“You’re everybody’s friend,” said Danny.
“That’s my job,” answered McEwen. “Or it was.”
“Can we trust them?”
“I keep telling you — we don’t trust anyone. Not completely. But yes, to the extent we trust anyone.” She lowered her voice. “Her husband died shortly after Kira was born. Kira’s our waitress. She’s the youngest of eight children.”
“Eight?”
“They all worked here, at one time or another,” said McEwen before continuing her explanation. “The father was killed in an auto accident with a man who turned out to be a Russian army major in the city on unofficial business. He seems to have been drunk at the time. It wasn’t clear exactly what he was doing, but the end result was that he went back to Russia, and no compensation was paid to the widow. There was no trial, of course. So, Nexi and her family don’t particularly like Russians.”
“And they need money,” said Danny.
“You’re catching on, Colonel. But they’re nice people besides. If I could pick someone to help, and who could help me — Nez would be a perfect fit.”
“Are some of those yours?” Hera asked, pointing to the paintings.
“The one all the way to the right, over there,” said McEwen, beaming.
“You had a lot of time to paint when you were here?” asked Danny.
“It was part of the job,” said McEwen. “A way to meet different people, to circulate. It makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it, Colonel?”
“Painting?”
“It doesn’t fit with your stereotype of what a spy does. And I don’t look like one. That’s what you’re thinking,” she said, her voice just loud enough for Danny to hear. “People get certain notions in their head, and they operate on them without really examining them. They feel a certain way about something before they even have a chance to experience it or see it. And that preconception colors everything. So you don’t think that an old lady who paints—paints! — could possibly be gathering intelligence, persuading people to betray their country, or at least help another one. Right?”
“I guess.”
“Who better to be a spy?”
After they ate, Danny had McEwen take them around to different hotels where she thought the Wolves might stay if they needed to rent rooms. The hotels were third and fourth tier establishments, places Ukrainians on a budget or small businessmen paying their own way might stay. The staffs, while friendly, spoke limited English. Asking about a concierge would have made them laugh. There were dozens of such places in the city, and keeping them under complete surveillance would have been impossible, even with MY-PID’s help.
“We could plant a video bug near each entrance,” suggested Hera. “That would give us at least some idea of who’s going in and out.”
“That might work,” said Danny.
“If you don’t mind my saying, Colonel, I’m not sure video surveillance would be anything more than a shot in the dark,” said McEwen. “And it could even work against us.”
“Against us how?”
“We can’t possibly cover every place. They could stay outside of the city just as easily as in. Putting the video bugs in might give us a false sense of security — we’d focus on those sights.”
“Good point,” said Danny.
“I’m not suggesting we ignore them entirely, but if we have limited resources…”
“Where would we put the bugs?”
“The airport for starters. Train station. Obviously the area around the fort. If we have bugs left over, then we can think about the hotels. If I was planning some sort of action here,” McEwen continued, “then I would be casing the area. That’s the person we should look for. The team that would do the assassination wouldn’t be here yet.”
“When would they come?”
“Not until the day before. Maybe not even until that day. Unless there was a reason for it.”
Danny nodded. He wasn’t comfortable with the espionage aspects of the mission. Covert action tended to be relatively straightforward, even when extremely difficult — here’s the target, hit it. This was considerably more nebulous — find assassins whom no one knows, stop them from killing anyone, and then apprehend them.
This wasn’t a classic Whiplash mission, he thought.
Then again, what was the classic Whiplash mission? He was thinking about the old days, when everything seemed more straightforward. This was the new Whiplash, in a much more complicated world. Alliances shifted every day, technology improved seemingly by the second.
Maybe he was just a little too old to keep up.
But age seemed like a ludicrous idea with McEwen around. She was as enthusiastic and energetic as Hera.
They continued on their tour of the city, driving by the U.S. embassy and Ukrainian government buildings, walking through Maidan Nzalezhnosti, the square and monument in the city center, and getting more of a feel for the place. McEwen was just about to take them on the metro when Danny’s sat phone rang.
It was Nuri.
“I ran into a roadblock with the Italians,” Nuri told him. “They say it’ll be months before we can get in to talk to this mafia guy, Moreno. By that time, any data will be off his computer.”
“How much did you tell them?”
“Enough to put him away for life.”
“And they still won’t move?”
“They’ll move. They may even arrest him. But it’ll be at Italian pace. Next year or so. I have another idea.”
“Shoot.”
“I want to go into the estate and steal the computer.”
“What happens if you’re caught?”
“Bad things,” replied Nuri. “I’ll just have to make sure I don’t get caught.”
“You need backup?”
“I can handle it. I talked to Reid and we’ll have real-time infrared surveillance, so I’ll know where everybody is.”
Danny checked his watch.
“Flash is flying in from the States with a layover in Frankfurt,” he told Nuri. “If I can get ahold of him, we might be able to change his plans and get him down to Naples tonight.”
“All right. I like Flash.”
Flash was John “Flash” Gordon, a former Special Forces soldier who’d teamed with Nuri during their first mission. He tended to be quiet and efficient — a rare but winning combination.
“Hera and I can come out as well,” Danny added. He glanced at his watch. “We may not be able to get there until tomorrow, though.”
“It’s OK. It’s not a hard job. I checked the place out. There are only two guards around the perimeter. The guy lives like a prince,” added Nuri. “But he’s way overconfident. Everyone’s so scared of him nobody even tries to get up there. I’m sure the house is wired, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get inside. There’s only one slight complication.”
“How slight?”
“The FBI is helping me.”
Just from Nuri’s tone, Danny understood that wasn’t a good thing.
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“Only if I kill her. But it may be worth it.”
10
As a CIA officer, Nuri was generally in the habit of getting other people to do his dirty work. Things like breaking into a mafia chieftain’s home, bugging his office and his computers, were considerably safer when done by someone other than himself. But such arrangements took time, and in this case might very well be impossible. Besides, Nuri liked going places where he wasn’t supposed to be. And this place didn’t look nearly as well protected as it could have been.
He had done a few similar jobs before. As long as he didn’t get caught — admittedly a singular caveat — they were relatively straightforward. He’d sneak in, sprinkle a few bugs in strategic places, kick on the computer and load a virus that would dump all of its information to a Room 4 server the next time it accessed the Internet. Bypassing the computer’s security protocols was child’s play, and if there was a local area network, it was easy to scoop everything up from a single computer.