Avery sat down at a table and, after ordering coffee, removed the encrypted laptop from his backpack and powered it up. The CD whirred in its tray. Within moments an instant-message screen appeared and the words, "Good afternoon, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you for coming," flashed.
Back in the van, the NSA communications experts could see in real time exactly what the ambassador was seeing, thanks to the laptop's remote-viewing application, and began trying to locate the source of the transmission.
Are you prepared to transfer the funds? appeared next.
How do we know the merchandise is authentic? typed Avery.
One word was returned, Watch.
The ambassador's screen split into two separate windows. Next to the dialogue box, an image came up entitled JFK/ATC. He discreetly tilted his head and spoke toward the microphone sewn into the lapel of his blazer, "Are you getting this?"
"Loud and clear. So is Washington," replied one of the techs in the van. A satellite uplink was beaming everything back to the States for verification.
Avery pressed the mini-earpiece farther into his ear as he anxiously awaited word. Seconds later, it came.
"Verification complete. Mr. Ambassador, you are looking at a live picture of JFK's Air Traffic Control system."
Knowing what would happen next sent chills down Michael Avery's spine. His hands shook as he typed the following message, We are ready to proceed.
One by one, aircraft started disappearing from the screen.
Ninety seconds later, the NSA man's voice came back over the ambassador's earpiece. "JFK is reporting a major ATC system malfunction. They're losing track of aircraft left and right. The merchandise is authentic. You are authorized to complete the transaction."
Initializing funds transfer, typed the ambassador as he began the predetermined sequence. The green status bar seemed to take forever. When the Transfer Successful message finally materialized on the screen, aircraft flying in the New York area began reappearing on ATC radar.
Simultaneously, a third window appeared on the ambassador's laptop. In it, he could see a live picture of the device the United States had just paid so handsomely for. As the image widened, he could see the Parthenon in the foreground.
"We're on it," said one of the NSA men over Avery's earpiece as the van took off to claim the merchandise.
The ambassador continued to watch the feed as a pair of hands came into view, picked up the device and secreted it inside the nearest trash can, as agreed, for pickup.
"Sir," said one of the CIA operatives as he approached the table. "There's a car waiting. We'd like to get you back to the embassy."
Avery nodded his head and was just about to shut down his laptop when he noticed the live image from the Acropolis was moving. There were jerky flashes of legs and feet as someone moved the camera and repositioned it overlooking the road below. Seconds later, the white embassy van with the Diplomatic Security Service agents and the NSA team entered the frame.
"Jesus Christ," said Avery. "It's a trap. Get them out!"
The CIA operative who had been sitting in the cafe looking over the ambassador's shoulder grabbed both him and the laptop while shouting into his radio, "Beachcomber, this is Point Guard. You've been compromised. Abort now. Repeat. You have been compromised. Abort!"
Before the men in the white van could respond, they heard what sounded like a giant knife tearing through the fabric of the afternoon sky. The ambassador grabbed the laptop back just in time to see a shoulder-fired missile slam through the windshield of the van and explode.
The CIA operative, code named Point Guard, didn't waste any more time. He steered the ambassador out of the cafe and down the closest side street as he radioed the driver of their car to come get them. The other operatives headed for the Acropolis as people ran out of the shops and restaurants around the Plaka in response to the explosion.
As Point Guard and the ambassador turned the next corner, the pair could see the embassy's dark, armor-plated BMW and began running even faster. They were almost there.
Suddenly, a motorcycle screamed out of a nearby alleyway. Point Guard reached for his gun, but he was too late.
One week later Dodecanese Islands Southeastern Aegean, Greece
Lying in the tall grass one hundred meters from a sprawling, whitewashed villa, Scot Harvath used the Leupold Mark 4 scope and Universal Night Sight of his SR25 Knights Armament battle rifle to search for any sign of Theologos Papandreou, the man U.S. Intelligence had fingered as the mastermind behind the murder of Ambassador Avery and his multiagency security detail.
As a Navy SEAL, and now as a covert counterterrorism operative for the U.S. government, Harvath had spent the better part of his professional life pulling a trigger. One of the sadder truths he had learned was that there were a lot of people in the world who needed to be killed. He tried to remind himself that more often than not, the people on the receiving end of his lead-tipped missives were beyond reasoning with. They posed serious threats to the stability and safety of the civilized world and had to be taken out.
Tonight, though, Harvath had his doubts. Something didn't feel right.
Before leaving D.C., Harvath had been fully briefed on the murder of Ambassador Avery. Two years prior, a Greek company headed by a man named Constantine Nomikos had approached the United States to partner up on a technology venture. They were developing a revolutionary new system to better track their fleet of next-generation tanker and cargo ships worldwide. Nomikos needed heavy access to satellite and radar systems to further his research. While reviewing the project, the U.S. had noted several excellent military applications and immediately jumped into bed with them. It wasn't until later in the development process that the Defense Department discovered the device's full potential.
Anything with an electronic guidance system-aircraft, missiles, ships-could be rendered completely invisible to radar. But that was only the half of it. The device could also override guidance systems and remotely control an object's course, speed, tra-jectory-you name it. With the right satellite uplinks, a missile could be diverted off course or a plane could be hijacked without terrorists ever having to set foot on board.
The Defense Department deemed it one of the most exciting and dangerous pieces of technology ever developed. They also gave it its code name, the Achilles Project.
Two weeks prior to Ambassador Avery's assassination, the device had been stolen from Nomikos's research and development facility near the Athenian port of Piraeus. Shortly thereafter, an unidentified organization contacted the U.S. embassy in Athens and offered to sell it back to the United States. Avery and his team had been participating in an operation to recover the device when they were killed.
Despite the fact that a firebomb had been tossed into the car after the shooting and the bodies were burned beyond recognition, ballistics reports indicated that the weapon used to kill Ambassador Avery, as well as the CIA operative accompanying him, was a.45-caliber automatic-the same.45 caliber used in a string of high-profile assassinations attributed to the Greek terrorist organization 21 August.
The name 21 August corresponded to the organization's first attack. On August 21, 1975, they shot and killed the CIA's Athens chief and deputy chief of station. In a long and rambling letter to a left-wing Athenian newspaper, they claimed credit for the murders, spelled out their Marxist-Leninist beliefs and outlined their plans for ridding Greece once and for all of any Western-specifically American-influences.
Be that as it may, the current president of the United States had different plans for 21 August. He was furious that in a country of only eleven million, the Greeks couldn't seem to lay their hands on what every Western intelligence agency agreed was a cell of no more than ten or fifteen people. The "Athens Problem," as it had become known in Western intelligence circles, had been a problem for too long, and he wanted it stopped. He wanted 21 August neutralized before they could mount any more attacks against American interests or, God forbid, sold the Achilles device to one of America's enemies.