Catching her confused expression, Bennett explained. “High-value targets. Senior al-Qaeda leaders. Anyway, Anaconda was a huge endeavor, involving more than two thousand soldiers from 10th Mountain and the 101st Airborne. The Rangers were in on it, too, along with a bunch of SF. The big push was to come on March second. Two days beforehand, reconnaissance units were sent in to the valley to set up observation posts, what we called OPs.”
“And you were in one of those units?”
He nodded. “Mako 31. Our goal was to reach what we called the Finger—a ridgeline extending into the southern half of the valley, eleven thousand feet of razor-sharp rock. It was a two-day, seven-mile climb through knee-deep snow just to get to the top, but when we did, we got the surprise of a lifetime. Two men on a DShK machine gun, Soviet-made, with more than two thousand rounds. They had everything: a heated tent, fuel, food, plenty of small arms. They were in perfect position to ambush the Chinooks coming through the next day. So we called it in to AFO—that’s Advanced Force Operations—and the decision was made to take them out.”
“But something went wrong?”
“It was a complete disaster,” Bennett said cheerfully. “There were six men in Mako 31: three guys from SEAL Team 6, one of whom was the commander, a Navy explosives expert, Kealey, and me. Everyone knew Kealey was with the Agency, but he’d been in-country from the start, so when he asked to come along, no one really complained. One guy threw up a few objections, but Kealey was in tight with the head of AFO, a guy he knew from Delta, so he got the okay. His presence in the Shahikot was never recorded.”
Bennett paused to take another sip of coffee. “Anyway, the commander sent the other two SEALs over the ridge to take a closer look. Everything went fine. Then, just after four a.m., one of the fighters went looking for a place to piss, and he stumbled onto our position. He ran back to the tent, screaming his head off. The two SEALs on watch got over the ridge and fired on the enemy encampment, but their weapons jammed after the first couple of rounds. It was just one of those things. They cleared them as fast as they could, but the bad guys were already alerted. They pulled the tarp off the DShK and started to turn it around, but Kealey shot the guy loading the gun, then the gunner himself. He caught a bullet himself for his trouble.”
“Unbelievable,” Naomi breathed. She looked out the window. Ryan was still on the phone, his back to the Range Rover. “What happened then?”
“The SEALs managed to clear their weapons and started to engage. The commander grabbed Kealey and pulled him to cover while I called in our air support. The gunners on board laced the mountain with 105mm rounds. There wasn’t much left of the enemy when it was over, I can tell you that.”
“And Ryan?”
“He let one of the SEALs patch him up, but he refused an evac. He hung on for the duration.” Bennett fell silent for a moment, then let out a laugh. “You know the funny thing?”
“What’s that?” Naomi asked.
“The only guy who objected to Kealey joining Mako 31 was an army colonel, the commander of Task Force Rakkasan. He was scheduled to be on board the lead Chinook coming through the pass the very next day. If we hadn’t taken out that machine gun, he probably would have been shot to pieces, along with most of his men.”
Naomi fell back in her seat, taking it in. It was an amazing story, but before she could consider it further, Ryan was back at the vehicle, pulling open the front door. He handed the phone to Bennett as he climbed in. Looking between them, he seemed to sense that something had transpired while he was out of the vehicle, but he let it pass. “Let’s go.”
The drive into the city took forty minutes; the traffic slowed to a near halt on the A111. Kealey used the time to question Bennett thoroughly, and what he learned was not encouraging. The former Air Force sergeant didn’t have the rank to allocate resources, and his other responsibilities had kept him occupied for most of the day, which meant that Rühmann’s residence in Berlin had gone unwatched for hours on end. The lack of surveillance prompted Kealey to ask the obvious question.
“How do you even know he’s there?”
“I checked three times this afternoon,” Bennett replied. “The name he’s been using in Berlin—Walter Schäuble—is listed on the buzzer at the front door. Rühmann has the penthouse, and the lights have been on all day. I also ran a discreet check through the TÜV…That’s the agency that carries out safety inspections for vehicles registered in Germany. Under the Schäuble identity, Rühmann owns a Mercedes CLK coupe. The car wasn’t parked in the street the first time I looked, but it was there when I passed the apartment later.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing,” Kealey said. “Maybe he has an assistant. Rühmann might not even be in the country.”
“If that’s the case, wouldn’t the assistant be traveling with him?” Naomi put in.
“Maybe…” Kealey fell silent, thinking it through. “We’ll just have to look and see.”
Bennett swung the Range Rover onto the Friedrichstrasse and followed it down to the river. Even seen through the curtains of rain, the black water shone with multicolored lights, most of which spilled from the immense blocks of flats on the south bank. A few houseboats were moored near the Reichstag, where the Luisenstrasse crossed the Spree. To their left, a towering pinnacle of light marked the TV Tower in the Alexanderplatz. Naomi gazed through her window, admiring the view for as long as possible. Then Bennett turned onto a narrow street just south of the river, and the squat buildings looming over the sidewalk replaced the luminous skyline. A few seconds later the vehicle started to slow.
“That’s it,” the ops officer said. They followed his gaze immediately.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Kealey remarked. “Rühmann knows how to keep a low profile.”
“Yeah, he’s smarter than most of his peers,” Bennett agreed. He started to put his foot on the brake, but Kealey said, “No, keep going to the end of the street. We’ll park there.”
Bennett nodded. As they approached the intersection, he found a spot near the curb and pulled in.
“What do you have for weapons?” Kealey asked.
Bennett pulled back his jacket to reveal the butt of a Browning Hi-Power. Then he turned and said, “See those cases next to you, Kharmai? Hand one of them up, will you?”
She did as he asked. Following Kealey’s lead, she opened the other. It contained a field-stripped Beretta Tomcat. She stared at the pieces for a long moment, trying to remember the weaponry course she’d taken at Camp Peary five years earlier. It took her two minutes longer than necessary, but she finally managed to put the .32 caliber pistol together. Dry firing it once, she heard a satisfying click. Then she slipped a 7-round magazine into the butt and chambered a round.
The other case contained a Sig P229, the standard-issue weapon of the U.S. Secret Service. This one happened to be chambered for 9mm rounds. Kharmai paused to watch Kealey put the weapon together. She had handed him a case at random, and she couldn’t help but wonder what his reaction would have been if he had ended up with the smaller gun. She didn’t think he’d care that much, but she knew that men could be surprisingly superficial about such things.
Bennett looked uneasy. “You know, I’m not supposed to have those weapons in-country. They’re not registered with the embassy. If anything happens—”
“I don’t think we’ll need them,” Kealey cut in. “But I’m not going in there unarmed.”
“You’ll try to keep this clean?”
“If I can. It’s up to Rühmann.”
“Well, that’s the other thing.” Bennett shot him a curious look. “How do you plan on handling this?”
“I assume Harper briefed you over the phone.”
“He did.”
“Then you know why I’m here. All I want is Vanderveen’s location.”
“And the weapons,” Naomi reminded him. “We need to know who was ultimately taking possession at those ports in the Middle East.”
“Right,” Bennett said.
“But then what? You can’t leave him alive. He’ll be on the phone before we leave the building.”
Kealey’s face turned hard. “I realize that. Let’s just get up there and see what he has to say. I’ll figure out what to do after that.”
Bennett shook his head, but he pushed open the door and stepped into the rain. Kealey and Kharmai concealed their weapons and followed his lead. They moved at a quick pace down the flooded sidewalk, reaching the entrance to Reichstagufer 19 a moment later. Bennett punched a button at random, and a voice came over the intercom. “Yes?”
Bennett looked at a loss. Kharmai pushed him aside, scanned the list, and hit the same button. In rapid, exasperated German, she said, “Delivery for 4B. I’m not getting an answer, and I have other stops to make. Do you mind?”
A few seconds later, the door sprung open, and they stepped inside.
On the other side of the road, 20 meters west of the doorway, Yasmin Raseen watched them enter the building. She was sitting in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, the engine on, the heater running at full capacity. She was clearly visible to cars passing by in the road, but that was intentional; she wanted to appear like she was waiting for someone. A magazine was sitting on the passenger seat, the German edition of Vogue. She pushed it aside to reveal the Motorola radio, then pressed the TRANSMIT button. The earpiece was already in position, the wire concealed beneath her hair. “They’re here. Two men and a woman. They just entered the building.”
At that moment, Vanderveen was on the north side of the river, lying prone on the gravel roof of a four-story apartment building. The shooting mat was tucked beneath his body, the olive drab poncho draped over his back. The rain was beating against his back so hard it nearly hurt, and the cold had numbed his exposed skin hours earlier. The weapon that lay before him, the barrel propped up by an integral folding bipod, was a Steyr Scout Tactical with a 5-round box magazine. Through the preinstalled Kahles ZF95 mil-dot scope, he had an excellent view of Rühmann’s brightly lit office, which was not more than 100 meters away, on the far bank of the Spree. As soon as Raseen’s transmission came over the radio, he lowered the stock and returned the call.
“Give it a minute; then get inside.” Raseen had taken the caretaker’s key; she wouldn’t need to be buzzed in. “Stay in the foyer until I give you the word.”
There was a brief crackle of static, and then she acknowledged his words. Vanderveen lifted the rifle back to his shoulder and looked over the river with his naked eye. Under normal conditions, the Steyr Scout was a highly accurate weapon. In this case, however, it was practically useless, and it wasn’t because of the rain. He had picked up the weapon that same afternoon, which meant that he didn’t have time to acquire a zero. The dealer in Dresden had assured him the weapon was sighted in, but that didn’t mean a thing; zeros were different for each shooter.
Even with time to sight in, though, he would have needed to break the Steyr back down to get it up on the roof, as he couldn’t exactly be seen walking around with a fully assembled rifle. Either way, the weapon was less accurate than it was supposed to be, which explained why he wasn’t going to try to take Kealey on the street. He had considered the option, but 5 rounds didn’t leave much room for error, and Kealey was a world-class marksman in his own right. And there was another, more important factor at play: he had brought at least one other person along, the woman named Kharmai.
Vanderveen smiled to himself beneath the poncho. He had anticipated this possibility; in fact, he had anticipated everything. He was satisfied with his preparations, but there was something else, an undercurrent of pure adrenaline, that he couldn’t ignore. It seemed as though everything since Maine had led up to this moment, his chance to finish the work he’d started eight years earlier.
What was waiting for Kealey in Rühmann’s office was simple in concept and design, but extremely lethal in practice. The improvised device he had created was modeled after the M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel mine. Both cans were filled with hundreds of steel ball bearings, the open ends sealed with duct tape. Beneath the ball bearings were thick layers of cardboard, which would act as a buffer, and then the half-pound blocks of Semtex. Vanderveen had punched a hole in the bottom of each can, through which he’d routed the electrical blasting caps. The caps, in turn, were wired to separate 6-volt batteries, and from there to the clothespins.
The clothespins served as improvised detonators. Preparing them had been the trickiest part. He’d glued metal contact plates to each prong, then soldered the free ends of the wire to the plates. The prongs were now separated by nothing more than the glass panes of the windows in Rühmann’s office. All it would take was one round from the Steyr. The window would shatter, causing the prongs to close. This, in turn, would complete the circuit, firing the Semtex. The pressure wave would shatter every window in the room, setting off the second device and filling the office with nearly two thousand quarter-inch ball bearings, each moving at a speed in excess of 500 feet per second.
The design was less than perfect, owing in part to the time crunch. The angle left much to be desired—the shape of the cans would limit the dispersion of the projectiles—and the trap was largely dependent on the ricochet effect the brick walls would provide. Still, he felt sure it would work. Raseen would see that the ground floor was impassable; if Kealey and Kharmai weren’t shredded in Rühmann’s office, they’d burn on the stairs. As far as Vanderveen was concerned, both were acceptable outcomes.
There was nothing to do now but wait. Vanderveen adjusted the stock of the Steyr, pulling it into his shoulder. His right eye was an inch behind the glass, his finger tapping the trigger guard lightly.
Nothing to do but wait.
CHAPTER 40
BERLIN
Kealey was the first through the door. He took in the scene quickly: a cramped, dirty foyer; a bare bulb hanging overhead; the elevator on the far wall. Turning left, he spotted the staircase. He went up the stairs quickly, Kharmai behind him, Bennett taking up the rear. It took less than thirty seconds to make it up to the fourth-floor landing, where they were confronted with the first real obstacle.
The door was simple enough; what caught Kealey’s attention was the self-contained keyless entry system housed on the wall to the right. He examined it closely, then turned and looked up to the opposite wall, near the ceiling. A small Sony camera was mounted in the corner, aimed toward the door.
He turned to Bennett. “What do you think?”
The other man shrugged. “This isn’t my forte. I have no idea how you’re going to get in without the code.”
Kealey swore and looked back at the door, thinking it through. His lock picks were buried in Kharmai’s suitcase, but he didn’t see how they’d help much in this situation. Then something came to him. “There’s an elevator on the ground floor. Check it out, will you? See if we can get up that way.”
Bennett nodded and went down the stairs. Kharmai moved to examine the keypad. After a moment she looked up and smiled. “No problem.”
He looked at her incredulously. “What are you talking about?”
“Come here.” He leaned close as she pointed to some of the keys. “These aren’t strictly ‘keys,’ Ryan, because they’re not independent of each other. The whole thing is a single pad, with circuitry underneath. The problem with this kind of system is that the same buttons are heavily used, and that makes them distinctive. You see? The numbers on these three are starting to wear.”
Kealey followed her finger. On closer inspection, he saw what she was talking about. The 3, 7, and 9 keys were all worn down, the numbers starting to fade.
“They’re also darker than the others. That’s because of the oil on the user’s fingers. It takes a long time, but eventually, it leaves a kind of signature.”
“I won’t ask how you know that,” he said, shaking his head. “Where does this leave us?”
“Simple. I recognize this keypad…We had ones just like it on the interior doors at Grosvenor Square. It�
�s a four-digit code, but only three of the buttons are worn. In other words, one number is used twice.”
“Which number?”
She looked closely, her face barely an inch from the keypad. After a minute had passed, she said, “Nine. The 9 key looks a little darker then the other two.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head in frustration. “I’m not sure at all. But it’s my best guess, and that’s all I can give you.”
“So if you’re right, that leaves us with ten possible combinations.”
“Sounds right. No, wait…Make that twelve combinations.”
Kealey looked up at the camera. “That helps, but I think we’ve lost our biggest advantage. Rühmann already knows we’re here.”
“Maybe not. I don’t see any wires or conduit. Everything is behind the walls. That camera could be activated by the keypad, and we haven’t touched it yet.” She frowned. “Which could be a problem, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked worried. “This keypad is designed to deny access after three incorrect entries. If we get it wrong, we’ll never get in.”
Kealey paused to consider that. Bennett turned on the staircase a few seconds later, looking grim. “I checked the elevator,” he said. “Somebody broke the key off in the lock for the fifth floor.”
Kealey glanced at Naomi. He didn’t speak, but he knew they were thinking the same thing: somebody else had gotten to Rühmann first.
“I went outside to check the list again. The caretaker lives on the first floor, so I banged on her door. I was going to feed her some bullshit story, thinking maybe she’d give us the code, but no one answered.”
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