the backpack of Composition Four detonating just feet away from him, about the partial building collapse, about the raging fire. Hanley wouldn’t care, anyway. Instead Court said, “You know, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of time for me to be searching the pockets of dead assholes. Things move a bit faster in the field than you might remember.”
If Hanley was annoyed at Court’s jibe, Court couldn’t pick up on it, because Hanley was so obviously annoyed at his agent’s failure in Venezuela that nothing else came through.
“What about Drummond’s phone and his hard drives?”
Court paused while the waitress brought him his lager, and he paused a little longer to take a long pull from it.
Then he said, “Negative to both. I did get a little intel, though, including the name and photo of an unknown who is definitely involved.”
Court told Hanley about Berlin, about Miriam, about the death of Drummond’s colleagues. About Drummond’s assertions that they were actually spying on EU countries and not just Iranians in the EU. Hanley took it all in, but he clearly wasn’t satisfied.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Court said. “Just an FYI. You sent Zack straight into a trap.”
The pause was brief. “I guess you’re saying that Drummond gave PowerSlave to the Venezuelans?”
“Not exactly. He had the Venezuelans feed him immigration data every day, and he ran it through PowerSlave on his own. When Zack came through the airport, he had the computer watching for him on cameras near his house.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“How did you not consider that a possibility beforehand?”
“I did consider it. I determined it was an acceptable risk.”
“Did Zack get a vote?”
Hanley didn’t answer this. He just breathed into the phone a moment, then said, “I can send a plane to you, assuming you’re out of Venezuela.”
“What about Drummond? Berlin? Everything that I just told you?”
Hanley paused, then said, “We’ll deal with it.”
Court sat there, looking out at the highway, thinking about what Hanley was not saying. Finally, he barked out an angry laugh. “You’ve been holding out on me, haven’t you? You already knew about all this.”
“No, not entirely. But nothing you just told me comes as a great surprise. We’ve been aware of a possible Israeli intel initiative in Berlin targeting Iran, despite denials from Mossad that they have any involvement in it. We didn’t know Drummond was caught up in it, but the relationship you describe between him, his handler, and the work they were asking him to do sounds very much like what we have been hearing from other sources. For some reason, and in some way, they were able to keep Drummond in hiding, whereas others operated more overtly.”
“Overtly?”
“There is an intelligence concern in Europe called Shrike International Group; it seems to have private sector ownership, but that gets very murky very quickly. It was started by Rudolf Spangler, an ex-Stasi asshole, but word is he isn’t involved with the firm at all anymore. The consensus is his company has been taken over as a deniable Israeli operation spying on Iranian intelligence efforts in the EU.
“Shrike has been hiring some of the best analytical and technological talent from intel agencies around the world. Overtly. These aren’t the missing IC personnel, just IC personnel who were recruited out in the light to come and work in Germany for a private firm. From what we can tell, the company’s objectives all seem to involve Iran.”
“What’s the problem with Israel spying on Iran? Israel is an ally, right?”
Hanley gave another sigh, but Court didn’t think this one was directed at him. He said, “Jerusalem is trying to draw Iran into a war with the West. They have been at it for years. They do whatever they can to stir the pot. Monthly bombing raids into Iran or Lebanon, for example, trying to get an overreaction out of Tehran. Israel is also furious, beyond furious, that the EU eased sanctions on Tehran last year.
“Yeah, Israel is an ally, but it’s still my job to keep tabs on them to make sure whatever this initiative in Berlin is, it’s not an operation to stir the hornets’ nest even more.
“If the missing intelligence officers around the world are also affiliated with Shrike, in a covert fashion, then that is new information and we’ll have to figure out what to make of it. If the Israelis are snagging IC personnel for some sort of offensive mission in the EU . . . against EU nations . . .” He paused. “This could be