Relentless, page 45
McCormick said, “I absolutely did no such thing, sir. We’ve done everything in our power to keep this close to our vests.”
“Oh, so it wasn’t on purpose. It was a fuckup. Is that the defense you’re going with?”
“I don’t know how he found out. I called a meeting with senior staff an hour ago, and they assure me that—”
“Someone in your station either did it out of malice or out of incompetence. No other possibility exists.”
“But—”
“Shut up, Kevin. Shut up and just listen.”
McCormick had known Hanley for nearly two decades. He’d never heard him this angry, and he assumed it had more to do with the beating he’d taken from the president’s top man in Europe than anything else.
Hanley was worried about losing his job, and right now, McCormick could relate. “Yes, sir,” he said, sheepishly.
“Simple question, I want a yes or no answer. Would you like to have a career tomorrow morning?”
“Yes. Yes, I would. Very much so, in fact.”
“Then I need you to do something for me, and I don’t want any pushback.”
McCormick had been handed a lifeline, and he lunged at it. “Anything you ask, sir.”
“What I need is for you to get me an invitation to Sedgwick’s party tonight.”
“His party? I was unaware of—”
“Some art opening bullshit thing at the ambo’s residence.”
McCormick thought a moment. “That’s right. I did hear something about that.” Relief washed over him. “Shouldn’t be any problem at all. I wasn’t invited; I’m Berlin station, and Sedgwick hates us. But you’re the DDO. I can reach out to one of the galleries providing the artwork and get you an invite.”
“Good.”
So happy he was to be let off the hook, McCormick said, “Is there anything else I can—”
“Yes, there is. I am going to send you two passports. I need identification made for these men. They are my personal security detail. I will be attending the event with them tonight.”
“Certainly. With security badges they will be let in to any event at the ambo’s residence as long as they’re with you and you have an invitation.” McCormick was even more ebullient now. “I’ll run them down to personnel and get—”
“No.”
“No?”
“They are not CIA personnel.”
It was quiet a moment. “Your bodyguards aren’t employed by us?”
“Long story. I need your art department to prepare these. And I need you to oversee it personally, and I need this to stay between you, me, and whoever in art that you trust.” “The art department” was a nickname given to the forgers kept on staff at a station. Hanley was telling McCormick, without saying it outright, that the two people coming along with him to the ambassador’s party would be using falsified CIA badges. And he was also telling Kevin McCormick that he would be complicit in this.
The chief of station’s voice shifted from relief to torment. “Oh . . . Actually, I’m not sure that I can—”
“Two men who are Agency contract employees. They don’t have security badges. I need them at the event, and they won’t be allowed in unless they are on my detail. I need them on my detail.”
McCormick sighed into the phone. “In good conscience, I don’t believe I—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your conscience! This needs to happen. If you don’t do it for me, I’ll call Benji Donovan at Prague station and have him courier them up to me this afternoon. But if I do have to call Prague, I’ll have you made assistant to the deputy director of personnel in Port Moresby.”
Hanley’s voice lowered. “Tell me, Kev, have your past assignments taken you to Papua New Guinea, or will this be a first?”
There was a pause, but not for long.
McCormick asked, “Will these contractors be carrying weapons? There’s a lot of documentation necessary for that, as you know, especially in Germany. Plus, I’d have to go through DSS and RSO.” The Diplomatic Security Service was responsible for the ambassador, and the Regional Security Office assisted with local protectees. “I really do not think I can falsify that.” He faked a little laugh. “I’d rather go to Port Moresby than prison, know what I mean?”
Hanley quipped, “So you haven’t been to New Guinea, I see.”
It was quiet another moment; Hanley pictured McCormick shitting his pants, and he enjoyed the image, so angry was he at the fact that someone at the man’s station had outed the DDO to the ambassador.
But Hanley let him off the hook. “No weapons. The DSS and RSO will handle any tough stuff, I just need these men by my side.”
Chief of Station McCormick relaxed, but only a little. “I’ll take care of the badges, sir. Run down the images personally and stand there while one woman in art, who I trust implicitly, takes care of the entire job. No one else will know.”
* * *
• • •
Matthew Hanley nodded to himself with the phone to his ear. He said, “Thank you, Kevin. Port Moresby’s loss is Berlin’s gain.” He hung up the phone, and turned to Court and Zack, who had joined him in the library of the farmhouse.
“Violator, you and Romantic are good to go, but you’ll have to go unarmed.”
“That blows,” Zack said.
“There will be seventy-five armed men and women at the event, I’m certain. I need your eyes, ears, and brains. I don’t need two more trigger pullers tonight.”
Gentry said, “I’ve heard that one before.”
Hanley shrugged. “If the shit hits the fan, I’m sure you will have access to a battlefield pickup.”
“That’s your plan, sir?” Zack was incredulous.
“Mirza could be there as a waiter, as a member of another delegation, as a fucking artist there to talk up one of his paintings. I don’t know. If he is there, and we have an opportunity, we can take him quickly and efficiently.”
Court said, “What if Mirza comes with one hundred jocked-up Quds dudes wearing S-vests? You know he won’t be there on his own. He has some sort of force multiplier up his sleeve.”
“Berlin station has gone to red alert, and they know the party is a potential Mirza target. DSS knows it, too. The Germans are already on high alert knowing that he’s loose in the city. Travers and his team will have a helo assigned to them, and they’ll be fifteen minutes out. Even if Mirza does have some other men, even if he’s got two dozen motherfuckers with him, they’re not getting into that building.”
“Unless they do,” Zack said.
“Unless they do, at which point you’ll have to stop him. You two, as well as myself, will be inside the residence. If an attack comes and all the armed men and women outside can’t repel it, it will be down to us.”
Court looked at Zack, hoping he wasn’t about to say what he worried he would say.
And then Zack said it. “Sir, Anthem is here, as well. Do you want to roll her into this?”
Hanley cast a frustrated gaze at Court, who himself cast a frustrated gaze on Zack before saying, “I wasn’t lying earlier, boss. She came back. Showed up when we were in the process of liberating Dittenhofer.”
“Where is she now?”
“She is with the German woman now.” He paused. “They’re trying to track down Spangler.”
“I will have Travers take you back to your place for a few hours, and they will collect Dittenhofer. She’ll come here and I’ll have Berlin station watch over her.” He sighed. “And I’ll call McCormick back and get Zoya a badge for tonight.”
Court didn’t say anything. He just looked at the floor.
“How copy, Violator?” Hanley asked.
Court shrugged. “Solid copy, boss.”
Hanley looked at both men now with a finger in their faces. “Remember this. Failure is not an option.”
Court sighed after hearing this cliché. “Failure is always an option, Matt. It’s just not the desired option.”
Zack said, “Six is not wrong about that. I’ve seen him fail.”
Hanley let it go, and changed gears. “You still look like shit, Court. I’m going to need you to clean up before the party. It’s an art show, can’t have you walking around looking like you’ve got typhoid.”
“Yeah, I’ll get on that.”
* * *
• • •
Court and Zack left Hanley in the library and headed outside, out on the driveway. Here they climbed into the back of a Suburban driven by one of Chris Travers’s Ground Branch operators, with another in the front passenger seat, for the lift back to the Spandau safe house. Court was furious with Zack that he’d roped Zoya into this plan of Hanley’s, but he retained the presence of mind to know that Zoya would have kicked his ass if he had kept her out of it.
Zack said, “We need suits and ties and shit for tonight, right?”
“Yep.” Court said it distractedly, his mind somewhere else.
“Want to go shopping?”
“Not particularly. Last time I tried that, it didn’t go so well.” Court’s focus was fully on Zoya now, on protecting her, and not on the mission at hand.
Zack nodded to himself, then smacked the driver’s seat. “Teddy. How ’bout you and Greer drop me off at a mall somewhere? I’ll get some duds for tonight for me and Six, then catch a cab back to Spandau.”
Teddy looked in the rearview. “Roger that, gramps.”
Zack smacked the back of the seat again, then turned to Court. “Dude, Mirza has got himself another crew of shitheads, and I agree they know something we don’t about what’s gonna go down, but if the shit hits the fan, we’ll adapt and overcome.” He added, “Anthem might end up being the help we need, just like last night in the factory.”
Court nodded. Zack was right, but Court’s affection for her still made him protective.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Court arrived at the safe house just after Zoya and Annika, who had been out unsuccessfully hunting for Spangler. The German former Stasi official wasn’t returning Annika’s texts or calls, his house was empty, and it looked to the women as if he’d left in a hurry.
Spangler, it was clear enough to all, had gotten the hell out of Berlin.
Annika Dittenhofer was shuffled limping into the Suburban with Teddy and Greer, and she immediately informed them she wanted them to take her to Chausseestrasse, the headquarters of German federal intelligence.
At this Teddy laughed a little, and Greer, who now sat in the back with Dittenhofer, politely but firmly explained that she had not, in fact, climbed into a taxi, and she’d be taken where she’d be taken, and neither of the men wanted to listen to any lip about it.
She puffed up her chest in a show of defiance, but a look from Teddy through the rearview at her convinced her to drop her protest.
The Americans had her now.
* * *
• • •
In the little flat on the third floor of the apartment building, Zoya checked Court’s bandage on his arm and decided to re-dress it with clean wrapping. While she did this he told her about his conversation with Hanley. He wrapped it up with, “So, he knows you are here, and he wants you to come tonight. Personally, I think—”
“Personally,” she interjected, “I think it’s the right idea.”
“Right. Me, too, of course.” Court wasn’t going to argue with her. He knew where that would lead. Instead he looked at his watch. “It’s almost two. Hanley wants us back at Tegel at seven.”
She looked him over, touched her hand to his forehead, and asked him how he felt.
“I’m okay.”
“You don’t seem to have a fever, but your skin feels clammy. Your shoulder and arm have to be hurting from everything that happened at the factory last night.”
“I’m on painkillers.”
She nodded, then said, “Will you be on painkillers tonight?” There was no judgment in her voice.
“Of course not. I will keep them handy for whatever happens afterwards, though. Got a funny feeling I’ll be needing them.”
It was clear she didn’t like the way he looked. “When was the last time you slept?” Zoya asked, and Court thought it over.
“Thirty hours, give or take.”
“Come here,” she said, and led him into the bathroom. Together they lay down on the bedding and clothing piled there. With barely enough room for both of them in the small space, they wrapped their arms around each other.
He moved to kiss her, and she kissed him back, but only for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Zack will be back soon. You need to rest.”
He couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“You’re ill, you’re wounded, you haven’t slept in a day and a half, and you need opioids and speed in order to function. You sleep, I’ll watch over you, and when Hightower gets here, I’ll see that he doesn’t disturb you.”
Court didn’t like this agenda. “I’m fine, Z.”
“You are the opposite of fine. Hanley runs us all like rented mules, but you’re the rented mule that goes off on his own and does other jobs.” She sighed. “You’re so . . .”
When she couldn’t find the words, Court smiled. “Relentless?”
But Zoya shook her head. “I was going to say ‘crazy.’”
“Right.”
“Go to sleep.”
She wrapped her arms around him tighter, and he fell asleep within minutes.
* * *
• • •
Court woke with his face planted in Zoya’s thick hair. These were unfamiliar surroundings, to be sure, but it filled him with a sense of calm.
He realized with a sudden clarity that nothing on his body hurt.
All the pain, all the death, the danger, it had all been washed away, even if for just a few hours, and even if it wouldn’t last long after waking.
He’d take it.
He’d spent countless nights in the past year thinking about Zoya, thinking about being with her, waking with his arms tight around her. It was happening, and he told himself everything else would have to wait.
He was going to enjoy this a minute.
He liked the feeling of her stirring in his embrace as she slowly woke, lifted her head, and looked around, almost childlike. He could tell she was in unfamiliar territory, as well. He was behind her, and soon she put her hands on his forearm over her body and squeezed it.
Her voice was raspy. “Hi.”
“Dobroye utro.” Good morning, Court replied in Russian.
She checked her watch, then rested her head on his shoulder and giggled. “It’s six fifteen p.m. I see sleep doesn’t do anything to improve your Russian.”
“And sleep doesn’t do anything to curb your sarcasm.”
They lay silently together a moment; Court tried to think of something to say, but Zoya spoke first.
“How are you feeling?”
“Never better.”
She sniffed out a little laugh. “On a bathroom floor sleeping on your underwear. That doesn’t say much for your life, does it?”
He laughed, too. “Right now, I’ve got no complaints.”
The door to the bedroom opened with a squeak. Both Zoya and Court grabbed their pistols, but before they could peek through the bathroom door, they heard Zack’s voice.
“Get your lazy asses up. An afternoon nap? What do you think this is? A Caribbean cruise?” When Court pushed open the door and squinted into the daylight, Zack looked at him and Zoya interlaced on the bathroom floor. “You two nutters are perfect for each other.” He turned to leave the room. “On your feet. You need to be showered, dressed, and downstairs in thirty. Teddy will take us to Hanley, then we’ll transfer vics and drive Hanley to the event ourselves.”
His voice boomed, full of fake levity. “We’re goin’ to a party, y’all. Don’t mind the fucking terrorists. Won’t this be fun?”
SIXTY-NINE
Zack Hightower stopped the BMW 5 Series at the checkpoint on the corner of Clayallee and Finkenstrasse and rolled down his window. In the front passenger seat, Court Gentry pulled his credentials and passed them over, and a uniformed police officer looked at them, then scanned them with a cell phone.
A second officer, this one wearing a shotgun around his neck, stood by the front passenger window. Court made quick eye contact with the man, who only nodded back his way, then continued scanning the vehicle.
Zoya was in the backseat next to Hanley, and she passed her ID over to him, while he rolled down his window and proffered both their credos and his invitation.
While an officer checked Hanley’s invitation and scanned the two IDs of the backseat passengers, Zack was instructed to pop the trunk and the hood. Men searched both for explosive devices, while yet another man used a mirror on a pole to look under the car.
The Germans did all this efficiently; there were a lot of diplomatic functions full of VIPs in Berlin, after all, so they had plenty of experience.
That was not to say this was a normal day for those charged with the security of the event. The American CIA had told the Germans they were worried about tonight at the ambassador’s residence specifically, although the Agency people in the American embassy had admitted to their counterparts that they had been wholly unable to convince the ambassador to delay or cancel the event. Still, the normally robust security for a function like this had been doubled, and the police were on alert throughout the city.
When the BMW was waved on down Finkenstrasse to the next stop, the four people in the vehicle began talking about what they all saw.
“Eight city cops at the first stop,” Zack said.
“That’s my count,” Zoya added.
