Silent Assassin (6 page)

C
HAPTER
10

 

B
loch looked down on Morgan with her steely eyes. She looked especially stiff and detached, like she always did when she was angry, her chin upturned to signal the unquestionable superiority of her position. She was acting like a high school principal, standing over him as he sat in his chair as if she were intimidating a student who had been caught red-handed stealing a test. However, it took more than dirty looks to intimidate Morgan. “Do I even have to tell you, Cobra?”

She didn’t, and Morgan wished to hell she wouldn’t. “No. But I guess you’re going to anyway.”

They were in Bloch’s office in Zeta Division head quarters. The spacious room was more like a glass box that overlooked the elaborate Zeta war room, with its long oak table and enormous screens. Bloch kept her office colder than most would while there was still snow on the ground outside. Her workspace itself was modern, sleek, all done in glass and metal, with no personal touches at all—no photographs, no decorations, no trinkets. Only a computer and a pen occupied the glass surface of the desk. It was almost as if she left no personal mark on anything she touched, which made the question of what existed underneath all the more intriguing. The only scrap of personality that existed in that room was Bloch’s own chair, a fancy ergonomic articulated leather office chair. Even the light was sterile and impersonal. The glass that made up the outer walls of her office would turn opaque on command, as it was now, frosted so that it was impossible to see through, giving them privacy as she chewed him out.

“Damned right I’m going to tell you,” said Bloch. “This was our lead—our
one
lead—in this whole series of incidents.” Her face was stonily stern as she spoke. “Novokoff could have led us to the people behind this. We could have stopped these events, if only we had captured him. Instead, we’re left to look for breadcrumbs again.”

“Damn it, Bloch, I
know
that,” he said. “I nearly died out there to get him.”

“But you
didn’t
get him. You let a dangerous arms dealer with ties to a global, sustained terror campaign slip through our fingers—”

“Remind me again who got us that meeting with Novokoff ? That’s right, it was
me.
And just the fact that I
survived
that disaster should get me a goddamn employee-of-the-month plaque on your wall!”

Bloch’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits, and she said, coolly, “You want a medal for
not dying
, Cobra? I like to think we hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. You know, being that we are an elite, super-secret intelligence outfit. And as the head of this division, I am not in the habit of rewarding incompetence.”

Morgan scoffed incredulously. “You think
I
blew this op?”

He’d already been debriefed about the failed mission as soon as he had been physically able. He’d never seen the face of the man who had asked him the questions. It had gone down in one of the interrogation rooms in the deep recesses of Zeta headquarters, in front of a camera and a two-way mirror. The interrogator had been just a disembodied voice, asking questions as Morgan spoke into the camera. He must have been one of the mysterious higher-ups, the ones neither he nor anyone else ever saw. And Morgan knew that Bloch had had her own session with the interrogator, a grilling of her own. He knew it couldn’t have been fun for her.

And now it was her turn to pass it on to him.

“You can make a long, long list of people who you can blame for the way things turned out,” she said, “and so completely disregard any part that you had in this fiasco.”

“Any part
I
had?” he snorted incredulously.

“So are you going to tell me it
wasn’t your fault
?” she said, in a cruelly mocking voice. “Am I the night manager at a 7-Eleven? Because I thought we were supposed to be the elite of the elite. Best of the best. I thought we were the ones who did what needed to be done, and offered no excuses.”

Morgan grinded his teeth, but he said nothing. Even if there was nothing he could have done differently, the shame of failure still itched and stung. But she was right. If he was good, it was because he never pushed off responsibility for anything onto anyone else. It was because he did what he had to do to get the job done.

“So are you the best, Cobra?” she pressed.

“Goddamn right I am,” he said resolutely, still slightly peeved.

“So act like it.”

Morgan had to admit that, even though she was a pain in the ass, Bloch was a good leader. She didn’t coddle, and never spared anyone’s feelings. What she did was push her team as far as they would go. It made her a bitch sometimes, but in the end, he was thankful for it. And she always held up her end.

“So what are we going to do next?” he asked.

She sighed, softening, a slight crack in her hard demeanor. “I was hoping for your expert opinion on that question.” She sat down in her chair. The chewing-out was officially over, and it was time to talk shop.

He furrowed his brow, leaning forward in his chair. “We have no solid leads right now,” he said. “When you don’t know where the fish are, you cast the widest net possible. Coordinate with the other cells, see what they have.” His phrasing of the suggestion was a kind of gambit. The hope was that she might let something slip by. He knew there must be other groups like Zeta Division, autonomous, with similar assets, coordinated under the umbrella of the shadowy organization that financed them, the voice from above. Morgan had never managed to confirm it, and it was designed that way. No one person in the lower hierarchy had even a glimpse of the big picture or of most of the members at their level. The irony of being with a peacekeeping organization that coordinated like a terrorist group was not lost on Morgan.

“What if we’ve already looked at this from every possible angle?” Bloch said. There was no anxiety in her voice, just cold questioning.

“There’s no such thing,” said Morgan vehemently. He had noticed the hesitation that had crept into her voice. “You know that. Nobody covers all their tracks. Not even the world’s greatest criminal mind. There’s always something someone overlooked. So you keep searching for the angle you missed, and you don’t stop looking until you find it.”

“What if there isn’t?” She unfrosted the glass around them with a touch to a remote control hanging on the wall and stared at the dormant war room down below.

“There
is
,” he insisted. “There
always
is.”

“You’re right,” she said, and all the doubt in her voice and demeanor suddenly dried up like a drop of sweat on scorching asphalt. “We keep pushing until we find our way to whoever is behind this. And in the meantime, all we can hope for is that our next lead isn’t a mushroom cloud.”

C
HAPTER
11

 

N
ovokoff kept the motor running on his Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan, with one hand on the wheel, and another on the grip of a semiautomatic with a scratched-out serial number. He was waiting for a man he had seen only once before, and was mildly concerned that he would have to shoot him. The American.

He was on the shoulder of a country road outside Berlin. Novokoff’s own choice—he never accepted a meeting if he couldn’t pick the location. This place was good—just off the highway, but hidden from the view of passing cars, and leading only to an old abandoned farmhouse. He was ready to speed off if he had to. But the curiosity about this meeting gnawed away inside him.

The car itself was used, but it drove like new and there was no smell. He always bought them used, because it left less of a paper trail. He had a man, of course (or rather, one in every country) who took care of things for him. He had another man who would take the car later, strip it for parts, and eliminate all trace evidence by burning the interior. He could buy cheaper burner cars. But what was he, a barbarian? So it was a costly habit. But it kept him alive, and kept him free. It had worked for him so far.

Except now. This
Cobra
had made him look like a fool. Cobra, and whoever he was working for. Novokoff had nearly died of the damn gas like the rat in the cage. He’d only narrowly escaped in the fray, out the back, where his wheelman had been waiting for him. All those worthless mercenaries killed, and left behind to be identified. But not his own body, so he knew that they’d still be looking for him. Novokoff’s hand tensed slightly on the steering wheel. It was as much of a reaction as he would permit himself. Emotions, he reminded himself, were traitors.

And now this meeting with the mysterious American. The man who had contracted the Oslo job—and who presumably had been behind Paris and Munich as well, and who had directed him to find something with more impact than a bomb. Novokoff had calculated the odds of the meeting being a pretext to kill him and eliminate the trail, but deemed the risk worth it.

So he kept the motor running, kept his hand on the gun, and waited.

It didn’t take long until the sleek silver BMW slowly came down the lane. The windows were tinted dark, and he couldn’t see inside at all. It maneuvered so that the drivers’ windows of both cars were aligned. Novokoff ’s grip on the gun tensed as the window rolled down to reveal the man.

He was bony and angular, with a completely bald head. He was not old, not looking a day over forty, and his face was almost boyish. His countenance was commanding, however, and his eyes intelligent. Novokoff saw in him someone to respect. Perhaps even fear.

“So. You failed.” His voice was arrogantly deadpan.

“I was deceived,” said Novokoff. The American’s condescension burned him, but his face betrayed no emotion at all. “It will not happen again.”

“Good,” said the American. “But someone’s still on to you.”

“Yes. This Cobra. And whoever he is working for.”

“Well, about that. I have something for you.” Novokoff’s shooting arm tensed as the American reached down to pick something up, but then he saw that it was just a manila envelope. The man held it out for Novokoff.

“What is it?” he said, taking it and looking at the yellow-brown envelope.

“Something you may be interested in. I’ll trust you to take care of it yourself. Meanwhile, I will have another assignment for you soon. We will discuss payment when the time comes. Keep yourself available, and I’ll make it worth your while. Here.” He handed Novokoff another package—this one a regular-sized envelope, but with something thick and heavy inside. The paper, Novokoff realized, was just a way to prevent leaving fingerprints. He took the package and saw that it was a simple burner phone. “Turn it on for one minute every day, at midnight GMT. I’ll contact you.”

Without another word, the American rolled up his window and drove away. Novokoff watched him carefully until he disappeared around a bend in the road, and then opened the manila envelope.

It was a short stack of papers. The first thing he noticed was a surveillance photograph of a man in sunglasses, walking in the street. On the page were an address, phone number, and a few other pieces of basic identifying information.

At the top of the page was a name. His lips formed those words as he read them.

A slight smile formed on his lips as he lit himself a cigarette.

C
HAPTER
12

 

D
an Morgan walked down Charles Street in the direction of the Common, pulling his coat tight to keep the chill February air from seeping in and watching the people as he passed them. Even in winter, these few blocks were usually filled with strolling tourists and locals alike, carefree people visiting the quaint local eateries, or visitors walking with their noses buried in sightseeing maps, or college students laughing riotously. But today, all of that was conspicuously absent. People walked with their eyes downcast. Talk was muted, hushed. The occasional raucous outburst of laughter seemed completely out of place, even somewhat obscene, and drew looks of disapproval and confusion from people around. The knowledge of a world held hostage, the grief over lives lost, and the fear of the next attack loomed large over the city. Morgan felt a twinge of guilt over his failure to catch Novokoff.

Soon
, he told himself.
We’ll get the bastard soon.

Past the Common, Morgan spied the building that housed the Zeta Division headquarters. It was a recently completed skyscraper, all white steel and light blue glass, with gaps through which bright green foliage peeked out. It was some new environmental concept, and though it clashed with the classic architecture around it, it wasn’t exactly displeasing. Morgan went to a newspaper vendor across the street and picked up a copy of
Newsweek
, leafing through it as his eyes remained on the revolving glass door to the building, waiting for Diana Bloch to emerge.

There was something that President Reagan used to say about Cold War politics, a saying that was itself, appropriately enough, a translation from the Russian:
trust, but verify
. He was definitely not a trusting person—isolation and self-sufficiency were his natural defaults. But in the world of espionage, you had no choice but to trust certain people if you didn’t want to get dead real fast.
Trust, but verify
was, Dan Morgan came to realize, a rule to live by in a world where you had no choice but to put your life in others’ hands. The work he had been assigned to with the Zeta Division so far was unimpeachable, all without a doubt for the greater security of Americans and the world—although in the usual morally fuzzy manner of Black Ops. Apart from their secrecy, he had seen no reason to mistrust Bloch or to think the people she answered to were not the good guys.

But Morgan sure as hell intended to verify.

Zeta Division, he had figured, was just one piece in what must be a vast puzzle. If he was to catch any kind of glimpse of the entire picture and where exactly he fit in, tailing Diana Bloch was the only way.

He had started by observing her. She was careful and methodical in all things she did. Morgan, having studied acting and nonverbal cues in his training, knew what to look for. Her outfit, hair, and makeup were always impeccable. Everything she said was spoken calmly and evenly, often with a practiced feel to it. Keys and personal electronics were within her line of sight at all times. Every time she walked in or out the door, she would scan herself with a handheld bug detector.

She was also, he had quickly noticed, well trained in evasion and misdirection. The first time he had lain in wait for her, she had woven through the crowd near the Common and slipped away. The time after that, he had seen her get into a subway train at the nearby Downtown Crossing Station, and had gotten in after her, in the next car. Somehow, he had completely lost track of her in the train, and arrived at the terminus to watch the twenty or so passengers who had stayed on disembark. Bloch had not been among them.

With everything she did, Bloch was meticulous and patient. She checked herself for tracking devices every time she went outdoors, he had noticed early on, and so thoroughly that he hadn’t even tried getting one past her. She never drove anywhere herself, at least not at the outset—he did not rule out the possibility that she might be parked somewhere far away.

Morgan put away the
Newsweek
and, under the scowl of the shopkeeper, picked up a copy of a hunting magazine. He had barely started pretending to look through it when he saw Diana Bloch emerge from the building. He waited to see which way she would go. To his surprise, she held out her hand and hailed a taxi. He marked the make and model—Toyota Corolla, the older boxy kind, white with a yellow stripe all along the side. He waited for it to pull out, and scanned the street for other cabs—they were abundant enough along this stretch. Upon spotting one that was approaching, he walked out, hearing the shopkeeper grumbling behind him about freeloading browsers who don’t purchase anything, and hailed it.

The taxi pulled over and Morgan got in. He held out a hundred-dollar bill. “You see that taxi up ahead? The Toyota?”

“Two blocks down?”

“That’s the one. I want you to keep within two blocks of that car. I’m paying you now, because I might have to get off suddenly. Keep the change—for your discretion and driving as normally as you can.”

The driver, a fat black man in his twenties, accepted it cheerfully. “No one ever told me to ‘follow that taxi’ before. What are you, some kind of spy or something?”

Morgan looked at him pointedly.

“Nah, let me guess: you could tell me but you’d have to kill me.” He laughed uproariously.

“Just keep an eye on that taxi.”

They drove slowly down Charles Street, and then took a right on Beacon at the Common. Traffic was always a little heavier here, but the driver stayed a comfortable distance of just over a block from Bloch’s cab. A truck briefly obscured their line of sight, and they lost the cab for a few seconds as it turned onto Massachusetts Avenue, but managed to catch up at Harvard Bridge. Bloch’s cab continued on Mass Ave after crossing the Charles River into Cambridge. They hung back, following with a clear line of sight for just under one mile.

As they reached Central Square, the taxi activated its blinkers and pulled over near the entrance to the T station.

“Keep going,” Morgan said. “We’re going to pass them, slowly.”

But no one got out of the cab. Instead, a woman holding two heavy-looking shopping bags opened the door and got
in
.

“Stop the car!” Morgan said, and the driver pulled over just behind Bloch’s cab. Morgan got out and dashed over just in time to see the woman close the passenger door. The cab set off, with Diana Bloch nowhere to be seen. She had somehow slipped away without his noticing her.