“Yeah,” muttered Dean.
“How’s dinner?”
“Not bad,” said Dean.
A waiter approached to take his plate. Dean asked to see a dessert menu.
“I feel like I’m living vicariously,” said Chafetz. “Try something chocolate.”
He ended up with an Italian cheesecake — Lia’s favorite.
CHAPTER 46
Tommy Karr had worked with Bundesnachrichtendienst, the German intelligence service also known by the abbreviation BND, in the past, but even if he hadn’t, he would have had no trouble spotting the two agents waiting for him near the customs gate when he landed in Munich. In their thirties, they were recruiting-poster types, tall, straight, and impeccable in black suits that looked custom made. They were the best dressed men in the terminal, and probably the city.
“Hey there, guys,” said Karr, walking up to them, “lookin’ for little ol’ me?”
The agents blinked in unison.
“Kjartan Magnor-Karr from America. You can call me Tommy. Do I have to go through these lines or what?”
“No” was the answer, and Karr was whisked through a side door to a Mercedes sedan for the drive to BND headquarters in Pullach. The building was probably the cleanest Karr had ever been in. He could see his reflection in the floor as he walked across the reception area, and the hallways gleamed so brightly he considered putting on his sunglasses.
Waiting in the secure conference room was Heda Hess, an Abteilung 5 supervisor who had investigated al- Qaeda for several years. Accompanying her were half a dozen other officers from Abteilung 5—Section 5 in English, it was the antiterror group. Two men from the Federal Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution (generally known by its German initials, BfV), which also investigated extremist groups, had also been invited and came in a few minutes after Karr.
“Herr Magnor-Karr, welcome,” said Hess.
The way she put out her hand made Karr think she expected him to kiss it. He resisted the impulse to click his heels — no German he had ever met had anything approaching a sense of humor — and introduced himself to the others.
Desk Three had forwarded information on Marid Dabir to the Bundesnachrichtendienst already; Karr’s job was to put the information into perspective and then help in any way he could. Referring to Red Lion only as an ongoing operation, he told the Germans that Dabir had resurfaced in Turkey. There he had met with another top al-Qaeda official, who had probably ordered Dabir to proceed on a European operation that was part of a planned fall offensive. The targets were believed to be economic, possibly related in some way to petroleum or energy assets, but they had yet to be identified.
Half of the faces in the room dropped when he said that.
“Problem?” Karr asked.
“Marid Dabir took a flight from Berlin to Baden an hour ago,” Hess told him. “Baden is about thirty miles from MiRO, the largest petroleum refinery in Western Europe.”
CHAPTER 47
Dean grabbed a four-hour nap between two and six A.M., then was back on Asad’s trail as the terrorist organizer once more played tourist, beginning his day with a visit to the New Mosque near the Eminonu waterfront. From there, Asad walked around the corner to the Spice Market, an indoor bazaar that featured mostly food items, including large bags of piquant-smelling spices.
“Buy something nice for me,” Lia told Dean, who was on the far side of the building.
“I’ll get you a rug.”
“Handwoven.”
Asad walked through slowly and came out behind the mosque. Lia took up the tail while Dean doubled back through the bazaar.
“Going underground,” said Lia as Asad headed toward a walkway that went under the heavily trafficked highway near the waterfront. The passage was filled with shops and vendors who spread their wares on blankets and rugs, hawking them to the crowds coming off the bridge or the nearby tram station.
“This is probably it,” said Rockman. “We have the U2 ready today; if he goes underground, we’ll have a map available in seconds.”
A gaggle of Japanese tourists pressed into the narrow hallway at the front of the Spice Bazaar as Dean tried to get out. He nudged his way through and began trotting toward the passage. Another flood of people, this one from a tram that had just stopped nearby, clogged the steps as he descended, and he was caught in a steamy mangle of bodies.
“Lia?” he said.
“He’s heading for the ferries. Pier Three. He just bought a ticket. I’ll stay with him. Relax, Charlie Dean.”
About an hour and a half later, Asad got off the ferry at a small fishing village cum tourist trap called Anadolu Kavagi just south of the Black Sea. Lia watched him go ashore before following herself. When he went into a restaurant just off the pier, she found another nearby. She went up to the second floor, looking down through the open windows at the corner of his table.
“So what’s he saying?” she asked the Art Room a half hour later.
“That the red mullet isn’t that fresh.”
“Pity,” said Lia.
An hour passed without anything happening. Finally Asad left the restaurant and headed up the road in the direction of an old fortress. Lia followed, but stayed a half mile back; Fashona was flying above and had the area under surveillance. She found a small grocer and bought a bottle of water, then camped in the shade below the ruins. More than likely, she thought, he’d hold a meeting in some underground cavern like yesterday, but a flyover by the U2 failed to turn up any hidden chambers, and within forty-five minutes Asad was headed back to the village.
“Where are you, Charlie?”
“Still offshore. You want me to come in?”
She did, but not for anything work related.
“Asad’s going back toward the dock. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks.”
Dean watched from the small boat as the ferry approached across the strait. It was the last one of the day; if Asad was going to return to Istanbul, he’d have to board it.
Or not. A boat could easily be waiting nearby.
The ferry moved in slow motion toward the dock. Dean, tired from the mission and convinced that Asad wasn’t going to do anything important today, pulled his cap down over his eyes; shade was a poor substitute for sleep, but it was the best he could do for now. A faint odor of rotting fish hung over his boat, normally used for fishing; between that and the unsteady rocking of the waves whenever a large tanker passed nearby, Dean’s stomach felt queasy.
“Looks like he’s going to get on this one,” Lia told him. “He’s moving toward the dock. I’ll get on after him.”
“No, go ahead and get aboard first thing,” said Marie Telach. “If he stays ashore, Charlie can go in and follow
