He thought fast. Voronin’s current orders left no room for discretion. He and his men were expected to immediately eliminate the enemy agent who’d met with Khavari. Until now, accomplishing this task had seemed relatively straightforward, if not entirely risk-free.
Skoblin had planned to carry out the hit using a “box group”—one motorcycle rider and a pair of Syndicate operatives in a separate car. The technique was time-tested and uncomplicated: wait until the intended target’s vehicle was stuck behind traffic at a red light, and then pin him in from behind with the Syndicate-driven car. Once that was done, their motorcyclist would simply pull up beside the stopped car and open fire with a concealed Steyr 9mm machine pistol at point-blank range. A messy and very public method of assassination to be sure, but one that was also very certain. And in all the ensuing confusion and chaos, the gunman should easily be able to evade any immediate pursuit, ditch his motorcycle, and get clear. All of the vehicles Skoblin and his men were using had been thoroughly “sanitized,” stripped of any serial numbers that would identify their real owners. None could be traced back to the Raven Syndicate.
But now they had clear confirmation that Khavari’s contact was an IDF military intelligence agent run by Dov Tamir. So, Skoblin wondered, wouldn’t it be wiser to first try to find out how deeply the Israelis had already penetrated MIDNIGHT’s security? And perhaps even learn more about Jerusalem’s next planned moves? True, making a snatch off Vienna’s streets would be more complicated than a quick hit, but it could be done. Anyway, he thought coldly, he could always put a bullet in the back of the Israeli spy’s head once they’d squeezed him dry. Considering the inconvenience the bastard had already caused them, that would be a pleasure.
“The package is on the move,” one of his watchers radioed. “Heading west on Anton-Frank-Gasse.”
Skoblin grimaced. He needed time to persuade the Syndicate’s Moscow headquarters to approve an attempt to kidnap this man, rather than simply gunning him down. For now, he decided to set his chosen hit team in motion, but to hold off on giving them the kill order until he heard back from Voronin.
Quickly, he studied the detailed city map open on his laptop. Fortunately, the streets around Israel’s embassy were all one-way, which made it much easier to discreetly vector his men onto the enemy agent’s tail. He keyed his mike. “Dispatch to Uber One-Five. Pick up your next customer near Sternwarterstrasse.”
“Understood, Dispatch,” Yuri Linnik, the driver of the “box” car he’d designated, replied immediately. Like Skoblin, Linnik and his partner Zaitsev were ex-Spetsnaz officers who’d been recruited into the Raven Syndicate. They were using a silver BMW with a phony Uber windshield sticker. With Zaitsev posing as a passenger, this was an excellent cover. Uber cars were a common sight in Vienna.
“Flower Delivery, this is Dispatch,” Skoblin continued, calling the Syndicate motorcycle rider waiting along a nearby side street. “Tag Uber One. Your customer wants uncut roses.”
“Copy that,” the rider said curtly, acknowledging the coded directive to join Linnik and Zaitsev in following the enemy agent, but to wait for further orders before carrying out the planned attack. Dmitri Fadeyev was a veteran of the GRU’s special assassination force, Unit 29155, with several high-profile kills to his credit. “I have Uber One-Five and the customer in sight. Joining the parade now.”
Skoblin checked the digital map on his laptop. The icons representing his box group’s car and motorcycle were in motion — falling in behind the target’s sky-blue Skoda sedan as it turned right onto another narrow street two blocks north of Israel’s embassy. That suggested Tamir’s man might be headed east, toward Vienna’s Innere Stadt, the old city.
Thinking hard, he lit another cigarette. Linnik, Zaitsev, and Fadeyev shouldn’t have much trouble keeping the enemy agent in sight on those more congested streets… but why take chances? He decided to add one more element to the force he’d assembled. Swiftly, he issued new instructions to an operative posted on a rooftop about a kilometer away. In moments, another icon began moving on his map. This one marked the position of the surveillance team’s miniature aerial drone.
Skoblin nodded to himself in satisfaction. Boxed in from above and behind, the man they were after was as good as dead or captured. Now it was just a matter of waiting for Voronin to make up his mind about which of those two fates it was to be.
Nick Flynn glanced up at his rearview mirror. Both the BMW and the motorcycle he’d spotted earlier were still behind him, lagging back a little to keep a couple of other cars or trucks between them. The guys tailing him were good. If he hadn’t known beforehand what to expect, he might have missed them completely.
Carefully, he turned left onto another one-way street heading east. In this part of Vienna, most roads ran in only one direction — a direction that usually reversed at the beginning of each new block. It was effectively impossible to drive in a straight line for very long. Getting anywhere meant zig-zagging through the district, turning right and then left and then right and left again just to make any progress at all.
Flynn smiled ruefully. This street layout might have been tailor-made to make it difficult for anyone to speed… or to shake off an unwanted tail. Maybe that was just as well, he thought. It definitely made it easier for him to play the role he’d been assigned in today’s little drama, wriggling like a fat, dumb worm. At least for a little while longer.
Elevated train tracks crossed the road ahead. Carried on arches of stone and brick, they ran north and south right through the heart of Austria’s capital city. And beyond the tracks, he could see the twin stone towers of a neo-Gothic-style church soaring nearly three hundred feet above the ground.
Unhurriedly, Flynn made another turn, this time onto a broad avenue. Six lanes divided by a tree-lined median carried traffic in both directions. This was a belt road which marked the border between the Währing District and the rest of the city. He tapped the Skoda’s turn signal and moved over to the leftmost lane. Behind him, the BMW and motorcycle did the same.
A light ahead turned red.
Flynn slowed to a stop behind a large white Volkswagen cargo van. He kept his eyes fixed on the Skoda’s rearview mirror. If these guys were going to jump him, this was exactly the kind of setup they’d be looking for. If either the BMW or that motorcycle made a move to come up alongside him, he figured he’d only have a couple of seconds at most to decide how to react. With his left hand, he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. His right hand slid inside his unzipped jacket and touched the butt of the compact Glock 19 he was carrying in a shoulder holster.
The light turned green.
Flynn breathed out again. He turned left to cross under the elevated railway line and drive southeast on Währinger Strasse. A single lane of traffic ran in each direction, separated by two sets of rails set in the pavement down the center of the street. Hundreds of electrified trams were a major component of Vienna’s public transportation system, and one of the city’s nearly thirty tram lines ran along this road.
He saw the BMW appear again a couple of car lengths behind him, followed a second or two later by the motorcycle. So far, so good. But the timing from here on out was going to be tight. Really tight.
Flynn passed a large white building that housed the Vienna Volksoper, the People’s Opera, with high arched windows above a street-side portico. Several hundred yards behind him now, he caught sight of a red-and-white tram as it turned onto Währinger Strasse. Right on schedule, he thought with satisfaction.