“Right,” Encizo agreed. “And for another, they would’ve had to know who we were, where we’d come in and just about a dozen other details about our mission here. The chances they’d have someone that deep or high inside the CIA is against any odds I’d stake.”
“How do you know the leak isn’t within your own agency?” Mishka asked with a challenging expression.
McCarter snorted. “Nice try, love, but that couldn’t happen. There are only three other people who have any details of our mission parameters. They don’t even store that information in our computers.”
“Which are practically impenetrable, anyway,” James added.
“So where does that leave us?” McCarter asked. He looked around the room. “Anybody?”
Manning cleared his throat and when McCarter nodded, he said, “Let’s assume for the moment the compromise is in the CIA. Chances are pretty good, Mishka, you’ve been here long enough that it’s your cover that’s been blown and not anybody higher up or back home. Our mission orders came practically from your lips to our ears.”
“What are you saying?” Mishka interjected.
“I’m saying that they probably figured out what was happening by keeping their eyes on you. Your apartment here in Minsk is probably bugged, and maybe even your car.”
“Impossible,” she replied. “I sweep both of them on a regular schedule.”
Hawkins shook his head. “Which could well be part of the problem. If you sweep on a schedule, they’d be wise to that, too. All they’d have to do is deactivate the bugs, wait until you completed your sweeps and then reactivate them.”
“So I’ll go sweep them right now,” Mishka said.
McCarter shook his head. “Too dangerous. They still know your vehicle and your movements. They might’ve even traced you here, which means we’re compromised, as well.”
“Not a chance,” she replied. “I didn’t bring my car. After I dropped off the weapons, I returned it to the parking lot across from my apartment. I didn’t want to drive it around with the damage, in case the police noticed and stopped me. I took the first available bus, took another connection, and then walked the rest of the way to be sure I wasn’t followed.”
“Smart and beautiful,” Hawkins said with a wink.
Mishka smiled. “I try. And you’re a player, mister.”
“I try.”
“Axe the cute stuff,” McCarter said. “What we need to do is reevaluate our situation and determine if we’re safe here or if we should change venue.”
“I think it goes without saying we should get out of here anyway,” Manning said. “Just for the sake of caution.”
McCarter nodded. “Fair enough, but I want to think about it for a bit. Meanwhile, let’s get your side arms cleaned up best you can with what’s available while I call the Farm to update them on the situation.”
“What do you want me to do?” Mishka asked.
“Why don’t you and Carnes go stake out the lobby, just to be safe. And find all of the possible alternate exits just in case we have to beat feet in a hurry.”
Mishka nodded before gesturing for Carnes to follow her out.
Once they’d gone, James sidled up next to McCarter and nodded in the direction of the door through which the pair of CIA agents had exited. “Do you trust them?”
McCarter frowned into the secure phone as he dialed the number that would connect them by satellite relay directly to Stony Man Farm using high-speed bursts of heavily encrypted data. “I don’t know. I want to, but…”
“But?”
“I just don’t know.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Major Riley Braden would never have admitted it to anyone, but he didn’t trust David Steinham. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something about the defense contractor just didn’t add up. For one thing, he’d managed to find a way to violate his agreement with Cyrus without actually making it look otherwise. Braden had mentioned this to Cyrus, but his friend and CO had dismissed the idea as ludicrous.
Braden suspected it might have something to do with Cyrus’s fear of losing their contract with Steinham, along with the money that came with it. Braden firmly believed there were other fish in the sea, easier to catch than holding on to the DCDI contract. At the same time, they’d lost a number of good men in a single operation, something that had never happened to Cyrus since starting the company. Braden had worked with Cyrus long enough to know it was partly a matter of professional pride and partly Cyrus’s wish that the deaths of their comrades did not become a vain sacrifice.
It was for this reason Braden agreed to take the mission to Belarus, even though he felt deep down the operation would turn out to be a dud.
Now aboard one of Steinham’s corporate jets, Braden sifted through the intelligence that had come from the DCDI contact Steinham claimed to have inside the country. Among the scant intelligence reports, Braden took particular interest in a section that theorized a special ops unit of the United States government might be dispatched to investigate Dratshev’s disappearance.
All the rest of it had to do with the EMP research Dratshev had supposedly been working on, most of which went over Braden’s head. His specialties were covert military tactics and special operations. He had no expertise in the actual science of such weapons—most of it sounded farfetched and theoretical than anything else. Braden had reached out to his own contacts, as well; who’d informed him those holding the purse strings in Moscow hadn’t exactly been smitten with Dratshev’s work. Braden thought that a most interesting revelation and filed it as highly important if not outright provocative. It also made him wonder if the chance didn’t exist that Dratshev’s progress hadn’t been sabotaged by other elements within his own government. Hadn’t Steinham said he’d procured some of the finest minds on the subject and for five years it had gone nowhere? What did that mean in relationship to Dratshev’s research?
Braden finally pushed the question from his mind. He closed the file folder, leaned back in his seat and rubbed his eyes. For now he’d rest on what he knew and let his subconscious push the pieces around on the board until something fell into place.
Sooner or later, the answer would come to him.
* * *
“ARE YOU SURE you want to drive back to Washington?” Brognola asked.
“Positive, Hal,” Carl Lyons replied.
The Able Team warriors had retrieved all the information they could from Higgs and the data crew at the NSA.
“We could have a private charter on its way to Des Moines within a few hours,” Brognola announced.
“It’s unnecessary,” Lyons replied. “We’re not going to get anything more here. We’ve already crossed the border into Illinois anyway.”
Price interjected, “That should put you in D.C. in fifteen hours.”
“Or less, the way Ironman drives,” Schwarz said, directing his voice to the overhead speaker of their rental.
“What do you need from us?” Brognola asked.
“We’ll want Black Betty up and ready for action as soon as we arrive.”
“Understood.”
“You’re sure the weapons track back to this mercenary hit team?” Price asked.
“It’s your intelligence,” Lyons remarked. “But yeah, given the three dead men who were left behind that we positively identified, there’s no question they were all veterans. One had supposedly become a freelancer, but the other two were definitely hired on by a guy named Jack Cyrus.”
“Yes, we looked into his record as you asked,” Price said. “Aaron, would you care to enlighten us?”
“Be glad to,” Kurtzman’s booming voice replied over the speaker. “Jack Cyrus was a career officer in the United States Army. He completed his course work at West Point and pre-indoctrination for Ranger School at Fort Bennin
g before being accepted to a SWCC boat team school in California. After that, he led numerous special operations in locations all over the world. He was on the back side of his twenty years when he suffered wounds sustained during an engagement in Afghanistan. He was discharged medically after being highly decorated, but his files remained sealed under the order of a military judge.”
“Which of course means nothing to you,” Lyons said.
Kurtzman chuckled. “Of course. We managed to come across some of that sealed data. It probably won’t come as any surprise to you that Cyrus, among other things, had some psychological issues.”
“PTSD?” Blancanales inquired.
“Among other things,” Kurtzman replied. “Suffice it to say the good Colonel Cyrus’s issues were serious enough for an Army doctor to declare him unfit for further duty. They’ve become much more serious about this issue after what happened with Nidal Hassan in the shooting at Fort Hood. The Army immediately acted on the recommendation and discharged Cyrus.”
“So what happened to him after that?” Schwarz asked.
“He did odd jobs for a while, mostly security consulting and a little bit of desk work. But I guess he couldn’t stay away from it and after about a year he walked off his job one day and nobody heard from him for more than eighteen months.”
“Let me guess,” Lyons interrupted. “He falls off the radar for almost two years and then one day shows up with a brand-new mercenary company and a dozen recruits for sale to the high bidder.”
It was Price who answered. “Correct. And the most recent highest bidder on Colonel Cyrus’s résumé happens to be a guy named David Steinham.”
“What’s his story?” Lyons asked.
“Steinham’s a piece of work,” Price said. “His sanity has been called into question more than once, as well, although nobody’s ever been able to touch him. Part of the reason for that is he’s extremely private and reclusive. His headquarters are here in Washington. He’s head of a corporation called Dynamic Core Defense Industries, DCDI for short. He’s been in the defense contractor game for the past twenty-five years. He’s a genius and politically powerful—part of that comes from the fact he has his hand in the pockets of nearly every elected official of note in Wonderland.”
“Sounds like a real peach,” Schwarz remarked.
Lyons grunted. “And he sounds like a guy who’d be more than interested in information about Dratshev and his research.”
“You may be more right than you know.” Brognola’s voice cut in.
“A moment ago,” Brognola said, “I just left a special meeting with the Man. If what he told me is true, this thing is about blow up in our faces.
“I’ll try to sum this up as succinctly as possible about why I’m concerned,” Brognola continued. “About an hour ago, the leaders of five major countries, including the United States, received an electronic transmission over secure UN channels and using a NATO security code. The source of the transmission is still unknown but NSA analysts are working on it as fast as possible. In the meantime, it’s the content of this transmission that has us greatly concerned.
“Apparently, Dr. Dratshev is alive and under the protection of—the sender’s way of putting it and not my own—a man named Ishaq Madari. The transmission included some proof of life, video and so forth, so we’ve verified it’s not bogus. Of course, we immediately did some looking into Madari’s background. You won’t believe this guy.”
“Try us,” Lyons said.
“Ishaq Madari is a thirty-eight-year-old Libyan and was, until about six years ago, a high-level operative within the military security community of his own country. He was also, by his own admittance, a secret member of the Arab Spring. He alleges to have helped the U.S. and other countries smuggle arms to the rebels so they could overthrow Gadhafi and that he has continued to provide pro-democracy forces with whatever means necessary to see his country become a free state under democratic rule.”
“Sounds like he has delusions of hopefully returning one day,” Blancanales observed.
“Well…whether delusional or not, he’s obviously a man with significant resources at his disposal,” Price said.
“That still doesn’t explain why he went to the trouble of abducting Dratshev,” Lyons noted. “Or what he intends to do with him.”
“We already know that,” Brognola replied. “Madari has assured us that no harm will come to Dr. Dratshev—at least not by his hand. He also plans to let Dratshev continue his research in comfort and safety. Psych profilers agree right now that Madari sees what he’s doing as providing aid and comfort to the enemy of his enemies. And for him to continue doing his work and achieving the goals of a truly democratic Libya, he’s convinced himself Dratshev’s research is the best bargaining chip he has at this point.”
“Is he wrong?” Lyons asked.
“Unfortunately…no.” A long silence followed before Brognola said, “Besides us, there are four other countries in this bidding war. China, Great Britain, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia.”
“Those are some pretty interesting choices,” Lyons said.
“Not if you think about it the way a guy like Madari probably would,” Price replied.
“What do you mean, Barb?”
“They’re all countries with great wealth. And not just some of the richest countries on Earth. Every one of them also has an interest in seeing Libya become an independently free and democratic nation.”
“I don’t understand why Switzerland would care,” Lyons said.
“I do,” Brognola said. “Think about it. Despite all of the security and policies in place, there is still a lot of money laundering through their banks.”
“Exactly,” Blancanales replied. “And who wants to be known as a country that happily handles the blood money of terrorists?”
“Okay,” Lyons said. “So here’s what it sounds as though we know. Steinham, who already has Cyrus under contract, hires a merc team to break into an NSA data vault. And he knew about this how?”
“He’s a government defense contractor,” Schwarz replied. “It wouldn’t be hard for him to come by the information. Am I right, Barb?”
“He’d still have to jump through some hoops, but…yes. He’d have probably very little trouble learning that there was a data vault inside that facility and maybe some general information on what was being stored in that vault.”
“Ah, our tax dollars hard at work to keep us secure,” Lyons said with a sigh. “Okay, so he learns about Dratshev’s abduction and figures maybe he can get in on the bidding? Doesn’t make sense since we didn’t even learn about it until a while back.”
“Maybe he had something else in mind,” Blancanales offered.
“That’s interesting, Pol,” Price said. “Go on.”
Blancanales took a deep breath as if he were still gathering his thoughts, and then replied, “Well, suppose he hears Dratshev’s taken and all the details about the abduction are contained within that data vault. The kind of stuff Dratshev was working on, or is working on, would be stuff that would certainly interest a guy like him.”
“So you’re thinking it’s possible Steinham saw an op to take Dratshev away from whoever took Dratshev from the Russians,” Lyons said.
“Who we now know to be Madari,” Price noted.
“Exactly,” Blancanales said. “And if Steinham is able to learn of this auction put out by Madari, you can be sure he’ll go for broke in trying to take Dratshev. It may become easier, too, given that he was able to even learn of the abduction at practically the same time we learned of it.”
“You think he’s got somebody in his pockets?” Schwarz asked.
“Guy like that is bound to have many people in his pockets, including higher-ups inside the CIA.”
“And we have another issue of note,” Price said. “Dav
id’s calling in and asking to join our little powwow.”
“More the merrier,” Lyons said.
A moment of silence followed and then David McCarter’s voice came on the line. The Phoenix Force leader provided an update and concluded his briefing by saying, “Our contact inside the Company tells us she thinks it was FSB, but I’m having a little trouble believing that.”
“Well, she could be right,” Price said. “She has a lot of experience in that city and her superiors give her nothing but high marks.”
“Oh, I think she’s plenty smart and experienced. I’m just not sure how much I trust her. And a few others on the team are thinking the same thing.”
“Well, if you think she’s bad news, I wouldn’t let it on yet,” Lyons said. “Just a little friendly advice.”
Brognola quickly sketched out for McCarter the information regarding Madari.
When he finished, McCarter said, “That’s interesting, I’ll bloody give you that. And it definitely sounds as though our mission objectives have changed.”
“Not really,” Price replied. “Until we know exactly where Dratshev’s being held, it would be better if you continue moving forward just as originally planned. We don’t want to let the cat out of the bag yet, especially not given what you just said about your contact.”
“Not to mention, we may be able to use you in another capacity if the President decides to go with my suggestion.”
“Uh, and what suggestion would that be?” Lyons asked.
“Well, I was getting to it but the right time didn’t seem until now. When the Man laid it out for me, I told him I felt it was a foregone conclusion the Russians would get wind of this soon enough. Especially considering China was one of the countries being allowed to bid on the tech. Our belief is that when it does come out, the FSB will do everything in its power to destroy Dratshev, Madari and all of the alleged research and materials they’ve collected. We can’t let that happen.”
“So what’s the alternative?” McCarter prompted.
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