Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

His reputation grew in Syria, and the world’s intelligence organizations located him through his actions. Soon it became clear he could not leave Damascus because of all the parties who wanted him dead.

Ri’s agents met him at his safe house, and they revealed they weren’t there to talk about a training trip to North Korea. Instead, they proposed the plan to transport him to Mexico City, link him up with agents of a local group there, and to provide him with all the intelligence and material he needed to kill the U.S. President. After he succeeded, he would then be secreted out of the country by North Korean agents and taken either back to Syria if he wanted or, better yet, to North Korea, where he would live all of the rest of his days feeling the warmth of a grateful nation. The agents showed him pictures on their tablet computer of his future home, a palace on the beaches near the city of Hamhung, along with photos of beautiful young girls, any of which he could choose as his own to be his wife.

Zarif wanted out of Syria, and he saw this Mexico City operation as his best bet. But he did not agree to it outright. He knew his only chance to make it to the beautiful beaches and live like a king in a palace was success in his mission and the absolute deniability that either he or North Korea had any involvement. He peppered the agents with technical questions and he demanded to go to North Korea to meet with the leadership there.

Ri did not like this, but he saw no choice.

Although the Syrian government had all but held their best bomb maker like a prisoner for the past few years, North Korean intelligence officers persuaded Zarif’s handlers to give him travel documents to leave the country. The North Koreans said they wanted to bring Zarif to Pyongyang to train their direct-action forces in how to make explosively formed penetrator bombs, and while there, North Koreans would in turn give him access to recently acquired high-tech South Korean communications equipment. This knowledge would help him keep up with advances in remote detonators. Working in Syria, he’d had little access to new equipment, and the DPRK convinced the Syrian government that a short trip for Zarif would be in Syria’s best interests.

The ruse was a lie, of course. Zarif would travel to Mexico, he would kill the President of the United States, and he would then retire to the ocean side in North Korea.

Or so Zarif had been led to believe.

Zarif was transported to Pyongyang the next day, where he met with Ri and others, and when he showed reluctance to agree to the plan—he was unsure of the efficiency of the Mexicans and the credibility of their intelligence—he was flown to Hamhung and shown his future home.

The palace existed, it was stately and impressive, and the beautiful girls were lined up at the entryway to meet him. Adel Zarif was sold.

In truth, the mansion was one of many properties for use by the Supreme Leader, and General Ri had no plans to call the Dae Wonsu and tell him he was offering up his home to a foreign Muslim assassin.

No. As Adel Zarif smiled and shook Ri’s hand on the tarmac in Pyongyang, anxious to leave North Korea to head to Mexico to begin preparations for the biggest operation of his career, the sad, hangdog eyes of General Ri brightened for a moment, and he smiled back. The man before him would die during the execution of Operation Fire Axe, and no one in the world would know Zarif had ever been here.

29

Edward Riley left his BMW i8 parked in a garage on 23rd Street and walked the last six blocks to his destination. It was raining this afternoon in Manhattan, but this was good news for Riley, because it gave him an excuse to wear his raincoat. He would have worn it anyway for operational reasons, but it would have looked odd in the sun.

He’d received a call five minutes earlier letting him know his trap had been sprung. He wasn’t sure exactly how long he should wait before showing up at the trap, but he knew his best chance for success was to catch his victim at the exact moment of maximum distress, so he did not delay.

On 29th near Lexington he turned off of the sidewalk and walked down a few steps to a basement entrance below a five-story apartment building. He rapped on the metal door a few times and then closed his umbrella, leaving it against a small table sitting there by the door.

The door was opened from the inside a moment later. Riley stepped into a poorly lit narrow hallway, and he nodded to the middle-aged Asian woman standing there.

“Room four,” she said, her gravelly voice barely above a whisper.

Riley headed up the hall, taking care to avoid touching anything. Not the walls or the doorknobs of the doors he passed. He even made sure his pants leg below his raincoat didn’t brush against the curtains covering an alcove on his right.

It wasn’t that he was trying to avoid leaving fingerprints or DNA at the scene. Instead, he kept his hands tight at his sides and his slacks away from any surface at ankle height because Riley felt this place was utterly filthy. It was a massage parlor, a house of prostitution, and it was in heavy use from what Riley had been told.

Riley’s men had followed a man to this establishment twice in three days. It was clear that his target had a habit, so Riley stopped in to talk to the proprietor, then flashed a badge, a smile, and some cash. He showed the Japanese “mamasan” in charge a picture of his target, then asked her to tip him off the next time the man showed up. Riley explained how he would conduct a raid, and he told her she’d make two thousand dollars to reimburse her for the disturbance to her business, and he assured her that her cooperation would mean the New York Police Department would show its gratitude by not interfering with her operation afterward.

His promises were only half bullshit.

The two grand Riley could come up with, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about the NYPD.

At the door marked 4 he used his elbow, enshrouded in his raincoat, and with it he banged just once. This door, like the other, was opened from the inside, but this time he was greeted by an American. A black man in his thirties, big and strong, with a badge around his neck proclaiming him to be a detective from the NYPD.

Riley knew Bridgeforth wasn’t a detective. He was an employee of Sharps Partners, and a subordinate of Riley’s, but the badge went along with today’s ruse.

Riley reached into his raincoat, around his neck, and he pulled out a similar-looking badge of his own.

There was one more person here in room 4 with Riley and Bridgeforth, and the badges were for his benefit. Seated on a wooden massage table was a thin, middle-aged European-looking male wearing nothing but his underwear.

Riley nodded to Bridgeforth and the African American left the room, shutting the door behind him. He ignored the one chair in the room. Instead, he stood in front of the door, his raincoat thin protection against the trillions of microbes he pictured swarming in the air around him.

The thin man looked at him with panic-stricken eyes.

Good, Riley thought.

The Englishman could do a spot-on New York accent; he’d practiced it for hundreds of hours in the past year, even going days “in character” around the city, to the point he never saw any hint of doubt from anyone he came in contact with.

He slipped into his character with ease. In his booming Brooklyn voice he said, “Detective Rich Kincaid, NYPD.” And then, “Vice.”

The man before him just nodded, then he spoke with a pronounced Austrian accent. “As I mentioned to your colleague, Detective, I have diplomatic immunity from prosecution.”

Riley shrugged, his hands wide, a gesture in keeping with his character. “Who’s prosecuting?”