Brian Drake - The Glinkov Extraction

Calm settled on the combat zone. If there were police or military units on the way, Stiletto couldn’t hear them, the cannon fire and bomb explosion leaving him temporarily deaf except for a ringing in both ears. He looked up. There was no sign of the chopper either. He reached for his sat phone, but it wasn’t in his pocket where he’d left it. It must have fallen out somewhere along the way. Where was the chopper? Had more than ten minutes gone by?

Stiletto pushed to his feet and gestured for Short Fuse to follow, and they ran, unsteady at first, back the way they came and returned to the smoking warehouse. The steps were gone. The only way up was a ladder they had rigged at the rear of the building, the rungs extending through a hole in the roof, but it had fallen over during the assault, the hole in the roof a little bigger now. Short Fuse put the ladder in place while Stiletto covered their backside, and the explosives expert started up, the ladder’s uneven legs causing it rock a little with each of his heavy steps. Stiletto climbed after him. On the roof, they found a dusty Hardball still behind one of their makeshift cover spots, his face and head cut a little.

“That was close,” he said, though Stiletto only heard a little of it. Short Fuse pointed east, and the helicopter appeared over the top of neighboring buildings. It was a sight to see. We might live to fight another day after all , Stiletto decided. The chopper hovered over the roof. The cabin crew dropped a rope ladder. The team started climbing, leaving their gear behind. Stiletto entered the cabin last, falling across the metal floor, gasping, bruised, bloody, but alive. He could deal with the failure of the mission later. The chopper dipped its nose and turned south.

Tel Aviv, Israel

THE NEXT day Stiletto stepped out of an elevator and onto the rooftop pool deck of the Isrotel Tower in Tel Aviv. The pool sat at the very top of the tower, and might as well have been isolated in a desert. He could hear nothing but laughter and splashing. The sounds from the city below couldn’t reach them.

At the bar, he ordered a Maker’s Mark-and-Coke. Moving to the blue rail surrounding the edge of the roof, his body aching in mild protest, he leaned against the rail and gazed out at the clear blue Mediterranean in the distance. The frolicking continued behind him, providing an interesting soundtrack to his introspection. The color of the water matched the sky. The warm temperature felt good. The view seemed very peaceful, but that water had witnessed a lot of bloodshed.

The city below went about its business silently, while up on the pool deck, a carefree attitude ruled the day. Stiletto turned to face the pool. Mostly kids in the water; watchful parents remained on the sidelines while a trio of young ladies sunned themselves on loungers. Each one wore a bikini to show off their flawless bodies, sunglasses, and had an automatic rifle lying next to them. Stiletto shook his head. IDF troops on a break. The war was never far away.

He sipped his drink with a glance toward the elevator. No sign of his Mossad contact yet.

His team had left Iraq and returned to the back room of a downtown Tel Aviv bar where the failed operation had been assembled. Very quickly they broke down their gear and went their separate ways, but not without Stiletto trying to get them to agree to continue the mission.

Both had refused. They’d been paid to go into Iraq and assassinate a target; the failure of said mission left them with no obligation to chase the man down unless Stiletto was willing to fork over more cash.

For Stiletto that was quite a letdown. To him, the job wasn’t done until the target was dead.

He didn’t know anything more about Jafar el-Gad than his Mossad contact had told him. PLO Captain and the brains behind a variety of attacks incorporating new killing techniques. Of course, el-Gad never did any killing himself, he just showed others how to do it and sent them into battle. Mossad wanted him dead. Stiletto had hoped to deliver. It was his first major free-lance assignment since being sacked from the Central Intelligence Agency, and it had gone from a smoothly executed plan developed in a Tel Aviv bar to a pile of rubbish in a Baghdad street.

His life since leaving the Agency had been hectic, a chase after a dollar to keep the hounds at bay. Since most mercenary activity existed in Europe, he’d had to relocate from his home in Virginia to an apartment in Paris. It had not been an easy transition. Most of the work he’d scrounged, such as guarding North Sea oil rigs, involved long stretches of tedium, and being on the water, which he hated, but his checks always cleared.

His life was in a state of disruption, but not for the first time. He’d adjust.

He drank down some of the Maker’s-and-Coke and the elevator doors slid open. Asaf Cohen, Stiletto’s Mossad contact, stepped out and took in the site before him, his head moving left and right and lingering a little too long on the bikini-clad IDF sunbathers. Stiletto whistled. Cohen snapped his attention to Stiletto, grinned, and approached with an easy gait.

“Good morning,” Cohen said, shaking hands with Stiletto. “What are we drinking?”

“Maker’s-and-Coke.”

“This early?”

“It’s after midnight in the States.”

Cohen took a deep breath. Stiletto couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark aviator glasses, but he sensed those eyes were looking right at him.

“What did you want to see me about? Your job is done. Go home.”

“The job is incomplete,” Stiletto said.

“Missions fail all the time. We knew the risks when we hired you. If you had been killed—”

“I know, I know. You didn’t want it traced back to Mossad. I get that. But I also have my pride to think about.”

Cohen laughed. “Pride will get you killed.”

“My reputation?”

Cohen shrugged. “I suppose it’s not good to be known as somebody who can’t finish his tasks.”

“You paid me a lot of money.”

“You needed to pay your men. By the way, where did they go?”

Stiletto shrugged. “Who knows. I tried to get them to stay with me and keep going, but they refused. They were paid to go into Iraq; they went there.”

Cohen shook his head with half a grin on his face. “You have a lot to learn about mercenaries, Stiletto.”

“Or just find men with a better work ethic.”

“That has nothing to do with it. Mercenaries are the way they are. That’s why we hire them. No fuss. No drama. You’re creating drama by trying to be a hero.”

“I’m simply trying to earn my money.”

“You earned it. Go home. We’ll catch el-Gad another day. You know how it is. Miss him on Tuesday, get him on Friday.”

“Today is Friday.”

“You know what I mean.”

Stiletto folded his arms. “What if I want to kill el-Gad on principal?”

“Because he needs killing?”

“People like him, yeah. So these people”—Stiletto gestured toward the pool—“don’t have to worry about somebody blowing up this hotel.”

Cohen removed his sunglasses, squinting at Stiletto. “I’m going to tell you this as a friend,” he said. “Don’t get too deeply involved in things. You need to stay detached.”

“The C.I.A. used to tell me the same thing.”

“That’s what got you fired.”

“You’ll notice I took the consequences and moved on with my life.”

“What happens if I tell you Mossad will not sanction continued action?”

Stiletto waited a beat. Then: “I’ll do it on my own. Worse case I end up dead. The worse worse case, I end up guarding oil rigs again to save more money.”

“Those oil rig jobs are quite unpleasant.” Cohen put his sunglasses back on. “When was the last time you visited Greece?”