn right I am,” he said resolutely, still slightly peeved.

  “So act like it.”

  Morgan had to admit that, even though she was a pain in the ass, Bloch was a good leader. She didn’t coddle, and never spared anyone’s feelings. What she did was push her team as far as they would go. It made her a bitch sometimes, but in the end, he was thankful for it. And she always held up her end.

  “So what are we going to do next?” he asked.

  She sighed, softening, a slight crack in her hard demeanor. “I was hoping for your expert opinion on that question.” She sat down in her chair. The chewing-out was officially over, and it was time to talk shop.

  He furrowed his brow, leaning forward in his chair. “We have no solid leads right now,” he said. “When you don’t know where the fish are, you cast the widest net possible. Coordinate with the other cells, see what they have.” His phrasing of the suggestion was a kind of gambit. The hope was that she might let something slip by. He knew there must be other groups like Zeta Division, autonomous, with similar assets, coordinated under the umbrella of the shadowy organization that financed them, the voice from above. Morgan had never managed to confirm it, and it was designed that way. No one person in the lower hierarchy had even a glimpse of the big picture or of most of the members at their level. The irony of being with a peacekeeping organization that coordinated like a terrorist group was not lost on Morgan.

  “What if we’ve already looked at this from every possible angle?” Bloch said. There was no anxiety in her voice, just cold questioning.

  “There’s no such thing,” said Morgan vehemently. He had noticed the hesitation that had crept into her voice. “You know that. Nobody covers all their tracks. Not even the world’s greatest criminal mind. There’s always something someone overlooked. So you keep searching for the angle you missed, and you don’t stop looking until you find it.”

  “What if there isn’t?” She unfrosted the glass around them with a touch to a remote control hanging on the wall and stared at the dormant war room down below.

  “There is,” he insisted. “There always is.”

  “You’re right,” she said, and all the doubt in her voice and demeanor suddenly dried up like a drop of sweat on scorching asphalt. “We keep pushing until we find our way to whoever is behind this. And in the meantime, all we can hope for is that our next lead isn’t a mushroom cloud.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Berlin, December 30

  Novokoff kept the motor running on his Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan, with one hand on the wheel, and another on the grip of a semiautomatic with a scratched-out serial number. He was waiting for a man he had seen only once before, and was mildly concerned that he would have to shoot him. The American.

  He was on the shoulder of a country road outside Berlin. Novokoff’s own choice—he never accepted a meeting if he couldn’t pick the location. This place was good—just off the highway, but hidden from the view of passing cars, and leading only to an old abandoned farmhouse. He was ready to speed off if he had to. But the curiosity about this meeting gnawed away inside him.

  The car itself was used, but it drove like new and there was no smell. He always bought them used, because it left less of a paper trail. He had a man, of course (or rather, one in every country) who took care of things for him. He had another man who would take the car later, strip it for parts, and eliminate all trace evidence by burning the interior. He could buy cheaper burner cars. But what was he, a barbarian? So it was a costly habit. But it kept him alive, and kept him free. It had worked for him so far.

  Except now. This Cobra had made him look like a fool. Cobra, and whoever he was working for. Novokoff had nearly died of the damn gas like the rat in the cage. He’d only narrowly escaped in the fray, out the back, where his wheelman had been waiting for him. All those worthless mercenaries killed, and left behind to be identified. But not his own body, so he knew that they’d still be looking for him. Novokoff’s hand tensed slightly on the steering wheel. It was as much of a reaction as he would permit himself. Emotions, he reminded himself, were traitors.

  And now this meeting with the mysterious American. The man who had contracted the Oslo job—and who presumably had been behind Paris and Munich as well, and who had directed him to find something with more impact than a bomb. Novokoff had calculated the odds of the meeting being a pretext to kill him and eliminate the trail, but deemed the risk worth it.

  So he kept the motor running, kept his hand on the gun, and waited.

  It didn’t take long until the sleek silver BMW slowly came down the lane. The windows were tinted dark, and he couldn’t see inside at all. It maneuvered so that the drivers’ windows of both cars were aligned. Novokoff ’s grip on the gun tensed as the window rolled down to reveal the man.

  He was bony and angular, with a completely bald head. He was not old, not looking a day over forty, and his face was almost boyish. His countenance was commanding, however, and his eyes intelligent. Novokoff saw in him someone to respect. Perhaps even fear.

  “So. You failed.” His voice was arrogantly deadpan.

  “I was deceived,” said Novokoff. The American’s condescension burned him, but his face betrayed no emotion at all. “It will not happen again.”

  “Good,” said the American. “But someone’s still on to you.”

  “Yes. This Cobra. And whoever he is working for.”

  “Well, about that. I have something for you.” Novokoff’s shooting arm tensed as the American reached down to pick something up, but then he saw that it was just a manila envelope. The man held it out for Novokoff.

  “What is it?” he said, taking it and looking at the yellow-brown envelope.

  “Something you may be interested in. I’ll trust you to take care of it yourself. Meanwhile, I will have another assignment for you soon. We will discuss payment when the time comes. Keep yourself available, and I’ll make it worth your while. Here.” He handed Novokoff another package—this one a regular-sized envelope, but with something thick and heavy inside. The paper, Novokoff realized, was just a way to prevent leaving fingerprints. He took the package and saw that it was a simple burner phone. “Turn it on for one minute every day, at midnight GMT. I’ll contact you.”

  Without another word, the American rolled up his window and drove away. Novokoff watched him carefully until he disappeared around a bend in the road, and then opened the manila envelope.

  It was a short stack of papers. The first thing he noticed was a surveillance photograph of a man in sunglasses, walking in the street. On the page were an address, phone number, and a few other pieces of basic identifying information.

  At the top of the page was a name. His lips formed those words as he read them.

  Daniel Morgan.

  A slight smile formed on his lips as he lit himself a cigarette.

  CHAPTER 12

  Boston, January 2

  Dan Morgan walked down Charles Street in the direction of the Common, pulling his coat tight to keep the chill February air from seeping in and watching the people as he passed them. Even in winter, these few blocks were usually filled with strolling tourists and locals alike, carefree people visiting the quaint local eateries, or visitors walking with their noses buried in sightseeing maps, or college students laughing riotously. But today, all of that was conspicuously absent. People walked with their eyes downcast. Talk was muted, hushed. The occasional raucous outburst of laughter seemed completely out of place, even somewhat obscene, and drew looks of disapproval and confusion from people around. The knowledge of a world held hostage, the grief over lives lost, and the fear of the next attack loomed large over the city. Morgan felt a twinge of guilt over his failure to catch Novokoff.

  Soon, he told himself. We’ll get the bastard soon.

  Past the Common, Morgan spied the building that housed the Zeta Division headquarters. It was a recently completed skyscraper
, all white steel and light blue glass, with gaps through which bright green foliage peeked out. It was some new environmental concept, and though it clashed with the classic architecture around it, it wasn’t exactly displeasing. Morgan went to a newspaper vendor across the street and picked up a copy of Newsweek, leafing through it as his eyes remained on the revolving glass door to the building, waiting for Diana Bloch to emerge.

  There was something that President Reagan used to say about Cold War politics, a saying that was itself, appropriately enough, a translation from the Russian: trust, but verify. He was definitely not a trusting person—isolation and self-sufficiency were his natural defaults. But in the world of espionage, you had no choice but to trust certain people if you didn’t want to get dead real fast. Trust, but verify was, Dan Morgan came to realize, a rule to live by in a world where you had no choice but to put your life in others’ hands. The work he had been assigned to with the Zeta Division so far was unimpeachable, all without a doubt for the greater security of Americans and the world—although in the usual morally fuzzy manner of Black Ops. Apart from their secrecy, he had seen no reason to mistrust Bloch or to think the people she answered to were not the good guys.

  But Morgan sure as hell intended to verify.

  Zeta Division, he had figured, was just one piece in what must be a vast puzzle. If he was to catch any kind of glimpse of the entire picture and where exactly he fit in, tailing Diana Bloch was the only way.

  He had started by observing her. She was careful and methodical in all things she did. Morgan, having studied acting and nonverbal cues in his training, knew what to look for. Her outfit, hair, and makeup were always impeccable. Everything she said was spoken calmly and evenly, often with a practiced feel to it. Keys and personal electronics were within her line of sight at all times. Every time she walked in or out the door, she would scan herself with a handheld bug detector.

  She was also, he had quickly noticed, well trained in evasion and misdirection. The first time he had lain in wait for her, she had woven through the crowd near the Common and slipped away. The time after that, he had seen her get into a subway train at the nearby Downtown Crossing Station, and had gotten in after her, in the next car. Somehow, he had completely lost track of her in the train, and arrived at the terminus to watch the twenty or so passengers who had stayed on disembark. Bloch had not been among them.

  With everything she did, Bloch was meticulous and patient. She checked herself for tracking devices every time she went outdoors, he had noticed early on, and so thoroughly that he hadn’t even tried getting one past her. She never drove anywhere herself, at least not at the outset—he did not rule out the possibility that she might be parked somewhere far away.

  Morgan put away the Newsweek and, under the scowl of the shopkeeper, picked up a copy of a hunting magazine. He had barely started pretending to look through it when he saw Diana Bloch emerge from the building. He waited to see which way she would go. To his surprise, she held out her hand and hailed a taxi. He marked the make and model—Toyota Corolla, the older boxy kind, white with a yellow stripe all along the side. He waited for it to pull out, and scanned the street for other cabs—they were abundant enough along this stretch. Upon spotting one that was approaching, he walked out, hearing the shopkeeper grumbling behind him about freeloading browsers who don’t purchase anything, and hailed it.

  The taxi pulled over and Morgan got in. He held out a hundred-dollar bill. “You see that taxi up ahead? The Toyota?”

  “Two blocks down?”

  “That’s the one. I want you to keep within two blocks of that car. I’m paying you now, because I might have to get off suddenly. Keep the change—for your discretion and driving as normally as you can.”

  The driver, a fat black man in his twenties, accepted it cheerfully. “No one ever told me to ‘follow that taxi’ before. What are you, some kind of spy or something?”

  Morgan looked at him pointedly.

  “Nah, let me guess: you could tell me but you’d have to kill me.” He laughed uproariously.

  “Just keep an eye on that taxi.”

  They drove slowly down Charles Street, and then took a right on Beacon at the Common. Traffic was always a little heavier here, but the driver stayed a comfortable distance of just over a block from Bloch’s cab. A truck briefly obscured their line of sight, and they lost the cab for a few seconds as it turned onto Massachusetts Avenue, but managed to catch up at Harvard Bridge. Bloch’s cab continued on Mass Ave after crossing the Charles River into Cambridge. They hung back, following with a clear line of sight for just under one mile.

  As they reached Central Square, the taxi activated its blinkers and pulled over near the entrance to the T station.

  “Keep going,” Morgan said. “We’re going to pass them, slowly.”

  But no one got out of the cab. Instead, a woman holding two heavy-looking shopping bags opened the door and got in.

  “Stop the car!” Morgan said, and the driver pulled over just behind Bloch’s cab. Morgan got out and dashed over just in time to see the woman close the passenger door. The cab set off, with Diana Bloch nowhere to be seen. She had somehow slipped away without his noticing her.

  CHAPTER 13

  Southern New Hampshire, January 3

  “I introduce to you the Raptor Glider,” said Barrett, holding up one of seven sleek graphite black sets of man-sized jet wings that were lying on the grass. “You guys are going to be trying them out today.”

  “Sweet,” said Spartan, her eyes wide in glee and anticipation.

  It was hours before dawn, and the night was crisp, cold and bracing. Morgan was standing abreast with the entire Zeta Division tactical team, the ones who had given him backup in Budapest. They’d been choppered out to a hidden airfield that Morgan calculated must have been somewhere in southern New Hampshire. Going out of the way was a hassle necessary to keep secrecy, but Barrett’s revelation of their purpose there today had made it all more than worth it.

  “Now, these babies will get you into a combat zone at over one hundred miles per hour with the stability and control of a bald eagle,” said Barrett. “It includes a compartment for equipment, including two guns, a large one and a handgun, and your basic survival gear. There’s also room for an oxygen tank for high-altitude jumps. The helmet has a heads-up display that gives you your environmental info, like altitude, temperature, and wind speed, with GPS capabilities. I’ve also fully integrated it with our system, so I can overlay whatever is necessary for the mission—is anyone actually paying attention to me?”

  Morgan and the tac team laughed and jostled one another as they put on the jump gear and examined the new equipment.

  “All right,” said Barrett. “Go ahead and play with your new toys. I won’t bore you with all my talk.”

  Morgan picked up the wings and examined them.

  “Ever made a HALO drop before, Morgan?” Bishop asked. Bishop was the tac team leader and alpha dog. He was tall, standing stiffly and nearly a head higher than Morgan, and black, with a shaved head and dark brown eyes. He had a leaner frame than Morgan, but still thickly muscled. A former Navy SEAL, Bishop was every bit as well trained and seasoned as Morgan. But in Black Ops, Morgan had always worked either with a partner or alone. He lived by suspicion, while Bishop had had to trust his ten-man SEAL team absolutely. And while Morgan was fiercely loyal to the few and worthy he counted among his friends, Bishop was a company man, through and through.

  “Plenty in training and a couple in the field,” said Morgan. “I can’t say it’s my favorite thing in the world, but on occasion, it’s the only way to go.”

  “Are you kidding me?” said Spartan, who was farther ahead in strapping in the wings than anyone else. “There is no rush like flying through the air. I’m not talking about the namby-pamby floating-like-a-cloud bull crap. I’m talking flying headfirst towards the ground, like a—like a goddamn ballistic missile on the heads of the enemy.”

  Spartan was the onl
y woman in Zeta Division tactical. She was as tall as Morgan. She had buzz-cut light blond hair and hazel eyes. Her face wasn’t exactly what Morgan would call classically beautiful, but she had a brassy, happy-go-lucky disposition that had been instantly compelling to Morgan. Supposedly, Bishop himself had handpicked her. Frustrated by the lack of opportunity for women in Special Ops in the Armed Forces, she’d decided to go an alternative route. And the truth was that she’d proven herself twice over to be as tough and coldly efficient as any of the men standing around that night.

  “There goes Spartan again, talking like she swings the biggest dick around here,” Morgan said with a grin.

  “Bigger than yours, you little bitch,” she said, returning his grin.

  “Why don’t you whip it out and we’ll compare.”

  Diesel was half an inch shorter than Morgan with a lighter frame, but still strong as a bull and fast as a racehorse. He was Latino, with brown skin and thick, short black hair. He was their engineering expert, working explosives, locks, and computers whenever the need came up. Morgan knew how to pick a lock or set up a time bomb, but it was a thing of beauty to see the speed and deftness with which Diesel’s fingers moved as he played with anything that involved moving parts.

  “Settle down there,” said Bishop. “Rogue, how’re you doing?”

  It was only then that Morgan noticed the final member of their team. Barrett was helping him with his harness, and he seemed to be a little pale. Rogue was a master sniper. He and Morgan had once spent hours squaring off at a shooting range, trying to determine who the best long-distance shooter was. The match had come to a draw after a couple hours, when dusk began to set in. They’d had to call it in spite of each of them having a nearly irresistible competitive streak. Left to their own devices, it would have gone on all night.