Dead Eye

FIFTY-TWO

After a half hour in the café with sightings of neither Whitlock nor Kalb, Ruth decided to walk Avenue Louise to increase her coverage area around the suit maker. She’d made it only a few blocks when a black Mercedes-Benz four-door pulled up to the curb in front of her.

The door opened, and Lee Babbitt climbed out alone.

Ruth stopped in her tracks, turned in the opposite direction, and began casually walking away. She heard the car drive off, and then, from behind, she heard, “Ms. Ettinger. I’m alone. I just want to talk. I’ve sent the rest of my men away.”

She turned back to him, and he put up his hands in apology. “I tried to call you, but apparently you misplaced your phone.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“One of my guys saw you in the café in front of Degande.”

Ruth did not believe him. She knew her disguise was complete, and she was an expert at covert surveillance. She’d seen no one suspicious in the area, certainly not one of the Townsend cowboys she’d run into in Sweden and Germany.

But she did not let on that she found his explanation for her compromise suspect. Instead she said, “So, Mr. Babbitt. Why are you here? Are you here to help me stop your employee from killing my prime minister, or are you here to kill an innocent man?”

“I won’t get into Gentry’s guilt or innocence. Your bias is stronger than my need or my will to convince you, but I do think we can work together.”

“In what way?”

“You want Dead Eye, we want Gentry.”

“Do you believe Dead Eye has gone rogue?”

“I feel certain he has,” he said, adopting a grave tone that she really did not trust. “We tracked him here last night but he… he got away. I think he is the real threat to your PM. I see that now. Our mutual friends in Langley, Virginia, are, unfortunately, not convinced. I am afraid their threat matrix only has room for one rogue ex-singleton operator. Occam’s razor, Ms. Ettinger. The simple solution is usually the correct one.”

“They need to expand their horizons.”

Babbitt shifted from one foot to the other in the cold. “As for Gentry. I realize you feel like he is being treated unjustly.” Babbitt paused. “The question you have to ask yourself is this. Is Gentry’s life worth more than that of your prime minister?”

Ruth said, “Go on.”

“I can lead you to Russell Whitlock. Today, before Ehud Kalb arrives.”

“And the price for this prize, I assume, is me leading you to Court Gentry.”

“That’s right.”

“You are playing a very dangerous game, Mr. Babbitt. If I tell Tel Aviv you are using the leader of our nation as a bargaining chip—”

“I have more contact with Tel Aviv than you do. They aren’t listening to you right now, and that surely won’t change before something very bad happens to your PM. I am just suggesting you tell Gentry where Whitlock is. He will go there, and we will stand back and let nature take its course.”

She looked away. Thinking over what was being offered.

Babbitt said, “I know the trouble you are in. You could go to prison.”

“I don’t care about that. I only care about saving Kalb.”

“That is my objective, as well.” He smiled a little. “My secondary objective, admittedly. But still, I want to avoid any harm to your PM. He is a good man.”

Ruth hesitated a moment longer, then she nodded slowly. “I can deliver Gentry to you.”

“Call him now. You can use my phone.”

“He doesn’t trust phones. I have to meet with him, face-to-face.”

“Where and when?”

“I tell you that and my leverage is gone, Mr. Babbitt.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

She gave Babbitt the number to the phone she’d purchased the previous day in Sweden, and she promised to call him by noon.

Babbitt said, “I will warn you now, my dear. If you attempt any sort of a double cross, we won’t be able to save your PM from Russ Whitlock. He was trained in the same program that created Gentry, you know. They are two very dangerous individuals.”

“I will call you. You need to be ready to produce Whitlock when I do.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” he said.

Ruth left Babbitt there on the street corner, waiting for his Mercedes to come pick him up. She continued up the Avenue Louise on foot.

Ruth walked a couple of blocks and then placed a call to Court Gentry through her wireless headset.

After a moment she heard his voice. “Yeah?”

“Are you in town?”

“Pulling into the station right now.”

“Listen very carefully. Townsend is here. And they have their drones in the sky.”

“I’m low pro. I should be able to—”

“Court, they have a recording of your walking pattern. The drone can pick you out of a crowd of hundreds, thousands even. If you are near a train station you can bet they will be covering that. You don’t stand a chance.”

“Are you sure about this?”

Ruth kept walking up the street. “I’m sure. They are following me right now. The only way they could have done this is with my gait. Trust me.”

While Court talked to Ruth through his headset he looked out the front of the Gare du Midi train station in the Brussels city center. He thought about all the clear sky above him, and the prospect that a nearly invisible drone could be programmed to pick him out of a crowd and send killers to his position.

He quickly came up with an idea. “Okay. Thanks for the intel, I’ve got it covered.” He changed the subject. “What did Babbitt say?”

“They know you and I are working together. He wants me to trade you for Whitlock. He wants me to send you to a location where Whitlock will be, and then, I assume, he and his men will sweep in and kill you both.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s a trap.”

Court snorted. “Of course it’s a trap. That’s pretty much the definition of the word trap.”

“No, I mean we can use it to trap them.”

“How so?”

Ruth said, “Get a set of binoculars, good ones, and call me back. The UAVs they are using are new, and they only have enough electricity to run for a half hour, and their range is just a few miles. I’ll let them follow me to some remote place outside the city center where they’ll have to get in a vehicle to stay up with me. You get in a building and get eyes on the UAV, then follow it back to its base when it goes back to recharge.”

Court nodded. “Where I will find the Townsend guys.”

“Exactly. They can lead you to Whitlock.”

“I like it,” Court admitted. “You’re pretty sneaky.”

“I am indeed,” Ruth admitted.

Court descended to the parking garage below the Gare du Midi and walked the length of vehicles until he found a motorcycle he liked. It was a BMW R1200 all-terrain bike, and he picked the lock with his picks, and then he hot-wired it just as he had the bike in northern Germany the evening before. He paid the parking fare and drove out of the lot, heading north, out of the city center, with his head fully covered.

He drove until he found a sporting goods store in a suburb some ten kilometers from town. Here he bought a high-end pair of Nikon binoculars and a two-piece leather motorcycle suit and a helmet, both black. He also purchased a new backpack, a different size and style from his existing bag, and he transferred his clothes, his money, his gear, and his trauma kit into it.

He called Ruth back to find her position, then climbed back on his stolen bike and began racing through the streets of Brussels.

Ruth headed out of town on the streetcar, hoping like hell the Townsend Sky Shark that she was certain was following her would be able to keep up. She climbed out at multiple stops and then boarded other trains, each time waiting at the stop and looking around, trying to make it appear like she was on a standard SDR and unaware of any eyes in the sky. In truth she was giving the UAV mobile team all the time they would need to find her, and to switch out drones as one ran low on power.

She purposefully did not look for the drone. The last thing she needed was to tip her hand, to let Townsend know she was on to them.

When Court called her back they both looked at satellite maps on their mobile phones and decided on a location that would suit their needs.

Ruth entered a freestanding department store in Etterbeek a few minutes later, a five-story structure surrounded on all sides by smaller buildings. She rushed through the store to the escalators, then ascended to the third floor. Here she raced through the linens department, then through the furniture department, and made her way to the windows.

Quickly but carefully she picked her way closer to get a view of the street, shielding herself with furniture and shoppers in case the Townsend UAV happened to be looking in the window even now.

Lucas and Carl had told her in Stockholm that in crowded daytime situations they normally operated their drone close to the walls of buildings, doing their best to make it blend in to the urban landscape. As Ruth arrived at the window she began checking the buildings across the street, but she saw nothing with her naked eyes.

She called Court and spoke to him through her headset. “I’m in position. Where are you?”

“Street level, about three blocks east of you. I’m scanning the area with my binos, but I can’t see anything.”

“Keep looking, it’s got to be here somewhere. He should be about three stories up.”

“Nothing,” Court repeated.

Just then something occurred to her. “Court, look straight above my pos.”

“Above the department store?”

“Yes.”

“You said it would be moving alongside the building.”

“Think about it — they will need to cover all the exits in case I slip out the back. They can’t do that unless it’s directly above.”

“Okay,” Court said, and he began scanning the blue sky, looking left and right above the department store. “Still nothing.”

“Keep looking.”

Just then, almost exactly where he’d focused his attention above the department store, he saw a small black object moving across the sky. It was easily three hundred feet in the air, and it was little more than a speck from Court’s position several blocks away. He never would have noticed if it had remained stationary.

“Got it,” he said. “It’s leaving.”

It flew closer to Court, and a second craft slipped silently into a hovering position near the first.

“Wait,” he said. “A second drone just appeared from the southeast. They must have their mobile truck parked somewhere in that direction.”

Ruth said, “Start heading that way. I’ll keep moving closer and we can find it.”

Court climbed onto his BMW bike and headed off after the drone. He’d hoped to discover a van with the UAV team parked just around the corner, but instead he followed the black speck for a half mile and then he lost it, finding himself out of Etterbeek and closer to the southeastern edge of town. He pulled into a grocery store parking lot, hid himself with his bike under cover of a covered parking lot, and then directed Ruth to a bus stop just a hundred yards from his position.

Ruth arrived on a bus minutes later, and Court scanned the skies for the UAV. He found it this time only fifty feet in the air; it hovered confidently a block from the bus stop.

Court checked his watch a few minutes later and, like clockwork, at the half-hour mark the drones switched out again. The first UAV peeled off, again flying toward the southeast, and Court entered traffic behind it.

Soon he found himself on the A4 highway doing his best to keep his eyes on a tiny speck of black a hundred yards off his right shoulder and slightly ahead of him. Twice he almost wrecked the bike as he struggled to keep the object in sight and negotiate traffic, and all the while he was on guard, ready for the UAV to land next to a car or a truck somewhere along the roadside.

Instead the UAV left the path of the highway and entered a little village. He saw it descending between two hills, and then it was gone.

“Ruth. I lost it.”

“Shit.”

“We’re going to have to wait another half hour.”

“Dammit! That takes us past noon. That’s not enough time to get to the cemetery if this doesn’t work.”

Court yelled back at her. “I’m close! Next time the UAV leaves this village and the other comes back I’ll be right on top of the ground control station.”

He raced into the village of Overijse, found high ground in a copse of trees just to the east of town, and then parked his bike. They were running out of time, but for now there was nothing he could do but wait.