Gunner shook his head. “No, Major. Please don’t. We won’t be staying long. I need to check in, and then we’ll be on our way. Thanks.”
“As you wish,” she said with a shrug. “You’ll find snacks and drinks in the kitchen area. There are showers in the lavatory. It does not carry a gender designation, I’m sorry.” She looked at Cam as she revealed this information.
“Thank you,” Gunner said again. He was eager to be left alone with his team and von Zwick’s research.
The major’s demeanor suddenly turned serious. “I imagine you are unaware of recent events. The U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan was attacked. There are many unanswered questions, but it appears it was partly a frontal assault coupled with some type of poisonous gas.”
“When?” asked Gunner.
“Yesterday,” the major replied. “You can have access to a telephone to contact your superiors for more details. I have a guard stationed outside if you need anything. We are an active military base, so please don’t leave the building without approval and an escort. Also, I hope you understand, we must relieve you of your weapons while you’re on our base.” The major looked each of them in the eye and exited the room.
Without speaking, the three members of the Gray Fox team exchanged glances. Gunner set his footlocker on a table near the kitchenette, and it was soon joined by the other two. They turned over their weapons cache together with the additional magazines in their pants to the security guards. Gunner kept his knife strapped to his leg, a weapon that went unnoticed by the Latvian airmen.
After they were left alone, Cam spoke first. “What the hell is going on?”
Gunner replied, “I don’t believe in coincidences. Let me touch base with the Den. Bear, see what they have to eat. I wanna be on our way ASAP.”
Bear made his way to the refrigerator and began searching for something to eat. He found packs of deli meats and cheeses, as well as a couple of loaves of rye bread. He laid it out on the kitchen counter, and soon the team was devouring their overstuffed sandwiches. They each washed it down with a different flavor of Gardu Muti soda, a Latvian-made sparkling lemonade drink.
Cam stared at the three footlockers. “Well, are we gonna open them?”
“Yeah, might as well do it now,” replied Gunner as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s see what’s inside while I contact Ghost. I’m not sure our call will be totally secure, so I’m gonna have to rely upon him to tell us what to do next.”
Bear grabbed his shoulder pack and rummaged through it until he located his lockpicking tools. He handed them to Cam. Within a minute, she’d opened up all three footlockers, allowing the stale air to seep into the room. Cam was the first to call out their contents.
“Spiral notebooks full of handwritten notes, all in German. There are photocopies of newspaper articles and headlines. Internet blogs. I’ve got a few hard drives. Surveillance photographs taken of corporation headquarters, obviously taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. False identification, including passports for Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the good old U.S. of A. I mean, there’s a metric shit ton of stuff here. It would take us a month to go through all of this.”
Bear began to pull the contents out to organize them on a long dining table. He pushed the six USB storage drives into a separate pile. “Do you want me to get with Major Hottie to access a PC? It’s kinda old school, but it would give me an opportunity to—”
“No,” Gunner replied curtly. “Nothing leaves this room. In fact, none of this is to be discussed with anybody. Organize it, photograph it, and prepare to send it via secure satellite uplink to the Den. And look for anything marked Odessa. I need to call Ghost.”
Gunner wandered away from his two partners, who noticed his serious demeanor. The events of the last forty-eight hours weighed heavily on his mind. The contents of the footlockers should be left to the analysts in the Den. He felt like his team belonged in Rome, following von Zwick’s suggestion as he died. However, the embassy attack might change everything.
Over the next half hour, Cam and Bear carried out their task while Gunner spoke to various personnel at the Den, including Ghost. He was instructed to wait for First Lieutenant Charles Mercier, the U.S. Army Mission Command Element Liaison Officer to the U.S. Embassy. He worked undercover for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir. The contents of the footlockers could be safely turned over to Lieutenant Mercier for delivery back to the Den.
As for the next leg of Gray Fox’s investigation, Rome would have to wait. They were being dispatched on the next Turkish Air flight from Latvia’s capital of Riga to Baku, Azerbaijan. Ghost believed the attack on the U.S. Embassy might have been connected to the missing contents of the U-boat despite all signs pointing at Hamas and the Iranians.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Baku, Azerbaijan
The Turkish Air flight circled Baku several times before it was cleared to land. As a result of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy, extraordinary security measures were being taken to secure the city and to screen all passengers traveling through the airport.
The city of Baku was often likened to Dubai for its outlandish architecture and affinity for the use of gold inlay in its building facades. The oil-rich nation, run by a dictator for decades, loved to show off its wealth through curvaceous structures like its arts center; the mirrored SOCAR building, home of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan that resembled the famous sail-like Burj al Arab hotel, also in Dubair; and the trio of Flame Towers, built as a tribute to the nation’s wealth from natural gas.
For all of its interesting features and fascinating points of interest, it had one drawback,
