Stephen Templin
From Russia Without Love
Prologue
SEAL Team Six veteran Chris Paladin shot up in his sleeping bag, torn from a nightmare he couldn’t remember. A cool sweat covered his body, and he was cold. Rain rapped on the windowpanes of the rented office in the financial district of London, like fingers ominously beckoning someone to open the windows. Sitting in front of the surveillance monitors, CIA officer Hannah Andrade had the early-morning watch. She turned her head from the live feed to the frozen image of a man who they’d nicknamed “Business Tourist” on the second monitor. The man dressed like a businessman yet hung around the area and peeked about like a tourist. They weren’t entirely sure what he was up to.
Chris shook off the dream and rose to his feet. He nodded a quick hello to Hannah before getting dressed and preparing breakfast — microwave meals courtesy of Tesco, the Walmart of Great Britain. The aroma of bacon, sausage, omelets, hash browns, and baked beans in tomato sauce filled the office, making Chris’s mouth water. And he clearly wasn’t the only one.
Solomon “Sonny” Cohen, their teammate, hopped out of his sleeping bag dressed au naturel with a loud sniff. When Chris first met Sonny, the short, bald man was riding nude on a donkey crossing a Syrian road in the dead of night. By now, Chris should’ve been used to seeing Sonny’s naked backside, but his system still experienced a shock. Hannah didn’t seem to care. She was one of the guys.
“Morning,” Sunny mumbled, changing into his suit pants, shirt, and tie.
Hannah was wearing business slacks, but she too got ready for the new day. With one eye on surveillance, she changed blouses. Chris had seen her change before, and he should’ve been accustomed to seeing her wearing only a brassiere, but in that moment, his usually-cool blood ran hot and wild. Not only was she a super spook with whom he’d worked during the Iraq War, running covert operations across the border into Syria to root out terrorists, but she was stunning when she allowed herself to be. In the Middle East, she appeared Arab, but here in Europe it wasn’t clear what her ethnicity was, and the story of her background changed depending on whom she was talking to.
Sonny stared at her without inhibition, and Chris shot him the evil eye. The man continued to stare.
Now it was Hannah’s turn to glare. “Sonny, have you ever been kicked in the eye by a former MMA middleweight?”
Chris snorted. Few people knew she had competed in Mixed Martial Arts, winning her region, before she joined the Agency, and Sonny was about to find out the hard way.
He seemed to give the question some thought.
“It’s not a trick question,” she said.
“Then, no,” Sonny answered.
She smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes. “Would you like to be?”
Chris, Hannah, and Sonny served together under the Special Operations Group (SOG) and were on yet another mission. As an arm of the Agency’s Special Activities Division (SAD) focused on high threat intelligence and paramilitary operations of which the US could deny any knowledge, it was dangerous, high-stakes, and something Chris could no longer imagine doing full time the way Hannah did. He and Sonny were under special contract, and this was a far cry from Chris’s regular job as an assistant pastor. Sonny worked for the Army’s Delta Force, aka the Unit, which loaned him out to SOG when needed.
“What I’d like to do is eat,” Sonny said, then walked to the TV and turned it on.
“Fair enough,” Chris said just as the microwave beeped. “Breakfast is served.”
The three sat down in a small circle, Hannah taking a spot where she could watch surveillance as they ate. Their surveillance focused on Business Tourist, who seemed connected to the focus of their hunt. “If Business Tourist takes the same route, today,” she said, “Chris, you can handle the first leg of surveillance and follow him along Charles II Street until he reaches the arcade. When he exits the other end of the arcade, I’ll follow. Then, when he arrives at Green Park, I’ll disengage and Sonny will take over, hopefully discovering his final destination.”
“What if he doesn’t take the same route as before?” Chris asked.
“We can take turns following him in the same order — you, me, Sonny — and we’ll just have to improvise.”
Hannah’s Agency training, experiences, and instincts made her better at mobile surveillance and countersurveillance than Chris or Sonny, so he nodded, happy to let her call the shots on this part of the mission. Sonny chewed on a mouthful of baked beans and grunted.
And so it began.
By 0745 the rain had stopped and the trio was already done eating breakfast, so they prepared to move into their surveillance positions. Business Tourist appeared, wearing the same conservative business suit and taking the same route along Duke of York Street as he had before.
Chris grabbed a light tactical vest, custom-made by the Agency, loaded with eight rifle magazines. One magazine sat vertical along each breast, and below that were three horizontal magazines on each side. The middle of the vest was free of gear, handy when wearing a suit jacket. When worn under a suit jacket, it was indistinguishable from a normal vest.
Sonny and Hannah donned similar vests, and they all watched their mark carefully.
Business Tourist continued along St. James Square, passing his target — the headquarters of United Kingdom Petroleum. No sooner had Business Tourist turned on Charles II Street than he slowed down his already leisurely pace and pulled out a phone. He stopped walking and started talking.
“He’s making a call,” Hannah said.
Chris expected Sonny to make some kind of snarky “Captain Obvious” comment, but he only chuckled. “Looks like an invitation to me.”
“It’s time to put our dancing shoes on.” Chris pointed to St. James Square. “I can take my position behind the tree line there.”
Sonny nodded. “You’ll be able to see if Lullaby approaches from Duke of York Street and cover UKP, too. And the trees will give you some cover.”
Lullaby was wanted dead or alive by the US government for executing the White House Chief of Staff’s son-in-law. They had reason to believe Business Tourist here was working with Lullaby to pull off a deadly attack in the heart of London, and the pressure to wrap him up quickly was building minute by minute.
“From the ground it’ll be hard to see what’s coming down Duke of York until they’re right on top of us, though,” Chris said, a little worried. They had to be extra careful.
“I’ll watch the surveillance monitors,” Hannah assured him, “and report any odd movement.”
“And I’ll drive,” Sonny said. “When Hannah reports a suspicious vehicle coming down Duke of York Street, I’ll pull in front of them and block them from entering the Square. I’ll pretend I’m having car trouble, get out, and talk to the driver. I should be able to get a look inside the vehicle that way, to see if anything’s up. If it looks okay, I’ll move and let ’em go. Then I’ll drive back into my spot and wait until Hannah calls me up again — then block and inspect some more.”
The three of them riffed off each other like jazz musicians as they outlined the plan they’d come up with the night before.
“They’ll probably use vans or SUVs,” Hannah said, “So keep an eye out for those in particular.”
“Most likely,” Chris agreed, putting on his wireless throat mic. Each throat mic was mounted on a band, which they concealed under their closed shirt collars. The clandestine microphones would transmit via vibrations in their throats rather than open-air sound. He leaned his head to the side as he inserted his small earpiece next, letting it drop into his ear canal. It was magnetic, so he could retrieve it with a small piece of metal, such as a key.