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  Obviously there were potential problems with this plan. If Gentry died first, or if there was surveillance on the Gray Man at the time of the Kalb hit tomorrow, then Whitlock would have a hard time convincing anyone that the Gray Man was the killer. But Russ knew Gentry was on his way to the continent of Europe; if Court could somehow just make it over the Baltic Sea and into Germany, then he’d be only a few hours away from the location of the assassination, and Russ hoped the clearly exaggerated reputation of the Gray Man would sell his superpower ability to kill the PM on a secret visit.

  Whitlock was rooting for Gentry’s miserable life to continue for just one more night.

  A half hour later, Dead Eye boarded a British Airways flight to Brussels, still cursing Court Gentry under his breath for making every last thing so damn more complicated than it needed to be.

  Court and Ruth arrived in the southern Sweden city of Helsingborg during a light snow shower. They climbed out of the train together and headed into the station, Court’s eyes darting around in all directions, on alert to pick up any surveillance or pre-aggression indicators in those around him. He was armed with only a four-inch paring knife, which would be a lousy defense against a half-dozen guys with submachine guns, although Court would not go down without a fight.

  Once inside the station, Ruth said, “Can I call my boss?”

  “Be my guest. I’m leaving now.” He started to walk away.

  She called to him. “Wait. This Whitlock man is a current Townsend employee, right?”

  “Yes.”

  She hesitated for a moment. Then she said, “Ehud Kalb is stopping off somewhere else before London.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s classified.”

  Court shrugged. “Fine with me. It’s not my problem.”

  “Brussels,” she said, softly, not entirely comfortable passing this information on to Gentry. “It wasn’t announced, but if Whitlock is working for a U.S. intelligence contractor, he might have access to that information.”

  Court said, “You can be sure that if CIA knows about the trip, then Whitlock knows about the trip. When does Kalb get to Brussels?”

  “Tomorrow. Lunchtime. He’ll leave the city around three P.M.”

  Court again considered what he would do in Whitlock’s shoes. “That’s a tight timeline. If Russ knows about Brussels, and if he has a weapon staged there already. Maybe.” He shrugged. “Get Kalb to cancel.”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t cancel Brussels. He goes every year. It’s a personal pilgrimage. His security detail has begged him to stop the trips, but he overrules them.”

  Court rolled his eyes. “Then you’ve got yourself a problem.”

  “Will you help us? You can contact Dead Eye; you can tell him we know he’s going to Brussels. Tell him Metsada will be there and he won’t have a chance in hell at pulling it off.”

  Court thought it over. With MobileCrypt he could do this with no exposure to himself.

  “I’ll contact him. Call me in an hour and I’ll tell you what he said.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out his phone and the phone’s battery. It took him a moment to fire it up, but when he did, he read the phone number off the screen to her. She put it in her own phone, although she wasn’t sure what his plan was at first.

  “That’s it? You’re giving me your phone number? How do I know you’ll do it? How do I know you will answer when I call?”

  “You don’t,” he said, and then he turned away, disappearing in the flotsam and jetsam of the station crowd.

  Ruth found a quiet place in a shopping mall near the station, and she dialed Yanis Alvey. He answered on the first ring, near breathless, though Ruth could not tell if it was from anger or worry.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Don’t play games, Yanis. You have the ability to track me through my phone. I also have Mike’s phone, so you have two means to do it.”

  He asked, “What are you doing in Helsingborg? You were supposed to get off the train as soon as it stopped this afternoon, not switch trains and head for the border.”

  She hesitated to answer, but she knew she could not lie to Yanis. The only way to convince him of the truth was to be perfectly transparent. She told him about her conversation with Gentry, about a second CIA asset gone rogue named Russell Whitlock, code-named Dead Eye, and his plot to frame Gentry in the death of Ehud Kalb. She explained that Dead Eye worked for Townsend, and both she and Gentry felt it was likely he would attempt to kill Kalb in Brussels.

  “Where is Gentry now?”

  Now she lied. “He got on a train. I did not see which one.”

  “Don’t move from your location. I will come pick you up myself.”

  “What about what I just told you? You need to be on your way to Brussels. I can take care of myself.”

  “Ruth . . .” Yanis spoke in a fatherly tone. “You’ve lost a man today. You are coming in. We’ll take care of any threats against the PM.”

  “So you don’t believe me, is that it?”

  “I don’t believe him. Of course not. But I will check it out. It’s an easy call to Townsend to confirm if they have this”—he was obviously reading the name he just wrote down—“Whitlock fellow working for them. If they do, I’ll dig around some more.”

  “Yanis. You know me. You know I don’t get played by the opposition.”

  “I do know you, Ruth. You are one of the best and brightest. But I also know what losing a man in the field is like. You are flailing now, flailing about for any lifeline, any proof that you are not responsible for Mike’s death.”

  “That is not—”

  “If you had done your job in Stockholm yesterday, Court Gentry, a man wanted by CIA, FBI, Interpol, French DGSE, the Mexican Federal Police, the Russian FSB, and God only knows who else, would have been taken off the chessboard, and Mike would not have been standing alone in the dark bowels of the train station this morning with a wire around his throat. You can rationalize the rantings of a wanted murderer into some sort of exoneration of your actions, but right now I don’t care about that. I only care about pulling you out of the field. The surviving members of your team are halfway back to Tel Aviv already. Stay where you are and I will come pick you up.”

  It was clear to her she would be pulled out of action, and Mossad would do nothing at all about the real threat to Ehud Kalb.

  As she sat there in the shopping mall, she decided she would take one more proactive step before standing down. She called Leland Babbitt at Townsend Government Services. Babbitt took the call immediately and immediately asked where she was calling from.

  She suspected he knew she was following Gentry, but she did not admit to it. Instead of answering the question, she said, “Mr. Babbitt, I’ve determined the threat against Ehud Kalb to be real, but Court Gentry is not the would-be assassin.”

  “Explain.”

  “There is another man out there. He took the contract from the Iranians by claiming to be the Gray Man. He killed the film director in Nice, I think, to establish his bona fides.”

  “Wow. That’s a hell of a story. Who is this guy?”

  “His name is Russell Whitlock.”

  Leland Babbitt did not respond.

  Ruth said, coolly, “I gather he is an employee of yours.”

  “Where did you come by this information?”

  “From Court Gentry himself.”

  There was a long pause with a few stumbling starts, until finally Babbitt seemed to take control of his words. “You met with the Gray Man and he told you another operator was the real problem.” Clearly he was shocked by the news she’d just delivered, and although he was trying to show that he was not buying it for a second, he was obviously on shaky ground.

  Ruth said, “Gentry was not in Nice. That is certain.”

  “Certain how?”

  “I saw him in Stockholm the morning of the Nice assassination.”

  “You saw Gentry yesterday morning?”

  “C
orrect.”

  “When you were liaising with Jumper? That information would have been useful.”

  “You are missing the point. Your employee is the real threat, not Court Gentry.”

  Babbitt did not respond.

  “Are you there?”

  It took her almost a minute to realize that Babbitt had hung up on her.

  FORTY-SIX

  For the second time today Russ Whitlock stood in a border patrol checkpoint with his Townsend-issued passport in hand. Brussels, Belgium, was a member of the Shengen Area, but since the United Kingdom was not, he had to shuffle through the line and get his passport glanced at and scanned by a border officer who would certainly be targeting a much different demographic than the thirty-four-year-old American businessman.

  Virtually all the passengers on his BA flight had been British citizens, and the control process seemed to be moving along quickly and smoothly. Russ made his way to the booth and handed his passport over with a tired smile, the polite boredom of a jet-setting businessman who crossed immigration lines with such mind-numbing regularity that he could do no more than affect this gentle pleasantry.

  Russ had done this a thousand times before. His papers were so good and his training so complete that he let his mind wander, thinking about taking a long hot shower in the hotel, spending some time cleaning up his excruciating hip wound, and then ordering a four-course room service meal along with a bottle of champagne.

  The Belgian policeman looked at the passport and ran it through a scanner. He compared the face on the photograph with Russ’s face, and Russ smiled at him once again.

  The policeman looked down at his screen and then did a quick double take. He slowly held up a finger, asking Russ to wait just a moment.

  Then he reached for the phone on his desk, and Russ’s dreams of showers and champagne evaporated in an instant.

  Two plainclothesmen appeared at Whitlock’s shoulder just seconds later. They were young and fit, and they wore zip-up hoodies and blue jeans. Each man also wore an earpiece in his right ear. Instantly Russ pegged them as cops. “Mr. Morris,” one said in a Flemish accent, “would you please come with us for one moment?”

  “Why?” Russ asked, concerned, but still very much in his cover. He was, ostensibly, a businessman from Ohio, and an Ohio businessman would be naturally bemused at being taken out of the immigration line by two men in civilian clothing.

  “Just come along, and we’ll straighten it out.”

  Whitlock walked along with his briefcase in his hand. Neither of the two men touched him, but they moved close enough to him to where it was clear they were ready if he decided to try something stupid.

  Two uniformed policemen stood in the hallway with radios in their hands. One of the men asked for Whitlock’s briefcase, and he handed it over. The five of them then continued farther up the hallway.

  As they walked up the hallway it hit Whitlock like a battering ram.

  Babbitt. He almost said it aloud. Lee Babbitt had done this. He’d flagged Whitlock’s passport.

  That son of a bitch. The rage inside him was so complete that his hands balled into fists, his jaw clenched, and he had to fight the urge to kill the four men around him. He thought about bashing all four men’s heads in, taking a pistol from one of them, and shooting his way out of the airport.

  But he just kept walking, kept affecting the mannerisms of a confused and offended business traveler.

  They took him into a holding room, patted him down, and relieved him of his phone and wallet and other personal items. One man told him there was a small issue with his passport. The door clicked closed and he sat in a plastic chair at a little desk, and as angry as he was, he remained in character because a camera high in the corner watched his every move.

  Court had spent most of the past half hour since leaving Ruth trying to get in touch with Russ Whitlock. For some reason the man who had been doing his best to communicate with Court for the past week had suddenly found something better to do than answer a phone call from him.

  Court did not leave a message; instead he threw his phone back in his pack and began an SDR near the banks of the Øresund Strait. He was reasonably certain no one was on his tail, but he was less certain how he would be getting out of this town.

  He’d decided against going back to the train station. For all he knew Ruth was still there, and for all he knew Mossad operatives had descended on her. He considered jumping on a bus, but he’d seen more police at the terminal than he felt like dealing with.

  So he’d come here, to the marina. He was looking for a boat he could rent to take him across the strait into Denmark. Once he made it across the water, he’d have easy access to the European mainland via a bridge west of Copenhagen.

  But so far he’d not found a boat with a crew. Everyone seemed to be either out on the water or at home, sheltered from the frigid air.

  As he watched the marina from across the street, his phone buzzed in his backpack. He put in his wired earphones and kept walking, continuing on his SDR, while he answered. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Ruth.”

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

  “I want to talk to you again. In person.”

  “Why?”

  “Name a place. I’ll be there. You can watch me to make sure I haven’t been followed.”

  Court sighed. His first thought was to tell her thanks but no thanks, but he agreed to her request. She was clearly in a desperate situation, and any help he could give the Mossad right now could have the dual benefit to him of both getting them off his ass and getting them to target Whitlock.

  They met minutes later in a snow-covered park next to the town library. Court had his eyes peeled for threats, but the only people he saw were standing around a pickup hockey game a hundred yards away, along with a few kids walking home from school along the sidewalk by the road.

  Ruth asked, “Did you talk to Whitlock?”

  “He didn’t answer.”

  “Shit. Will you keep trying?”

  “Yes.”

  “I spoke with my boss,” she said.

  “And?”

  “He doesn’t believe a word you are saying.”

  “Figured as much. I can’t help you with that.” Court said, “I suggest you try to get the Iranians to cancel the contract publicly. You can tell them you know they are involved, scare them away with the threat of war if it is successful.”

  Ruth smiled at Court’s naïveté. “We’ve done that already. We approached Iran directly and told them we know they contracted the Gray Man to kill Kalb. We told them their plan to kill our PM with no comebacks to them has failed, and we will bomb them into the Stone Age if a hair on his head is disturbed.”

  Court said the next line with a tone that made clear he was being sarcastic. “So, that’s that, then.”

  “Not exactly. The Iranians gave us the song and dance we expected. They have no idea what we’re talking about and this is a misinformation campaign by us that we plan to use to justify war.”

  “And?”

  “And, we at Mossad have come to the conclusion that they will honor the contract. When Kalb is killed they will say they had nothing to do with it. They will blame us. They will blame the USA. The assassin, after all, is American. This is the perfect Zionist plot. It will be believed in 100 percent of the Middle East, 80 percent of Europe, and 50 percent of the U.S. Shit,” Ruth said, “many in Israel will have suspicions about Mossad; it would not stretch the credulity of some on the left to think this was a Mossad operation to kill Kalb and set off a war to benefit the military-industrial complex or something ridiculous like that.”

  “You could still bomb them into the Stone Age,” Court said.

  “If they kill Kalb we will do just that, I’m sure. But that’s not my focus. My focus is on making sure Kalb doesn’t get killed.”

  Court said, “My focus is making sure I don’t get killed. So I’ll be off now.” He offered his hand.

&n
bsp; She did not reach for it. “I need you to stay in this. You and I are the only chance the PM has at survival.”

  “You told me you’ve been recalled to Tel Aviv.”

  “I’m not going to Tel Aviv. I’m going to Brussels. I want you to go with me. If we stop Whitlock, it will clear your name. That must have some value to you.”

  “Not much. I’ve been blamed for so much shit I didn’t do, getting one more dead guy pinned on me doesn’t faze me in the least.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe that for a second. You don’t want Metsada after you if you can avoid it.”

  “Why would they come after me? You are going to tell them Whitlock killed your man, he killed Zarini, and he’s targeting Kalb. You have to tell them this to get them to act against Whitlock before it’s too late.”

  “I can pin Mike’s death on you.”

  Court looked at her. “You’d do that?”

  Ruth said, “I will if I have to. I need your help. I am prepared to do whatever I have to do to get it.”

  Court stared her down. Angry at her for using him, but not surprised. He said, “That was the stick. From my experience, normally there is a carrot thrown in, as well.”

  She nodded. “If you help us, I can pull out all the stops. You will earn the respect of my organization, and we will leverage this to influence CIA. Maybe we can have them—”

  Gentry lunged at her. She recoiled with the rapid movement.

  “Don’t!” he shouted. “Don’t say it! I don’t want to hear how you can make all my problems go away if I just play ball. I’ve heard that bullshit for years by those who either were double-crossing me at the time or else turned their back on me later.”

  She held a hand up. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I can’t do a damn thing about your situation with CIA.” She reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder now. “But, Court, from your file, I know you have spent the past five years making nothing but enemies. In the next twenty-four hours you could make yourself a valuable friend. You do this for Israel, and it will be noticed. It will be appreciated.”