Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [17]
Haddad moved with deliberation, never rushing. He was a tourist going out for a stroll, nothing more.
The Turk would know this was a lie, of course. But Haddad saw no reason to betray that he was aware of being watched. As he walked away from the hotel, he kept his gaze forward, never glancing back at that revolving lobby door but knowing that the Turk would soon emerge and head in his direction.
Haddad was relatively sure the man was working alone. The best surveillance is done in teams, the larger the better. The subject gets passed along like a baton, giving him less opportunity to make—or lose—a tail. But the modern spy tends to wear iPod earbuds or a Bluetooth, innocuous technology that keeps him plugged in to partners or HQ. Haddad’s cursory look as he passed the Turk revealed neither of these. Besides, he’d been in enough of these situations to trust his instincts and they told him that the Turk was working alone.
The question was, who was he working for?
The Americans?
Haddad knew the CIA had a file on him—most of it fiction—and he knew they had followed him on occasion, a bit of information that had come to light when members of his cell tortured and killed one of their agents. But this man was not skilled enough to be CIA. His trade craft did not rise to their level. Nor did it rise to the level of Mossad. Besides, Jew or Druze, Haddad could detect an Israeli the way a rat smells cheese. It was in his DNA, millennia-old and infallible.
So who was this man? Could he be working for Chilikov?
No. The Bulgarian’s loyalty had been bought and paid for, and it made no sense that he would jeopardize their arrangement. Chilikov was wise enough to know that should he ever betray Haddad, not only would he lose a large sum of cash but Haddad would slit his windpipe and leave him to die gasping in a river of his own blood.
But then, it didn’t really matter who the Turk worked for. He was simply an annoyance to be dealt with.
Continuing to take his time as he walked, Haddad stopped to look in the store windows that lined the street. A bakery with samples of its baklava and garash. A clothing store full of well-dressed mannequins. A tattoo parlor with a flickering neon light, the quiet buzz of the needle emanating from an open doorway. All the while Haddad felt the Turk behind him, at least smart enough to keep his distance.
A small grocery stood on the opposite corner. Haddad crossed to it and went inside, assaulted by the bright fluorescent lights that hung high overhead, illuminating rows of crowded shelves. Most Bulgarians preferred to buy their fruit from street vendors, but there was a small display on the left side of the store and Haddad went to it, taking his time as he inspected a neatly stacked pile of blue plums.
Selecting two firm pieces of the fruit, he moved to the register and glanced casually out at the street as the clerk rang up his purchase. The Turk was nowhere to be seen but Haddad assumed he was out there.
He paid in cash, and after the clerk gave him his change she went to place the fruit in a small paper bag.
He stopped her.
Reaching across the counter, he tore one of the larger plastic grocery bags from its stand and dropped the plums inside.
The clerk didn’t protest.
Thanking her in Bulgarian, Haddad pocketed his change then went outside. Still no sign of the Turk, but across the street was an unlit alleyway and Haddad was certain the man was waiting there.
Countersurveillance was a careful process that involved U-turns and double-backs, taking needlessly complicated routes to your destination. And given enough time, Haddad knew he could lose the Turk with relative ease. But that would only be a temporary solution to his problem. When he returned to the hotel his pursuer would be there again, feigning indifference behind a travel brochure or a magazine or a novel this time.
So Haddad decided to go with his second option.
Death.
Crossing the street, he