Tier One (Tier One Series Book 1)

by Brian Andrews

  “Not yet.”

  He gave in and began to pace. Nervous energy coursed through his body like electricity. His mind was amped up, and his synesthesia was going crazy. Decision trees with probability-based determinants were whirling in his head. Numbers had flavors, and words were changing colors. Bethmannstrasse was a one-way street, limiting ambulance arrival and departure routes and jeopardizing the precision timetable necessary for success. How long would Rostami stay in the apartment? What if he decided to spend the night? What exit would he use? Would he hire a car? Or worse, what if he kept a vehicle in the parking garage? So many new variables to contend with. The probability of success for the op was falling precipitously.

  He watched Rostami pass the camera at the top of the stairs on the fifth floor, just as Vogel had done five minutes ago. There was something about the man’s smile that pissed Jarvis off. Interrogating this sonuvabitch in an “enhanced” fashion would be very enjoyable.

  Rostami retrieved a key from his right front pants pocket and used it to unlock and open the door to apartment 508. He stepped inside. The door shut.

  “He has a key,” Jarvis said to Loren. “Has he used this apartment as a residence before?”

  “Not during my tenure,” she said. “His primary residence is a flat in Westend-Süd and a small safe house in Walldorf, near the airport.”

  “Then whose apartment is this?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I’m still waiting to hear back from my contact.”

  “We’ve got ears in the apartment,” came Wang’s voice on the open channel. “Here comes the stream.”

  “Put it on speaker,” Jarvis said to Loren.

  She did as instructed, and a man’s voice speaking flawless, assertive German sounded from the desktop speakers. A woman answered in German, her voice cowed and tremulous. Then the man’s voice again. Rustling. A click and then silence.

  “What the fuck just happened?” Jarvis barked. “Five, Zero, we lost audio.”

  “I know,” said Wang. “I lost the link to Victor Echo’s burner . . . trying to reestablish the connection now.”

  “It’s no use,” the Israeli controller said, shaking her head. “Rostami is meticulous and paranoid. He makes her take the battery out of her phone whenever they meet at the InterContinental.”

  “Damn it,” Jarvis shouted. “Give me options, Five.”

  “Working on it,” said Wang.

  “My real estate contact is calling in,” Loren announced. She fielded the call: “Ja . . . Ja . . . danke.” She spun on her stool to face Jarvis. “Apartment 508 is registered as a rental property owned by Grunde AM. Grunde has leased the property to a single tenant for the past two years—Zephyr Power Limited, a wind energy development company in Berlin.”

  “Okay, how is Zephyr Power connected to Rostami?”

  “Zephyr Power was purchased eight months ago by Rostami’s employer, Erde Energie,” explained Loren. “And one more thing. The lease expires on Monday.”

  Dempsey’s voice rang over the comms circuit: “The bastard is skipping town. That’s why he didn’t renew the lease.”

  “Copy,” said Jarvis.

  “Copy, my ass,” Dempsey came back. “If Romeo is leaving town, that means he’s tying up loose ends. Zero, we’ve gotta get the girl outta there.”

  Jarvis rubbed his temples, but he did not answer.

  “Zero, Two, did you copy my last?”

  “Sir,” said Loren, swiveling on her stool and looking up at him, worry lines furrowing her brow. “Ian Baldwin is on the secure line again.”

  “Tell Baldwin not now. I’ll call him back when I’m goddamn ready.”

  “I tried, sir, but he insists it’s urgent.”

  Jarvis blew air through his teeth. Baldwin was not the type to pester; for a statistician to say something was urgent meant either someone had just solved the Riemann hypothesis, or the end of the world was imminent. “Put him through,” Jarvis said, and yanked off his headset.

  The Israeli handed him a modified iPhone from a docking station on the desk. The phone’s native processor had been replaced with an aftermarket chip that made the phone’s outgoing transmissions impossible to decrypt. The phone generated an annoying, high-pitched squeal that the tech division had assured him was well outside the range of human hearing. That was bullshit, of course, because every time he used the phone he ended up with an excruciating headache.

  “Talk to me, Ian,” he said, holding the phone a few centimeters from his ear.

  As his chief analyst began to talk, Jarvis pressed the phone against his ear and stepped several paces away from Loren.

  “Do you know the target?” he asked. “Did you verify the source? Thank you, Ian. Tell Chip and Dale dinner is on me tonight.”

  Jarvis ended the call and slipped the iPhone into his pocket. He let out a long, heavy sigh and put his wireless headset back on. “All stations, this is Zero,” he said. “Stand down. I repeat, stand down. I’m scrubbing the mission.”

  “You’re canceling the grab?” Loren asked, clearly perplexed.

  “Yes,” Jarvis said. “Romeo is to remain in play.”

  Dempsey’s angry voice rang in his ear. “Zero, Two, you can’t do this. He’s gonna kill her.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “We damn well do.”

  “Two, Zero, your objection is noted. The mission is secure. Stand down,” Jarvis said. “That’s an order.” He looked down at Loren and met her big brown eyes. “Pull everyone back and get my people to the airport. Wheels up in five hours.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and began the process of sending encrypted text messages with instructions to all the operatives in the field.

  Jarvis left Loren to finish the administrative cleanup while he stepped into another room. He fumed a moment over losing the opportunity to interrogate Rostami, but the priorities had changed. Something big was going to happen in Geneva, and leaving Rostami in play was their best chance to figure what it was and when it would happen. Moreover, grabbing Rostami now would not go unnoticed by VEVAK. Finding out what had happened to his asset in Tehran would have to wait.

  As far as Effi Vogel was concerned, he hoped that Dempsey was wrong. He hoped that Rostami would not kill the girl, but the probability function in his head said otherwise. Vogel’s fate was in her own hands now. She knew the risks when she signed on with Mossad. Her safety was neither his responsibility nor his obligation. Collateral damage was regrettable, but in counterterrorism it was a mathematical eventuality. His moral imperative was to serve the greater good. He would deal with the inevitable fallout with his new head of Special Activities later, try to help Dempsey understand the grand chess game Ember was playing. If he couldn’t, then maybe he’d misjudged his old LCPO. Disobedience and moral divisiveness among the ranks was something he simply could not tolerate.

  Using the special iPhone, he dialed the number for Levi Harel’s secure mobile phone. He had an obligation to share this latest intelligence with his old friend. He owed Harel that.

  How much he shared was another matter.

  CHAPTER 28

  Apartment 508

  Bethmannstrasse 50,

  Frankfurt, Germany

  May 21, 1745 Local Time

  Rostami popped the battery out of Effi’s mobile phone and set it on a console table by the front door of the apartment. He turned to catch her staring at him with an expression he did not like.

  “You don’t look happy today, Effi,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Why did you insist on meeting here instead of our usual suite?” she asked in German, folding her arms across her chest.

  “This will be our last time together for a very long time. I wanted it to be special,” he replied in German, shrugging off his suit coat. Effi had been studying Arabic, but her vocabulary was limited and her accent abysmal, making the conversation so painful he refused to practice with her anymore.

  “But the InterContinental is nicer, and t
hey have room service.”

  “Yes, my love, but here we need not restrain our passion. You can be as loud as you want.”

  “I don’t like it here,” she said, pouting. “Can we please go to the hotel?”

  “No,” he snapped. Then, in a softer tone he said, “I have a present for you.”

  The right corner of her mouth curled into a half smile. “What kind of present?”

  “The kind that sparkles.” From his left pants pocket he retrieved a small black jewelry box. He opened the clamshell-style lid to reveal a gold necklace with a diamond pendant.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, staring at it.

  He had paid €5,000 for the necklace, which was more than Effi would make in three months tending bar. “I would like to see you wear it,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, turning her back to him. “Will you put it on me?”

  “First, take off your clothes.”

  “What? Why?” she said, blushing.

  “I want to dress you in gold and diamonds and nothing else.”

  She gave a nervous laugh, and after a hesitant pause, she undressed in front of him. “Happy now?” she said, putting her hands on her bare hips.

  He devoured her supple, young body with his eyes. Even though she was an infidel, he was going to miss fucking this girl. “Very happy,” he said. “Now, turn around.”

  She did as instructed, and he carefully clasped the delicate gold chain around her neck.

  “Thank you, Behrouz,” she said, holding the diamond pendant up between her thumb and index finger for a closer look. “It’s beautiful.”

  “A beautiful gift for a beautiful woman,” he said, and walked into the bedroom with Effi in trail like the trained puppy that she was. He sat down at the foot of the queen-size bed and kicked off his $2,000 handmade Italian loafers. Then he began to unbutton his dress shirt. She straddled his left leg and caught his fingers with hers.

  “Let me do that,” she said.

  He let her undress him. When they were both naked, she said. “Would you like a massage?”

  He glanced over at the black leather case he had staged in advance on the nightstand. Inside, the kit contained a rubber tourniquet, two syringes, and enough heroin for a soccer team.

  “Don’t you want to get high first?” he asked, flashing her the devil’s grin.

  She looked at the hit-kit. Something—revulsion?—washed over her face, but she tried to hide it with a smile. “Not today, lover.”

  “I thought you preferred to fuck when you’re high.”

  “I want to remember our last day,” she said, and pushed him backward onto the mattress.

  Her refusal irritated him. It had been weeks since she’d shot up, and he did not like her newly discovered willpower. Intelligent women were so much easier to control and corrupt when they were addicts. Addiction was a critical element of his breakdown process. All of Effi’s piercings and tattoos he had forced upon her when she was so high she could barely walk. The black-and-red kraken tattoo accosting her neck had been his masterstroke. The morning after that wild night, she had been horrified when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror; she’d cried for hours. There was no hiding the monstrous, gnarled tentacles that stretched up just below her right ear—not even with a turtleneck. Even the heavily tattooed punk crowd stared at Effi’s neck. He’d corrupted her so completely that her father had disowned her.

  What did her defiance matter now?

  Rostami rolled onto his stomach, readying himself for her touch. He still hadn’t decided how the night would end, and to mull over her fate now would ruin the sex. When the time came, he would know what to do. He closed his eyes and let himself relax as she applied massage oil to his skin. With her soft, small hands, she worked the knots from the muscles in his back. Against his will, his mind drifted to the apprehensions he harbored about his trip to Geneva. His task was to provide last-minute training to the Iranian ambassador on the tradecraft of terrorism—deception and misdirection, how to handle a firearm, and the concealment and deployment of explosives. Skills that had taken him a decade to learn and master, he was supposed to teach to a spineless bureaucrat in twelve hours. How a man as incompetent and weak as Masoud Modiri could be the brother of a man as brilliant and powerful as Amir Modiri boggled Rostami’s mind.

  Amir Modiri’s plan was brilliant, but it would fail. Masoud Modiri was a paper link being slipped into an iron chain.

  Still, the decision had been made, and there was nothing he could do about it but adapt and overcome.

  “Is this good?” asked Effi.

  “Yes, love,” he replied. “Perhaps a bit lower.”

  He grunted as she slid over his warm, oil-coated buttocks before settling into a position straddling his thighs. As she kneaded his buttocks, she rubbed her cleanly shaven crotch rhythmically up and down his legs. He felt himself harden. When she tried to slip one oily hand between his legs to cup his manhood, he squeezed his legs together. Lately, it seemed, she was in such a hurry. Her hands returned to his lower back, but she ground herself more vigorously against him. He felt her lean forward, her breasts brushing his buttocks, and she began to kiss him along his spine. She slipped her hand between his legs again.

  This time he let her.

  He rolled over, and she squirmed her way to his hips, straddling him and using a hand to guide him into her.

  Always in such a hurry.

  Always like a man, trying to control our sex.

  He let her gyrate on top of him until he became so disgusted by the masculine way this small woman dominated their sex that something snapped inside him. He reached up, grabbed her by the hair, and flung her off him. He was on his knees in a flash, forcefully flipping her onto her hands and knees. Then he took control.

  Clutching her with both hands about her waist, he thrust madly into her. She yelped louder and louder with pleasure, and he felt himself nearing climax.

  “Tell me you love me, Effi,” he huffed, the words more command than request. There was a pause—longer than it should have been—and he reached up with his right hand and pulled her head back by her hair.

  “I love you,” she choked—in the throes of orgasm, he told himself, certainly not in pain and disgust.

  No matter. He came anyway.

  He let go of her hair and saw that she was shaking. Sobbing, actually. He pretended it was because he was leaving. Her crying both excited and angered him. In this moment, he possessed her, no matter what her true feelings. He arched his back and cried out like a beast. As he did, he collapsed onto her back, using his bulk to force her facedown onto the mattress. She complied, a limp rag doll lying on her stomach, her chest heaving with each sob. Lying on top of her, he decided her fate.

  She should not have cried.

  He reached with his right hand off the side of the bed for the blade hidden in the gap between the mattress and box spring.

  As his fingertips found the hilt, Rostami kissed her neck.

  “There, there, don’t cry,” he whispered softly in her ear, before sitting up—his muscular thighs straddling her petite, narrow waist. “True love never dies, no matter how far apart we may be.”

  In a flash, he plunged the blade into the space between the top of her neck and the base of her skull. Her body shuddered, and hot blood spurted onto the back of his right hand as he twisted the knife. With the signals from her brain to her body now severed, her spastic shuddering stopped, and she went limp.

  Rostami rolled the girl over and looked into her eyes, where he saw life. And terror. A bloody bubble expanded from her dark-red lips—perfect lips that had pleased him so many times. The bubble popped, and he kissed her forehead. He closed her eyelids with his thumbs.

  Death should come in the dark.

  Suddenly feeling anxious, he scrambled from the bed. After wiping the blade on a pillowcase, he tossed the knife into his briefcase and washed the blood from his hands. He dressed quickly and found a mirror in which to fix his neck
tie and smooth his hair. After casting one last glance at the girl’s body, he pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. He dialed a number from memory.

  “Ja,” said the voice.

  “I have an apartment that needs cleaning,” said Rostami.

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Where?”

  “Apartment 508, Bethmannstrasse 50, Frankfurt.”

  “The price is double because I’m in Hamburg.”

  “Fine. I don’t care.”

  “Wire the money and it will be done.”

  Rostami ended the call and strode toward the front door. Suddenly remembering the diamond necklace, he paused at the threshold. For an instant, he almost went back for it.

  The girl’s body and the murder weapon would never be found, but even if the German police investigated him for the crime, it wouldn’t matter. He would never set foot in Germany again. After completing Amir Modiri’s next grand operation, he would return to Persia with the honor and accolades deserved of a hero. For all the sacrifices he had made for Allah and his nation over the past decade, his reward would be an assistant director–level position in VEVAK.

  As he took the stairway down to the parking garage, where a driver was waiting in a BMW to take him to the airport, he said a prayer to Allah. He prayed not for forgiveness, nor for Effi Vogel’s soul, nor even for success on his next mission. He prayed for a wife—an obedient Persian woman with black hair, copper skin, and a fertile womb. A young woman from a respected family who would cater to his whims, give him pleasure in bed, and bear him many, many sons.

  CHAPTER 29

  Boeing 787

  May 21, 1910 Local Time

  Jarvis wanted to change the subject. He wanted to change the subject so badly that he had to clench his teeth together to keep from interrupting his Operations Director, who was debriefing him from the other side of the polished rosewood desk.

  “. . . And you’re lucky he was in the car with me, or he would have done it again,” Smith said, his bloodshot eyes and unwashed hair completing the raving-madman metaphor as he stalked about the VIP 787’s executive office. “I had to lock the doors and drive away to keep him from charging into the apartment with guns blazing. It felt like Roanoke all over again.”