“Praise Allah,” Farrar responded with a rueful nod.
Sandor fixed him with a serious look. “At some point Sadiki will either cave in or louse up the details. Sudakov is going to find his way to your door.”
“Perhaps,” Farrar said, trying to sound less worried than he felt. “You’re the one he wants. By the time he gets to me you’ll be long gone and I will be of no consequence.”
Sandor stared deep into his friend’s ebony-colored eyes. “I hope you’re right, but remember that we took out three of his men. Sudakov is not the type to suffer that kind of loss without demanding payback.”
“Please, stop trying to cheer me up.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“I want you to stop worrying about me. I have many powerful allies here who will intercede on my behalf.”
Farrar’s cell phone rang and he took the call. He listened without speaking for what seemed a long time, then issued some instructions in his native language and rang off. When he looked up his expression told Sandor what he did not want to hear. “That was Malik. He could not get into your hotel.”
Sandor waited.
“He says the police are all over the place. The girl. They found her in your room. She is dead.”
CHAPTER FORTY
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
WHEN SANDOR LEFT Washington two days before, he told Deputy Director Byrnes that he would keep him apprised of where he was going. He had done that. He also assured him that he would let him know what was going on before the shooting started. On that score he had failed badly.
Byrnes knew that his agent was tracking a lead to Sharm el-Sheikh. Now his office was receiving intelligence reports from the station chief in Cairo about a violent incident on the Red Sea that might have involved men from the yacht Odessa, believed to be owned by the suspected narcotics dealer Roman Sudakov. Added to that was the murder of a young woman whose body was discovered, as a result of an anonymous tip to the local authorities, in a hotel room booked in the name of Jordan Sandor.
Byrnes’s attempts to reach Sandor had been unsuccessful so he called in Craig Raabe. He did not even give his agent time to sit down. “You have intel on Sandor’s contacts. I want you to reach out and let them know I expect to hear from him within the hour.”
Raabe did an about-face and returned to his office. Less than forty-five minutes later contact was made and the DD’s assistant put the call through.
Byrnes’s first question was “Are you secure?”
“I’m in Egypt,” Sandor replied.
“All right, what can you tell me that I need to know right now?”
“There’s another stop I have to make on the way home.”
“Do you want us to bring you in?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“What have you learned about our Russian friend?”
“Absolutely in the path of this thing.”
“I see. When will I have details?”
“Already en route to the usual recipient.”
“What about the murder of this young woman?”
There was silence for a moment. Then Sandor said, “It was completely unnecessary and I intend to do something about it when that opportunity presents itself.”
“What you need to do, Sandor, is your job.”
“Understood. I’ll handle this on my own time.”
“There’s no such thing, not for you.”
Sandor offered no response.
“I need you to stay in touch.”
“And I will,” Sandor said, then hung up.
Byrnes immediately summoned Raabe back to his office.
“Sandor was not in a position to communicate much, but he did indicate that information is already on its way. He’s passing it through you.”
“Yes sir.”
“Get it to me as soon as you have it.”
“Of course.”
“That’s all for now.” Then, before Raabe turned to go, Byrnes asked, “What happened with this young woman? Do we know yet?”
Raabe shook his head. “We’re still putting it together.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, EGYPT
WHEN SANDOR FINISHED the call with Byrnes he angrily broke the disposable cell phone into pieces and tossed the remains into the trash can beside Farrar’s desk.
“We’ve got to get you out of the country as soon as possible,” the Egyptian said. “I have friends among the police, but there are just as many on the force who will be counted among your enemies after the obligatory bribes are paid by Sudakov. We cannot take the chance of you being placed in jail.” He paused. “You will not survive,” he predicted with characteristic bluntness.
Sandor nodded his understanding. He had been operating on pure instinct since hearing about Lilli and, despite his visceral desire to storm Sudakov’s yacht, he knew Farrar was right.
They retrieved Sandor’s leather bag from the safe and, as the two men talked, Sandor changed into the clothes he had packed. Gray flat-front slacks, a black polo shirt, and black rubber-soled loafers. He had two more disposable cell phones, one for use in the United States, the other set for international calls. He reached into the bottom of the bag, separated a finely sewn Velcro strip, and pulled out three passports. He chose the one issued to Scott Kerr of the United Kingdom, bearing Sandor’s photo, then carefully replaced the other two. He pocketed two credit cards issued in the name of Scott Kerr, some of the cash hidden there—a small stack of euros—then resealed the lining.
While Sandor went about his business, Farrar made some calls to follow up on what Malik had told him.
Looking up, Sandor said, “Let’s have it.”
Farrar told him that a warrant had already been issued for Sandor’s arrest. He also had some details of the girl’s death. She was badly beaten—her face, arms and shoulders bore numerous contusions—and her throat had been slit. The crime scene indicated that the fatal wound, if not the assault, had occurred on the bed in his room. How she was brought into the hotel was not clear since they had yet to locate a witness. Farrar suggested that she had likely been drugged and brought up through the service lift, access being facilitated by a payoff to some maintenance worker who would not have guessed her intended fate.
“Your room, with your fingerprints all over the place,” Farrar said.
Sandor nodded. “An old KGB ploy, setting someone up for murder.”
“Yes,” Farrar agreed. “Brutal but effective.”
The problem for Sandor was not the flimsy attempt to implicate him in the crime, it was the sheer senselessness of Lilli’s death. She knew nothing. She had never heard of Jordan Sandor until last night. The Russians obviously learned that he was an American operative. What chance was there that he had shared any information with this complete stranger, a party girl sent on a mission to entice him onto Sudakov’s yacht?
Sandor lived in a world of brutality and deception, but even in the context of that shadowy existence there were still boundaries. This was depravity, pure and simple, and Sandor was going to be sure that the man responsible would be made to pay for the girl’s life with his own, regardless of what Byrnes or anyone else had to say about it.
Farrar sighed and then, in a soft voice, said, “You cannot be thinking about the girl now.”
Sandor responded with a blank stare.
“It is too late. Or too soon, depending upon what you are planning.”
“I’m planning to take care of things so you’ll never have to worry about Roman Sudakov. You have my word that I’ll take care of that.”
Farrar nodded. “But now it is time for us to go.”
“All right,” Sandor said, “but first I have a stop to make.”
————
It would not be long before the local authorities linked the fugitive Sandor to the local Farrar, and so the Egyptian was adamant they move quickly. Although the murder investigation had just begun, Sudakov would doubtl
ess be funding his own expedition for the prompt apprehension of the American suspect.
Farrar was going to drive them north, where they would pick up another vehicle and Sandor could proceed from there on his own. Farrar offered to continue on with him but Sandor refused.
“Right now you need to stay with the story Sadiki and his niece are telling. You get caught with me and you’ll have a whole new set of problems.”
Farrar reluctantly agreed. “Although I cannot come back here, not for several days. Things need to cool down a bit.”
Sandor agreed.
Armed with the Sphinx automatic Farrar had given him the day before, together with additional ammunition, they headed out the back door to a small Fiat.
“Dendera’s car. No problem,” Farrar explained. “You just keep your head down and let me get you out of Sharm.”
“I told you, I have a quick stop to make first.”
“Do not be foolish.”
“It’s not as if there’s a dragnet out for me, Farrar.”
“Where do you want to go?” the Egyptian asked warily.
“The first bank I visited, the International Reserve.”
“What do you expect to gain from this . . . this lunacy?”
“I need to deliver a message.”
“A message?”
“Just drop me off a block away, then come around the corner. I’ll be in and out in three minutes.”
Farrar shook his head. “I don’t suppose you could send this message by email?”
————
Farrar brought the car to a stop just around the corner from the bank.
“Three minutes,” Sandor said. “When you drive by, if I’m not walking out then you just keep going. Got it?” He did not wait for a reply, swinging the car door open and climbing out into the bright sunlight and into the flow of pedestrian traffic along SOHO Square.
It never failed to amaze him how ordinary life maintains its ordinary pace even as extraordinary events are unfolding all around. The police were looking for him. Undoubtedly Sudakov’s men were as well. Lillian Mindlovitch lay dead in his hotel room, and three Russian thugs had just been executed—two still aboard Sadiki’s boat and one floating somewhere in the depths of the Red Sea strapped to an air tank meant to kill Sandor. Yet here he was, calmly strolling along until he made a quick right and pushed his way through the glass doors of the bank.
When he marched swiftly past the receptionist to the left she began to stand, uttering a protest.
“It’s all right,” Sandor told her as he pushed the elevator button. “Just a follow-up visit with your boss. Only take a minute.”
The doors to the lift slid open and he got in and pressed “1,” then rode up to where he was greeted by the same woman he met yesterday. She had obviously been alerted that he was on the way and was not quite as happy to see him today.
She began to say something along the lines of “May I help you,” but he brushed by her without comment, making a straight line for the president’s office. The door was open and the man was already standing. He remained behind his desk, as if that offered some measure of safety.
“Mr. Sandor, I, uh, have just heard . . .”
But Sandor cut him off. “Save it,” he barked, still striding toward the man. Before the Egyptian could react Sandor had a tight grip on his left wrist which Sandor twisted until the banker’s arm was behind his back and his face pressed down onto his desktop. “Now you listen to me, you dirtbag. When you call Sudakov, which I know you’ll do as soon as I walk out of here, you tell that Russian sonuvabitch that I’m coming for him. And tell him it’s not for me, it’s for the girl. You got that?” For emphasis, Sandor lifted him slightly, then smashed his face onto the desk. “Tell him he better start sleeping with his eyes open, because I’m coming for him.”
As the man uttered a groan, Sandor heard something and looked toward the door. The secretary, who had been standing there in mute disbelief, was being shoved aside by a bank guard who had charged into the room with gun drawn. Sandor, in what appeared to be a single motion, yanked up on the banker’s arm, dislocating the man’s shoulder with a dull, sickening crack as he pulled him into position as a human shield, then drew the Sphinx from under his shirt with his free hand and leveled it at the guard’s head.
Ignoring the banker’s cries of pain, Sandor hollered, “Drop your gun!”
The guard hesitated.
“Do it!” Sandor shouted. “Unless you want to die, right here and right now, drop your weapon. I’m not going to tell you again.”
The guard had no clear shot and was not about to risk hitting the president of his bank. He had a look at the barrel of the automatic that was aimed at his head. Then he looked into Sandor’s eyes.
An instant later his gun clattered to the floor.
“Now the two of you,” Sandor ordered both the guard and secretary, “turn around and stand facing that wall.” When they did as instructed he dropped the banker, who fell to the floor like a sack of hammers. Sandor hurried forward and drove the butt of his automatic into the back of the guard’s head. The man’s legs buckled and then he collapsed onto the carpet. When the secretary began to scream he had no choice. He hit her hard across the back of her neck with the side of his left hand and watched as she also crumpled to the floor. Then he raced out, found the staircase, and hustled down to the lobby and out onto the street as Farrar waited with the motor running.
“What happened?” the Egyptian demanded as Sandor climbed into the Fiat and they took off.
Sandor told him.
“You really are insane.”
“Not so much as you may think.”
“You’re going to get us both killed.”
Sandor turned to his friend. “Maybe,” he said, “but not today.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
CRAIG RAABE LOWERED his tall, lean frame into the chair facing Deputy Director Byrnes across the small conference table.
“So,” the DD said, “you’re prepared to give me a report?”
“I am.”
“Something that will make sense of this debacle?”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m listening.”
Raabe peered down at his notes, then looked up at his superior before he began. “I intend to convey all of the intel I have from Sandor. I hope that it will be received in a, how can I say this . . .”
“An informal basis?”
“At least for now.”
Byrnes nodded. “Go ahead.”
“You’re aware of Sandor’s objective in Venezuela.”
“To assassinate Rafael Cabello. No need to go over that again.”
“And you know that he aborted that mission when he discovered that Adina—Cabello—was refining cocaine as well as developing biological weapons.”
“When you say ‘mission,’ you attempt to give Sandor’s actions the imprimatur of an authorized incursion into a foreign country.”
“That was not my intent.”
Byrnes frowned. “Proceed.”
“Faced with this situation, Sandor made a determination in the field that it would be more valuable to track the path of these toxins than to liquidate Adina at the time. He felt that any attempt to take out Adina, successful or not, would cause them to relocate their operation and leave us without a trail to follow.”
“I understand that.”
“There was also the possibility that Sandor would not survive the attack on his target, which would mean that he would not have had the time or the means to pass on the information he gathered.”
“That was almost the case anyway as it turned out, is that not right?”
Raabe resisted the impulse to smile. “It became a close call, yes. The point is, he did what he could to make his invasion appear to be motivated by the cocaine, nothing else.”
“Unfortunately his escape was something less than discreet.”
“That is true. Bu
t he learned that these transactions involved money laundering in Egypt, through a group of Russians apparently connected to the transport of narcotics into the United States, and possibly the Mexican drug lord Jaime Rivera.”
“But he has yet to find anything that would reveal the intended use for the toxins.”
“Not yet.”
Byrnes pursed his lips in disapproval. “Need I remind you that we are not the DEA, at least not the last time I looked. And despite Jordan Sandor’s best intentions, satellite photos confirm that the day after his jungle escapade, the compound was burned to the ground anyway.”
“Understood. But he has now made contact with a man named Roman Sudakov, known as Ronny, in Sharm el-Sheikh. I have his dossier here.” He passed a manila file across the table. “His game seems to be moving narcotics, not terrorism, but he does appear to be another link in the chain.”
Byrnes put on his reading glasses and had a quick look at the life and times of Ronny Sudakov. When he looked up he said, “The problem, as you say, is that Sudakov is a drug smuggler, not a terrorist.”
“Agreed. But Sandor believes there are still two possibilities that could prove useful.”
“And I, of course, hang on his every word.”
This time Raabe could not fight off a momentary grin. “Sudakov is the type who would make a deal with the devil if the price was right,” he said, pointing to the folder. “There’s no way of telling how much he knows of Adina’s plans for the anthrax, but he might look the other way if it became profitable enough. He’s already tried to kill Sandor, and he murdered a young woman for no reason at all.”
“No reason at all?”
Raabe nodded. “She was a messenger sent by Sudakov to bring Jordan to his yacht. Nothing more. She didn’t know a thing about any of these activities. Her offense was spending the night with Sandor, which Sudakov set up, by the way.”
Byrnes shook his head. “All right. What’s Sandor’s second theory?”
“That Adina would hide packages of the toxins within the shipment of narcotics.”
“Without Sudakov and his cohorts knowing.”
“Exactly.”
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