by Trevor Scott
GATES OF DAWN
A Jake Adams International Espionage Thriller #12
by
Trevor Scott
United States of America
Also by Trevor Scott
The Jake Adams Cold War Espionage Short Story Series
Reykjavik Sanction (Mission #1)
Napoli Intercept (Mission #2)
Wueschheim Imperative (Mission #3)
Jake Adams International Espionage Thriller Series
Fatal Network (#1)
Extreme Faction (#2)
The Dolomite Solution (#3)
Vital Force (#4)
Rise of the Order (#5)
The Cold Edge (#6)
Without Options (#7)
The Stone of Archimedes (#8)
Lethal Force (#9)
Rising Tiger (#10)
Counter Caliphate (#11)
Gates of Dawn (#12)
Counter Terror (#13)
Covert Network (#14)
The Tony Caruso Mystery Series
Boom Town (#1)
Burst of Sound (#2)
Running Game (#3)
The Chad Hunter Espionage Thriller Series
Hypershot (#1)
Global Shot (#2)
Cyber Shot (#3)
The Keenan Fitzpatrick Mystery Series
Isolated (#1)
Burning Down the House (#2)
Witness to Murder (#3)
Other Mysteries and Thrillers
Cantina Valley
Edge of Delirium
Strong Conviction
Fractured State (A Novella)
The Nature of Man
Discernment
Way of the Sword
Drifting Back
The Dawn of Midnight
The Hobgoblin of the Redwoods
Duluthians: A Collection of Short Stories
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.
GATES OF DAWN
Copyright © 2016 by Trevor Scott
United States of America
trevorscott.com
Cover image of shooter by abishome
Background cover image by author
1
Narva, Estonia
A heavy fog lingered over the city, a misty drizzle obscuring the night into near darkness as a lone figure stepped quietly along the Narva Reservoir.
Karl gazed to the east, knowing the Russian border was somewhere out there in the large body of water. About a kilometer to the north the outlet for the reservoir turned back into the Narva River, and there anyone with a good arm could throw a stone from Estonia into Ivangorod, Russia. But this third largest city in Estonia had been almost entirely Russified, with ethnic Russians making up nearly 90 percent of the population. Karl knew that many of these Russian residents felt abandoned when Estonia broke away from Mother Russia in the early 90s.
Dressed much like a local in jeans, a black sweater, and covered from the mist with a rain-proof jacket, Karl heard a garbled sound in his right ear. His comm earbud was having problems again.
“Say again,” Karl whispered, and then tapped on his right ear trying to fix the short. Maybe the rain was giving it problems, he thought.
More mumbling.
He shook his head. Being on loan to the Estonians had not been easy for Karl. His language expertise was in Russian, but the Estonians preferred to speak to him in English. He guessed that made sense, since Estonian was closer to Finnish and Hungarian than to Russian. Also, he had found that most in the Estonian government were not sympathetic to their former overlords. Most would rather die than go back to the old regime. Throughout history, Estonia had been dumped on and subjugated by nearly every northern force of expansion. The Russians were just the most recent, and were just as bad as the Nazis during the Second World War.
Finally, he could hear something through his earbud. But was that correct?
“Say again,” Karl asked softly.
“We think they must not be coming,” his Estonian counterpart said through his mic. “They are fifteen minutes late.”
Karl shook his head. They had been observing a GONGO group, roughly translated as World Without Fascism. A GONGO was a Government Organized Non-Government Organization, and consisted of mostly anarchists trying to bring down the Estonian government with increasingly violent street protests. The Estonians believed these groups were heavily funded by the Russian SVR, the former Soviet KGB. The Russian president wanted to get the old gang back together and reconstitute the dominant Soviet Union. Former world powers never went gently into the night, he guessed.
“Let’s give them a minute,” Karl whispered. “Anarchists are not that organized.”
Moments after speaking, Karl could hear a small engine, and then a red light flashed on and off three times out on the water. In response, Karl pointed his cell phone toward the approaching boat and took two photos, the flash breaking through the foggy night. Then he shoved his phone back into his pocket and rubbed his left elbow against the butt of his gun under that arm.
His heart started to race in anticipation. They suspected their contact was working both sides, or was possibly an SVR officer. Or at least an agent of an SVR officer.
As the boat slowed toward the shore, the man at the center console manning the steering wheel cut the engine to idle and let the small speed boat slide into the bank.
Karl stepped toward the shore and suddenly two other men rose up and pointed guns at him.
“What’s with the guns?” Karl asked in Russian, loud enough for his friends to hear through the mic. He considered pulling his own 9mm Glock, but hesitated, knowing he would never get the gun out before they shot him.
“Get in,” the boat pilot said in English through a thick Russian accent. He was a broad man with a 70s mustache and stringy black hair to his shoulders—a bad disguise.
Karl switched to English, but he also used a Russian accent to make it seem like he wasn’t a native speaker. “We need to meet here on the shore. I can’t swim.”
The Russian lifted a life jacket and said, “You can wear this. We need to talk.”
He had barely inserted himself into the group during a rally a week ago, but Karl wasn’t feeling right about this meeting. Something had gone wrong. “This is bullshit,” Karl said, his trouble phrase.
In his earbud, he heard a garbled mess of words, and wasn’t sure if it was English or Estonian.
By now the two men with guns, who could have been the spawn of the boat pilot, had gotten out and were on either side of Karl. If he resisted now they would kill him, he thought. Maybe this was a test of loyalty.
Then the two men grasped his arms and patted him down, found his gun, and confiscated it. They also took his phone. As the two men roughly threw Karl into the boat, he turned to see a man and woman on shore rushing across the grass toward them.
But before the Estonians could intervene, the boat powered backwards. Then the pilot quickly turned the wheel and shoved the power bar from reverse to forward at full throttle, knocking Karl to the bottom of the boat.
He was in trouble and he knew it. In a few seconds they would be across the narrow stretch of the reservoir that was Estonia and into the Russian side. And then they might find out the truth about him.
As he lay on the bottom of the boat, he pulled the earbud from inside his ea
r and threw it overboard. He had no identification. Nothing that could tie him to any country. Yet, he knew that if they brought him to Moscow or some outpost safe house for interrogation, they would eventually get what they needed from him. Everyone eventually broke. His training taught him that much.
The boat sped through the darkness, the cold rain like needles poking into Karl’s exposed face.
He had just one chance to make this right. He should have never gotten into the boat with these men.
With one quick movement, Karl rose up and dove at the closest man. He struck the man with all of his weight and the two of them flew over the side into the water.
When Karl hit the water, he was wrapped around the man, his legs locked tightly over the man’s torso.
The two of them struggled under the water, the rush of cold water against Karl’s body nearly taking his breath away. Karl felt a few blows from each of the man’s hands, which meant the Russian had dropped his gun when they went overboard.
Karl let go temporarily, twisted around behind the man, and wrapped his right arm around the larger man’s throat, putting him into a sleeper hold. But this guy wasn’t going easy. His legs kicked and brought the both of them to the surface.
As they came out of the water, Karl took in a heavy breath, bringing in a little water with the air.
The boat had slowed and was cruising in a slow circle, the other Russian now with a flashlight in one hand and a gun in his other. Karl’s only advantage was that they wouldn’t shoot at him, since their own man was intertwined with him.
The Russian was still struggling but seemed to be getting weaker. That’s when the first shot came from the boat. What the hell were they doing?
Now he had a quick decision to make. Stay there and get shot, or dive.
More shots.
The Russian was nearly spent. Karl had to go. Now.
With a quick breath, Karl let the Russian go and went straight down about ten feet. He thought he heard the muffled sound of gunfire. But he didn’t wait around to find out. He swam as hard and fast as he could under water.
Eventually he knew he would have to surface. His lungs were about to explode. Karl had to force himself to keep his mouth closed.
Slowly he rose to the surface, trying not to make waves as his head exited the water. He took in as much air as he could as he swiveled around to find the boat. By now the Russians were out of range of their small flashlight.
Karl slowly kicked away from the boat, trying not to make any noise. Unfortunately, he had a feeling the direction he was traveling was to the east—deeper into Russia. His survival training would kick in now.
2
Berlin, Germany
Each city in Europe had a distinct atmosphere for Jake Adams. Berlin was no different. But this city seemed to have morphed in the past thirty years from a divided contrast of night and day, of good and evil, of rich and poor, into a place of renewed chic and cool. It still smelled like curry wurst and beer, though. It was too bad that Jake hated hipsters in skinny jeans and narrow ties. Made him want to punch the assholes right in their perfectly trimmed little beards.
Now, a little after ten in the evening, Jake sat at an outdoor table in front of a hotel on the north end of the massive Tiergarten park sipping a beer and observing a dirtbag Syrian ‘refugee’ who was the antithesis of the hipster. His target had a nearly shaved head with a scruffy black beard covering his skinny neck. The beard seemed a bit large for his puny head. The man wore all black like a European biker, with a chain leading to an oversized wallet. His high boots would make most Nazis salivate. But Jake guessed this guy was like most others of his kind. Without the gang for backup, much like their ancestral jack-booted brethren with their 9mm Lugers and an endless supply of compliant conscripts, they were simply shells of bravado.
Jake had been following this man for a couple of days now under the direction of his new employer, the Spanish billionaire Carlos Gomez. The Spaniard had set Jake loose on those responsible for the terrorist attack and subsequent stampede that had almost gotten his girlfriend Alexandra killed almost four months ago. Jake had been instrumental in turning over four minor players to the German Polizei. But this guy, a man named Sahir Al-Alem, seemed to be the faction leader.
Tailing and observing was getting old for Jake. It was time to take action. The local Polizei could get nothing on the man, but Jake knew the guy was thick with his fellow thieves. The only disturbing fact was that the Syrian had not made a run for it. The Germans were pretty good at rounding up people and disappearing them, but Jake would have guessed this Al-Alem, which meant ‘all knowing’ in English, would have caught wind that his comrades were no longer freely roaming Berlin. The hubris of invulnerability was an endemic trait of the jihadist.
For the past couple of minutes Jake had made sure that the man knew that he was watching him. Jake was wearing dark slacks and a black leather jacket, which covered his 9mm Glock in the holster under his left arm. He wanted the Syrian to feel confident. To underestimate Jake as an older man without consequence. Jake’s hair was now cropped shorter to cover the fact that much of the normal black had turned to silver. And he had his signature three-day-old beard on his rough face and strong jaw. To the average observer, Jake was invisible.
The Syrian refused to look away. Good. Jake had him right where he wanted him.
Finally, Jake’s target got up and turned toward the large park, stepping off with extended steps down the sidewalk.
Jake got up to follow.
For two blocks the man didn’t turn to see if Jake was on his tail. But Jake didn’t do a thing to silence his steps. He wanted the man to know he was there.
Shortly they entered the Tiergarten on a paved pathway lit by infrequent lamps. The Tiergarten park could be a dangerous place at night, where drug deals went down frequently, along with other big city street crimes.
Suddenly the Syrian stopped and lit a cigarette. In doing so, the man twisted his head to see that Jake was still walking toward him.
When Jake got within ten feet of the guy, the Syrian turned to confront Jake.
Al-Alem lifted his chin and said in German, “What do you want, old man? To suck my dick?”
Jake laughed and switched to English with a heavy German accent, “I probably wouldn’t be able to find it. You appear to be compensating for your shortcomings.”
That pissed off the Syrian. He stomped his feet to widen his stance. Then he flicked the last of his cigarette into the grass.
“I see,” Al-Alem said. “You want your ass kicked.”
“So, you do speak English.”
“I speak many languages,” the Syrian said.
Now Jake waited for the man to make the next move.
The Syrian moved closer and then rushed Jake like a linebacker going for a tackle. But Jake simply sidestepped, caught the man’s head with his left hand and under the guy’s left arm with his other, flipping the guy onto his back on the cobblestone walkway. The Syrian crashed hard, his wind flushed from his lungs, taking his breath away. Then Jake kicked him hard in the nuts and watched as he went into a fetal position. While the man rolled on the sidewalk, Jake pulled out a couple of zip ties. He shoved the Syrian to his stomach and zipped the man’s hands behind his back. He did the same to the man’s feet.
Satisfied that the Syrian was incapacitated, Jake rolled the man to his back and shoved his knee into the Syrian’s gut. Next he sat on the man’s torso and the guy tried to struggle beneath him.
Jake slapped the man a couple times in the face. “Now. This can go one of two ways. We can do this the easy way, where you tell me what I need to know. Or you can go the hard way, where I have to beat the shit out of you and eventually get what I need to know. Either way works for me. But it’s up to you.”
The Syrian growled out something in Arabic, but Jake refused to learn much of that language—despite the fact that many others had called him similar things in the past.
“Now,” Jake sa
id, “let’s be civilized.”
Al-Alem swore at Jake in German this time, which Jake clearly understood.
Jake shook his head and punched the man in the face, breaking the guy’s nose and bringing an instant flow of blood from both nostrils. The guy nearly choked on his own blood.
“Okay. So, you want the hard way. I understand. You’re a tough skinhead or neo-Nazi or whatever you call yourself these days.” Jake hesitated. Then he continued. “You know that the real Nazis would have made you eat your own shit. You would have never been allowed into their club house.”
The Syrian turned his head to the side to let the blood flow freely. “Fuck you,” Al-Alem said, working to his third language.
This was getting nowhere fast, Jake thought. So he pulled out his 9mm Glock and shoved the barrel into the man’s mouth. “Don’t struggle,” Jake said. “You’ll break your teeth.”
The flow of blood had started to wane.
The Syrian tried to say something, but it came out garbled.
“All right. Here’s how this goes. I ask you questions and you either nod your head up and down for yes, or swish it side to side for no. Do you understand?”
The man nodded yes.
“Outstanding,” Jake said.
He asked a series of yes or no questions and was almost disappointed that the shitbird didn’t hold anything back.
Suddenly Jake’s phone buzzed and he pulled it from a jacket pocket to see who it was. It was Alexandra, his girlfriend, who was about seven months pregnant and hanging out at their place in Italy. He needed to answer that.
“Hello,” Jake said. “What’s up?”
“You are still in Berlin?”
“Of course. Why?”
“I sent General Graves to your hotel a couple of hours ago and he said you weren’t there.”
It wasn’t like Alexandra to check up on him, but he guessed the pregnancy might be playing with her emotions.
“I’ve been a little busy,” Jake said.