“Not directly,” Fox answered. He took off his glasses, polished them briefly, and then put them back on. “I’m afraid your proposal is still under debate, Nick. You’ve got Gideon’s vote, but there are a couple of others who aren’t yet convinced such a risky operation is worth it, especially since we can’t guarantee a payoff in actionable intelligence.”
Flynn frowned. One of the things that had drawn him to Four in the first place was Fox’s guarantee that he would be allowed room for independent action, without being continually held back or second-guessed by superiors. Coming as it did after he’d been railroaded by both the CIA and the Air Force brass for making them look bad that had been a mighty attractive prospect. He’d hate to find out it was all bullshit, like so many of the bogus promises made by armed forces recruiters through the ages in order to get their prospects to sign on the dotted line.
“If there’s such a thing as a sure bet in the intelligence business, I’ve never seen it,” he pointed out stiffly.
“True,” Ayish agreed. “Which is why I’m confident you’ll be given the green light before too long.” He shrugged. “Remember, there are few enough of us in Four as it is. Sometimes that makes it difficult for those of us held out of the field by age or injury to easily sign off on sending younger men and women into such grave danger. But the worriers will get there in the end. Just give them a little more time to wrestle their consciences into submission. Eventually, necessity will triumph over caution.”
Flynn sighed. “And in the meantime, I just sit here and twiddle my thumbs?”
“Not quite,” Fox assured him. “Thanks to new intelligence supplied by Gideon here, we might have a good chance to learn more about the Russians who seem to be working so closely with Tehran on this mysterious tanker project.”
“Really?”
“Really, Mr. Flynn,” Ayish said. Calmly, he outlined what he’d been told about the sophisticated surveillance operation now being run against Israel’s embassy in Vienna.
Flynn looked back at Fox. “And you think these mysterious watchers are some of the same guys I ran into?”
“The ones who killed Arif Khavari and almost blew your head off?” Fox nodded. “Yes, I do. The timing’s too coincidental for me to think anything else. These people must believe Khavari was working for the Israelis. Why else would anyone mount such an elaborate surveillance effort against their embassy within twenty-four hours of his death?”
Flynn nodded. “Yeah, I see how that fits.” His eyes narrowed. “So, what’s your plan?”
“Well, as a first step, we would need you to return to Austria,” Ayish said. “Once you’re on the ground there, the operation I have in mind becomes feasible.”
Flynn stared at him. “And exactly what kind of operation are we talking about here?” he demanded.
“A fishing expedition of sorts,” the professor replied evenly.
“With me as the bait,” Flynn realized.
“Yes,” Ayish admitted.
Flynn shot him a lopsided grin. “Oh, swell.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Just so you know, I did a lot of fishing with my grandfather when I was a kid. And I don’t remember ever seeing a worm that was worth spit when we were done.”
Eight
The district around Israel’s embassy was a mix of mostly nineteenth- and twentieth-century structures. Some were elegant homes in brick or stucco or stone, now usually broken up into separate flats and business offices. Others were plainer, slab-sided concrete apartment blocks, though even these were often lined by open-air balconies whose window boxes, in the summer months, would be awash in bright flowers. Most of these buildings backed onto yards full of trees and gardens — currently bare-limbed and dormant under gray winter skies.
Several streets over from the embassy, a four-story-high Art Nouveau building was under extensive renovation. Scaffolding and debris netting obscured its ornate exterior. The original owners had run out of money halfway through the project, leaving the partially gutted structure to fester for several months as an eyesore in the neighborhood. Spray-painted graffiti — a mix of art and obscenity — covered a wood fence erected around its ground floor. Then, about a week ago, new owners had bought the building, apparently with the intention of finishing the long-delayed renovation effort. So far, however, the only sign of any new work was a dusty blue electrician’s van parked along the curb just outside the construction fence.
Inside the back of the windowless van, Viktor Skoblin rubbed at his bleary eyes. Then he took another long drag of his cigarette. Irritably, he stubbed it out on a workbench that ran the length of the compartment, adding another scorch mark to the dozens already scattered across its rough surface. Maintaining around-the-clock surveillance on the Israelis with his team’s limited manpower meant twelve-hour shifts for everyone.
He scowled. At least the men he’d assigned as outside watchers were able to move around. In fact, it was vital. Periodic changes of clothing, position, and even vehicles were necessary to make it harder for those in the embassy to figure out they were being spied on. Unfortunately, the same relative freedom didn’t apply to him. As the Raven Syndicate’s senior operative in Vienna, it was his task to coordinate the whole operation. And only the radios and computer gear crammed into the back of the van made that possible.
With a grunt, Skoblin squirmed around in his chair, making yet another futile effort to make himself more comfortable in the cheap folding seat. For a man of his large build and overall size, being forced to spend hours locked inside this cramped vehicle felt like some new form of torture.
Abruptly, the voice of one of his watchers crackled through his headset. “Roter Kurier zum Versand. Red Courier to Dispatch.”
Skoblin keyed his mike. “Dispatch here. Go ahead, Red Courier.” Although their transmissions were automatically encrypted and sent over little-used frequencies, they stuck to German. There was no point in risking anyone overhearing a barrage of Russian-language radio calls over the airwaves of Austria’s capital city.
“I’ve got a new delivery just arriving,” the watcher reported. “It could be a hot item. Do you want the specifications?”
The big man tapped a key on his laptop, bringing up a street map on the screen. Icons showed the assigned positions of every Raven Syndicate agent currently on surveillance duty around the Israeli embassy. And right now, the former GRU captain tagged as Red Courier for this shift should have an excellent view along the street out in front of the embassy building. “Copy that, Red Courier,” he radioed.
“On the way,” the other man replied tersely.
A new window opened on Skoblin’s laptop. Immediately, the zoomed-in cellphone video uploaded by his underling started playing. Though slightly jerky, it was still clear enough to make out details. He watched closely as a sky-blue sedan, a Skoda Octavia, drove up and parked directly across from the embassy’s front door. That was a spot reserved for important and expected visitors.
He tugged at his chin. By itself, the car make meant nothing. The Czech-manufactured Octavia was one of the bestselling automobiles in Austria, with thousands on Vienna’s crowded streets at any one time. On the other hand, he thought, it was just the sort of unobtrusive vehicle he’d have chosen himself if he wanted to avoid drawing unwelcome attention. In contrast, the genuine diplomats assigned to the embassy seemed to favor more expensive, more conspicuous BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes.