Марк Грини - One Minute Out

In the cabin of the aircraft behind him the flight attendant strapped herself into the folding bulkhead seat, and then she rubbed her hands and wrists repeatedly.

This was only Sharon’s third Agency flight since she’d been wounded in a tarmac shootout while on board a CIA Gulfstream a couple months earlier. Both her hands still ached where the bullet had smashed into them, but she’d passed her medical requirements a week and a half earlier and had been returned to duty.

Facing aft, she was able to gaze upon the six men seated in the captain’s chairs. They were all in their thirties and forties; many wore longer hair and beards. They were quiet and soft-spoken and had been no trouble during the eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Reagan National in D.C.

Sharon had been doing this long enough to recognize a Ground Branch unit when she saw one. These were CIA paramilitary operations officers, among the most highly trained fighters on planet Earth. Individually, they looked normal. They could be oil rig workers or construction workers or any other banal job that required manual labor. But together, to a practiced eye like Sharon’s, these were obviously American intelligence commandos.

The Dassault touched down moments later at Aeroporto di Treviso, twenty miles northwest of the city of Venice, and then it taxied to a fixed-base operator on the southwestern side of the airport. Here the plane parked on the ramp, one hundred yards away from the doors to the FBO. The pilot and copilot shut it down while in the back the passengers readied their equipment.

The arrival of the CIA flight had been arranged and approved by Italian officials, who were told these men were NATO forces and tied to the nearby U.S. air base at Aviano. There were no checks of customs or immigration, as this was a “black” flight, allowed by the Italians.

Chris Travers stood in the low cabin and turned back to his team. At thirty-five years old, he was young to be running his own six-man Ground Branch unit, but he’d proven himself in the U.S. Army as a Special Forces officer, as a CIA para unit member, and then, finally, as a second-in-command on a Ground Branch team.

After the death of his team leader and meritorious accolades for Travers’s actions during the event where the TL died, Travers himself was promoted to team leader.

Ground Branch reported to the director of the Special Activities Center, who reported directly to the deputy director for operations, but things on tonight’s op were a little bit more streamlined than normal, because command authority of the entire operation was not located in Langley.

Tonight command authority rested with the man sitting in the darkness in the back of the cabin. This figure said nothing while Travers gave final instructions to his crew, even though he himself had once run a team not unlike the one sitting in the cabin with him.

Travers said, “Listen up. We have a sixteen-passenger van waiting to take us into the city. As I told you before, our mission this evening is the location and removal of a CIA asset, code named Violator. We have a general understanding of where he will be but no good timeline, so we’re heading there now, will remain clandestine, and will use nonlethal means to obtain his compliance with our commands.”

One of the older men on the team muttered, “Yeah, right,” and others around him chuckled.

Everyone on the team had been around the block enough to know the legend of Violator, aka the Gray Man, but only Chris and the man sitting in the back of the aircraft knew the former CIA employee personally.

Travers addressed his doubtful subordinate directly. “Yeah, I hear you. We all know Violator is a badass, and if we can’t talk him into coming along with us, then this will get ugly. But that’s our op, so if you don’t like it, you can go fuck yourself.”

This received a few chuckles, as well, including from the man who’d seemed to doubt the wisdom of taking on Violator in the first place.

The team leader continued. “We know he’s worked with the Luigi Alfonsi family in the past. We are going to set up surveillance around the quarter where the Alfonsis are strongest, and if we get more specific location intel, I’ll flex you over to those areas as necessary. This might take some time, so be prepared for a long night.”

The men hefted packs and filed out of the aircraft in silence. Travers was the last through the hatch, but as he neared the stairs he turned around and looked at the man in darkness in the back.

“Hey. You coming?”

Chris Travers saw the silhouette of the man as he reached for his bottle of Corona and took a slow sip. “Nah. You boys run along. I’m going to hang out here.”

Travers shrugged. “Long flight not to get off the plane. Figured you’d want a chance at a little action.”

The man chuckled softly, then said, “I might be seeing more action than you tonight, kid.”

“Whatever.” Travers left the aircraft, then climbed into the van with his men.

• • •

When he was gone, the man in the back of the cabin called up to the front. “Sharon?”

The flight attendant stepped up as the man dialed a number on his phone. “Sir?”

“I’m going to put you on the phone with someone. He’s going to give you some direction for this evening.”

She cocked her head. “Yes, sir. Can I ask what this is about?”

“Of course. He is going to tell you that you are to do whatever I tell you to do.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know who you are, but I am pretty certain I don’t work for you.”

“No, you don’t. But you do work for him.”

He tapped a button, putting his sat phone on speaker, and then a voice said, “Miss Clarke. This is Matthew Hanley, DDO. I need you to listen very carefully.”

The flight attendant sat down in a captain’s chair with wide eyes.

“I’m listening, sir.”

• • •

I sit in my rented flat on the Ruga Giuffa, watching the last of the day’s light fade through the dirty windows. I caught a few hours’ sleep and I ate in a restaurant down on the first floor of the building, careful to sit far in the back to avoid any detection from the street.

But it’s eight forty-five p.m.; I’m back in the room and it will be full-on dark soon, which means it’s almost time for me to leave.

Before I set out I call Talyssa, who should be on the ground in Amsterdam, en route to the home of black-hat hacker Maarten Meyer. She answers on the second ring, which I take as a promising sign.

“Hello?”

“It’s Harry. You made it there?”

“I’m outside his house. I don’t think he’s home.”

“That’s okay. You knew you might have to wait.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can, and you can call me if you need help. Remember, you have your Europol credentials and a lot of information about his crimes and the investigation under way. Come at him hard, threatening even, but then show him a way through the door. You have to make him want to work with you so he doesn’t end up in prison.”

“But . . . what if he says no? What if your plan doesn’t work?”

This isn’t going to work, I tell myself. Then I tell Talyssa, “It’s going to work. Trust me.”

After a moment she replies softly, and with no obvious confidence. “All right. I will call you when I have him.” Then she says, “While I’m doing this . . . what will you be doing?”

“I’ll be doing what I do best.”

“Which is?”

“What do you think?”

Talyssa heaves a long sigh. “You are going to try to catch someone and beat information out of them.”

“You know me too well.”

I am worried about her, just like I was back in Dubrovnik when she had been rolled up by the Albanians. But now I can’t do anything to help her. She’s on her own.