13:48 (Paris Time)
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Hôtel Le Forum, 16 Avenue d’Alsace
Principality of Monaco, Mediterranean coast of France
Dean smiled to himself when he saw that a pretty young woman was manning the reception counter of the hotel ‘Le Forum’. Followed by the three other members of his team, who had traveled together by train to Monaco from Paris, he went to the counter and put his (fake) passport on it before speaking in his fluent French.
‘’Good afternoon, miss! My name is Donald Pickering and my group booked two rooms from Paris late last night.’’
The female receptionist, who was actually more than just pretty, returned his smile while consulting her computer.
‘’And your rooms are waiting and ready, Mister Pickering. Since it is a bit off-season right now, we were able to give your group two rooms with an unobstructed view on the port next to one another on the top floor of the hotel.’’
‘’Aaah, excellent! We still don’t know how long exactly we will be staying in Monaco, miss: we came to have discussions with a group of marine biologists and it could go on for a few days to a few weeks. Could we pay in advance for five days and then rebook as needed if we have to stay longer?’’
‘’No problems, Mister Pickering! As I said, we are in the off-season and half of the hotel is presently empty, so there are still plenty of rooms available. Could I have the passports of your companions as well, sir, so that I can register them?’’
‘’Of course, miss! Miss Proctor will take the single occupancy room, while us three men will take the triple occupancy room. How much will it be in U.S. dollars for the first five days?’’
The receptionist typed for a few seconds on her computer keyboard before answering him.
‘’It will be a total of 2,163 dollars, Mister Pickering. The price includes breakfast.’’
As Dean took out his CIA-provided credit card, Ian Dorset nearly choked on the cost of the rooms and whispered to Julie Prost, who was standing next to him behind Dean and Erik.
‘’Hell, this is quite pricey, no?’’
‘’For Monaco?’’ replied Julie with a smirk. ‘’This is actually about the lowest price we could find for hotel rooms in Monaco. Most other local hotels will ask you between 300 and 600 dollars a night for a room. And I am not even talking about the cost of meals in Monaco restaurants. Remember that this is a prime destination for rich snobs in Europe.’’
‘’Still, our accounting department is liable to choke on that bill.’’
‘’Let them choke on it! They are not the ones risking their skins in the field.’’
Recuperating their fake passports after they had been registered in, the three men and one woman then went up as a group to the fourth floor of the hotel, where their rooms were. Erik nodded his head with satisfaction when he entered the triple occupancy room he was going to use with Dean and Ian: the room was a bit crowded by its three separate single beds but it was clean and the windows gave a nice, uncluttered view of the yachting port of Monaco and of its bay.
‘’This should do just fine. Unpack your personal things and Ian’s work computer, but keep the rest locked up in our suitcases for the moment: we don’t want some cleaning maid to get suspicious about our activities.’’
Following his own advice, Erik then unpacked the suitcase containing his clothes and hygiene items as Dean and Ian did the same. Next, he took out of his equipment bag a pair of small but powerful binoculars and scanned the port area and the Bay of Monaco with it.
‘’Hmm, I don’t see the SERENE, either in the port or at anchor: it must still be on its way to Monaco.’’
Dean nodded once at those words: the Saudi royal yacht, which belonged to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia, was supposed to arrive in Monaco today and was where General Khan and Doctor Ghanef were due to hold talks to discuss the clandestine sale of Pakistani nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia. While risky, their stalking of the Saudi embassy in Paris had paid off handsomely, with Erik able to intercept a conversation between the Pakistani men and an envoy of Prince Bin Salman, in which Khan and Ghanef were told to be ready to fly the next day by private jet to Monaco, where they would then go aboard the M/Y SERENE, the huge luxury yacht used by Bin Salman as his royal yacht. If the schedule they had heard was still unchanged, Khan and Ghanef should be about to arrive in Monaco in the next hour or so. By acting quickly, the CIA team had been able to move out of Paris and beat the Pakistanis to Monaco while traveling as a team with all their equipment and weapons, using the French TGV network of high-speed trains covering France. Dean and Erik had learned from experience years ago that, when in Europe, using the various local high-speed rail systems was about as fast as using planes, if you took account of the time wasted getting to and from airports and passing security checkpoints there, on top of making it much easier and safer to carry weapons and special mission equipment. Their trip by TGV from Paris to Marseilles had actually taken only three hours, with the team then taking a train connection to Monaco, whose train station was actually situated only a few minutes away on foot from the Hôtel Le Forum. A similar trip by air would have taken about the same time, on top of exposing the team to the danger of having their weapons and equipment discovered by French security officers posted at airports.
Ian Dorset unpacked his own suitcase, then took out his laptop computer and a miniature satellite dish with its base and connector box. Next, he fixed the dish to the corner of a desk next to a window and oriented it so that it would catch the signals from an American military satellite in geo-stationary orbit over the Mediterranean. Connecting the dish and its control box to his laptop computer, he then powered the latter and established within minutes a link via satellite with the classified U.S. Navy worldwide ship location system. It then took him only a minute to get the information he wanted.
‘’Erik, the SERENE is about fifty nautical miles from Monaco. It should arrive in about three to four hours.’’
‘’Good! That will leave us some time to prepare.’’
Taking out of his own equipment bag his Sig Sauer P229 9mm pistol and its shoulder holster rig, he put the rig on and checked his pistol before holstering it and covering it with a light, baggy wind jacket. Next, he took out and hid on himself a commando knife and an ultra-compact Glock 26 Gen 5 9mm pistol in an ankle holster, plus a miniature radio transceiver with hidden microphone and earphone. As for Dean, he put on a shoulder rig supporting his backup Model 629 .44 Magnum snub-nosed revolver and a miniature radio transceiver. His main weapon, a massive Desert Eagle .44 Magnum pistol, being too big to easily conceal on himself, went into a small sports bag with carrying strap, along with spare ammunition clips. Thinking twice about that, he replaced his Desert Eagle in the bag with an even bigger and heavier Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver in caliber .500 Magnum equipped with a scope, along with .500 Magnum ammunition and four hand grenades, making Ian Dorset whistle in appreciation.
‘’We are taking out the really heavy artillery, are we?’’
‘’Damn right we are, Ian! If the French DGSI or the Saudis ever try to annoy us, I want to be able to scare them away with the blast from this baby.’’
‘’Oh, you certainly would get me running with that thing, Dean.’’
‘’Well, let’s go for discretion first.’’ counseled Erik with a sardonic smile. ‘’We don’t want to change Monaco into a field of ruins…unless we have to.’’
‘’That’s my way of thinking!’’ replied Dean, grinning. Erik chuckled at that before continuing.
‘’Okay, we now need to track the movements and communications of Khan, Ghanef and the Saudis if we want a solid base for our next actions. Ian, check with Langley if they have any intercept updates from the NSA{8}’s Echelon{9} System. We will also need to track the movements of Khan and Ghanef once they will be in Monaco. Dean, I want you to go rent a fast car, so that we could then tail those Pakistanis inside the Monaco area. Since I am not planning for Ian and Julie to follow us around town, a two-seater will be acceptable, although a four-seater could allow the whole team to leave in a hurry if need be.’’
‘’I will be reasonable about my choice of cars, Erik.’’ promised Dean before leaving the room. Erik also left the room then, but simply walked to the room next door and knocked on it, using a pre-arranged code and getting a muffled answer from inside.
‘’Who is it?’’
‘’It’s Jones! We will need you in my room to assist Lyam.’’
‘’I’ll be there in a minute!’’
Satisfied, Erik then returned to his room, where Ian was already busy getting an encrypted connection with the CIA headquarters in Langley. With CIA human assets being quite limited in France, Erik had no choice but to rely mostly on technological means in order to track and spy on the two Pakistani men he was interested in. Hopefully, those technological means were going to allow him and his team to obtain information which would then help their mission.
Some ten minutes later, Julie, who had joined Ian at his laptop station, spoke up.
‘’Erik, we got a few interesting pointers from Echelon and from our Paris team via Langley. First, our Paris team managed to place a GPS tracker in one of Doctor Ghanef’s suitcases while he was waiting to board a private jet in Orly with General Khan.’’
‘’Nice work!’’ said a smiling Erik, truly appreciating this piece of skilled spycraft. ‘’And what is Echelon saying?’’
‘’That it intercepted more communications by cell phone between Khan and probable Saudi agents on board the M/Y SERENE. Those calls tell us that Khan and Ghanef are to take rooms already reserved on their behalf at the Port Palace Hotel, just next to the yachting port, and to wait there for an emissary to go collect them to bring them to the SERENE, where they will meet ‘The Prince’. That prince was not explicitly named but I could bet that it designates Prince Mohammed Bin Salman himself.’’
‘’That would not surprise me, actually. This business of clandestinely buying nuclear weapons is too sensitive to be let in the hands of mere flunkies, especially the way those Saudi royal flunkies screwed up in the Khashoggi Affair a year ago. Anything else?’’
‘’Uh, yes.’’ said Julie, looking a bit circumspect. ‘’Miss Farah Qalibaf is also coming to Monaco with her team. Echelon intercepted her last report to her bosses in Tehran. She told them that she would be staying at, hold on to your pants, Le Forum Hotel. It seems that her handlers balked at paying for rooms in other, more expensive hotels around Monaco.’’
Erik rolled his eyes, both amused and annoyed.
‘’Well, it is nice to learn that the CIA is not alone in being cheap with field mission expenses. Damn! It will be a miracle if our team doesn’t end up in a shootout with Farah’s team right here.’’
‘’You want my opinion about that, Erik?’’ said Julie, dead serious. ‘’Why not collaborate together with her team? Our end goals seem to be quite similar after all and she seemed to be a reasonable person when you encountered her five years ago.’’
‘’Her, maybe, but what about her agents? They may decide that Farah is going too far by accepting to work with us.’’
‘’That is still a possibility.’’ recognized Julie. ‘’After all, most Iranians would think that a woman’s judgment is not as good as that of a man. We would thus have to be quite diplomatic with Farah and her agents.’’
‘’Us and Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps agents, being diplomatic with each other? Mister Moore would pull out the little hair he has left on his head if he hears about this.’’
‘’Bof! He is about to lose his remaining hair anyway. My take is that, if we don’t come to a gentlemen’s agreement with the Iranians on this, this could sink both of our missions. The Iranians may be politically intransigent and dogmatic at times, but they are not stupid and they can be pragmatic when they want to. Maybe we could flatter their Persian ego to smooth our mutual relations.’’
‘’The way King Leonidas did respond to the Persian envoy in the film ‘The 300’?’’
‘’Uh, definitely not that way, Erik. Besides, they don’t have a Pit of Death in this hotel.’’
‘’Rats!’’ replied a joking Erik, faking frustration.
Dean Price returned about one hour later, apparently agitated about something.
‘’Erik, I have rented a sports car: an all-electric Porsche Taycan Turbo S. It can actually seat four persons, although the rear seats are a bit tight. It is now in the nearby train station’s parking lot. By the way, guess who I just met in the lobby of the hotel.’’
‘’Farah Qalibaf and her team?’’ replied Erik, making Dean look at him as if he was a magician.
‘’How the hell did you guess that?’’
‘’Easy: Echelon intercepts told us that Farah was coming to Monaco and that her handlers told her to take rooms in a moderately-priced hotel, meaning Le Forum. Did she see you?’’
‘’Of course she did! She was about as stunned and surprised as me when we nearly collided in the reception lobby, so I don’t think that she came here just to piss us off.’’
‘’Okay! Do you know which rooms she and her team took?’’
‘’I sure do! They asked for top floor rooms with a view on the bay. Farah will be our next-door neighbor, with her goons occupying the room next to hers.’’
Erik couldn’t help lower his head and sigh, while Julie grinned with amusement.
‘’This is turning into a Keystone Cops comedy, truly!’’
‘’You can add the French DGSI to that Keystone Cops act, Erik.’’ announced Ian from his laptop station. ‘’Echelon says that they are sending a team to Monaco to keep watching Khan and Ghanef, and their bosses seem to be as cheap as our bosses and Farah’s bosses in terms of field expenditures.’’
This time, Erik didn’t find that piece of news amusing in the least. While he could possibly make a deal with the Iranians, the French would never consciously allow foreign agents to operate independently on their soil: they were too proud for that. While Monaco was theoretically an independent principality, its foreign relations were still handled in Paris, thus the French DGSI would probably be able to do about anything they wanted in Monaco.
‘’Like the French would say: MERDE{10}! I have no choice now but to send a report to Director Moore and ask for further instructions. This could turn political big time.’’
08:50 (Washington Time) / 14:50 (Paris Time)
Office of the CIA’s Deputy Director for Operations
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
U.S.A.
Julian Moore nearly sucked air in as he read the latest field report from Erik Johnson: this case was indeed getting more complicated and riskier by the hour. To have his field team sharing the same hotel as the Iranian team was bad enough as it was, but to also see a French counter-espionage team reside at Le Forum could have catastrophic consequences. On the other hand, simply moving his team out of the hotel after only a few hours’ stay would only attract the immediate attention of the DGSI, thus would be quite counterproductive. Moore was also hesitant to pass this to Director Clayburn, even though he was supposed to keep him informed about the progress in this mission. Clayburn was a political appointee with zero intelligence experience and was also a total sycophant of the present White House administration. The way the President despised Iran, Moore was sure that Clayburn would refuse permission to Johnson’s team to collaborate in any way with the Iranian team and may even order Johnson to eliminate the Iranians, something that could only end in an indescribable mess in Monaco and would compromise the mission concerning the Pakistani plan to sell nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia. Another worry for Moore was about how Clayburn and the President would react to the attempt by Saudis to obtain nuclear weapons. They may just decide that the Saudis were justified in acquiring such weapons in order to counter the threat represented by Iran. Most competent geopolitical analysts and experts would agree that such a thing would greatly endanger peace and stability around the Middle East, but Moore and his colleague in charge of intelligence analysis had already clashed a number of times with Clayburn and with White House officials, who had repeatedly refused to believe the analysis presented by intelligence experts, including those from CIA analysts. Right now, if he would present Johnson’s report to Clayburn for a decision, Moore was nearly certain that his response would be nothing short of inflammatory. Mulling all this in his head for a long moment, Moore finally decided to do something that was contrary to normal CIA rules: he was going to have to short-circuit both Clayburn and the White House on this and to act outside of the chain of command. This could well cost him his job, but better that than to risk his field agents for the wrong reasons.
15:13 (Paris Time) / 09:13 (Washington Time)
Office of the Director of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure
DGSI Headquarters, Levallois-Perret, Haut-de-Seine Department, France
‘’Yes, Miss Lenoir?’’
‘’Monsieur, you have the deputy director for operations of the CIA, Mister Julian Moore, on our encrypted line from Washington.’’
Nicolas Lerner, a relatively young man for his position at the age of 42, was a bit surprised by this but went over it quickly.
‘’Very well, Miss Lenoir. I will take his call.’’
Lerner then pushed a button on his telephone, selecting his overseas encrypted line, which used a NATO{11}-approved cypher system, and then spoke in his fluent but accented English.
‘’Director Moore, to what may I owe the pleasure of your call?’’
‘’Director Lerner, I am calling to seek your discrete collaboration in a very sensitive case concerning the Middle East and which has seen players use French territory.’’
Lerner understood at once which case Moore was alluding to, as it was presently his most important priority, but decided to play dumb at first.
‘’And what would that case be about, Director Moore?’’
‘’A case where two Pakistani officials, General Mohammed Khan and Doctor Afizullah Ghanef, came to France in order to discretely negotiate the selling of Pakistani nuclear warheads to Saudi Arabia. Those two Pakistani officials have now moved to Monaco, but I am sure that you already know about that, Director Lerner.’’
Lerner understood by those words that Moore knew about the DGSI surveillance operation against Khan and Ghanef, thus decided to be more open from then on.
‘’We are effectively aware of the passage of these two Pakistani officials in France, Director Moore. May I ask what the CIA’s interest is in this case?’’
‘’Something I am sure is also of high interest to France, Director Lerner: the possible destabilization of the whole Middle East if Saudi Arabia succeeds in buying Pakistani-made nuclear weapons. You know as well as me how catastrophic such an outcome could be and how much it could hurt the interests of both our nations.’’
‘’I have to agree with you on this, Director Moore. So, how could I be of help to you in this case?’’
‘’What I would like is for you to, uh, show some comprehension and tolerance towards the actions my service could take in order to prevent such a nuclear weapons deal from happening. Maybe you could even arrest Khan and Ghanef on some pretext, something that could well compromise their attempts at dealing with Saudi senior officials.’’
‘’Unfortunately, I presently don’t have enough evidence to justify arresting those two Pakistani men, Director Moore. What we have are only suppositions and suspicions, nothing more.’’
‘’Really?’’ replied Moore, using a disbelieving tone. ‘’You have over twenty agents watching these men and you still don’t have more than suppositions? I find that hard to believe, Director Lerner.’’
‘’That is however the present situation as we know it, Director Moore.’’ lied Lerner. There were a few seconds of silence on the line before Moore spoke again.
‘’Director Lerner, understand that the political ramifications of this affair could prove highly divisive here in Washington if it became more widely known. I am presently doing my best to keep this case under wraps, but getting some cooperation from you would help me a lot, or are you truly indifferent to the possible consequences of this affair?’’
‘’Mister Moore,’’ replied Lerner in a more pointed tone, ‘’everything concerning the security and interests of France concerns me greatly. I am well aware of the grave consequences of the Saudis possibly gaining access to operational nuclear warheads, as I am also certain that other countries would also be concerned by this. I am however not ready to let competing foreign agents create mayhem on French soil, as it is my clear duty to prevent such a thing from happening. While I am ready to keep this conversation of ours confidential, I am in the incapacity to help you in this case. I am sorry, Director Moore, but my hands are about as tied as yours. Thank you for your call.’’
Closing the line and putting down his telephone receiver, Nicolas Lerner thought about the call for a moment. He was actually as concerned as Moore about this possible buying of nuclear weapons by Saudi Arabia. However, Moore had been right about this case being politically divisive, and not only in the United States. A number of ministers in France were presently trying to push the sale of French military and security equipment to Saudi Arabia, despite the unpopularity such deals would attract if known by the public at large. Lerner was personally against such deals, but he was unfortunately not high enough on the totem pole to block them or even object openly to them. Finally taking a decision, he picked up his telephone and composed the number of his head of surveillance operations, who was in charge of the team sent to Monaco to check on Khan and Ghanef.
17:06 (Paris Time)
Room 408, Hôtel Le Forum
Monaco
Farah was discussing with Hassan and Ali about their next moves when a couple of knocks on her door interrupted her and made her look at the door briefly before she made a silent sign for Hassan to go post himself near the door, ready to use his silenced pistol. Walking quietly to the door, Farah waited for a second knock on it before speaking up in French.
‘’Who is it?’’
‘’Your friendly American neighbor!’’ said a man’s voice she recognized at once. ‘’Could we talk…peacefully?’’
‘’Uh, of course!’’
Before unlocking her door, Farah looked at Hassan, who had his pistol pointed and ready, and spoke to him in a whisper, using Farsi.
‘’Don’t shoot unless this American draws a weapon or attacks me.’’
The way Hassan looked back at her told Farah that he didn’t like this one bit. However, she knew that Hassan was a highly disciplined and responsible agent who was able to control himself in the worst situations. She thus unlocked her door and opened it wide, hiding Hassan behind the door at the same time, to end up facing a smiling ‘Stryker’. The big American, wearing a dark suit and sunglasses, was waving in one hand a small improvised white flag.
‘’I’m only here to talk, Farah, I swear.’’
‘’If so, would you mind opening wide your vest and then turn around, to prove that you came unarmed? Please step inside first.’’
‘’No problem!’’ replied Dean before doing as she asked. Farah, not seeing any weapons at his belt or around his torso, then did a pat-down, checking in particular around his ankles, but found nothing.
‘’Okay: you are clean!’’
‘’Of course, I am clean, Farah: I took a shower this morning.’’
His reply attracted a new smile on Farah’s face.
‘’Stryker, I must say that I like your sense of humor.’’
‘’Only my sense of humor? Gee, I’m hurt! By the way, your goon can lower his silenced pistol: I truly came in peace.’’
‘’For what purpose? Discuss the outrageous prices in Monaco restaurants?’’
‘’No! to discuss our plans of action concerning Khan and Ghanef.’’ replied Dean, becoming serious.
‘’OUR plans? What makes you think that I would be ready to work with you and your colleague, Sparrow?’’
‘’The fact that our two teams have a similar objective: preventing the Pakistanis from selling nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia. Your reasons are of course different to our reasons to want to prevent that, but the end goal is similar. As the saying goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. By joining our respective capabilities and collaborating together during this mission, our chances of success can only be greatly increased.’’
‘’And what makes you think that my team would need your team’s help to succeed, Stryker?’’
‘’Well, I have no doubt that your two goons here are expert at killing someone and blowing up shit, but you must know that the Great Satan{12} possesses many highly advanced electronic spying systems. Those systems allow us to learn things that you may not know about and that could be useful to you. I would be ready to share that extra intelligence with you, if you agree to keep the peace with us and to work in concert with us.’’
‘’A tempting offer, I must say, but what tells me that you won’t kill me and my men the moment that our mission is accomplished?’’
Dean took a hurt expression on hearing her.
‘’Come on, Farah! We were able to work together effectively five years ago, when we prevented those ISIS bastards from receiving sophisticated Russian weapons. I am sure that we could again work together to our mutual profit.’’
‘’Okay, big guy, you just earned an extra couple of minutes. Let’s go sit down before continuing this conversation.’’
With both Hassan Kosravi and Ali Suleiman staying on their feet and standing in opposite corners of the room, their pistols in hand, Farah made Dean sit on the bed, while she sat on the chair provided with the room’s desk. She then eyed critically the big CIA man: in any other circumstance, she or any other Iranian agent would consider him at once as a mortal threat and react accordingly. However, her past experience from five years ago, along with their night encounter in Paris, had secretly made her fond of the one she still only knew as ‘Stryker’. However, she could not afford to show that fondness in front of her two male agents: that could quickly enough attract accusations of treason against her, something that could doom her once back in Iran.
‘’I must say first that I am surprised that your government has accepted to work with my team on this case, Stryker.’’
She, like her two agents, didn’t miss the slightly embarrassed expression that appeared on Dean’s face then.
‘’Uh, actually, things are a bit more complicated than that, Farah. Only our direct supervisor in Langley knows and approves about us contacting you. Neither the Director of the CIA nor my President or his intelligence staffers know about it and they would most probably repudiate our deal and recall us if they ever learned about it. Politically, this is like being in the middle of a minefield. Me, my team and our supervisor in Langley are doing something of a rogue operation. However, we are not doing this because we want to betray our country. Rather, we decided that this was the most logical and sensible course of action in order to fulfill our mission, which is to prevent the Saudis from obtaining Pakistani nuclear weapons.’’
‘’I thought that your President was personally quite friendly with the Saudis, especially with Prince Bin Salman.’’
Dean let out an audible sigh on hearing those words.
‘’Trump… I’d rather not talk about him right now, Farah. To prove to you that we really are ready to work with you on this mission, here are a few pieces of info which we were able to get via electronic means: first off, Khan and Ghanef have rooms reserved for them by the Saudis at the Port palace Hotel, next to the yachting port. They have in fact arrived there b