The Quds Force officer said, “We have statements from all the Iranians present the night in question at Vasylkiv Air Base in Kiev, Ukraine. If your description of the events of that evening coincides with what we already know, then we have a deal regarding Ehud Kalb. If you will not tell us, or if what you tell us does not agree with the witness statements, then there will be no further communications between us.” The line went quiet for a moment, then Hussein said, “It is as simple as that.”
Russ felt himself losing control of his emotions. The anger welled within him, pushing hot blood through his heart and his brain. There on the sidewalk Whitlock thought he might explode with the fury inside that had no way to vent from his body and into the atmosphere.
“I’ll call you back,” was all he could say before he hung up the phone.
Russ knew there was no way around it now. He had to somehow get Gentry to tell him about Kiev. Before he even began thinking of a way to achieve this seemingly impossible objective, his phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down at it, hoping like hell it was Gentry.
Instead, it was Townsend House. Distractedly, Whitlock answered.
“Go.”
Babbitt’s voice came through his phone. “It’s Graveside.” After the identity check, Babbitt asked, “Have you made it to Stockholm yet?”
“Yes,” Russ lied.
“Jumper hit a dry hole this morning. Looks like Gentry slipped the Mossad watchers the night before.”
Whitlock breathed a slow sigh of relief. Finally, some good news. Then, “No ideas where he is?”
“The UAV team is up and Jumper has split into four two-man teams. They are watching choke points.”
“And Mossad?”
“They are still in the city, but operating independently of us for the time being. We expect they will bring in reinforcements from Tel Aviv.” He paused. “If you were ever going to use your sixth sense about Gentry and what he’s up to, this would be the time.”
“Understood. I’ll work on it.”
He hung up the phone and stood there on the sidewalk, struggling with his own next move. He’d planned on flying from here in Genoa to London so he could start the prep for his hit on Ehud Kalb eight days from now, but he could not just assume Court would be able to avoid all the forces lining up against him in Stockholm. And if Gentry died before Kalb died, then Whitlock knew he’d lost his lifeline.
He knew he had no choice. He had to rush to Stockholm, to help Gentry slip the noose and somehow convince him to talk about Kiev.
THIRTY-FIVE
Court chose to spend the majority of the day in his small attic room in the Gamla Stan. The accommodations were opulent compared to where he had spent the previous few evenings, as this unit had its own bathroom and shower, and even a small refrigerator. But as the day turned into night and snowfall picked up outside, Court felt like he was going a little stir-crazy. He decided he would head up the narrow street to a corner market and grab dinner, and then perhaps even venture out for a beer in a dark local bar he had noticed earlier in the day.
At 7-Eleven he bought some cheese spread and packaged toast to smear it on, along with a bottle of water. As he stood in line to pay he noticed a table in the back, upon which three computer terminals had been set up, serving as a tiny Internet café. After paying he strolled to one of the machines and sat down, and soon he was reading up on the Department of State facial recognition system, thought to be the most advanced recog software in use today. Court suspected there were technologies out there that hadn’t made it to open source just yet, although whether Townsend possessed such capabilities he had no idea.
He spread cheese on his dry toast and sipped water, flipped his eyes up to the front of the market, and noticed a woman entering. He looked her over quickly and perfunctorily, and then went back to his online reading.
Thirty-three-year-old Mossad targeting officer Laureen Tattersal stepped through the doors of the 7-Eleven, brushed snow off the hood of her down coat, and pulled off her gloves. She took a few seconds to warm her face with her hands and then headed to the coffee area hunting for an espresso, desperately needing one last jolt of caffeine before checking the twenty-first potential target location, just up the street.
It was past eight P.M. now; fat snowflakes drifted around the gas lamps hanging from the colorful buildings of the Old Town. The temperature was heading back down to single digits, and the Israeli woman planned to enjoy every second of warmth she could before heading back outside.
It had been a long day for the entire team. They’d moved into a hotel in the city center, less than a half mile from the Townsend safe house and only a hundred yards or so from the bridge to the Gamla Stan, where Ruth had last tracked Gentry. They had then bundled up in their cold-weather gear and hit the area, visiting hotels, apartments, tenements, and B&Bs and even checking under bridges where the homeless lived on cardboard in dirty rags.
So far they’d found nothing, and they planned to knock off for the night in two hours and try again the following day.
Laureen dropped a sugar cube into her espresso and brought it to her lips. As she did so her eyes lifted up to the rear of the brightly lit store, and she froze, nearly scalding her mouth and tongue on the hot coffee.
Laureen looked back down as the man glanced up from the computer in front of him, and she added another sugar to her drink. Then she turned and headed to the register to pay.
It was him. The Gray Man sat at a tiny three-station Internet café set up in the back of the 7-Eleven. He wore his black knit cap just over his eyes, and a scarf hung loosely around the lower portion of his face. He’d bought a new coat since the last time she’d seen him, but still she felt certain this was her target.
She left the convenience store and, in an abundance of caution, walked a full winding, descending block, checking to make certain she was not herself being followed before she pushed the button on her earpiece and announced to her team that she had located the target.
Ruth, Mike, and Aron converged on Laureen a few minutes later. They parked the embassy Skoda in an hourly-rate lot there on the Gamla Stan and sat in the sedan for a few minutes, satisfied with the location though it had no line of sight on their target at the convenience store, because Ruth did not dare risk compromise. For now they searched the Internet on their smart phones, looking for tenements or inns around the neighborhood where the Gray Man might be staying, and searching for suitable rooms for themselves to rent in the neighborhood so they could set up a base of operations close by.
Mike called out, “Castanea hostel is two minutes away from the market. It’s the closest location that looks like his kind of place.”
Ruth pulled it up on her phone. “Yeah. I don’t see anything else around here this cheap; I think this has got to be it. We’ll check it out in the morning to make sure.”
Aron was researching places for the team to use to bed down for the night. “There’s a place called the Gamla Stan Lodge just around the corner from us now. I can go get us a couple of rooms there.”
“Do it,” Ruth said.
Aron climbed out of the car and headed up the street on foot.
Ruth decided to give Yanis Alvey the news about finding Gentry, but before she could make the call there was a beep in her ear. Ruth looked down to her phone and saw that it was Yanis calling her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Stockholm. We found the target. He’s still here.”
There was a short pause. “Are you sure?”