Scorpion Deception (16 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Girona,

Costa Brava, Spain

D
riving on the E-15 toll road in a rented Citroen on a sunny morning, wearing a white polo shirt, sunglasses, and the blond surfer boy wig, the radio tuned to the BBC World Service, Scorpion could have been any vacationer on the Costa Brava. When the announcer commented on the Bern attack crisis, he turned the volume up. The news was grim.

There were reports from Washington that the President's National Security Council was meeting in emergency session. Lights were seen in offices in the West Wing of the White House far into the night. In Brussels, NATO ministers were affirming their support for the United States, although the French representative warned that no military action should be taken until it was definitively established who the perpetrators of the Bern attack were.

“Without sufficient proof, it will be impossible to justify any diplomatic or military action,” he declared, reading from a prepared text. Meanwhile, the AP reported that satellite cameras had spotted an additional U.S. aircraft carrier group in the Indian Ocean, apparently heading to the Persian Gulf. In Tehran, in a speech to the Iranian parliament, the
majles
, Foreign Minister Gayeghrani, stated that if it appeared an attack was imminent, Iran would not hesitate to act first and mine the Straits of Hormuz, cutting off the flow of oil from the Middle East for the entire world. The actions in the Gulf were having an impact on global oil prices.

The BBC announcer stated: “As a result of the escalating crisis, the benchmark price of Brent crude oil has risen to $165.33 a barrel at today's closing. Economists at the World Bank have forecast a severe impact on the global economy if the crisis cannot be resolved quickly. The Dow Jones Industrials dropped 342.67 points in the final hours of trading on the news. In London, the FTSE was off 101.67, and analysts are warning further possible declines as the crisis continues.”

Scorpion's latest prepaid cell phone, bought under the name of a Spaniard who had died twenty-one years ago, vibrated three times and stopped. He turned off the radio. It meant the six-man SAD/SOG, Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group squad arranged by Shaefer was in position at the villa. He would RDV with the team's leader, Webb, in Girona.

Within the CIA it was widely understood that SAD was the most dangerous assignment in the Agency. Such were the nature of the Top Secret missions they were sent out on that their casualty rate was higher than for any other group of its kind in the world, even though every member of SAD was an experienced, tough-as-nails U.S. Army Delta or Navy SEAL veteran, who underwent further extensive training than even those formidable groups. Once an SAD Special Operations Group team, or SOG, was activated, they were dedicated to complete their mission or die—and more of them had than all the rest of the CIA's other operatives combined. Scorpion's initial assignment when he first joined the CIA had been in SAD.

He had personally gone over the 201 files of every member of the team, code-named “Sangria,” before accepting them for the mission, and he had little doubt that before it was over, he might well lose some of them. Driving on the E-15, traffic easy during the Costa Brava's off-season, well-tended houses and villages on the hillsides hidden by dense thickets of trees along the highway, it seemed insane that he was heading into a battle, but there it was.

This time, if it went off the rails, he couldn't avoid knowing it was his fault. The whole thing was his plan—and it all hung on the word of an Albanian gangster and the avarice of a bent policeman.

T
hey met in the tiny hotel room that Webb, leader of the Sangria team, had booked in the Hotel Europa. The small hotel was near the train station in Girona, a town on the way to Begur, a coastal village where the villa Shaefer had rented was located. Webb was a big man with buzz-cut hair who looked like he spent plenty of time at the gym and a blade of a nose that he thrust at you like the bow of a ship. He had no-nonsense Delta Force written all over him.

Scorpion started to scan the room with an electronic surveillance detector and Webb waved it away.

“It's clean. I fine-tooth-combed it,” Webb growled. He jerked his head at the door to indicate the hotel's owners. “They probably think we're pansies.”

“Costa Brava,” Scorpion said. “This is the place for it.” The two men sat on the twin beds, facing each other. “You came in through Morón?” the U.S. Air Force base near Seville in southern Spain.

“Yeah. Drove all night to get here. Shaefer said you like Glocks,” he said, tossing two Glock pistols and an H&K MP7A1 compact submachine gun on the bed.

Scorpion picked up the weapons and checked them.

“What did Shaefer tell you?” he asked, putting one Glock in the holster at the small of the back and the other in an ankle holster, pulling his shirt down over the back holster. The MP7A1 he put back in its carrying case.

Webb watched him, his arms folded across his chest. Defensive posture.

“He said this was your show. You'd be running it. We're here for if and when the nasty brown stuff hits the fan.”

Scorpion nodded. “You don't like it?” he said.

“I'm military. This is my team. We've trained together, been together,” Webb said. He didn't say “turf issue.” He didn't have to.

“So was I,” Scorpion said, meaning military. “We'll go over the disposition together. When the shooting starts, you run your team however you see fit.”

Webb took a breath and put his meaty hands on his thighs, clearly relieved.

“Better,” he said. “Shaefer said these guys might be the ones who hit Bern.”

“There's a good probability,” Scorpion said. “So yeah, there's payback. But don't underestimate them—or me,” his eyes narrowing. “These guys took out a highly trained U.S. Marine detachment in Bern and four good CIA agents in Zurich. They don't come in shooting and hoping for the best. They think.”

“Meaning?”

“I don't care what kind of superstars you guys think you are. This is no slam dunk. Got it?”

Webb nodded. He took out an iPad and displayed a satellite aerial video of the villa and grounds, showing Scorpion where he planned to place men and devices. From the image, Scorpion could see the grounds were encircled by a stone wall and ended on a cliff overlooking a rocky cove opening to the sea.

“What are your people packing?”

“MP7A1s with sound suppressors, chambered for DM11 4.6-x-30mm cartridges in thirty-round and forty-round box magazines. Penetrate any CRISAT,” Webb said, meaning the bullets would drill through a target made up of twenty layers of Kevlar with 1.6mm titanium backing at two hundred meters; they were the ultimate small arms body-armor-piercing rounds. “Glocks, M67 grenades; C-4 with remote-controlled detonators for IEDs, one M25 sniper rifle, and two XM25 grenade launchers. Those two are the real game-changers. Should be plenty.”

“I'm not so sure,” Scorpion said, studying the iPad image. “I need eyes. We could use a drone.”

“What the hell are you expecting? World War Three?” Webb said.

Scorpion sat up straight. “I need you to be more worried than you are,” he said. “How much C-4 have you got?”

“Plenty. Why?”

“I'll need about five kilos and two detonators.”

“Jesus! What the hell are you planning to blow up?” Webb exclaimed. In a way, Scorpion understood. A half kilo of C-4 would completely demolish a large military truck. Five kilos would vaporize it and a whole lot more.

“My car,” Scorpion said. “Put a cork in the bottle. Block the road. Once they're in the villa grounds, they stay in.”

Webb nodded grimly.

“You are taking them seriously,” he said. “How are you going to get them to the villa?”

“No problem. They'll just be following the moving dot.”

“What's the moving dot?” Webb asked.

“Me,” Scorpion said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

El Raval,

Barcelona, Spain

S
cale was at an Internet café on the Calle Barra de Ferro near the Picasso museum. There was no help for it, he thought. The information was too critical. He would have to contact the Gardener himself. A website for the Iranian Dried Fruit Exporters Association was the gateway. He could sign in with a password and an RSA token that provided a two-way authentication and send a text to the Gardener's contact alias.

For five euros he bought a mug of tea and an hour on an older PC in the corner. The café was about half full, mostly young people, travelers, and students. At the PC next to his, a male student was playing a video game. Secure enough, he decided. Before he logged in, he went over the information in his mind. The Gardener did not tolerate long texts. It would have to be direct and just circumspect enough to resist easy interpretation in case of electronic eavesdropping, beginning with the code word that would let the Gardener know it was him and that it was urgent:
kerm-e shab tab
. Firefly.

Scale had met the
policia
in a brothel on a narrow trash-strewn street in the El Raval slum. When he knocked on the door to the room and went in, the
policia
was seated on the edge of a disheveled bed. There were two half-naked women in the room: a dark-haired woman whose head bobbed up and down as she gave the
policia
oral sex, and a bored-looking young African woman sitting in the corner, smoking a cigarette.

The
policia
was a stumpy middle-aged man in uniform with a pencil-thin mustache under a pointed nose that gave him a ratlike look and a belly that sagged over his belt. He made Scale wait while the woman finished him, biting his lip and wheezing
“Basta ya!”
then pushing her aside as he rearranged and zipped up his fly and adjusted his pistol belt.

“From these two, I take my
tarifa
in exchange,” the policeman, Pintero, said. “They like it, don't they?” he growled, grabbing the white woman's face with his hand. He twisted her face to Scale. “You want either of them? Be my guest.” He grinned. “They like doing favors for me. That one,” pointing at the African, “she's got the best
culo
,” kissing his thumb “in Barcelona.”

“We have business,” Scale said.

“Por supuesto.”
Sure. “
Fuera!
” Beat it, Pintero told the women, who gathered their clothes and left. There was a bottle of Fundador on the nightstand. Pintero poured himself a glass. He waved the bottle at Scale, eyeing the bulge under Scale's jacket that could only come from a gun. “You want? Or are you one of these Islamistas who only drinks piss?”

There were no chairs in the room. Scale leaned against a wall, his outsize hands clasped in front of him, seemingly relaxed but keeping his hands close enough to be able to grab his gun from his shoulder holster.

“I'm told you have information,” he said.

“I piss in your mother's milk,” Pintero said. “You think I just give it to you?”

Scale crossed the space between them with a speed Pintero could not have believed possible and jammed his thumbs into the corners of Pintero's eyes. Pintero screamed.

“You want me to pop them out?” Scale hissed. “I can do it—easy.”

Pintero struggled, but Scale's massive hands were immensely strong. Pintero reached down for his gun. Scale twisted it out of his hand and threw it on the bed. He smacked Pintero hard across the face and began applying pressure again to his eyes.

Twenty minutes and two thousand euros to Pintero later, he had what he wanted. If the slimy Spaniard could be believed, the American, Scorpion, was wanted by the police for the murder of Mohammad Karif. Of course, Scale knew better. It was his man, Danush, who had killed Karif, and then when the American had shown up unexpectedly, managed to get away and mislead the police into believing the American had done it.

Pity, Danush didn't know it was Scorpion at the time, or he could have terminated him then and there, Scale mused. But the fact that the American had gotten so close to Karif, almost at the same time as Danush, only proved how right the Gardener had been to shut the network down.

Even more to the point, Pintero told him the Spanish CNI were GPS-tracking a cell phone this Scorpion was using. Pintero said that according to the CNI, the American was heading toward the Costa Brava, possibly running for the French border. Scale gave him the two thousand for the cell phone number.

The question was—the reason why he had to contact the Gardener—was it a movie? The CIA and the CNI sometimes worked together and they both hated Iran. It could be a trap, he thought as he logged into the Iranian website.

Kerm-e shab tab
.
The one we seek ran away. I've discovered where, but I have concerns,
he typed and waited. A minute later came the response.

You think it is ab nabat
? Candy—the code word for a trap. The Gardener was brilliant, Scale thought. He had grasped the situation and all its implications immediately. Scorpion's escape could be a movie created by the CNI working with the CIA. They might be walking into a trap.

I don't like candy,
Scale texted back.
Maybe I shouldn't have any. Of course, it may not be,
he felt compelled to add. There was no certainty here, only guesses. The Gardener would know what to do.

It is
ab nabat
, the Gardener replied. In other words, it was a trap. No question.

Should I abstain?

Candy is bad for children. You should eliminate it,
the Gardener replied, ending the session.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Begur,

Costa Brava, Spain

T
he villa was on a cliff overlooking a spectacular view of the lower town and a rocky cove opening to the sea. It was made of stone and glass, large, modern, and expensive, with at least a half acre of landscaped grounds and a stone pool terrace with a rectangular swimming pool. The terrace was on a level with the colonnaded back of the villa and stood a half meter above a garden of rosebushes and trees that led down to a wrought-iron railing at the edge of a thousand-foot cliff, overgrown with wildflowers. The villa was surrounded by a high ivy-covered stone wall with a drive-in wrought-iron front gate. On the land side it was backed by a pine forest that isolated it from the other holiday villas, and could only be approached by a winding single-lane road that made it ideal for defense and would hopefully limit any civilian casualties, Scorpion thought as he stood on the pool terrace and used Webb's binoculars to survey the terrain.

Below was a part of the town of Begur with its medieval stone buildings and palm trees, and below that the cove, with stone steps carved into the side of the cliff leading down to a small sandy beach. The water was so clear that when the wind died, you could see rocks on the bottom a hundred feet deep. The beach was deserted, umbrellas stacked and furled this early in the season, especially with a Tramuntana, the wind that in the early spring blows from the Pyrenees. The wind whipped the sea to whitecaps, rocking a lone sailboat at anchor in the cove like a metronome.

From the terrace, Scorpion could see a good stretch of the Costa Brava, trees bending in the wind and beyond, the wild jagged coast and the sun shining on the choppy blue of the Mediterranean. It was the most beautiful place he had ever seen.

In a way, his part was done, he thought. Webb had hinted as much. He was the bait. He'd driven into Begur, with its narrow cobbled streets and ivy-covered stone walls, dominated by the ruins of twelfth century castle perched atop a hill like the Acropolis in Athens. He stopped in at cafés and little
tiendas
in town, talking loudly and generally doing his best to draw attention to himself so people would remember him, though in his blond surfer boy wig, he thought it would be hard if they didn't, making sure everyone knew which villa he was renting and that he would be there for a week. Several of the townspeople had thrown him looks that let him know they thought he was full of himself. Good. They would remember him.

Now all he had to do was leave the cell phone turned on at the villa, whose number he hoped Kta'eb Hezbollah was GPS-tracking, and let the SOG team do the rest. All they could do was wait for Kta'eb Hezbollah to commit. Because otherwise the trail ended with the dead Karif and the mission was over.

He met the SOG team in the villa's upper master bedroom, whose windows had the widest views. All of them were like Webb: lean, muscled, intense. They were a team; he was the outsider. He tried to break the ice with stories about SAD training at the CIA Harvey Point facility, aka “the Point” in North Carolina; in particular, about a certain well-endowed female bartender named Melissa in Elizabeth City, about whom everyone had a tale to tell. On the surface they accepted he was a warrior, but their looks let him know they didn't think they needed him.

Scorpion knew otherwise. If their ruse worked, the Saw-scaled Viper and his team would be coming. They had been ahead of him every step of the way. They had killed Harandi and the Gnomes, and whatever happened, Scorpion knew he had to be here.

“When do you think they'll hit?” Webb said.

“Tonight, probably 0200, 0300 hours,” Scorpion said. “It's when either of us would.”

Webb nodded. They went over the layout and deployment of men—who would be where, weapons and sensors—on the iPad with the team. The comm, a mid-sized welterweight with a crooked nose called J.G., passed around the satellite-based TactiCell EV-DO phones they would use to communicate. In honor of the Point, the password would be “Melissa” and the countersign “Elizabeth” for Elizabeth City. A lanky Kentuckian, Rutledge, passed around the night vision goggles. Rodriguez, a Latino from East L.A., was on the M25 sniper rifle. A six-foot-six African-American linebacker type with a shaved head that everyone facetiously called “Mini Me” set up the C-4 IEDs. Webb and a tough New Jerseyite, Delucca aka “Spartacus Balls,” would have the XM25s, plus they would all have H&K MP7A1 compact submachine guns, plus grenades and pistols, including Scorpion.

“Where will you be?” Webb asked him.

“In the house, nice and lit up where they can see me till it gets late and they'll figure I'm asleep. Then I'll make my way down to the car in the woods off the road. Once they attack, I'll move it to block the road set with C-4 so they can't get out.”

Webb looked around.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Scorpion said to all of them. “These are probably the guys who lit up Bern. I know we all want to kill these Mike Foxtrots,” Army slang for motherfuckers, “but if we can keep one of them alive, we can get intel the White House would kill to have right now.”

“We're not going to give these dicks the chance to shoot back,” Spartacus Balls growled in his Jersey accent. They all looked at Scorpion, and he looked at each of them in turn.

“No, we're not going to do that,” he agreed.

They nodded. Professionals. Everyone began to move to their assigned locations. Webb walked Scorpion down the stairs and out to the pool terrace, the water in the pool spilling over the edge because of the wind.

“How do you figure they'll come?” Scorpion asked.

Webb inclined his head toward the pine forest on the hill behind the villa.

“That's how I would.”

“What about the cliff?” Scorpion asked.

“Too steep. Especially with equipment.” Webb shrugged. “But just in case, I've got Mini Me there. He's big enough to take them all by himself. So,” he hesitated, “what do you think?”

“It's going to be a long night,” Scorpion said.

H
e watched the three-quarter moon rise over the sea from the dining room of the villa, painting a rippling silver path on the surface of the water. The night was clear, cool, the Tramuntana blowing about twenty miles per hour, stirring the trees. Although he seemed alone, he was conscious of Rutledge in the hall closet, the door cracked just a little to let the sound suppressor on the MP7A1's muzzle peek out. The living room was well lit. From the outside anyone could easily spot him as a target. That was the idea.

He checked his watch one last time. A little past 2330 hours. Time to go. He hit his EV-DO phone.

“Melissa. This is Scorpion. I'm heading out to the road,” he said, and clicked off. The others would be tracking him with their night vision till where the road curved and they lost sight of him. Not for the last time, he wished he had a drone for eyes above. His mission sense told him they would absolutely hit the villa tonight; he could feel it.

He grabbed his gear, went out by the pool terrace and around to the front of the villa. The back of his neck prickled. He could feel them watching him as he got into the Citroen and drove down the road, shrouded by overhanging trees. The headlights carved a tunnel of light in the darkness bordered by shadows that seemed to move as the trees rustled in the wind. As he came around the curve and saw the road empty ahead, he switched off his headlights and put on the night vision goggles, turning the road into an eerie green lane between the trees.

The gap in the stand of pines he had spotted earlier that day was on his left. He stopped, turned the car around, and backed in far enough so it was well hidden from the road but facing it so he could drive it out in seconds. It took a few more minutes to set the detonators for the C-4 rigged to a cell phone set to Vibrate. If he called it, the vibration would create sufficient amperage to set off the detonators. He gave his weapons a final check, then got out of the Citroen and hid on the ground at the edge of the trees beside the road, lining up so he could watch the road through tree branches he pulled into place to camouflage his position.

He settled in, the MP7A1 with its sound suppressor steadied on a downed tree limb. From where he lay he could not see the moon, only its light on the road, a slash of pale green in the goggles, and the moving shadows of the trees stirring with the wind. They wouldn't hit from this side, he thought. Of all of them, he would probably have the least part in this fight.

As the minutes stretched he thought about Sandrine and whether he'd ever see her again. Probably not. If they were successful tonight, the mission would get much more dangerous and he would be going it alone. And if they were unsuccessful, he'd be dead. Don't think about that, he told himself, thinking like that never brings luck. He shivered inside his jacket. It was getting cold. It was going to be a long night.

Come on, he thought, calling to Kta'eb Hezbollah in his mind. He'd planted the cheese in the trap. He'd set the table for them. All they had to do was take it, not wanting to think about how much could go wrong. Everything depended on a dubious CNI agent and a dirty Spanish cop.

It was just after three in the morning when he was alerted by his EV-DO phone vibrating. By the voice, it sounded like the sniper, Rodriguez. He and Webb were stationed in prone positions on different sides of the villa's roof.

“Melissa. Movement in the trees,” Rodriguez said, and clicked off. Almost at the same moment, Scorpion heard the sound of an engine coming up the road. A white van loomed in the night vision goggles;
IBERDROLA
, the electric company, was painted on its side as it raced past. He called on his EV-DO.

“Melissa. Van approaching fast. Could be explosives. Don't let it get close.”

“Elizabeth,” Webb started to say. “Romeo tha—” He was cut off.

There were two or three shots, then a fusillade of gunfire—the rattle of sound-suppressed MP7A1s and the unmistakable staccato of AK-47s—from somewhere close to the villa. The shooting sounded like it came from the woods behind it. Then a loud explosion echoed through the trees and a bright white flare of light filled the night goggles.

Scorpion ran to the Citroen. The gunfire didn't sound like it was coming from the front of the villa where the van would pull in, but from the pool terrace.

Mini Me! The sons of bitches came up the cliff! Scorpion thought as he jumped into the Citroen and started it. He moved the car so it was parked horizontally across the road, preventing anyone from getting past. Locking the Citroen, he ran back to the woods, moving on all fours, Delta style, through the trees and toward the villa.

The Saw-scaled Viper—it had to be him—must've launched a three-pronged attack: from the pine woods behind the villa, up the face of the cliff, and with the electric company van. There was a sound of metal crashing—maybe the van smashing through the villa's wrought-iron gate and then the bang of a single shot that could only have come from Rodriguez with the M25 sniper rifle. Taking out the driver of the van, Scorpion hoped.

Ahead, through the foliage in his night vision goggles, he could see the high stone wall that went around the grounds of the villa. On the other side came the sound of intense gunfire. It was coming from all over. No way to tell who was shooting at whom or from where, but he could hear the sound of bullets hitting the stone wall, some ricocheting, some of them—probably the MP7A1's DM11 4.6x30mm bullets that could go through damn near anything—ripping holes in the wall, he thought, hitting the ground to try to avoid being tagged by one of them.

As he wriggled on the ground along the wall, he heard the crump of two grenades going off, one right after the other, then the crash of the M25 and more automatic fire. It was like a war on the other side, he thought, angling through the leaves on the ground toward where the wall ended at the edge of the cliff. Just as he reached the cliff edge, the sight of the cove and the sea and the moon eerily bright through the night vision goggles, a giant explosion hurled shards of metal, glass, and bodies like shrapnel against the other side of the wall, ripping trees, tearing down limbs and leaves, even taking down a part of the stone wall about twenty meters behind him.

He took out the EV-DO.

“Melissa. Scorpion. Do you copy?” he whispered into the device.

No one answered. He tried again. Nothing. My God, he thought. Have I lost all six of them? He had to find out!

Ears ringing from the explosion, he slid feet first over the edge of the cliff, feeling with his toes for a foothold. Nothing. He stretched his toes out as far as he could while keeping the weight of his upper body on level ground so he wouldn't go over the rocky edge of the cliff, especially with all his gear. He had to get around to the other side of the wall and see what was happening.

He felt something. A crevice in the rock face for his toe. It would have to do, he thought, putting his weight on the toes of his left foot pressed into the crevice and swinging his body over and around the edge of the wall. With his right foot, he desperately felt on the rock face for something he could gain a purchase on. He clung to the wall with both hands, feeling blindly with his right toe. Then he felt something, a root or something else sticking out perhaps half an inch from the surface. Here we go, he thought, rested his weight on it and swung over with his upper body while clawing at the iron terrace railing. Pulling himself up, he rolled over the railing into the bloody mess that was all that was left of Mini Me and whoever had been wearing the suicide vest that killed them both.

That had been the first explosion he heard, he thought, scanning for movement and cover. All around there were flashes of light from gunfire. A bullet zinged off the iron railing. He dived into a rosebush and crawled on the ground below the side of the stone pool terrace. Cautiously raising his head, he peered over the terrace edge.