by Joseph Badal
“Brainy bastard,” Madanowski said. “Arrogant, too. Thought he was better than everyone else. But he was a diehard disciple of the cause. Spent time at our Intelligence Academy in Sofia, then went to Patrice Lumumba University in the Soviet Union. Worked with the Party in Paris, then . . . yeah, that’s it; he went to Cuba where he trained with Che Guevara. Last I heard he played with the Arabs in a terrorist camp in Libya before returning to Greece.”
Frank’s breath caught in his chest, his throat felt tight. “When would that have been?” he asked. “When he returned to Greece.”
Madanowski rubbed his chin and seemed to think about Frank’s question. “I’d guess it was around the early seventies.”
Ray stabbed a finger at the folio. “Check out the remaining pictures.”
The Bulgarian finished going through the folio, but didn’t recognize any of the other faces. “Sorry, boys,” he said, “that’s the best I can do for today.”
“That’s alright, Mr. Madison,” Frank said, which earned him a smile from the Bulgarian.
Ray picked up the folio and followed Frank to the door. “We owe you one, Grigor,” he said.
“It’s Gregory. And, you’re goddam right you owe me one,” Madanowski said with a laugh. “But you know what surprises me is you don’t have the Greek in your folio who was the real star.”
Frank abruptly stopped, causing Ray to run into his back. Both Americans turned and stared at the Bulgarian.
“The one we thought would one day lead a Marxist-Leninist Greece was a guy we called Casanova. The guy could hardly keep his cock under control. He must have screwed half the women in the program, and one of the female instructors, too. Good looking guy. Normally, we would have washed a guy like that out of the program out of fear that his sexual inclinations might one day compromise him. But he was so damned smart and . . . how do you say it? . . . gung ho, we felt he might be worth the risk.”
“What else can you tell us about this guy?” Ray asked.
“Not much. I know he was involved with the ruling political party in Greece after the junta was deposed, but”—Madanowski hunched his shoulders—“I haven’t kept up with events over in Greece, or much of anywhere else since coming to America twelve years ago.”
***
Frank and Ray briefed Tanya Serkovic when they returned to Langley. Jack Cole was in a meeting with the Director and couldn’t join them. Tanya got damned excited about what Frank and Ray had learned.
“Bob’s still convinced the terrorists are planning something to coincide with the Olympics. This could be the break we’ve been waiting for.”
“I wish Madanowski could have come up with more about this Casanova character,” Ray said.
Frank said, “Yeah, but maybe what we did get will tie in with something the Athens team has.”
“Let’s keep our fingers crossed,” Tanya said.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
AUGUST 10, 2004
When the telephone rang in the Athens team’s office at 6:15 p.m., Bob and Stacey were the only two there. Tony and Sam were out working their contacts about the Vassa Markeson/Dimitris Argyropoulos connection. Stacey snatched the receiver out of its cradle and barked a loud, “Yes!”
“Having a bad day, Frederick?” Frank said. He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Well, I’m about to turn your shitty day around. Get Bob on the line.”
“Hold on,” Stacey said.
Bob came on the line a few seconds later. “What do you have, Frank?” he asked.
“Our Bulgarian friend ID’ed one of the photographs. You were right. The photographs were the key, not the names. He didn’t know any of these people by their real names. He singled out one guy, name of Giorgos Photos.”
“Wait a second,” Bob said. “I’m going to pull up his file.” It took half-a-minute to access Photos’ file, and for Bob to peruse it. After doing so, he said, “Looks like a strong possibility of being, at the very least, sympathetic to the terrorists. We’ll get right on it. Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Frank said. “Our friend talked about a trainee they called Casanova. Apparently, the guy was a real cocksman. He said the guy was good looking, smart, and got involved with politics on his return to Greece. They thought he was going to be a real superstar. Ring any bells?”
Bob didn’t respond and, for a moment, Frank thought the connection had been cut. “You still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“We hit on something?” Frank asked.
“Yeah, maybe. I want you to download several photographs of the Greek Deputy Prime Minister, Dimitris Argyropoulos, and run them by your Bulgarian friend. Call me right back with his reaction.”
“You’re serious?” Frank said. “The number two guy in the country.”
“Just get those photographs in front of your man, Frank. I want an answer yesterday.”
“You got it.”
Ray was already on the telephone, dialing the Madison Security Services number. The ringing telephone filled the room from the speakerphone. Then the answering machine kicked in. A female voice with a soft Southern accent said: “You’ve reached Madison Security Services. We are out on a call at the moment. Please leave your name, number, and the time, and we will call you back at our earliest opportunity.”
“Wonderful,” Frank groaned, “fuckin’ wonderful. Call the guy’s cell phone.”
Ray punched in Madanowski’s cell number. After three rings and a few clicks, a recording kicked in saying that the cell phone subscriber was out of the service area.
Tanya pulled her cell phone from a jacket pocket and dialed a number. After a few seconds, she said, “Detective Wilburn, please.”
“What are you doing?” Ray asked.
She held up a finger, telling him to hold on. A few seconds passed, then she said, “Hello, Burt, it’s Tanya.”
She listened for a while, then said, “I did too; we should do it again some time. Listen, I’ve got a problem and I need your help. I’m trying to locate a guy. Do you think you could put out an APB on a vehicle?”
She was quiet for another moment and said, “Yeah, Burt, it’s vital. But I don’t want any of your boys shooting this guy on sight. He hasn’t done anything wrong. I just need to talk with him as quickly as possible.” She put Frank on the line and had him describe the Bulgarian and his van.
The detective must have said, yes, because Tanya thanked him and hung up.
“Good thinking, Tanya,” Frank said. “But what was that business about doing something again? You stepping out on us at night.”
Tanya told Frank to go to hell, but she did it while blushing.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
AUGUST 11, 2004
Giorgos Photos was having a pretty good day, despite the tension he felt. The meeting with Major Lambros Petroangelos had gone as he’d expected. Petroangelos was the good soldier. He would do as he had been ordered. The fact that the junta had murdered his father made him the perfect Greek Spring supporter; the fact that he had twice been passed over for promotion made him the perfect disgruntled Air Force officer . . . and traitor. Photos thought he would miss Petroangelos’ enthusiasm and sense of humor. Photos was confident the Kurds would succeed in every aspect of their mission, including killing Petroangelos.
The call from the Iranian had made his day even better. The Iranian Mullah was a duplicitous bastard, Photos thought; but the Mullah had so much to gain, and really nothing to lose. He had recruited Iraqi pilots who were members of Saddam Hussein’s extended family and who had come from Saddam’s home town of Tikrit. They were not only Baathist Party members, but were all closet fundamentalist Muslims. They were willing to risk their lives to strike a blow against the West. The Iranian had provided Mirage fighter jets from the inventory Saddam Hussein had “parked” across the border in Iran after the first Gulf War.
&nbs
p; Now Photos needed to disengage from the action. He wouldn’t be anywhere near the Olympic Stadium or the Koropi missile site on Friday. He would have loved to return to his place on Evoia, but that wasn’t an option since Argyropoulos warned him the authorities were looking for a professor who owned a pink house on an island. At least the house wasn’t painted pink anymore. He wouldn’t return to Evoia until Argyropoulos was in power. He had a brief moment of panic over the thought the police might somehow find the island house and tie it to him. Then Photos laughed aloud. Argyropoulos would suppress any evidence the police might find. And Photos was confident the police weren’t that motivated to find anything anyway.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
AUGUST 11, 2004
Mahmoud Abdalan and his fourteen-man crew cruised south on the National Highway in the rented tour bus. The fifteen Kurds were decked out in blue and yellow warm-up suits with Turkish flag patches sewn on the left breast of the jacket and TURKIYE emblazoned across the backs. The Kurds knew what was expected of them. They sang Turkish songs and cheered loudly for the Turkish national soccer team. Abdalan, seated in the front seat right across from the Greek bus driver, had to stifle a laugh as he watched the driver’s face. Knowing how the Greeks felt about Turks, Abdalan guessed the driver’s insides were churning stomach acid by the quart.
“How many hours to Koropi?” Abdalan asked the driver.
The driver wouldn’t look at Abdalan. He answered in a flat voice, “Two hours.”
“Where am I supposed to take you in that piece-of-shit town?” the driver asked. “Why stay so far from Athens?”
“I’ll tell you where you’re to take us when we get to Koropi.” Abdalan rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Money, my friend, is the reason we’re staying there. Athens hotels are too expensive.”
This time, the driver glanced at Abdalan. From the look on the man’s face, Abdalan guessed the Greek understood his point about saving money.
***
The two hours turned out to be three-and-a-half hours, but Abdalan had allowed for plenty of time in his schedule. Besides, he wasn’t supposed to arrive at the Greek Air Force site near Koropi until after midnight. He ordered the driver to stop at a tavern ten miles north of Koropi at 10:30 p.m. The place was doing a decent business—Greeks tended to eat late—but was far enough off the beaten path to not be crammed with customers. The patrons all appeared to be locals, not tourists.
Abdalan ordered one of his men to stay with the bus. The team’s baggage was in the storage compartment under the vehicle. He didn’t want to take the chance the driver might try to steal something from them. If the man opened up one of their bags and discovered the weapons there, the whole plan would go up in smoke.
The team’s entry into the tavern caused the place to go dead quiet. A man near the front who Abdalan guessed was the owner didn’t look happy. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Abdalan slipped him a twenty Euro bill. The owner’s expression didn’t change, but he grabbed a handful of menus and led what he thought was a group of Turks to a large dining room at the rear of the building. Abdalan smiled at the occupants of the tables they passed. There were a lot of people in this place who would remember the group of men with Turkish flags on their clothes, especially when the news got out that Turks had taken over a Greek Air Force missile site and killed the airmen there.
The owner barked orders to a couple of waiters who pulled several tables together, and the Kurds took seats around the tables. Abdalan checked his wristwatch. They had an hour-and-a-half to kill until midnight.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
AUGUST 11, 2004
Tanya Serkovic’s mind had been whirling with the different possibilities available to terrorists in Athens. The Olympic Games offered terrorist organizations a plethora of opportunities. She pored over the map of the Olympic venue, trying to come up with the most likely location for an attack. She was fairly certain any attack would be relatively unsophisticated, but bloody. The terrorists would be unlikely to attack from the air. The Greek Air Force would have fighter jets patrolling the country’s borders, and air-to-air missile sites formed a ring around Athens that would hopefully bring down any planes that evaded the fighter jets. Thousands of police and soldiers would be pressed into duty in and around the Games. Dozens of foreign Intelligence agencies were operating in Greece, working on trying to identify suspects. She had pretty well come to the conclusion that any attack would be on some peripheral Olympic site, or against a facility that had absolutely nothing to do with the Olympics.
The telephone rang, interrupting her thoughts.
“Hello,” she said, feeling groggy and exhausted.
“Tanya, it’s Burt.”
Burt Wilburn’s voice brought Tanya alert. “What’s up?” she asked.
“We got your boy,” he said.
“Where?”
“A Maryland State Trooper stopped him on the interstate on his way back to the District. The trooper called me and escorted him to D.C. police headquarters.” Wilburn chuckled. “He’s really pissed off. Keeps screaming that this is supposed to be a free country. What do you want us to do with him?”
“I need to get him out here to Langley. I’ll send someone down and—”
Wilburn interrupted her. “Why don’t I drive him out to you?” he said, “it’s on my way home.”
Tanya knew Langley was way out of Wilburn’s way. She also knew the man was using driving Madanowski to Langley as an excuse to see her. She’d never found time for a relationship with a man, but Wilburn was breaking down her usual level of resistance.
“That would be great, Burt. How soon can you be here?”
“Give me a half hour.”
“You got it.”
Tanya hung up the phone and called Frank Reynolds, who was down in the cryptology lab. She gave him the news, asked him to call Raymond. She would inform Jack Cole. They would all meet at 5:00 p.m., when Burt Wilburn and Grigor Madanowski were due to arrive at Langley.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
AUGUST 12, 2004
Mahmoud Abdalan paid the restaurant tab in cash and stood. His men followed his lead and exited the tavern. It was now fifteen past midnight.
The men congregated outside the bus, which was parked at the far side of the dirt parking lot. Mahmoud surveyed the lot. Other than his men, there were no other people around. Only three cars were parked in the lot, and those were on the other side of the parking area, close to the tavern entrance.
“It’s time,” Abdalan told one of his men, who immediately turned and walked to the bus door. While his man climbed into the bus, Mahmoud watched the tavern’s front entrance. He heard the sounds of struggle coming from inside the bus, but he didn’t turn to look until the sounds stopped.
“Help Abdul move the body,” Mahmoud told another one of his men. “Let’s go,” he growled at the rest of his team.
The driver’s body lay on the bench seat in the back of the bus. The man named Abdul, the only member of the team besides Abdalan who was fluent in Greek, got behind the wheel, while the remainder of the crew took seats. Abdalan took his seat opposite the driver’s seat.
“Take the road south for five point two kilometers,” Abdalan said, reading from the instructions Photos had given him in Bulgaria. “There’s a church on the right side of the road. Pull in there, behind the building.”
Abdul started the bus and did as he’d been told. After he drove into the church lot, Abdalan shouted, “Everyone out. Get your bags and bring them back in here. We’ll change on the go. Check your weapons.”
Screened from the road and any passing vehicles, the men raced from the bus and pulled their bags from the storage compartment. They hustled back inside and, without saying a word, shed their warm-up suits and replaced them with all-black outfits—black knit caps, black long-sleeved shirts, and black slacks—to match the
ir black cross trainers. After Abdul had changed, he pulled the bus back onto the road, The only sounds inside the vehicle were the metallic noises coming from bolt mechanisms being tested and magazines being inserted into assault rifles.
After five miles, Abdalan directed Abdul to take a right on an unmarked narrow road that formed a forty-five degree angle with the main road. This road climbed away from the main road on an ever-steepening grade. There were no houses or other buildings in sight. The only lights came from what appeared to be antennae and several buildings on top of a mountain approximately four thousand feet above the floor of the Koropi valley. There were still about five hundred feet of elevation to the top of the mountain when Abdalan shouted, “On the floor; don’t get up until I tell you.”
His orders weren’t really necessary; his men had been well trained. But Abdalan was a careful man.
Abdalan remained in his seat while Abdul drove the vehicle closer to the top of the mountain. After five minutes, Mahmoud stood and tapped Abdul on the shoulder. “Take that left turn up ahead. The road from here to the base is one kilometer. It curves twice before you’ll see the fence and the guard shack. Turn on the emergency blinkers and take it slow. Stay in first gear.”
Abdul switched on the blinkers and turned left, following the road until the guard shack was visible. He stopped and waited for Abdalan’s instructions.
Abdalan saw three men outside the shack, which was positioned on the left side of the road, just inside an eight-foot-high chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. It was now 12:44 a.m. He told Abdul to get out and talk to the guards.
Abdul opened the door, stepped to the ground, and walked toward the perimeter fence. He’d intentionally left the bus lights on. They would hinder the guards’ vision.