Kurt Jenkins put his hands together, the tips of his fingers against his lips, in deep thought. “I’m not sure we can divulge this information yet.”
“I thought you and Jake were friends,” she said, truly disappointed.
“We are,” he said. “That’s why we shouldn’t tell him right now. You know Jake. He’s an idealist. If he finds out Petros Caras has been playing both sides, he’s likely to use that as justification to take the man out. I don’t know that we can allow that to happen yet.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. If Jake is already asking about the man, then he knows the guy is a bad apple. He believes Caras has hired these Greeks to follow him and to shadow the professor, Sara Halsey Jones. Not to mention killing the two American investigators sent to find the senator’s sister.”
“That’s got me wondering,” Jenkins said. “Why hasn’t Caras tried to take out Jake like he did the other Americans?”
“You’re kidding, right?” She was confused about only one thing, and that was quite disturbing to her. Through all the years her and Kurt had worked together, only now was the man starting to sound like a typical bureaucrat.
“What?”
“Jake was forced to shoot and kill one of them in Malta,” she reminded him. “Not to mention the Cessna shoot out over the Med. But I have a feeling this is just the start of what Petros Caras has planned for Jake. Yet, for obvious reasons, the Greek needed Jake to stick around for awhile. Caras knew who he was dealing with and figured it was better to simply follow Jake so he would lead them to the professor.” Which was disturbing indeed. It meant that there was a leak somewhere in the Agency. Someone had told the Greek about Jake.
“And as soon as they get their hands on the professor, Jake becomes expendable.”
“That’s right.”
Kurt Jenkins smiled. “You still have a thing for Jake.”
She shook her head. “As a friend. That’s all.”
“Let me guess. You’d like to go over there like you did in Berlin and help him out.”
The thought had crossed her mind. “Not like you might think. I think I should go get close to Petros Caras as a direct representative of the Agency. Lay out the way things will be. Explain that he needs to comply or we’ll be forced to end our…relationship.” What she really meant was their protection. She needed to give the man her Come to Jesus speech to rein him in.
“You really think you can turn the guy around?”
“Either I can or I can’t,” Toni explained. “If I can, we still have an asset we can use in that region of the world. If the man doesn’t want to listen to reason, then we’ll have to cut our ties.” That would be the man’s death warrant, she knew. She continued, “This kind of falls under my job description as a special project.”
Kurt Jenkins placed his hands down onto his desk firmly and rose from his chair. “All right. You’ve got the green light. Let’s see how persuasive you can be.”
She got up and reached across the desk to shake her boss’s hand. “I think you already know the answer to that.” She turned and smiled as she walked out of the man’s office, knowing she had just persuaded her boss to allow her to enter the fight. What she didn’t tell her boss was that if he had said no she would have still found a way to tell Jake through another channel. Now she wouldn’t have to tell Jake the true nature of the Greek’s activities and his relationship with the Agency unless she was forced to.
Cruising slowly down the Sicilian coast in his lavish yacht, Petros Caras sat on the stern deck with a cold beer in his left hand while he peered through binoculars at the city of Messina.
Svetla Kalina wore a bikini and lay on her back with a view of both Caras and the Italian coast. She had not called her contact since they had left the waters off Santorini days ago. Really there was nothing to report anyway. The only curious thing was the fact that they had gone to Malta and not even gotten off the yacht. Now they were back off the coast of Italy. They had crossed through the Straits of Messina on their trip from Rome to Santorini, so she recognized this coastline.
She had caught very little conversation in the past few days. Petros had seemed to get more and more secretive. His attitude toward her had gone from interested sexuality to damn near boredom. She would need to do something to keep him interested in her or he would simply drop her off at the next port with a ticket back to Rome. But how could she force him to desire her when he also kept a crew of young men with hard bodies and harder cocks waiting on him and willing to do what she would not or could not? She could strap one on and give him what he really wanted. That would actually give her much more pleasure than letting him stick that tiny dick of his inside her. And she had inadvertently found his cabinet with his stash of sexual instruments, some of which she had no clue what they were used for.
“Petros, what are you looking for in Messina?” she asked, her tone coming across like a whining wife. Look, notice me.
He set the binoculars on a table next to him and drank his beer. “Nothing at all, Svetla. Just looking at the other boats in port. Seeing if I knew anyone there.”
At least the man had finally learned her first name, she thought. He had been calling her young lady for days.
“Can we go ashore?”
“Why? Don’t you have everything you need here?”
He had a point, she knew, but it would have been nice to check out the shops and maybe slip away long enough to make a phone call to her contact.
“A woman has needs,” she said, sitting up and adjusting her sun glasses. “Sometimes it’s nice to be seen. To get dressed up. Maybe we could go out to a nice restaurant tonight.”
His head rose up and down in agreement. “All right, my dear. We’ll go to dinner. But I also have some business. So you must be patient.”
Patience is all she’d had in the past week. If this man was involved with as much as she’d heard, he sure hadn’t shown her much of concern.
She got up from the lounge chair and said, “Fantastic. I’ll go take a shower. Would you like to join me?” She smiled but hoped he would say no.
“Not at this time, Svetla. I have to make a few phone calls.” He shifted his head to the side and picked up his satellite phone. “Business. I’m sure you understand.”
Yes, she did. She should have waited a little longer so perhaps she could have overheard his conversation. But now, standing and ready to go below decks, she couldn’t just sit down again. Svetla simply smiled and wandered down toward her cabin.
Zendo had just caught up with his men in Messina when his cell phone rang. He didn’t even have to pull it from his pocket to know who was calling. Only one person had his number — Petros Caras. And he wasn’t looking forward to his call.
He was sitting at a small café with a cup of espresso in front of him, Demetri across from him, and the other three at their own table across the outdoor patio devouring pizza and beer.
Picking up on the third ring, Zendo simply said, “Yes.”
“I’m guessing you caught up with your men. Are you still following Adams?”
“We’ve had a bit of a set-back,” Zendo said as he flipped his long hair away from his right ear to get the phone closer to his skin.
“I don’t like the sound of that. Explain.”
Zendo told him about how Jake Adams had made contact with the American professor in Catania, got on the train toward Messina, and then got off before getting there. “I told you Adams was good. He somehow came across one of our men and left him a bit dazed and confused.” No need to mention the man had been humiliated without his pants.