“This cat-and-mouse game we’ve been playing has been for Kovac’s benefit.”
Fisher noted that this was a statement, not a question. Hansen and his team had already realized their strings were being pulled, but not why.
“Correct,” Fisher said. “He forced her to put a team in the field. If she refused, she’d be out, and all the work we’d done since Lambert’s death would be gone. I had to make it look good — keep you guys close, but not so close I couldn’t work. Without some minor victories and near misses, Kovac could have called Grimsdottir’s plan a failure, and she’d be out.”
“This explains why she’s been jerking us around. She’s been juggling a lot of balls,” Hansen said. “Back to Kovac. If he’s not just an asshole but an asshole
“We couldn’t afford to have him know I was on to Ernsdorff or the auction.”
“But Kovac knew you were there. Wouldn’t he have already pushed the panic button?”
“Probably. And the first thing Ernsdorff and his boss would have done is check security. I didn’t leave any fingerprints when I hacked Ernsdorff ’s server; none of the auction attendees have disappeared… As far as they can tell, all is well. We suspect the auction is days away; they’re at the point of no return.”
“Yeah, you don’t invite the world’s worst tangos to one location, then tell them at the last minute to turn around and go home.”
“No, not with these kinds of stakes. And this is where you come in, Ben.”
“You mean we get to stop playing straight man in your comedy road show?”
“Exactly. Yesterday I tagged one of the auction attendees. A Chechen named Aariz Qaderi.”
“CMR, right?” Hansen asked. “Chechen Martyrs Regiment?”
“That’s the guy. I tagged him. He’s headed east into Russia — on his way to the auction, we hope.”
“Hold on. All the attendees will be scrubbed before they reach the auction site. Any kind of beacon or tracker will be found.”
“Not the kind we used.” Hansen opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Fisher cut him off. “Another time. Trust me: You can scrub all you want and these trackers won’t come off.”
Hansen shrugged. “What’s our plan?”
“You get your team in here and brief them. Once they’re on board, we start moving east and wait for our trackers to phone home.”
“What about Ames?”
“We’ll deal with him later. For now he’s part of the team. We include him in everything.”
“What about his cell phone? And his OPSAT? He’ll try to contact Kovac.”
“Let him. Grimsdottir’s made modifications to his phone and OPSAT. Every communication he makes beyond our tactical channels will go straight to her. She’ll be playing Kovac and anyone else Ames has been talking to. He’ll get voice mail, but Grim will respond to texts. Your phones aren’t Internet-capable, right?”
“Right.” Hansen smiled. “I like it. I like the plan.”
“I thought you might. One thing, though: One of us has to stick to Ames like glue. If he slips away and gets a message out another way, we’re done.”
“Understood.”
“How do you want to handle your people? I’d prefer to not get shot in the confusion.”
Hansen chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Fisher sat along the office’s back wall, the lights off. Ivanov, with a second dart in his thigh for good measure, lay on the floor before him. Hansen dialed his cell phone and recalled the team. Once they were inside he told them Grimsdottir had come clean, then gave them the
Hansen fielded twenty minutes of questions and gripes before, finally, the team cooled off and seemed to accept its new mission. “One last thing,” Hansen said. “We’re taking on a new member. He’s going to be our team leader from this point on.”
The griping started again.
“Who the hell…?”
“Why would Grimsdottir make a change at this point…?”
Fisher took his cue and walked out of the office. Gillespie saw him first, did a double take, then reached for her gun. Hansen called, “Stand down, Kim. Everybody — hands at your sides.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Ames said with his greasy smile. “Look who it is.”
Noboru said, “Ben, what’s going on?”
“I think I’ll let Mr. Fisher explain that.”
31
Fisher’s overt reentry into the Third Echelon/ Splinter Cell community took place not at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, amid back slapping and handshakes, but in a warehouse in Odessa amid the suspicious stares from a group of twentysomethings who, up until thirty minutes before, had been bent on taking Fisher dead or alive. And judging from the glares aimed in his direction, it appeared most of Hansen’s people had been leaning toward the former choice. Predictably, once Fisher finished talking, Ames was the first to express his misgivings:
“I don’t buy it. Not a bit of it. This is just another circle jerk.”
“To what end?” Fisher asked.
“What? What’s that mean?”
“For what purpose?”
“Who the hell knows? You people are nuts.” Ames turned to Noboru, Valentina, and Gillespie. “Don’t tell me any of you are buying this.”
No one spoke immediately. Then Kimberly said, “I do.” Then, to Fisher: “That night at the foundry… I almost shot you. You know that, don’t you?”
Fisher nodded.
“You and Grim could have told us,” Noboru said.
“We would have held up our end and made it look good. Screw Kovac.”
“We couldn’t risk it,” Fisher said. “If he got even a hint that you guys were holding back, he would’ve canned all of you — including Grim. It had to be done this way.”
Valentina said, “Why tell us now, Mr. Fisher—”
“Sam.”
“Sam,” she repeated. “Why tell us now? Seems to me you didn’t have much trouble keeping us at bay. Why not keep up the ruse?”
“Two reasons. One, to stop this auction I’m going to need your help. There are too many variables, too many unknowns. We won’t know until we get there, but my gut tells me this isn’t going to be a one-person job. And two, when I went off the bridge at Hammerstein I bought myself some time, but I knew they’d find the car but no body. Kovac would get suspicious and accuse Grimsdottir of… anything. Any excuse to get her out. If I resurface, you guys get deployed and Kovac has to back off for a while.”
“How did you survive the bridge?” Gillespie asked.
“Dumb luck and an OmegaO unit. I kept the windows shut and the car floated downriver. On the bottom, I waited to the last minute, then put on the OmegaO and got out.”
Ames said, “Well, I’ll give you this much: You’ve got brass ones, Fisher.”
“Since we’re reminiscing,” Noboru said. “That was you at the Siegfried bunkers, right? You took out those two guys?”
“Yes.”
“Why’d you do it?”
