Extreme Faction (4 page)

There was still no response.

Mesut Carzani peered around the room at the security guards. “We must have complete privacy.” He shifted his eyes toward the door.

The three other leaders reluctantly waved and nodded for their men to step outside. When the room held only the four leaders, Carzani pulled a map from inside his jacket and spread it out on the table.

“Remember Halabja,” Carzani muttered solemnly.

MOSSAD HEADQUARTERS, TEL AVIV

The director of Israeli Intelligence, Mikhael Chagall, entered the secure room in a hardened shelter below ground, and shuffled immediately to his assistant who was standing next to an analyst at a console.

Chagall was a slight man, barely five feet, who had ascended to the top of Mossad by intellectual superiority, without leaving many enemies in his wake. As was tradition in Israel, no one knew the name of the current director, except for high ranking government and military officials. And Chagall preferred it that way. It allowed him to do his job more completely, without the fear of retribution from a brutal media.

“What do you have, Yosef?” the Mossad director asked.

The assistant handed the director a message that had just been deciphered, and the two of them went into an isolated, soundproof room. The message sender was identified by a code, and only the director and his assistant knew the identity. When the director was finished with the message, he immediately shredded it.

“So they are finally meeting,” Chagall said. “It means nothing.”

His assistant lowered his brows. “They are twenty million strong, Mikhael.”

Chagall approached his old friend and placed a tiny wrinkled hand on his shoulder. “We are allies traditionally, Yosef,” he muttered. “We will do them no harm. They are not Arabs or even Persians. They are merely lost sheep looking for home.”

MI-6, LONDON

“Tvchenko is dead,” the chairman of Britain's foreign service said. “That's why we called you in off your holiday.”

The chairman, Sir Geoffrey Baines, knew he didn't need to explain himself to his field officers under any circumstances, but it made difficult assignments much more palatable. He sat back in his leather chair, which squeaked with each movement from the robust man, and he studied his officer carefully. He prided himself on being able to read people simply by observing their face. He was rarely wrong.

Baines was a consensus builder. Some, his critics mostly, considered him far too accommodating. Yet, for the past four years he had gotten results. The foreign service was in higher favor with parliament and the public than at any other time since World War II.

Sinclair Tucker had never had a private meeting with the chairman before. At thirty-eight, he was a field officer who had seen action first in Eastern Europe during the waning days of the Cold War, and more recently in the Balkans, where he had just arrived from two days previously for a short Easter vacation, after working six months in Odessa, undercover, as a British businessman. He had been part of a four-man advance team seeking markets for telephone communications equipment. Actually, he had been keeping an eye on Yuri Tvchenko. Tucker knew that the scientist had been seen with foreigners on numerous occasions, and was closing in on what he was currently working on.

“How?” Tucker asked.

“It appears he was poisoned in some way at the conference,” the chairman said.

Tucker shook his head. He had wanted to stick around Odessa during the conference, but had been ordered to take leave. His boss thought he had been working too hard. Needed a break. Besides, Tucker was supposed to be working for a communications firm, which had nothing to do with agriculture. He could not simply show up. But Tucker had realized that it would have been a perfect opportunity to make contacts, with all those representatives from various countries together.

“Murdered in front of all those people?” Tucker said.

“Afraid so. We're not sure what this means, but we need you back in the country as soon as possible.”

“Of course.”

“One more thing,” the chairman said. “I understand that you're friends with an American there, Jake Adams, a former CIA officer.”

Tucker lowered his gaze. “Jake is there? Yes, sir. Why do you ask?”

“I've gotten word that Adams was with Tvchenko when he died. Stick close to him. Will he work with you?”

Tucker had known Jake Adams for years. They had first met when Jake was an Air Force officer verifying the withdrawal of chemical weapons from the Ukraine. Later, during the Gulf War, they had worked together once again in Turkey. They had spent more than a few nights drinking from Diyarbakir to Istanbul. He had even gone pub crawling with Jake in London once while they were both on leave. What in the hell was Adams doing in Odessa? Would Jake Adams work with him? That depended entirely on Jake. He had always done what he wanted, regardless of the consequences. He knew that Jake had left the Agency more than three years ago, so what was he up to now?

“Jake follows orders when the occasion strikes him right,” Tucker said, smiling. “It's not that he's a rogue. It's that he doesn't trust just anyone.”

“And what about you?”

“We have some history. If I ask him nicely, I'm sure he'll show us some consideration.”

“Good. You're packed, I assume. Your flight leaves Heathrow in two hours.”

He had never unpacked. “Yes, sir.”

“Stick with Adams. You'll lead our efforts. We're spread pretty thin in that area, as you well know, but I'm sure you're up to the job.”

He would have to be.

ODESSA, UKRAINE

When the ambulance finally picked up Yuri Tvchenko's body, Jake still wasn't completely certain what had happened. The Odessa police had assumed the most obvious affliction. A stroke or a massive heart attack. But Jake knew better. Tvchenko had been murdered right in front of a hundred witnesses. He even suspected the cause of death, for Jake had seen nerve agents tested on animals before, and while with the CIA, watched confiscated Soviet films where they had conducted research on prisoners. Even worse had been when Jake had entered the small Iraqi village after it had been bombed with chemical weapons by its own air force. He could never erase that from his conscience. Somehow, someone had injected an agent into Tvchenko's system right before his eyes.

Jake rubbed his right hand. Where there had been a spot of blood earlier, just after Tvchenko collapsed, there was now a red puffy area a few millimeters wide, like he had been prickled by a rose thorn and it was now infected.

Jake scanned the room for Chavva. She was the last to have direct contact with the scientist before he crashed to the floor, but she was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't imagine her killing the scientist, yet she might have seen him talking with someone else. Although he was officially in Odessa to protect MacCarty and Swanson, he could never stand by when something like this dropped in his lap.

Standing at Jake's side were MacCarty and Swanson. They seemed to be in shock. Neither had ever seen a man die in front of them, and the violence of a nerve agent death had been a most brutal initiation for them.

“That was disgusting,” Swanson said. He looked at his drink, uncertain if he should finish it.

“Death is rarely pretty,” Jake said. “Listen, I'm going to head back to my room.”

MacCarty nodded and started to drink his champagne. He was closer to drunk than sober.

“I wouldn't drink that if I were you,” Jake said. “We don't know for sure how Tvchenko died. Whatever entered his body could have come from an airborne agent. Something could have sunk down into your drink.” He knew this wasn't the case or more people would have been afflicted. Yet, just to be safe, it was a good idea to keep the two of them on their toes.

MacCarty slowly set the drink on a table. “Well, we've got a shitload of meetings tomorrow anyway. We can always grab a drink at our hotel. Bill and I will be along shortly.”

“I should probably accompany you. That's what I'm here for,” Jake said.

Swanson smirked as if to say he could handle himself.

MacCarty slapped Jake on the shoulder. “We'll be all right, Jake. We'll take a cab.”

The three of them were staying six blocks away in the Chornoye Hotel off Primorski Boulevard. Jake figured they couldn't get into too much trouble with a short ride like that. As he drifted off across the room, he continued searching for Chavva, but she was definitely not there. In fact, neither were any of the Israeli businessmen.

Out in the lobby, Jake made a quick phone call. When a man answered the phone, he excused himself in Ukrainian and hung up. It was his signal for the Odessa station chief to meet him immediately at a predetermined spot.

Jake stepped out onto Primorski Boulevard and started walking east. Tall trees lined the wide promenade, yet he could still see the lights from the harbor below. With such a warm evening, many others were out walking. Young couples, groups of girls and boys, and the frequent drunken old men staggering here and there. After three blocks, he turned south on Pushkinskaya down along a narrow park. Two blocks later the Volga sedan pulled up to the curb and a door opened. Jake slipped in.

Soon, Tully O'Neill turned left and headed toward Shevchenko Park. Neither said a word.

Jake had never worked for Tully O'Neill, since Tully had only recently taken over in Odessa. He had heard that Tully had worked for years in Bucharest, Sofia and Kiev as an operations officer. Odessa was his first assignment as station chief, which made him a late bloomer to the old agency, having first worked as a bureaucrat in Defense and the State Department. He believed he got a break with the new Agency because he wasn't one of the good old boys. In fact, at fifty, he would have normally been in charge of a much larger operation. The years showed in his receding hairline, long gray hair, and reddened eyes that drooped from lack of sleep and too much alcohol each night.

Yet, Jake had heard through the grapevine that Tully was a man to be trusted. He would put everything, including his life, on the line for a friend. Jake hoped that wouldn't be necessary.

Tully finally pulled over on a secluded street on the north side of the vast park with a view of the large ocean cargo vessels, and he cut the engine.

“Well, what's up?” Tully asked.

“You didn't hear?”

Tully gave Jake a blank stare.

“Someone just killed Tvchenko.”

Tully smashed his hands against the steering wheel. “God dammit. How?”

“At the dinner tonight,” Jake said. “A nerve agent pellet or something. I'm not positive.” He shook his head.

Pulling a cigarette from inside his coat, Tully offered one to Jake, who refused. He lit a Marlboro and inhaled deeply. “You know this town as well as I do, Jake. What do you think?”

Jake shrugged, and then rubbed his hand again. The puncture was stinging now.

“What's that?” Tully asked.

“I'm not sure. I got it when I shook hands with Tvchenko just before he died.”

“Let me look closer.” Tully pulled Jake's hand toward him and turned on the dome light. In a moment he said, “Son of a bitch. It's a message.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Here, look.” Tully pulled a small Swiss army knife from his pocket and opened a tiny, pointed blade that looked extremely sharp. He started toward Jake's hand with it.

“Wait a minute,” Jake protested. “What do you plan on doing with that?”

“Trust me. It won't hurt much.”

Right. Famous words spoken by dentists to patients and young boys to virgins. Jake slid his hand back toward Tully, reluctantly. But Tully was right; it didn't hurt. It was much like removing a sliver from a puss-filled wound; the pressure was removed as Tully extracted something minuscule from his palm.

“What the hell is that?” Jake asked.

“Wait. I'll show you.” Tully set the object in his cupped palm and spit on it. Then he removed a tiny, clear item that resembled a piece of rice from his pocket, along with a jeweler's eyepiece. He lined the three items up and peered into them closely. He slowly raised his head with a puzzled look. “Tell me what you see,” he said to Jake.

Jake shifted his head over. “Halabja,” he muttered. That's all it said. Just one word scribbled hastily, as though the writer were jotting down milk or eggs on a shopping list.

“Does that make sense to you?” Tully asked.

Jake settled back into his seat. “Just the obvious reference to the Iraqi village.” Obvious indeed. Tvchenko had to be referring to Halabja, Iraq, the city bordering Iran that was bombed with nerve gas and mustard gas by Saddam Hussein's own forces in March of 1988. As many as five thousand Kurds—men, women and children—were killed within hours. Jake not only knew about the devastating events of that day, he had actually seen the bombing while working on special assignment in Kurdistan during the height of the Iran-Iraq War. He was there to confirm or deny the use of chemical and biological weapons. He would never forget the faces. Especially the children.

Tully tucked the tiny message into a plastic Ziploc.

“What does Iraq or the Kurds have to do with this?” Jake asked.

“Maybe Tvchenko planned on selling his new weapon to Iraq.”

“We're not even sure he had a new weapon,” Jake reminded him.

“He was still into nerve agents.” Tully took a long drag on his cigarette and let the smoke out in one quick stream. “We need to get to his apartment before the police.” Tully cranked over the car and sped off.

“Where does he live?” Jake asked.

“The Russian Quarter.”

It was nearly midnight. The residential streets that Tully took were almost deserted. Jake realized that for Tully being in Odessa for less than a month, he already knew his way around the city quite well. In ten minutes, they were parked along a tree-lined boulevard, with old brick apartment buildings on both sides.