72

DUBLIN, ROBIE AND REEL HAD to admit, was a fortress. They had been here less than twenty-four hours and they could already tell. They had done every possible recon and feint to test the security perimeter around the G8 conference, and there was not one weakness to be found.

They were in Robie’s hotel room overlooking the river Liffey. He was at the window with a pair of binoculars, staring across at the hotel center where the conference’s main events were taking place. It seemed as if there were more security personnel than G8 attendees.

“What about the non-G8 elements?” asked Robie as he lowered the optics and looked over at Reel, who sat in a chair by the door.

“Basically sequestered. And Vance didn’t have it exactly right. The security for those folks is being provided by the G8. Their own security details were not invited.”

“And they were okay with that?”

“If they weren’t okay with it they didn’t get to come.”

“So if the hit is coming it’s an inside job coming from Western resources,” noted Robie.

“Not necessarily. There’s nothing preventing a terrorist attack coming separate from the conference. Or there could be a terror cell in Dublin right now.”

He shook his head. “I’m telling you, something is definitely not right.”

“I have the same feeling.”

He sat on the bed, faced her. “We’re missing something.”

“I get that, I just don’t know what.”

He rose.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To find what we’re missing.”

Robie left the hotel. Within fifteen minutes he was outside the area where the G8 conference was being held. The security perimeter was dense and multilayered. He had no chance of getting inside it without the proper credentials.

As he was standing there, two men came out of one building inside the security perimeter. They had on suits, but also were wearing traditional Muslim headwear. They did not get into a car or cab. They simply walked. Robie assumed they were part of the non-G8 delegation.

He looked at them as they passed by and decided to follow them. It might pan out or it might lead to nothing. But nothing was what he had right now.

He slipped in behind them. They eventually entered a hotel and went straight to the bar. They were forbidden by their religion to drink, but for some Muslims that edict disappeared while they were in Western lands. And there were few places on earth better suited to satisfy one’s thirst for alcohol than Dublin.

They took their drinks and sat at a table by the window. Robie bought his pint and took up a chair at a table next to them. He put his earbuds in and set his smartphone on the table but did not turn on any music. He sipped his beer and eavesdropped on their conversation, all the while swaying his head as he pretended to listen to a tune.

The men talked in low tones in Arabic. They had no reason to think that a westerner would understand a word they were saying. They would be right in almost every instance except this one.

They were attendees of the conference, but they weren’t talking about the G8. There was another conference commencing shortly. It was to take place in Canada at a small town well outside of Montreal. Robie had seen a brief news report about it a while back. It seemed a strange place for an Arab summit, but the Canadians had offered and there indeed was some logic to it. By meeting in a neutral place far removed from the violence and conflict that seemed to permeate the Middle East, it was hoped that meaningful progress could be made. At least that was the official story. And the Canadians were picking up the tab for the whole thing. It also showed goodwill from the West to try to work with the Arab countries. And while the United States, for political reasons, was not involved, the Canadians were such close allies to America that everyone knew the nexus—and implicit support—was clearly there.

At the conference would be the leaders of the major Arab nations, all clustered together in one place to discuss ways to move forward peacefully instead of violently, as much of the recent Arab Spring had done. These men were not attending, but knew many who were. They didn’t seem to think that any major breakthroughs would happen during this conference. One man laughed and said that Muslims, like westerners, couldn’t really agree on much when it came to sharing power. They talked about certain leaders who would be there. Some they liked, others they wished dead.

The men finished their drinks, got up, and left. Robie could have followed them, but saw no real need to. It was far better for him to sit here and try to think this through. He sipped his drink and stared at the wall opposite.

The attack described in Roy West’s apocalypse paper had the G8 leadership as its target. Robie and Reel had assumed that people working inside the United States had assisted enemies of the G8 with planning an attack at this conference, wiping out the G8 leadership and causing a global panic. That made sense. But what the Muslim men had been talking about made him rethink this.

A conference in Canada of leaders from numerous Muslim countries.

Then his thoughts turned to the hit that Jessica Reel had never made.

Ahmadi. In Syria. Blue Man had said they wanted to derail Ahmadi’s coming to power and they had a more palatable choice in the wings, waiting to take over.

Robie put his beer down. As the liquid cleared his throat and settled into his stomach, his thoughts crystallized.

That’s where he and Reel had gotten it wrong. They had assumed that whoever was behind this was following West’s doomsday scenario to the letter. But that was just speculation, not fact. There wasgoing to be an attack, only not on the G8; the security nut was too hard to crack.

But all those leaders clustered together in a small town outside of Montreal? They were fish in a barrel. Eliminating them in a single stroke would result in complete pandemonium in one of the already most chaotic regions on earth. Regime after regime falling. Power vacuums. Elements fighting to take control. But maybe there were folks waiting to take power. And maybe they’d have help. And maybe whoever was behind this thought a better future would look a whole lot like the past.

And perhaps Roy West’s apocalypse paper would be played out in force, only not in the way its author, with all his paranoia, ever imagined.

Robie rose and walked back to his hotel.

The answer was not in Dublin. It was three thousand miles away.

CHAPTER

73

IN TWO HOURS, Robie and Reel were packed, gone from the hotel, and at the airport outside Dublin.

“Are you sure about this, Robie?” Reel asked for the fifth time.

“If you want a guarantee I can’t give it. But otherwise I’m pretty damn sure.”

Reel looked out the window of the terminal. “If you’re wrong? If we leave here and something happens?”

“Then it happens,” he said flatly. “I’ll take full responsibility.”

“I’m not worried about who takes responsibility.”

“Neither am I. I’m just looking to stop it.”

She said, “So instead of killing the G8 leadership they’re planning to knock out the Middle Eastern heads of state? That’s quite a leap.”

“I didn’t plan it, so I can’t really account for the logic.”