“No sense beating yourself up, Mikey. You’re an operator, not a spook. The guy got vetted by the best in the business. That wasn’t your job.” Dwyer continued staring at the image on the monitor. “If he could somehow craft a résumé that includes Air Force PJ and the Special Activities Division without tripping any wires, no way would you be able to make him.”
Garin wasn’t persuaded. “They were my teams. We drank, hunted, and chewed dirt together. Gates and I weren’t particularly close, but if my family were in trouble, there wouldn’t be anyone I’d trust more to get them out of a jam. I liked the guy. Tanski even said in some ways, Gates and I were alike.”
Dwyer scrutinized one of the images at the bottom of the screen. He clicked to enlarge and then brought up the resolution. “Geez, Mikey, take a look at this.”
Garin saw Bor huddled in conversation with a shorter man. The photo appeared to have been taken in the winter. Both men wore heavy coats and scarves. The shorter man resembled a bullfrog.
“That,” Dwyer informed him, pointing at the shorter man in the photo, “is Yevgeny Torzov, Julian Day’s dinner date at the Mayflower last night.”
Matt stood from the couch, sensing that Garin was also about to move. “Now what?”
“Gates… Bor is at the center of everything that’s going on. I need to let Olivia know. She needs to let Brandt know. The Russians are driving everything. The Iranians may think this is all about them, but they’re just tools, puppets doing the Russians’ bidding.” Garin paused, formulating a plan.
“What else?” Dwyer asked.
“Dan, I need one of your vehicles. And I need to check an e-mail account.”
“Then what?” Dwyer asked, suspecting the answer but seeking confirmation.
He received no reply. Only a look he’d seen several times on his friend’s face before: Mayhem was about to ensue.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Ari Singer finished his tea and checked his watch. He was to meet Mansur in ten minutes in the middle of Chinatown. While waiting for Mansur, Singer had also tried unsuccessfully to reach his contact in the United States. In the past, he and Singer had exchanged several useful pieces of data. Singer hoped the Americans might be able to provide contextual information, something to confirm Mansur’s. Unable to reach the American, Singer had placed a series of messages in a draft folder in a shared e-mail account.
Singer’s waitress appeared at his table with a carafe of tea. “Anything else, sir?”
Singer smiled charmingly. “Thank you. No.”
She returned the smile, placed the check on the table, and left. Singer checked his watch again. It was time to meet Mansur. The location was just a short walk away.
Singer paid the bill and left the café. The light drizzle on his face felt good — warm, but refreshing. He walked briskly down East Pender Street. Mansur would meet him in a short alley between two restaurants four blocks south and two blocks east of the café. An alleyway in Vancouver. The old SAVAK agent was wedded to cloak-and-dagger.
Singer turned east. He could see the entrance to the alleyway ahead just past a small Thai restaurant. There were no pedestrians on the street and traffic was sparse.
Upon reaching the alley, Singer kept walking with his eyes forward. He continued for another block before dropping to one knee, pretending to tie his shoes. No one was following. In fact, there wasn’t another person anywhere in the vicinity.
He rose and doubled back. A few seconds later he was back at the entrance to the alley. It was a block long with a large Dumpster piled high with plastic trash bags at the midway point, near the rear service entrance of the Thai restaurant. Nothing else but brick and asphalt was in the alley. Mansur, nowhere to be seen, was probably on the other side of the Dumpster or perhaps hadn’t arrived yet.
Singer glanced about before cautiously entering the alley. As he approached the Dumpster he realized Mansur was already there. At least his body was, sandwiched among the trash bags in the Dumpster.
Singer’s training and instincts told him to leave. Immediately. With his hand on his weapon and his senses on a trip wire. But years of experience told him that he needed to stay, to inspect the body. This time the stakes were too high to let any information, however minor, go unretrieved.
So, in the last minutes of his life, Ari Singer climbed atop a stinking pile of refuse and rifled through the clothing of a man he considered a friend and patriot. What he found scrambled everything he and his superiors had believed about the threat to Israel’s existence.
Singer had found a thin scrap of hotel stationery bearing nine words — some English, some Hebrew — taped to the inside cuff of Mansur’s left pants leg. The instant he absorbed the message, Singer knew it was vital that it be relayed to Tel Aviv immediately. This one was different from all the other “urgent” messages he’d transmitted over the years. In barely more than twelve hours, the world would change.
He called his superiors, but the call dropped before connecting. He tried twice more and failed to get through.
His anxiety building, he decided to reach outside his own agency, an act that in ordinary circumstances could be career ending, or worse. At the moment, Singer didn’t have the luxury of patience or protocol.
He keyed the number for Mike Garin, with whom he’d worked several times before, just as a cab approached and slowed to pick him up. Singer cursed as the call automatically went to voice mail. Opening the rear door of the cab, he paused and then rapidly began to leave a message. As he climbed into the vehicle, the last thing the synapses in Ari Singer’s brain registered was the horrified look on the driver’s face just before the top of the old spy’s skull exploded across the length of the dark brown upholstery of the backseat.
Matt stood next to Dwyer’s desk and watched the confrontation, having no intention of getting between two forces of nature. Dwyer stood in front of the door of his office, blocking Garin’s egress. Garin stood barely two feet away from Dwyer.
“I don’t have to tell you that this is a spectacularly bad idea, Mikey. Spectacularly bad.” Dwyer turned to Matt. “Tell him. Tell him this is a bad idea.”
The Aussie raised his palms, indicating he wanted no part of the argument that had been going on since Garin had used Dwyer’s desktop to access an e-mail account shared by Garin and an Israeli agent and had then retrieved a voice-mail message from the same agent. The normally imperturbable Garin, seated at Dwyer’s desk, had shot to his feet, declaring that he needed to contact James Brandt and interrogate Julian Day immediately.
“Move aside, Dan.” Garin’s voice was even, but his body’s attitude bore the menace of a cobra. Dwyer, for his part, was unmoved.
“Mike, I’ll make the call. Hell, you make the call. But don’t go into the District,” Dwyer implored.
“I’m going to need you to move aside now, Dan.” It was not a request.
“What are you going to do? Go to Day’s office at Hart Senate? They’ll have you handcuffed before you even get to the metal detectors. Any headway Brandt may have made persuading the authorities that you’re not public enemy number one will be gone.”
“Last time, Dan.”
Dwyer looked to Matt standing next to the desk and nodded.