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“Pierce.”
“Why weren’t you answering your phone?” Viktor asked.
“Jeez, Viktor,” Maia Pierce McCord chided him. “I was on the phone with Jack. My man misses me and wouldn’t let me hang up.”
Viktor grunted.
“So what’s up?” Maia continued when he didn’t answer.
“Just checking up on you. Are you guys ready to leave for the airport?”
“Just about. Stark’s escorting Ibrahim Nasir to the limo now.”
“Summit went okay?”
“I think an agreement has been reached regarding the chemical weapons,” Maia replied. “Hey—gotta go, Manning’s signaling me that the convoy’s heading out.”
Viktor struggled to tell her to be careful. “Katerina—”
But Maia already hung up.
Cursing himself for his moment of sentimentality, Viktor strode out of his office and headed to the datacenter where Tim Burns was busy setting up the feeds for the convoy’s route. His lead analyst didn’t look happy and was relieved when Viktor showed up.
“Thank Christ,” Tim said. “Viktor, would you please call someone at DCRI and tell them we need access to their street surveillance? They’ve been stonewalling us.”
“Fucking French Intelligence,” Viktor muttered, whipping out his phone to call his contact. “It’s Baran. What the fuck isgoing on? Your people are denying us access to your security feeds . . . well, fix the screw up.”
“Try it again after a few minutes,” Viktor told Tim. “Same code.” Switching his attention to Tim’s assistant, Holly Nolan, he said, “Are you keeping communications open with the team?”
“Yes, they’re heading out from the 8tharrondissement,” the twenty-two-year-old analyst replied. Holly was as nerdy as they came, sporting a pixie-style haircut and wearing horn-rimmed glasses. She was too easily frazzled to work at the datacenter during high-risk missions, but Viktor believed, after another year with AGS, he could instill some nerves of steel in her. “They’re turning right on Rue de Courcelles.”
“Put them up on speaker,” Viktor instructed. “Tim, what the hell is taking so long?”
Tim shot him an annoyed look. “Feeds are coming up now.”
A limousine was shown between two black SUVs. There were two motorcycle escorts guiding the convoy of Ibrahim Nasir—the whistleblower of Syria’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, and a possible contender to unite the opposition that could challenge the ruling Ba’ath Party in Syria. Nathan Stark and Rebecca Olsen were the Guardians in the lead car. Maia was with Nasir and his wife in the limo while Steve Manning and John Edmunds brought up the rear. Five Guardians were protecting the man that could bring peace to Syria.
“Maia, do you copy?” Viktor asked.
“I’m here, Viktor.”
Viktor turned away from the screen momentarily to fiddle with some communications settings. “Stark, how are the roads from your POV—”
“What . . . Fuck!” Tim shouted.
Viktor’s eyes swung back to the widescreen in time towatch an RPG hit the front of the limo, lifting the vehicle’s front a couple of feet before it slammed back on the ground.
“Under fire! Under fire!” Manning shouted through comms. “Maia, do you copy?”
“Shit, masked hostiles incoming at three o’ clock,” Stark warned.
The lead SUV backed into the limo. Stark and Olsen scrambled out of their vehicle to defend their convoy against the advancing gunmen.
“RPG!”
Stark and Olsen sprinted to the sidewalk and hit the deck as their SUV blew up from a direct hit.
“Take that RPG out!” Viktor shouted. “Maia, do you copy?”
