more work.
While all nine had been former members of elite American military units, they didn’t serve the U.S. flag any longer. Hades and his men instead worked for an Israeli-owned company registered in Singapore, with a contract to provide direct-action combat arms to their client.
Their targets tonight were, as far as Hades and his team were concerned, terrorists.
And their client was the United Arab Emirates.
These were mercenaries, conducting targeted killings on behalf of the monarchy of the UAE, just one of the dozen or so factions involved in the Yemeni conflict.
Americans assassinating foreigners in a foreign land for a foreign power.
Yemen was a strange war.
* * *
• • •
Hades’s raiding party was just two klicks out from the airfield when a call came in to his sat phone. The noise of the vehicle meant he only felt the unit’s vibration; he couldn’t even hear the ring. He pulled the device out of a pouch on his belt, then checked the number. While his team looked on, he removed his ear protection and his radio headset, then put the phone to his ear.
“Yeah?”
The men around him stared, wondering why he’d be taking a phone call when they were still in the process of extracting from a target location.
“Yes, sir,” he said, and then they knew. Hades was talking to his contact in the Signals Intelligence Agency, the Emirates spy organization. The man, code named Tarik, was Hades’s boss.
And when Tarik called, Hades answered.
The American said, “Repeat your last, I didn’t make that out.” The rest of the small force leaned closer, trying to discern some information from this end of the call.
Finally, Hades said, “Sorry, sir, it sounded like you said ‘Caracas’?” A pause. “Caracas . . . like Venezuela?”
The rest of the raiding party within earshot looked to one another in confusion.
Hades nodded. “Roger that, sir. Caracas it is.” He ended the call and slipped the device back into its pouch. Once he had his headset back on, he said, “That eighty-minute flight to Abu Dhabi we were gonna take has turned into a sixteen-hour flight to South America. We’ll stop in Lisbon for fuel, but otherwise, it’s gonna be nine smelly motherfuckers in a Learjet staring at one another for the next day.”
Mars said what everyone else was thinking. “Why the hell would the Emirates want us in Venezuela?”
Hades said, “Ours is not to reason why.” After a pause he said, “I haven’t got a clue. I was told we’d be given instructions en route.”
One of the men, call sign Ares, said, “Bet we’re gonna go kill some shithead.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty safe bet,” Hades replied.
The fat, squat armored vehicle rumbled on through the night, delivering the American killers for hire to the flight that would take them to their next mission.
FOUR
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
The brunette seemed wholly unaware of the fact that dozens of heads turned in her direction as she entered Restaurant Quarré at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin. She passed the businesspeople, the diplomats, and the well-heeled tourists, ignoring their stares as she moved in a straight line through the waiters and guests, making her way towards a cluster of tables in the back.
She was stylish yet understated, appropriate for a business meeting at a five-star hotel in a major European capital city. She wore a Ralph Lauren blue silk-blend dress, slingback Chanels with a nude toe, and oversized Gucci sunglasses that she removed only when she was almost to her table, placing them in a case and then into her red clutch.
She was in her early thirties but could have passed for younger, her brown hair slicked back in a bun and her makeup minimalist. The expression on her face as she walked conveyed the same quiet confidence as her classic styling.
The Kempinski is on Unter den Linden, a two-minute walk to the Brandenburg Gate, and next door to the U.S. embassy. There was no more luxurious hotel in this giant city, and though the woman was actually staying in a three-star hotel on Alexanderplatz, she, at least, was getting the opportunity to visit the Kempinski for her lunch meeting at Quarré.
The brunette recognized the man she’d come to meet from a brief videoconference they’d had the week prior to discuss a job opportunity for her with the man’s firm, and she steered towards his white tablecloth–covered banquette.
He stood when she arrived. He was tall, attractive, well into his forties, with a full head of hair that was considerably more salt than pepper.
“Mr. Ennis,” she said,