Stiletto #2: The Fairmont Maneuver: Book Two of the Scott Stiletto Thriller Series Read online

  Stiletto #2:

  The Fairmont Maneuver

  By

  Brian Drake

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  Single Bullet Press

  All Right Reserved

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  Stiletto #2: The Fairmont Maneuver

  Copyright © 2017 by Brian Evankovich

  San Francisco – Los Angeles – Prague

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  Also by Brian Drake:

  Bullet for One

  John Coburn is a private eye who won’t let the law stand in the way of justice!

  Reaper’s Dozen: 12 Tales of Crime & Suspense

  Twelve thrilling tales! Crime, suspense, supernatural … something for everybody!

  Prologue

  Switzerland – The Beginning

  Lars Blaser knew that the dark-haired woman with the long legs worked at the U.S. Embassy in Bern. He didn’t know that the C.I.A. paid her salary. That would be a bonus, the benefit of which he would soon discover.

  Lars followed her from the embassy to Adriano’s Bar & Café on a sunny Thursday. He noticed nothing of the pleasant day around him. All he wanted was to talk to somebody who worked at the embassy, but he couldn’t just show up at the door because the Iranians were watching. If he met her away from the embassy maybe they would think he was having an affair with her.

  He laughed at the thought. He was a university physics professor, not the kind of man who had affairs with pretty brunettes with long legs.

  The woman sat outside, her back to the café’s white stucco outer wall, reading an English language magazine. A waiter buzzed in-and-out of the arched entrance, serving the outside tables. The woman had placed her purse on the table with the opening close to her right hand. Nothing made her stand out from the other patrons, except maybe her business suit, which seemed out of place with the surrounding tourists in street clothes. Her long hair was tied back, strands falling alongside her face. Brown eyes, small nose. She scanned her surroundings every few minutes.

  The tourists, busy with maps and menus written in German, and their food, which they attacked with gusto, didn’t notice him as he approached. He stepped through the gap in the knee-high divider on the sidewalk.

  He wasn’t entirely nondescript. Tall, middle-aged, and a little paunchy, he wore a light tweed jacket, tan slacks, white shirt. He’d forgotten to remove the university security badge from his jacket lapel. The yellow badge displayed the University of Bern’s logo, a lower-case U with a raised B above, with his name in smaller type below.

  He hesitated a moment as he neared the woman’s table, but he had no other ideas. He needed help. Badly.

  The legs of the extra chair scraped loudly on the concrete as he pulled it back. He sat. She gave him a startled look and reached for her purse.

  What he said stopped her hand.

  “The Iranians want me to build them a bomb,” he said. “You have to help me.”

  The words took a moment to sink in. She blinked a few times. “I’m sorry, what?” She leaned closer, magazine forgotten, but her hand still remained close to the purse.

  Blaser’s voice shook as he went through his memorized speech. “My name is Lars Blaser. I’m a physicist at the university. My life is in danger. Two days ago, an Iranian named Shahram Hamin said he would kill me and my family if I did not help his country make a nuclear bomb.”

  “That’s very interesting,” she said.

  “You work at the U.S. Embassy. I followed you here. Tell the Americans. I need help. I can’t do it.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Won’t. I can build a bomb blindfolded, that’s not a problem. But what they want—”

  The woman completed the reach into her purse but brought out a pen and crumpled envelope. She straightened the envelope and handed him both items.

  “Name and telephone and somewhere else we can reach you.”

  “You promise?”

  “You picked the right person to follow, Mr. Blaser.”

  Blaser provided his information and then the woman told him to leave. He rose stiffly, though with relief on his face, and walked away.

  The waiter brought her order, the Lord Sandwich with roast beef and tartar sauce, and Jennifer Turkel asked for a take away box. Emergency at work and all that. The waiter suppressed an annoyed frown but complied.

  On the walk back she called her boss to explain the surprise meeting. He told her to hurry. When she returned to the gated multi-level stone building on Sulgeneckstrasse 19 that housed the U.S. Embassy, she met him in his office to further discuss the situation.

  Her boss, Peter Hyatt, was the case officer in charge of the small team of agents that included Jennifer. There wasn’t much spying to do in Switzerland, per se, but gossip and tidbits of information were always drifting through the wind, especially at embassy parties, and sometimes they caught some of it and passed it along to headquarters.

  “Could be a crank,” Hyatt said. He’d loosened his tie the moment he entered the building that morning. Everybody wondered why he bothered with it. The loosened tie was the only thing sloppy about him. He ran a tight ship otherwise. His worst quality was writing memos, three or four a week, mostly housekeeping items and the other waste-of-time advisories from a boss with not enough to do.

  “Aside from the fact that you got lazy and didn’t see a civilian following you,” he said, “what do you think?”

  Jennifer Turkel didn’t argue. She certainly should have spotted Blaser. But she did regret that her actions would spawn another memo, probably a four-pager on the importance of tradecraft with highlighted excerpts from the field manual.

  “It’s worth a look.”

  “The Iranians have their own scientists. Why him?”

  “They wanted somebody vulnerable, and they found one,” she said. “I have to file a report anyway. We can’t let it go if he’s telling the truth.”

  “Get started. I’ll fast-track any requests you have.”

  Twenty-four hours later, a team flown in from Berlin had Blaser and his family covered with visual, audio, and video surveillance. Jennifer performed the background check from her office.

  Seventy-two hours after that, she met with Hyatt again.

  “He wasn’t lying, and now we’re tracking the Iranian, Hamin,” she said. “They’re running surveillance on Blaser, too. But they don’t want a complete bomb. What they want are a set of krytrons.”

  “Set of what?”

  “The gizmo that actually makes a nuclear bomb,” she said. “Goes in the warhead. It facilitates the atomic reaction. Without krytrons, all you have is a radioactive paper weight. The part of the Iranian deal that actually has teeth keeps them from having those.”

  “We have to tell HQ,” Hyatt said.

  Jennifer and her boss called HQ and provided the new information. HQ told them to stand by. Another forty-eight hours ticked around the clock. Then HQ said they had a plan and an agent on the way to implement the plan.

  Scott Stiletto arrived in Bern wearing a fancy three-piece suit and carrying a leather-wrapped briefcase.

  He didn’t mind getting out of his stuffy office for a trip around the world but also didn’t think he was th
e right man for the job. He’d said so to his chief, General Ike Fleming, after Fleming explained the situation.

  “We’re basically running a double agent. That’s not my thing.”

  As an agent with the C.I.A.’s Special Actions Division, Stiletto’s “thing” was usually dealing with opponents in more direct ways. No, this sort of job wasn’t his usual task, but he did have a soft spot for what he called “forgotten victims”, people like Blaser forced into situations out of their control by powerful forces who would kill them if they didn’t comply. He liked being the powerful opposing force who could dish out the kind of punishment such animals deserved.

  Fleming, sitting across the big desk from Scott in his usual dark suit, agreed, but added, “I lobbied for it. The nuclear angle makes it our business. I think the plan from the seventh floor is a little too fancy. That means risk. Risk means we may need somebody on the ground who can handle such a situation. Our people in Bern aren’t exactly in shape for it.”

  And that meant, Fleming said without saying, a man of Stiletto’s caliber.

  Stiletto crossed the tiled floor to where the woman waited. He was tall and well-built with dark hair and rough hands. Only the hands didn’t fit the presentation of a business man on a trip to Bern. They were a working man’s hands.

  He introduced himself but didn’t like the look she gave him. Not everybody on the payroll appreciated the “skull smashers” Scott represented. But the Agency needed them for the special jobs nobody else could handle. He hoped she wouldn’t give him a hard time, or end up being an appointed hack who couldn’t properly do her job.

  She led the way to her car and during the drive he described the plan.

  “You’re gonna get that whole family killed,” she said.

  So much for not getting a hard time.

  “Maybe,” Stiletto told her, earning another sharp look, “but only if they do something stupid.”

  He had no intention of getting anybody killed, but he also wasn’t going to bother trying to change her mind. She’d made it up long before he’d arrived. She didn’t have to like Scott but she had to cooperate. The locals were also probably upset that the case was being taken from them. Scott couldn’t help that. Orders were orders.

  She brought him to his hotel and returned to the embassy while he checked in. Then he settled down to wait for the night time meeting Jennifer had arranged. While waiting, he took out the sketch pad he always carried. He was known around HQ as a very capable artist, having learned the skill as a young army brat always on the move and unable to make friends. He started to draw a copy of a set of photographs supplied by the science section at headquarters.

  Blaser, as instructed, arrived at a bar not far from the university just before midnight. The lights were low, the walls and carpet dark, with flickering candles at every table. He asked the bartender for Mr. Resnick. The bartender directed Blaser to a back room where Jennifer and Stiletto waited. The bar was a C.I.A. front for just such occasions, the walls fitted with countermeasures to foil any electronic eavesdropping. The room was small and bare but warm. A pitcher of water and three glasses sat on the table. Blaser helped himself to a glass.

  The meeting didn’t last long, nor did Blaser have much to contribute. The new man did all the talking.

  “You will build each krytron,” Stiletto said, “to these specifications.” He handed Blaser a sheet of paper with a line drawing of a krytron on it, a crude blueprint with notes on one side.

  “But. . .there are incorrect parts listed here.”

  “Exactly. That’s what you’ll give the Iranians.”

  In return, Stiletto explained, the Blasers would have full protection, ‘round the clock surveillance, and the option to move to the United States once the operation was finished. The deal included the choice to work at universities in Southern California or Chicago where his knowledge of physics would be greatly appreciated, and he’d have the chance to put that knowledge to use on state-of-the-art equipment.

  It wasn’t the arrangement Blaser wanted. He didn’t want to leave his home. But to refuse the Iranians meant death—their threats had been clear. He had no choice. Blaser agreed and left the bar, the door to the meeting room closing softly behind him.

  Jennifer folded her arms. Stiletto waited for her objection.

  “What do we do,” she said, “when the Iranians discover the ruse and kill the family anyway?”

  “We don’t let it get that far. Once we have the Iranian network mapped out, we pull the Blasers out and roll up the bad guys.”

  “You field people are crazy.”

  “And you sit behind a desk and snoop for gossip at embassy parties, so what do you know?”

  “I do more than ride a desk. I shoot expert with the nine-millimeter.”

  “Ever kill a man?” Stiletto said.

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Her face flushed. Stiletto moved by her and out of the room. He took a seat at the bar and asked for a beer and felt Jennifer’s eyes stabbing through his back.

  He had to be, on one hand, cold about the project, but he liked the professor. Anybody who would take the risk of contacting them had to have a reserve of bravery that would make the average man weak by comparison. When the time came, he wanted to be the agent who took care of the man and his family. He’d make sure he was.

  Lars Blaser supplied the faulty krytrons, three times a year, delivering each to a dead drop specified by Shahram Hamin, his Iranian handler. Blaser stayed in contact with Jennifer and met with Stiletto on a regular basis.

  Agents kept watch over the family and cataloged the Iranian agent, tracing his movements all over Europe and following Hamin to Tehran on several occasions.

  Everything went according to plan until Blaser sent an S.O.S. that Scott Stiletto, as intended, personally answered.

  Chapter One

  Switzerland – Present Day

  Travel the world to hide in an alley. The story of his life, Stiletto decided. Sometimes the “alley” was a hole in the desert or some other nook in hostile territory, but the story remained the same. Stiletto didn’t mind, really. He wasn’t much of a sightseer. It was a job, and one that he wouldn’t trade for anything else. Especially this assignment. Blaser needed help; he had responded without question and come prepared. A Colt Combat Commander .45 auto, with its customized hair trigger for rapid fire, hung under Scott’s left arm. His car contained other tools of the trade. All he lacked was a nice cigar to help kill time, but the scent and smoke from a stogie wasn’t exactly part of covert tradecraft.

  He stood in the alley between two buildings overlooking the center plaza of a large mall where he was supposed to meet the Blasers for their S.O.S. extraction. The Iranians were onto them. The ruse had been discovered, as was inevitable once the Iranians tried to actually use the krytrons, and now the C.I.A. needed to get the family to safety. Time to make good on past promises.

  Scott shifted his body now and then to not get too uncomfortable, but he’d been standing against the jagged rock wall for two hours. His feet, encased in pair of running shoes, were also tiring of the effort, despite the flat concrete ground. Luckily there were no smelly Dumpsters or stray cats chasing rodents to distract him.

  When Lars sent the message about needing extraction, Scott dropped everything and jumped on a C.I.A. plane to Bern. He had visited with the physicist several times over the last few years, cultivating not only a business relationship but a friendship as well. A no-no, for sure, but one thing Stiletto had learned is that you cannot, despite best efforts, turn yourself into a machine, even if under orders. It is the nature of humans to form connections, sometimes at a cost, and one must be willing to accept that cost or not truly live. Stiletto figured the world was cold enough already so one might as well live life to the full.

  But that also made this mission personal.

  Another no-no. Stiletto never went about callously fracturing or ignor
ing orders and proper protocol, but sometimes it had to be done.

  As in this case.

  A scratch on the concrete. . .behind him? Back to the wall, wincing as the rock dug into his spine, he looked at the darkened walkway between the buildings lit by small lamps in the outer walls.

  Another scrape. Above! Stiletto snapped out the .45 and aimed up as a gunman started to lean over the edge of the roof. One blast from the Combat Commander turned the top of the assassin’s head into a misty red spray.

  Stiletto ran into the plaza. As soon as lamplight hit him the submachine guns started. Stiletto dodged left, right, and dived into the entry way of a restaurant. He looked back at the roofs of the buildings opposite. The two shooters adjusted their aim and fired at the doorway, shattering the glass behind Scott. He covered the back of his neck as the glass rained down, spreading across the ground like spilled water. When the last shard struck, he let two more rounds go, a third for insurance. One of the gunners fell back, firing a burst skyward. His partner retreated.

  Scott left the doorway, his shoes crunching the glass, taking deep, steady breaths as he raced along the wall of the building to the west side parking lot.

  A four-door Mercedes screeched around the corner, the surviving shooter leaning out the passenger window.

  Scott had four rounds left in his gun. He raised it in a two-hand grip and stitched the four rounds across the windshield. Two found the driver. The Mercedes veered away, the shooter gripping the doorframe as his body lurched with the car. Scott reloaded as the car collided with a lamppost, knocking the post over like a chopped tree, the bulbs exploding in a bright flash. The shooter, having been thrown free of the car upon impact, landed on the asphalt face-first, a few feet from the car. Stiletto approached as the shooter started to rise. The man looked at Scott in a daze. Scott shot through the man’s head, splitting it open and painting part of the car and the ground with pieces of red flesh and bone bits.