The Athena Project: A Thriller Read online

  “Yes,” said Abressian. “We were going to use the Czech.”

  “Well, I heard from our man in Belgrade. Apparently, there was an incident at the hotel in Zbiroh tonight.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “There were reports of gunfire on the property. Apparently, the police are involved now, but the details are still very sketchy.”

  “What about our Czech?”

  “Our man in Belgrade says he can’t reach him. He has talked with a couple of hotel employees who said he was there shortly before the shooting, but that no one has seen him since. Our man in Belgrade says the Czech’s entire network has gone dark. He can’t reach any of them.”

  This was not good. First Nino Bianchi, now Radek Heger. It might be coincidental, but Abressian had learned not to believe in coincidences. Those who did, ended up dead.

  “I think I am going to check out of my hotel,” said Abressian.

  “Do you need me to make other arrangements?” asked Thomas.

  “No, just keep focused on what I have asked you to do.”

  “Okay, what about the job in Prague? Should I look for someone else to handle it?”

  “Let’s put Prague on hold for right now,” replied Armen. “We need to finish our current job first.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be putting Istanbul on hold then too?”

  Abressian cast his eyes up toward the hotel and thought about the beautiful young woman in his bed. Finally, he replied. “Yes. I’ll let our clients here know that we’ll have to reschedule.”

  “Should I send the plane for you?”

  “Please.”

  Armen spent the flight back to Croatia thinking about his problems. The one immediately at the forefront of his mind was Viktor Mikhailov.

  Abressian’s initial reaction was to find someone to take the fall for the disappearance of Mikhailov’s women. He’d make it look like a murder/suicide and then burn the house down around them so that the bodies couldn’t be identified. At first blush, it seemed like the most expedient path. There was no way he was going to let that Russian mobster get his hands on Professor Cahill. It made no difference what insanity Cahill had committed, he was too valuable.

  He was also all too human. If Mikhailov got his hands on him, Cahill would barter with anything he had to save his own skin. That would mean spilling everything he knew about the project.

  The Amalgam wouldn’t like that. Abressian had been hired because of his almost supernatural ability to keep things quiet. There were no such things as leaks in his operations. He hired only the best people and he’d had a perfect record because of it. This modus operandi had begun to translate into some very good money. He had no desire to see that stop now.

  What’s more, he knew how angry the members of the Amalgam could get. The punishment for failure would be worse than anything some Russian like Mikhailov could ever dream of dishing out.

  As he sipped his Turkish coffee and stared out the plane’s window, he wondered if maybe his first impulse hadn’t exactly been the soundest. Perhaps rushing to stage a murder/suicide was the wrong play. Mikhailov was many things, but he wasn’t a fool. Underestimating him could be a big mistake. Abressian would have to tread carefully.

  He had toyed with the idea of offering a cash settlement to compensate for the loss of the women, but that road was fraught with peril. It meant first and foremost admitting that Cahill was guilty. If Mikhailov got the bit between his teeth, there might not be any amount of money in the world that would satisfy him. He would be out for blood and that would cause a lot of problems. Buying him off was not the way to go.

  Threatening him wasn’t the way to go either. Mikhailov was Russian mafia. He had been with the KGB and had risen through its ranks as it morphed into its current incarnation, the FSB. He’d been threatened countless times in his career. Inferior opponents had very likely threatened to harm, or like most bombastic Russian underworld figures, threatened to kill him repeatedly. If Mikhailov was half the man he was thought to be, he would laugh at threats of violence to his person.

  Abressian reflected on what Mikhailov actually knew. Regardless of what his gut was telling him, all he knew was that his girls were missing and that Cahill was the last person to have been seen with them. He didn’t have any further evidence than that. He had no bodies. And if what Abressian and Thomas suspected was true, he never would. Those bodies were gone forever; never to be found.

  But the fact that his girls were gone and Cahill was the last to have been seen with them would be enough for a man like Mikhailov to convict and pass sentence. And, as Abressian already knew, Cahill would admit to all of it as he offered anything and everything to the Russian to avoid his wrath.

  Armen had been at this game long enough to know how men like Viktor Mikhailov operated. Last night he had shown up drunk and had gone away peaceably and without Cahill. They probably weren’t going to get off that easy again.

  The only way they were going to get Mikhailov to stop pursuing the professor was to convince him that he had nothing to do with the women’s vanishing act.

  As the words hung in his mind, Abressian shook his head. That was literally what they were looking at: a vanishing act. It was almost unfathomable that all of their success could be undone by the idiocy of someone as bright as George Cahill.

  This was technology that was going to reshape the entire world. Governments, armies, fealty to the concept of the nation-state—all of it was about to change. Mankind was about to be reborn.

  Granted, the birthing process was going to be painful. Many would die, but many more would survive. And those survivors would see a cleaner, more equitable, more peaceful world. At least that was what Abressian had been told by the members of the Amalgam. Personally, he very much doubted that.

  The hegemonic, megalomaniacal aspirations of even the brightest, most well-intentioned elites had always ended the same way. Nevertheless, the Amalgam’s money was as green as anyone else’s. And suppose they were right?

  Suppose this time history would be wrong and the members of this incredible cabal would be successful. Why not be on the winning side? After all, Armen Abressian was a free agent. The boutique organization of intelligence and special operations personnel that he had built was his business to run as he saw fit. He could make and reshape his allegiances as the times and his conscience dictated. There really was no downside for him.

  That said, at present there appeared to be very little upside either. Not unless George Cahill finished his work. And Cahill couldn’t finish his work if Viktor Mikhailov was gunning for him.

  Picking up the plane’s satellite phone, he depressed the speed-dial button assigned to Thomas. The man picked up on the second ring.

  “Yes, Armen,” he said.

  “Thomas, I have made up my mind.”

  “What have you decided?”

  “We need to take care of Mr. Mikhailov.”

  “I agree,” replied Sanders. “But I don’t think right now is the time for us to go to war with the Bratva.”

  “We’re not going to go to war.”

  “Okay,” said Sanders. “Then what do you want to do?”

  Abressian took another sip of his coffee. “First, I’m going to try to reason with him.”

  “And if that doesn’t work.”

  “Then we’ll just have to help him see the light.”

  They discussed details before hanging up the phone. Nothing was to be done until Abressian was back. He would handle everything in person. It was the only way to secure Mikhailov’s full cooperation.

  Having decided upon a course of action, Armen was then free to focus on his next most pressing matter—Bianchi.

  It was said, especially in his world, that a healthy dose of paranoia was necessary for survival. While he was always vigilant, he never allowed himself to become paranoid. Under any other circumstances, he might have been willing to pin his deepening concern to paranoia, but not now. Not when Bianchi had been in t
he process of delivering their final shipment of merchandise.

  Abressian had to assume the worst. The shipment probably wasn’t going to make it. And that meant the other targets the Amalgam had selected would have to wait. For now, Armen’s entire focus would be on stepping up the operation in Colorado. It was important that the first blow be the most devastating.

  CHAPTER 28

  PRAGUE

  The former Czech Special Forces soldier had been kept hooded. He had no idea where he was or who had him. He had no idea whether the rest of his colleagues were alive or dead, much less where they were.

  He had been doing private security for one of the Czech Republic’s wealthiest men, Radek Heger, who was also one of its most dangerous.

  Megan Rhodes of course had a pretty good grasp of these facts as well. While she couldn’t put herself completely in the mind of the man she was going to interrogate, it was important to know as much about him as possible. In particular, she needed to know what he valued.

  One look at his wallet revealed that his name was Pavel Skovajsa and that he was thirty-six years old. That was a good start. One look at his cell phone told her everything else she needed to know.

  Rhodes had exceptional instincts, which she figured she probably got from her father, the cop. Not only could she tell if people were lying, she also was fairly adept at discerning when they were telling the truth. That was the fine line one had to walk in the role of interrogator.

  Another excellent trait she possessed was the willingness to get physical with a subject. As the tallest member of her team, she was the most physically imposing. This was important, especially when dealing with men. If they didn’t fear her, they wouldn’t respect her.

  Her father had taught her how to take care of herself. The Army had taken those skills to a whole other level. She wasn’t particularly fond of torture. Slapping some guy around, as her father used to put it, to gain a little cooperation was one thing. Pulling out teeth and toenails was something completely different.

  There was also the risk that if you applied too much force, too much pain, people would tell you anything just to get you to stop.

  Rhodes had been taught a wide range of interrogation methods. She had been subjected to most of them herself, so she could better understand them and the effects they had on their subjects.

  What she had learned was that even with the harshest of interrogation methods, the ideological puritans, particularly the Muslim fundamentalists, were some of the hardest to break. Every time she had been required to interrogate one of them, she could tell the moment she walked into the room what it was going to take to get him to submit. It was like a sixth sense. Even though she was always right, she didn’t just go from zero to sixty; not unless there was a severe, ticking-time-bomb scenario where they needed the information the subject had immediately.

  She sized up Pavel Skovajsa quite quickly. She knew that he was an idiot, or if not an actual idiot, he was quite careless.

  Megan nodded and John Vlcek snatched the hood off the man’s head. He was bound to a chair in Vlcek’s darkened basement. Vlcek remained standing behind him while Rhodes sat on a chair several feet in front with a bright desk lamp shining in his face.

  “Where am I?” Skovajsa said in Czech. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Do you speak English?” asked Rhodes.

  He called her a very nasty name and Vlcek slapped him in the back of the head.

  “I’m going to ask you again,” said Rhodes. “Do you speak English?”

  Skovajsa dropped his head. “Yes,” he said. “I speak English.”

  “Good. Now, I am going to be very clear with you. The rest of your team is dead. All of them. My people are now going after their families.” She flipped open his cell phone, looked at it, and then tossed it to Vlcek.

  Vlcek held it up so he could see the picture. “These are your little girls?” asked Rhodes.

  Skovajsa didn’t reply.

  Rhodes nodded at Vlcek, who advanced to the next picture. “This is your wife, along with your two little girls. Correct?”

  The man still said nothing.

  Rhodes nodded again. Vlcek advance to the next picture and kept advancing. “And either these pictures are of the model in your nude portrait class, or this considerably younger woman is your girlfriend.”

  Once again, the man cursed her in Czech and once again Vlcek slapped him in the back of the head, this time with the cell phone in his hand.

  “Mr. Skovajsa, if you tell me what I want to know, you, your children, your wife, and even your girlfriend will be allowed to live. If you do not, you will all be killed, but not before your wife and children are made aware of what kind of man you are. Do we understand each other?”

  Skovajsa didn’t respond.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” said Rhodes. “How many years have you worked for Radek Heger?”

  He was reluctant to answer, but he finally replied, “Five years.”

  “Tell me about the bunker.”

  “I don’t know about any bunker.”

  “Sure you do. That’s where you tried to apprehend my friend and she head-butted you, knocked you out, and then broke your colleague’s neck when he tried to shoot her. Any of this coming back to you?”

  He was about to curse her again, but thought better of it when he sensed Vlcek drawing back his hand. “I know the bunker,” he admitted.

  “See, this isn’t so hard.”

  There was a sneer on the man’s face.

  “Now,” said Rhodes. “What happened to everything that was inside? Where did it go? Who took it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not going to ask you again, Pavel. This will be your family’s last chance.”

  “I don’t know,” he growled.

  Rhodes nodded at Vlcek, who set the phone down and picked up a roll of duct tape. Tearing off a piece, he placed it over Skovajsa’s mouth and then tossing the roll aside he picked the man’s phone back up.

  Activating the speaker phone feature, he dialed Skovajsa’s wife and woke her out of a sound sleep. In perfect Czech, Vlcek then said everything Rhodes had told him to say.

  “Yes, there’s been an accident . . . Your husband was drinking. We think it is better we bring him home to you. If the police get involved it will be a lot of trouble. Yes, he is injured . . . He is bleeding . . . You can probably clean him up. I don’t think a hospital will be necessary . . . The car, though, was very damaged . . . The problem is that your husband tells us he doesn’t want to go home for some reason. He is worried we will wake your girls. He is telling us we should take him to some woman named Margita?”

  Skovajsa was fighting against his restraints and screaming from behind the tape. Vlcek had to move away from him with the phone lest his wife hear him making such a commotion.

  “I don’t know if Margita is a whore, Mrs. Skovajsa,” continued Vlcek. “Oh, I’m sorry, you are confirming that she is a whore . . . His whore . . . I see . . . Well, we’ll let you settle that with him . . . Now, he seems to have left his wallet somewhere this evening and he will only give us Margita’s address . . . Yes, if you will give us your address we will bring him straight to you . . . Thank you, yes. I know that area. We will come now . . . Good . . . It is up to you, but you may not want the neighbors to see any of this . . . You have a garage and will leave the door open? Excellent. You are a good wife, Mrs. Skovajsa. He doesn’t deserve you. We will see you soon.”

  When Vlcek finished the call, he hung up the phone and tossed it back to Rhodes. She studied Skovajsa’s face. She had no intention of harming his family, but he didn’t know that. All he knew was that his wife had now had her worst fears about his having a mistress confirmed. She had also just given out her address and was probably at this very moment going down to open the garage door so these strangers could gain access to the house. Any illusions he may have had about his family’s safety were now completely shattered.

  Rhodes nodded an
d Vlcek snatched the tape from Skovajsa’s mouth. The minute it was off, he began talking. “They took everything out of the bunker several months ago,” he said.

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Megan shook her head. “I’m very sorry for your family, Pavel.”

  “I don’t know!” he shouted. “I’d never seen them before. They came with lots of equipment. First they cleared several tons of rock from the entrance. Mr. Heger then sent my team in with diving equipment to search for any explosives, any boobytraps. Then we figured out how to drain the water.

  “Once the water was out, everything was packed into crates and loaded onto trucks. That’s all I know. I swear I have told you everything. Now, you have to swear to me you will not hurt my family.”

  “That’s a good start, Pavel,” she replied. “But we’re not done yet. We’re not even close.”

  Skovajsa was beyond angry. “Damn it!” he shouted. “I did what you asked. What else do you want?”

  Megan leaned forward, her head and shoulders silhouetted by the light from behind, and said, “I want your employer. I want Radek Heger.”

  CHAPTER 29

  According to Skovajsa, Heger kept a safe house in a rough, industrial area outside Prague known as Kladno. After what had happened at Zbiroh, that was where he would be headed.

  The safe house was where Heger and his men planned their operations and stored their weapons, vehicles, cash, and other items. Standard operating procedure was to evacuate to that location and wait twenty-four hours for the surviving team members to assemble. Anyone who did not make it would be presumed dead or in custody.

  Skovajsa confirmed they would not go looking for any bodies in Zbiroh, at least not right away. It was pointless to go looking while it was dark. What’s more, they had no idea who they were up against or if those same people would be waiting for them to come back and pick up their dead.

  That gave the Athena Team an even greater sense of urgency. They needed to hit Heger tonight, while it was still dark and before he realized that Pavel Skovajsa had been taken prisoner.