Brad Thor - The Athena Project

Casey knew he’d come through for them. That was what a commander did. He made sure his team had everything they needed to get their mission completed successfully. If Hutton came up with a better idea for pulling this off, Casey and her teammates would be all ears, but until that happened, they were preparing to go with Plan A.

And, with nothing better to do than sit around and wait, Casey decided they should go out and get something to eat for dinner.

They picked a Serbian restaurant not far from their hotel in the old part of the city known as the Bohemian Quarter. Even Cooper, who leaned a bit more to the vegetarian side, found something to enjoy on the menu.

Casey didn’t need to warn her team about their alcohol intake. They were all adults. They were also all entitled to a little R &R. They had been going ninety miles an hour with their hair on fire since Venice. A couple of drinks would probably do them some good.

Casey held up her wine glass. “To the toughest, smartest, and best-looking bunch of women I know,” she said.

The rest of the team voiced their agreement and clinked glasses. While they could handle any operation thrown at them, by definition the Athena Team members weren’t marathoners. They were sprinters. Get in, get it done, get out, get home. That’s what they did. And even though not a single one of them had complained or would complain, they were overdue for something like this.

They laughed and told stories. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing as well. Being highly competitive and fiercely loyal to each other meant that there were no subjects that were off-limits.

Casey was in the middle of pressing Ericsson on whether Vlcek ever cooked breakfast for her the morning after or if Rhodes should just plan to be gone before he woke up, when the secure Qualcom CDMA phone she’d been given for the assignment began vibrating.

There was only one person who had the number. “Casey,” she said, holding the phone up to her ear.

The restaurant was crowded and there was a strolling band of Serbian minstrels that was nearing their table. “Hold on,” she stated. “I can’t hear you. I’m going to step outside.”

Mouthing the name Hutton to her teammates, she stood up and indicated that she was going to finish the call outside. When she exited the restaurant and stepped onto the sidewalk, she raised the phone back up to her ear.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

“Where are you?” asked Hutton.

“Some restaurant. Having a glass of wine and getting something to eat. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to save the receipts.”

“You’re going to need to get the check,” he replied.

“As soon as we’re done eating.”

“Get it to go. You’re going in tonight.”

“Tonight?” repeated Casey.

“Yes,” said Hutton. “We’ve been able to breach part of their security network. According to what our folks discovered, they do server maintenance tonight. They hand off different operations in shifts to a backup system. Our people are looking at whether they can penetrate the network while this is going on. If they can, they think they’ll be able to control the elevators, door sensors, and video feeds before you attempt to enter the building.”

“They think , or they know?”

“You know how this works, Gretchen.”

Yes, she did know, but that didn’t mean that she had to like it. “What about the gear?” she asked.

“Everything will be waiting at the airport. Tell the ladies I’m sorry I ruined dinner.”

“They won’t believe me, but I’ll tell them.”

“Listen,” he said, sensing her concern. “Your safety comes before everything else. You know I wouldn’t ask all of you to do this if I didn’t think it would work.”

“I know,” said Casey, wanting to get back inside and at least grab one hot bite of food before they had to take off running again.

“There’s something else I want you to know,” he added. “I heard from Walsh. He’s personally seen one of the bombs these people have transmitted. You need to get to this Branko Kojic and find out who he is working for and where all the equipment from Zbiroh went. And you need to do it fast. He doesn’t care what it takes.”

“I understand,” said Casey, and she meant it. It was one thing to be upset about not getting enough downtime. It was something else entirely when your commanding officer told you that the director for intelligence for the Joint Chiefs needed a bomber run to ground ASAP. This wasn’t about her and what she wanted. This was about the job and what needed to be done. It was a job Gretchen Casey was 100 percent committed to.

“I’ll talk with you as soon as we’re ready to launch,” she said, ending their call. She then walked back into the restaurant, placed several bills on the table, and stated, “We may have just caught a break. Rob has okayed our plan. He wants us to move. Now.”

PREMANTURA

ISTRIAN P ENINSULA

CROATIA

Thomas Sanders looked at his boss. With a thick gray beard and abundance of poised self-confidence he appeared Zeuslike. “I don’t understand how you can be so relaxed.”

They were sitting on the stone stairs in front of the compound’s main building waiting for Viktor Mikhailov to arrive. Abressian held a snifter of B &B in his hand and was smoking a Gurkha Black Dragon from the hand-carved camel bone chest in his office. “Patience, Thomas, is the art of caring slowly.”

It was a warm, breezeless night. Stars punctured the dark curtain of sky above. The only clouds came from the leathery smoke of Abressian’s eleven-hundred-dollar cigar.

“I have a bet with our security chief, Marko, about how many cars Viktor will bring,” Sanders remarked. “I’m guessing five-a full, flamboyant show of Russian muscle.”

Abressian plucked a small piece of tobacco from his tongue and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger before flicking it to the ground. “And how many cars does Marko believe are coming?”

Sanders smiled and shook his head. “He says only one.”

“And how much did you bet?”

“Only a hundred dollars.”

“Well, you’d better get your money ready,” said Abressian as he stood and drained the liquid in his snifter. “Comrade Mikhailov has arrived, and he brought only one vehicle.”

Sanders looked toward the gate. Their heavy metal doors were still closed. He tilted his head, but he couldn’t hear a thing beyond the normal sounds of the night. Seconds later, men came out of the guardhouse and opened the large doors. It wasn’t until he saw the halogen headlights of Viktor’s Audi slicing through the darkness of the twisting uphill road that he knew he was close. Only now could he make out the car’s engine. Armen’s hearing was amazing.

The low-slung black Audi passed through the gates and crunched across the gravel motor court. It came to a stop in front of the stone stairs and the front passenger door opened.

Viktor’s lead bodyguard exited the vehicle first, followed by another bodyguard from the backseat. The driver remained with the car.

When the very large bodyguards were content that it was safe for their principal to exit the vehicle, the lead man opened the door and out stepped Viktor Mikhailov.

He was a barrel-chested fireplug of a man. At five-foot-five, his diminutive stature was only highlighted by how enormous his bodyguards were. Mikhailov had a completely shaved head and a neck as thick as a telephone pole. He was about the same age as Armen, but any similarity between the two men ended there. Whereas Abressian was dressed in a linen shirt and linen trousers, and shod in tasteful Italian loafers, Mikhailov looked every inch the mafioso-silk shirt, silk trousers, and several pieces of gold jewelry.