by Ben Coes
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To Oscar,
the Navy SEAL of nine-year-old boys
I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh.
—DEUTERONOMY 32:42
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Ben Coes
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
UPPER PHILLIMORE GARDENS
KENSINGTON
LONDON, UK
ONE WEEK AGO
“I don’t know.”
The three words Amit Bhutta, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, had repeated for the past day and a half, three words that Dewey listened to with a blank look on his face. It was, by his rough count, approximately the thousandth time Bhutta had said them.
He and Tacoma had been taking turns interrogating Bhutta. Two hours on, two off. They had a distinctly different style. Tacoma, the former SEAL, was less patient. Bhutta’s bloody face showed the practical implications of that impatience. Dewey assumed it was Tacoma’s youth that made him slap the Iranian around. Not that he cared. But his style was different. With Bhutta, Dewey felt that screwing with his head had a better shot at getting them the information they needed. That and not feeding or giving Bhutta anything to drink.
The interrogation room was located in the basement of Rolf Borchardt’s mansion in Kensington. The room was soundproof and windowless. At the center of the room, a steel table was bolted to the wooden floor. Behind it was a steel chair, also bolted down. The table had wet blood on it, not for the first time.
A lamp in the corner provided the only light.
Bhutta was stooped over, leaning forward, his cheek pressed against the steel table. His left eye was shut, black and blue.
The heat inside the room was cranked up. Both men were sweating, but Bhutta, with his wrists shackled behind his back—and the muzzle of Dewey’s Colt M1911 aimed at his head—was sweating a little more.
It had been a week since Dewey infiltrated Iran and stole the country’s first nuclear device. Dewey’s disguise, his overgrown beard and moustache, were gone now. His face was clean-shaven, his hair was cut to a medium length.
When Dewey asked to borrow a pair of scissors to cut it himself, Borchardt insisted on taking him to a Belgrave Road stylist. Now Dewey looked like a model, ripped from the advertising pages of Vanity Fair, though the savageness which the professional photographers endeavored to manufacture in their models was, on Dewey, real. His unruly brown hair was combed back; his eyes were bright, cold, and blue; his large nose was sharp and aquiline, despite the fact that it had been busted on two separate occasions. Dewey didn’t think about his looks. Truth be told, he didn’t like the way he looked. He didn’t like attention. Dewey preferred blending in, remaining anonymous. Today, with no stubble on his face, a tan, and a $450 haircut, it was not hard to see why the thirty-nine-year-old American could still turn heads.
Yet, as Bhutta had learned over thirty-six hours of interrogation, there lurked something beneath the attractive veneer of the kid from Castine, Maine. It was a toughness, a coldness, an anger deep inside. Most who knew Dewey Andreas thought that anger had been forged by the long, bitter winters of his youth along the Maine coast, or on the unforgiving football fields of Boston College, or still later, during Ranger school, or in the otherworldly trials that separated warriors from mere men called 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta—along with the Navy SEALs, America’s most fearsome Special Forces soldiers.
Only Dewey knew it was none of the above, that what had hardened him was the morning he’d watched his six-year-old son die of leukemia so long ago. That was what made him, when necessary, ruthless. It was also what kept Dewey, in the innermost part of his being, just, fair, flawed, and vulnerable—human.
Even Bhutta could see the toughness now, as he stared at the American. It was the same meanness and detachment that had probably coursed in the blood of the men who so long ago had kicked the crap out of the British, a determination that, to the Iranian’s mind at least, was as defeating as anything he’d ever experienced.
“What’s his name?” asked Dewey.
“I told you, I don’t know. He’s China’s asset.”
Dewey was seated in a beat-up, torn leather club chair. He had his right leg draped over the right arm.
“What’s his name?”
“Fuck you.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ambassador Bhutta, we can do this all night.”
“I don’t know, asshole.”
Dewey smiled.
“Language,” said Dewey.
“Fuck you.”
“If your mother could hear you swearing, she’d be really fucking pissed.”
Bhutta’s mouth flared slightly, nearly a smile.
“You laughed.”
“Fuck you,” Bhutta wh
ispered. “You’re not funny.”
“Then why’d you laugh?”
“I wasn’t laughing.”
“Okay, I have one for you,” said Dewey. “What do you do if an Iranian throws a pin at you?”
Bhutta paused, then finally relented.
“What?” he asked.
“Run like hell.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s got a grenade between his teeth.”
Bhutta laughed.
“You’re worse than the other guy,” whispered Bhutta, shaking his head. “That’s stupid. Just beat the shit out of me, will you?”
Dewey laughed, then pumped the trigger on his .45. The bullet struck Bhutta’s right kneecap, blowing it to shreds. Blood sprayed onto the wall. Bhutta screamed, lurching against the chair, pulling at the shackles.
“Jesus, I didn’t think it would hurt that much,” said Dewey.
Bhutta turned and looked at Dewey, a horrible grimace on his face. His knee was bleeding profusely.
“I don’t know his name! How would I know China has a mole inside Mossad?”
Dewey ran his fingers back through his hair.
“Here’s the deal,” said Dewey, wiping the muzzle of the gun on his jeans. “You can either tell me the name of the mole, or you can tell Menachem Dayan and those nice fellas at the madhouse. I have a feeling their jokes aren’t going to be as funny as mine. Also, they’ll kill you. After they dunk your head in water a few hundred times.”
Bhutta screamed again.
“You tell me the name, and the only one who gets hurt is the mole,” Dewey said. “You go free. We can arrange some sort of relocation program inside the United States. Some sunny state.”
Bhutta’s face was pale and drenched in sweat.
“What about my daughter?” asked Bhutta, tears streaming down his face.
“Her too.”
“What about my knee?” asked Bhutta, in agony.
“It can go too.”
“Fuck you!” Bhutta howled. “You know what I mean.”
Dewey sat up and aimed the gun.
“No, not again. I want something in writing. An affidavit from the CIA or the Justice Department.”
“Not going to happen. If you want me to choose between shooting your kneecap off or calling some lawyer at Langley and explaining why I haven’t already dumped you off to the Israelis like I was supposed to, all I can say is, that ain’t gonna fuckin’ happen.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“Yeah, I am,” said Dewey. “But if I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. Tell me the name of China’s spy inside Mossad.”
“Fuck you.”
Dewey stood up, then chambered another round. He aimed the gun at Bhutta’s left knee.
“No!” Bhutta screamed. He looked at Dewey. “Dillman. His name is Dillman. That’s all I know. Tell me you won’t fuck me over.”
Dewey stuck the Colt M1911 in his shoulder holster and walked to the door.
“I never break a promise.”
Dewey walked down the hallway and pulled out his cell.
“Get me Menachem Dayan,” he said into the phone as he walked upstairs.
A moment later, Dewey heard the raspy cough of Israel’s top military commander, General Menachem Dayan.
“Hello, Dewey.”
“I finished interrogating Bhutta,” Dewey said. “I know the name of China’s mole inside Mossad.”
“Who is it?” asked Dayan.
“I want your word, General,” said Dewey. “Kohl Meir gets to put the bullet in him. Then he’s buried.”
“You have my word.”
“His name’s Dillman.”
1
MOSSAD SPECIAL UNIT, AKA “THE MADHOUSE”
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
Dayan stepped into Fritz Lavine’s sixth-floor corner office, which overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, the U.S. embassy, and downtown Tel Aviv. Lavine was the director general of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. He was a tall, rotund man with receding brown hair and big ruddy cheeks pockmarked with acne scars. Dressed in a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up, he stood behind his desk, inspecting a sheet of paper. Two men were seated in chairs in front of Lavine’s desk: Cooperman, Mossad chief of staff; and Rolber, head of clandestine operations.
All three turned as Dayan entered, slamming the door behind him.
“What the fuck happened?” asked Dayan as he crossed the office, his voice deep, charred by decades’ worth of cigarettes. “How many years did you three work with this son of a bitch traitor and you never suspected a goddamn thing?”
“There’ll be plenty of time for blame, Menachem,” said Lavine, icily. “Right now, we need to find this motherfucker and put a bullet in his head before he does any more damage and before he escapes.”
“What is the damage?”
“It’s extensive,” said Cooperman. “So far, we can trace the exposure of at least sixteen MI6 and CIA operatives back to Dillman. As for Mossad, the number appears to be seven dead agents.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dayan whispered, looking in disbelief at Cooperman.
“TGI succeeded in rebuilding Dillman’s digital biograph, correspondence, you name it,” said Lavine angrily, throwing the paper down on his desk. “He gave the Chinese everything. Every Far East operation we conducted over the past decade was known ahead of time by Fao Bhang and the ministry. Their knowledge was so extensive that it appears they even tolerated certain activities inside China so as not to raise suspicion. Dillman passed on detailed aspects of anything Langley supplied to us. This includes nuclear infrastructure.”
Dayan walked to the glass and looked for a few brief seconds toward the U.S. embassy.
“Have we notified Calibrisi?” asked Dayan, referring to the CIA director, Hector Calibrisi.
Lavine nodded. “Chalmers too,” he added, referring to Derek Chalmers, head of MI6.
“And what was the reaction?” asked Dayan.
Lavine stared back at Dayan but remained silent. He didn’t need to say anything. They all knew Dillman had set all three agencies back years, decades even, and that both London and Langley would be extremely angry.
Dayan shook his head. He sat down in one of the chairs in front of Lavine’s desk.
“Where is he?” asked Dayan, calmer now, his hand rubbing the bridge of his nose, eyes closed.
“We don’t know,” said Rolber. “We’re looking, carefully. If he suspects anything, he’ll run.”
“If he goes to China, we’ll never see him again,” said Dayan.
The phone on Lavine’s desk chimed, then a voice came on the speaker.
“Director, they’re waiting for you.”
“Patch us in.”
The phone clicked.
“Hector?” asked Lavine.
“Hey, Fritz,” said Calibrisi on speaker. “You have me and Bill Polk here at Langley along with Piper Redgrave and Jim Bruckheimer at NSA.”
“MI6 is on also,” said Derek Chalmers, in a British accent. “Where are we on this?”
“We have nothing,” said Lavine. “We’re looking everywhere. Last contact with the agency was two days ago. General Redgrave, has NSA developed anything?”
“No,” came the female voice of the head of the National Security Agency. “And to be honest, I’m not going to start using NSA assets on Dillman, or on anything else, until we make damn sure our systems and protocols haven’t been contaminated by this mole. If the Chinese are inside NSA, we have bigger problems than Dillman.”
“What’s the plan if and when we do find him?” asked Calibrisi.
“We have three options,” said Rolber. “One—we watch him, use him, plot an architecture of disinformation back into Beijing. Two—we bring him in, interrogate him, then let him rot. Three—termination.”
“Why not two and three?” asked Calibrisi. “Grill him then kill him.”
“If we bring him in, China will find out, Hector,” said Cooperman. “Ther
e has to be some form of check-in and tip-off. If he misses that check-in, Fao Bhang will immediately try to exfiltrate him, or, more likely, just kill him.”
“Then Bhang will move on Western assets before we have time to clean up inside the theater,” said Chalmers. “Every MI6, CIA, Mossad agent in China will die, not to mention anyone else Dillman has exposed. It will be a bloody mess.”
“It already is a bloody mess,” said Dayan.
“So what about option one?” asked Calibrisi. “What would the design look like?”
“We locate him then hang back,” answered Rolber, “carefully monitor his movements, and tightly control information flow to him. In the meantime, we put our assets in the Chinese theater on high alert and prepare for exfiltration. When Dillman is no longer useful to us, or he suspects something, we bring out our teams, then bring him in. We can shoot him later.”
“Fuck that,” yelled Dayan, hitting the desk with his hand. “We’re not waiting. Dillman dies right now. Period, end of statement. If I have to do it myself in downtown Shanghai with a dull butter knife, this motherfucker dies.”
“Dillman is just a symptom, General,” said Calibrisi. “It’s Fao Bhang who’s behind it all.”
“Then let’s kill that son of a bitch too.”
“Nothing would please me more, but we’ve never had a shot at him,” said Calibrisi. “Bhang doesn’t travel outside the People’s Republic of China. He hasn’t been seen in the West since 1998. Inside PRC, forget it. He’s as well guarded as the premier.”
“Let’s cut our losses and kill Dillman,” said Dayan. “I’m not a fan of fancy intelligence operations—double agents, disinformation, whatnot. They never work. We’re seeing firsthand how they get all fucked up. It’s time to clean up this mess and tie it off. As for Bhang, we’re wasting our time. The man’s a ghost. Let’s focus on what we can do, namely kill what has to be the most important intelligence asset Bhang possesses in the West. That’s at least something.”
“I have an idea,” said Chalmers.
“Go ahead, Derek,” said Lavine, picking up an unlit cigar stub from his desk and sticking it in his mouth, then looking at Dayan.
“Even before this Dillman episode, Fao Bhang has done damage to all of us. Bhang and the ministry are a country unto themselves. He’s the third-highest ranking member of the Chinese State Council, but he’s the most powerful by far. Premier Li fears him, as does the country’s military. His tentacles extend into China’s economic affairs. He’s been an instrumental part of the currency manipulation that has plagued Britain and, on a much more dramatic scale, the United States, for years. For all I know, his hackers are listening in right now.”