Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) (29 page)

Somehow Chris had persuaded the powers-that-be to move a streamlined Team Viper to a second-floor suite in the Four Seasons Istanbul at the Bosphorus, a converted Ottoman palace just a twenty-minute drive in continually congested traffic from Les Ottomans, site of the secret Middle East peace accord.

At 0950 Vanessa and Khoury walked into a fully functioning command post with laptops covering nearly every mahogany table, yards of cables snaking around cream-colored silk-upholstered chairs, ottomans, and sofas. Handheld radios were scattered atop writing desks and end tables, and plenty of very hot Turkish coffee filled the elegant urns. Exotic sweets like Turkish delight, baklava, halva, and kanafeh were laid out on two huge silver trays.

“Not exactly Dunkin’ Donuts,” Hays said, finger-waving at her from his usual post in front of a monitor. “Hey, guys.”

Even with the Team’s urgent agenda to track Jeffreys and find Bhoot’s stolen nuclear prototype, Vanessa couldn’t resist a brief time-out to savor the incredible view. The living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the hotel’s elegant crystalline swimming pool,
deck cabanas, and deck bar—tempting even on a cloudy day in February. A stone’s throw beyond the pool glinted the blue-black waters of the Strait of Bosphorus. At the moment, a huge, sleek yacht glided toward a nearby bridge, providing contrast to the tugs, fishing boats, and commercial tour boats.

Khoury whistled. “What did we do to rate this?”

“Not the usual for a government paycheck,” Vanessa said.

She stood just behind Hays, who had four laptops up and running and was wired in with an earbud. “When did you get set up?”

“About two hours ago?” Hays said, tracking something on the monitor. “You know you’re dead, right?”

“Yes—maybe I know?” Vanessa’s voice rose hesitantly. “Because of Venice?”

“Right,” Hays said. “Zoe took care of planting a small story in the international
New York Times
. ‘Female Tourist Killed During Carnevale Celebrations in Venice . . . Alleged Attacker Died in Police Custody.’”

“Good call,” Vanessa said. Assuming Jeffreys was responsible for the attack, he would be expecting to hear back from Scarface that the hit was successful. It didn’t escape her that Jeffreys had become the target in her mind. A few days ago she would have wondered if Bhoot had sent Scarface, but now that didn’t feel right.
Like a hound on a scent
—one of her mom’s favorite lines about Vanessa during her childhood. Her mother had been right about a lot of things.

As for Bhoot, she wondered at his silence since she tried to record their last conversation in Paris. Had he decided to drop all contact after her infraction? She had, after all, broken his rules. Or did he still have eyes on her? If so, apparently he’d been willing to see her die in Venice.

Hearing her name, she turned toward the open doors to the next room of the suite in time to see Chris raise a hand in greeting. But he continued to pace while he talked on his phone.

Vanessa waved back but stayed put. “What do you have?” she asked, leaning over Hays’s shoulder to check the monitors. She felt Khoury standing beside her.

Hays glanced up at them. “If this turns out to be true—” he said softly.

“Then it’s crazy, I know,” Vanessa finished in a whisper.

Khoury asked, “How’s Chris been?”

“Tense.” Hays indicated Chris with one quick shrug of a shoulder. “I’ve heard some shouting on the other end of his phone.”

“There’s a lot riding on this,” Vanessa said.

Khoury raised his eyebrows. “That’s what I call an understatement.”

Vanessa had begun comparing images on the monitors, and she asked Hays, “Are they all live?”

Nodding, Hays said, “We’ve got internal and external feeds from Les Ottomans—the street and service and main entrances, the lobby and reception, elevators and halls, the spa, bar and restaurant, and, of course, the conference room, which is also a small banquet room.” He’d been speaking in one flowing stream of words and now he took a theatrical gasping breath. The effect was intentionally comical. He said, “We’re cutting back and forth.”

“What’s the timeline so far?” Vanessa asked, slipping off her flat-soled leather boots so she was down to her stocking feet. Early that morning, in Venice, she had chosen to dress in casual wool slacks and a raw silk sweater. The outfit was appropriate for Istanbul as well—fashionably understated and comfortable.

For travel she had fastened her hair back in a high ponytail and now let it down and combed it loose with her fingers as she crossed the short distance to the ornate coffee set laid out on a silver-plated tray on a glass table. She found a clean cup and filled it with thick, dark coffee. She took a first sip just as she returned to her post at Hays’s shoulder again. “Oh, this is good,” she murmured, almost moaning with pleasure. She drank again.

“Timeline,” Vanessa reminded Hays.

He said, “Courtesy of the USG, Eagle’s Gulf Stream IV landed at 0716. Eagle was on board with his security guard and his personal aide, who is actually one of his sons, christened Baby Bird by yours truly.” Hays didn’t have to explain who Eagle was—they’d already assigned Jeffreys his code name.

Hays tore his gaze from the monitors long enough to shoot Vanessa a look of puzzled wonderment. “Do you suppose it’s possible that really powerful guys like Eagle clone
when they reproduce instead of doing it the regular way?”

Khoury, who had just taken a sip of coffee, snorted, and Vanessa smiled.

“Hey, David, you just dripped coffee on my head,” Hays said, without any apparent umbrage. “I’m asking because Baby Bird, who’s in his twenties, looks exactly like Eagle.”

“He’s just old before his time, and considering his father’s extreme beliefs, it’s no wonder,” Vanessa said, tapping Hays on the head. “Back to the timeline, please.”

“Right. They taxied to the private jet section of Atatürk. It’s as fortified as a military base. Of course, I’m tracking Eagle’s cell phone, too. A car met Eagle, Baby Bird, and their security guard, and took them straight to the conference hotel, Les Ottomans.” Hays whistled. “Man, talk about how you rate, that place is amazing.”

Vanessa clicked her fingers in front of Hays. “Stay with me. Did they check in to their rooms?”

“Yep. Eagle stayed in his, keeping a low profile. The security guard’s made the rounds checking hotel security, alarms, elevators, physical layout, egress, et cetera. But I got to say, Baby Bird’s a worker, and he’s already met with staff in charge of the conference, and he spent thirty minutes in the kitchen with the chef and then went to the hotel spa to swim. Just watching him made me eat another piece of Turkish delight. I lost count at forty laps and he’s going strong,
although he’s been in and out of the sauna a few times.” Hays clicked a few keys and an image jumped up on the monitor. “See for yourself; he wears spandex.”

And, indeed, Vanessa got a pretty clear image of a male swimmer in mid-lap. He wore a tiny suit, cap, and goggles. “He’s got a strong freestyle,” she said, “but make sure he doesn’t leave that pool without us knowing, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

“Who’s got eyes on the ground for Eagle? How will we know when he’s on the move?” Vanessa’s heart was pounding, and it felt like her veins were filled with speed. On the drive from the airport when she glanced in the car’s rearview mirror, she saw what she’d already felt: the stress-induced tic below her left eye, a familiar sign she was hyper-alert but also overloaded. “I should get over there.”

“Whoa.” Khoury shook his head. “Eagle would make you in about ten seconds.”

“Fournier is on the ground at the hotel,” Hays said. “Eagle won’t remember him.”

“You’ll be in the van with us when it’s time to move,” Chris said, now off the phone. Behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes were dark and hard. “Right now, we’ve seen nothing out of the ordinary. No civilian guests will be allowed to check in for the weekend, attendees only. We know the Saudis are there and the Jordanians are pulling up now. Fournier confirms that Eagle went to his room and hasn’t reappeared yet.”

Khoury pulled Chris aside. “What’s the latest on Aisha? Did she contact DCRI?”

Chris shook his head. “She’s gone off the radar. As far as I know, you’re the last one to talk to her.”

“Goddamn it,” Khoury said, almost under his breath. “She could be anywhere.”

“She’s not
anywhere
.” Vanessa straightened, turning away from the monitors to face Chris and Khoury. “I think Aisha’s here in Istanbul,” she said flatly.

“What makes you so certain?” Chris asked.

“Because that’s what I would do if I wanted to get the sonofabitch responsible for my sister’s death.”

“She’s out of the loop,” Chris said.

“Officially,” Vanessa said, flashing on her own experience last fall when she’d been cut out of official ops. She’d nevertheless managed to convince Chris to meet her in London.

“It’s not that hard,” Vanessa said. “You of all people know that. I’m betting she found out from someone on the French side of the team that we were headed here and so was Fournier. It’s a no-brainer to get on a flight and hop over.”

“Canard,” Khoury said, setting his coffee cup down hard. “He’s got a thing for Aisha. He’s so obsessed he’d walk off a cliff for her.”

A voice filled the room: “Howdy from Headquarters.”

They all turned to see Zoe Liang’s face filling one monitor. She said, “I see the dastardly duo has arrived from Venice. Hi, David.”

“Hey, Zoe, good to see you.” Khoury flashed her a smile.

Vanessa said, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

“No shit,” Zoe said, the corners of her mouth stretching woefully down. “You guys are in the Four Seasons Istanbul and I’m stuck in my subterranean cave at CPD. What’s wrong with this picture?”

“That’s because you’ve got the brains,” Khoury joked.

Zoe raised her biceps into view and made a muscle. “I got the brawn, too.” She dropped the theatrics abruptly. “Rome Station sent me a photo of your attacker on a stainless-steel table from the morgue. His name is Hany Graiss, twenty-five years old, worked in Yemen, the Sana’a desert region. He looks a lot like the local Bedouins, probably because his ancestors were Yemenis, which is common in upper
Egypt, where he was born. Today’s fun fact, there are many Copts—aka Coptic Christians—in Egypt’s Aswan-Luxor region, and they are persecuted by Muslims . . .”

Zoe gazed at them with narrowed eyes. “This is pertinent because of Hany’s six degrees of separation: he was employed by Eagle Enterprises and trained in demolitions; he wore a Jerusalem Cross, also worn by Jeffreys and other members of the Circle, apparently in homage to Godfrey of Bouillon, who wore one in the First Crusade; Hany spent time in the U.S. at the Circle’s summer camp for young male initiates.”

“That’s three degrees,” Hays said, munching on a thick bar of halva.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “His passport places him in Yemen at the same time the Eagle Enterprises Black Hawk exploded; he’s also a pretty decent match for the security cam reflections that we enhanced from La Défense, as well as a match for Bogdan’s Scarface who bought cesium for the dirty bomb; he spoke a Bedouin dialect of Arabic that matches the voice on the True Jihad videos; and, finally, he passed through Istanbul and Atatürk airport yesterday on his way to Venice, and Istanbul is where we think Eagle will pick up the missing suitcase nuke—so is that fucking good enough for you, Hays?”

Hays shrugged. “Not bad.”

Now another voice, with a French accent, filled the room. “Checking in,” Fournier said.

“We read you loud and clear,” Hays said.

Chris stepped in the middle of the group. “We have an expert from NEST in flight to Istanbul. This is a guy who knows how to disarm and oversee the containment of a nuclear device.”

“Even if it’s already ticking?” Vanessa asked faintly. CPD worked frequently with NEST, the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, manned by scientists, techs, and engineers who were trained to respond to any radiological incident anywhere in the world.

Fournier interrupted, “Eagle is on the move.”

Hays blinked back and forth between monitors, his face tightened by worry.

“Is he alone?” Vanessa asked.

“No sign of Baby Bird,” Fournier said, “but security’s clearing the way through the lobby and an SUV is pulling up out front.”

Hays quickly did his magic on the keyboard and the lobby security feed showed on his monitor. Vanessa sucked in air, surprised to discover the immediate shadow of rage she felt at the sight of Jeffreys as he passed through the doors and out of the hotel. He moved with the tight, springy energy of a middle-aged man well past his college jock days but still fit. “He’s got a briefcase,” she said.

“But it’s skinny,” Khoury said. “Definitely too small to hold a viable nuke, no matter now miniaturized they’ve made it.”

“What about Baby Bird?” Chris asked.

“Swimming laps, apparently for the rest of his life,” Hays said. “I’m watching him now.”

Fournier spoke up again: “Looks like Eagle and the security guard are heading your way in a dark green Mercedes-Benz SUV, and I’ll be right behind them in a white Jetta.”

“Don’t let the SOB out of your sight, Fournier,” Vanessa said, already slipping her feet back into her leather boots and reaching for her jacket. “Who’s got the keys?”