Fog of War (Justin Hall # 3) (33 page)

“Thanks. Anytime you need something like that, let me know.”

Justin smiled at the pumped up young man. Technicians like Ellis rarely left their office stations for fieldwork. Not too many opportunities for multimedia ambushes in conference rooms in their line of work.

Justin reached for his cellphone inside his suit pocket and dialed a number from memory. The man at the other end picked up after the first ring.

“Hall, you prick. You think a stunt like that will hurt me? I’ve seen better men than you. Chewed their bones and spat them out.”

Justin grinned. “Adams, you’ve lost your cool. And what are you talking about?”

“Cut the crap, Hall. I know you’re behind this. But it’s not going to work.”

“Mr. Adams, things are only going to get worse for you. Those reporters are like piranhas. They’re not going to stop until you’re gone. And the information they got is only the tip of the iceberg. This will be greater than Wikileaks. You’ll see.”

A couple of curses, then Adams said, “No, you’ll see how I’ll turn this around. These are all lies, fabrications by Canadians and others trying to distract the public from their own traitors. You and others who want to undermine our war on terror.”

Justin laughed. “Adams, do yourself and everyone else a favor. Retire. Get out. Disappear. Save the CIA and the American people a lot of embarrassment, waste of energies and ti—”

“I will not go away. Not without a fight. Ever.”

Justin shook his head. He slowed his pace as they came to an exit. “The fight is over. You lost. It happened when you decided to cover your mistakes by betraying your country and your allies. When you lured Yusuf out and deceived us into planning a hit.”

“You think you know everything, huh?” Adams began his rant. “You think you know it all?”

“No, I don’t, but I know enough to realize when a man is drowning. You’re done for, Adams.”

Justin moved his cellphone away from his ear, ignoring Adams’s curses and shouts.

Chapter Twenty-three

Puerto Banus, southwest of Marbella, Spain

October 6, 8:45 a.m. local time

Costa del Sol
or Sunny Coast in southern Spain was still quite pleasant, even in the fall, true to its name. The temperature was sixty-nine degrees, and a soft breeze came from the Mediterranean Sea. The warm waters had plenty of swimmers, the gentle waves splashing against the golden sandy beaches.

The area of Puerto Banus attracted mostly the rich and the famous, local and international celebrities. It was a place of money, power, and prestige. The place Claire Johnson had chosen to spend her holidays.

Justin raised his binoculars and looked at
Lazy Affaires,
the yacht Johnson had rented to sail along with her three girlfriends. It was a brand new seventy-five footer, which could do up to twenty-five knots. A true beauty.

CIS had traced all calls from Johnson’s four cellphones and had monitored her two laptops, concluding she was the source of the leak. She had used a number of anonymous Internet e-mail accounts and had left shadow messages—draft messages in an account shared with others—for al-Shabaab members. She had successfully hidden the location where the leaked intelligence was dropped until now.

Justin’s orders were simple and straightforward: detain Johnson and put her on a plane to Ottawa, so she can stand trial for treason. If she resisted, he was authorized to seek the cooperation of local police. He preferred to resolve this in-house, just him and Nathan.

Johnson and her girlfriends had partied hard last night in Marbella. Nathan had observed them stumbling back to their yacht around two-thirty in the morning. They had stayed inside until Justin had taken over the surveillance shift at six that morning. There had been no movement in the yacht during his first hour, then Johnson had climbed out on the deck. She was wrapped in a pink housecoat that fell down to her knees. She took in some fresh air, stretched, and paced around. She had reappeared again five minutes later with a mug in her hand, from which she sipped slowly while perched on the bow of the yacht. Then she had returned to her cabin.

Justin had followed all her moves from his white van, parked on Ribera Road across from the marina. Nathan was catching a couple of hours of sleep at their hotel a few blocks away. Justin hoped Johnson would not be on the move before Nathan’s return.

Must have read my mind,
he thought, as Johnson came up again on the deck. She was dressed in a yellow-and-red sundress, had done her make-up and had fixed her hair. She glanced at the pier, then unlatched the yacht’s ramp. She swaggered proudly toward the parking lot.

Justin slid down in his passenger seat. His eyes followed Johnson, while his fingers dialed Nathan’s cellphone number. He was not answering.
Come on, Nathan. Pick up the phone.

Johnson disappeared behind a cluster of palm trees and a Range Rover. Justin put the van in gear and drove forward a couple of feet, so he would not lose her. Johnson appeared on the other side of the SUV and stopped next to a scooter. A shiny red Vespa. She took a set of keys out of her small handbag and turned on the scooter. She produced a helmet from a compartment under the scooter’s seat.

Nathan said nothing about her ride. Nathan, where are you?

Johnson was already on her Vespa and zoomed across the parking lot. The streets were not very busy yet, so Justin put some distance between his van and her scooter. Johnson drove down Ribera Road, heading east.

The scooter made a left turn, and Justin slowed down, so he would not appear in Johnson’s side mirror. She was out of the Service, but thirty years of spy tradecraft did not just disappear at retirement. Johnson would figure it out right away a white van was on her tail.

Justin glanced at the red scooter. It stopped before turning right at Julio Iglesias Avenue. His eyes followed the zooming Vespa through the thin palms of the nearby park and alongside the avenue. It was an easy mark. He stepped on the gas pedal.

A traffic circle came up around a giant statue. The scooter rounded it a bit faster than necessary, while Justin kept the same speed. Johnson turned her head to check over her shoulder before changing lanes. The van was about a hundred feet behind her scooter, the only vehicle in that stretch of the road. Justin signaled right and began to park on the side of the road, so Johnson would not think the van was following her.

The scooter slowed down and did not change lanes. It seemed Johnson was observing his van. Justin kept his head down, hoping the windshield would shade him from Johnson’s gaze. He fiddled with the steering wheel.

The scooter finally began to move, but it was going fast. Justin recognized the Service’s tactic of speeding to draw out a suspected tail. His dilemma was to blow his cover and give chase or stay parked and lose Johnson. He picked the first option.

He slammed on the gas pedal. His van missed an incoming convertible Audi by inches as it entered the lane with a big swing. Fishtailing and wheels screeching, Justin turned the steering wheel. He straightened the wheels and raced behind his mark, now a small red dot in the distance.

Johnson had to be going at over seventy miles an hour, since Justin was up to sixty and still falling behind. The van was built for space, not speed. It groaned as Justin pressed his foot to the floor, but it slowly picked up its pace. The scooter was still a long way ahead, the shiny chrome reflecting the bright sun rays.

Then it disappeared.

Justin blinked rapidly, scanning both sides of the road. He found the Vespa on the pedestrian median, on the left side of the avenue. Johnson had used a crosswalk and had zigzagged her way onto the median. It was a simple feat for her small scooter. Justin began to look for a space large enough for his van between vehicles parked along the median. He would soon lose Johnson, especially if she decided to change direction, which is what she did at that same exact moment.

A small opening came up ahead behind a small Fiat, and Justin turned the steering wheel sharply to the left. The van responded a second too late. Its right side banged against the rear of the Fiat, breaking a window and triggering its alarm. Justin hit the brakes, and the van stopped with a big jolt.

He glanced at the scooter. Johnson was driving straight ahead on the median, dodging benches and palm trees. Justin’s foot found the gas pedal, and the van climbed onto the median. It began to regain speed. Justin kept it on a steady course. He tapped the brakes to avoid flattening an elderly couple still reeling from the shock of the scooter flying by too close to them. He swerved right, then left, as the van came to an island of shrubs and palm trees in the middle of the median. The van rattled, threatening to topple over. Justin eased on the gas.

The scooter cut a sharp turn to the right, crossing to the other side of the avenue. Justin had to force his way once again through parked vehicles and the flow of traffic. The front left side of the van destroyed the back end of a Smart car, pushing it away as if it were a toy. A jeep crashed into the back of the van, shattering a window. Justin lost control of the van, which spun around in a half circle.

He gripped the steering wheel and fought to steer the van in the right direction. The whiplash had caused him to lose his mark. He glanced around for the red Vespa and spotted it straight ahead.
It’s still there? Like she’s teasing me. Why isn’t she on the sidewalk? Or disappearing into a back alley?

Justin had no time to fully analyze his situation. He felt something was wrong, but he had to continue the easy-looking chase. The scooter shot through the rest of the avenue, then returned to Ribera Road.

As Justin’s rattling van entered the same road, he realized his mistake.

Johnson had lured him into an ambush.

A black SUV backed up from a side alley, battering the van on the passenger’s side. The crash tossed Justin against the door. His head slammed against the window.

Before he could move, a volley of bullets from the SUV peppered the van. Luck was on his side as no bullets hit him, though plenty broke the windows and pierced the doors. Justin unbuckled his seat belt and threw his shoulder to the door. He hit the ground and rolled underneath a truck parked on the other side of the road.

More gunshots rang, thumping against the truck’s doors. Justin unholstered his pistol. He got to a crouching position behind the truck and took a peak at the SUV. A thick-built, young man was running toward him with a small submachine gun in his hands.

Justin aimed his pistol and fired a single shot. The bullet hit the man in the left thigh. He fell back for a second, but managed to stay on his feet. His submachine gun sprayed bullets, but they were off target. Justin slipped to the front of the truck, then raised his pistol again. This time the bullet found the man’s chest. The submachine gun flew out of his hands and fell next to his dead body on the road.

Only now Justin noticed the screams and the glares of bystanders. People got out of their stopped cars and stood on their balconies. A few were pointing at him. Others were looking to the left.

Justin stared in that direction. His eyes caught a glimpse of a red Vespa turning into a back alley.
Now she really wants to get away.
He tucked his pistol back into his shoulder holster and broke into a sprint.

Having no illusions he could keep up with the scooter, he cut through the nearest alley. He ran hard and fast, almost crashing a few times into pedestrians or vehicles. As he came to the other side of the building, the Vespa was nowhere in sight.

He took a moment to pause and think. Johnson had turned left, heading toward the marina.
Her boat. Is she going there? Or is she tricking me?
He had to make a fast decision. After drawing him into a trap, he decided Johnson was not returning to her yacht. But she was headed toward the marina.

Justin remembered the layout of that part of the city. The marina stretched for a few city blocks and Ribera Road ran parallel to the shore.
She’s going for another yacht. Maybe a more powerful one.
He remembered seeing a few one hundred-foot yachts anchored near the marina entrance.
Yes, that must be her plan.

He began to run toward the marina. As he came to Ribera Road, he heard loud shouting coming from one of the marina piers. A woman’s voice was giving orders to a couple of men on a large yacht. She was threatening them with a pistol.

It was Johnson.

Justin hastened his pace, his feet hardly touching the ground.

Johnson turned her head around. She noticed him. A gunshot rang out. The front glass of a store in front of him exploded in a hail of sharp slivers. Justin fell behind a parked car. Two bullets banged against a wall, feet away from him.

Justin moved forward using parked cars as his cover. He glanced through the glass of one of them. The yacht was still there with the two men on board. Johnson was not on the pier.

“Where did she go? Where did she go?” Justin shouted at the men.

“She took the jet ski,” replied one of them.

He pointed to the right side of the yacht. The whine of a jet ski engine and the water spuming arch showed Justin his target’s location. Johnson had an advantage of about fifty yards.

Another jet ski was on a carrier tied to the pier.

“The keys,” Justin asked the men, “of that jet ski.”

One of them handed them over. Justin jumped on the carrier and pushed the jet ski into the water. He slipped the key in, punched the green start button, and pulled the throttle lever. The jet ski—a newer model Yamaha—jumped into action. Water spurted out of the back. Justin began to ride the waves.

His jet ski picked up speed, and the warm waters sprayed his face. Justin gripped the handles, his legs tight around the seat. He cranked up the engine, cutting through the gentle waves.

Johnson zipped over the surface of the water. She turned right, heading for a large catamaran sailing about a mile away from the shore. Justin fingered the throttle. The jet ski leaped forward, and Justin bounced on his seat.