The Skorpion Directive (34 page)

Nikki went back to her lunch, a wonderful tomato-and-olive salad that had suddenly become dust and ashes. She pushed the plate away, calmed herself, and dialed a number on her cell phone. The line rang three times, and then Fyke picked up.

“He’s there?”

“About an hour,” she said, speaking softly, very aware of the tourists that were gradually filling up the tables all around her, all talking cheerfully in several different languages—Greek, German, Italian, Swiss—their voices combining into one goose-and-gander barnyard gabble, getting louder by the second.

“You see a car?”

“No. he came in a boat. Eighty-foot at least. Called
Dansante
. He’s going by the name of Peter Christian.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Moby-Dick in a leisure suit.”

“You’re sure it’s him?”

“It’s him. Micah Dalton found a video of him on the
Subito
. There can’t be two of him in the world. The planet would tip over. Where are you?”

“I’m over in Piraeus. The harbor—”

As if to validate this, Nikki heard a huge, blaring blast from Fyke’s end of the line, one of the cruise ships casting off. A moment later, the sound of it came across the water and echoed off the hills to the south.

“As you can hear,” said Fyke after the deep bass tones had died away, “I’m at the harbor. I’m supposed to be interested in renting a warehouse. I’ve got a list of businesses operating down here. There’s no Cobalt Hydraulic Systems listed anywhere in Athens—anywhere in Greece, for that matter—but there is a warehouse on Kondyli, right across from the main wharf, leased to a company called Northstar Container Logistics, which is a subsidiary of Arc Light Engineering. They own a fleet of cargo tankers, a worldwide outfit. Own something like forty hulls, tankers, containerships, even a couple of yacht transporters—”

“What’s a yacht transporter?”

“It’s special hull that can sink below the waterline. They have a big gate at the rear. The owners just drive their yachts through the gate, like entering a lock, then the transporter rises up again under the yacht, and off they go. They used a huge one on the USS
Cole
. Anyway, something interesting in the records here. Guess what investment bank has a stake in both Northstar Logistics and Cobalt Hydraulic Systems?”

“Ray. Please.”

“Okay. Hold on to your garters, my child. Burke and Single.”

“Burke and Single? That’s . . .”

“A CIA front, started up by Porter Naumann ten years ago. Still in operation, run out of London. Mikey used to work directly for them, along with Mandy Pownall. Mandy Pownall and Porter Naumann used to be an item.”

“I . . . I don’t think I understand any of this. Is Kirikoff a double? Is he working for both sides? It makes no sense.”

“Not yet. But it will. I’m standing down the street from their warehouse right now, and there’s a large tanker truck parked outside with the name Cobalt Hydraulic Systems on the side. So I’d say we’re in the right neighborhood anyway.”

Nikki looked up as Kirikoff pushed his plate away and lifted a large pink flipper that he waved at someone out of sight.

“I think our man has company—”

“Is it Vukov?”

“No . . . I can’t see . . . Wait a minute . . .”

She watched as a tall, tanned well-groomed man walked into the dining area. He was gray-haired with a trimmed gray beard, slender, dressed in a lightweight tan suit. He extended a hand and allowed it to be enveloped in Kirikoff ’s greasy flipper with a shiver of distaste.

“Someone I don’t know. Looks Middle Eastern. They’re ordering . . . coffee. How do you want to handle this?”

“Has Kirikoff ever seen you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Can you get any closer?”

“I can. There are tables inside. But I’ve already had lunch. I’m going to stand out, won’t I?”

“I don’t want you to sit anywhere near them, but if you can get a cell-phone shot of them together maybe we can figure out who the guy is. Could be totally unrelated, but it’s worth it. But, Nikki, please don’t get caught.”

“I just love it when you’re stunningly obvious, Ray.”

 

 

 

FYKE
flipped the cell phone shut, stepped out of the crowded side lane where he had been standing, and walked across the large concourse toward the wharf area. The entire harbor, the third-largest port in Europe, was lined with freighters and tankers and containerships, all either taking on or off-loading cargo, derricks whining in the diesel haze. The tarmac under his feet was soft and sticky. Push-carts and trolleys and forklifts hummed around the ships. Thousands of people—some tourists but mainly locals with jobs at the port—milled around, some with purpose, some without, no one showing any interest in the large sunburned man with long black hair and green eyes who was moving through the crowded docklands.

He took a position across the deck from the entrance to Northstar Container Logistics, where he could see the door and keep an eye on the tanker truck. It was a large stainless-steel tube, glittering and brand-new, with COBALT HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS on the side. He stepped back into the shadows again and lit up a cigarette. Five minutes later, his cell phone buzzed in his shirt pocket.

“Yeah. Joko. Where the fuck are you?”

“Well, I’m not in Tel Aviv.”

“Good fucking thing. You break my ear bone with fucking champagne bottle. Still can’t hear right. The boys send you kiss.”

“They out of the hospital?”

“Jona is but can’t walk yet because his balls all swollen up like cantaloupes. Levi still has to get pins put in, and his collarbone is not so good. Daniel is okay, but he wants his tooth back.”

“Found it stuck in my knuckle, Joko. Dropped it on the beach somewhere. To what do I owe—”

“Parcel service drops a box off at Mossad HQ downtown this morning. Inside is this videotape. Not fun to watch.”

“Jesus. Not Mikey?”

“No. Galan. Is long tape, my friend. They cut out some bits. Not so much fun, dull stuff. Just Galan dying. But most is here.”

“You see any faces?”

“Yeah. Four of them. Two guys, sort of young-looking, wearing black uniforms. They looking pale, and one is sick in corner. Big laugh. Another guy with a Mohawk, older, also in black uniform. But one guy, very bad burns all over his upper body, no face left, only slits, he has his shirt off—big, strong guy—he is doing something to Galan I do not want to talk about. On wall behind him is black flag with green scorpion on it.”

“Serbs.”

“Yes.”

“So it wasn’t Mikey, then?”

A long pause.

“Doesn’t look like it. Tape was faked, we think,”

“You guys aren’t usually so gullible.”

“Us guys aren’t usually getting fucked over by old comrades either. CIA all of a sudden is cold to us. U.S. is cold. Sucks up to Arabs, bleeds for Palestine, sign statement endorsing Goldstone Report that we commit war crimes in Gaza. Even join fucking Human Rights panel at UN. We feel the cold, we resent this. Makes us cranky. But about Micah, yes, I am sorry. I was wrong. I should have known better.”

“Okay. Penance. A Rosary and the Stations of the Cross.”

“I am a Jew, Ray.”

“So was Jesus. Roll with it. Any idea who sent the video?”

“Yeah. Come from a Captain Bogdan Davit. I think is a policeman, in Kerch, on the Crimean across from Russia. Had a note with the package. I read it to you?”

The cell beeped in his hand.

He looked down at the screen.

“Yeah. Please.”

“ ‘Dear Mr. Dagan . . . I have the duty to present you with very disturbing evidence of the murder of one of your countrymen. I vouch for integrity of these difficult images and I express my deepest condolences that such barbarity took place in my country. Three of the men you see in this picture were found dead in a truck a few kilometers from a town called Staryi Krim. The third man, the scarred one, his name is Aleksandr Vukov, a Serbian national and a leader of a paramilitary group known as the Skorpions. His whereabouts not known. He may be drowned off Kerch. I am under the news that your organization has suspected an American CIA agent of this atrocity. I warrant to you that he is innocent of this thing. I offer my services in any capacity to help you in your investigation of the murder of your Mr. Issadore Galan . . .’ He goes on, gives his phone and e-mail numbers. Meir Dagan has already called him—”

“Any mention of . . .”

“. . . Micah Dalton?”

“No. But we know who he is talking about.”

“Does Meir Dagan buy it?”

Another pause.

“Yes. We all do. Pretty hard to argue with.”

“So Mikey’s off the hook?”

“With us, yes. With the Russkies, no. Dagan did some digging and found out that Dalton made a midnight run on a Russian coastal town called Anapa. Girl was killed. Somebody else kidnapped. He might have had the help of the Ukrainians. Big international incident, if that comes out . . .”

“Look, Joko, I got a caller . . .”

“Okay. But I got to say something.”

“Shoot.”

“We were out of line. No hard feelings, okay?”

“No . . . And thanks . . .”

“No. Is more. You going after this Aleksandr Vukov guy?”

“Yes.”

“So are we. You want in?”

“I
am
in. I own it.
You’re
the guy who wants in.”

“Okay. You own it. We want in. How about it?”

“Who have you got?”

“Me. And Daniel. He still wants his tooth back.”

“Declared? Flying the flag?”

“No. Not declared. But we got some backing, if we need.” Fyke was silent for a moment, thinking it through.

“Okay. Just you two. And I’m running it.”

“Good. Okay. Where are you?”

“In Athens. At the docklands in Piraeus. When do you leave?”

“We are in air already. Dagan gave us a jet. Meet us at Ellinikon Airport in . . . three hours. Okay?”

“Done.”

Fyke clicked off, hit CALL, and heard Nikki’s line beeping, his chest suddenly cold.
Answer please, Nikki, answer
. . .

“Ray, I’ve been ringing and ringing.”

“Where are you?”

“In a cab, on . . . Poseidon . . . We’re going by a big football stadium . . . I’m following Kirikoff . . . They’re in a white Mercedes, a two-seater of some kind . . . He’s with the guy he met at lunch.”

“You get a shot of them?”

“Yes. That’s why I was calling. I went on our Greatest Hits page—all known terrorists on the watch list?”

How does she have access to that?
he thought.

“Okay. And . . . ?”

“I think the guy with him is Milan Babic. He was Ratko Mladic’s second-in-command.”

“Kleinst said he was involved. And here he is. If you have access to that database, then you have access to Deacon Cather too, don’t you?”

“Yes. Indirectly.”

“Then send him a flash about Babic. Where are you now?”

“We just merged with a big street . . . Piraeus something . . .”

“You’re headed to the docklands. Don’t get too close.”

“I won’t. We’re already falling back. Where are you?”

“Where you’re going to be in about five minutes.”

 

 

 

FYKE
was still in the shadows across the road when a white Mercedes SL550 roadster came gliding down the wharf, weaving in and out of the carts and forklifts, pulling up in front of the door to Northstar Logistics. The door pulled back—electric—and Fyke was treated to the prolonged spectacle of a sweating, writhing, red-faced Piotr Kirikoff struggling to extricate his bulging bulk from a car not specifically designed for bipedal belugas.

Fyke was aware of Nikki walking down the wharf toward him, having dumped her taxi a block back, but he found it impossible to look away as Kirikoff, wrapping his fat flippers around the door trim, managed to give birth to himself. It was like watching a giant pink crab leave home and waddle off down the shoreline without his shell.

His passenger, Milan Babic, a whipcord type, tall, slender but muscular, with a trim gray beard, stood by the entrance to the warehouse and pretended to be fascinated by his BlackBerry. Nikki reached Fyke just as Kirikoff came free with an audible
pop,
his pink face dripping wet and his linen shirt already hanging limp.

“Dear God,” she said softly.

“Yes. They’ll have to bury him in installments. That your Serbian lad with him? Babic?”

“Yes. Kleinst thinks Babic is next in line if Mladic ever gets caught. He’s taking quite a chance walking around in Athens. Every security agency in the West wants him.”

“You hear back from Cather?”

“No. Early in Langley.”

“He’d still be in his crypt, then, sleeping on a bed of his native soil and dreaming of nubile young Carpathians?”

“He really behind this . . . whatever this is we’re doing?”

“He’s paying for it anyway.”

“How’d he talk you into it?”

“It was more trick than talk. By the time I had finished listening to him, I was already wrapped up in spider silk and hanging out to cure. Why are you here, Ray?”

“Mikey.”

“Simple as that.”

“Not simple at all. By the way, one of us is going to have to go along to Ellinikon Airport in . . . about an hour and a half.”

“Why?”

Fyke told her.

“Dear God.”

“Is that relief or horror?”

“I didn’t like Joko very much. And you knocked out that poor boy’s teeth. What was his name?”