Page 34

Hannister looked at the aide and said, “Can we do the same?”

“Unfortunately, no, sir. This is all over the news in Italy, and will be all over our news right now, within minutes, if it isn’t already.”

Hannister sagged back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, and said, “I see where this is going. We’re about to get foot stomping and screaming from the hawks in Congress to attack Iran. Performance art.”

He pulled his hand away, a thought coalescing. He said, “Do you have contact with Pike?”

“Yes, of course. He has his Taskforce phone.”

“And he’s on this thread? The Keta’ib Hezbollah one?”

“Well, he’s in Switzerland, but yes, it’s the same thread.”

“Does he have assets there he can use and still be Israeli?”

“Yes, sir. He does. He can operate.”

Growing apoplectic, Palmer said, “Whatassets?”

Hannister raised his hand again, shutting Palmer down.

He said, “Call him. Find out what he knows. I need answers before we go to war.”

Wolffe nodded, then said, “They’re talking about another assassination here. I can get what he knows, but I can’t stop the next one without authority. Can I put him in play? Officially?”

Amanda Croft said, “How can you do that officially if they’re operating under the cover of Israelis? We can’t protect them like we could if it was a Taskforce mission.”

Wolffe smiled and said, “Pike will figure that out. The hardest part might be getting the Israelis to agree—because they have their own restrictions—but he’ll figure it out. If I get permission.”

President Hannister glanced at the faces around the desk, and then didn’t even put it to a vote, as was required by the Project Prometheus charter.

He said, “Yeah. I want him hunting, before I’m forced to use a sledgehammer.”

Chapter 22

I was once again enjoying the old town of Zurich, this time at sunset, and I had to admit this mission continued to get better and better. Instead of ice cream, Jennifer and I were drinking coffee at an outdoor café at one of those ridiculously small tables they like in Europe. You know, the ones that are about the size of a half dollar, so small they have trouble putting two glasses on it.

The café was located in a cobblestone square, our table facing a tunnel that went past the consignment store Brenda Vintage and up into the apartments overhead, where Qassim lived. Now it was our turn for the breaking and entering, giving Aaron and Shoshana a chance at protecting our backs.

After Qassim left the hotel across the river, he’d continued his meandering walk through a park and back to his apartment, only stopping once for some take-out lunch to bring home with him. We’d left him after he returned and had regrouped at our own hotel, trying to sort out what we had. Which was very little.

He most definitely had had some type of training, having run a surveillance detection route into and out of the hotel—most notably using a series of narrow walled alleys and stairs that channelized and highlighted anyone behind him—and the very fact that he was transmitting via ProtonMail from a public computer anyone could utilize indicated he was attempting to disconnect his actions from his own persona, but the search of his apartment had turned up nothing. The only thing Aaron and Shoshana had found was the stego program,which in and of itself gave us no clue of what was going on. We felt the guy was bad, but we weren’t sure why.

The one thing we needed was the thumb drive he’d used. Given his use of the hotel to break himself from his own systems, I figured he probably compartmentalized everything on removable media, so we’d decided to do another break-in when he went to dinner tonight, only this time it would be Jennifer and me, hoping to find the mysterious thumb drive when he left.

Honestly, we didn’t know if he lived on ramen boiled with a hot plate in his apartment, but Aaron and Shoshana hadn’t seen a lot of cookware, his refrigerator and pantry held only staples like fruit and water, and he’d brought home takeout for lunch, so we were betting he usually went out for dinner. If he didn’t, we’d just re-cock and think of something else. Patience, patience, patience.

Jennifer took a sip of her latte and said, “Not sure how we ended up being the break-in crew. Shoshana said we’d just be security for the work.”

I said, “Yeah, well, why should she get all the fun? We followed the guy all day today and they’re clean for the next follow. We’re clean for the break-in. Should be fun.”

She smirked, snaked her hand across the table, and put it on top of mine, saying, “I thought you wanted to spend some time with your wife in Zurich?”

I chuckled and said, “I do. What better way to spend it than breaking into a potential terrorist hideout?”

She grew serious, saying, “Do you think we should have contacted Wolffe before going active like this? We promised him we’d just be doing surveillance work. It’s why he allowed us to leave.”

I said, “Honestly? Yeah, we probably should, but we don’t know what turns this is going to take, and Wolffe knows me. Knows how I think. He wouldn’t have let us go if he didn’t think it was worth it.”