Full Black - Brad Thor [79]
As he climbed into his armored Denali, Standing’s encrypted cell phone rang.
CHAPTER 33
Standing told his driver and security team to stand on the sidewalk while he sat in the Denali and took the call. He didn’t want anyone to listen to him speaking to Robert Ashford.
“I’m afraid I have bad news,” said the MI5 operative.
“You seem to be in the bad-news business a lot lately, Robert,” replied Standing. “It’s starting to become a habit I don’t care for.”
And Ashford didn’t care for the rebuke, but he held his tongue. Standing had too much incriminating leverage stacked against him. He decided to get right to the point. “I’ve received word that the rabbit hutch was compromised.”
Standing had expected the conversation to be about what had happened in L.A., not about Mustafa Karami and the terror cell in Sweden. Rabbit hutch was the code name it had been given. “How was it compromised?”
“Local authorities are being very tight-lipped. They suspect a foreign intelligence agency had targeted the cell.”
Standing’s blood pressure was starting to rise. “Which intelligence agency?”
“They believe it was the French.”
“The French? How the hell would they have been involved?”
“They have some sort of evidence pointing to the DGSE’s Action Division. They seem pretty convinced it was them. The French, of course, are denying it.”
“Of course they’re denying it,” snapped Standing. “There’s no way the French could have put any of this together.”
“Well, someone did.”
Ashford was right. “Tell me what happened.”
“The hutch operated two apartments, one across the street from the other. One was where operations were handled. The other was a completely sterile safe house. All computers, cell phones, and what-have-you were kept in the operations apartment.
“Somehow the location of the apartments was uncovered. An assault team outfitted to look like the Swedish Security Service attempted to take them down.”
“Attempted? Meaning they didn’t succeed?”
“The operations apartment was rigged to explode, and when the assault team hit, it did.”
“What about the safe house apartment?” asked Standing.
“Two of the faux Swedish Security operatives were seen going into that building as well. One man from the hutch was thrown from the window and killed. There was also gunfire. According to witnesses, when the phony Security Services men exited the building, they had another man with them. He was bleeding. They had a car parked outside. They laid him on the backseat and then the three of them drove away.”
Standing’s heart suddenly stopped beating. “Was it Westminster?”
All of the terrorist network’s commanders and lieutenants had been named after locations in the United Kingdom. The head of the network, Aaazim Aleem, was Oxford, Mustafa Karami, Westminster.
“No. He was much younger,” said Ashford.
“Was he from the hutch?”
“Some said he looked Arab, some said Italian, but I think we should assume he was one of ours.”
“Okay, but why only take him?” asked Standing. “What happened to the rest of them? Where’s Westminster?”
“Including the man who had been thrown out the window, they have found seven bodies at the safe house apartment. They were all younger men in their twenties and early thirties.”
“So no sign of Westminster. What about Cardiff?” he asked, referring to Sabah.
“Based on what I have been able to glean,” replied Ashford, “they are not among the dead at the safe house, which means—”
“Either they were in the operations apartment when it blew, or they managed to escape altogether.”
“Correct.”
Standing worked to keep his anger in check. First they had gotten to Aazim and now they had tracked down Karami. He needed to think. “Could the Americans be behind