End of Enemies

by Grant Blackwood

Bonnie walked up to the meat case where Charlie was scrutinizing a package.

  “This is a good deal, huh?” he asked.

  “Charlie, that’s rump.”

  “So?”

  “We’re making stew. We need stew meat.”

  “Oh.”

  Latham’s cell phone buzzed; he mouthed Sorry to Bonnie and answered. “Charlie Latham.”

  “Charlie, it’s Paul. Your Shin Bet guy just called. He wants you to call him on a secure line. He sounded pretty excited.”

  “Okay. You’ll have to come pick me up … the Fresh-Rite on Burton.” He hung up and handed Bonnie the car keys. She frowned at him. “Sorry, hon. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  “I’ve heard that before. I’ll keep the stew warm.”

  Latham went straight to his office and dialed Avi Haron’s number in Tel Aviv. He glanced at his watch: almost ten at night in Israel.

  “Avi, it’s Charlie. What’s up?”

  “You remember the three men in the Khartoum photo?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’ve tracked the European. He’s moving.”

  Latham was momentarily confused at Haron’s phrase, “the European,” then he remembered the Israeli’s photo only clearly showed Fayyad; to them, Vorsalov was an unknown. The third man, the other Arab, was still a mystery to everyone.

  “You could’ve told me you were tracking them,” Latham said.

  “Be thankful I’m calling you at all.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. What about the other Arab?”

  “No luck there.”

  “Where’s the European going?”

  “Larnaca, Cyprus. He’s booked on the noon flight from Aswan.”

  Latham jotted down the particulars. “What’s your stake here, Avi? I mean—”

  “Do we plan to intercept him? I doubt it. This is Institute information; if they hadn’t wanted it passed along, I would have never heard about it.”

  That made sense, but it wasn’t like Mossad to be magnanimous. What was their agenda? “But you are tracking him.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know, or you can’t say?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie,” said Haron. “I’m surprised they gave us even this.”

  “Me too. I owe you, Avi, thanks.”

  Langley

  Within two hours, Latham, Coates, Sylvia Albrecht, and Art Stucky were sitting in Dick Mason’s office.

  Haron’s news was big. The primary question was, what to do with it? It was quickly agreed they must tag Vorsalov in Cyprus and keep him under surveillance for as long as possible. If they were lucky, he would lead them to Fayyad. To this end, Coates proposed an unorthodox plan.

  “I’m pretty sure the FIS will go along,” he said. “They gave us the Vorsalov tip in the first place.”

  “We have no assets in place that could handle it?” Mason asked.

  “Not by tomorrow,” said Coates. “But I’m sure the Russians do. If not directly, then through some locals. Cyprus was one the KGB’s favorites for years.”

  Mason looked at Latham. “Charlie?”

  “If we’re right about Vorsalov and Fayyad’s connection, we can’t afford to miss the chance. He’s moving, and we know where he’s going. That’s an advantage we don’t usually get.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. Okay, I’ll make the call. In the meantime, let’s get the ball rolling. George, get the op center staffed. If we’re able to tag Vorsalov, we’d better be ready to track him.”

  Fortunately for Mason, the director of the Russian FIS was an early riser. It was not quite dawn in Moscow when the call went through.

  Now, after twenty minutes of sparring, Valerei Ryazan was leaning Mason’s way. “What you ask, Richard … It is a difficult thing.”

  “But not impossible, Valerei.”

  “We have no assets in Cyprus.”

  “But you have connections.”

  The Russian chuckled. “Perhaps. What would you have us do?”

  “Just trail him, find out who he’s meeting, where he’s headed. We’re looking for a possible link.”

  “To what?”

  “The Delta bombing.”

  “I see. I assume you know we want him as well. It would be much easier for us to simply take him.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Mason.

  “We could pass along any information we get from him—”

  “No good, Valerei. If you take him out of the loop, the rest of the operation—whatever he’s got brewing—would collapse.”

  “Da, that is possible. Tell me, Richard, if you were in my place … if you had the chance to capture Vorsalov, you would not hesitate.”

  “No. He’s wanted for murder here. He’s still on the FBI’s hit parade.”

  “Oh, yes, the young agent,” Ryazan murmured. “A terrible thing.”

  “Add that to the bombing, and Vorsalov’s body count for U.S. citizens is six.”

  “I can count, Richard.” Ryazan was silent for a few moments. “And in return for our cooperation?”

  “You would have my thanks.”

  “I will require more.”

  “Such as?”

  “If you come to possess Colonel Vorsalov, he will be returned to us in a timely fashion.”

  “Define timely.”

  “Five years.”

  “Valerei, he’d get life in prison for the agent’s murder alone. Besides, I don’t have the authority to—”

  “Oh, Richard. You have the authority. Just as I have the authority to do this highly irregular favor for you.”

  Checkmate, thought Mason. By first tipping them off to Vorsalov’s Khartoum meeting and then by ignoring a chance to capture him, Ryazan was taking a big risk. Though the name had changed, the FIS was no less vengeful than its predecessor when it came to dealing with traitors, especially ones like Vorsalov, whose many clients included guerillas in Chechniya and Kazikstan.

  Mason considered the deal. Either way he went, they lost something. Justice for a decade-old murder or capturing those responsible for the Delta bombing?

  “Deal,” Mason said.

  22

  Larnaca, Cyprus

  Kemal and Panos were unlikely partners. Kemal, a Turkish Cypriot, and Panos, a Greek Cypriot, had once been enemies and had in fact anonymously exchanged Molotov cocktails across Nicosia’s Attila Line in 1981, six years after the failed Colonels Coup sundered the country.

  While burdensome for the average Turk or Greek, this decades-old conflict makes Cyprus a paradise for terrorists and criminals, both of whom find life easy as the military and the police are focused on the ever-present threat of civil war.

  Each mistaking the other for a compatriot, Kemal and Panos met in a Nicosia pub and by the time they discovered they were enemies, they were both thoroughly drunk and had realized they shared a passion stronger than their hatred.

  And so, almost ten years after their first meeting, they were still in business, having graduated from pickpocketing to robbery and murder. Unknown to them, one of their frequent employers in the early eighties was the KGB. Sometimes it was a burglary, sometimes a murder, and sometimes, like today, they were simply to follow the man and gather information.

  After spotting the target at the Larnaca airport, they followed him into the city proper. When the taxi took its third turn in as many minutes—this time toward the Acropolis—Kemal pushed their rickety yellow Renault to maintain the 200-yard gap.

  “No ordinary tourist, this one,” said Panos. “He’s acting like he knows he’s being followed.”

  “The driver is conning him,” said Kemal. “Taking him for a ride.”

  “We’ll see.” Though neither of them were NASA material, Panos was the sharper of the two, Kemal the tougher.

  The taxi wound its way through Larnaca for another twenty minutes before swinging back onto Grigoris. “He’s heading for the mar
ina,” said Panos.

  As the taxi turned right past the Swedish Consulate, Panos said, “Keep going, keep going! We’ll catch him coming the other way.”

  Kemal frowned, confused. “But—”

  “Just do as I say! Go around the post office.”

  Three quick right turns brought them to the waterfront. They pulled to the curb just as the man was paying off the taxi.

  Panos studied the man. Something about the face bothered him. The eyes. That was it. They were a flat, expressionless blue. Panos had seen such eyes in other men, and they were usually men best left alone.

  The man walked into the green-bricked ferry office.

  “Wait here,” said Panos, climbing from the car. He returned five minutes later. “He bought a ticket for the Beirut ferry.”

  “Beirut?” Kemal said. “Stephan said nothing about Beirut. What do we do?”

  “We follow him.”

  “To Beirut? Stephan said nothing about Beirut. Why are we—”

  “Kemal, just do as I ask. If we don’t follow him, we don’t get paid. Go park the car, and I’ll get the tickets.”

  Panos and Kemal boarded just before departure, found the man sitting on the bow deck, then climbed to the upper deck where they could watch him. Panos took the first shift and sent Kemal down to the car deck to wait.

  Two hours after leaving Larnaca, the man still hadn’t moved. He sat reading a magazine and watching the ocean. Panos was about to slip away to the bathroom when another man came strolling along the deck.

  This one was an Arab, with a handlebar moustache and a newspaper tucked under one arm. He lit a cigarette, then turned and gestured to the bench. The man shrugged, and the Arab sat. After a few minutes, the Arab laid the newspaper on the bench, tossed his cigarette, and left.

  Panos kept his eyes on the target. Finally the man stood up, slipped the newspaper under his arm, and walked aft.

  As the sun dipped toward the horizon, Beirut’s skyline rose from the horizon. Panos could see the city’s artillery-scarred buildings jutting from the landscape like denuded trees on a battlefield.

  He’d followed the man to the rest room, where he entered a stall, remained inside for five minutes, then emerged without the newspaper. Panos found it behind the toilet stool; a section had been torn from an inside page.

  Panos met Kemal where they could watch the passengers disembark. “Are we going to follow them into the city?” Kemal asked.

  “No.” Stephan could not pay them enough for that. “There is one more ferry going back tonight; we’ll follow if he takes it.”

  As night fell, the ferry nudged alongside the pier. The mooring lines were secured to the bollards, and the gangway was lowered. Under the glare of spotlights, Lebanese Forces jeeps patrolled the marina, and at the head of the quay stood a roadblock of armored personnel carriers.

  Panos could see lights winking in the foothills, followed seconds later by a crump crump crump. Artillery, he thought. The fighting could be between any of the dozens of factions in the city. What a horrible place. The skirmishes along Cyprus’s Attila Line could be fierce, but never like this. In Nicosia it was Turk against Greek; Greek against Turk. Here it was everyone against everyone.

  “There, is that him?” Kemal asked.

  Panos looked. The Arab was among the first off the gangway and into the customs building. He came out the other side, walked through the blockade, and climbed into a waiting blue Volvo.

  The target followed ten minutes later. A second Volvo, this one gray, was waiting for him at the head of the quay. As he approached, an Arab climbed from the front seat and held open the door.

  “Bodyguards,” Panos murmured.

  The Volvo sped away and disappeared into the night.

  Beirut

  Yuri Vorsalov hated Lebanon. He hated its smell, its sounds, the grime it left on his skin. But most of all, he hated its ceaseless violence.

  His twenty-two years in the KGB had taught him the value of violence. But, like any tool, violence is best applied with discipline. With its ancient hatreds, ridiculous factions, and never-ending wars, Beirut was a cesspool of base savagery. Any idiot can throw a grenade. It takes vision to apply violence as a means to an end.

  Early in his career Vorsalov had urged Moscow to take a more active role in the Mideast The average Arab nation was too entrenched in tribalism and internecine warfare to understand, let alone formulate, cohesive long-term strategies, he’d argued. Pan-Arabism was a pipe dream. Alas, his assessments were overtaken by history as the fifties saw the United States rallying behind Israel. Domination, the Kremlin decided, would best be achieved through the slow and steady spread of communism. Patience, they said. America hadn’t the stomach for a protracted nuclear stalemate. A good joke, Vorsalov thought. Now, instead of ruling the world, Mother Russia struggled to feed her people.

  And I am a hired gun. Vorsalov knew why he’d been summoned, of course. Al-Baz’s little project was going badly. Vorsalov was unsurprised. The entire operation was ill-advised lunacy.

  The Arab in the passenger seat handed him a hood. “Put this on.”

  “Why?”

  “You must not see where we are going.”

  “Then I won’t watch,” Vorsalov said with a smile.

  The car screeched to a halt. “You will put this on. Now.”

  Vorsalov sighed. “God-cursed theatrics.” He took the hood and slipped it over his head.

  He felt the car lurch from side to side as the driver negotiated the rubble-strewn streets. Whether they were trying to disorient him or were simply avoiding craters, he did not know, but after another five minutes, they pulled to a stop.

  His door opened. He was helped out and led down some steps. The air smelled damp and musty. He heard the squeal of rats. He was led up another flight of steps, then right. They stopped. He was guided to a chair. Through the hood’s weave he could see flickering candlelight.

  “You may remove the hood.”

  Vorsalov did so. Against the far wall stood a guard armed with an AK-47. Seated across from him was Mustafa al-Baz and a hooded man in battle fatigues. This was the leader, Vorsalov assumed, one of Khatib’s sleepers. Probably aged fifty to sixty, average height and weight, physically unremarkable. This was always the case with the best terrorists. They were, in CIA franca lingua, gray men.

  Sitting on the table were a pitcher of water and a bowl of bean curd. The hooded man gestured. “Please eat and drink if you would like.”

  Vorsalov poured a glass of water, took a sip, and set it aside. He was ravenously thirsty, but he knew this was a test. The Arabs enjoyed tests of character. They knew he was disoriented and thirsty, and how he conducted himself even in the simple act of drinking was telling.

  He folded his hands on the table and waited.

  After a long five seconds, the hooded man said, “Your trip was safe, I trust? Our precautions did not inconvenience you?”

  “Such measures are often necessary. I would expect nothing less from a man such as yourself.”

  “What do you know of me?”

  “Nothing aside from the general’s praise.”

  “I see.”

  “The general thought I might be of assistance to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “In what fashion?”

  The hooded man gestured to al-Baz, who said, “We are having complications. The matter we discussed in Khartoum.”

  Of course you are, you idiots, Vorsalov thought.

  “We feel our man on the scene may be … unreliable.”

  “Explain.” Al-Baz did so, and Vorsalov said, “You believe he has genuine feelings for this woman?”

  “Who can say? It’s almost certain he doesn’t have the stomach to do what is necessary.”

  Vorsalov understood. They wanted to increase the pressure on the target, and Fayyad was balking. “A difficult situation,” he agreed. “But I’m not sure what I can do for you.”
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  “We want you to go to Washington and take command.”

  “What?” Vorsalov blurted before he could catch himself. “That’s impossible.”

  “How so?” asked the hooded man.

  “I’m known there. Their federal police want me.”

  “That is not my concern. The general has guaranteed your cooperation.”

  “I don’t believe that. He knows I am a face there. He would never—”

  “As I understand it, you are under contractual obligation, are you not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “General al-Khatib has loaned you to us.”

  “I am not some piece of livestock—”

  “Enough!” the hooded man barked. “You will help us. You will go to Washington. You will take command of our operation. And you will get us the information we need.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  The hooded man’s eyes blinked once. “That would be unwise.”

  He means it, Vorsalov thought. If he failed to cooperate, any number of fates awaited him: extradition to Russia, imprisonment, death. At best, he could never return to the Mideast, and with most of the major intelligence agencies hunting for him, the world would become a very small place indeed. What in God’s name was driving this operation of theirs?

  “For your cooperation,” the hooded man continued, “you will receive compensation in two forms: One, your obligation to General al-Khatib will be fulfilled. And two, a bonus of five hundred thousand dollars will be posted to your account at Bank Grunewald in Vienna.” He slid a piece of paper across the table. “This is the account number, yes?”

  Five hundred thousand! Vorsalov forced himself to remain calm. “Yes, it is correct. But the amount is—”

  “Nonnegotiable. Can I assume you accept?”

  “It seems I have little choice.”

  “None at all.” The hooded man stood up. “Mustafa will provide you with the details.” He walked to the door, then turned. “One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “If you fail, you will receive no money, and you will find yourself without friends. Do you understand my meaning?”

  “I understand,” said Vorsalov. “Now you must understand something: The target you’ve chosen is a prominent figure. To get the information you seek might require … harsh methods.”