internal security were aware that Javad Sasani was, indeed, an Iranian intel officer, but if they had been aware, then it wouldn’t be a great stretch of the imagination to assume the BfV might come here to talk to him.
And she didn’t want to be anywhere around when that happened.
THIRTY
Rudolf Spangler sat in his office in the unassuming Potsdam headquarters of Shrike International, drinking coffee and scrolling up and down his offshore accounts on his computer. His organization was flush with money for operational expenses, flush with profits even after paying all their people, both on the white side and on the black, and for a brief moment, the man was without worry.
Worry came seconds later, however, with the ringing of the phone.
“Spangler,” he said.
“Rudy, it’s Miriam,” she said in English, using her code name as a matter of personal security. “Kamran Iravani was murdered this morning at Humboldt.”
Spangler’s eyes narrowed as he took this in. “Iravani. He was a target of yours, correct?”
Miriam said, “Up until three weeks ago. Now he’s dead.”
Spangler said, “Well . . . it doesn’t involve us.”
But Annika Dittenhofer wasn’t listening. “Iravani was MeK. And he was spying for the Germans against Iran here in the city.”
“If he was actively spying against Tehran, obviously Iranian assassins killed him.”
“Nein, Rudy. We’ve seen no action at all from the Quds Force personnel we’re monitoring, no chatter from the Iranian spooks in town we know of. Someone else killed this kid. Someone who is protecting the Iranian regime for some reason.”
Spangler breathed heavily into the phone as her information began to weigh on him.
“Say something, Rudy!” Annika shouted.
“I . . . We didn’t do it! That’s all I know.”
“But our client? Did he do it? We obtained the intel on Kamran Iravani, we sent it off to our mystery client, and now the kid is dead.” Spangler did not respond to this, so Annika said, “Rudy, did you tell our client about Drummond, about Hutchens, and about Brust, too?”
Again, Spangler said nothing, but this told Annika everything.
“Well, then.” Her voice was lower and graver than Spangler had ever heard it. “Now we know. Don’t we?”
Spangler said, “I will bring up your concerns when I speak with the client.”
Annika replied, “Concerns? Do I sound concerned to you, or do I sound fucking horrified?”
“Very much the latter.”
“Iravani was an informant for the BfV. German intelligence is going to look very hard into what happened to him. If our client was involved, Rudy, then we are going to be in the bull’s-eye.”
“I don’t know if the client was involved or not. I’ll speak with him. What else can I do?”
Annika paused before saying, “Be careful, Rudy. You know what happens to people who ask too many questions these days.”
“That’s ridiculous. I run Shrike Group. I am not afraid of—”
“Do you, Rudy? Do you run Shrike Group? Or is our one client, the man keeping us afloat, is he actually the one in charge?”
Annika Dittenhofer ended the call, and Spangler put down the phone and rubbed the back of his thick neck.
* * *
• • •
Keith Hulett and his team were enjoying their afternoon, celebrating their successful antiterror operation.
Thor said, “That shit was almost too easy. We walked out of there totally invisible. Nobody looked at us twice.”
Hulett remembered Tarik telling him that as white Westerners, he and his team would be exceptionally suited to this type of work. He wondered if the previous team of hit men Tarik had mentioned had come to some misfortune, either from the Quds Force members they were targeting or from the local police.
Either way, he endeavored to make certain he and his men didn’t run into any similar trouble. They’d take the time to execute all of their hits just as cleanly and quietly as they had this morning.
Hulett’s phone sat on the coffee table around which he and his men sat. It began ringing, so he snatched it up and looked at the number. Instantly he was on his feet, heading down a back hallway to his bunk for some privacy.
“Go for Hades,” he said, because he knew who was calling.
“Hades, this is Omar.” Omar was one of Tarik’s top lieutenants.
“Yes, sir. The operation was successful. Scratch off one bad guy.” Hulett was still basking in the afterglow of his success, as he assumed the call from the UAE was simply to praise him and his men.
But Omar wasn’t praising anyone. He held tension in his voice. “I don’t care about that. We need