Page 34 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

P ALMA , M ALLORCA

R APP had never been so happy to see Stan Hurley’s craggy mug.

Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. While it was good to see Hurley standing on the pier’s edge with his hands on his hips like Patton surveying the battlefield, it was the sight of dry land rather than his mentor that flooded Rapp with a sense of relief.

If Rapp never boarded a boat for the rest of his life it would be too soon.

“Hey, kid,” Hurley said. “You don’t look so good.”

“Rough crossing.” Rapp leaped from the fishing trawler’s deck to the pier before the boat had finished docking. His stunt elicited chuckles from the crew, but he didn’t care. Had he thought it would have gotten him to dry land faster, he would have swum ashore.

“I always thought the turning-green thing was a figure of speech, but damned if you don’t look like a celery stick.”

To Rapp’s dismay, putting his feet on the pier’s weathered wood planking had not done much to steady the swaying.

Though he knew the island wasn’t experiencing an earthquake, his inner ear wasn’t so sure.

Perhaps that had something to do with the twelve hours he’d spent transiting the Iberian Sea as the remnants of a rare Mediterranean hurricane, or medicane , battered the fishing trawler.

The fishermen crewing the vessel hadn’t seemed overly bothered by the rough seas, but Rapp had spent a good part of the trip retching over the side rails and questioning his life choices.

“I need something to settle my stomach,” Rapp said.

“I know just the thing. Follow me.”

“Beer? Really?” Rapp didn’t bother to hide his skepticism as he eyed the refreshments the dirndl-clad waitress had just deposited on their table. The sizzling links of white sausage, Brotchen rolls, eggs, and cheese all looked reasonable enough, but the stein seemed a bit out of place.

“I made my bones running agents in Germany and Austria,” Hurley said. “The Bavarians have a thing called Brotzeit , which is kind of like a second breakfast. You can’t have Brotzeit without a hefeweizen . It’s the law. Now drink up.”

Rapp was willing to concede that he was no old German hand.

Even so, he remained suspicious. With an eye toward his still-rumbling gut, he took a cautious sip.

And then another. Whether the wheat beer was some sort of magical stomach elixir, or the anxiety of the last twenty-four hours was finally beginning to fade, he didn’t care.

Almost as soon as the alcohol swirled down his throat, the world stopped listing, and his appetite returned.

With a vengeance.

“See?” Hurley said with a smile. “Sometimes we old spies actually know a thing or two. Now, fill me in.”

Rapp tore open one of the crusty rolls and loaded it with sliced meat and cheese as he thought.

Stranger even than the idea of pairing eggs with beer was the notion that he and Hurley were sitting in a German-themed cantina overlooking the Playa de Palma discussing espionage.

Judging by the plethora of Bundesflagge draped across buildings and flying from flagpoles, this section of the Spanish island catered to German tourists and Hurley looked to be in his element.

It didn’t take much for Rapp to imagine his mentor skulking from shadow to shadow, one step ahead of the Stasi as he emptied a dead drop or completed a brush pass with a jumpy East German asset.

He and Hurley were seated on an otherwise empty patio situated on a small rise with a breathtaking view of the crashing surf.

The beach and a floating dock were just steps away, and the morning sun shone from a cloudless blue sky.

But despite the day’s warmth, Rapp could still feel the Cold War’s chill overshadowing their conversation.

“It started when I made a surveillance team in Barcelona,” Rapp said.

In between bites of breakfast and hearty swallows of the frothy beer, Rapp relayed all that had happened from the moment he’d left Greta sitting at the table outside the Barcelona museum to his boarding of the fishing trawler bound for Mallorca per Stan’s instructions.

In a strange way, it felt good to get everything off his chest. As if the flimsy table and the abandoned patio were some sort of open-air confessional and Hurley his priest.

Hurley fished a package of cigarettes from his pocket as Rapp’s story wound down. “Want one?”

“No.”

Rapp half expected another lecture on German culinary etiquette, this one emphasizing the importance of the post-breakfast smoke.

It didn’t come. Instead Hurley shook loose a cigarette, lit it with a wooden match he struck on the table, and then inhaled deeply.

Rapp had never been particularly susceptible to peer pressure, but if Hurley had asked again in that moment, he might have obliged.

There was something iconic about watching Hurley exhale smoke through his nostrils with his gaze fixed far beyond the watery horizon.

The espionage equivalent of the Marlboro Man.

“I’ve been expecting this,” Hurley said.

“What? The move against Ohlmeyer?”

“No,” Hurley said, shaking his head. “That’s just a distraction. A skirmish. I’m talking about the real war.”

Rapp resisted the urge to point out that to Ohlmeyer and Greta, it was much more than a distraction. He had a feeling whoever’s head had ended up in the hatbox probably felt much that same way. Instead, he let Hurley’s words tug him in the right direction.

In between bouts of seasickness, Rapp had had plenty of time alone with his thoughts.

Ohlmeyer had led him to believe that the killings were the remnants of an old vendetta.

Some skeleton in the banker’s closet born of his clandestine past. Though he’d only been part of the cloak-and-dagger world for a handful of years, Rapp had already made enemies.

It stood to reason that someone who had been in the game in one fashion or another for more than three decades certainly had his share of adversaries looking to even the score.

But this was more than that.

A rendition team had targeted him twice in Barcelona.

A well-financed, well-trained rendition team.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union still fresh and the fledgling Russian experiment in democracy already corrupted by oligarchs and the like, there was no shortage of hard men and women willing to sell their skills to the highest bidder.

Except that mercenaries typically didn’t ride around in vehicles sporting diplomatic license plates.

What happened in Spain felt very much like a war’s opening salvo, but Rapp was still unsure of his enemy’s identity, never mind his aims.

“War between Russia and the United States?” Rapp said.

“Not yet, but I think that’s where this thing’s going unless we head it off at the pass. You tracking what happened in Moscow?”

Rapp shook his head.

After watching the Russian team zero in on his cell phone lure, he’d deliberately stayed clear of any potential electronic collars.

The Spanish fishermen had mostly kept to themselves, and the trawler’s single radio was tuned to music rather than news.

A meteor could have struck Washington, DC, and he wouldn’t have known about it.

“Thought not. The short version is this—Russian counterintelligence officers detained a CIA officer’s wife. She’s still in custody.”

“The FSK arrested a spouse?”

Hurley nodded. “Judging by the photographs, the interrogators weren’t too gentle with her either.”

“I thought family was off-limits.”

“They are—unless they’re part of the team.

The Russian news agency TASS did a formal press release with still shots.

The wife’s hands were covered in spy dust, the dead drop she supposedly unloaded was sitting on the table next to her, and the FSK rolled up one of our most productive assets—a scientist who works for a Russian defense conglomerate.

Our ambassador is raising holy hell, but it doesn’t look good.

The situation’s pretty hot, and the CIA’s Moscow chief of station has already been declared persona non grata along with his deputy. ”

“That the end of it?”

Hurley shook his head. “Normally, but in this case, I’m afraid the Russkies are just getting started. They still haven’t allowed the wife, Kris Henrik, to see anyone from the State Department. The Russian ambassador to DC is making noise about holding a criminal trial.”

“Because she’s an illegal?”

“Exactly.” Hurley used the ember of his already-smoked cigarette to light a fresh one.

“The normal rules dictate that they kick out one or two of ours and we return the favor. Then everyone takes a breath and things go back to the status quo. But instead of angling for a concession and jonesing for us to release one of their spies, the Russians seem hell-bent on escalating.”

“Is that the war you’re talking about?” Rapp said, scratching the stubble on his chin. “A squabble between intelligence services?”

“When I said war , I meant it. I think the Russians are planning to invade Latvia.”

Rapp felt a tingle go down his spine. “What are you talking about?”

“Irene thinks they’re conducting a false-flag operation to make it look like the Latvian government can’t protect their ethnic Russian citizens from Latvian nationalist domestic terrorists.”

“Leaving Moscow no choice but to intervene for humanitarian reasons.”

“Bingo.”

“That sounds bad,” Rapp said, “but I’m not following what it has to do with me.”

“Maybe everything.” Hurley stubbed out his cigarette and turned to Rapp.

A familiar hardness lurked behind his eyes.

“Ohlmeyer is a smart guy, but he’s still human.

His weakness is his granddaughter. The one you’re not supposed to be dating.

” Hurley paused. When Rapp didn’t take the bait, he continued.

“The thought of opening a box with her head inside is keeping him from thinking clearly. Otherwise, he’d have never sent you off half-cocked to take care of that traitorous prick Alexander Hughes. ”

“Why not?”

Hurley reached for his cigarettes again, but rather than shake out another, he scooped up the pack and tucked it into his pocket. “Because Hughes is bait.”

“Bait for what?”

“Us. He wants the CIA focused on Hughes instead of the big picture.”

“Who?”

“The Russian intelligence officer who ran Hughes. His name is Grigoriy Petrov. He was KGB and now he’s FSK. My gut says he’s the puppet master pulling everyone’s strings.”

Rapp laughed. “Sounds like some Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Hurley said.

“How do you know?”

“Because Petrov has been a thorn in my side for two decades.”