“Good to know.” Garin leveled his gaze at Dwyer. “Consider all the plausible reasons why Day would be meeting with Torzov in a very public place. The most plausible is . . .”
“Hiding in plain sight, obviously.”
“Right. And you hide in plain sight when you don’t want anyone to be suspicious about what your true motives are. He needs to present a façade of innocence because there’s something to hide, something that concerns Russia. At just the same time it appears the Russians are trying to crash DOD computers. Now, what are the odds he knows something, something important?”
Dwyer nodded. “About a hundred and ten percent.” A pause, then: “How do you plan on playing this?”
“I don’t have many options. When in doubt, the direct method is always best.”
“Geez, Mikey . . .”
Garin changed the subject. “Were you able to get anything from the Germans on Taras Bor?”
“What am I now, your personal assistant? Can I get you a hand towel? Maybe some mints?” Dwyer protested. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I received a PDF file on our way here to meet you, but it’s pretty dense. Easier for you to view on a big screen. I’ll download it when I get back to Quantico and we can make arrangements to get you the information.”
“No need to go to all that trouble. I’ll just go with you to Quantico.”
“Great move. Outstanding move,” Dwyer said, rolling his eyes. “Quantico’s got two things, Mike. Just two things. Marines and FBI agents. Thousands of them. Nothing else. Not a friggin’ thing else. And you want us to drive you right into the middle of it. They catch you, that makes us accessories. Did you think about that?”
“Just hiding in plain sight.”
As Dwyer continued to protest, Garin leaned forward. “Matt?”
“On our way,” Matt said, grinning. “Just another ten minutes.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA
JULY 17 • 8:05 A.M. PDT
Ari Singer stared out of the twenty-first-floor window of his room in the Pan Pacific Hotel at the giant cruise ship docked in Vancouver Harbour. This, he thought, is tranquility. This is how life is supposed to be. No missiles. No suicide bombers. Just peace. Normality. Sanity.
Singer had preceded Mansur to Vancouver for reasons far removed from tranquility. At the outset of their relationship, the Iranian had made clear his aversion to communicating by phone or other electronic devices, regardless of how secure such devices purported to be. Mansur insisted that any substantive communication be conducted face-to-face. He would use the phone only to utter prearranged signals—usually consisting of no more than one or two innocuous words—that would alert Singer to a meeting time or place.
Singer didn’t object to Mansur’s refusal to use phones. The old intelligence operative hadn’t remained alive by being reckless. The Iranian wasn’t only cunning; he knew his country. The regime monitored everything. It suspected everyone. A single misstep meant not merely prison, but torture and death.
Approximately twenty-four hours ago, Mansur had called Singer and spoken a single, simple word that set off a silent alarm in the Israeli’s brain: “Terminal.” The signal conveyed two things: the seriousness of the situation and the action to be taken. It meant that Mansur’s life—and, therefore, Singer’s—was in jeopardy. A lie had unraveled, a cover had been blown, or a body had surfaced.
Both men had to leave Iran immediately. Do not finish your dinner. Do not pack your clothes. Get out on the fastest conveyance you can find.
The preselected destination in which Mansur and Singer were to meet was Vancouver. It was Mansur’s choice. He had never been there but he’d seen videos of the city, fallen in love with it, and pronounced it the place where he would spend the rest of his days if he couldn’t do so in Iran. Singer thought the selection a bit impetuous and quirky. Perfect for a man who had spent his entire life being deliberate and methodical.
Singer was unsure when Mansur would arrive in Vancouver, but upon his arrival he would get a message to Singer at his hotel. The Israeli turned from the window and poured a cup of tea from the pot delivered by room service a short time ago. He sipped slowly and decided to try to contact his friend in the United States again.
Singer sat at the small desk next to the window, powered on a laptop, and typed in an e-mail address. A few keystrokes later, he hit send. He had sent several other messages in the last two days but had received no replies. That wasn’t unusual. The addressee was a busy man. But he was also a conscientious and diligent man. He would reply, eventually. Singer just hoped it would be sooner rather than later.
—
Matt turned off Jefferson Davis Highway and drove the SUV about a quarter mile along a narrow drive and down the entrance ramp to the underground parking facility of DGT’s Quantico facility—a black, two-story, glass, steel, and granite building situated on fifteen wooded acres a short distance south of the Marine base. At the bottom of the ramp, two guards in black uniforms and body armor, MP5s slung across their chests, stood adjacent to a steel lift gate that spanned a tire shredder beneath. The guards knew the SUV on sight but raised their weapons to their shoulders, tracking the vehicle as it descended the ramp.
Matt brought the SUV to a halt in front of the lift gate as a third guard, carrying an inspection mirror and accompanied by an all-black Belgian shepherd, emerged from a kiosk next to the lift gate and inspected the perimeter of the vehicle as well as its chassis. Matt lowered all four of the SUV’s opaque windows and the guards peered inside. The guard at the driver’s-side door nodded in acknowledgment toward Matt and Dwyer. Turning his gaze to the man seated next to Dwyer, the guard’s jaw slackened slightly in recognition.
“Is everything okay, Mr. Dwyer?”
“This is Mr. Webster from DOD, Gary. He’s here to consult on a matter with GSG-9,” Dwyer replied, nodding toward Garin. “Is that understood?”
The guard dutifully pulled a smartphone from his breast pocket and scrolled through a list of individuals authorized to enter the facility for the day.
“Mr. Dwyer,” the guard responded skeptically, “I don’t have any appointments scheduled for a Mr. Webster today.”
Dwyer sensed Gary’s indecision. He had a job to perform. His boss had just authorized admission of the most wanted man in America, who, according to company lore, also happened to be one of the trio of special warriors who had founded DGT. “This is unscheduled, Gary. I’m personally authorizing Mr. Webster.” Dwyer pulled a Browning .45 from a shoulder holster and placed it next to Garin’s temple, a theatrical but convincing demonstration that neither Dwyer nor Matt was under duress. Garin didn’t blink. “And you will list Mr. Webster’s name on today’s visitors’ log.” Dwyer replaced the weapon. “Understood?”
Gary, unsure whether his boss was testing him and his fellow guards, hesitated. The wrong decision could mean his job. Or, if it wasn’t a test, his life.
“Okay,” Dwyer sighed, yielding to the evident distress that showed on the guard’s face. “Let’s go by the book, Gary.”
Dwyer and Matt opened their doors and exited the SUV, hands raised. The guard on the passenger side opened the rear door and Garin emerged. The effect among the guards was electric.
All three passengers placed their hands against the SUV and subjected themselves to pat-downs, after which Dwyer turned toward his employees. “All right, very good. That,” Dwyer said, pointing to Garin, “is Mr. Webster. Got it?”
The guards nodded in unison. Whatever was going on, they understood they were to keep their mouths shut.
Gary punched a large red button on the side of the kiosk, raising the lift gate and retracting the floor spikes. Garin, Dwyer, and Matt returned to the vehicle. Before Garin shut his door, the guard closest to him lowered his weapon and addressed Garin.
“Mr. Webster?”
Garin looked to
ward the guard.
“Hooyah, Mr. Webster.”
Matt drove down three levels to a series of parking spaces marked RESERVED FOR CEO-DGT.
“Those guards back there were hired about two months ago along with about two dozen others. Good men. We’re getting lots of applicants from the teams. Some Delta as well, including a few players you might know,” Dwyer said.
Garin turned his head, curious. “I’d have thought that with the drawdown in Afghanistan you’d be laying off, not hiring.”
“No, business is actually on the uptick. Always a supply of bad guys that need taking down. ISIS, Boko Haram. But we’re doing a lot of civilian contracting now—about sixty to sixty-five percent of our gross revenue. We secured several major maritime security contracts, protecting cargo vessels against piracy off the East African and Southeast Asian coasts. We’re also providing security for oil companies in places like southern Iraq and South America. Very lucrative. Manpower intensive.”
“Impressive. Maybe I cashed out too early.”
“I tried to tell you that, but you wouldn’t listen,” Dwyer chastised lightly. “But, hey, you still did pretty well for yourself.”
“Well, sounds like you’re staying ahead of the curve.”
“It may be hard for you to accept, genius,” Dwyer replied, pointing to his head, “but I also have a brain cell or two rattling around up here.”
“And a flair for the ridiculously dramatic. Black uniforms. Matching black guard dog. You waiting for a call from Hollywood?”
Matt pulled into the parking space.
“We continue to do our bread-and-butter work,” Dwyer informed him. “Still augmenting Diplomatic Security, providing overwatch for high-threat meetings. And we’re also doing a fair amount of training for law enforcement, especially SWAT teams for midsize cities like Richmond, Newark, Akron, Pittsburgh, as well as security for major airports. We’ve hired nearly a hundred people since the beginning of last month alone.”
The trio exited the vehicle and proceeded toward the adjacent door to an elevator that opened directly into Dwyer’s private office. Dotting the ceiling of the garage at regular intervals was a series of surveillance cameras. Dwyer placed his palm on a biometric pad next to the elevator door and it slid open. The three rode silently to Dwyer’s office four floors above.
Dwyer’s corner office fit the man: expansive, untidy, but purposeful. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched across two sides of the office, providing a pleasant view of a creek and woodlands beyond the well-kept lawn of the DGT campus. To the left of the elevator sat a four-by-seven glass-topped desk facing a seventy-two-inch television monitor embedded in the wall. A leather couch sat below the monitor, and Navy football memorabilia and photos were scattered across a long, low credenza in front of the couch. The door to the rest of the DGT facility was on the other side of the office, where dozens of technicians and analysts of DGT’s cybersecurity division were hard at work.
Dwyer sat at his desk and began typing on the computer keyboard. He opened a folder marked HEINRICH that contained information on Taras Bor obtained from Dwyer’s German contacts and then stood, yielding the chair to Garin.
“This is everything I’ve got from our German friends on Bor,” Dwyer said as Garin sat before the monitor. “Goes back about ten years. Lots of gaps, as might be expected. Also, lots of speculation. What’s there, though, says this guy’s a very serious player. The go-to asset for President Yuri Mikhailov. Here, I’ll throw it up on the big screen.”
Dwyer leaned forward and manipulated the mouse. Scanned pages of a German intelligence file appeared on the seventy-two-inch screen. Matt whistled.
“Gent really racks up the frequent-flier miles.”
“He ever cashes them in, Aeroflot goes out of business,” Dwyer agreed.
Displayed on the screen was the first of a partially redacted, multipage list of dates and locations with brief descriptions of events in which Taras Bor was suspected by the Germans of being involved. The events spanned several continents and multiple countries. The first page listed operations in Hamburg, Berlin, Lyon, London, Cairo, Benghazi, Tehran, Grozny, and Lahore.
Garin clicked to the next page. Rome, Belgrade, Damascus, Mogadishu, Brussels, Managua. Bor’s suspected activities ranged from assassinations to fomenting and suppressing local uprisings.
“Obviously, he couldn’t have done everything the Germans suspect him of,” Garin observed. “But the list’s still pretty impressive. Of course, I won’t ask how in the world your contact could transmit this to you.”
Dwyer nodded. “Don’t ask, don’t tell. The Germans are thorough. They don’t miss much. Don’t you just wonder what kind of list they have on you, Mikey?” Dwyer needled.
“Not quite as exotic as this.”
“Yeah, sure. I bet.” Dwyer manipulated the mouse again, scrolling several pages down. “Here, look at this. Bring back any memories?”
Garin read the entry, translating the German out loud:
September 3, 2005. Baghdad, Iraq. Subject suspected of training, coordinating and directing insurgents in ambush attack on military convoy escorting US State Department personnel from Baghdad Green Zone to Mosul. Three United States Army Rangers killed, nine wounded. Credit taken by al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
The sentence was followed by redactions of the names of several Iraqi informants, as well as a redacted name followed by the legend “MI6.”
“Remember that? Fun times,” Dwyer said drily.
Garin nodded. “One of our first DGT assignments. Rangers were supposed to escort the State Department staffers to Mosul and hand them off to us. Should have been a straightforward security gig while they were in the city. They’re late, we get a call—all hell’s broken loose. We jump in the Humvees and hump down the road. When we get there, it looks like Little Bighorn.”
“Except with AK-47s and RPGs.”
“We lost Bobby Scales that day. I had to inform his fiancée. Not what I’d imagined when we started this outfit.”
“We’re damn lucky we didn’t lose more. We nearly closed shop after that.”
“The Russians were behind that?” Garin asked. “Bor? I thought they were staying on the sidelines, just rooting for us to lose. Hell of a risk for them to take if their involvement became known.”
“Well, the Germans seem to think they had a hand. Look there,” Dwyer said, pointing at an excerpt from the transcript of a prisoner interrogation. Although Bor’s name appeared nowhere, numerous references were made to a Russian who the Germans, piecing together information, concluded was Bor.
“Looks like hard-core jihadists don’t mind being manipulated by infidels like Bor as long as it helps to kill other infidels, especially those loyal to the Great Satan,” Garin said.
“Not exactly unprecedented. First they use the help of the Great Satan against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Now they work with former Soviets against the Great Satan.” Dwyer scrolled down again. “Something I can’t figure out, though . . .”
“Interesting. The entries stopped cold two and a half years ago,” Garin said, looking at the monitor. “Zero. Nothing. He’s on speed up until that point, but then falls off the face of the earth.” Garin’s eyes narrowed and he turned to Dwyer. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Olivia Perry’s got a smokin’ body?”
Matt raised his hand. “Yo. Amen over here.”
Garin cast his eyes toward the ceiling and paused for the frat boys to air-five.
“Bor’s either dead, discharged . . .”
“Or setting up his next operation,” Dwyer finished, becoming serious again. “And probably a big one. There’s hardly more than a few weeks’ break between any of his previous operations; then suddenly he’s silent for almost three years.”
“A big op. Complex. Maybe deep cover,” Garin agreed. “Anyone ever put eyes on this
guy?”
“Let’s look behind door number two,” Dwyer said, clicking on another file. “GSG-9 takes more photos than a busload of German tourists.”
A series of about two dozen photos appeared on the monitor. It was apparent that most had been taken from an appreciable distance. In most of the photos, it was unclear exactly who or what the intended subject had been—indicating that Bor hadn’t been the original target; German intelligence had simply collected any photos containing anyone resembling Bor’s alleged description and placed them in the file.
Garin began scouring the photos. When he got two-thirds down the screen he stopped, one of the grainy images appearing indefinably familiar. He took the mouse from Dwyer, placed the caret over the photo, and clicked to enlarge. The enlarged results didn’t reveal much more than the original. He zoomed in on the man suspected to be Bor and clicked to enlarge further, causing the image to devolve into a blur of indecipherable pixels.
“Even our facial recognition program is useless without a known photo of Bor to compare against,” Dwyer said. “Here, try this.” Dwyer reclaimed the mouse from Garin and with a series of clicks sharpened the resolution of the enlarged image. As he did so he could see a look of recognition register across Garin’s face, its color draining in the process.
The room fell silent for several seconds. “How the hell did he do it?” Garin asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“Do what, Mikey?”
Garin, ignoring Dwyer, continued to scrutinize the image. It was still blurry in spots, but the telltale was clear: a J-shaped scar along the right jawline terminating in front of the earlobe. A scar Garin had seen on a curious onlooker standing behind a police barricade on Fourteenth Street. A scar he had seen during scores of operations and training exercises over the last two and a half years.
“Mike.” It was Dwyer again. “You know this guy?”
Garin didn’t reply. His mind was trying to process the logistics, the feasibility. The background checks, verifications, fail-safes, and countermeasures compromised and breached. An audacious penetration of the most rigorous security protocols in the world.
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