“I don’t even see how you can tell if that’s a man rather than a woman,” said Nuri.

“Wait,” said Reid.

The computer began peeling away the layers, modeling what it thought the man looked like based on the shadow it had seen. It was a generic image, something like the computer-generated models used on online clothing sites when you wanted to buy semitailored clothes.

“So who is this guy?” asked Danny. “Or guys?”

“They’re called the Wolves,” said Breanna. “They’re murderers for hire, and they operate in Europe. The murder in Berlin was an anomaly. It was ordered by a mafia chieftain in Italy. His compatriots wouldn’t authorize the killing, and so rather than cause trouble with them, he reached out to friends in Russia. They have a business arrangement selling stolen vehicles there—he exports them, they sell them.”

Reid picked up the thread again, explaining that the Italian state police had the mafia member under surveillance; their phone taps recorded a conversation with one of his Russian mafiya partners asking for the hit. The price was unusually expensive, but success was guaranteed—three million euros to take down the businessman, and another two million to kill some of his associates.

“Not so coincidentally, the sum coincided with money the Russian owed the mafioso,” added Reid. “He didn’t even try to haggle. He was very angry—in his mind, the businessman had caused his father’s death, and the reluctance of his associates to authorize revenge added insult to injury.”

The Russian had then contacted someone outside of Russia with details. Unfortunately, information had been sent in at least three different messages, all via e-mail. Only one had been recovered—and that was by accident, part of an NSA program aimed at Russian intelligence. But it was enough to connect the murder definitively to the Wolves, even if the bullet hadn’t been recovered.

The Russian contact was subsequently placed under electronic surveillance.

“Unfortunately, he is no longer with us,” continued Reid. “The Italian was not the only person to whom he owed money.”

“So we’re going after criminals now?” asked Nuri.

“The assignment is a little more complicated than that,” said Breanna. “The Russians seem to be hoping to disrupt the NATO meeting in Kiev set for ten days from now. The ministers are supposed to vote on Ukraine’s membership, and the thinking is that this group has been hired to kill some of the ministers supporting the addition.”

“Or members of the Ukrainian government who support membership,” added Reid. “It’s not clear. They have been used for some political assassinations before. Most notably, Deng Pu’s death.”

Deng was a Chinese foreign minister who had opposed a new trade agreement with Russia. After his death—an assignation at his country house outside of Berlin—the treaty was signed.

“We’re still working through the intelligence,” admitted Reid after turning the projection image off. “Simply disrupting the meeting may be the Russians’ primarily goal. And it’s possible they’re not after the entire NATO board. They may just want the possible Ukrainian representatives to it.”

“What do the Ukrainians say?” asked Nuri.

Reid shook his head. “I haven’t a clue whether they’ve been told. I suspect not.”

“Apprehending the Wolves would be beneficial for a lot of reasons independent of NATO,” said Breanna. “They’re pretty dangerous assassins. Think about whom they’ve killed—a Chinese minister, a Polish defense official, a banker. And those are the murders we know about.”

“So where do we start?” asked Danny.

“Berlin,” said Reid. “Find out what information they have on the shooter and see if it can be added to our data. Anything is potentially of use, but a DNA sample would be useful.”

“How unique is the bullet?” asked Nuri. “Carbon fiber has been around for a while.”

“It’s a carbon-based composite, not a fiber,” said Reid. “It appears to be unique. The design is reminiscent of experiments the Soviets were doing roughly twenty years ago.”

Reid clicked up a fresh slide of the bullets, showing close-ups of the bullets. He then proceeded to a series of cross sections, and finally comparisons with different types. Danny found himself starting to tune out due to information overload. The amount of data the CIA could gather on things dazzled him sometimes, but it was also frustrating—they knew all this, yet what they didn’t know loomed much larger.

“One guess is that the bullets were left over from this old project,” said Reid, his voice increasingly professorial. “That would fit with the theory that the Wolves are a group headed or sponsored by former Russian KGB or military, now on their own. But there’s no hard evidence about that. And some of the murders we think they participated in didn’t have these weapons. The choice would be made to evade metal detectors,” he added. “They’re a versatile group.”

They spent the next half hour discussing logistics. Intelligence gathering wasn’t Danny’s forte, so he had no problem letting Nuri take the lead in handling Berlin. Danny would work from the other end, concentrating on Kiev and the upcoming NATO meeting.

For him, the key question was how closely to work with the security apparatus in Kiev. Close cooperation—under the cover of being a State Department security team—would mean immediate access to whatever intelligence NATO and the Ukrainian intelligence forces developed. But they would also put themselves in a position where they could compromise their own operation.

There was also a subtle conflict between the goal of protecting the NATO delegation and capturing the Wolves. As Nuri pointed out, it would be easier to identify the Wolves once they made an attempt on the NATO ministers. Ideally, once an assassin was identified, they could follow him and gather intelligence on the rest of the group. That meant letting him survive and even escape—or at least think he had. Anyone charged with protecting the NATO ministers wasn’t likely to let that happen.

“Neither should you,” said Reid. “Liaison with the security forces at the appropriate time. We’ll establish you as members of the State Department security team, assigned to guard the American delegates.”

“What’s our prime responsibility then?” asked Danny. “Protect the delegates or catch these guys? Which do you want us to do?”

“Both,” said Breanna. “We know it’s a hard job. That’s why you have it.”

“If these guys are so good, why don’t we just hire them over to our side and be done with it?” asked Nuri.

“As usual, Mr. Lupo, you have the logical solution,” said Reid. “Perhaps when you meet them, you will be in a position to propose it.”

4

Swamp Hill, Georgia

With Nuri heading to Berlin, Danny needed someone on the team with experience in Europe—preferably the Ukraine. Hera Scokas, a CIA covert officer who’d worked with him in Africa and Iran, had been in Kiev a few times, but couldn’t speak the language fluently and didn’t have a deep knowledge of the city.

Had this been a standard CIA operation, an officer or two or three could have been siphoned off from the station, temporarily assigned to help. But Whiplash was isolated structurally from the “regular” CIA, and Reid wanted to keep the partition in place. So he suggested they use an operative who was currently on leave from the Agency, but whom he felt might be talked back into active service for the job.