by Trevor Scott
“Sounds familiar,” Jake said. “Let me guess. They’re considering it a street crime.”
“Basically. Everything is being turned over to the Polizei for investigation. My old employer is out.”
“Sounds cut and dried. Why don’t you fly to Gibraltar and hook up with us?”
Jake heard sobbing on the other end, followed by sniffling. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, Jake. I’m just emotional.”
That was strange for Alexandra, he thought. She was one of the toughest women he’d ever known. An incident like the one in Berlin should not have impacted her so much.
“Come with us,” Jake reiterated. “We’re going after some of these bastards.”
“I can’t, Jake,” she muttered.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“Then go back to Italy and wait for me,” he said, but in retrospect it sounded more like an order.
“I’ll leave in the morning.”
“Anything else?” Jake asked. He turned and noticed that Sirena was stirring and about to wake.
“No. Just be careful. I want you to come home. I need you to come home.”
“You know me.”
“That’s the problem,” she said. There was no humor in her statement.
They both cut off the call and Jake cast his eyes around the sparse cabin. He saw a short man wander along the outside deck on the port side, his interest in Jake a bit too long.
He went back to his seat and then checked his text messages. He had two from Kurt Jenkins. The first one said he would have something soon. The second one said they needed to talk.
“Everything all right?” Sirena asked, and then she yawned.
“Girlfriend,” Jake said.
“Former German Intelligence, right?”
“Retired now.”
“Just like you. Can’t stay out of the game?”
Jake leaned closer to her and whispered, “Have you noticed anyone strange on the ferry?”
She shook her head. “No. I was trying to get some sleep. What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. It might be nothing. A guy looking but not trying to look. I saw him in Tangier also.”
“Makes sense. Probably just a coincidence.”
Yeah, but Jake didn’t believe in coincidences. “Maybe so. Let’s go. We should be docked in a few minutes.”
The ferry pulled in and Jake and Sirena were some of the first off the boat. Because of the late hour, they decided to take a taxi back to Sinclair Tucker’s place. Jake told the guy to bring them to the north end of Main Street. Then, as they pulled away from the ferry terminal, Jake leaned to the edge of the car and smiled when he saw what he suspected he would.
Sirena said, “We’ve got a tail.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
Just then Jake got a call. He checked the screen and saw that it was another persona from Kurt Jenkins.
“Pizza Hut?” Jake said into his phone. “That’s getting old.”
“Sometimes the classics work the best,” Jenkins said. “Listen, I’ve got something for you. You’re in Gibraltar?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You didn’t happen to kill your contact, Hesham Mustafa?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Because he’s dead.”
Crap. The men yelling in the streets of Tangier had not been lying.
“I just knocked the man out,” Jake said.
The driver looked at Jake in the rearview mirror with renewed interest. Sirena turned sideways in her seat and glanced with her peripheral vision toward the rear of the car. Then she nodded at Jake.
Great, they did have a tail.
“Well, he’s dead,” Jenkins confirmed.
“How?”
“Stabbed to death. And they have a report out on you, like an APB, with an image taken somewhere at the Tangier port.”
“I didn’t do that. Anyway, what else do you have?”
Hesitation on the other end. “I’m not exactly sure. We think Mustafa gave you GPS coordinates. I’m going through back channels to verify the info by satellite.”
“All right. Let me know when you know.” He glanced at the taxi following them at a respectable distance—not too close, but close enough so they didn’t lose their tail. “You wouldn’t happen to have a friend keeping track of us.”
“No, why?”
“Never mind. Gotta go.”
“Are you flying to the Canaries in the morning?” Jenkins asked.
“Yep. Talk to you then.”
“Roger that.”
Jake hung up and shoved his phone in his pocket.
“Everything all right?” Sirena asked.
“Just wonderful.” He considered looking back, but he didn’t want the tail to know he knew they were there.
The driver turned down a street that vectored parallel to Main Street in downtown Gibraltar.
“This is good,” Jake said, tapping the driver.
The guy pulled over and Jake gave the man the fare and a modest tip—nothing to make the two of them stand out.
Rain came down on them as they hit the sidewalk, which gave them a good excuse to hurry toward Main Street. But instead of going to that major pedestrian walkway, they split up. Sirena turned toward Main Street and Jake turned right down a dark, narrow alley. Not having to look, Jake could hear the cadence of footsteps behind him. Good. The tail had stuck with him. Now he wished he had his gun. But, considering they both had gotten off the ferry, this guy probably was not armed either. He could have a knife, Jake thought. In fact, this guy could have killed Mustafa.
Jake turned down an even narrower passageway. These streets were nowhere near as concerning as those in Tangier, but with the darkness and the gloomy rain, anything was possible here.
As soon as Jake made the turn he rushed forward and stepped into a covered doorway. Then he waited.
Footsteps rushed toward him quickly and then the pace slowed when the man must have realized his target was no longer visible. Jake had been in that man’s shoes.
His heart beat faster, unsure what weapon the man could have. Then the man rushed forward, thinking Jake must have made him.
When the blur of a man came into view, Jake shoved himself out, clothes lining the man with his right arm across his throat, knocking him off his feet and to his back. Then Jake pounced on the guy and punched him in the face, bringing instant blood.
The man recovered and tried to strike Jake with flailing arms like a drunken monkey.
Jake grasped the man’s right wrist and twisted hard to his right as Jake rose up and let the man’s body swivel to his stomach to avoid having his arm broken. Now Jake thrust his right knee into the guy’s lower back and pressed his face into the cobblestone street.
“You speak English, asshole?” Jake said with grit teeth.
“Let me go. We are the same team.” The man spoke with a heavy French accent. Then to prove it, the guy ran through a bunch of swear words in French, insulting Jake’s heritage and his ancestry.
“My mother is dead,” Jake said. “Now, why the fuck are you tailing me?”
“Let me up.”
“Listen, you foie gras-eating bastard. I want to know why you’re on my ass.”
“You’d like it in your ass, Jake Adams.”
How the hell did this guy know who he was?
“I don’t eat goose liver or any other type of liver,” the Frenchman said.
“Just answer my questions,” Jake said, tightening his twist on the guy’s arm.
“Stop it.” The Frenchman let out a groan and a heavy sigh. “I am an officer with the General Directorate of External Security.”
“You’re with DGSE?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jean Paul Talbot.”
“Any relation to Jacques Talbot?”
“He was my brother.”
“Where were you born?”
“Alsace.”
“Be more specific.”
“Jesus, Jake. Riquewihr. You visited us there years ago. Before. . .”
“Before what?”
“Before Jacques was killed on duty. I was just fifteen when we last met.”
Jake let up on the man’s arm and rolled him to his back. In the relative darkness, he tried to remember back. That had to be twenty years ago. Which would be about right, since this guy looked to be about thirty-five.
“Jean Paul?” Jake finally said.
Reaching his hand out to the man, Jake pulled the Frenchman to his feet. “Let’s see some I.D.”
The man pulled out his passport and handed it to Jake. Of course this was the guy’s personal passport and not a special persona made up by his intelligence agency. It clearly showed that Jean Paul Talbot was born in Alsace, France. Jake handed the passport back to the man. The intelligence community was smaller than most people would guess, Jake knew. But he had no clue that Jacques’ little brother had followed in the dead brother’s footsteps.
Jean Paul held his head back trying to stop the bleeding from his nose. “I think you broke it.”
Jake took a closer look. “No, you’ll be fine. Don’t be a baby.”
“You could have killed me,” Jean Paul protested.
“I barely touched you,” Jake said. “Besides, since you knew who I was, you shouldn’t have tailed me.”
The Frenchman shook his head and finally let go of his nose. “I was trying to confirm your mission through channels. These things take time.”
“What’s your play?”
Jean Paul was hesitant to respond.
“Come on,” Jake said. “We just about got ourselves killed in Tangier tonight. What’s your involvement?”
Suddenly, Sirena showed up around the corner and walked casually toward Jake and the Frenchman.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about this beautiful woman,” Jean Paul said. “Are you going to introduce us?”
Jake did just that, explaining who Jean Paul worked for, but leaving out Sirena’s affiliation. Then Jake also gave a little back story on how he knew Jean Paul’s brother years ago.
“Okay,” Sirena said, turning toward the Frenchman. “But what do you have to do with the man from Tangier?”
Jean Paul looked cornered now, having been asked the question by both Jake and Sirena. Finally, he said, “Hesham Mustafa was an important asset of my directorate. He was concerned about something and tipped us off about your meeting.”
“So, you killed Mustafa,” Jake stated.
“No, no, no,” Jean Paul protested with his words and hands. “That was not me. I followed you through the streets of Tangier. I thought you killed Mustafa and then ran.”
“That’s crazy,” Sirena said. “If not you, then who?”
Jean Paul bit his lower lip and lowered his jaw somewhat toward his chest. “It must have been the other side. A man named Ahmed.”
Jake laughed. “You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an Ahmed in Morocco. Who is that guy?”
“A brutal man who controls most of what happens in the northern Atlas Mountains. He’s a Berber.”
“Why would he kill Mustafa?” Sirena wanted to know.
“Good question. We think Mustafa was working both sides, getting paid by your CIA and securing trade favors from the other side.”
“Plus,” Jake said, “his work for your people.”
“And perhaps others.” Jean Paul shifted his gaze to Jake now, after nearly undressing Sirena with special scrutiny. “What was your interest with Mustafa?”
“Who says I was interested,” Jake said. “Maybe I was just looking for a new rug.”
“Come on, Jake. You were friends with my brother. I think you even liked my sister for a while.”
Great. Jean Paul remembered that. Jake had been involved with the man’s older sister for a short while. Until they both knew it would never work, especially with Jake still in the Agency and on the move constantly. That life wasn’t exactly conducive to a happy family life.
“What happened to Gabriella?” Jake asked.
“She’s married with two children and still living in Riquewihr. They run a winery together.”
“Good for her.”
“Riquewihr?” Sirena said. “That’s a cool town.”
The rain started to fall a little harder now.
“We should probably get going,” Jake said, his head nodding toward Sirena.
“Are you going to leave me holding my balls?” Jean Paul asked.
“You know how this game is played Jean Paul.”
“I do. But we are allies. Maybe I have something you might need.”
Jake smiled and said, “No offense, pal. But you guys don’t even have full control of Paris.”
“Whoa,” Sirena said.
“That’s not fair.” The Frenchman pushed his chest out.
“What the hell do you expect, Jean Paul? For years your government has allowed the immigration of millions of Muslims into France. Yet these people have failed to assimilate. Refused to speak your language. And installed Sharia Law in pockets of your society. You have an enemy within. Go home and fix that first. Then come and talk with me.”
“Jake,” Sirena said, placing her hand on his arm.
Jake turned on her. “What? I’m only speaking the truth.”
“I know,” she said. “But it’s not this man’s fault. He’s trying to fix the problem.”
“That’s right,” Jean Paul said. “And what would you have us do? Deport millions of Muslims?”
“Yes. If they don’t want to conform to French society, then ship them home.”
“I agree,” Jean Paul said. “I was just trying to see where you stood on the issue.” He thought for a moment, perhaps considering his approach. “Can we please have some professional courtesy? What was your business with Hesham Mustafa?”
No matter how professional Jake wanted to be, he could not divulge that information. Besides, he really had nothing definitive to tell the guy. And it wasn’t like Jake could tell the man about his current mission.
“Let’s just say Mustafa was supposed to give us some intel about terrorist training camps in the Atlas Mountains.”
Jean Paul nodded his head. “We have been working on this also.”
Something bothered Jake now. “Why haven’t you coordinated your efforts with our Agency personnel in the region?”
“Good question, Jake,” Sirena said, and then bore her eyes into mister Frenchman.
Finally, Jean Paul let out a heavy breath of air. “You are frustrating, my friend. I’m not officially working right now.”
“You were fired?” Jake asked.
“No, not that harsh.” He shrugged. “I was suspended without pay.”
“Why?” Sirena asked.
“Because I wanted to find the missing medical workers kidnapped off the coast of Morocco recently. I thought I was the best person to head the effort, since I had the contacts in that country. This is my area of expertise. I speak Arabic and Berber.”
“And?” Jake asked.
“And my boss did not agree. I was told to stand down and take a little time off.”
“So let me guess,” Jake said. “You told him to suck your dick. I mean that’s what Jacques would have done.”
Jean Paul laughed. “Close. I told ‘her’ to lick my balls. She wasn’t happy.”
“I would guess not,” Sirena said. “Nice move though. Respect.”
“So, I am alone on this,” Jean Paul explained. “I will go back to Morocco and find these medical workers.”
“Why do you care so much for them?” Jake asked.
“Simple. Because nobody else seems to be concerned. Fifteen people are kidnapped from multiple countries and the world yawns. Have we become this callous? This complacent? I cannot let this stand. You must understand. They are at war with us. They have started the Caliphate. A
nd we do nothing.”
Yeah, Jake understood. This guy was a younger version of himself.
Jake put his arm around the Frenchman’s shoulder. “Come on. We should fix your nose and get you a stiff drink.”
14
Mediterranean Sea
After spending a few hours at the meeting in Montserrat that morning, Carlos Gomez had informed his crew to prepare his yacht for departure. His crew was small but very efficient, immediately fueling the vessel upon entry to each port so they could set sail at a moment’s notice. They took on fuel, water and disposed of the waste simultaneously. Then they would replenish their food and alcohol supply. Most of this was waiting for them at the dock after placing the orders by satellite internet.
Gomez rarely stayed in the same place for more than a couple of days, and most of his ports were friendly harbors where he had business interests.
Now they were cruising slowly toward Palma de Majorca, the largest of the Spanish-controlled Balearic Archipelago. Gomez loved the city of Palma. It was always a bit warmer than other Spanish ports, and the women there were gorgeous.
He sat in his private lounge, having given his entire staff the evening off, and sipped on a fine single-malt Scotch and smoked a Cuban.
Before leaving Barcelona, he had taken on one guest passenger, General Tom Graves, the man he had sent to recruit Jake Adams.
The general came into the lounge wearing a pair of khakis and a polo shirt. Feeling right at home, he poured himself a Scotch and lifted the glass toward Gomez before taking a long sip.
“Would you like a Cuban, general,” Gomez asked.
General Graves laughed. “Afraid not, Carlos. I spent my entire adult life fighting communist bastards. No matter how good they might be, I won’t give those idiots the satisfaction of my own pleasure.”
“Understood. Then have a Dominican from the guilt-free box next to the Cubans.”
The general did just that, cutting the end and lighting up the cigar, bringing the end to a bright orange and sending spoke to the overhead. Then the general took a seat across from Gomez.
The billionaire was used to having guests, but none with the general’s background. Gomez had read that the general spent the bulk of his adult life in the American Air Force working human intelligence across the globe. Graves was the perfect man to have on his side, especially with his contacts in the U.S. military and intelligence community. Money was important, but influence that came with that more was supreme.