Miami, Florida
Six months later
Mike was enjoying the cool breeze coming from the Atlantic Ocean. It had been a hot summer with way too many hurricanes.
“You think we should sell the penthouse, baby?”
“And go where?” Lisa replied, raising her eyes from the psychological thriller she’d been reading nonstop for the last four hours.
Mike tried to read the author’s name.
James . . . Hankins. Mike had never heard of him but, if his wife was reading his books, he’d make sure to check him out.
“I don’t know, but I’d like to try the Pacific coast,” he finally said. “What about Seattle?”
“You’d hate the rain, Mike.”
“Maybe, but think about all those wineries,” he said, smiling.
The International Market Stabilization Institute was no longer operational. The official story behind the Brooklyn attack was that a catastrophic accident had happened when a private company had been hired to test the security procedures of a new Secret Service training facility.
The attack on the White House that cost the lives of DNI Richard Phillips and three Secret Service special agents dominated the news for a full month. It took three colossal category-5 hurricanes hitting the continental United States within the same month to have them talk about something else.
Mike knew Mapother hadn’t forgotten Brooklyn, though. He was yet to fully recover from the loss of Anna Caprini. Mapother had taken her death personally. He loved her like a daughter, and her death had taken a major toll on his health. Still, he spent the weeks following the attack dismantling the IMSI, the organization he had built from the ground up. He did his best to find new positions for every IMSI employee by calling in favors he had accumulated during all his years at the service of the United States.
There was no denying the attacks that had taken place within the White House. So President Muller had addressed the nation in a speech that lasted close to an hour. He admitted that Iran had been responsible for the deadly attacks that had left the Canadian prime minister and his wife, the director of National Intelligence and countless brave law enforcement officers and civilians dead. He had vowed to pursue those responsible and to bring them to justice.
In a move that shocked Muller, the Russian government had condemned the attacks, which in turn had forced the Iranian prime minister to confess that a rogue element within its Quds Force had ordered an unsanctioned operation against the United States and Canada. He promised the guilty parties would be hunted down.
Mike didn’t trust their efforts, but at least their confession cooled down the tensions between the two countries.
Sanchez’s injuries, albeit serious, weren’t going to slow him down for very long, which was surprising to Mike. He had visited his friend at the intensive care unit where Sanchez had lain motionless on a hospital bed. Mike remembered the tubes sprouting from every part of Sanchez’s body. For a while, the former Delta operator had been incapable of breathing on his own. The bullet had taken out two ribs and half of his right lung. Bullet fragments now rested a quarter of an inch from his heart. The surgeons were able to fix his shoulder, but he would probably never regain one hundred percent of its use. The fact that he was alive was itself a wonder. That the man was running five miles a day, five days a week, six months after surgery was a miracle.
Eitan, though, wasn’t as lucky. Even if the bullet had narrowly missed his femur, it was so deeply buried into his thigh that it had required numerous surgeries to remove it. Mike knew Eitan was feeling better, but once in a while his leg would flare up, and you wouldn’t see him for a day or two. Mike had a private discussion with Zima about it, and she had told him that the doctors were confident that within the next year or so, these flare-ups would stop. Eitan’s pinky hadn’t fared much better. The bullet had torn through its flesh and powdered the small bone. As for Zima, her vest had stopped the three small-caliber rounds, but the cut she had received behind her head where the glass bottle had struck had necessitated a great number of stiches. Despite their injuries, Mike hadn’t heard any of them complain.
In fact, today Sanchez had joined Eitan and Zima on Mike’s new toy, a Mako 414 CC, to do a bit of fishing. Mike hoped they’d once again catch a couple of tunas, or, at the very least, a Mahi or two, so they could feast on fresh ceviche and carpaccio for dinner. And if there were enough fish, maybe he’d ask Lisa to grill the fillets on the barbecue.
“Hey, honey, where were you?” Lisa asked him. “You weren’t here.”
“I was thinking that if the weather holds, we should all go to Bimini tomorrow. What do you say?”
“You wouldn’t ask if you hadn’t checked the weather and knew it would be holding—”
Mike chuckled. He had indeed checked the marine weather. “So, you wanna go or not?”
“And sleep there?”
“Sure, why not?”
Bimini was a district of the Bahamas located approximately fifty miles east of Miami Beach. The beaches were gorgeous, and the marine life was fun to watch.
“You want something to drink, Lisa?”
“A beer would be great. An IPA if there are any left.”
Mike closed the huge patio door behind him. He walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. He grabbed a couple of IPAs and was about to head back outside when he noticed his smartphone’s red light blinking.
Five missed calls? One voicemail.
He punched in his code and listened to the message. It was Meir Yatom. And Charles Mapother. They wanted to meet with the whole team.
Tomorrow.
Mike sighed. The weather was supposed to be perfect for a weekend in Bimini.
He had decided not to call back when it rang again.
“Hi, Meir.”
“You got my message?”
“I just did.
“Why didn’t you reply?”
“I told you, I just listened to it.”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“Hello?” Mike asked.
“I’m here, and I’m waiting for your answer.”
Mike loved Meir Yatom. What he had gone through at the hands of Asad Davari was inhuman. The skillful hands of the plastic surgeons had done their best to rebuild his ear and hide the deep lesions that covered his body but there was only so much they could do.
“I’m not sure we’ll make it, Meir. Why don’t you come over? The beach will do you some good, old man.”
“My work isn’t done, Mike,” Yatom hissed. “And yours isn’t either.”
“Listen, Meir—”
“No, you listen, Mike,” Yatom said, his voice shaky with rage. “When you’re done playing Baywatch, get your collective ass in gear and get over here. We found Kharazi.”
EPILOGUE
Nassau, The Bahamas
Everybody was present. Meir Yatom had taken care of the logistics. He had rented four two-bedroom suites at the Reef at Atlantis located just across from Nassau on Paradise Island. He had converted half of one suite into a meeting room.
Yatom and Mapother had flown from Heathrow, while the rest of them had traveled by boat from Miami. The major advantage of arriving by boat was that it was much easier to enter the country incognito and bring the equipment they would need to conduct a covert operation. With Mike’s new boat, it had taken them just under five hours to run from Miami Beach to the Marina at Atlantis.
“Thanks for coming,” Yatom said from his wheelchair.
The best doctors in the world had tried to rebuild his knee, but the damage Davari had inflicted with the power drill had been too extensive. In a few months, there was a chance he’d be able to walk, but never for more than a few minutes at a time. The wheelchair was there to stay. Zima had told him Yatom was fine with that.
Yatom signaled Mapother to proceed.
Mapother opened a blue folder and placed it in the middle of the small conference table they had gathered around.
“Who’s this?” Lisa asked.
“You’re looking at the ugly face of General Jalal Kharazi. He now calls himself Kurt Abedi,” Mapother said.
“I’ll be damned,” Zima said. “He dyed his hair?”
“And he lost a lot of weight too,” added Sanchez. “How did you find him?”
“While you were building sand castles by the beach, I spent two months debriefing Davari. He never said a word. Tough sonofabitch, if you ask me.”
“But he did end up talking, right? We wouldn’t be here if he didn’t,” Mike said.
“You wanna know why he finally broke?” Mapother asked.
“C’mon, man, spit it out,” Sanchez said.
“This guy,” Mapother said, pointing at Yatom with his index finger. “And please, somebody ask me how?”
“How?” Sanchez said, playing his game.
“Just by seeing him. Davari told us General Kharazi had agreed to do a prisoner exchange in case they were caught. So when he saw Yatom, he cracked.”
“Where are you keeping Davari?” Mike asked, though he had a feeling what the answer would be.
“He’s in good company. Let’s leave it at that,” Mapother said.
“He’s with the Sheik, isn’t he?” Mike insisted.
“Yes.”
“As long as they don’t become pals.”
“Trust me, Mike, this isn’t happening anytime soon.”
Mike hoped they were both rotting in hell. If he knew Yatom and Mapother as well as he thought he did, the two terrorists weren’t living the somewhat cushy lives regular federal prisoners were entitled to.
“What do we know about Kurt Abedi?” Sanchez asked, getting back to why they were there.
“Enough to take him down,” Yatom answered. “He’s by himself, no bodyguards. He really thinks he slipped past the radar.”
“So, are we taking him or killing him?” Zima asked. “Personally, I’d much prefer if we were here to kill him, but that’s just my two cents.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint, Zima, but we’ve been hired to take him,” Yatom said.
They all looked at each other, their confusion apparent.
“What are you talking about?” Mike asked. “Did you say hired?”
Hired would mean Mapother and Yatom had an employer. That seemed very unlikely.
“Let just say that Meir and I started our own consultation firm,” Mapother said. “We’re entrepreneurs now.”
“MOSSAD knows about this?” Eitan asked, unimpressed. Everybody knew Yatom had retired from the Israeli spy agency, but no one believed for a second he was really out.
“Not only does MOSSAD know, it will be a major client of ours.”
“Same with Donald Poole over at the CIA,” Mapother added. “Director Poole is the one who hired the IMSI’s services for this operation. In exactly twelve hours, we will deliver Major General Jalal Kharazi to a CIA political action group in Fort Lauderdale.”
“Sounds good, Charles,” Mike said. “But did you say IMSI? We were all under the impression the IMSI had shut down its activities. I’m not following.”
“We should have mentioned this sooner. Our apologies,” Mapother said, smiling for the first time in a long time. “Our new firm is called the International Mobile Service Institute. We specialize in extraordinary renditions. You guys like the name?”
About the Author
Simon Gervais is a former federal agent who was tasked with guarding foreign heads of state visiting Canada. Among many others, he served on the protection details of Queen Elizabeth II, US President Barack Obama, and Chinese President Hu Jianto. He has also protected the families of three different Canadian prime ministers. Prior to this, Simon spent five years in an anti-terrorism unit and was deployed in many European and Middle Eastern countries. He now writes full-time and is a member of the International Thriller Writers organization. He is the author of two previous Mike Walton novels, The Thin Black Line, which was an international bestseller and A Red Dotted Line, as well as the Mike Walton novella, A Long Gray Line. He lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children. Find Simon online at SimonGervaisBooks.com, facebook.com/SimonGervaisAuthor, and Twitter.com/GervaisBooks.
Acknowledgments
Writing the acknowledgements is always fun. It means that the book is finished and I get to say a big “Thank you!” to everyone who helped me along the way. For me, the first word of gratitude should always go to my readers. Whether A Thick Crimson Line is the first book you read in my Mike Walton series or you’ve been with me since The Thin Black Line, I thank you for your support.
Thanks to Lou Aronica, my editor at The Story Plant, for his mentorship and friendship. Lou is a true author’s editor. He’s supportive, engaged and he sincerely cares about his authors. Thank you for making A Thick Crimson Line the best book it can possibly be.
Thanks also to my friend and remarkable literary agent Eric Myers of Myers Literary Management. I can’t thank him enough for his work ethic and dedication.
Finally, thanks to the most critical members of my team: my family. I love you all. I’m especially indebted to my amazing wife, Lisane, whose unwavering support is my most prized possession.
You are my strength, mon amour. My love for you, Florence and Gabriel knows no bounds.
A Letter from the Author
Dear Readers,
I have exciting news to share with you. I recently finished writing Hunt Them Down, the first book in an electrifying new series featuring DEA special agent Pierce Hunt, a former Army Ranger who isn’t afraid to step over the line if it gets the job done or keeps his team safe.
When his thirteen-year-old daughter Leila is kidnapped while at sleepover at her friend’s house—the residence of Tony Garcia, the head of Miami’s most violent crime family—Hunt has forty-eight hours to find her before she’s executed in real time on social media. To rescue Leila, Hunt goes dark and is forced to team up with his archenemy’s own daughter—a woman he once loved but who now vows to see him dead. With the walls closing in on him and the minutes ticking away, Hunt’s only chance is to become the man he swore he’d never be again.
The Real Book Spy—the #1 reference when it comes to thrillers—had this to say: “Get ready for a new awesome series…”
Hunt Them Down will hit bookstores in February 2019. I hope you’ll check it out.
It is a privilege to write for you, and I’ll never take that for granted. Your entertainment options are many, and yet you chose to take a chance on me and my books. For that, I’ll always be grateful.
Warmest,
Simon
Also by Simon Gervais:
Mike Walton had experienced terrorism from every angle. As a covert field operations officer, he thought he’d seen it all. But that was before terrorism struck him directly at home. Suffering devastating physical injury and unthinkable personal loss, Mike had one of two choices: give up or fight back. And giving up wasn’t in his constitution.
Mike and his wife Lisa – a medical doctor and fellow counter-terrorism expert – are recruited by the International Market Stabilization Institute, a privately funded organization operating outside official channels to protect North America’s financial interests. The strikes that destroyed Mike and Lisa’s household – the work of Sheik Al-Assad – are bringing the Western economy to its knees. And they are only the beginning. If the Sheik succeeds, the world will change forever, and the next attack is just around the corner. Mike and Lisa must lead a hastily assembled team to Europe to stop the madness before time runs out.
Rippling with tension, raging with action, and replete with the kinds of details only a true counter-terrorism insider can provide, The Thin Black Line is a nonstop thriller of the first order.
Here’s an excerpt:
Macdonald-Cartier International Airport
To: Inspector Robert McFiella OIC/RCMP APOFU
From: Inspector Myles Gregory OIC INSET Ottawa
Robert,
We just got a report from Ben Cohen of Air Canada Security that four Middle Eastern passengers purchased last-minute tickets for Air Canada Flight 7662 Ottawa–Washington, DC. They were booked separately but by the same travel agency. Their names were run through our databases, but nothing came up.
Knowing that you have two air marshals onboard this flight, we checked the rest of the passenger list for anything suspicious and found that two Saudi nationals are also on the flight, and they only have one-way tickets. Both are in Canada under student visas that will expire in two days. Their names are Muhammad Hassan and Masri Fadl. Technically, they’re still in Canada legally, but I contacted our INSET team in Toronto to follow them on arrival for the next forty-eight hours to see if they will depart Canada or not.
To help your officers identify them, I’ve attached the passport pictures of Hassan and Fadl, as well as their seat assignments for Flight 7662.
Myles
The note was short but to the point. The threat level for their flight to Washington, DC, had been upgraded to “High.” As a member of the federal air marshal program of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Sergeant Mike Powell was used to this kind of message.
More often than not, the passengers mentioned in these notes had triggered an early warning detector embedded within the airline reservation software. Whether they had paid for their tickets with cash, had purchased one-way fares, or had done a multitude of other things the computers were looking for, it didn’t matter to Mike. He would treat this piece of information seriously. He always did.
As he stood in the main terminal of Ottawa International Airport, his eyes were in constant motion. The long hallways were packed with passengers, as everybody was either going back home or visiting family for the Easter weekend. On his left he’d noticed an army captain with a black backpack sipping a cup of chain-restaurant coffee. To his right, a nice family with three young children was eating their breakfast burritos while chatting about their upcoming trip. The excited laughs of the children brought a rare smile to Mike’s lips as he remembered his daughter, Melissa, doing the same thing three weeks ago prior to their flight to Mexico.
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