She stood up from the sofa. “You know how he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Xander was more than a mentor to Animus, he was the father Animus never had. While Animus’s contemporaries earned their bachelor’s degrees in subjects like business and biology, he earned his in the art of killing. And Xander was his sole professor.
Animus answered the door and invited him in.
“I was looking for you,” Xander said as he stopped in front of Evelina. “I could not find you in the main residence, so I came here.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked, worry creasing her brow.
“Before the party, I tried to reach you, but your phone was off. I sent a text asking you to stay away from the party. And I left the same message with your answering service.”
“I’m sorry. I was having trouble with my phone,” she explained.
Xander took a deep breath. “It is okay. I understand, sweetheart.” He paused for a moment. “There was an American here tonight from the State Department, a legal attaché.”
Evelina hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”
“Did he ask you about Michael Winthrop?”
“He did, but I didn’t tell him anything,” she said.
“Are you sure? I will not be angry. It is simply important that I know what you told him.”
“I didn’t tell him anything. When he brought up the subject, I walked away and came here.”
“He was not like any diplomat I have ever met,” Xander said. “Too calm for a bureaucrat. Did either of you see what his colleagues were up to this evening?”
Animus and Evelina shook their heads.
Xander hugged Evelina and kissed her on the head. “Could you bring us some drinks, please?”
She smiled and left the room.
“Our Albanian friends might need some help,” Xander said to Animus quietly. “Make sure the rest of our people are standing by to back them up at a moment’s notice.”
He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Kidnapping Michael Winthrop has already caused concern among the other UKP employees participating in the pipeline project. I tried to milk this for all it is worth, but with these attachés snooping around, we may have to kill the kid sooner than I expected. We may need to move on to Phase Two.”
“UKP headquarters in London, sir?”
Xander nodded. “Go ahead and make reservations for our crew. Get us as close to the target as you can. I want to be ready to move in an instant. We can always cancel the reservations if we decide to begin Phase Two later.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We may not be able convince UKP’s leadership to stop constructing TAP, but if we hit their employees hard enough, we should be able to slow construction down.” Xander patted Animus on the shoulder and smiled. “Striking fear in their hearts is key.”
5
Chris, Hannah, and Sonny were back in Hannah’s hotel room when Chris’s cell phone rang.
“Young,” he answered, “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“The computer hack Hannah initiated was terminated from the target’s end,” Young said, getting right to business.
“What does that mean?” Chris asked.
“Someone cut the power source and internet connection.”
“Do you think he suspects we tried to hack him?”
“It’s possible,” Young said. “I haven’t had time to analyze the data we were able to download, but a visual check is showing a lot of searches about Michael Winthrop and United Kingdom Petroleum.”
“Hannah accessed the bathroom in the master bedroom, too,” Chris said, “and she took a hair sample from a comb, I assume it’s Xander’s, but she’ll send the samples to you by courier, so you can check the DNA and see if it matches anyone in our database.”
“Will do,” Young said.
“Can you get a cell number for Xander?” he asked. “And have NSA feed us the GPS coordinates in real time?” Xander’s phone wouldn’t even have to be switched on for NSA to track it.
“I’m on it,” Young said.
“Thanks,” Chris said. “Out.”
He updated the others once he hung up, and Hannah requested an Agency courier to pick up the DNA sample. Within an hour, it had been picked up and was on its way. Soon after, Chris’s phone rang again, and he answered it.
“NSA found a match for the digital recording of the first person in the conversation with you,” Young said.
“The first person in the recording was Xander Metaxas,” Chris said.
“NSA matched it with a Russian spy.”
“Russian spy?” Chris asked, immediately sparking Hannah and Sonny’s interest in the conversation. He met Hannah’s eyes, then Sonny’s. “Are you sure Xander is a Russian spy?”
“His code name is Bayushki Bayu.” Chris recognized the phrase as something Russian mothers said to their babies to put them to sleep, but there was no direct English translation for it. “NSA and the Agency’s code name for him is Lullaby. He’s an FSB officer, a Non-Official Cover.” After the USSR was dissolved, the KGB’s foreign operations were restructured into the FSB, Russia’s version of the CIA. “Rather than work as an official spy with diplomatic cover in an embassy, Lullaby operated away from embassies and trade missions. Although Lullaby didn’t have diplomatic immunity, he had more independence and could mingle more easily in Greece, go into deep cover.”
“I suspected Xander of being a Greek terrorist, but I’m stunned to hear he’s a Russian spy. How sure are you about this?” Chris asked.
“Given the quality of the comparison recording and the quality of your recording,” Young said, “it’s almost a seventy-five percent match. It isn’t one hundred percent, but these matches never are. Lullaby works under Directorate S, which handles illegal intelligence, including resident spies. It is believed that Lullaby assumed the identity of a dead Greek in Albania and lived there for a short time customizing the identity before moving to Greece. To help with his legend, he probably married a Greek woman, and it is believed that he lives in Greece.”
Chris shook his head. “I guess it is what it is — until it isn’t.”
“One more thing,” Young said. “I tapped the phone Hannah requested. Xander made a phone call to a man he called Talos. They spoke using code words about a ‘package.’ We’re still trying to decode their conversation, but Talos’s phone was tracked to the Kypseli neighborhood.” Young gave the address.
Chris checked the GPS on his phone and found the location. “That could be where they’re holding Michael. Kypseli is only five klicks north of our location.”
Chris thanked Young, ended the call, and briefed Hannah and Sonny.
“Let’s check it out,” Sonny said.
“Better than just sitting here,” Hannah said.
They left their room and took the elevator down to the garage where they loaded into the BMW. Hannah took her turn behind the wheel, started the engine, and mounted her GPS on the dash.
She drove to Kypseli, in the center of Athens, where the city became denser with apartment buildings and people — more foreigners than Greeks. The GPS coordinates corresponded with a brown, 1950s apartment building that stood four stories tall. As Hannah drove by, they searched for nearby surveillance, but all they found was a stocky man standing outside the apartment building.
Hannah drove two blocks away and found an open spot in a line of cars parked next to the sidewalk. Graffiti marked the wall beside them.
“My gut is telling me Michael is here,” Chris said.
“Could be indigestion.” Sonny chuckled.
Hannah and Chris both ignored him. “Tomorrow morning, we can pose as movie location scouts and rent out one of the apartments across the street from the target building,” Hannah suggested as she turned the car away from the building. “Find out what’s really going on here.”