Brad Thor - The Athena Project

Ericsson laughed. “It’s cool, Coop. We all give as good as we get.”

“Speaking of which,” said Casey. “Let’s all get ready. The door’s going up.”

Down the block, the faded metal garage door rolled up and the first truck pulled out of the warehouse.

“There’s number one,” said Cooper.

They watched as the semi trailer exited the warehouse and headed west.

“And here comes number two,” replied Ericsson, as the second truck exited and headed in the opposite direction.

Suddenly, the unexpected happened. “Wait a second,” said Casey. “Number three?”

Rhodes looked behind it and said, “And four?”

“I thought Bianchi said this guy Abressian only used two trucks before; the real deal and a decoy.”

“I guess we’re seeing how serious they are,” stated Casey.

Cooper looked at her and then down at her cell phone. “Why is that not ringing?”

“It’ll ring.”

“Gretch, there’s four trucks. There’s no way we can follow them all,” said Rhodes.

“Everybody calm down,” said Casey. “It’s going to be okay. Just be calm.”

Seconds later, Casey’s cell phone rang. “Yes?” she said. “Thank you.”

Hanging up, she put the car in gear and said, “Truck number three,” and pulled out into the street after it.

“I still think we ought to drown the guy just on principle,” said Rhodes, referring to Bianchi.

“So far, so good,” cautioned Gretchen. “He said his warehouse manager would alert us to which truck and that’s exactly what he did. I think Bianchi is a scumbag and I’m going to be first in line to sign up for his firing squad, but the verdict is out of my hands.”

“I’m getting real tired of all your law and order lip, missy,” Rhodes joked from the backseat.

“Your mom and I,” said Ericsson as she indicated she was speaking about Rhodes, “are very disappointed in you. Aren’t we, dear?”

Megan nodded. “Absolutely. I didn’t raise any daughter of mine to be such a softie. Do you want us to take your Glock away? Is that what you want? Because we’ll do it.”

“What I want,” said Casey, calling for some decorum, “is for everyone to pay attention. We’re on the clock.”

The team didn’t need to be told twice. They all focused on the truck that was several car lengths in front of them.

Casey decided to fall back a little farther. The semi was a big, easy target that wouldn’t be hard to follow.

It led them through stop-and-go traffic across the Slovenian capital. Though Casey had requested professionalism when the pursuit had first started, Ericsson and Rhodes couldn’t help themselves, and eventually a stream of jokes poured from the backseat. It broke the tedium and a couple were actually funny, so Casey allowed them.

When the semi slowed down and pulled into another warehouse, she didn’t need to ask her team to look sharp. They were already with her.

Casey kept driving, turned around two blocks down, and then came back and found a parking spot where they could monitor the building without being observed.

This was now the part that was completely out of their hands. Whereas they had Bianchi’s warehouse manager inside from the first location, here they had nobody. This location had been of Abressian’s choosing. The Athena Team could only imagine that the three other trucks were pulling into similar warehouses at different points around the city.

“Did anyone get a look at our driver or the man riding shotgun?” asked Rhodes.

“I saw a little bit of a face in the passenger mirror,” replied Cooper, “but not enough to make a positive ID.”

“Then we’d better hope we don’t screw this up,” said Ericsson.

The women waited in silence, their eyes glued to another rolling garage door.

After about four minutes, Rhodes said, “So, Gretch. What was it like seeing Scot Harvath again?”

“Yeah,” added Ericsson. “Has he dumped Riley yet?”

Casey didn’t bother turning around to look at either of them. She just took two fingers, pointed at her eyes, and then turned the fingers and pointed out the windshield toward the warehouse. They got the message and the car fell silent once again.

Ten minutes later, the garage door rolled up.

“Whoa,” said Cooper as four trucks poured out and went in different directions. “This guy Abressian is taking no chances at all, is he?”

“No, he’s not,” replied Casey as they watched the trucks exit and the garage door roll down.

Minutes passed and Casey could sense anxiety out of the backseat. Before the peanut gallery could say anything, she said, “Wait for it.”

It was the longest twenty minutes of their lives, but sure enough the garage door rolled back up and out drove a silver G Class Mercedes SUV. Bianchi had been telling them the truth. He’d also been right that they would very likely run the same scam they had the first time they’d accepted a shipment from his Ljubljana warehouse.

“Those sneaky bastards,” said Rhodes.

“What a shell game,” admitted Cooper, a little awe in her voice. “Load the bombs in the SUV and load the SUV in the back of one of the semis and then keep people guessing.”

Casey waited until the Mercedes had passed them and put their car in gear. “Now let’s see where they take us.”

ISTRIAN PENINSULA

CROATIA

As they neared the outskirts of the Croatian town of Pula, Rob Hutton told the team to back off.

“We’ve got them via satellite,” he said. “Unless they drive into a submarine, we’re going to know exactly where they are transporting their cargo.”

It had taken less than three hours to drive from Slovenia to Croatia’s Dalmatian coast, also known as the new European Riviera. It was a stunning mosaic of stone buildings and whitewashed houses with red-tiled roofs.

“So now what do we do?” asked Cooper.

“According to Hutton,” said Casey, “we sit tight here while they decide what our next move will be.”

“Where’s here ?”

Rhodes was already pulling up information on her iPhone. “Pula, Croatia,” she stated, “known for its winemaking, fishing, shipbuilding, and tourism.”

“What’s it say about men with full sets of teeth?” asked Ericsson as she leaned in.

“It says Pula attracts large numbers of German, Scandinavian, Italian, and other tourists through early fall,” she replied. “This could be very good for you.”

Julie laughed. “The hell with me. I’m thinking about Coop.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Megan. “Pula is all about Coopah!”

Cooper threw up her hands. “All I want is a hot shower and an ice bucket full of beer. Maybe some pizza if we can find it.”

“We’ll find it,” said Casey. “I don’t think the powers that be back home are going to have this thing spun up for at least another twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

The other women nodded in agreement.

“Megs, can you pick out a hotel for us?”

“Already done,” she replied. “Tonight, Uncle Sugar will be putting us up at the Hotel Histria.”

Casey shook her head. “No way. Remember that fleabag we stayed at in Thailand, the Fallopian?”

“That’s not what it was called. It was the Phillipian.”

“And this one sounds dangerously like the Hotel Hysterectomy. Pick another.”

“Remind me again, country girl, who the snobs are in this crowd?” asked Rhodes.

“The Histria looks like a nice hotel,” stated Ericsson.

“Actually, it looks like a very nice hotel,” added Cooper as Rhodes showed her a picture of it.