Authors: Matthew Dunn

Spy Trade (14 page)

The guardian turned off all flashlights. Then he illuminated the fourth mirror. “Don’t be scared. But do be very cautious. Look at it.”

The light was more intense than the others. Safa didn’t like it; felt angry; wanted to smash the mirror though he wasn’t sure why.

The guardian crouched next to Safa, his mouth close to the boy’s ear, his eyes following his gaze toward the mirror. “It is a painful thing, is it not?”

Safa felt uneasy. “Gluttony, power, murder?”

The guardian whispered, “The embodiment of those nasty things in grown-ups who slaughter children.”

“Where do those grown-ups live?”

“You must look to the two mirrors on the left. They can answer your question. It would be wrong for me to do so.”

Safa thought about his dying parents; the way his younger sister had grabbed his arm while shrieking in pain, her expression terrified as she vomited blood onto her brother’s raggedy shirt; the wails from Arab mothers in Gaza who served as belated air-raid-attack sirens as they ran down streets and alleys, their sons and babies no longer; and, worst of all, the starvation of his country. That was the insufferable horror; a rot that was surgically injected into a landmass; the life of people evaporating over months and years rather than seconds and days. “I have a word for the fourth mirror.”

Safa’s guardian placed his hand over the boy’s shoulder. “But we must not run before we can walk. Our lesson is at a close. It is your bedtime now.”

The guardian watched his young charge walk as if drunk toward his bed. In a few minutes he’d check up on him, make sure he had water next to his bed, was warm enough, and when he was asleep, he would gently pinch his flesh to check its growth. He’d never let the boy be without not only the essentials of life but also the tools to navigate his way through this world with success. The guardian owed him that. It was the duty of a man who called himself Thales.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Beirut

Six weeks later

T
he CIA officer bade his three colleagues good night, watched them ascend the stairs toward the abandoned large house above, and shut the bombproof steel door. The air’s musky scent caused him to pinch his nostrils with one hand while using the other to slam seven titanium bolts into place and turn keys in sophisticated locks. He walked back along the long and wide corridor that led to the four rooms in the underground complex while thinking it sucked to work the night shift alone in a place that resembled Hitler’s subterranean Berlin bunker. The officer had operated in many hellholes and done so with exceptional composure and bravery. But this place gave him the jitters. Everything about it felt, looked, and smelled wrong. Particularly at night.

The bunker contained the most sophisticated communications-intercept equipment in the world, but the CIA technical guys who’d outfitted and reinforced the house’s big wine cellar had seemingly not been overly concerned with ensuring there were enough lights in the complex. Day and night, the bunker was too shadowy because no natural light could get in; and the air was rank because air vents weren’t allowed in the hermetically sealed fortress.

The steel door was the only portal to the outside world.

It was impossible to enter or exit the station by any other means.

And now that it was locked in place, the officer felt the weight of the slimy concrete walls, ceiling, and floor closing in on him. Above him was a city that he and his English, French, and Israeli partners spied on. Elements within the city would happily behead him and his MI6, DGSE, and Mossad colleagues if the complex was discovered. But on nights like this, the American operative often wondered if it would be preferable to take his chances in the city rather than sit, cornered, in a basement. His three foreign colleagues always felt the same way when it was their turn to be night-duty officer. Tonight they’d be relieved they were heading back to their hotel rooms rather than sitting alone on the cruddy furniture they’d bought at short notice from a local purveyor of flammable cheap shit.

Five weeks they’d been in here, one officer per room, for the most part with earphones on while listening to intercepts of Hamas cell phones, landlines, and e-mails, as well as more traditional bugs in situ. So far, all of it was giving the Agency nothing but insight on talk about God’s peace and Real Madrid’s soccer scores and the best way to debone and grill a goat. The officer sneezed as he walked along the corridor containing tall metal filing cabinets and an oil-powered electricity generator. He entered his room. All it needed was an oil lamp to make it look like the nighttime communications post of a gaunt lieutenant on the front line of the Somme. Baby flies emerged from a hole in the acrylic armchair the officer slumped in as he attached his earpieces. One of the communications units’ lights flashed, meaning a call was being made to a Hamas target. The officer flicked a switch so he could listen in. He heard code name Paganini talk in Arabic to code name Stradivarius on their cell phones. The two senior Hamas leaders were on this occasion not discussing mundane matters. Instead, their tones were wary yet urgent, and their words made the CIA officer’s heart beat fast.

When the call ended, the officer dashed to the computer terminal he used to send encrypted telegrams to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Using two fingers, he typed fast.

PAGANINI HAS JUST CALLED STRADIVARIUS. THEY AND OTHER HIGH-RANKING HAMAS LEADERS WILL BE MEETING 4:00
P.M.
LOCAL TIME TOMORROW TO DISCUSS THE “PARIS SHOPPING TRIP.” I HAVE COMPLETE ELECTRONIC COVERAGE OF THE LOCATION OF THE MEETING AND WILL ACTIVATE INTERCEPTION THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE MEETING. PAGANINI SAID THAT “THALES” HAD CONTACTED HIM AND TOLD HIM TO BE VERY CAREFUL BECAUSE THE AMERICANS MIGHT BE WATCHING HIM. I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THALES IS. ANY INSIGHT?

Langley responded in less than a minute.

EXCELLENT. REPEAT, EXCELLENT. THIS IS GOLD DUST. WE WILL IMMEDIATELY INFORM MI6, MOSSAD, AND DGSE. THE MEETING WILL GIVE US THE EVIDENCE WE’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR. THALES HAS NO MEANING TO US.

The officer breathed out slowly and felt his shoulder muscles relax. Admiral Mason’s initiative six weeks ago to establish the intelligence station in Beirut had been the right call although everyone involved in his initiative had always realized it was a long shot. And so much was at stake if the station couldn’t deliver. But its establishment paid off. Tomorrow’s meeting would prove whether Hamas killed the Israeli ambassador to France or not. But that wasn’t the only reason the officer felt relieved. He and his three colleagues had been going mad cooped up in the station. They were desperate to leave the complex for good.

An intelligence complex that carried the name Grey Site.

The American withdrew his handgun and stripped it down to its working parts. After he cleaned each part, he reassembled the weapon and placed a fresh clip of bullets in the pistol. He waited for his colleagues to arrive in the morning.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

A
s an MI6 field officer,
M
ATTHEW
D
UNN
acted in deep-cover roles throughout the world. He was trained in all aspects of intelligence collection, deep-cover deployments, military unarmed combat, surveillance, and infiltration. During his time in MI6, Dunn conducted approximately seventy missions—all of them successful. He is the author of
Spycatcher
,
Sentinel
,
Slingshot
,
Dark Spies
, and the forthcoming
The Spy House
, all featuring Will Cochrane. He lives in England.

www.matthewdunnbooks.com

www.witnessimpulse.com

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Novellas

Coming Soon in Hardcover

T
HE
S
PY
H
OUSE

C
OPYRIGHT

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from
The Spy House
copyright © 2015 by Matthew Dunn.

SPY T
RADE
. Copyright © 2015 by Matthew Dunn. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition AUGUST 2015 ISBN: 9780062309372

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062441423

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A
BOUT THE
P
UBLISHER

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor