Page 122 of One Minute Out

“Negative. Saw one potential follower, a military-aged male with a pack, but he didn’t look American. These other boys are Yanks, for sure.”

Verdoorn said, “Copy.”

Klerk then asked, “What do you want me to do?”

Verdoorn paused a moment, then replied, “Tail ’em. The rest of you stay on mission. Gentry is the primary target. These new fucks are just a curiosity.”

Klerk brought his cuff mic down, stepped out onto the street, and continued eating his gelato as he slipped in behind the pair.

•••

Seventy-five feet behind the South African, a third-generation Mexican American CIA Ground Branch officer named Teddy Gonzalez put the laminated menu he’d been holding back in the rack at the outdoor café, then he brought his own hand to his mouth. “Zulu Four to Zulu Actual.”

A second later he heard Travers’s voice through his earpiece. “Go for Zulu.”

“Be advised, I’ve got a subject on your six. Looks like he’s made you. Can’t see him clearly, but don’t think it’s our target.”

“He look like he’s carrying?”

“Can confirm he is armed with an ice cream cone. Anything else on him is concealed at my distance.”

“Roger that, we’ll do an SDR to confirm.”

“I’ll tail and report.”

Gonzalez caught a glimpse of his team leader and Zulu Five as they turned left down Calle Rabbia, a narrow passageway that led to the north, away from the casino area. Their surveillance detection run would lead the potential follower away from the rest of the Ground Branch team, and it would lead them away from their target.

He then began following the unknown subject half the distance away and saw him bring his hand to his mouth. He couldn’t tell if the man was transmitting through his cuff mic or just taking a bite from his cone.

A few seconds later the lone man turned north on Calle Rabbia.

“He’s still on you, Zulu.”

“Roger that. If you’re sure, we’ll drop the SDR and lose him, head back to the target location. All Zulu elements, run SDRs to see if there are others out there.”

Gonzalez rogered up, then said, “I can get ahead of you, check my own six, and then find a route for you guys to slip your tail.”

“Do it,” Travers said.

Teddy Gonzalez walked past Calle Rabbia, then picked up his pace. He made his own left at Calle Masena, walked through the darkened alley, then stepped into an open rear doorway into the kitchen of a restaurant. Slipping past the cooks hard at work, he made his way to the dining room undetected, then exited the front. Once he saw he could make his way back down to the main street from here, he transmitted to Travers with the location, confident they could lose their one-man tail easily.

•••

A few minutes later Willem Klerk’s frustrated voice came through Jaco Verdoorn’s earpiece. “Lion Actual. This is Eight. I’ve lost the scent.”

“Did they shake you, or did you just fook it up?”

“Dunno. They didn’t see me, dead certain of that, but I can’t say there wasn’t someone back behind me I didn’t recognize who alerted them.”

“All right,” Verdoorn replied. “Bring the ring in tighter. If Gentry is here at all, he’ll come to the bladdy market. I want all Lions within one hundred meters. If CIA is here, we’ll be ready for them, too.”

•••

Kenneth Cage stood in the lobby just off the sales floor of the palace where the market was being held. Behind him, in the darkened great hall, four of the women had already been paraded across a small riser, surrounded by buyers, then sold off, each going for over one million euros. A fifteen-year-old Ukrainian, a twenty-two-year-old Bulgarian, a nineteen-year-old Macedonian, and a sixteen-year-old Romanian were already the property of four different criminal organizations, and would soon be shipped off to Dubai, Frankfurt, Bangkok, and Stockholm, where they’d be condemned to a life of servitude.

There was a break in the action now while the next four were prepared to go on the block, so Cage and some of the buyers from a group of Gulf states stood in the lobby chatting and drinking whiskey.

Hall stood close by his charge, but his attention was partially focused on listening in to Verdoorn’s men on his earpiece as they discussed a potential new threat.

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