Out on the street, he kept walking. Black smoke plumed up from two places a couple streets over, and Linko guessed that the rest of his team hadn’t fared well. The ANA helicopters hovered protectively over the area.
His personal cell phone buzzed for his attention. When he checked the viewscreen, he saw that the caller ID hadn’t identified the caller. He was certain he knew who it was.
“Hello.”
“Good afternoon, Colonel Linko.”
Linko had expected the Russian president to sound irritated, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Nevsky knew about his latest failure regarding the apprehension of the American linguist.
“I have news for you, comrade. I know you have been tracking your target there.”
“Yes. I found him, but he got away.” Briefly, Linko detailed the attempted interception and the subsequent failure. “He is leaving, but I do not know where he is going.”
“The woman, Layla Teneen, has requested that tickets be held for your target and his protectors at the airport.”
“The airport has too much security. I will not be able to reach him there.”
“This I also know. I can also tell you that he is going to Athens.”
“Athens?”
“Yes, so I am to assume that he has managed to learn more from whatever he has taken from that tomb.”
An ANA military vehicle drove quickly by through the street. Linko only caught sight of it from the corner of his eye. “Then I will go there and ask him what he has discovered.”
“In time. But first, there is another mission I would ask of you.”
“Anything.”
“All that I have hoped for in the Ukraine has gone according to plan, but now we need to move again and strike quickly. Your mission to Athens can provide a two-fold strike.”
Linko kept walking and waited for his orders.
“Use the assets in Athens to find Lourds. I don’t think it will be too hard. He will be in visible places. Museums. Records halls. He is going there for access to documents that will help him in his search. So let him do that job for us. I want what it is he finds.”
“Do we know what that is?”
“Not yet, but soon. It will have something to do with Alexander the Great’s weapons.”
Old weapons? Linko couldn’t believe his talents were being wasted on such a thing. He had nearly gotten killed for museum pieces?
Perhaps Nevsky had gotten a sense of some of his thinking from his lack of response. “These weapons are not a simple matter, Colonel. They are more powerful than any nuclear weapon. Trust me on this.”
Linko shrugged, knowing Nevsky wouldn’t see it. Trust was irrelevant. It didn’t matter to Linko whether or not Nevsky knew what he was talking about. All that mattered was getting the job done.
“I have arranged a flight to Athens for you. Unfortunately, I was not able to secure the same flight as your target.”
“That is fine. I will be able to find him soon enough.”
“Give him some time to finish his task. I have another mission for you. We have made some inroads with an old ally in Greece. You have worked with 17N before?”
That surprised Linko. Revolutionary Organization 17 November, better known by the sobriquet 17N, was a leftist terrorist group that had spawned in Greece as a Marxist urban guerilla movement in 1975. The inciting incident that had sown the seeds for the group had been the 1973 Athens Polytechnic University student protest against the military regime under Georgios Papadopoulos, the leader of the Regime of Colonels, as it became known. Their primary goal was to get the Americans, especially the CIA and military bases, out of Greece. And they wanted to embrace the Marxist teachings that had drawn them together.
The very first target 17N had taken down had been a CIA station chief, the first ever to be killed in a terrorist attack. It was an impressive achievement.
At first, though, none of the American or Greek military officials had taken seriously 17N’s claims for the execution. They started paying attention shortly after that, though, when 17N killed Evangelos Maillios, the former intelligence chief of the Greek security police.
They were taken seriously after that.
For the past forty years, the terrorist group had remained active but had gone deep underground. Still, some splinter groups had remained in existence under the old name. Terrorists never completely disappeared.
With the economy as bad as it was now in that country, Linko knew that Greece was as ripe for “reunification” as the Ukraine.
“This will be a bold move.”
“I know, comrade, and that is why I am asking you to take this meeting with these people. I want you to be my liaison and to break ground between 17N and the other groups in that country that will be sympathetic to becoming part of this greater dream we are building.”
“I understand. What am I to tell them?”
“In the 1970s, the Russian government under Yuri Andropov funded 17N. Your contact there will be Nicolas Aigle, the current head of 17N. I want you to tell him that I stand ready, willing, and able to give him funding the like of which his organization has never before seen if he can pull the various troops together.”
“And if he is not amenable?”
Nevsky hesitated. “Then there is a younger man. Loukas Pappas. If need be, we will open negotiations with him.”
“I understand.”
“First the 17N, comrade. Then the professor. But do not lose sight of the professor.”
“It will be done.”
“Be safe, comrade. We are building a brand new world, and this must be done at a reasonable pace. But soon.”
40
Getting into the country wasn’t a problem, but obtaining the necessary papers for Fitrat and his men to carry weapons had been difficult. Lourds had been forced to cool his heels in the hotel while the ANP officer had worked out the details.
“It would be easier to just buy guns from black market dealers here.” Lourds had gotten frustrated by the enforced wait and from the lack of sleep. He knew he was on the verge of putting together everything the scroll hid.
Fitrat had looked at him, obviously shocked. “You know about such things from the novels you read?”
The discussion of Lourds’s reading matter had come up on the six-hour plane flight. He hadn’t wanted to bring out the scrolls for obvious reasons, and his mind was too active to simply veg out. The captain had had his own emergency details to iron out, not the least of which was street clothing for himself and his men. Not to mention getting the proper credentials for the guns they now carried.
Lourds had simply nodded to the question. He hadn’t wanted to get into the gun acquisitions made by Natashya Safarov or Cleena MacKenna or Miriam Abata when they’d traveled with him.
Finally, the papers had come through diplomatic channels. According to them, Lourds was there seeking information about an archeological find based in Afghanistan that was important to that country and had to be protected from the Taliban.
Lourds hadn’t exactly been thrilled when he’d read the classification. “You do realize that if the Taliban weren’t interested before, if they weren’t behind Boris’s death and the pursuit we’ve been avoiding, they’ll be interested now. They have spies in many places.”
Fitrat nodded. “It is a risk, but one we must take in order to protect you. If we carry illegal weapons and a situation arises where we must employ them, then they will be taken away.”
“You can get more.”
“Not if we, too, are taken away. On the chance that you are not arrested with us, you will then be alone. Easier prey than if you remained with us.”