by Tom Wood
Yamout already had the transmission in reverse before Ariff could yell, ‘ Get us out of here.’
The two bodyguards behind Ariff had their Ingrams cocked and ready. The BMW travelled just a couple of feet before it struck the Toyota behind. Yamout repeatedly punched the horn but the SUV didn’t offer any more room. The thunder of automatic weapons didn’t relent. Blood splashed against the inside of the lead Range Rover’s rear window.
Ariff’s eyes went wide. ‘ Yamout… ’
A gunman appeared, moving along the centre of the road. A balaclava covered his head. In both hands he clutched an Armalite assault rifle with under-slung grenade launcher. A black burkha was draped over his shoulder like a cape. He gestured at Yamout with his weapon before firing off a burst into the air. People on the street outside were screaming and running away. Drivers and passengers fled their cars.
Yamout tried to execute a turn to get out of the line of traffic and on to the sidewalk but there was no room. The front bumper crumpled against the Range Rover. Bullets smashed against the windshield before Yamout’s head, but didn’t penetrate. He shouted an order to the two bodyguards in the back of the BMW.
The bodyguard behind Yamout flung open his door and jumped out into the road. Immediately the masked gunman opened fire. Bullets pinged off the metal and were stopped by the armoured glass.
The bodyguard fired the Ingram from the gap between the door and car. The sub-machine gun was small and boxy, seemingly unsophisticated, but its cyclic rate was twelve hundred rounds per minute. The bodyguard let off a panicked burst that emptied the magazine in a matter of seconds. Thirty bullets hit the road, Range Rover, neighbouring cars but not the gunman, who dropped to a crouch and reloaded his assault rifle.
‘ NOW, NOW,’ Yamout screamed. ‘ GET HIM NOW.’
The second bodyguard was out of his own door fast. He rushed past Ariff’s window, jumped up on to the hood of the BMW to drill the gunman before he could finish reloading. Instead the bodyguard contorted and flailed, his bullet-riddled body striking the hood and bouncing off on to the sidewalk. Blood sluiced down the BMW’s windshield.
‘ There’s another one.’
Ariff saw a second burkha-draped gunman on the other side of the Range Rover. He was kneeling down on the sidewalk, also armed with an assault rifle. The only bodyguard left alive hurriedly reloaded his Ingram. Yamout reached past Ariff and opened the glove box. He grabbed a handgun from inside.
‘ Get in the back, Baraa,’ he yelled. ‘ Close the door.’
Ariff struggled to get from the passenger seat and into the back. His heart beat frantically inside his chest. He flopped down on the back seat and stretched to grab and close the door. The bodyguard to his side squeezed off some controlled bursts. Return fire struck the BMW around him.
Ariff kept low on the back seat, breathing heavily, not daring to stick his head up too far. His ears stung from the gunfire.
‘We can’t stay here,’ Yamout said. He was crouched down in his seat, gun in one hand, the other fumbling for his cell phone.
Ariff didn’t respond. They couldn’t stay but they couldn’t leave either.
The bodyguard fired another burst before the Ingram was empty. He quickly released the spent magazine and slammed in another. No one shot at him. Ariff couldn’t see why. Maybe he had killed them both. Please, make it be true.
The bodyguard cocked the weapon, but before he could fire again, a man appeared behind him — suddenly, terrifyingly. Another masked gunman. He stabbed a knife into the bodyguard’s throat and disarmed him of the Ingram in one fluid move. A geyser of blood sprayed from the huge hole in the bodyguard’s neck and he fell gurgling to the ground.
Yamout tried to turn but flames spat from the Ingram’s muzzle and holes exploded through the back of the driver’s seat. Yamout contorted and flailed.
The shooting stopped and Yamout’s head hung limply forward. Bloody bullet wounds were spread across his back and arms.
Ariff screamed. He screamed louder when a grenade sailed through the open doorway. He watched it fall out of sight, landing somewhere in the foot well on the passenger’s side.
It exploded with a monstrous bang and blinding flash of light. Ariff saw nothing but white, heard nothing except a piercing whine. He was too disorientated to move or even cry out. Hands grabbed his ankles and dragged him over the back seat. He fell into a crumpled heap on the road, on top of his blood-drenched and dying bodyguard.
More hands grabbed Ariff and pulled him upright. He had no strength to fight. The toes of his shoes scraped along the ground. His hearing began to return first. He heard screaming and yelling but it was quiet and muted. Ariff’s vision came back slower, but a still image of the car interior — the last thing he’d seen before the explosion — overlaid everything else. He could just make out one of his attackers rushing ahead, yelling and shoving scared pedestrians out of the way. The other two had Ariff between them, holding him up with their arms under his.
They rounded a corner. He saw a van parked up ahead. The lead captor opened the vehicle’s back doors, and Ariff was shoved inside, the gunmen either side of him following.
Ariff shouted for help but a rifle butt slamming into his face broke his nose and he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 44
Colonial Beach, Virginia, USA
Seagulls squawked overhead. Procter stood on the end of the narrow pier, wearing sunglasses, gazing eastward across the Potomac. The temperature was mild, the sky blue and cloudy. Windy. Procter’s kind of day. The beach wasn’t busy — an old guy threw sticks for his Labrador, a couple of people jogged, but the river had its fair share of water sports enthusiasts. There were fleets of sailboats and paddle-boats as far as Procter could see. Procter didn’t much like being out on the water, but he liked looking at it.
He heard the tap of footsteps on the pier boards behind him.
‘Beautiful day,’ Clarke said as he stopped alongside Procter. His tone was happily normal, no stress, no anxiety.
‘No,’ Procter disagreed, ‘it’s not. Ariff’s missing.’
Clarke stammered, ‘In what sense?’
‘In the sense that there was a shootout two days ago on a street in downtown Beirut. In broad daylight, if you can believe it. Masked gunmen disguised in burkhas ambushed Ariff’s motorcade. Used a grenade launcher to blow out the armoured glass of the bodyguards’ SUV and filled the vehicle with close to sixty rounds. Gabir Yamout and six of Ariff’s bodyguards were killed. The whole thing was over in under a minute, start to finish. Ariff was not among the dead, but a man fitting his description was seen being dragged away by the attackers.’
Clarke looked paler than usual. ‘Jesus Christ. But eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable. We can’t know for sure Ariff isn’t-’
‘That’s not all,’ Procter said, turning to face Clarke. ‘Soon after Ariff was snatched, his villa was attacked. Several more bodyguards were killed. The wife and son of Gabir Yamout were shot dead. Ariff’s own wife and his three daughters were kidnapped. A nanny hiding in a closet heard everything. Neither they nor Ariff have been heard from since.’
‘ Jesus,’ Clarke said again.
‘How the hell did Kasakov get to Ariff so damn fast?’
Clarke didn’t attempt an answer.
‘I just don’t get how he could have found Ariff in a matter of weeks. I mean, even the Agency didn’t know where Ariff was hiding out. It took us months to establish Callo as a solid link to Ariff’s organisation. Then we had to kidnap and interrogate the prick to find out what city Ariff was in. And even then we had to put bodies on the ground to establish where in Beirut Ariff actually lived. Yet Kasakov gets the same intelligence in a tenth of the time.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘That man is something else.’
They stared across the water for a moment. A college-age kid thrashed past on a jet ski.
‘I’m as surprised as you are,’ Clarke hesitantly began. ‘But our plan relied on the fact that Kasakov and Ariff knew enough abo
ut one another to inflict damage.’
‘To their networks,’ Procter corrected. ‘There’s no reason why Kasakov would know where Ariff, who has been under the radar for twenty years, was living. They’ve crossed paths with their businesses, but never personally. Ariff’s exact whereabouts was the one thing that Kasakov would certainly not have known before this began. But he found it out.’ Procter clicked his fingers. ‘Just like that. He may well be the devil himself.’
‘He’s just a man.’
‘Ariff will be dead by now, or wishing he was. I don’t even want to think what happened to his wife and kids.’
‘That’s not our fault,’ Clarke stated as he poked Procter in the chest. ‘Ariff put them in danger by living his life the way he did. He signed their death warrants with every rifle he sold, with every bullet fired at the innocent, with every IED that killed and maimed with explosives he supplied. He did this to them, not us.’
Procter nodded. He pushed a palm against his forehead. ‘I know, Peter. You’re right, as always. But our war is over a mere month after it began. All our work, all that careful planning to ensure Kasakov and Ariff tore each other’s empires apart, it’s all been wasted.’
Clarke looked away. ‘We haven’t yet got an accurate figure on the damage Ariff caused Kasakov’s network. But when we know, I’m sure we’ll find that it has been substantial. And remember, Ariff and Yamout are dead. Their network is leaderless and will be in disarray from the war with Kasakov. The flow of small arms has been effectively cut off.’
‘Until more dealers take over.’
‘Yes,’ Clarke agreed. ‘But even if we’ve only hampered the flow of weapons for a few months, we might have saved dozens of lives. Maybe more. And it’s not just Americans who will be saved. Think of all the death squads and terrorists across the world who won’t be getting guns, ammunition and explosives.’
Procter let out a growling sigh. ‘But this thing should have lasted months, maybe even years. Ariff and Kasakov should have pummelled each other down until there was nothing left of either of them.’
‘There was always the chance this would end sooner than we wanted, even if we didn’t believe it could be this early. No plan ever works perfectly.’ Clarke patted Procter on the shoulder. ‘Take comfort that it hasn’t blown up in our faces. And we’ve done so much good, Roland. We really have.’
Procter smirked. ‘You say that like you’re trying to convince yourself more than me.’
Clarke stared at Procter. ‘None of us can change the world, Roland. But we have made it a little more palatable. If only for a time.’
‘I’ll send Tesseract to get rid of Kasakov to bring things to a close. With luck, his lieutenants will fight for control over the empire and leave it fractured and weaker. And talking of Tesseract, we have another problem you need to be aware of.’
‘Yes?’ Clarke asked, warily.
Procter said, ‘Regarding the four civilians Tesseract killed in Minsk who turned out to be someone’s surveillance team. Well, he came up with a name: Lancet Incorporated. I did some digging, and it turns out that they’re a Swiss company that specialise in shipping goods that have been traded via under-the-table deals.’
‘For who?’
‘Us,’ Procter answered. ‘You and me. Not specifically the CIA or the Pentagon, but for the good old US of A.’
Clarke said nothing.
‘Lancet ship all kinds of things from the Eastern Seaboard across the Atlantic. Things like state-of-the-art surveillance cameras. Things like Hellfire missiles.’
‘To who?’ Clarke asked, eyes widening.
‘The kind of people who worship on a Saturday.’
It took Clarke a second to process Procter’s words. ‘The Israelis?’
Procter nodded.
Clarke said, ‘If Lancet are a stepping stones between America and Israel, then that surveillance team must have been-’
‘There’s no “must have been” about it. That’s exactly who they were. Tesseract only tangled with four, but in total there were five Mossad agents running a surveillance op on Yamout. They were part of an ongoing initiative to keep tabs on Ariff’s organisation. It’s simple, but very smart. They find out who Ariff and Yamout supply with guns, and if those customers turn out to be enemies of Israel then they receive a nice little visit from a team of Kidon assassins or one of the aforementioned Hellfires. These watchers also act as babysitters to make sure Ariff and Yamout stay vertical. The Israelis see it as a case of “better the devil you know”. Whoever kidnapped Ariff must be really slick to do so under Mossad’s nose.’
Clarke exhaled. ‘How long has this op been going on for?’
‘A long time. Like ten years, maybe longer.’
Clarke shook his head and closed his eyes. He pinched the skin at the top of his nose. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I’ll come to that in a minute. Fortunately, Mossad don’t know a great deal about what happened in Minsk when their people got killed.’
‘Sounds like there’s a “but” coming.’
‘But,’ Procter continued, ‘they’re looking for the man who killed their team.’
Clarke picked up the significance of the wording instantly, just as Procter knew he would. ‘Not men?’
Procter shook his head.
‘If they know it was just one man, then they must have spotted Tesseract.’
Procter nodded but didn’t respond. He looked away.
‘If they’re looking for Tesseract,’ Clarke said, ‘they’ll want to know who sent him. And he knows your face if not your name. And even if he doesn’t know you’re CIA, he’s smart enough to guess.’
Procter slowly nodded.
‘But Europe is a big place and, as you keep saying, Tesseract is a special kind of guy. They’re not going to be able to find him, right?’
Procter didn’t answer. He toyed with the change in his pocket.
‘What aren’t you telling me, Roland?’
Procter looked Clarke in the eye and said, ‘You need to see something.’
Procter withdrew his smartphone and thumbed a few buttons. He passed it to Clarke, who examined the screen.
The phone’s screen was filled with an image of a room with a white carpet, white walls, expensively decorated and furnished. Standing in the room were two men. A large man stood in the background, side-on to the camera. The second man was the focus of the image. He was tall, wearing a suit, face to the camera, well lit, perfectly identifiable.
‘Holy crap,’ Clarke said. ‘That’s him.’
Procter nodded. ‘Just slide to see more. Not that you really need to, as that one says it all. There’s video footage too, with audio. In Russian, granted, but it’s still his voice.’
‘How the hell did you get hold of this?’
‘Mossad has passed to us everything they have on the incident.’
Clarke stared at Procter for a long time before saying, ‘They’ve asked for the CIA’s help finding him.’
‘And it’s been granted,’ Procter said. ‘Satellite, facial recognition, HUMMIT — everything. The Director wants to demonstrate our commitment to one of our closest allies.’
‘This is bad, Roland,’ Clarke said. ‘This is really bad. Are you going to be involved?’
Procter shook his head. ‘Chambers is overseeing it. We’ve been helping for about a week so far. I’ll get some updates, but I won’t be able to influence.’
Clarke looked as scared as Procter had ever seen him. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘We send Tesseract after Kasakov, as already discussed, and we tell him to disappear straight after.’
Clarke raised his eyebrows. ‘Or?’
‘Don’t even think it, Peter. It’s not Tesseract’s fault Mossad were watching Yamout. He couldn’t have predicted that. Hell, we didn’t. I brought him into this operation, and I’m not going to turn on him as soon as we get a little heat.’
‘ A little heat? Roland, are you joking? This is abo
ut as hot as it can get. They have his face, they have his voice. They know where he was and when. You think that isn’t enough to establish a trail? This is Mossad we’re talking about here. They don’t play by the rules. They’ll do whatever it takes to find him. They’ll send a Kidon team, and eventually they’ll track him down, you know they will. That’s what they do. They’ll make him talk. You’ll be identified, then me. Best-case scenario: this operation blows up in our face and we find ourselves facing an oversight committee. That’s if we’re lucky. Israelis like their revenge served ice-cold, don’t forget. You think they’ll forgive us for killing their people because we’re allies?’ Clarke shook his head. ‘It’s over. Have him kill Kasakov, and then we cut our losses.’
After a minute of silence Procter said, ‘He can keep a low profile. This will blow over eventually. These things always do. When there are no leads after a month, resources will be reassigned. The Israelis won’t find him on their own. I have faith in his abilities.’
Clarke pointed an accusatory finger. ‘You found him once, remember.’
‘That was an entirely different set of circumstances. He was on his own. This time I can help him.’
‘You want to take the risk?’
Procter didn’t answer. He heard laughter and looked down the beach to where a little girl was flying a kite, guided by her father. Procter couldn’t help but smile. He looked back at Clarke.
‘If anything goes wrong killing Kasakov, or Mossad get too close to him, I’ll activate the contingency. Happy?’
Clarke didn’t answer.
CHAPTER 45
Ljubjiana, Slovenia
Slovenia’s capital was spread before Victor. His hotel room was on the fourteenth floor, high enough so that it wasn’t overlooked by other buildings, letting him enjoy the rare pleasure of open drapes. The city beyond his hotel-room window was muted beneath grey clouds, but the dawn rising over the snow-covered peaks of the Kamnik Alps in the distance made it a view to savour.
His employer, sounding not unlike how Victor imagined a father might to his son, said, ‘We need to talk.’