CHAPTER 71

Odessa, Ukraine

October

ONE OF ANDRENOV’S SECURITY detail could certainly have completed the task, but Grey insisted upon doing it himself. He’d been kept mostly behind a desk for his entire career and would suffer that fate no longer; he would be out in the field where the action was. He would prove himself to his Russian master.

Andrenov’s contact had arranged the safe house, which was a simple but clean apartment on Hretska Street. Its location put him near the Philharmonic Society and the Museum of Art in addition to numerous bars and restaurants. Nearly everyone here spoke Russian, in addition to the national language, which gave him ample opportunity to improve his latent skills.

It didn’t take much cash to get him access to the docks, euros being the local preference. Andrenov had provided him with enough currency to bribe half of Ukraine, which made the tiny favor of parking a certain ship at a specific berth quite simple. He was shown where the ship would be tied, and he walked down to the exact site to inspect it himself.

It took a few minutes for the GPS unit to locate a sufficient number of satellites to obtain the accuracy that this mission required. This was not a consumer handheld GPS, but a large dual-frequency OmniSTAR-capable commercial unit designed for mapping and surveying. While a consumer GPS was accurate to within a few meters, this system provided both horizontal and elevation information within five to ten centimeters. So long as the ship was moored as directed and the container placed in the proper position, the assassins would be within range of their target.

That evening Grey carefully recorded the distance and elevation information onto a spreadsheet and printed it along with digital photographs that he’d taken from various vantage points at both the firing and target positions. Everything was checked and triple-checked before he sealed the documents into a DHL Express envelope. He was not going to let this operation be compromised by electronic communications. The information would be in Turkey in two days, and his contact there would deliver it personally to the farmhouse. Grey was about to change the world.

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