McCloskey Damascus Station

'The Best Spy Thriller of the Year' THE TIMES from co-host of hit podcast THE REST IS CLASSIFIED
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-80075-270-2
Verlag: Swift Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 432 Seiten

Reihe: Damascus Station

'One of the best - and most authentic - spy thrillers in years' The Times ***THE TIMES THRILLER OF THE YEAR*** SECOND AND THIRD NOVELS MOSCOW X AND THE SEVENTH FLOOR AVAILABLE NOW FOURTH NOVEL THE PERSIAN AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER FROM THE CO-HOST OF PODCAST THE REST IS CLASSIFIED ?A CIA officer and his recruit arrive in Damascus to hunt for a killer CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad's recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad's spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet. PRAISE FOR DAMASCUS STATION: 'Simply marvellous storytelling...a stand-out thriller and essential reading for fans of the genre' - Financial Times 'The best spy novel I have ever read' - General David Petraeus, former director of the CIA 'For the most accurate fictional account of what life is like working in today's intelligence services, forget John Le Carré and read David McCloskey's thrilling Damascus Station' - Sir John Sawers, ex-Head of MI6 ___________ RAVE READER REVIEWS FOR DAMASCUS STATION 'Read this book... and order Moscow X' 'An intense, unforgettable tour de force that must be read' 'WOW! What an astonishing read' 'David McCloskey knows his stuff... an impressive page-turner' 'Genuinely original' 'Excellent, gritty espionage novel' 'A refreshingly credible, engaging and exciting spy thriller'

David McCloskey is a former CIA analyst and former consultant at McKinsey & Company. While at the CIA, he worked in field stations across the Middle East and briefed senior White House officials and Arab royalty. He lives in Texas. He co-hosts the podcast The Rest is Classified.

Autoren/Hrsg.

McCloskey, David

Leseproben

1

Eight hours into his surveillance detection route Sam’s grip on the steering wheel loosened and his pulse began to slow. He’d made three stops in and around Damascus and executed the planned turns on the SDR, each time scanning for watchers, his eyes darting between the mirrors. At each stop he’d lingered, trying to draw out opposition surveillance. The heat burned through the windshield and the air conditioner struggled to keep up. His back hurt, and his shoulders felt permanently hunched over. He hit traffic and idled the car in an intersection mercifully shaded by palm and pine. Sam drummed his fingers on the wheel and checked the mirrors as the light lingered red, comparing each vehicle to a mental catalog of the cars he had seen earlier in the day. The light turned green. A officer in a leather jacket marched into the road with his hand up and gestured for the first car in line to stay in place. A car behind him honked. Another officer now dragged into the road a sawhorse emblazoned with stickers of President Bashar al-Assad and waved the first car forward. Someone yelled that it was a checkpoint.

Though it was the sixth of the day, Sam’s heartbeat picked up again. Nonofficial cover meant everything was on the line. There would be no diplomatic immunity if he was caught. There would be no trade. He would disappear into a basement prison. If you weren’t twitchy driving in a hostile country with no lifeline, you were probably a sociopath.

He slid the passport from his breast pocket and placed it on the dashboard. The document was Canadian, dark blue (tourist), and included a picture of a man named James Hansen. The photo was Sam’s, as was the birthday. He’d collected the document from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service on a slushy spring day in Ottawa after touring the office spaces of the recently established yet nonexistent Orion Real Estate Investments, LLC. The cover was fully backstopped—humans would answer the phones and respond to emails—the Canadians only too happy to participate in exchange for a seat at the debriefing table once KOMODO was safe at Langley. For even friendly intelligence services do not share, they trade.

KOMODO was one of the most productive assets in Damascus Station’s stable. Middle-aged, lonely, a little creepy according to the ops cables, he was a mid-level scientist in Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center, the SSRC, the organization responsible for Assad’s chemical weapons. The NSA believed that the Syrians had breached KOMODO’s covert communications system, and so over the course of a frenetic day Langley had built an exfiltration plan that involved Sam driving into Syria under commercial cover to get the asset out. CIA had also decided to bring home Val Owens, KOMODO’s handling officer. Sam and Val had served together in Iraq, her first tour, his third. They’d become close, like family. Val was a friend, an asset’s life was on the line, and when he thought of those two things his heart rate picked up again as a soldier waved him forward.

A young soldier with hard eyes and a wispy mustache approached the driver’s window and asked for documents. Sam held eye contact for a respectful second, then gave him the passport—already turned to the page with the ninety-day Syrian visa—and stared out the windshield toward the highway. The soldier flipped through the book, scanned around as if questioning whether to call his supervisor, then squinted at Sam.

“Why in Syria?” he said in heavily accented English.

“Business,” Sam said in Arabic.

The soldier nodded to one of his approaching comrades, their eyes nervously searching the parked cars and buildings. The regime controlled this part of the city, but rebels and jihadis sometimes hit the checkpoints. Suicide bombings, rocket-propelled grenades, the run-and-gun tactics like he’d seen during his tour in Baghdad—all of it was increasingly common in Damascus. The soldier set his jaw and smacked the passport into his own open palm.

“Open the trunk,” he told Sam.

Sam pressed the button to open the rear hatch. Another soldier opened the back and removed Sam’s suitcase, thunking it onto the pavement.

“Is it locked?” the soldier said.

“No,” Sam said. He heard unzippering and the muffled sound of clothes being tossed back into the car.

“Why is nothing folded?” the other soldier asked.

“Because I have already been through several checkpoints today,” Sam said.

“Rental?” the first soldier said, smacking the driver’s door with the butt of his AK-47.

Sam nodded.

“Papers.”

Sam opened the glove compartment and handed the soldier a set of papers indicating the car belonged to Rainbow Rentals of Amman, Jordan. As the soldier reviewed the papers, Sam shoved from his mind the image of an Amman Station mechanic using a mannequin precisely matching KOMODO’s height and weight (five-foot-five, 145 pounds) to illustrate how to fold a human into the specially fabricated trunk compartment.

The soldier handed back the papers. “What type of business, Mr. Hansen?”

“Real estate investment. Villas out here, maybe some homes in the Old City.”

“The villas are cheap now.”

“Yes.” Sam smiled. “Yes, they are.”

“The suitcase is fine,” said the man behind the car.

The soldier handed back the passport and grunted. “Move along.”

Clear of the checkpoint, he nosed the car onto the M1 highway and toward the Old City as the , the sunset call to prayer, rang from the muezzins of the mosques. The evening traffic was light. Syrians now rushed indoors at nightfall to avoid the mortars lobbed between the regime and the rebels.

As the sun dipped below the horizon behind him, his body now agreed with what his mind had already concluded: He was black. Free of surveillance. For a moment, he felt relief. Then the second-guessing began, an SDR ritual for every CIA case officer since the first training-wheels run at the Farm. This was the bitch of the Mission. The cold fact that you could never be sure, that it was always easier to abort when covered than to commit the operational act knowing you could be wrong.

So he let the questions flow.

Had he been made by the black Lexus with the scuffed passenger door in Yafour? Had he seen the dusty yellow cab now trailing him just after his second stop, at the tacky villa with the hourglass-shaped pool? Had the glint from an apartment building window during the last checkpoint been a fixed surveillance post? Sam popped a tab of spearmint gum in his mouth. He chewed slowly, staring through the weather-beaten windshield as Damascus neared. Vehicular SDRs made it maddeningly difficult to spot repeats. He wanted to get out onto the street but had no reason for the move. Suburban Damascus was now a war zone and Sam was James Hansen, real estate investor. James Hansen would not make random stops in a war zone. James Hansen would hustle to his rented house in the Old City and bed down for the night before returning to Amman.

He stopped the Land Cruiser two blocks from the safe house. He slapped a yellowed atlas on the roof and pretended to scour the winding alleys for his ultimate destination. This was the final chance to abort. Sam took in a deep breath and felt the cool night air on his skin. The hairs on his neck did not stand. He did not feel watched. He looked around, picking up the atlas like an idiot tourist in one last attempt to search for watchers in the night. He looked down the correct road and tossed the atlas into the passenger’s seat.

He pulled the Mercedes outside a house just off Bab Touma. The Canadians had picked an ideal location on the Old City’s outer rim: the ARCHIMEDES safe house had easy access to the winding alleys and narrow roads of the city center—perfect for surveillance detection— as well as the wider roads encircling it, making it accessible by car. The house was a three-story Ottoman-era palace that sprawled for what Sam judged was half a city block. Garages were uncommon in Damascus and considered unsightly in a grand old house like this. To achieve the functionality without sacrificing aesthetic, this owner—a Canadian support asset—had fashioned an elaborate door that appeared to be one of the home’s street-facing exterior walls.

Sam pressed a button tucked beside a gas lantern on the northern wall. It opened with a creak and he backed the car into the garage. Despite the villa’s size, the corridor set behind the garage was tight. At its end, the marble floor spilled into a set of double doors fifteen feet high, with iron latticework wrought into Quranic phrases forming dozens of intricate panes. Sam opened the doors into the inner courtyard. A fountain gurgled in its center, ringed by small clusters of orange and lemon trees. Unseen rooks squawked warnings as he entered. To the east a mortar volley kicked up, and he flinched instinctively before backing inside the hallway and closing the doors.

The Canadians had included a floor plan in the liaison traffic, so he had no trouble navigating the winding hallways to reach the kitchen. In a musty cabinet he found the items he’d requested: a pack of high-calorie granola bars, a baggie with ten two-milligram Xanax pills, a portable oxygen concentrator, a CamelBak hydration pack, and adult diapers. He filled the CamelBak with water and removed one diaper from the pack. He put everything into a black satchel and zippered it shut.

Returning to the garage, he opened the Land Cruiser’s rear hatch. He slid open the compartment tucked into the rear seats beneath the trunk space by...