This wasn’t a classic Whiplash mission, he thought.
Then again, what was the classic Whiplash mission? He was thinking about the old days, when everything seemed more straightforward. This was the
Maybe he was just a little too old to keep up.
But age seemed like a ludicrous idea with McEwen around. She was as enthusiastic and energetic as Hera.
They continued on their tour of the city, driving by the U.S. embassy and Ukrainian government buildings, walking through Maidan Nzalezhnosti, the square and monument in the city center, and getting more of a feel for the place. McEwen was just about to take them on the metro when Danny’s sat phone rang.
It was Nuri.
“I ran into a roadblock with the Italians,” Nuri told him. “They say it’ll be months before we can get in to talk to this mafia guy, Moreno. By that time, any data will be off his computer.”
“How much did you tell them?”
“Enough to put him away for life.”
“And they still won’t move?”
“They’ll move. They may even arrest him. But it’ll be at Italian pace. Next year or so. I have another idea.”
“Shoot.”
“I want to go into the estate and steal the computer.”
“What happens if you’re caught?”
“Bad things,” replied Nuri. “I’ll just have to make sure I don’t get caught.”
“You need backup?”
“I can handle it. I talked to Reid and we’ll have real-time infrared surveillance, so I’ll know where everybody is.”
Danny checked his watch.
“Flash is flying in from the States with a layover in Frankfurt,” he told Nuri. “If I can get ahold of him, we might be able to change his plans and get him down to Naples tonight.”
“All right. I like Flash.”
Flash was John “Flash” Gordon, a former Special Forces soldier who’d teamed with Nuri during their first mission. He tended to be quiet and efficient — a rare but winning combination.
“Hera and I can come out as well,” Danny added. He glanced at his watch. “We may not be able to get there until tomorrow, though.”
“It’s OK. It’s not a hard job. I checked the place out. There are only two guards around the perimeter. The guy lives like a prince,” added Nuri. “But he’s way overconfident. Everyone’s so scared of him nobody even tries to get up there. I’m sure the house is wired, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get inside. There’s only one slight complication.”
“How slight?”
“The FBI is helping me.”
Just from Nuri’s tone, Danny understood that wasn’t a good thing.
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“Only if I kill her. But it may be worth it.”
10
As a CIA officer, Nuri was generally in the habit of getting other people to do his dirty work. Things like breaking into a mafia chieftain’s home, bugging his office and his computers, were considerably safer when done by someone other than himself. But such arrangements took time, and in this case might very well be impossible. Besides, Nuri liked going places where he wasn’t supposed to be. And this place didn’t look nearly as well protected as it could have been.
He had done a few similar jobs before. As long as he didn’t get caught — admittedly a singular caveat — they were relatively straightforward. He’d sneak in, sprinkle a few bugs in strategic places, kick on the computer and load a virus that would dump all of its information to a Room 4 server the next time it accessed the Internet. Bypassing the computer’s security protocols was child’s play, and if there was a local area network, it was easy to scoop everything up from a single computer.
To get to the computer he had to get into the estate, but that wouldn’t be difficult either. A Reaper drone would provide real-time imaging through MY-PID, telling Nuri where the two outside guards were with the help of a synthetic imaging radar. The radar could penetrate the earth to roughly one hundred feet; it would have no trouble seeing into the house. The aircraft also had a small cesium magnetometer and an electronic field sensor aboard; the devices were sensitive enough to detect burglar alarms and computers, even when off — in effect telling Nuri not only what to avoid, but where to go.
Vineyards and olive groves surrounded the estate on three sides. A small booth near the top of the driveway about two hundred feet from the house looked to be the only permanent guard post. The two men who watched the place came out of the hut every thirty to forty minutes. Though their schedule was unpredictable, their route wasn’t: one walked around the house to the west, one went east. They met at the back veranda, continuing onward back to the hut.
Approaching through the eastern olive grove would be the easiest; hedges blocked most of the view from the post, and a pair of farm buildings near the house would make for a natural jumping off point.
The house was an old stone structure, at least six or seven hundred years old. It had three stories aboveground and one below. A portico ran along the east and north of the building, a kind of two-story porch flanking the kitchen and main living area. A pool was located on the northwestern side. Nuri wouldn’t know where the office was until the Reaper made its first overflight, but he suspected it was somewhere on the second floor, very possibly near the mafioso’s bedroom.
Or in it.
Given that possibility, he decided he wasn’t going to let insomnia jeopardize his mission: he armed himself with several syringes of an etomidate derivative, a powerful anesthetic that would put Moreno into a deep slumber almost instantaneously.
He was tempted to use one to get rid of Gregor. She clung to him like glue when he went to Naples International Airport, Ugo Niutta, to pick up Flash and the gear he needed, which had been flown in from the States via the Aviano air base.
In one breath she would say she didn’t want to do anything illegal, in the next she would ask how they were getting onto the estate. Nuri kept the details to himself. He didn’t need her, now that Flash was with him. The question was how to ease her from the picture.
A cliff would have done nicely.
Flash was flying on a diplomatic passport, and brought in a “pouch” of weapons and backup com gear. “Pouch” was a diplomatic misnomer — it was actually a small metal crate, securely locked. To carry it, they had to each take a handle at the side and walk out to the car.
“You could open the trunk for us,” Nuri grunted to Gregor as they approached the rented Fiat.
“You didn’t give me the keys,” she said.
True, but somehow it felt like it was her fault. They packed up the car, then went off for something to eat.
Flash had been in the Army for just over ten years before deciding to work with a private security contractor. That gig, three months in an African hellhole, hadn’t worked out the way he had hoped. He told Nuri in Iran that he’d spent his time guarding the brother of an African “president”—aka dictator for life. The man had a thing for guns, and liked to fire them at all hours of the night, and not always in appropriate places or directions. This wouldn’t have been so bad if Flash had been paid as promised. In the end he had to take matters into his own
