by Vince Flynn
“To your pardon.”
“To my pardon.” Green clanged his glass against Ross’s. “I’ll drink to that.”
Ross smiled and thought to himself, and may you die of some tragic accident before next Saturday.
7
LIMASSOL, CYPRUS
R app was careful to stand back from the window. He looked through the telephoto lens and adjusted the focus. A second man entered the frame. Rapp’s right index finger pressed the trigger halfway down, and the digital camera automatically adjusted the focus. He pressed the button all the way down and snapped off two quick images. With a deep exhale he lowered the camera, but kept his eyes on the street.
A frown creased his brow and he said, “Who the fuck are these guys?”
He’d been asking himself that question since mid-afternoon, and he wasn’t any closer to an answer. The photos had been sent back to Marcus Dumond at Langley so he could run them through the facial recognition system, but so far they’d come up with nothing. The system worked well when you could narrow the parameters a bit, but Rapp didn’t have a clue where these guys came from or for whom they worked. Rapp told Dumond to start with the assumption that they were local cops, so the cyber tech hacked into the Limassol Police Department database. Dumond ran through the personnel files and came up with nothing. Then it was on to the national police, and after that the Hellenic National Intelligence Service. Again they came up with nothing.
Rapp had spent time in Cyprus before. Most of it in Nicosia, the capital of the Greek side of the island. The Northeastern side was controlled by the Turks. Geographically, Cyprus had occupied a position of great strategic importance throughout history. It dominated the eastern end of the Mediterranean. For thousands of years the island had been fought over due to its value in controlling the sea-lanes between Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The Phoenicians, Assyrians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Romans, Arabs, the Frankish Lusignan dynasty, Venetians, Ottoman Turks, and many lesser-known countries had all controlled the island at one point or another throughout recorded history. Because of its significance to the trade routes, the island had also long been favored by outlaws. Real pirates and slave traders and their modern day cousins; narco traffickers, mafiosi, and now terrorists. After 9/11 it was discovered that Cyprus was one of Osama bin Laden’s favored banking venues. The island was famous for its seedy underbelly, which only deepened the mystery of who these guys might be.
The only thing Rapp did know for sure was that he had spotted three of them. To do really good surveillance you needed bodies and gadgets. Rapp was in short supply of both at the moment. He’d sent Brooks to pick up Coleman and his men from the airport. He could have asked Kennedy to send some bodies from the embassy in Nicosia, but there was a real downside to going that route. It was likely the ambassador would end up catching wind that the CIA was running an operation in his backyard, which would lead to him throwing a shit fit and calling the State Department, and then the whole thing was likely to spin out of control. The key with these operations was to move slow and stay off everyone’s radar screen if at all possible.
On the gadget front, Rapp wished he’d at least brought along a parabolic mike so he could hear what these guys were saying to each other. Since they were flying commercial, Rapp had made the decision not to load himself and Brooks down with surveillance kits. It was hard enough to sneak a gun, a silencer, and two extra clips of ammunition into a country. The electronic listening devices, scopes, cameras, scanners, and parabolic mikes took up a lot of room and raised a lot of eyebrows. It simply wasn’t the type of stuff newlyweds brought on their honeymoon. Coleman and his boys were in charge of transferring that stuff and they were doing it under the guise of a director doing location scouts for a film. They had business cards with the name of a development company, an address in Beverly Hills, and a phone number with a 310 area code that was answered by a woman in Langley, Virginia.
The sun was setting over the Eastern Mediterranean. There was maybe another ten minutes of sunlight at best. In this part of old town the streets were narrow and winding, so the shadows were already falling across large areas of the street and sidewalk cafés below. The hotel was four stories high and Rapp was on the top floor. The contact in Istanbul had said the man they were looking for used a front company called Aid Logistics Inc, the office of which was located on the third story of the stone building directly across the street. The first floor was the café and the second floor was a real estate company. There was no alley behind the building so the only way in was through the front door of the café and then up the stairs to the right. Rapp knew this because he’d visited the real estate office earlier in the afternoon and walked to the landing between the second and third floors before coming back down.
Rapp watched an old man come out of the café located below Aid Logistics Inc and the real estate office. As best Rapp could figure, this guy was the owner. He wore a white apron and doled out a lot of orders to the wait staff. The man walked down the sidewalk to where the sedan was parked and began talking with the two occupants. This was the first time Rapp had seen the old man converse with these guys.
Stakeouts all had their own vibe. Their own rhythm. Most of them were literally as boring as watching paint dry. Sometimes the subject knew he was being watched and he tried to lull you to sleep so he could make his move. That’s what the real pros did. You could watch them all day and have no idea that they’d done two dead drops and a pickup. It was like they had eyes in the back of their heads. Which was partially true. Like Wayne Gretzky, gifted hockey players had a bird’s-eye image in their mind of where everyone was on the ice at all times. The great spies had the same ability, but in an infinitely more complex and dangerous game. They remembered faces and shoes and pants. Things that were hard to change. They ignored hats, glasses, jackets, and facial hair. Things that were easy to change. They cataloged each face that passed them and anticipated not just the actions of those in front of them, but those behind them. Even people they couldn’t see.
Very few criminals were actually that good. Most had no idea they were being watched, but more importantly, they knew on some level they were doing something illegal. And in many of these countries they were doing something that could result in having their head separated from the rest of their body. Under this type of pressure, it was next to impossible to stay relaxed and normal as you prepared to do whatever it was that might get you killed. Whether it was making a dead drop, meeting a contact, or preparing to grab someone, it didn’t matter. People’s body language changed. Their pace quickened and their moves became more rushed and sporadic.
Rapp had noticed the pace of things below begin to pick up over the last hour or so. He was watching the body language of the café owner and the other man standing next to the car. He was trying to read their lips, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. It did look like they were speaking English, though, which Rapp found interesting.
Rapp’s mobile phone started ringing. It was lying on the bed, but he didn’t bother to leave the window. He had a tiny Motorola wireless earpiece stuck in his right ear. With his longer hair it was nearly impossible to detect the device, which picked up his voice through vibration in the ear canal. Rapp tapped the end of the device and asked, “What’s up?”
“We just landed.”
It was Scott Coleman. Rapp wanted to ask him what in the hell had taken so long, but he didn’t bother. “Brooks rented a blue minivan. She’s waiting at the curb.”
“We’re stuck on the tarmac.”
“What do you mean stuck?”
“There’s another plane at our gate. We can’t pull up to the gate until it leaves, and then we have to wait for our luggage.”
Rapp watched the big man standing next to the car put his arm around the older man in the apron. As the big guy moved to put something in the shirt pocket of the old guy, Rapp pressed the trigger on the camera and held it all the way down. The camera clicked off six photos
in quick succession. The big man then patted the café owner on the cheek several times before releasing him.
Rapp frowned as he watched the older man walk back into the café. He looked down at the viewing screen on the back of the camera and toggled back a few frames. He then increased the zoom until he could see what the man had placed in the owner’s pocket. It was cash. Cops, for the most part, didn’t go around stuffing cash in people’s pockets. Especially in this part of the world, where they could throw someone in jail for a week by simply making up a reason.
“Did you hear me?” asked Coleman.
“Yeah.” Rapp looked at the horizon. Nightfall was fast approaching and when the darkness came something was going to happen. “Have one of your guys wait for the luggage. I need you to get your ass here ASAP.”
8
R etsina is a Greek wine that is preserved with pine resin. To some deluded Greek nationalists it is the wine of the gods. To anyone who has ever tasted a decent bottle of French Bordeaux, retsina is about as enjoyable as drinking turpentine. Gazich hated retsina, and so did Andreas. The old man’s promise that he would set aside his best bottle of retsina could have been taken as an attempt at humor. One friend ribbing another, but Andreas did not stay on the line to listen to his tenant’s response. He didn’t even laugh. He hung up right after taking his shot. That was not Andreas’s style. He liked to goad and tease.
Something was wrong. Gazich could feel it. His house was in the hills on the outskirts of Limassol. He was tempted to go there first, but he resisted the urge. He had the cab drive him by his office nice and slow, but not too slow. He saw the man sitting behind the wheel of the parked car and the other man on the sidewalk. Gazich then asked the driver to take him to the Amathus Beach Hotel where he checked into a room, cleaned up, and plotted his next move.
Gazich was not someone who was quick to anger. He was more apt to stew over things and let them come to a boil. That was what happened while he ate his dinner on the private balcony of his hotel room. In his mind it was already a foregone conclusion that these assholes who had hired him had decided to go back on their word. There was a chance that the law had come looking for him, but it was slim. Gazich had followed the FBI’s investigation in the press and their was no mention of them looking for a lone trigger man. Everything coming out of Washington suggested that they were going after several terrorist groups. Gazich did not have a complete sense of the FBI’s capabilities, but he did know it was next to impossible for them to run an investigation without leaking to the press.
Running would be the smart thing to do. He had over three million stashed in various banks around Europe and the Mediterranean. Invested properly, he could live in relative luxury in any third world country of his choosing for the rest of his days. He had grown attached to Cyprus, though. His house, his office, the lax banking laws. It was the perfect fit. An island nation unto itself. The more Gazich thought about it, the angrier he became, and not just at his double-crossing employer, but at himself. Why had he been in such a rush to take their money? The answer was obvious. The money. He should have followed that old axiom—if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
There was the issue of Andreas and his family to consider. Gazich could only guess what kind of pressure was being put on him. They were good people trying to make an honest living, and now they were sucked into this lethal drama. The easy thing for Gazich would have been to leave the island. Hop on the first ferry in the morning and forget about Cyprus, his assets, and the friendships he’d forged there, but he was tired of running. For over ten weeks he’d been packing and unpacking every few days. Running may have been the smart thing to do, but it was also the cowardly thing to do.
Gazich was no coward. Never had been. Never would be. He knew he was a thrill seeker. Someone who needed action. Someone who often liked to choose the path of most resistance. He did it to test his skills. He did it to prove that he was better than all the others. He needed to prove he was king of the jungle. In DC he had gone elephant hunting. Here on Cyprus he was going to turn the tables on the hunters.
The objective was survival. The side game would be to kill these men without getting caught or even raising the attention of the local authorities. One more body dumped in the Mediterranean was nothing. Although a couple of men killed on the sidewalk in front of Andreas’s café might actually be good for business. Either way, the end game was to find the man, or men, who had hired him, and kill them. That was the only way to finish it. The tricky part would be keeping one of these guys alive long enough to get something useful out of him.
Gazich checked his watch. It was a Saturday night, which in Limassol meant the dance clubs and bars would get hopping soon. He would have to make one stop and then by the time he arrived at the café things would be nice and busy. These men would never know what hit them.
9
A s darkness fell on the old part of town, things seemed to come to life. Music floated up from the cafés below. People were heading in every direction, darting across the street, dodging the scooters, taxis, and cars. Laughter and lively conversation could be heard as couples and groups lined up at the various establishments to wait for a table. Rapp kept the lights off in his room. The window was actually a skinny French door that opened inward. A black ornamental railing ran from waist height to the floor, providing the illusion of a balcony.
To help fight boredom and keep himself alert, Rapp dropped to the floor every fifteen minutes and did either push-ups or sit-ups. The alternative was drinking profuse amounts of coffee, but that also meant frequent trips to the bathroom. He still had five pounds to lose from his six-month binge, so he opted for the exercise. His eyes casually swept the scene from one end of the block to the other. Every vehicle and pedestrian was noted. He paid special attention to those heading in to the café across the street, and of course the man sitting in the car near the café. Earlier in the day he spotted the other two men getting off the elevator in the hotel lobby. Until reinforcements arrived, all Rapp could really do was sit and wait. He’d spoken to Coleman twice since he and his men had landed. He was finally in the van with Brooks and on his way here.
Rapp checked his watch. It was eight minutes past nine. They should be arriving any minute. A car horn sounded at the far end of the street. Rapp shifted from one side of the open window to the other and scanned the scene. A man and a woman were standing in the middle of the one-way street. The man was flipping off the driver of the car and screaming in Greek. From Rapp’s angle, he spotted a lone man enter the picture on the far sidewalk. Something about this guy made Rapp give him a second look. He was dressed in the hip nightclub style of the younger generation, with faded and ripped designer jeans, retro track shoes, a blue warm-up jacket, and a John Deere baseball hat. The baseball hat was pulled down low, the collar on his jacket was turned up, and he had his hands stuffed in the pockets. His head was slowly, almost imperceptibly, sweeping from left to right. Rapp’s mind thought back to those twenty-seven seconds of surveillance footage from the Starbucks in Georgetown. The average person could glean very little from that tape, but for Rapp it was a treasure trove of information—a virtual admission of guilt by the mystery man captured buying an espresso.
At first glance, the man on the tape seemed very casual. Rapp looked at things a little differently, though. Like a magician watching another magician, Rapp knew what to look for because he had been there before. In a foreign land, on an operation, trying to bide time until the hit took place. He had acted in almost the same manner: baseball hat pulled down low to block surveillance cameras, physical demeanor relaxed, yet alert. Eyes always scanning and on guard.
“Is that you, Alexander?” Rapp whispered to himself, while he leaned back slightly.
Without taking his eyes off the man, Rapp brought the camera to his eye and snapped a few photos as the man approached. The moment of truth was fast approaching. Would he turn into the café and go to his office or would he circle the block an
d check things out? Rapp knew what he would do and was slightly disappointed when the man stopped in front of the café. He started talking to the old man who was standing at the hostess stand. Rapp had a sudden pang of anxiety. He needed this guy alive. With his back to him Rapp could now see the man’s warm-up jacket had a white Adidas logo across the back. Rapp’s eyes slid to the man sitting no more than forty feet away in the parked car. He hadn’t moved a muscle.
The guy in the Adidas jacket lit a cigarette and continued talking to the old man, then kissed him on both cheeks and walked away. Everything about the guy matched the surveillance footage, except the cigarette. But then again, he wouldn’t have been able to smoke a cigarette while waiting in line at a Starbucks in the United States. The man in the John Deere hat threaded his way through a few pedestrians who were waiting to get into the café. Rapp relaxed a bit, but kept an eye on him. He lowered the camera and wondered if this was actually the guy he was after, or if he was reading too far into things. He rubbed his eyes and checked his watch again.
When he looked back down at the street he saw something totally unexpected. The man in the Adidas jacket suddenly veered toward the parked car with the guy sitting in the front seat. Rapp hastily brought the camera up and hit the auto focus button. The image of the pedestrian and the car came into focus. The glow of the street lamps threw off enough light that he could see what was going on, but Rapp worried that there might not be enough light for the camera to capture any clear images. Suddenly, the pedestrian began waving to the guy sitting in the parked car. As he got closer to the vehicle he casually bent over so he could see through the open driver’s side window. It was a one-way street and the car was parked facing the café on the same side of the street. The man in the car was sitting in the front passenger seat, probably so he had more legroom.