It sounds like a no-go zone for me, and my heart sinks. His next words do nothing to assuage my frustration.

“It will be incredibly difficult for one man to get inside the event. I can’t help you there.”

I’m desperately thinking about sewers, air ducts, rooftop access, and the like, and I’m thinking about stealing credentials and uniforms from employees of the venue. Hell, I’m even thinking about finding a way to steal or forge an invitation.

None of it sounds promising, especially because I know the opposition will be checking all these avenues of approach to make sure some jackass isn’t trying to slip into their party tonight.

But then Ricci brightens up. “There is a bar, it’s two blocks away. I can get you in there. If I remember correctly you’ll be able to see the building where the market is being held. You will be an employee, just for tonight. No one will bother you. Just do a little work, then run off and do what you need to do. You won’t be able to get close to the casino, but it’s along the route anyone leaving the building will take to get to the main street.”

This probably looks to Ricci like a completely safe option for me to get some reconnaissance tonight, but I know what he doesn’t.

The Consortium is looking for me, and they’ll be ready.

Still, I don’t see any better opportunity for getting real eyes on and getting pictures of the buyers and sellers.

I stand and extend a hand. “That sounds perfect, signore.”

It’s not perfect, it’s not even close, but it’s as good as I’m going to get, and again, I have to look like I know what I’m doing.

THIRTY-FIVE

   The pilot of the Dassault Falcon 50 lined its nose up between the runway end identifier lights beaming out of the dusk, checked his adherence to the glide path, and listened while his computer told him he was one thousand feet above the ground.

The pilot worked for Air Branch, the CIA Special Activities Center’s air wing, and this meant he was one of the best fliers on Earth.

Before qualifying to fly the relatively sleek and advanced Falcon 50 he’d flown fat and slow Twin Otters off muddy and rocky jungle strips in Central America and Southeast Asia, so big, wide, and flat that runway 04 Right, dead ahead and a half mile out, was a piece of cake.

In the cabin of the aircraft behind him the flight attendant strapped herself into the folding bulkhead seat, and then she rubbed her hands and wrists repeatedly.

This was only Sharon’s third Agency flight since she’d been wounded in a tarmac shootout while on board a CIA Gulfstream a couple months earlier. Both her hands still ached where the bullet had smashed into them, but she’d passed her medical requirements a week and a half earlier and had been returned to duty.

Facing aft, she was able to gaze upon the six men seated in the captain’s chairs. They were all in their thirties and forties; many wore longer hair and beards. They were quiet and soft-spoken and had been no trouble during the eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Reagan National in D.C.

Sharon had been doing this long enough to recognize a Ground Branch unit when she saw one. These were CIA paramilitary operations officers, among the most highly trained fighters on planet Earth. Individually, they looked normal. They could be oil rig workers or construction workers or any other banal job that required manual labor. But together, to a practiced eye like Sharon’s, these were obviously American intelligence commandos.

The Dassault touched down moments later at Aeroporto di Treviso, twenty miles northwest of the city of Venice, and then it taxied to a fixed-base operator on the southwestern side of the airport. Here the plane parked on the ramp, one hundred yards away from the doors to the FBO. The pilot and copilot shut it down while in the back the passengers readied their equipment.

The arrival of the CIA flight had been arranged and approved by Italian officials, who were told these men were NATO forces and tied to the nearby U.S. air base at Aviano. There were no checks of customs or immigration, as this was a “black” flight, allowed by the Italians.

Chris Travers stood in the low cabin and turned back to his team. At thirty-five years old, he was young to be running his own six-man Ground Branch unit, but he’d proven himself in the U.S. Army as a Special Forces officer, as a CIA para unit member, and then, finally, as a second-in-command on a Ground Branch team.

After the death of his team leader and meritorious accolades for Travers’s actions during the event where the TL died, Travers himself was promoted to team leader.

Ground Branch reported to the director of the Special Activities Center, who reported directly to the deputy director for operations, but things on tonight’s op were a little bit more streamlined than normal, because command authority of the entire operation was not located in Langley.

Tonight command authority rested with the man sitting in the darkness in the back of the cabin. This figure said nothing while Travers gave final instructions to his crew, even though he himself had once run a team not unlike the one sitting in the cabin with him.

Travers said, “Listen up. We have a sixteen-passenger van waiting to take us into the city. As I told you before, our mission this evening is the location and removal of a CIA asset, code named Violator. We have a general understanding of where he will be but no good timeline, so we’re heading there now, will remain clandestine, and will use nonlethal means to obtain his compliance with our commands.”

One of the older men on the team muttered, “Yeah, right,” and others around him chuckled.

Everyone on the team had been around the block enough to know the legend of Violator, aka the Gray Man, but only Chris and the man sitting in the back of the aircraft knew the former CIA employee personally.

Travers addressed his doubtful subordinate directly. “Yeah, I hear you. We all know Violator is a badass, and if we can’t talk him into coming along with us, then this will get ugly. But that’s our op, so if you don’t like it, you can go fuck yourself.”

This received a few chuckles, as well, including from the man who’d seemed to doubt the wisdom of taking on Violator in the first place.

The team leader continued. “We know he’s worked with the Luigi Alfonsi family in the past. We are going to set up surveillance around the quarter where the Alfonsis are strongest, and if we get more specific location intel, I’ll flex you over to those areas as necessary. This might take some time, so be prepared for a long night.”

The men hefted packs and filed out of the aircraft in silence. Travers was the last through the hatch, but as he neared the stairs he turned around and looked at the man in darkness in the back.

“Hey. You coming?”

Chris Travers saw the silhouette of the man as he reached for his bottle of Corona and took a slow sip. “Nah. You boys run along. I’m going to hang out here.”