Lady Death by Brian Drake (good e books to read .TXT) 📕

“Don’t go back to the quai right away,” Tanya advised Sila. “Go right and let’s work our way back.”

“Will the yacht wait?” Omar said.

“They’ll wait,” she told him.

Sila reached the street and followed directions. Traffic was lighter so he drove faster.

Tanya turned to Omar. She didn’t hide her grin. Her eyes were alight with excitement.

“The CIA will get the message,” she said. “They can’t stop me. They can’t stop us.”

“Indeed, they will,” Omar said.

“And then we will send a bigger message,” she added, “when we wipe out their team in Syria.”

Omar only nodded.

“I want the other loose ends eliminated too.”

“Stathoti and Horn?”

“Stathoti yes,” she said. “Leave Horn. His men are carrying out Operation Triangle. We need him. Stathoti is replaceable.”

Omar Talman said nothing more. He wanted out of Paris. He wanted to be on the open sea where the Americans couldn’t find them. And once they reached the island compound, they’d be untouchable.

At CIA headquarters, Deputy Director of Operations Christopher Fisher entered the conference room. His number two, Layla McCarthy, followed. Neither looked happy about the urgent summons. Clark Wilson and Paul Heinrich were already waiting.

“What happened?” Fisher said. He didn’t bother to sit down. Layla McCarthy sat and rested her arms on the table.

Heinrich used a laptop to put pictures on the big screen wall monitor. Police photos of the carnage in an alley in Paris, the shot-up van front and center. Other pictures showed the carnage within.

Wilson said, “Joe Hayden and his crew in Syria have been busy interrogating the two Islamic Union suspects they captured a few days ago. They learned Tanya and Omar Talman were in Paris. We sent a crew to grab them. The pictures tell the rest.”

“Where did she go from here?”

“We don’t know,” Wilson said. “They were traveling along the Seine, so we figure they met a boat.”

“With all the traffic there,” McCarthy said, “tracing which boat she’s on won’t be easy.”

“And it’s a private craft anyway,” Fisher said. “There won’t be a record of departure.” He began to pace. This was not the news he wanted.

He stopped with his hands on his hips and turned to Wilson. “Where’s Sam Raven?”

“On his way to Greece.”

“The gun lead?”

“Yes, sir. Shall I inform him about this?”

Fisher said no.

6

Stathoti Logistics occupied warehouse and office space at one of the many ports in Piraeus. A docking area behind the warehouse gave access to the Saronic Gulf and the Aegean Sea.

Raven and Misty sat in a surveillance van down the street from the Stathoti offices. The van’s concealed rooftop cameras focused on the front gate and parking lot. The automatic gate was part of the fencing surrounding the property. It was still open as the clock ticked past six p.m. Two cars sat near the front door of the building.

Misty sat in the back of the van in front of two computer monitors and a keyboard. One monitor showed the parked cars. The second monitor was linked via satellite to MI6 and Interpol databases.

Raven stood behind Misty. He fastened his shoulder harness and slid the Nighthawk Custom .45 auto into the holster. Spare magazines rode under his right arm. He pulled on a long jacket to cover the rig.

They’d already run the plates on the cars to see who they belonged to. Stathoti owned the silver four-door Lexus. The Honda sitting next to it belonged to his assistant manager, Amanda Liviakis.

“Do we wait for the woman to leave?” Misty said.

Raven put his hands on his hips and watched the monitor over her shoulders. “If she leaves first, yeah.”

“He won’t leave her behind to lock up,” Misty said. “If he’s working on any of his illegal activities after-hours—”

“I’ll take that bet,” Raven said. “Besides we don’t want any witnesses.”

Raven sat down next to Misty. The interior felt cramped, the roof low, and the glow of the monitors hurt his eyes. Misty had turned down the brightness level of both, but their glow still filled the space. The overhead light wasn’t enough to cut down the glare.

They sat without talking for at least an hour. Then a tall woman with long black hair exited. She slid into the Honda and drove away.

“Exit the assistant manager,” Raven said.

They waited ten more minutes. Stathoti did not follow.

Misty left the monitors and climbed behind the wheel. They wanted the van close for when they grabbed Stathoti and chucked him in the back.

“Let’s pull up and make this quick,” Raven said.

Misty started the motor. Raven said, “Wait.”

“I see it,” she called back.

A third car drove through the open gate. The driver turned the vehicle around. He backed into the slot vacated by the assistant manager’s Honda.

Misty ran back to the console and pressed two buttons on the keyboard. The roof-mounted camera took a snapshot of the new car’s license plate. The picture appeared on the second monitor. She used the mouse to drag the picture into the search box of the MI6 database.

“Don’t bother, it’s a rental,” Raven said.

“How can you tell?”

“Gut.”

Misty tapped the Enter key and ran the search anyway.

A lone man exited the vehicle. He was bulky with a thick mop of hair and wore a long jacket. He looked around as he eased the door shut but didn’t close it all the way. The whites of his eyes stood out against dark skin.

“Misty—”

“You’re right, it’s a rental.”

“Paid for by John Smith, right?”

“Edward Lewis.”

“He doesn’t look like a Lewis.”

The man moved to the building entrance. He pulled on the door handle. The door didn’t budge. The man removed something from a pocket of his coat and bent toward the lock.

“We gotta get in there,” Misty said.

She grabbed the compact SIG Sauer P229 pistol from her belt and racked the slide. They exited through the back doors. Raven wondered if they’d brought enough firepower.

Stavros Stathoti hated working late.

But doing so was the only way to keep his legitimate operations going. The illegitimate took up most of the day. Done in secret, of course.

He