Commander-In-Chief (54 page)

Yes. That was Sergeant Ascherbrock leading that machine-gun section. Ascherbrock knew his shit.

Within ten seconds the short bursts stopped.

“Darkhorse Forward or Darkhorse Six,” came the voice of Sergeant Ascherbrock.

“This is Darkhorse Six, go ahead.”

“Roger, sir. UAV is a KIA, in the field one klick west of our position. Do you need a grid?”

“Negative, we have the general location.”

Belanger nodded and allowed himself a slight smile. The men upstairs with him in the Darkhorse Forward CP pumped their fists in the air.

The lieutenant colonel rolled his eyes. “Congratulations, studs, now let’s dial that shit back. We just killed the smallest speck of nothing in the Russian arsenal.”

The intel officer looked up from his station and said, “Gotta start somewhere, sir, and I don’t mind taking out some of the Russians’ eyes.”

“Yeah, Deuce, understood, but I’m certain their video feeds are playing back our front lines in Technicolor right now.”

“Don’t matter, sir, those fucks just got Darkhorsed!” said his radio operator.

Belanger suppressed a chuckle. If he survived this night, he knew he’d never forget it.

His chuckle didn’t last, because he knew what was coming, and it came instantly.

The scream of incoming rockets filled his ears.

M
artina Jaeger had complained to her brother incessantly for the past six days that she was bored to death because there wasn’t a damn thing to do around Amsterdam. To this her brother Braam had pointed out helpfully that she had partied in the techno clubs around the city, she’d eaten the best meals, and taken the best drugs. She’d biked sixty miles through the countryside and she’d worn out her air rifle at the range.

Sure, she’d allowed, but still she’d grown accustomed to back-to-back operations for the Russians over the past several weeks, so the downtime felt especially slow and meaningless.

She needed some real action.

For Braam’s part, he had enjoyed being back in Amsterdam. He’d worked out in his gym and wrestled in his local dojo, he’d biked with his sister and watched a lot of television. He figured he could stand another week of this easy living before he would feel the restlessness Martina had been showing since the second day back at home.

Still, for her sake he was happy to see a new instant message
pop up on the TOR application on his computer this evening. He knew it would be the Russians, and he knew they never checked in to ask about the weather.

No, he and his sister were about to get a new contract.

Braam opened the instant message and read it. He found himself happy with the order, but he knew Martina would need some convincing.

He called across his living room, affecting a cheery voice.
“Goed nieuws, zus!”
Good news, sis. “They want us back in the BVIs.”

Martina let out a groan of annoyance. “No! Tell them no way. We were just there, and it was just as dead as it is here.”

Braam read the message aloud. “We request your immediate return to support an ongoing operation in the British Virgin Islands.” He looked up. “It sounds like it’s more action than the last time.”

Martina sat up on the sofa. “Not to me it doesn’t. When it’s a wet operation they are always very clear on the target.”

Braam said, “I’ll ask for more details.”

“Suit yourself, but I’m not going.”

Braam typed for a moment while Martina looked on from the sofa. Finally, he said, “It says, ‘Senior management is concerned about hostile actors in the area who are attempting to infiltrate our operation. Your expertise is required in eliminating the threat.’” Braam looked up at Martina. “That’s a wet op.”

“No, it’s another babysitting mission.”

“‘Eliminating a threat.’ What else could that possibly mean?”

She looked at her brother for a long moment, sighed, then rolled off the couch as dramatically as she’d fallen onto it. Her brother could see she wasn’t happy about taking the contract, but she would do it anyway.

She said, “It either means he has someone for us to terminate, or I am going to terminate him for wasting my time.”

Braam shrugged. “I’m glad we’re going back. You should try the Anegada lobster this time. It is really worth the trip.”

Martina Jaeger shook her head in disbelief. “Flying halfway around the world for dinner is idiotic. Going that distance to kill a man for money—now,
that
is a trip worth taking.”

Braam said, “I’ll let you pull the trigger if you let me have my lobster. That way, we’ll both enjoy ourselves.”

She tousled her brother’s hair as she passed him by at the desk, then headed to her bedroom to pack.

•   •   •

J
ack Ryan, Jr., was sound asleep at noon, wrapped in covers with a large pillow over his head to block out the light. He’d worked the night shift alone, eight entire hours of boring surveillance, while the pair just in from Lithuania got some real sleep, but now they were up and he was down, crashed in the back room on one of two twin beds in the third-floor flat.

His target had gotten drunk again last night after an afternoon in his hotel. Jack had even managed to get eyes on the man in the bar of the hotel down the street by using his spotting scope, although in truth the video feed from the hotel’s house security camera gave him essentially the same information. Still, it was good to be over here, just one hundred yards away from Salvatore, after days of watching the man from 3,500 miles away in Virginia.

All through the night Jack kept one ear turned to BBC Radio on his computer so he could listen to the latest of what was going on in Lithuania. Of course, he would rather have been watching the news, but he never used the TV at night in the safe house because the moving light that shone through the windows could have drawn attention from those in other buildings or on the street involved in countersurveillance.

But BBC Radio was a good source of info, and by the time he went to bed at seven a.m. it had been confirmed United States Marines and Lithuanian Land Force troops were in heavy combat with Russian army forces inside the tiny Baltic nation. American Air Force and Navy aircraft were flying constant sorties, and even Poland was getting into the mix, flying F-16, MiG-29, and even old Su-22 aircraft on attack runs at Kaliningrad-based missile batteries.

Jack wondered if the American planes in the sky had trouble with MiGs flying on both sides of the war against the Russians.

Pundits on BBC Radio had expressed surprise that the Russian invasion had come exclusively from the east; the oblast of Kaliningrad had 25,000 combat troops poised to invade Lithuania from the west, but so far they had remained on their side of the border. Some suspected it was just a matter of time before they did push east, but others pontificated that Russia thought invading from Belarus would protect Kaliningrad from NATO retaliatory strikes if NATO eventually did get involved.

When Chavez and Caruso woke up, Jack passed them each a cup of coffee, then reported the news from Lithuania. Then he informed them they’d missed absolutely nothing in Brussels while they slept. Soon afterward he went to bed himself, hoping to be rested and ready when Salvatore finally did something,
anything
, that would make it worthwhile for the three Americans to have come over here.

He hoped that would be later today, and went to sleep with his fingers crossed.

•   •   •

H
e’d been asleep four hours when he felt someone grab his leg and shake it. He sat up quickly and balled his fists, coiling an arm back to throw a punch.

“Relax, cousin. It’s just me.”

His bleary eyes focused on Dominic, standing next to the bed in the dark bedroom, dressed in a black jacket and a brown watch cap. “It’s on. Salvatore just got a call from someone who sounds like he could be his Russian contact.”

Jack struggled to pull his jeans on as he rushed out of the bedroom, meeting Ding in the living room a moment later. Chavez was also wearing a dark-colored insulated jacket, along with a black knit cap. His car keys were next to him on the desk by the window.

Chavez said, “Listen to this.” He played back an audio file on the laptop in front of him. An accented voice spoke in English. “You will go now to the Sofitel Brussels Europe, fifth floor. There someone will meet you and give you instructions. Just wait in the hall.”

Then Jack recognized Salvatore’s voice. “I understand. Where is it?”

“Take a cab. The driver will know where it is. Ten minutes from your hotel.”

“I’m on my way.”

Ding looked through the spotting scope in the front window. It was focused on the entrance to the Stanhope up the street. “He just climbed into a taxi. We need to move.”

Jack put on his tennis shoes, then pulled on his brown leather jacket and pulled a gray skull cap over his hair.

All three men grabbed their Smith & Wesson M&P Shield nine-millimeter pistols and tucked them into Pistol Wear concealment holsters under their shirts. Each man also had his med pouch and two spare eight-round magazines slipped in the fabric band that held their weapons tight to their bodies.

In thirty seconds all three men grabbed their prepacked go bags
by the door, and then they were rushing down the stairs of the building. Outside in the parking lot behind the building, they climbed into their black Audi SUV. Chavez got behind the wheel, Caruso in the front passenger seat, and Jack in the back. Both Dom and Jack had open laptops.

As they took off, Jack quickly texted Gavin, “Guest list at Sofitel Hotel. Run against KAs of Mikhail Grankin, KA of Andrei Limonov, plus any FSB, Kremlin, or Russian OC.”

Jack knew Gavin had already created databases of the known associates of the different players in this operation, and Gavin also had a large and well-maintained file on Russian organized crime personalities. In twenty seconds he received a reply from Gavin acknowledging the request.

While Jack waited on Gavin, he pulled up the Sofitel’s website, and looked at the list of conferences for the next few days. There was a meeting of a local symphony orchestra sponsors’ group, a meeting of European estate attorneys, and a conference on gene therapy. Nothing that seemed like it would generate interest from either the paparazzi or Russian intelligence.

As Chavez drove he said, “Hey, Jack, don’t know if it’s relevant, but we’re pretty much driving through the center of the European Union.”

Jack looked up from his work, and out the windows of the SUV, and saw the massive Berlaymont Building, the headquarters of the European Commission. On the other side of the street they passed the Charlemagne Building, another office complex for the EU.

Dom said, “Maybe what we’re looking for isn’t at the hotel. That’s just a rally point. Maybe there’s going to be some sort of surveillance operation against the EU.”

Jack said, “Could be, but there could be a thousand targets for
Russian intel here. I’m sure they’d want to spy on every office in a ten-block radius if they could. We’ll have to just see what Salvatore does.”

Gavin called right back, and Jack answered quickly, “Anything, Gavin?”

“Not a damn thing, Ryan. Sorry. If any known associate or Russian intel actor is staying at that hotel, they are checked in under a legend that has not been flagged by any of the Five Eyes intelligence agencies.”

“Shit. Okay, Gav. Talk to you later.” Ryan looked up again now. The Lex Building, another ultramodern EU high-rise, loomed over them. In front of it a group of protesters held signs. Jack couldn’t read them, but it gave him an idea. “Wait! You still there?”

Gavin Biery had not yet hung up. “What’s up?”

“Forget the Russians. Look and see if any known associate of Salvatore is staying at the hotel. Somebody in one of those protest groups he’s been involved with. Greenpeace, antiglobalization, that sort of thing.”

“Shit, Ryan, that will take some time. I don’t have that automated like I do with the Russians.”

“It’s important, Gavin. You can send me half the names and I’ll start looking them up.”

Gavin said, “No, I can lump the hotel guests into a file and run it against Interpol, to see which guests have been arrested. Then I’ll have to check the results one at a time to see what they were arrested for. There are two hundred twenty guests so give me about—”

Gavin stopped talking suddenly. Then he spoke with amazement. “Well, would you look at that.”

“What is it?”

“One of the rooms at the Sofitel. Room 514. It’s under the name Luigi Vignali.”

Jack had heard this name before. He said, “Wait . . . that’s Salvatore’s real name.”

Gavin’s voice displayed his confusion. “Right. What do you think that means?”

Jack thought quickly, knowing time was in short supply. He’d listened to Salvatore get the message about coming to the Sofitel. He didn’t seem to know where the place was. It made no sense that he was already renting a room there, in addition to the one in the Stanhope.

Jack looked up suddenly. The hotel was dead ahead.

He said, “It means Salvatore is being set up. Someone called him there so he’d be at that location. A location they’ve tied him to by taking a room in his name.”

“But who?” asked Chavez from behind the wheel.

Caruso’s head spun around and he looked at Jack. “The bomb at the LNG facility in Lithuania.”

“What about it?”

“The body that washed up, the female diver. The Lithuanians thought she was just a patsy. Set up by the Russians, brought to the scene thinking she was part of some sort of protest and then killed. Just to throw off the scent that it was an FSB op all along.”

Jack didn’t know much about the bombing in Klaipėda. He hadn’t been following it closely at all. As far as he knew, he was involved in an entirely different type of operation. “Are you suggesting someone is bringing Salvatore here to use him to take the fall for another attack?”

“We know that the Russians have used him before.”

Jack looked down at his laptop and typed in “EU Brussels conferences” and the current date.

A quick glance showed him more than two dozen things going on in Brussels, most of them right here in the European Quarter in
the various meeting spaces around the EU buildings. He scrolled down slowly, then his eyes locked on one event. He said, “The European Oil and Gas Conference kicked off this morning. It says it’s an annual meeting with three hundred attendees, men and women at the pinnacle of the European oil and gas industry, as well as many government ministers from all over the continent.”