Page 65 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

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Back in their room, Dom and Adara called Midas, then the three of them jumped on a conference call with Gavin and Gerry on Adara’s encrypted phone. Dom laid out the dead-end situation they now found themselves in.

“Gavin, I had this crazy idea. You pulled up Iliescu’s flight schedule, so we know the cities she’s been to. Any chance we could collate a list of those cities from the last year with a list of unsolved killings and suicides that occurred within seven days of her arrival?”

“Yeah, sure. But it would take a while. Problem is, peopledie every day in big cities. Even if we placed her in temporal proximity to some of those deaths, we wouldn’t know which ones she might be connected to. We’d be pushing on a string.”

They batted around several more ideas, all of them leading to more dead ends. It was possible to trace Iliescu’s movements, but that didn’t get them closer to linking her to the Iron Syndicate, or to the reason for the attempt on Jack’s life.

Exasperated, Midas asked Gerry, “You said we had some intel from MI6 on the Iron Syndicate. Some guy on the board of a company connected to those jokers?”

“That’s right.”

“Any chance we can get hold of that guy? Shake his tree a little bit?”

“There’s too big of a chance we’d be pissing into the Brits’ punch bowl,” Gerry said. “Who knows where their investigation is or how they got that intel. We might be compromising one of their sources.”

“So how about we read them in on what’s going on? Get them to shoulder some of this weight?”

“Technically, MI6 doesn’t know we exist, so I’d have to go through official channels. Mary Pat Foley, most likely. But if Gavin’s right, the Brits don’t know anything more than we do at this point, and blowing this thing up into an international incident without anything to go on is only going to cause more problems without solving any of them.”

“Why not just order Jack back home? At least we can protect him here,” Gavin asked.

“Jack’s due to fly back tomorrow anyway. He’s pretty good about protecting himself. Besides, he’s determined to finish what he’s started.”

“And even if we get him home, there’s no way to keep Jacksafe short of locking him up,” Dom said. “And that ain’t gonna happen.”

Midas chimed in again. “What we need is the long-term solution: find these Iron Syndicate bastards and take them out.”

“Agreed,” Gerry said. “Easier said than done for an enemy we can’t identify or locate or, in fact, confirm even exists.

“Gavin, is there any way you can take that list of known cities Iliescu has visited, and try to figure out some kind of pattern of movement? Maybe she’s on a circuit, making regular stops at certain times of the year? Coordinate that with her bank deposits? That sort of thing.”

“It’s worth a try. I’ll get right on it.”

“And I’ll keep thinking about the MI6 piece. There might be something to that. I just need to figure out what it is and how to go about it.”

“What about us?” Dom asked. “What can we do?”

“Sit tight, put up your feet. We won’t be sending you back out until tomorrow at the earliest. Trieste is a beautiful little city. Go enjoy it. I’ll be in touch.”

The conference call ended. Dom reached into his pocket and handed the key card to Midas. “You keep the room. We’ll take the van and grab the others and find somewhere to stay.”

Midas shoved the key card back into Dom’s hand. “No way, kid. You two relax. Uncle Midas will take care of the rest.”

Adara started to protest, but Midas cut her off.

“I know. You’re both pros. But tonight, you’re off duty. So take advantage of it while you can. In our line of work, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.”

33

PANCEVO, SERBIA

Serbian troopers fast-roped from the Mil Mi-8 “Hip” single-rotor helicopter hovering low over the ministry building as the gunfire chattered throughout the seven floors beneath.

The chopper roared away as the last pair of boots hit the roof. On the street below, the first captives emerged from the front entrance, prodded forward by short-barreled AKS-74Us of the civilian-clad Serbian special ops fighters.

The captain in charge of the building assault radioed in over the speakers on the observation deck. “Objective achieved, Colonel!”